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Dr.Fraud's Private Scrapyard


Sigmund Fraud

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  • 5 months later...

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

 

Thanks for dragging this back up from the depths of the forum, Simon !

 

I'm still alive but, following a change of jobs, I have had very little time to devote to my fleet of shite.
 
My new commute is 40 miles along narrow, poorly surfaced B-roads, which seem to be the Ignis' natural habitat :
 
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After 20k miles of... erm... spirited driving, the front tyres were on the wear indicators.
 
Nankangs were the cheapest not-entirely-unknown brand I could find on Tyreleader, and regular readers will recall I had been really impressed with the winter Nankangs I bought for my ScAAB last year.
 
So I went ahead and ordered a pair of Econex 165/70R14s :
 
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I've done a couple of thousand miles on them now, and they're pretty good, but not really better than the Runway Enduros they replaced. So it turns out that not all Chinese tyres are rubbish !
 
The dreaded MoT time arrived in December, and a last-minute check revealed an unexplained drop in the brake fluid level... Whoops !
 
The following day, the tester presented me with a fail sheet and told me that the nearside rear brake was not doing its job. A new brake cylinder and a set of brake shoes were ordered, and replaced later that week in the freezing cold :
 
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This allowed the Ignis to be declared roadworthy for yet another year !
 
As a reward for its reliability, I treated it to a set of new spark plugs :
 
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You may recall that those nickel Denso TTs had replaced a set of iridium NGKs when I bought the car. Denso suggest 18K replacement intervals, but the set above did 21K and the electrode gap was still within specification (1.1mm maximum). For £8 a set, they definitely deserve the Fraud Garages seal of approval !
 
Thankfully, the ignition coils were also within specification, and a quick diagnostic scan with my new box of tricks revealed no issues :
 
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The ScAAB also went for its MoT in December, failing on a torn steering rack gaiter. Here's a library picture of the actual part :
 
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The rack (of clear Vauxhall origin) is cunningly hidden behind the airbox, so I had failed to notice the tear, which may have been there for ages. Sometimes it's good to have a pedantic MoT tester !
 
I was really swamped with work that week, so I got the local garage to replace it for me, a decision that I instantly regretted when I received the bill... At least the job was done properly, and the ScAAB was ready for my continental holiday over Christmas.
 
In other fleet news, the DAF 66 Kombi left the fleet in late August, and is now in the hands of a local enthusiast who also owns an A-body DAF ! I'm really pleased it has found such a good home !
 
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My DAF 66 Saloon is slowly being put back together, and will hopefully be back on the road for the summer.
 
The Doloshite is still alive and kicking, though I've barely used it in the previous months. I'm still not sure what to do with it, it's not practical enough for regular use, and it's far too common to stay in the fleet on the basis of its quirkiness...
 
Talking of quirkiness, the most recent addition to the fleet has it in spades :
 
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Now nicknamed "the flying bathtub", as this is basically what it is !
 
When I bought it, the seller reassured me it was an excellent runner that "just needed the carbs tuned, as it had been sitting".
 
This was, as you would expect, not the whole truth. Sure enough, the carbs were out of tune. But they also had completely different jets, different emulsion tubes and different chokes. And then there was the small issue of one carb being a DRLA36, while the other was a DRLA40. FFS !!!
 
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As you would imagine, there was very little I could do with the existing carbs, so a decent pair of DRLA40s was sourced, carefully rebuilt, installed and tuned.
 
Those Dellorto downdraft carbs are very sought after, and fairly complex, so the whole exercise required the investment of far more money and time than I would have wanted... At least the thing now runs smoothly, and the noise when you floor it is truly epic !
 
The next bit to tackle is this :
 
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Spaghetti-Marelli, or what happens when a stereotypical, feckless kitcar builder butchers Alfa electrics into a fibreglass car... This will keep me busy for a while !
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  • 2 months later...

Does anyone remember the 1990s film "Groundhog Day" ?

 

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A few weeks back, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I received a most distressing phonecall.

