Grogee's spannering (Maestro , Corsa & Avensis). PIMP MY PARTNER

[grogee]

Offside front brake is back together and bled (thanks for the brake-pusher tip @RoverFolkUs).

I've pulled nearside apart and I think I can see the cause of my binding issues. The dust boot wasn't correctly seated and that's lead to the piston corroding, making it stick in the caliper body. To be fair to the previous mechanic who did this, it's a right fiddle to get the dust boot seated before the piston goes in. 

Downed tools for now because I should be working and also I can give it all a good clean up in the garage tonight. 

[grogee]

Serviced an old lady's Panda today. Not a euphemism. 

It's a 16 plate in appliance white with the boggo 1.2 pez. 

Lovely little thing, presented no nasty surprises for servicing apart from slightly fiddly spark plugs. It seemed to be in good nick as well, lots of stamps in the book and no missing clips on the bumper/lights. 

Bless her she's a typical old lady really, the service has been 'booked' for ages but when she arrived it was all:

- Seat belt reminder not working (it's fine, it was her handbag on passenger seat setting it off) 

- Reversing sensors not working (they're fine too) 

- "It's got no poke". Yes, under 2000 rpm it's pretty sluggish. Goes well further around the rev counter though. 

She's come from a 1.3 jtd that was quite gutsy low down so I had to explain the difference... I just said 'hang onto the gears longer'. 

I get the feeling she doesn't like it because the brakes are sharp and the throttle pedal sensitive so she's moaning about not being able to pull away smoothly... Next car might be an auto I guess! 

Anyway a great little car, I'd have one in a heartbeat. 

[Sunny Jim]

I confess I was already sniggering by the end of your first sentence rendering your second redundant.

[Matty]

I'd really like an earlier modern panda. I've failed so far to find any reasonable excuse to do so.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, Matty said:

I'd really like an earlier modern panda. I've failed so far to find any reasonable excuse to do so.

I like the previous gen too and I guess this one is just a bit of a facelift but it does everything right, impossible not to smile when driving it. Really charmed by it, I'll be keeping an eye out if she decides to sell it. 

Best of all I couldn't see anything particularly flaky about the engineering. Wasn't rotting underneath, everything accessible up top. (This may not apply to engines that aren't the ancient 1.2 pez).

[High Jetter]

Title missing AND

[Shite Ron]

My  partner was sorting out some of her mothers stuff yesterday and I thought this would be a good place to post it, I hope you don’t mind.

The advert is in the official guidebook from the 1986 garden festival below. She even has the entry ticket!

[grogee]

4 hours ago, Shite Ron said:

My  partner was sorting out some of her mothers stuff yesterday and I thought this would be a good place to post it, I hope you don’t mind.

The advert is in the official guidebook from the 1986 garden festival below. She even has the entry ticket!

That's great, thank you for posting. The 'Now We're Motoring' strapline is my favourite, it's so bloody naff and just reminds me of British Rail's "We're Getting There" 

Also, it doesn't 'sparkle when watered'. It makes a fizzing sound

[artdjones]

On 01/02/2024 at 18:52, grogee said:

It's got no poke". Yes, under 2000 rpm it's pretty sluggish. Goes well further around the rev counter though. 

They altered the map on the 1.2 for emissions reasons and messed up the low down pull. When you're moving from an uphill incline onto another road at a give way sign they need lots of revs or they can bog down dangerously, leaving you crawling along with a truck hurtling towards you at 50mph which you thought was well far enough away to pull out in front of.

[grogee]

Just now, artdjones said:

They altered the map on the 1.2 for emissions reasons and messed up the low down pull. When you're moving from an uphill incline onto another road at a give way sign they need lots of revs or they can bog down dangerously, leaving you crawling along with a truck hurtling towards you at 50mph which you thought was well far enough away to pull out in front of.

I'm glad you said that, it felt on the borderline of something being wrong eg VVT system or something. 

Makes sense though because the stupid gear indicator is constantly telling you to change up, presumably for the same reasons (MPG/CO2). 

The needing revs thing isn't going to do the clutch much good, I imagine I'll be changing that soon. 

[grogee]

Operation AudioBodge

Pulled out the radio from the Avensis, ably assisted by a couple of YouTube videos. I'm sure I could have worked it out but watching someone else do it just saves so much time and 'broken clip heartache'. 

The plan is to route a USB supply up RHS A pillar for the dashcam, and the DAB antenna and microphone up the LHS A-pillar. 

The glovebox is out because I need to find somewhere to put the small amp that will drive the front speakers. It's a little Phillips 30W thing that I've adapted with ISO plugs.

