tooSavvy

Bloody hell, and there's me thinking I'd never be able to afford another DS!

13.5 metres floaty thing
https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/l/larc-xv-6-amphibi-voertuig-A1-17881-9?utm_source=marktplaats&utm_medium=referral


Cars can drive on and off, clearly it's the ideal collection/recovery vehicle:

Another Year. FFS. 

My i10 is waiting on me deciding to get a replacement condensor, as it has been for 3 summers now!

Ha Ha..... Precissimmo 😉
My WVM Pug had A/C.... Froze me and generated savage 'cotton mouth'🤪.... Drove with the pass window 1" down to 'bleed away chilled air' = seems pointless 🙄.
SWMBO deffo 'not happy', being baked in SuziQ.... A/C firmly top of her purchase agenda with MrGetz...
We Will See...
🚙💨

Summertime just round the corner.....
My 'it WAS on the day I bought it' non-functioning A/C needs looking at 😯....
 

He's dropping into my street 11am tomorrow... No Charge pre-check.
Getz are notorious for degassing at the 'rubber pipe ferrule' onto the compressor...
We will see how it goes (hopefully not IN & straight OUT 🤣🤣).
🚙💨

Summertime just round the corner.....
My 'it WAS on the day I bought it' non-functioning A/C needs looking at 😯....
 

He's dropping into my street 11am tomorrow... No Charge pre-check.
Getz are notorious for degassing at the 'rubber pipe ferrule' onto the compressor...
We will see how it goes (hopefully not IN & straight OUT 🤣🤣).
🚙💨

Jeezeee.....
Normally keeping a look-out for pheasants, kamikaze traffic dodging....
Always warmed by the sight of big, fat hens scratching around in the grass margins... when passing farms....
TODAY 🙀 .... Was truly a Red Letter Day 🤪
.... Zipping along, coming into the back of Morpeth along by the golf course, I make a nice neat slice on a blind left >> tracing the white margin line, no drama >> lo and behold an ffinn HERON is standing on the very verge... Like a statue, unblinking...
I slotted past...
Very Impressive 😎
🚙💨

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

Brake caliper and airbag module for the Z4 only arrived today despite supposed to being here yesterday. Today is a gym day so I haven't had much spare time to do much on it. However I stuffed the left airbag module into the car to see if the car could talk to it. 
Yes is the answer. This is good as it means the wiring is good. There are a whole lot of errors in it as not paired to the car and it thinks it's a E65 (6 series convertible). I need to sort an old laptop out and install some BMW specific software to properly code it in.

That's brilliant.  Tatty and honest - just the ticket.
I remember in 1999 I was 16 and me and my mate knew another guy who was a year older than us and he'd just passed his test.  Lovely guy - Christian family - and his NAN insisted that her car went to him.  Robert therefore had a brown Mk2 Escort on a V plate and everyone (other than me) felt sorry for him.  His contemporaries had Clios, Fiestas, the odd 205 and Novas - and he had to park his Mk2 Escort around the corner to avoid getting RINSED by his mates.  
Nowadays, he'd be everyone's hero.
Same with Cortinas.  Our caretaker had a brace of MK5 Cortinas and by 1999 I remember marvelling at them in the school playground thinking 'Fucking hell they look shit nowadays'.  They were both 17 years old, my daily is now 25.  
Crazy how things change so quickly.
Anyway, enough bumbling of the insane - well bought @HMC

https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1714172

Ordered a replacement gas pedal for the BMW for 18 quid. It's probably the throttle body that's the actual issue but its worth a shot.
In Celsior news, the car finally received fresh brake fluid, pads, hoses and wear sensors this weekend. I've also done a few other minor jobs while in there and unfortunately revealed a little more carelessness by the bodyshop. Let the wrenching commence!
Front brakes first. I actually didnt end up using the caliper piston rebuild kits on the left, the pistons were still sliding back in nice and smoothly.

