Xsara - There's a Moose Loose aboot this engine bay...

[beko1987]

On 4/3/2020 at 9:25 PM, Talbot said:

If you've got the reg plate you should be able to make a claim.  The fact that it came off the back of a wagon is actually very much in your favour, as the wagon driver was committing the offence of having an insecure load, the result of which being you have suffered damage to your vehicle, even though you took adequate precautions (dropped back).

It might be worth pursuing, as I'm assuming the £50 is the excess on your own insurance, meaning you'll have a claim on your insurance come renewal time.  If you give your insurer the registration plate and any other detail of the other vehicle, I *think* they can look up who insures it and claim on your behalf.

Just seen this, sorry. Was the £50 glass excess, so it won't affect my insurance. 

Can't call now a week afterwards either! Plus a thought that did flash massively through my mind afterwards was 'will they complain because I'm out doing a non-essential task during lockdown?)... And that sounded like way more than £50 worth of arse ache is they did moan

Could be worse, my stepdad hit a partridge that weekend in the hire van and put a hairline crack in the bumper... Luckily he took out the damage insurance so only had to pay the £250 excess... 

[Kiltox]

On 4/3/2020 at 9:25 PM, Talbot said:

If you've got the reg plate you should be able to make a claim.  The fact that it came off the back of a wagon is actually very much in your favour, as the wagon driver was committing the offence of having an insecure load, the result of which being you have suffered damage to your vehicle, even though you took adequate precautions (dropped back).

It might be worth pursuing, as I'm assuming the £50 is the excess on your own insurance, meaning you'll have a claim on your insurance come renewal time.  If you give your insurer the registration plate and any other detail of the other vehicle, I *think* they can look up who insures it and claim on your behalf.

Glass claims aren’t “claims” to most insurers - I.e. you don’t need to declare them. 

They are recorded on MIAFTR though, and Cuvva are one of the rare insurers that DO consider them to be a declarable event. 

[Six-cylinder]

13 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

 

Could be worse, my stepdad hit a partridge that weekend in the hire van and put a hairline crack in the bumper... Luckily he took out the damage insurance so only had to pay the £250 excess... 

Ouch ! £250 

[Kiltox]

13 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Euro car parts came today and delivered the correct stuff, huzzah! 

 

Not sure this has ever happened before 

[Andyrew]

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

Could be worse, my stepdad hit a partridge that weekend in the hire van and put a hairline crack in the bumper... Luckily he took out the damage insurance so only had to pay the £250 excess... 

Sounds like enterprise?. They Charge you the excess if you get a stone chip in the windscreen How is that any driver fault?

 

[Six-cylinder]

When we hired cars in the USA we used to insure the excess so there was nothing to pay in any event.

[beko1987]

Yep, enterprise. X2 as well, due to the abortive first try! 

Anyway, lovely day here so I got out on the car and clonk be gone! 

Nice and simple! But splitter did actually work fine on the lower one, but the angle of the upper made it impossible, so vice grips around the inner with the boot ripped off worked wonders! 

Bloody shame the oil hasn't turned up as its a perfect day for it, but I'm having a cup of tea then have some more jobs I want to tackle! 

[Kiltox]

Weird you don’t have your oil - mine came a few days ago!

[beko1987]

1 minute ago, Kiltox said:

Weird you don’t have your oil - mine came a few days ago!

I don't know, estimated delivery was yesterday, but it says its coming via an other courier so there's hope yet. Hermes have already been, and a DHL van came up the road but drove off again about 10 minutes ago. 

Run out of motivation to start that job now though even if it did come in the next 10 minutes. Need to syke myself up for a cambelt change... 

[Kiltox]

4 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

I don't know, estimated delivery was yesterday, but it says its coming via an other courier so there's hope yet. Hermes have already been, and a DHL van came up the road but drove off again about 10 minutes ago. 

Run out of motivation to start that job now though even if it did come in the next 10 minutes. Need to syke myself up for a cambelt change... 

What seller is it, lubriagecarpartsaccessories? They used DHL Parcel UK (old UKMail - not the yellow DHL vans) for mine. 

[beko1987]

Just now, Kiltox said:

What seller is it, lubriagecarpartsaccessories? They used DHL Parcel UK (old UKMail) for mine. 

No, different bunch. But meh, its got 5 months before it hits 10 years, so it can be done another weekend if it doesn't come today. (if it comes today I'll give doing it tomorrow a bloody good thinking about...) 

[Kiltox]

Ahh, the smaller packs must’ve been a different seller. 

[beko1987]

So, on with less important jobs! But a key one on all old citrii (despite being an 02 plate this thing is basically a ZX) is the scuttle panel. So off with the wipers

Then off with a cover over the wiring loom as it crosses the engine bay, then the loom lifts out of it and drapes across said aformentioned engine in the bay, then the bottom channel unclips from the bulkhead.

Very soon we had a pile of plastic

and I immediatly noticed the grille for the fan intake was off. I had a feeling about this as for the last few weeks there's been a leaf stuck in the motor...

