Ask a Shiter

[panhard65]

ZX rear hub nuts are 32mm so that is the size you need

[beko1987]

Fair enough, thanks for the info. Would I be able to clean and re grease the bearings easily or should I avoid as they need eleventybillion nm of press to remove?

[ruffgeezer]

The bearings are a one piece thing, you only take them out of the drum when they are fucked.

[meggersdog]

If they are tapered bearings then re-grease but I suspect they are parrallel in which case leave where they are.Bolt the wheel back on and use to easily remove the hub.

 

edit. beaten to it.The wheel back on still stands though

[beko1987]

Buy 32mm socket, Leave bearing alone, wheel back on, crack off hub, change fucked brakes. Cheers chaps, that's January sorted then!

[barefoot]

Do you think that those Rudolph antlers & nose that you can get for your car would stand a 70mph / 25 mile commute?

[explosive-cabbage]

Question: Can a car be run too cold??

 

Explained:

Lada Niva OLGA was overheating horrenously during the cold snap, so last week I stripped out the cooling system, cleaned the radiator, fitted a new water pump gasket (suspected pinhole leak) and re-assembled with plenty of coolant and some rad-seal.

 

Also I found that there was a gap of about half an inch between the rubber flaps on the fan cowl and the radiator, allowing air to be drawn round the radiator instead of through it. I removed the rubber flaps and replaced with flappier flaps, made from motorbike innertube, now twice as big and sit like the skirts of a hovercraft against the radiator. Much better! Even at idle there is a fair gust being sucked through the radiator and whilst being revved there is enough puff to ruffle your hair.

 

Also, interestingly, I found I was missing my thermostat, but decided to re-assemble without one.

 

So the problem:

The coolant temperature will not rise above 50 degrees C. In the mornings, driving to work, it doesn't reach 40 degrees, and even idling in traffic for a long time or running in low box it only just touch 50 degrees. I know that the coolant sensor is not faulty, as it was one of the last things I replaced on the re-build. Is running too cold bad for the engine? The car is difficult to warm up in the mornings, the heater barely blows heat at all.

 

Also, it sounds like it is only running on 2 cylinders when heating up, kangaroos and loses power when being revved and often revs to 3000rpm at idle when 'warm', though these other problems may be related to an intermittent MAP fault that has just flashed up again.

 

Possible plan: Get a new thermostat and install to keep temperature up. I think the combination of a working thermostat and a very efficient fan/rad setup will possibly solve heating/cooling problems for good.

 

What is YOUR advice??

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers Shiters!

Will

[ashmicro]

Fit a 'stat, stat. My Escort overcooled when I removed the thermostat.

[cobblers]

You deffo need a thermostat - you could have the best radiator in the world in -50 degrees etc and with a stat the engine would run at the correct temp. They only allow enough flow through the radiator to keep the engine at whatever temperature it opens at, and it's surprisingly accurate.

I replaced an 89 degree stat in my t25 with an 87 degree one, and even with 10 feet of pipe and 20l coolant capacity, it warms up to 87 degrees within a mile or so and stays there unless I'm in traffic. I did a datalog thing and the coolant temp only varies a couple of degrees once it's warm, and that's probably only down to me turning the blowers on and off.

 

Running the engine 40 /50 degrees all the time won't do it any favours at all - the oil won't get hot enough to work properly lubrication wise, plus it'll never boil the moisture out of it so it'll turn into a mayoey mess.

It'll also be running rich all the time so fuel economy will go down, and the oil will end up with loads of fuel in it etc. You'll probably do the cat no favours either.

[explosive-cabbage]

Cobblers wrote:

You deffo need a thermostat - you could have the best radiator in the world in -50 degrees etc and with a stat the engine would run at the correct temp. They only allow enough flow through the radiator to keep the engine at whatever temperature it opens at, and it's surprisingly accurate.

I replaced an 89 degree stat in my t25 with an 87 degree one, and even with 10 feet of pipe and 20l coolant capacity, it warms up to 87 degrees within a mile or so and stays there unless I'm in traffic. I did a datalog thing and the coolant temp only varies a couple of degrees once it's warm, and that's probably only down to me turning the blowers on and off.

 

Running the engine 40 /50 degrees all the time won't do it any favours at all - the oil won't get hot enough to work properly lubrication wise, plus it'll never boil the moisture out of it so it'll turn into a mayoey mess.

It'll also be running rich all the time so fuel economy will go down, and the oil will end up with loads of fuel in it etc. You'll probably do the cat no favours either.

 

Thanks! Very helpful information indeed. Have been to the local parts spot and ordered a new thermostat and housing for the royal sum of £9.61, ready to pick up tomorrow. Will change oil tomorrow too. It looked a but creamy last time I had the rocker cover off!