The Sony head unit I've got claims "55W" but it feels quite lightweight and I'm sceptical of that figure. 

Perhaps a bit academic as I'm not planning to rattle the windows with hArDcOrE tRaP m9 (or even Radio 4) but it's nice to be able to turn up a tune without distortion. 

If I CBA I will run an RCA cable to the boot area in case I decide to put a sub in, I wouldn't rule it out but no need to at present. 

The Sony unit I bought is a Bluetooth DAB Android Auto job from Ebay, the seller appears to be a bit of a moron though so I need to hook it up to 12v to check it works. 

[grogee]

Well I got a bit of momentum going and made decent progress. Darkness curtailed proceedings but until then i enjoyed listening to Argyle get their first away win of the season at Swansea. 

So not finished but all the wiring is in place. I needed to be a little creative with an old coat hanger wire and electrical tape to get the wiring routed.

The little amp will have to live somewhere above the gear cables I think.

I wired the Sony unit to 12v and it fired up straight away. And the dodgy looking USB socket even works too. 

Android Auto is quite swish, isn't it? Well impressed with that. 

I had to get a bit creative to get the Sony unit mounted in the OEM brackets but it's nothing that a drill and some self tappers couldn't fix. It actually looks alright with the surround fitted, although it was a bit of a logic puzzle getting it to go together. 

[grogee]

Snake's wedding. 

I'm sure it's possible to route these wires tidily but it gets to a point where you just have to stuff it in and hope for the best. 

I discovered the s/h Sony unit sold by a moron on ebay is slightly defective. The top left of the touch screen is unresponsive. It's possible to get around this by pressing one of the hard buttons but I'm in two minds about returning it. I would accept a partial refund I think. 

The little amp didn't work and I discovered a popped fuse but I haven't got any spares of the stupid 20mm glass fuses, I think I'll just crimp a new blade fuse holder on the battery wire. 

On the plus side I got FM and DAB reception so my cheapo antenna works. 

Works are on hold awaiting the bottom inspection of a 1989 Nissan Vannette... Watch this space. 

[grogee]

Carly brought her Vanette round for a thorough examination. I had a reasonably thorough gander at it, the verdict is: Structurally sound with crispy bits. Needs a new clutch and battery but I'd happily bomb about in this for the summer. Also possible coolant leak somewhere, the rad swallowed 2 litres before it was full. 

Engine is sweet, I think it's a 1.5 so performance is sedate. 

I have recommended shiter's rust treatment - wire wheel, rust juice and primer/matt black. It may well have a tide mark soon. 

[grogee]

Weird. When I connect up the Sony using my little amp for the front speakers, the fronts work fine but the rears are dead. 

When I connect up using the Sony's internal amp (eg it's driving the front and rear speakers) both sets work fine. 

@philibusmo do you know if these units do something 'clever' and disable the internal amp if it 'sees' a load connected to the RCAs? It seems unlikely but I can't understand why the rears would be disabled if I'm using the RCA output + amp to drive the fronts.

The good news is that with some further wiring housekeeping I made a few 'bundles' of wires to instil some sense of order to the chaos. And the unit does mount back into its slot without pinching anything which is nice. 

[philibusmo]

29 minutes ago, grogee said:

Weird. When I connect up the Sony using my little amp for the front speakers, the fronts work fine but the rears are dead. 

When I connect up using the Sony's internal amp (eg it's driving the front and rear speakers) both sets work fine. 

@philibusmo do you know if these units do something 'clever' and disable the internal amp if it 'sees' a load connected to the RCAs? It seems unlikely but I can't understand why the rears would be disabled if I'm using the RCA output + amp to drive the fronts.

The good news is that with some further wiring housekeeping I made a few 'bundles' of wires to instil some sense of order to the chaos. And the unit does mount back into its slot without pinching anything which is nice. 

Hmm

I honestly don't know on that. I don't think I've had to connect a 2 channel amp to one of these before now. I've found the internal amplifiers on them to be pretty decent, if a little bass heavy.

Have a check in the settings of it, there maybe a setting called something like network mode which is causing it.

There is also put a 2 channel gain adjuster with RCA outputs onto the front speaker wires and send the front speaker outputs to the amp from that, I've got a few here if you want to go down that route as they're useful for fitting active subwoofers to original head units.

[grogee]

Just now, philibusmo said:

Hmm

I honestly don't know on that. I don't think I've had to connect a 2 channel amp to one of these before now. I've found the internal amplifiers on them to be pretty decent, if a little bass heavy.

Have a check in the settings of it, there maybe a setting called something like network mode which is causing it.

There is also put a 2 channel gain adjuster with RCA outputs onto the front speaker wires and send the front speaker outputs to the amp from that, I've got a few here if you want to go down that route as they're useful for fitting active subwoofers to original head units.

