Ask a Shiter

[Lacquer Peel]

Are naturally aspirated Xantia diesels unspeakably grim? Thinking about buying one.

I drove a n/a Dispatch van for a few miles and that was ok, and the n/a XUD goes really well in smaller cars.

 

I bought it. It is quite slow but you can make good progress in it, especially cross country, refusing to slow down for corners, the ride and handling are superb.

Sits at 80MPH happily enough on the motorway. It would be fairly quiet but there's a wheel or drive shaft bearing humming away.

[morris_ital_lover]

Apologies for taking the thread on a non shite diversion, please forgive me... I have a particularly shite thread in the works.

 

I've got an ebay problem. To cut a long story short I sold something on ebay, still in shrink wrapping (so should be complete) to a bloke in Belgium, I set the initial international postage at £14.99 to send it via Royal Mails finest potential bidder then asks whether I can send it for less (airmail small packets) which I duly do. He pays me £40 in total and then today I get a load of crap from him about it being not as described, parts missing (which doesn't really sound right). I say if he sends it back to me then I'll issue him with a full refund upon receipt of it, just when we seem to be making headway he then says he wants £14.99 to send something that is now worth £10 and keeps on emphasising that it won't be worth it for me etc etc. Basically I'm 90% sure he's a chancer, he's opened a case and now wants his money and my goods... what can I do?

[Albert Ross]

You have his address. Send him a taxi, a pizza, a hooker or two...............

[M'coli]

Just changed the brake master cylinder on the nova, turned out the old one was mullered. However, the brake pipe unions on the old one are 10mm and 12mm, the new one has two 10mm ones. Aside from changing the whole brake pipe for one with a smaller union, is there anything I can do to get the 12mm union to fit the 10mm fitment? I haven't seen any adaptors for sale unless I have looked in the wrong places.

I had this problem with the Cavalier, so: assuming you have a pipe flaring kit, I used the pipe cutter to cut the flared end off of the pipe, swapped the 12mm union for a 10mm one, and flared the pipe in situ and bolted it all back together. And yes, the pipes were factory fitted steel ones.

[Spiny Norman]

"You'll suck up all the crap in the tank and run it into the engine"

 

Dunno about the Saab 9000 thing but I'd definitely call BS on this. I've been playing FLB since I learned to drive and even running my 42 year old metal Volvo Amazon tank dry* one time had no unpleasant consequences.

*Dodgy fuel gauge rather than bravery/brazen stupidity/poverty in this instance...

[Des]

I think low fuel level paranoia stems from the past when wanky old cars had crappy filler caps, usually vented, sticking out a couple of inches from the body, not all that waterproof, that and no cover when you fill the tank in the pissing rain meant that most tanks would have some water content sitting on the fuel, waiting it's chance to get at the carb and stuff him right in his main jet before giving the idle circuit a messy facial.

These days we have fuel filters rather than the bit of gauze if you're lucky, even if water makes it past, some or most would get dumped back in the tank by the return feed.

[Lacquer Peel]

My mum ran her 9000 out of fuel once, it needed a tow start to get it going again but it didn't affect the fuel pump. It ran on nearly empty most of the time, she rarely puts more than £10 of fuel in cars.

[DSdriver]

Yikes, My G4 monitor has just gone tits up. I have lurking in a corner the monitor from my old G3 but the plug is different and there is not a usb wire like on the G4. I also have a couple of flat screen monitors from pcs. Will any of the do if adapters can be found? Failing that anyone got a spare?

[Ross_K]

You should find what you need here: http://www.welovemacs.com/adapters-moni ... pters.html

 

Prices will be salty from the US though - find what you need and go on ebay UK.

[M'coli]

Fuel tanks.

 

On another thread it was claimed that running a saab 9000 with less than half a tank would cause the submerged pump to overheat and die in an expensive manner.

If the 9000 has a fuel gauge like the 900's where it doesn't register below 1/4 of a tank* then this is probably urban myth inflated by some unfortunate soul who had a pump fail purely by chance when the fuel was low.

 

*I wouldn't want to chance going below 1/4 tanks in any vehicle in a Scandanavian winter, so this makes sense. Once it was below 1/4 you'd have a bit of distance until the low fuel light would begin to come on but I would stick more in when the fuel light stayed on constantly.

[DSdriver]

You should find what you need here: http://www.welovemacs.com/adapters-moni ... pters.html

 

Prices will be salty from the US though - find what you need and go on ebay UK.

 

Looks a bit technical, if I did try to connect up a crt I presume it needs some sort of card in the tower. Have you any idea what the usb wire on the G4 monitor is for, will the G3 monitor work as it doesn't have one? I suppose the other alternative is to buy a complete G4 computer on ebay for rock all, if the monitors are not compatible perhaps I can swap the hard drives.

[Ross_K]

Some G4 monitors had a built in USB hub I think.

 

Got a photo of the end of the cable coming out of the monitor to refresh my memory?