[Lacquer Peel]

Hey crew. My Xantia has a fairly annoying problem. The heater is either furnace like at 28° or tepid at 26° with nothing in between. One of my 405s, with similar slider controls had the same problem bur I didn't get to the bottom of it.

Any cheap/easy fix or is it some awful dash out job(98% chance)?

[andrew e]

Drive just wearing a string vest, with the option of a "heat boost" by bleating about how evil England is (as necessary) if you feel chilly. HTH

[Cavcraft]

Is the slider working fully and do you happen to know if they are the same as the BX ones? They could be a right pain in the arse, from memory the cables used to seize up.

 

Vanny of BXP (and here) fame knocked this up:

http://www.bxproject.co.uk/phpbb3/viewt ... f=2&t=3808

[Lacquer Peel]

Thanks for that, looks far too fiddly a job for me, I imagine it is a similar setup to the BX. The slider moves freely.

 

edit: I JFGI'd it, cars equipped with air conditioning like mine have a motor and drive gear instead of a cable.

[Guest]

Hey crew. My Xantia has a fairly annoying problem. The heater is either furnace like at 28° or tepid at 26° with nothing in between. One of my 405s, with similar slider controls had the same problem bur I didn't get to the bottom of it.

Any cheap/easy fix or is it some awful dash out job(98% chance)?

 

Dunno. Try driving it into a ditch and see if the oblique angle you end up at puts a new slant on things.

 

Otherwise, I dunno.

[trigger]

This is probably a silly question but this little Suzuki Alto I've bought has a blown head gasket, now apparently the radiator has a leak which has caused the problem, the car starts and runs lovely but once it starts getting warmer it blows blue smoke out of the back, i was thinking if i was to add some K Seal to the tank would that fix the problem without having to change the gasket or is it too far gone?

[wackywacerwill]

Hmmm. I tried it on my last HGF and wished I hadn't bothered as the gasket that I then had to purchase anyway was the same price as the 'magic' bottle of gunk.

[Lacquer Peel]

Hey crew. My Xantia has a fairly annoying problem. The heater is either furnace like at 28° or tepid at 26° with nothing in between. One of my 405s, with similar slider controls had the same problem bur I didn't get to the bottom of it.

Any cheap/easy fix or is it some awful dash out job(98% chance)?

 

Dunno. Try driving it into a ditch and see if the oblique angle you end up at puts a new slant on things.

 

Otherwise, I dunno.

 

I'd like to see the rage you'd be in after driving up and down a 30 mile glorified single farm track with no sight lines and local wannabe rally drivers to dodge for weeks.

[cobblers]

K seal won't touch an oil to combustion chamber leak

[trigger]

The fact the smokes blue and it happens once it's warm is starting to make me wonder if it's piston rings and not OMFGHGFCHAOS, I haven't checked the oil and water yet, I think i best had tomorrow, if it is rings then it could be early doors...

[TimothyClaypole]

I could do with using my van a couple of days to empty my container (due to being delayed by a no show on Freecycle).

 

The insurance finished today as I've bought an Astra Estate and insured that etc.

 

Can you day insure another car/van while having a normal policy on a different car?

[Albert Ross]

Of course. The risk is different. It's like insuring another car for a year, except shorter.

[HillmanImp]

Where can you get details of how much an old car cost new? Is there a website for such things? It would be interesting to know how much my cars cost. Well it probably wouldn't be interesting but hell, it will pass the time finding out.

[ashmicro]

Parkers dude.

 

here's my HitlerWagen

 

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/us ... arplate=96

[face]

Who is that on your signature?

 

I need to know for *cough* tax purposes, or something.

[M'coli]

How easy is it to replace the USB ports on a laptop? Due to cat/human confusion, my laptop has just crashed to the deck, landing on the usb cables and breaking the ports.

[trigger]

Rechecked the Alto's engine this afternoon, I was wrong, the smoke isn't blue, it's white and the oil cap looks like a Caffe Latte so all fingers are pointing towards head gasket failure.

[Richard]

How easy is it to replace the USB ports on a laptop? Due to cat/human confusion, my laptop has just crashed to the deck, landing on the usb cables and breaking the ports.

 

Not hard at all, providing you can dismantle the laptop to get to them. I imagine you can get replacement ports but my solution was to cut a USB extension cable and solder the wires onto the PCB.

[HillmanImp]

Parkers dude.

 

here's my HitlerWagen

 

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/us ... arplate=96

 

Nowt on the older cars like. I was looking at Auschwitz for instance.

 

http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/reviews/facts-and-figures/audi/100/avant-1983/

 

There probably isn't much like. Would be interesting though.

[michael1703]

Question:

 

What was the first production car to come with Alloy wheels?