 

It was Mrs F, who had left early that morning, as she had to drive towards The Smoke for a meeting.

 

She explained that she was stranded at the side of the road, as her Polo refused to go into gear !

 

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It sounded like a clutch issue, rather than a gearbox issue, so we agreed that she would try to crunch it into 2nd and bring it back to base rather than spend the entire morning waiting for the recovery people. She managed, and a quick test drive by yours truly suggested something was wrong with the clutch mechanism.

 

Polos of that era have a myriad common problems, one of which is the pedal box. Here's a library picture illustrating that problem :

 

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The end of the clutch cable pushes against that spot welded bracket on the left. Neither the welds nor the metal itself are particularly strong (allegedly by design, to prevent injuries to the driver's feet in a frontal crash) so the bracket can (and does !) break off.

 

So that was the first bit I checked, and I was surprised to find it had previously been repaired - during the 39K miles the car had before we bought it ! Nothing like a quality* VAG product !

 

The repair involved some pretty crude welding, which was thankfully holding on fine. So with that potential issue eliminated, I convinced myself that it could just be the clutch cable, rather than an issue that required the gearbox to be removed...

 

So a new clutch cable was sourced from the local GSF and installed. As expected, it made absolutely no difference at all.

 

I admitted defeat and concluded that it was time for the gearbox to come off... AGAIN !!!

 

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Now, this blog alone should tell you that I've had a fair bit of practice with 085 boxes. But it still is an unpleasant job if you're on your own and only have a trolley jack to lower the box onto. But after a couple of hours of swearing, the box was off :

 

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And I was greeted with this :

 

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I was expecting some evidence of major damage, that would have justified the clutch trouble, but found none !

 

The bearing was intact and not even particularly rough on rotation. The release fork was also intact, and moved smoothly on its pivot. And, as you can see above, with the clutch cover still in place, everything looked absolutely normal.

 

Bloody hell, could it be the box again ?

 

Thankfully, taking the clutch apart revealed the problem. Here's the flywheel face of the clutch plate :

 

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And here's the gearbox face :

 

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Prior to selling the car, the previous owner had spent £40 on this no-name Chinese kit, which lasted 45K miles of very light (mostly motorway) use. False economy !

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With the Polo undergoing surgery at Fraud Garages, Mrs F desperately needed a new daily car.

 

Luckily, Mr Castro's "Emporium of Fine Motorcars, Motorcycles & Cyclomotors" had this beauty* in stock and was able to supply it at very short notice :

 

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Peugeot's most successful car of all time, with nearly 10 million sold worldwide, and still in production !

 

This particular car was also made in Britain, at the old Rootes Group factory in Ryton. True to its heritage, it ran poorly and the EML was permanently on. Here's why :

 

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So I spent a couple of hours replacing the MAP sensor (which also incorporates the IAT sensor)...

 

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...the lambda sensor...

 

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...the thermostat, and a couple of the exhaust mounts that had crumbled away.

 

As expected, this made a big difference to how the car ran, and the EML light has been successfully extinguished in readiness for the next MoT.

 

Despite appearances, it drives far better than its mileage would have you believe, and Mrs F absolutely loves its handling, comfort and refinement compared to the Polo.

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So... With Mrs F happy with her temporary replacement car, it was time for a bit of shopping :

 

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The Valeo kit was £70 from GSF, but the difference in quality compared to its predecessor was obvious. Here it is, being aligned into place :

 

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A quick check of the gearbox revealed that the clutch bearing guide (which also holds the input shaft seal in place) had been damaged by the lopsided operation of the clutch :

 

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One of my spare 085 boxes donated a good replacement.

 

I also decided to renew the starter bushing, which had began to crumble away. Those are made of sintered copper, and are quite fiddly to replace. I made sure I did things properly, by using VW* special tools :

 

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Since the car was in bits in the workshop, I also took the opportunity to renew the front brakes. They still had a bit of life in them, and if this was my car they would have stayed. But Mrs F has a spirited driving style (the Gilles Villeneuve kind of spirited) so fresh tyres and fresh brakes are always a good idea.