 

Or the model number off the back of the monitor even?

 

 

edit.... Does the connector look like this?

 

If it does you need one of these if you want to use a VGA monitor:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320962354633

[DSdriver]

Or the model number off the back of the monitor even?

 

WR9300EWHOE

 

The plug has the old fashioned screws either side.

[Ross_K]

WR9300EWHOE

Means nothing to me Anything else?

 

The plug has the old fashioned screws either side.

Like this?

[DSdriver]

It's a 21" studio monitor, will probably make a good anchor for a battleship.

Here's the plugs

IMG_4567 by DSdriver, on Flickr

and this is the serial number bit

IMG_4570 by DSdriver, on Flickr

This is what the plug on the g3 monitor looks like

IMG_4572 by DSdriver, on Flickr

[Ross_K]

The first pic is a VGA connector - this is the end that goes into your mac? If this is the case you can plug in a "normal" VGA PC monitor.

 

Treat yourself to an LCD monitor and save some money on your electricity bills.

[DSdriver]

Good I have one that I was just about to take to the tip. Will it need any software?

[willswitchengage]

Timing belt interval on a 306 1.9d?

[Albert Ross]

54 or 70 dependent on usage.... I think!

[Cavcraft]

Internet says 40,000 or 4 years. I reckon mine is due a belt change soon, God knows what sort of job it'll be.

[willswitchengage]

Internet says 40,000 or 4 years. I reckon mine is due a belt change soon, God knows what sort of job it'll be.

 

Excellent, so the "recent cambelt" car I favourited earlier has it overdue by... 3000 miles! I wonder what else I might find in the "full service history"? Ebay...

[Ross_K]

Timing belt interval on a 306 1.9d?

 

72k on an XUD. Well most PSA stuff actually...

[dollywobbler]

Balls to the recommendation. I treat 50k miles as a safe limit, and no longer than five years. A lot of people say to change the water pump and tensioner at the same time but I treat that as a judgement call. If you're going for a smaller change interval than originally stated, see how the tensioner/pump feel and change if necessary or if the pump is leaking.

 

I did the belt on the BX Mk1 and it was a right fiddly pain, but do-able with no special tools. Getting the crank pulley bolt off is the biggest challenge. Did a lot of moving the engine around in the engine bay to improve access (you remove the upper mount for access).

[Lacquer Peel]

XUDs don't have a reputation for breaking cambelts, I think my 405 was on its original cambelt at 130k/16 years before it was replaced.

It's an easy enough job if there's no ABS or air con shit in the way.

[jakebullet]

I have 'steering wheel shakes when you brake' on my disco 2. Normally I'd say wibbly discs, but I took the wheels off, and bunged a clock on it to find they wibble by 0.2mm. Haynes book of lies says max wibble of 0.15mm, but I can't see it being that critical.

 

Went to see my tame mechanic, and he suggests the plan of attack would be to clamp off each side in turn, go for a drive and see if it's still there. I think he's thinking if it's something other than discs it would show up which side.

 

Before I let him get on with it, is this remotely sensible, what with abs and all? I'm thinking it's likely to notice there's no braking going on at that wheel and will at least throw a wobbly.

[Des]

Things like play in the swivels or any steering joints can exaggerate a wobbly disc, hopefully something like that rather than the ABS kicking in when it shouldn't, maybe you can pull the ABS fuse to check.

[skattrd]

OBD* diagnostic thingy question

I've been thinking about getting a basic diagnostic thing. Are all the plugs/adapters the same? most of the ones I see on ebay say they're for VAG, but the connector looks the same as my Volvo. So would one of these ebay £6.99 things work on my Volvo? I know I'll need software on my laptop (Win7 x64) but I can "borrow" that from my local garage.

ebay link

 

or

Should I look at something like this that works via bluetooth so should work with laptop and smartphone - I'll need to buy software for the phone though.

[DSdriver]

You shouldn't need anything else, I've my G4 laptop hooked up to TVs and all sorts.

 

Wow hoodathunkit, pick up any random tat old flat screen and it will plug and play on an Apple. I bet they soon changed that.

Thanks guys, you have saved me a lot of money and grief.

[Ross_K]

OBD* diagnostic thingy question

 

Will the VAG cable work? Who knows, but it's worth a punt before spending £130 on this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150776608068

 

h ttp://www.soft4cars.org/download.php?id=328

 

You need XP to run the software...

[Cavcraft]

XUDs don't have a reputation for breaking cambelts, I think my 405 was on its original cambelt at 130k/16 years before it was replaced.

It's an easy enough job if there's no ABS or air con shit in the way.

 

Take it this lack of reputation includes perished/old belts? Don't know when the one on my n/a 306 was done and the cars up to about 136k. Also any idea what sort of job it is please and whether water pump etc is worth doing at the same time?

We think the heater matrix is playing up as there's a sort of TCP smell when in hot position which my lad reckons is antifreeze leaking into heater matrix and getting hot-or something like that.