Thanks a lot. Actually I found one of those line level to RCA things in my shed when fishing for bits for this install so I'll give it a try. 

We are in the middle of building another shed so all my 'stores' stuff is in chaos. It took me a good half an hour to find the 'car audio bits' box, I really don't fancy having to go back and do it again! 

I'm now wondering if something I've connected is shorting one of the channels and the Sony is going into some sort of protection mode. More investigation required once I've got some daylight. 

I should be able to check resistance on each speaker to see if they're giving the 4 ohms I'd expect, then build back with my various ISO add-ons and see if I can find a short. 

[grogee]

Well that was a fucking waste of time, I realised I had VIOLATED the cardinal Phillips rule 

The harness I'd attached was configured for an old Parrot kit to mute the speakers during a call and amplify/feed call sound to speakers. Now redundant since this Sony does 'everything'. But I'd also attached the RCAs so it was BREAKING THE LAW. 

I did cut and insulate the offending speaker wires but it still didn't work so at that point I decided KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) was the better approach and I've binned the Phillips amp altogether. I might have cooked it I suppose if it's not happy about the dual input. 

There is an RCA cable stuffed under the glovebox to go to a rear amp if I can be arsed in the future. 

Once it was all bolted back together I treated the car to a pool ball gear knob, with thanks to @jakebullet for speedy and good value service. 

Unfortunately as I feared, the dashcam is interfering with the DAB reception. It's a bit hard to judge how much of a problem this is until I get out on the road. On my driveway it's a crap reception area with tall(ish) buildings in a slight valley, so I only get 1 out of 3 bars reception according to the Sony. Which promptly disappears to 0/3 when I plug the dashcam in. 

Next up: front door trims and speakers. 

[Popsicle]

@grogee like you I had a right faff with my Caddy's DAB signal due to dashcam interference, no matter were I mounted the dashcam or DAB aerial or which way I routed the cables the bloody thing was awful, several ferrite cores marginally improved it, bit the bullet and ordered one of these roof mounted FM/DAB boosted antenna https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363133838825

I needed a couple of extra plugs/adapters to make it fit the back of my stereo but it was a proper game changer mate - no interference and no signal dropping out.

[grogee]

24 minutes ago, Popsicle said:

@grogee like you I had a right faff with my Caddy's DAB signal due to dashcam interference, no matter were I mounted the dashcam or DAB aerial or which way I routed the cables the bloody thing was awful, several ferrite cores marginally improved it, bit the bullet and ordered one of these roof mounted FM/DAB boosted antenna https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363133838825

I needed a couple of extra plugs/adapters to make it fit the back of my stereo but it was a proper game changer mate - no interference and no signal dropping out.

I've done probably a dozen DAB installs and yes, roof mount is always best. 

When I did it in my Saab there was already a factory roof mount shark fin thing so I re-purposed the hole for an antenna a bit like yours. It worked really well. 

What also works well are the magnetic roof mount ones. I've even got one in Stores but I decided against fitting it because routing the cable through the rear tailgate seal is always a bit shonky. 

I also don't want to drill a hole in the roof if I can help it.

[philibusmo]

The only brand of dash cam I have found to consistently not interfere with DAB is Thinkware, they're not cheap but they are very good. I basically gave up fitting anything else, especially customer supplied eBay specials as you just knew they wouldn't have a shred of DAB reception afterwards which would some how be your fault.

Aftermarket reverse cameras are a similar issue with DAB. At least on quite a lot of modern stuff you can get a 12v reverse output using a CANBUS interface which you can use to power the camera only when in reverse and I don't think most people are going backwards enough to have a problem if their DAB drops when reversing.

[grogee]

Speaker install #1 for the Avensis. 

This could be a very straightforward job if you're not bothered about squeaks, rattles and sealing the speaker. But if you're going to the trouble of changing them, you might as well seal them in place. 

The OEM ones are riveted in, kinda standard these days and no bother to drill out. I usually prefer to bolt them in where rivets have been used but there's no easy access hole to the back of the speaker. So I had a go at riveting. 

Normally I have no luck riveting stuff, but I think this might be down to using wrong/cheap rivets and tool. I bought some not-shit rivets a while back along with the Chinese drill attachment tool that does the leg (arm) work for you. 

Blow me, it actually worked OK. I needed three hands to hold everything in place but it's in position. I've applied bathroom silicone sealant to the back of the speaker adapter - the OEM ones have a foam gasket. 

But the OEM ones are clearly shit, a tiny magnet and my one had a ripped cone too. 