 

VAG quality* meant the caliper sliders were very rusty and the cap heads of the sliders rounded off as soon as an Allen key got close to them. So they were replaced.

 

I also finally got round to replacing a snapped disc retaining bolt, that had annoyed me since we bought the car :

 

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And here's the end result, before a final wipe over with brake cleaner and covering the hub surface with copper grease :

 

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Why didn't Mrs F not just keep and use the 206 as the daily if she preferred it?

 

The 206 looks shabbier, has covered 40K miles more, returns less mpg and insurance is more expensive compared to the Polo.

 

Also, I really hate fixing German cars, but I hate fixing French cars even more :mrgreen:

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  • 1 month later...

Time for another update from FRAUD GARAGES !

After weeks months years of procrastination, the Doloshite was finally put up for sale :

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It was purchased by fellow 'shitter GaryCox, who immediately pressed it into daily use ! Old cars need to be driven to keep healthy, so I'm really pleased that the Doloshite has found such a good home !

The Ignis has now completed 26K miles in my hands and simply soldiers on, like the Duracell bunny ! The rear tyres were a pair of aging Falkens that had been there since I bought the car. They had marginally more tread than the legal limit but looked terribly dry and cracked, so I decided to splash out on a new pair. Tyreleader was consulted, and I once again went for the cheapest not-entirely-unknown brand available. This time it was Debica, Poland's premier* tyre manufacturer :

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My first impressions are really positive, as they seem to inspire more confidence in the wet than the Nankangs they replaced (that have now moved to the rear axle).

Mrs F's Polo of DOOM was put back into daily use in early April. One week later, I received a panicked phonecall explaining it was refusing to start ! ARGH !

I was 100 miles away, so the breakdown assistance had to be called. They attended promptly, diagnosed a faulty ignition switch (yet another common 1990s VW problem) and hotwired the car so she could drive it back home. The ignition switch is a £15 part, but replacing it is an annoying, fiddly task so the job was farmed out to the local garage.

Bloody car ! I must confess I'm really looking forward to the day I'll drive it over Richard Noon's weighbridge... But that day has not arrived, as it sailed through its MoT last week, so I'll have to endure the temperamental shiteheap for yet another year.

The Flying Bathtub also passed its MoT without issue, but continues to require plenty of de-snagging. Watch this space !

Now... I have had the ScAAB for over two years, and it's been a brilliant car. It's reliable, really comfortable over long distances, and very practical thanks to its hatchback and towbar. A slightly bigger car would have been better suited to my needs, though, especially an estate. An automatic gearbox would have also been nice to have. So I would occasionally have a look at 9-5s and W210s on ebay, but everything in my (sub-£500) price range seemed completely worn out. So there were no plans for me to replace the ScAAB anytime soon.

Then, one day, as I was reading through fellow 'shitter HMC's automotive exploits I noticed he had a nice old W210 for sale at a price I really couldn't ignore. PMs were exchanged, and the following weekend I collected the car from sunny, posh south Devon and drove it back to a rather cloudy, far-less-posh rural Hampshire.

The car was lovely to drive and the low-mileage V6 was sweeter than a sugar-coated kitten :

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But previous giffer ownership meant the exterior was full of dents and scrapes and the light-coloured interior had not been cleaned in several years. Now, I've bought some really grubby cars in my time, but the dirt in this car had to be seen to be believed.

Nothing that some elbow grease and Autoglym's magic potions couldn't fix, though :

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Mmmm... That's what I'm talking about !

To make sure the interior smelt as fresh as it looked, a new pollen filter was installed : 

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And I also decided that the factory "Audio 10" cassette player had to be replaced with something more modern :

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A quick inspection of the bodywork revealed a multitude of issues, which I will need to address in the following months... All part of the German quality* car experience, eh ?

Here's the rusty old tank, next to some slightly less rusty old tanks :

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  • 1 month later...

Time for another update from Chez Fraud !

With Mrs F's Polo fully MoT'd and (finally) working as intended, the 206 became surplus to requirements. Mr Castro was happy to have it back, so it returned to his custody !