Well, I think we can say I got my money's worth out of those pads. I don't know when these got changed the last time but it certainly been a while considering the car didn't do that many miles in the last 15 years.

The loose wire in the left photo is the wear indicator sensor btw, for some reason whoever replaced the pads didn't know how to or didn't bother installing it again. This is also what I originally expected to be a cut ABS sensor wire a few years back btw, the sensor plugs into the wiring loom of the ABS sensor, bit of an odd design on early Celsiors.

Can't say these are the worst pads I've seen but we haven't had a look at the rear ones yet.

Quick look underneath to see where the minor exhaust leak is coming from. Like the exhaust shop said, one of the exhaust temp sensors is blowing, they tried to goop it up but no luck. Unfortunately impossible to buy now, not sure if it could get welded? I've also had a look at the O2 sensors and tried to measure their resistance. Well, it seems like there is infinite resistance which of course isn't right, it should be somewhere between 5.1-6.3 ohms at around room temperature. I unplugged them to see if it would make any difference to the way the car runs. It doesn't so new sensors it is!

The 135 quid Maxpeedingrods which I only bought to get the car through the MOT are holding up surprisingly well. I've greased them up before installing them so everything is still moving nicely. Unfortunately I just remembered while writing this that I should have put some fresh grease on them... I also found the source for my very noticeable front suspension clunking. I originally blamed the coilovers but its actually the front swaybar bushes that are so worn out that the swaybar can freely move from left to right. So new swaybar bushes are added to the shopping list. I've also fixed the messed up passenger side bumper corner I accidently caught on a wall. No photos yet but some hot air, a tactical ziptie and reinstalling a bumper bracket did wonders.
The rear is next. Working on an incline lifting a rear weel driven car is always fun.

If you are wondering why Im using different brands for pads and hoses compared to the front, so do I. I think they just ended up reducing the combined shipping costs when I ordered them from Rockauto like 2 years ago. Motul RBF600 is probably some of the best brake fluid you can get if pedal feel matters to you.

Yeah, I think its about time to replace those pads...

The disc is getting very thin as well so rear discs are added to the shopping list...

Certainly cutting it thin with these. The rears actually had the wear sensors properly in place, replacing this one finally got rid of the last (permanent) dash warning light. Unfortunately the passenger side rear caliper piston was really struggling getting pushed back in so I might need a new caliper there. I'm not sure how much extra I paid for the Bosch pads compared to the Beck/Arnley ones but they were certainly much more neatly packed and actually came with a sachet of brake grease. I used copper grease on the sliders for the front calipers instead.
About the bodyshop's carelessness mentioned further above:

The rear trailing arm bolt is completely loose, the nut was never tightened after the sill got welded there. Mistakes can happen but I'm really starting to get the feeling that things were just slapped together in the end to rush the car out the door. Something like this is pretty dangerous. I had to replace the nut (with a Mercedes one no less) as it wouldn't properly tighten anymore, I'll have to have another look the next time its on a lift though.

While having the wheels off I finally had a chance to raise the rear coilovers by 20mm to level out the car a bit better. I don't think its perfect yet but lowering the front should result in a nicely balanced stance.

Let me know what you think! The rear discs, swaybar bushes and O2 sensors will hopefully be the last few bits to make it mechanically solid. Being 32 years old now it'll probably always need something but any MOT relevant work should near with these 3 things soon.
Some bonus content, the Cadillac is finally moving again and received a wash. That immediately revealed the various paint defects it has, the photos are hiding them remarkably well fortunately!

Another big blue landyacht that will receive some more attention this summer.