Got a vacuum out and cleaned alll the dead foliage and twigs from everywhere

Then I got the pressure washer out and blasted it all clean. But it's such a lovely day, and I have such little else to do that 4 minutes later I had assembled all equipment needed for a bit of an engine bay clean...

Everything got rinsed, scrubbed wit ha heavy G101 mix then rinsed again,, including all the removed plastic which came up a fucking treat!

That done, and with it being in the full sun drying nicely I accidentally opened the drivers door...

Rinse rinse squirt squirt scrub scrub with 4 different brushes

two rounds of that and a final rinse later and it's about as good as it will get/needs to flipping be.

So I opened the back door and repeated, but with added mud

I'd JUST finished rinsing the back door off when my pressure washer hose burst and sent itself dancing around the street like a snake on ket FFS

Buggar, hoiked it all back into the garden

Bit of a pisser really as I would have gone round the entire thing, then by the time that was done the sun would be over the other side of the house and I'd have probably washed it. Was eying up the filthy but genuine floor mats too, wouldnt have taken 2 minutes to set the Vax up for wet suction and it's the perfect day for it. Arse. Grabbed a cloth and wiped up all the now clean door shuts (well, 2 of them)

I then smashed the engine bay back together, with liberal application of this all over the plastics

And an even more liberal application of this on every moving part of the wiper linkage, bonnet hinges, latch and the 2 door hinges and check straps (went over with a can of brake cleaner first to flush the old shit out)

And it looks OK. At least I'll be able to go 5 minutes when changing the cambelt before getting dirty hands

Come in now for some lunch, then there's a few other little jobs I want to tackle in the interior, but the pressure washer breaking is a pisser. Now I need to go and see how expensive just a hose is vs an entire already cheap pressure washer (has to be a nilfisk as it fits my snow foam lance, and a new lance will cost more than another cheap nilfisk!

Enjoyable day so far though!

 

 

 

 

[Andyrew]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Yep, enterprise. X2 as well, due to the abortive first try! 

Drove a van for my mate he rented with enterprise.  Dropped further down the country. It's was a plain white van with a smashed in roof.

Got to drop of point. Woman asks what I've done with the decals?! Go in to fill out return stuff and have van checked over. Can find vehicle on system. 

Turns out the van on the insurance paperwork i was given was not the van I was driving. When I moaned about basically having no insurance the woman said "police don't tend to pull over enterprise rental vans anyway " , my reply of " does that include the ones that don't have your brand decals on them?" 

*Silence*

 

Second time I rented a sprinter, the price went up when I got there, I was given a transit and the price had gone up by 50% plus other shit. 

Annoyed by this point the lad I was talking to switched with a pretty young lady to try and calm the situation. She came to do the damage inspection and the van was filthy. 

I said I wasn't botherd tbh as I was about to drive it 500 plus miles so it will be dirty again by tomorow. She asked if she could have it cleaned first as it's not how I should be collecting a vehicle I've rented from them.

Okay fine. 

Cue some grunting eastern European bloke moving the van to clean it. He then attempts to back an 11ft van through an 8ft doorway and smashed the top of the back doors in. 

The girl looked gutted. 

"I guess we can skip the damage inspection then?"

Girl "err Yeah . .  it's got half a tank in it, please bring it back empty as an apology"

Win!

 

[beko1987]

And the last job! When I cleaned the inside at my dad's I took the air vents off and washed them as they were filthy, and forgot to align the vents up when reassembling it

Some levering later

And alignment before closing it up again

Still fuck all air comes out of said centre vent though, if I could be any more bothered I'd have a Google, but tbh I roll with the windows down in this weather anyway... (aircon is a bit cold, but not enough. Its had many regasses too, every 5 or so years so I'm hoping with a gas up it'll be less shit for a fair few years) 

Also confirmed that the outside temperature sensor is broken

Because its certainly not 1 degrees out there. It's either broken or needs the radio to work, either way it displays the clock unless I push the button so meh. 

Done now. All tidied up and in the process of putting everything away the porch and undersink cupboard is tidy. 

Went for a shakedown run and it's silent* again! 

[Kiltox]

9 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Drove a van for my mate he rented with enterprise.  Dropped further down the country. It's was a plain white van with a smashed in roof.

Got to drop of point. Woman asks what I've done with the decals?! Go in to fill out return stuff and have van checked over. Can find vehicle on system. 

Turns out the van on the insurance paperwork i was given was not the van I was driving. When I moaned about basically having no insurance the woman said "police don't tend to pull over enterprise rental vans anyway " , my reply of " does that include the ones that don't have your brand decals on them?" 

*Silence*

 

Second time I rented a sprinter, the price went up when I got there, I was given a transit and the price had gone up by 50% plus other shit. 

Annoyed by this point the lad I was talking to switched with a pretty young lady to try and calm the situation. She came to do the damage inspection and the van was filthy. 

I said I wasn't botherd tbh as I was about to drive it 500 plus miles so it will be dirty again by tomorow. She asked if she could have it cleaned first as it's not how I should be collecting a vehicle I've rented from them.

Okay fine. 

Cue some grunting eastern European bloke moving the van to clean it. He then attempts to back an 11ft van through an 8ft doorway and smashed the top of the back doors in. 