The only other thing I've noticed that's popped up is an annoying creak on the clutch pedal. I'm hoping I'll be able to squirt some GT85 on it to make it go away. 

[grogee]

The Avensis has rewarded me for its stereo spruce up by giving me all three cherries on the dashboard fruit machine: TCS, VSC and EML. 

Pretty sure TSC and VSC are the same warning light (unless you've switched one or the other off) but basically equivalent to ABS warning light. 

Anyway there we were overtaking something, 4th gear WOT and it went into limp mode and threw the light. 

Limp mode is interesting, max 60mph on the motorway and supertanker levels of acceleration. But not too terrible compared to some. 

Plugged in the OBD sniffer and it's returned a boost fault: P1251, there are various Google results telling me what this is but the most likely is boost level too low, which would explain the sedate performance (before the limp mode). 

I have a few parts darts options but the first will be the vacuum valve that I broke, I bought another s/h one so I'll throw that on first. But realistically this is telling me I'm down on boost so I think a new turbo may be in order. I may try the MAF if it's not expensive although I bet it's fine. 

The VSC thing thinks there's a steering angle sensor problem along with some other BS which I'm ignoring. The low battery voltage is probably from when I disconnected battery to do the stereo. 

[grogee]

A bit more research seems to suggest it's the problem I already knew about: stuck VGT vanes. 

The ECU measures air pressure at the intake and post turbo. If the delta is too high, it commands the VGT actuator (vacuum solenoid operated) to move which has the effect of reducing boost. 

In my case the vanes are stuck so it can't move them and presumably this has thrown the P1251 'overboost' code. It's a bit counter-intuitive because I'm suffering from a lack of performance rather than too much, but I'm thinking that the ECU is also regulating the fuel flow so it'll wind injector duration back if it thinks things are going too mental. 

All this means that I'm sticking with Plan A, which was to pull the cat off the turbo and squirt in some Mr. Muscle to clean off the carbon deposits and try to free off the VGT. 

If that doesn't work, Plan B is a new turbo. I could chance a second hand one but I bet it'll be just as fucked. A recon one is £250 from the usual scumbags, I don't know what sort of warranty this includes. 

Alternatively £750 from ECP - yeah, fuck that. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

Just now, grogee said:

I'm suffering from a lack of performance

You tried them there blue pills?

Identical problem a few years back on an HDi - it would go into limp* mode with an overboost code with pre-limp lack of power.🤔
Actuator was stuck/immovable - the vanes were jammed. No idea what position they were jammed in though - would that make a difference here?
(It  also looked like a turbo 'cassette' had been dropped in as a remedy by previous owner but lack of DPF fluid had killed that too)
Sorted the DPF problem + new turbo sorted the thing out but it was not £750

[RichardK]

Steering angle sensor: did you do full lock to full lock to centre after reconnecting the battery?

[grogee]

Thanks @EyesWeldedShut, that's useful info. I'm hoping to get the turbo and cat apart tomorrow. No DPF on this one. 

@RichardK no I didn't do lock-to-lock after reconnecting the battery. I didn't even know that was A Thing! I'll give it a go today, thanks. 

[RichardK]

It isn't always a thing, but it's quite common for EPAS/traction control systems that have a steering angle sensor involved!

[Cluffy]

3 hours ago, RichardK said:

It isn't always a thing, but it's quite common for EPAS/traction control systems that have a steering angle sensor involved!

Yep, my Golf has that. Scared me to Bejesus when it first happened but a few metres driven solved it!

[grogee]

Toyota news. I've been awarded a day's tinkering for good behaviour. So I started the Great Wire Marathon:

Glass mount DAB antenna on tailgate glass. Wire to run above headlining and down LH A pillar. 

Amp wiring to boot area. Power from battery through bulkhead through left hand sill to boot. Earth in boot area to quick-connect thing. 

You're supposed to route power down one side of the car and signal on opposite side; I couldn't be arsed. It'll probably only end up being a subwoofer anyway. 

Quite a bit of faffing but I sort of enjoy the self-flagellation. 

I've now got a little bellend on my tailgate glass which is the aerial, it seems to work OK. 

Last week I un-soldered the socket that was supplied with the antenna and wired in a co-ax to SMB wire to suit DAB units. 

Next on the menu is to fit a (used) turbo. A closer inspection of the £250 recon turbos revealed there's a £150 surcharge on top, returnable when they get your old turbo. Yeah, naah. 

My thinking is that I can inspect (and if necessary fettle) the s/h turbo on my bench before fitting it to make sure the VGT vanes are good. Then, once the old one is out, I can do the same and flog it back on ebay as a working unit or keep as a spare. 

More excitement this coming week as I change the cylinder head on the Maestro.