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

Jeezeee.....
Normally keeping a look-out for pheasants, kamikaze traffic dodging....
Always warmed by the sight of big, fat hens scratching around in the grass margins... when passing farms....
TODAY 🙀 .... Was truly a Red Letter Day 🤪
.... Zipping along, coming into the back of Morpeth along by the golf course, I make a nice neat slice on a blind left >> tracing the white margin line, no drama >> lo and behold an ffinn HERON is standing on the very verge... Like a statue, unblinking...
I slotted past...
Very Impressive 😎
🚙💨

Been a lot of hits and misses this weekend.
First up, trying to torque the camshaft cap studs was a pain, 15nm was simply not happening, even with the two nuts tight against each other, it was still turning down the shaft when close to 15nm. Tried adding a third nut to see if that would help matters, but ended up stripping the threads on the nut.
In the end, I went for 10nm. It'll be fine, I hope. Fitted the cam, and new front cam seal before I torqued down the caps (minus one nut).

Then it came to the camshaft pulley. Following the torque figure, I didn't even get close to the Haynes figure before disaster struck.


That was....not ideal. I messaged Phill on a blind panic asking for advice, and he suggested drilling a 3mm hole in the bolt shank and hammering a torx socket into the hole to extract it. There were almost tears of joy when this came out.

Then joy turned into anger when I decided to check the figures in my Autodata technical data book.
Haynes (stated 80nm) for the sprocket bolt.

Autodata?

So the bolt failure was caused by a massive overtorque. Arse biscuits.
To try and take my mind off it, I tackled some of the minor jobs, first job was removing and re-sealing the body seams around the bootlid hinge. Forgot to get any photos, but I scraped the old, dry seam sealer with a plastic scraper, masked the area off with tape and applied a healthy layer or Pureaflex40 to the joins.
Whilst I was in the area, I managed to push the split section of the wiring rubber grommet into the hole, so it'll be a much better seal than the empty space that was there before!
I continued the minor jobs, treating screen rust spots before they become sinister,

Swapping out the rocker cover gasket:

And getting this dirty bottle cleaned up as much as possible.

Which cleaned up alright, but had highlighted how big the crack in the side of the tank was:

As it was the rarely-used rear washer tank, I elected to try and repair it rather than replace. I used an old soldering iron to re-melt the plastic along the crack. It's not pretty, but it's sealed up and shouldn't leak so that's a win.

The bottoms of these bottles have a sharp lip around their manufacturing joins which has been suggested aids corrosion by chafing through the paint - these were sanded down prior to install. The scuttle area had already been heavily lanoguarded about six weeks ago so all should be well there.
Unrelated to the BX, but a mate  followed me on the commute to work and told me one of the Rovers brake lights wasn't coming on every time. Luckily, I have spare bulbs, but it was quite interesting to see the where the filament had broken loose, flapped around a bit until it made the circuit and 'tacked' itself back on. Herman has had a front fog light doing that for years, so the build-up there must be spectacular.

Eventually, I decided to carry on with assembling the 3 pistons and liners, I'm still awaiting parts to assemble the final cylinder but this is a good start.
Turns out I needed to order another set of piston rings too, thanks to my ill-fated attempt to fit them last time:

Annoyingly, this was a pain in the arse. Autodoc did them at a reasonable price, but the delivery time takes the piss at around a fortnight. I found some on eBay with a two day delivery, so I placed the order on Sunday. I then sent the seller my details, and they cancelled the order! Apparently they weren't compatible. I've told them I want the rings and will assume the risk - the manufacturers of the piston rings list the set as compatible for every 1.6 XU engine except the XU52C. I can't see what difference there would be though, so I guess we'll find out in a couple of days.
Anyway, the ring gaps were checked prior to fitment, they were all bang on at around 0.50mm.


With the new set of plier-style piston ring compressors, I was STILL having issues with the rings. 
I asked Phill for advice, and he very gently pointed out I was being a bit of a fuckwit and assembling the oil control ring at the bottom incorrectly, which in turn meant the ring wasn't compressing properly. 
With the correct advice dispensed, and a slight tweak to the piston ring compressor, we were finally making progress! A fresh seal was fitted to the base of the cylinder liner before slotting it into place.

Eventually, I got all three complete assemblies in.

