The new news 24 thread

[paulplom]

There's no mention at all of rust in the mot history which is very rare for one of these. Remember I still own one of these but it's currently kidnapped.

The bitch.

[Split_Pin]

Currently in Inverness for my son's final basketball game of the year against the local team.

75 did well for being laid up for over a month, 45mpg plus thanks to 60mph maintained on the A9.

Hoping the burning smell on the huge descent into Inverness was the brakes of the lorry in front and not the auto gearbox being unhappy at holding the car's speed down.

[Stinkwheel]

New alternator arrived for the 206, excellent next day service from a dedicated starter & alternator company with Saturday delivery. The most impressive bit was they sent me an AutoShite branded remanufactured alternator 

 

[bramz7]

14 hours ago, artdjones said:

What's Alfatex, some sort of Alcantara?

Yes. 

Anyway, dropped off for MOT. it will fail! 

[paulplom]

4 hours ago, paulplom said:

Goimg to look at this for the boy at 12 today. It looks exceptionally clean and has relatively low miles for the age. Mot history is wonderful too. Bit of a downer being 50 miles away but it's hopefully worth it.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1FMR6Sr5GL/

It's not too bad underneath. Probably want a patch on the sill in the future. Although I think we can catch it.

[artdjones]

10 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

Yes. 

Anyway, dropped off for MOT. it will fail! 

I like it. I prefer leather with a cloth centre panel anyway, but that's even better.

[paulplom]

36 minutes ago, paulplom said:

It's not too bad underneath. Probably want a patch on the sill in the future. Although I think we can catch it.

Anyway..

[bramz7]

156 MOT update...

 

 

It passed!!!!?!!!!

Really though, I will get the advisory items done. Maybe AutoLusso down in Bournemouth. 

[paulplom]

Home and he's just took his tools off the van and away to Newcastle to do a fiddle job!

[Zelandeth]

1 minute ago, paulplom said:

Home and he's just took his tools off the van and away to Newcastle to do a fiddle job!

Good little cars.  Keep an eye on the oil level (some do apparently like a drink), rustproof the underneath properly and it shouldn't ask for much.

[Split_Pin]

310 miles completed, about 70% of it on cruise. Falkirk to Inverness last night, a few miles to the school for my son's basketball game (they won), into the town for lunch (Victorian Market food hall 100% recommended, we chose Chinese food) and then home. 45.5mpg, bang on 1/2 tank.

75 performed well apart from blocked skooshers. Gearbox is fine, was definitely the brakes of the truck in front!

[barefoot]

There's a bit of a classic car club in the villiage with monthly meets, it began slowly but has become rather interesting of late...

This was my favourite today.

2nd Saturday of each month, Castle Donington community hub, DE74 2NR. 

[Popsicle]

As the Pisshat is now firmly on the fleet.

Quick processing by the DVLA.

Time for a service. I will admit to being an unashamed Mann fanboi, its a hill I will die on, bestest filters ever.

Oil, air, fuel and pollen filters from GSF, I've 40 litres of finest Mannol 507 spec oil as I use it in the caddy - incidentally the cabin and air filters are the same for the Pisshat and the caddy.

Although the Pisshat engine is a bit more modern than the Caddy, everything seems to be set up similarly, so nice and easy to get at everything.

Looks fairly clean and leak free for 214k miles.

The mate who I got the car off said it was last serviced about a year ago, he uses the same garage I use, so I knew it would have been done properly.

Air and pollen filter didn't really need changing, but I've done it.

Blue one is the old fuel filter, orange is the new one, again probably didn't need doing.

Oil filter was black, as expected, other than removing a bracket out the way to get to the oil filter, it was really easy to service.

Reset the service and inspection reminders on the dash display, fuck knows why it says a service is due again in 9400 miles? Thought it would be longer than that.

Once serviced I tried again to sort out the DAB reception. Fitted my new glass mount ariel, still no signal ☹️. Had a brainwave and took the stereo out of the Caddy, plugged it in to the Pisshat, DAB's working fine. Looks like the DAB part of the stereo units fucked in the Pisshat then. Replacement stereos aren't overly expensive, but I'll see how the car behaves for a bit first.

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, barefoot said:

There's a bit of a classic car club in the villiage with monthly meets, it began slowly but has become rather interesting of late...

This was my favourite today.

2nd Saturday of each month, Castle Donington community hub, DE74 2NR. 

Saggy Prinz, tho?

