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

[beko1987]

Now I'm here because it's close to ecp. 4 of the 7 of us queuing at ecp were buying brake parts. I opened the door for one guy doing discs and pads all round who had many boxes to carry 

[beko1987]

Home now and there's no space on the road, someone's come and parked there 😂😭

I'll do some other things and hope one of the cars moves later. Don't like doing it in my actual parking spot as its on an incline and gravel/shail. 

Let's hope there isn't something else I've yet to find 😂🤞

[beko1987]

No sooner had I done the washing up than the perfect car moved, so the action was back on

Some rust did escape from the backing plate... But it's still good* and sound

 

The passenger side had a mm more than the drivers

[beko1987]

The pistons wound back by hand using a small screwdriver to turn the piston face so that was grand, and I spent more time looking at things like this than doing the pads 

I did waft some stuff over the wire wheel though

Under here looks grotty but a brush with a wire wheel had it looking tidier, I must get under here over winter... 

Drivers side got done after, and I swapped the passenger side wheels front to back to get some wear into the very good* 2021 tyres

Was happy at this point

Then I rolled the back drivers wheel towards the front and saw a bloody screw 😡 Put that wheel back on the rear. 

What's least bad for the mot, pretending I didn't see it and deal with it as it comes or fitting the full size spare with brand new tyre and leaving this wheel in the garden so there is no spare? Or buy a new tyre but it'll probably happily roll in a while longer... But I've seen it now

Bar that, everything else looks OK, the new steering arm boot I fitted last year is still in tact, the front bumper got a few more cable ties and I called it done and packed up! 

[24vdiamond]

That tyre would repair ok, if its branded it would be worth doing?

Dont know about your Aldi but ours is getting shitter, no stock, short dates on fresh stuff and staff training to be doctors receptionists!

[beko1987]

54 minutes ago, 24vdiamond said:

That tyre would repair ok, if its branded it would be worth doing?

Dont know about your Aldi but ours is getting shitter, no stock, short dates on fresh stuff and staff training to be doctors receptionists!

Nah, it's a national tyres cheap special. It'll either be left or replaced. I did briefly consider turning it in a bit, if the mot man misses it I might... 

My aldi has always been crap for fresh stuff. I end up only going once a month or so for cleaning/frozen/cupboard stuff, and they change the store each time! 

Only swung in as its close to ecp and saves me another trip another day

[beko1987]

Got a day at mums whilst my stepdad has his hurnia op today so gave both cars a wash

The sonax wax I applied to them 4/5 months ago is mostly fully gone but they came up alright. 

Done now and it's only 10am. Might vacuum them out in a bit, it's getting hot though. 

Mot booked for Thursday 🤞🤞

[beko1987]

Mot day 🤞🤞

Just dropped it off, no idea when it'll get done though. Will check at lunchtime 

[beko1987]

Woohoo, pass! 

He must have got bored of putting the indicator stalk advisory on, or it worked as it can do randomly when he indicated left! (has to be held just before the click usually which I do subconsciously now). 

Best get some shoes on and wait for the phonecsll

[beko1987]

Off to my grans 90th birthday today! Put £50 in the tank (will do today and the next few weeks of commuting) and sorted the tyre pressures, my aborted swap last time had caused a wheel shake but all is well now! The rear tyre still happily has a screw in and is holding air. 

Was on the a43, at a merry 67mph listening to dream theater when... 

Beep *AIR BAG*

I laughed* and carried on. Just pulled up at my grans

Ffs! 368 days to turn that back off then 😂

[beko1987]

Got in the car Tuesday morning to go to work, and at 0645 I needed to put my headlights on. From the car parked opposite I realised only one had woken up. 

Meh. As I waited to turn right out of my estate 4 cars with similar singular bulbs drove past so I felt at ease with my brothers. 

If we remember earlier in the year I'd kept the 2 working bulbs I had just in case so I had the bulb out and it was off to the parts store (the boot) to find a replacement

Marvellous. It's a really easy* job, with your left hand and working at a horrible angle... 

I unplugged the abs pump connector which made it easier. Official way is undertray off, bumper off, crash bar off and headlights out... 

 

[beko1987]

Was still light and warm after tea so I got on with my oil change

The first thing I did was wipe it down then loosen the oil filter by hand for the 3rd year in a row 👌

I then cut all the cable ties holding the under tray off and saw that yes, the rocker cover gasket is still leaking... Some brake clean saw an improvement. 

Dropped the oil

The crush washer and plug both look fine (being new last year) so they got cleaned up with the cleanest microfiber towel I could find. 

Found a cleaner mf and cleaned up around the filter housing whilst it was off. What I did when taking the old filter off was let it fall and land upside down onto the lower radiator support. On the plus side it's now quite rust proofed as I ended up having to manhandle it the other end to drop it down 🤷

Eva came out and gave me a hand. Most of the oil went into the engine

Fired it up. Milage check for future reference (will find the prior years pic later and work out how few miles I've done) but one of those lights should not be there... 