And with the ex-HMC crusty Merc having taken over family car duties, the GM900 also needed to go. Here it is, in all its beige glory :

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After being advertised on here, and unsuccessfully auctioned on eBay, I was really pleased that fellow shitter and serial SAAB owner simon8201 stepped in and gave it a new home !

Finding time for car stuff has been difficult over the previous weeks, but I did manage to spend a couple of hours in my workshop last weekend, which I used to properly inspect the bodywork of my crusty Merc.

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Elegance my arse !

Both front wings need repairs, with the nearside one ideally needing replacement. One of the rear arches needs a bit of paint but is saveable. The wells behind the wheels on both sides of the boot floor (do those bits have a proper name ?) are completely buggered and need extensive repairs.

But none of the above are structural. Unlike this :

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Mercedes engineers made sure that this crossmember is protected* by a fairly deep undertray with poor drainage. The undertray ensures the crossmember is kept immersed in water for prolonged periods of time, as this is clearly* the best way to protect it from corrosion. The undertray also makes this area completely invisible to MoT testers, which is why the crusty Merc passed its most recent test with no corrosion-related advisories at all. FFS !

Thankfully, this was the only structural rust I found, which for a car with the W210s reputation is a pretty good result !

So a large piece of 2mm plate is on order, and the next update will hopefully include some XXX-rated hot welding action for your viewing pleasure.

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  • 1 year later...

Another merc wished I’d kept; although I remember thumbing through the history and a former keeper had a brown trouser moment when one of the front spring perches gave way because of good old merc metal moth.

Another beep on your pager from me too, Dr F, you are much missed!

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Thank you for dragging this up from the depths of the forum, gentlemen !

I'm still alive, but there were some pretty major life changes last autumn that kept me away from the spanners for several months.

My car mojo is returning slowly but steadily, and I'm currently halfway through an OMGHGF job on Mrs F's new daily... Watch this space !

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So... Let's start bringing the blog up to date !

Come July, it was time for my annual continental holiday, and I needed to make sure the front subframe of the Merc wouldn't snap in half while doing 130 mph km/h, monsieur le gendarme, on the Autoroute.

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After several hours of drilling, hammering and cutting, all rusty metal had been removed :

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Now, a perfectionist would have removed the entire closing panel and bought a repair panel from MB, who still list it for around £60.

But I am not a perfectionist. Also, I had worked out that the rest of the subframe consists of a pretty substantial, inverted-U-shaped pressing, and the flat panel I was repairing contributed relatively little to the rigidity of the whole structure. So I reckoned a pair of rudimentary repair patches would be good enough for the job, and certainly far better than what I was replacing :

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Several hours of trial fitting, trimming, trial fitting, trimming etc. followed. I then used plug welds where the factory had used spot welds, adding 50% more because I'm slightly paranoid. I then seam welded everything, to add that little bit more strength and keep the MoT man happy. Everything was covered in "Bodger's Friend" brand underseal, to restore a factory* look :

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Unfortunately the Merc story didn't have a happy ending. She developed an intermittent starting problem in autumn, which neither myself nor the almighty DS150 could diagnose. She then failed the MoT in November, at a time when mending shite old cars was at the very bottom of my priorities list. She was therefore unceremoniously sold, and has since disappeared from the DVLA database. Clearly, the new owner was not a sentimental fool like many of us, but someone who knew she was worth far more in parts than as a whole.

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  • 3 months later...

So... We're in September 2019, and I've just been lured into a new job by promises of fast promotion and untold riches. My new commute is 40 miles each way, mostly along busy motorways, and after a few weeks it's clear that my trusty Ignis is really not the right car for that. It was amazing for hooning across the pothole-ridden roads of rural Hants, but clearly not designed to spend two hours a day at (and definitely not above, officer !) the national speed limit.

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So I kept an eye out for something slightly bigger and more comfortable. And, because the new job was diabolically busy, something newer with low mileage, that would not require constant tinkering.