[Popsicle]

Once the Pisshat was finished I was on a bit of a roll, time to look at why the Caddy was stuttering a bit when it got up to temperature. The only things I could think of are the bits I ballsed up doing the last service. Some of the fuel filter screws had rounded off and I broke a bit of the air filter box while removing the rusted screws.

Seemless glue repair on the air filter box.

Shiny new bolts and washers on the fuel filter, all correctly torqued up.

All this made not a jot of difference!

Starts perfectly, drive it for 5 miles and just as the temp gauge gets halfway the engine judders like fuck for about a minute, then it runs fine all day, no fault codes showing, such a really weird fault and it does it everytime.

[SiC]

21 minutes ago, Popsicle said:

Reset the service and inspection reminders on the dash display, fuck knows why it says a service is due again in 9400 miles? Thought it would be longer than that.

It's almost certainly been reprogrammed for fixed service intervals rather than the variable. At this age and mileage, no bad thing. 

Either was done deliberately or accidentally with a scantool. VCDS can easily change modes. 

[Popsicle]

So with the Pisshat and Caddy worked on time for my first oil change on the Elgrand we picked up late last year.

Wasn't sure how my knackered old ramps would feel with such a weighty bugger on them, it seemed good though.

Nice big 3.5 litre engine has the tiniest oil filter!

Which you have to get too through a letterbox.

Quite clever really that a ramp has been put there to allow the old oil to run away from the undertray, but its a bit in the way for getting a filter tool on the filter.

All easily enough done though. The spark plugs look interesting to change, around 6 hours labour apparently, due to the amount of stuff that needs to be removed, I'll give that a swerve for now!

So three down, one more to go - our Beetle was running like shit, misfire on cylinder 4, I assumed coil pack even though I changed it about 18 months ago.

To the right of the inlet manifold, beneath a lot of stuff, lies the coil pack. Upon closer inspection I could see a spark jumping from number 4 lead to the bracket on that big round thing. Had a closer look and the lead was damaged. I changed these 18 months ago with the coil pack. Managed to find the old ones, popped it on, running sweet as a nut again. Really not sure how it got damaged, but classing that as a nice easy win.

So I've worked on 4 vehicles today, I'm knackered, old, fat and unfit. How you guys in the trade manage this day in day out is beyond me - fair play to you all.

 

[Popsicle]

25 minutes ago, SiC said:

It's almost certainly been reprogrammed for fixed service intervals rather than the variable. At this age and mileage, no bad thing. 

Either was done deliberately or accidentally with a scantool. VCDS can easily change modes. 

Thanks for the info Si, makes sense. I usually do an oil change every 10k, everything else every 20k. I always thought I over serviced stuff!

[Metal Guru]

Hottest day of the year so far , the joys of no a/c!

[Mat.T]

I've finally got My Silver Shadow project running, it's sat in the corner of a yard at work for 25years. Now got to try and sort some brakes! Currently the fully hydraulic system is non functional so the only brakes are the tiny master cylinder that acts on the rear calipers to give brake 'feel'. Actually the car is very solid and only 60k. Plan is to get it on the road but leave the paint as is.

[Mat.T]

Front end shot, grill and headlight surrounds had been stored in the boot

 

[JakeT]

9 hours ago, Popsicle said:

As the Pisshat is now firmly on the fleet.

Quick processing by the DVLA.

Time for a service. I will admit to being an unashamed Mann fanboi, its a hill I will die on, bestest filters ever.

Oil, air, fuel and pollen filters from GSF, I've 40 litres of finest Mannol 507 spec oil as I use it in the caddy - incidentally the cabin and air filters are the same for the Pisshat and the caddy.

Although the Pisshat engine is a bit more modern than the Caddy, everything seems to be set up similarly, so nice and easy to get at everything.

Looks fairly clean and leak free for 214k miles.

The mate who I got the car off said it was last serviced about a year ago, he uses the same garage I use, so I knew it would have been done properly.

Air and pollen filter didn't really need changing, but I've done it.

Blue one is the old fuel filter, orange is the new one, again probably didn't need doing.

Oil filter was black, as expected, other than removing a bracket out the way to get to the oil filter, it was really easy to service.

Reset the service and inspection reminders on the dash display, fuck knows why it says a service is due again in 9400 miles? Thought it would be longer than that.

Once serviced I tried again to sort out the DAB reception. Fitted my new glass mount ariel, still no signal ☹️. Had a brainwave and took the stereo out of the Caddy, plugged it in to the Pisshat, DAB's working fine. Looks like the DAB part of the stereo units fucked in the Pisshat then. Replacement stereos aren't overly expensive, but I'll see how the car behaves for a bit first.