The girl looked gutted. 

"I guess we can skip the damage inspection then?"

Girl "err Yeah . .  it's got half a tank in it, please bring it back empty as an apology"

Win!

 

Enterprise are the worst rental company by a long way. I’ve had better service and vehicles from one man band “local” firms (which are usually shit, too)

Their vans in particular are all sorts of fucked. The salvage yard I bought my Cat C van from gets others direct from Enterprise - unrecorded, not crashed as such but too battered and fucked for the auctions. 

[beko1987]

2 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

Enterprise are the worst rental company by a long way. I’ve had better service and vehicles from one man band “local” firms (which are usually shit, too)

Their vans in particular are all sorts of fucked. The salvage yard I bought my Cat C van from gets others direct from Enterprise - unrecorded, not crashed as such but too battered and fucked for the auctions. 

Weren't many local firms that were open for him (last week, week 2 of lockdown), was a fair amount of ease involved (nearly bankrupted my stepdad renting them, the second time he basically spent mortgage money I think... Worked out fine as he got the house sale dosh through but if it had been a second failed move I'd have hidden the sharp knives when we got back... 

[beko1987]

Been a good day so far!

By 8am I had the arch liner off, and took a picture of the little birds nest under there

Then hoiked the fucked looking aux belt off

(Need a new one of those)

Things generally went OK then, bar the how to video I followed was for a non ari conditioned car, mine has pipes running right where the tensioner hole is on the tensioner.... They've been bent a bit and then there was access!

Car's still got its undertray too! Held in with 3 bolts, 2 screws and 1 original 1/4 twist fitting. Could jack the engine then (and lowering it loads helped too)

Hello!

Belt looked fine, could have gone on for a few more years... The pulleys are the same INA part as I bought too, so that's good

I then released the coolant.... it was very oily, but not mayo, so I'm wondering if there's something in the new radiator it has that's caused the oil to mix with the coolant a bit.... My plan is just to act ignorant and fill up with fresh and see how it goes, if I need to change it again in 6 months but it becomes clean that's OK

And there we go! As of now, the new tensioner, pulley and waterpump are on, the belt is on and tensioned too, and the egnine back on it's mount. I'm going to have a cup of tea and a fag then re-assemble the whole thing, change the thermostat and see if it explodes or I need to back the tensioner off a tad when I turn it on!

[rickvw72]

I’ve been using some OAT type antifreeze lately, that feels a bit oily.

Got it in 4 different cars and it’s the same in all of them. 

[beko1987]

Fires up a treat! Belt doesn't seem unhappily tight so I'll whazz the aux belt and covers back on! 

[beko1987]

All together! Now bleeding it and hoping it doesn't omghgf doing it as the zx nearly did! 

[beko1987]

I'm being really fucking anti social... It's silent here has been all day... 

Brum brum

[beko1987]

Still not up to temp! Halfway

[beko1987]

So, after a break I fitted the new thermostat 

Then because I removed the air box to get at the starter (which I didn't even bother locking in the end as I couldn't find the hole) I hoiked the filter out and it was a bit dirty

Luckily it was a posh bosch one, and by simply peeling the white layer away to reveal the blue underneath (see top pic, stupid phone) 

Brand new that is, ace! 12 months time the blue layer can be peeped and it'll be a regular air filter then! 

Then came bleeding and it took about 45 minutes... The neighbors went inside from their gardens, I need to apologise later

But after lots of this and way higher it came to life, and eventually the engine fan kicked in. Lobbed everything back together bar the undertray as the oil will come next week/I'll complain, get a refund and get it from elsewhere) and 2 nuts that hold a load of solonoids and vac stuff on the firewall as it's right above the turbo pipe which was fucking hot! 

Just been for a shakedown drive to socially distancely collect a vacuum and it deffo needs a wash now! 

Bonus phonecall from mummy kins earlier too, stepdads bought us a pressure washer (a nilfisk too so it fits my lance, plus they've got metal pumps not plastic like the karcher ones) and had it shipped to me. Said when I've done the car he'll have it for their garden, and I can just borrow it when needed, which is ace as I can have porch space back! 

I need a shower, I'm knackered but I think I've done what I've not done for a while and actually add some value to a car! Need to put the wheel trim back on too... 

[320touring]

Top work chap - shaping up to be a decent car!

[beko1987]

I miss* working in shorts! 

[beko1987]

Crap, it's not official without the little sticker being stuck down is it? 

I also filled out the service history, using the only stamp I own, so it looks official like, and doesn't hurt the cars future resale value

[Kiltox]

#residuals

Good job! 

[beko1987]

Fuck sake! Having a coffee and a rolly in the garden Ed next door pops his head over the fence, there's a box outside the front door... 

No idea when they snuck past, wasn't as if the gate next to the big 9 on the fence wasn't open with a fad sweaty oily man lying on the floor infront of it... 

Id have smashed that in too if I'd known it was there but fuck it, maybe tomorrow. I'm at the achy stage now, and all the cuts on my hands are stinging! 

[Kiltox]

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