Checked the oil again and got it nice and level

I then took a fancy microscope photo 

Of my engine cover

Which I need new fixings for AGAIN (anyone know what nut size they are? I feel lock nuts and washers and rubber washers would be a good fix) 

My friends hopefully coming round tomorrow for his oil change so I can have a bit more time to have a look under his new car properly as I don't have to do mine too. 

[beko1987]

Nothing to report, still done nothing about the airbag light, bar turn the passenger one off which does turn the system off. Too wet to try extract the bsi now. 

Plus I have too much driving to do. Off to my dad's in an hour, then next weekend I'm doing it again and half again the Tuesday after. 

Topped off the screenwash and coolant earlier and noticed the air box was very very loose. Turns out it wasn't connected to the bottom hose at all. Took the box out and got the hose back in its place, or a place

Box popped back in well enough and also clipped into its top bracket which it didn't before. Another day I should take it all back off, remove and clean that bracket up and re fit it all nicely. But today is not that day (it was fine before anyway so I'm not expecting any improvement, but it's fitted now) 

 

[maxxo]

Regarding engine cover mounts

buy these

I had them on both my picasso and first C5 and never had a single issue with them detaching or breaking and they’re really properly solid

[beko1987]

4 hours ago, maxxo said:

Regarding engine cover mounts

buy these

I had them on both my picasso and first C5 and never had a single issue with them detaching or breaking and they’re really properly solid

That's the set I've got now. First set came with 1 nut not moulded into the plastic bit, and over time I now have 2 left on opposing corners 😂

One day I'll find the right washers and nuts to fix it, currently it sits there rattling away

[beko1987]

More poking occurred today. I'm still fairly clue-less, however someone sent me 3 pages of some scans of the wiring diagrams. I don't really understand those, however this one showed how the main wiring looms run

And this thread for a Berlin go where someone found some important wire rubbed through as it passes through the bulkhead

https://www.berlingoforum.com/thread-16035.html

Figured out how to pop the bsi plugs apart which made it easier

I wrapped a short bit of wire around the pin, then a probe of my multimeter and had the meter outside with me. I was under the engine bay, with the main loom as it runs across the top of the engine and through poking tiny holes in several wires with the tip of my probe I got all the red live's, and several other wires checked for continuity. 

Annoyingly the red and white twisted wire the guy mentioned in the berlingo thread I found were fine, they tested OK from the fusebox to bsi plug 😢

The next tinkering session I'll check some of what runs across the top of the dash, but I haven't found the easy fix yet. 

It must be a broken connection somewhere, I got the airbag light off by randomly doing stuff. Sadly just all at one time so I don't know what thing I did that fixed it for 2 weeks, then it must have vibrated apart. I hope it's not the wheel airbag but if it was I'd expect a different issue than a totally inop airbag system (lexia couldn't find it sort of broken). 

After doing this for an hour, I got brave, and took the above photos of the plugs, and unplugged them all! I could then pop the back off the bsi. Was hoping for maybe some corrosion or similar but nope, looks OK enough

I couldn't get the front off though to check the business side. Is that even possible? I flexed this quite hard when fixing* it initially and a dry solder join has always been a thought I've had... It probably isn't that though

Having the bsi down meant I could re arrange some of the wiring that's always hung down a bit by the pedals. The big thick 2 wire plugs used to run under the bsi but now run over the top and the whole thing is now much easier to remove and I don't have random wires hovering above the brake pedal 👌

Only one fuck up, I got 1 white wire on the wrong pin on one of the bsi connections. This is how I know the twisted res/white wire pair is for the airbag, as when I turned the car on the 2 lights that show with the passenger air bag turned off came in straight away. Moved the wire to the pin across and tried again and normal service was resumed (air bag light was still on but the same as it was 😂) 

Meh, at least it still drives. 👌

[beko1987]

Merry Xmas! 

The Xsara continues to plod along nicely, just ticked over 181000 🎉

However. 

I'm at my mums currently. On the way I ran out of screenwash so nae bother! I picked up a new bottle the other week so I'll top it off there.

I was doing JUST THAT earlier when blow me, a dead mouse was on my engine bay

That's fucking odd. Topped off the screenwash, put the lid on, and took that photo then went into tell mum and ask for a small bag to dispose of the random deadmau5

When I came back the fucker had run off 😱 I've spent 5 minutes poking around with a stick in the engine bay with the engine on and I can't see it. I didn't see where it ran to, there's a 90% chance it was across mums lawn and away but the 10% chance of it now being in the bloody car is annoying. 

I might have to get some mouse traps and leave one in the footwell. All of a sudden my random airbag light has taken a sharp turn on my head as to its potential origins... Although I've seen zero evidence of mouse activity inside rhe car so far, I'm gonna give it a fucking good deep hoover out (for the first time in 6 months...) to check soon

[High Jetter]

"i saw a mouse" "where?" "There on the car, right there..." 😄

[beko1987]

18 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

"i saw a mouse" "where?" "There on the car, right there..." 😄

If I hadn't have taken that photo no one would belive me 😂

I thought it had run under and got stuck at some point in the recent past and died, I'd have understood that happening. Or it ran under the car this morning and I happened to need to check after a drive