Nice work! The Hengst filter that came out of it is good quality, too.

 

From when my Mrs worked in a Skoda dealer around this time I seem to recall there was two service intervals. Fixed servicing and long life servicing. I recall the dealer had to take into account the usage pattern of the customer and set it accordingly. I think it could also be changed but only when a major service was done. If it’s on fixed intervals thats a win in my eyes as 10k is a nice sensible number for a modern engine.

 

On that note, my BMW made the decision for me. All BMWs came with ‘condition based servicing’ where they would just tell you when things needed changing based on the usage of the car. Even the pollen filter had an algorithm that looked at fan speed and air recirculation usage. Sounds smart, but all it did was make people go to BMW every three months for stupid stuff like an air filter, and then a pollen filter, and then an oil service. After around 2007 BMW removed most of these as it was a pain. But oil remained. My 330i will go 19,000 miles before a service if you let it. But, after 186,000 miles the CBS for the oil service starts to stop working. You can reset it but it starts resetting to a lower amount. By 217,000 miles my car wouldn’t reset at all, and starts binging that the service is overdue. BMW released a fix which just disabled the oil service Indicator and requested the dealer to tell the customer to service the car at fixed intervals. Which I’ve been doing. Every 10,000 miles from 130k to then.

[Split_Pin]

Our Trigger's broom Indesit condenser dryer had another FTP last night. No burning smell, motor is working, plenty heat but drum wasn't turning. I suspected the belt had slipped off but how?

Tensioner bearing completely shot and wobbling about allowing the belt to slip off.

New one ordered from Espares, should be here tomorrow. Another £300 odd saved!

[comfortablynumb]

Nice when you manage to save something from the tip, but IME manufacturers are actively making stuff to stop you, hence washing machines with welded drums etc.

What happened to that law they were supposed to bring in to make stuff repairable?

[richardmorris]

[dozeydustman]

The fleet of cars here has been so utterly reliable of late I’ve had bugger all to post hence a large amount of radio silence. Also adding extra units to the kitchen has taken a lot of my time up. Thankfully just tiling left.

This said on 28th the 205 has its MoT. Aside from the original clutch cable snapping it’s been reliable for the 2,000 miles since purchase. I do have a list of MoT jobs to do including repairing the front seat mounts with the electric PrittsStick. I have the last week of March and the first 2 weeks of April off work so I can do much car and house tinkering then.

Also Grandson is due around then…

[auntiemaryscanary]

1st run out on the bike this year. 

Ended up in Oakham. It's a rough old town...

The driver and co-pilot names are on the side. Sir Christopher Bathley and I assume his son.

[320touring]

Anyone any ideas?

Been out to the Oxford. Tried running a feed from battery negative to exiter on alt. Get a bright light on my test thing. No increase in voltage.

Get a dim light on test thing at the connector I was using for a switched live..so alternator likely not getting full12v from that feed.

With the switches 12v hooked up, 8 get ignition light on with ignition, but it doesn't go out when started.

Gets brighter when you reckon it ( more demand ?)

Unsure as to next steps - I have a tested good new alternator I can swap in and try exciting.

Or it's an earthing issue

Or a wiring issue.

Sitting running happily just now, shows 12.6v at idle, dropping to 12.4v with heater blower on.

[bramz7]

Another car related day, I seem to have a habit of doing these things close together.

I drove the Xedos to Cambridgeshire today, so swap it for this:

I had asked for dibs on this when my friend got it (in another swap, for a Xantia), so the time finally came. It's been ages since I have had a 90s French car. 

Posher one too.

 

Not entirely sure what the plan with it is. It seems in quite good health, nothing alarming in the 120 miles this afternoon. I don't have any massive desire to sell it, nor to keep it. But I don't have to decide right now. 

 

[wesacosa]

5 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

Another car related day, I seem to have a habit of doing these things close together.

I drove the Xedos to Cambridgeshire today, so swap it for this:

I had asked for dibs on this when my friend got it (in another swap, for a Xantia), so the time finally came. It's been ages since I have had a 90s French car. 

Posher one too.

 

Not entirely sure what the plan with it is. It seems in quite good health, nothing alarming in the 120 miles this afternoon. I don't have any massive desire to sell it, nor to keep it. But I don't have to decide right now. 

 

Nice. Those mk1 Lagunas really seem to get better with age. 

Still tempted to try and find a Xedos at some point so if your mate is looking to move it on at any point might be interested if I can get my XM moved on