And clamped the liners down.

Then I nipped back to the house for a pee, and noticed that Mini had snuck into MrsH's car whilst she was unloading, and got himself locked in. Tit.

I decided to crack on with bolting in some external components, so the oil pressure switch, water pump and timing belt tensioner pulley went on (the old one was really rather grumbly and rattly)
The pump came from Autodoc and was their own brand (RIDEX) and it seemed pretty well made.

Next up, the crank bearing seats were cleaned, new shells were fitted, and the crank lowered into place. This was a pain in the arse with the liners and pistons fitted as the conrods were in the way, this was aided with some steel wire to hold them in the middle position.

The crank bearing caps had fresh shells and an oiling before being loosely assembled.

I'm still awaiting the seals for No.1 bearing cap so I've not fitted that yet.
After that, it was applying the last coat of lacquer to the windscreen frame rust spots. The paint colour match is pretty poor, but it won't rust and that's what matters.
I spent the remainder of the evening googling part numbers, dimensions and specs of the cam cap nut. The Citroen parts catalogue specified a nut and washer assembly, the Peugeot catalogue specified a flange nut. Seeing as this was what was fitted, I went with that, got the size and thread pitch and started searching. I eventually got three part numbers, and the phone numbers for potential dealerships that could have the nut I need in stock.
A bit of phoning around yesterday morning ensued. The Peugeot dealership said they could source the nuts, but they wouldn't be here till Wednesday and were £1.25 each.
My second dealership took the part number, said 'Yep, we've got 14 in stock here, and they're 63p each+VAT'. Didn't bother ringing the third.
The dealership?

Yep, I went in my Rover that's really a Honda, to a BMW dealership to pick up some nuts for my Citroen, which was sourced using specs from a Peugeot parts catalogue.

The parts fella that came out was very friendly, and couldn't believe what vehicle the nuts were for I ended up having a chat with him about the Rover parked outside and he was really enthusiastic. Ended up buying 10 nuts as it makes sense to replace the entire set.
Got home and checked the nut - it's a good fit, a bit taller and with a wider flange than the originals, it feels much more substantial. The nut is originally used to hold inlet manifolds onto various BMWs.
I started checking valve clearances but this ended up being a pain to rotate the camshaft without the sprocket bolted in. I checked the first 4 and found them to be juuuuust within limits, I'll check the other 4 later when I've got the camshaft bolt and torqued it in.
Boring stuff, but prepping for when it gets reassembled, the fuel pump gaskets were changed, thedistributor oil seal was replaced:

And the inlet manifold gasket was tackled. 

This took an absolute eternity - it was properly on there! The mating faces were eventually cleaned with a scotchbrite pad and WD40 to get a smoother mating face.

Today, I'm into my two days off that was pencilled in for engine building - not much bloody use of I've not got all the parts together! I'll be working on various other little jobs instead.
Cheers.

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

I had a new front pipe fitted @ATS Wallsend, to my ToMM© Carina II.
It thrubbed and blew, so it went back....
Canny lads, reckoned the clamping studs were karrkedd and set about remedial actions.....
Gas 'to cherry' got the old studs out, new studs in & reclamp + gasket/washers...
About an hour and a half = no charge 👍
To be quite fair, all round, they agreed they shouldn't have attempted the fit... with the studs as raggy... Fair Doos 2 them 😎
🚙💨

It's weird. If you search eBay for a Z4 caliper or 316i you get the first link I put above with the cheaper calipers. However if you check the listed part number it doesn't match up with realoem. 
I've ordered the more expensive NK caliper which hopefully should be correct. 🤞 
Hopefully the flexi pipe isn't a problem as that might be a bigger job. Ferrules are rusted to hell and no doubt round off while possibly breaking the hard lines. 

Ah right, okay. One option is there’s an E46 breaker called Nick Jupp. He’s the E46 whisperer in many circles and may have a pair of calipers available. Much cheaper than new ones, too.