Luckily, Chester's answer to H. R. Owen @Cavcraft, had just the thing in stock :

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The lowest mileage poverty-spec Astra in the world*, with just over 12k on the odometer. It both looked and drove like a new car, and I'm sure there's plenty of Vauxhall lickers out there who would have arranged for it to be carefully stored in a climate-controlled, dehumidified environment, as an investment* or simply so that future generations can rejoice at its magnificence.

I am, of course, not such a person and immediately pressed the thing into daily use. It was brilliant and I absolutely loved it. But the honeymoon phase ended abruptly a week later, when the engine died on the M3. Did anyone say "AVAS" ?

The DS150 found various problems :

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But the only one that mattered related to this :

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Yep, the EGR valve, basically a service item in all Vauxhalls of that era. Taking it off and cleaning it with cellulose thinners didn't make any difference, but replacements were plentiful and cheap.

I was tempted to buy a £15 chinese one off ebay, but with the Astra being a keeper, I decided to pay double that for a QH one. Which, of course, ended up being identical to the £15 chinese one, but packed in a nice, sturdy QH box, the latter proudly "Made in Britain" !

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1 minute ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

I was tempted to buy a £15 chinese one off ebay, but with the Astra being a keeper, I decided to pay double that for a QH one. Which, of course, ended up being identical to the £15 chinese one, but packed in a nice, sturdy QH box, the latter proudly "Made in Britain" !

Ah but the decent ones are not identical! The cheap 15quid ones have always been a lottery of working out of the box. Like the National Lottery, the chances of winning are remotely small.

The Astra G I had, gave weird faults when the EGR disconnected. After precisely 10 seconds from starting, it would stall unless you were prepared and floored it. It'd shudder and struggle to stay running for a second or two, then be all ok from then on. 

Also thanks for updating, this thread is still one of my favourites. One that when I saw an email to say it had been updated, I interrupted what I was supposed to be doing to have a read. :)

 

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The purchase of the Astra meant that my daily wheels were sorted for the foreseeable future.

It also made Mrs F jealous, as she was still driving around in this :

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A truly shining* example of the engineering perfection* that VAG is renowned for. Bought with 40k miles on the odometer in December 2015, it was approaching 100k in December 2019.

Regular readers will remember what a paragon of reliability* this car has been, though a big part of this has admittedly been due to neglectful previous owners.

Over the past five years, it's had : two cambelt kits, three thermostats, two temperature sensors, two sets of ignition consumables (spark plugs, distributor cap, rotor arm), an ignition switch, two clutch kits, one replacement gearbox, two sets of front brakes (discs, pads, sliders), one set of rear brake shoes, two rear wheel bearings, four sets of tyres, exhaust middle and rear sections, two cam cover gaskets (and two sets of their stupid bolts).

Despite the above, it was starting to look and feel rather knackered, and Mrs F was starting to wonder whether it was time to begin looking for a replacement...

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You may recall that Mrs F had been very, very impressed with the 206 she had briefly owned. So much so, that she decided she wanted another one, as a permanent replacement for the Polo :

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 Now, you may remember what I had said back in early 2019 :

On 3/31/2019 at 6:23 PM, Sigmund Fraud said:

I really hate fixing German cars, but I hate fixing French cars even more :mrgreen:

For that reason, I spent several weeks intensively searching for the best, low-mileage 206 that I could possibly find. And this was it ! Just 26k on the odometer, and truly looking like a million dollars francs !

I collected it from The Smoke, and drove it straight into the workshop for a proper check and a replacement of the cambelt (which was well overdue on age) :

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Now, when I drained the coolant I thought it looked a bit suspicious. But I just assumed that some twit had topped it up with non-OAT, as often happens. Such a low-mileage, well-looked-after car couldn't possibly suffer from headgasket issues !

I was, of course, wrong. And over the course of the following weeks I watched as the lovely pink coolant I had filled the system with turned into something that Costa could easily sell to hipsters for £10 a cup.

So the car was driven back to Fraud Garages, where this happened :

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I forgot to take a picture of the blown gasket, but it had gone at the bottom left hand corner, allowing high-pressure oil to leak into low-pressure coolant. This is an extremely common fault in the later TU engines, due to a weakness in the OEM gasket. Using a good aftermarket gasket makes sense (I am a fan of BGA), as most use a different, stronger design.

Anyway, reassembly was the reversal of disassembly, and the 206 has been running like a swiss french watch ever since !

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The 206's OMGHGF trouble meant that the Polo was granted a stay of execution, and by late 2020 the 100k milestone was finally reached :

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A few days later, its Covid MoT extension was coming to an end, so it went in for its test. I expected the worst, but was surprised to find it had only failed on a "small hole" in the nearside sill.

So I drove it to the workshop one evening after work, hoping that a couple of hours' work would be enough for a small MoT-standard patch. Typically, it was the coldest, windiest, most miserable evening possible, and I had to work outdoors :

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Even more typically, the more I poked around, the more rot I found :

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I soon came to the realisation that a new sill would be required -  a task that was promptly added to the very bottom of my long, car-related "to do" list.

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And, to finally get things fully up-to-date, here's the story of the X-Trail !

It was spring 2020, and the Astra had been my only road-legal car for nearly six months. It had almost everything I needed : it was comfortable, frugal and completely dependable. What it did not have was sufficient luggage space, even with the rear seats folded.

With a continental holiday approaching, I decided to have a quick look on ebay and see if I could find something more spacious within my meagre budget. To my great surprise, I found this :

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A first-generation X-Trail, that was both reasonably priced and not completely knackered ! It had spent its early life in a posh London neighbourhood, but had later fallen on hard times, moved to the countryside, and was now being used as a farm hand's company car.

But it was... erm... reasonably priced, and not completely knackered, so I collected it from a remote Dorsetian farm and set about getting it ready for my planned 1000 mile trip to the low countries.

As one would expect from a farm hack, the underside was caked in the finest West Country mud, and there was sufficient dog hair in the interior to assemble a couple of Golden Retrievers from scratch. But the running gear had clearly been looked after, and the car drove much better than one would expect from the mileage.

The EML was on, but I didn't have the DS150 to hand. So I made do with my cheapo handheld Autel scanner, which displayed a camshaft sensor code.

Now, those QR engines are notorious for stretching their cam chains, which require replacement at intervals not too dissimilar to those of a cambelt. A most irritating problem, in an otherwise well-designed car. But it is extremely uncommon for the chains to snap, so I chose to delete the code and defer any further investigation for when it absolutely needed to take place ! Isn't this the Autoshite way, after all ?

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Happy that the EML was now fixed*, I gave the thing a full service, with no expense spared :

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T30 fanboys will tell you that the oil of choice is 5W30 but I beg to differ, especially for an engine with 115k miles on the clock and timing chain tensioners that need all the help they can get !

The middle section of the exhaust was pretty rotten, so it was replaced and the car was finally silent as a fish ! This meant I could enjoy some music, so the non-working OEM radio-CD was replaced with a mechless Kenwood and I could listen to Kazumi Watanabe albums at full volume when driving around !

I also got the climate control working again, by replacing this box of magic that had leaked out all its Lucas smoke :

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I then spent a most frustrating afternoon tracing the cause of an irritating battery drain. The culprit turned out to be the driver's door central locking motor - the locking sensor was activating itself randomly, so the car would keep re-locking the (already locked) doors, draining the battery. The sensor was thankfully easy to bypass by unplugging a single wire, and I made a mental note to buy a replacement motor when I next visited the local scrapyard.

The final problem was the tyres, which were both ancient and low on tread. After a bit of searching, I found a decent set of Qashqai wheels shod in Bridgestones locally, which I duly swapped onto the car.

Typically, the pandemic led to my continental holiday being cancelled, so all this work was completely in vain... Over the past year, the X-Trail was only used for runs to the shops and occasional commuting, which is really not what large SUVs are for. So, after months of procrastinating, I have bought something far better suited to my needs, and the X-Trail will be moving to the hands of a capable new owner !

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