Astra H 1.7 CDTi Estate. No longer for sale.

[tooSavvy]

Astrrrraaaaaaa Est!! 

AVAS.... WCPGW.

Hoping to get some miles under her belt, after cam belt/aux next week 🔧⚙️🚀

🚙💨

[Bmwdumptruck]

Still no progress on the old estate. Still waiting that rarest comodity…spare time. Been enjoying my bike too much again in this good weather.  Today we’ve given the moho and good clean, especially the roof as thats been missed the last couple of quicky cleans.  Amazing how the algea/lichen grows, bloody hard to get off the roughened grip area where your allowed  to walk on the roof.  But she’s now clean , parked round my sisters house on her spare parking space and for the first time ever we opened the full cover that came with her and have covered her up, probably for the winter, not likely to get out in her again this year. I even removed both batteries to keep them at home on trickle chargers. 
After sorting the moho we popped to the storage facility where we bought a smallish 2 birth caravan last year and as yet haven’t touched it since. Been costing £50pm for the storage, so now this ones home parked out front ready for a good clean and service. Hopefully we’ll get it out half term week. It’s intended on being a family van, one my daughter, sister and niece can use too.  We always shared a caravan when the kids were smaller, often pitching it somewhere for a few weeks for others to use too. Would be easier if my sis would tow it, but hey ho…… 

We might be getting another Astra…… not sure why, but its an 05 late AstraG, think its a runout model, pretty basic but with alloys etc.  Only a 1.4 but one owner and only 50k on it.  Hoping to take a look and do a deal in the week.  Really need the estate sorted if only to shift it on as we really don’t need two of them.  We are debating letting our lad use it, but having had a 6mth ban and still showing 12points,all for no insurance (idiot missed payments and didn’t think they’d cancel the policy🤬) the quotes we’re getting are bonkers…. £5k bonkers.  So that won’t be happening. Some of the points go next spring so we’d try again then.  We’d only do it so he can get over from where he’s now living in Wales to see his son in Bedford.  Well be looking into Imobilisers that we can control so he can only use it for his weekends up to us, or to go to work………but thats an alien idea to him, hence it would be a carrot on a stick to him. Get a job, work at it and he gets the car, if not it gets imobilised.  If he works he can also start paying for it. 
 

[Bmwdumptruck]

Arggggghhhhhh….. bloody electrics.  Spent a couple of hours this afternoon trying to trace the lack of rear brake and side lights.  So these things have a second fuse box in the boot.  Powers getting to that and it sends power to the high level brake light.  But theres no power to either rear lamp. Same with number plate lights, which are working, but nothing to the side lamps.  Searching the owners forums and facebook groups no one seems to have had the same issue, loads have similar issues, and as usual none of the threads come up with an answer so there’s no knowing what others had to do to solve their issues.  
It does look like the fuse box can be the cause of a lot of these issues, so it looks like I’ll be hunting out a replacement, but how you make sure you get one that works for all functions and not another with a dead circuit or two.  
Any one here had any similar issues with an H? 

[tooSavvy]

AVAS (... so I thought) would throw a Flag for 'bulb blown' ??

I had a tail [21W] out and not a bleep or blink.. I only picked up on it as I reversed out, at a pub, and saw my arse in a plate window 😯.

I swapped both [two in a box from Halfrauds] but decided to lash up my reverse bleepers as the lamp unit was out/in bits, a good opportunity 🔧👍.

🚙💨

[Popsicle]

I had similar problems with a Zafira (same set up as Astras I think). Were the box is in the side panel of the boot some of the big electrical plugs had got water on them and gone a bit green/rusty. Electrical contact cleaner and a light sanding cleaned them up. It is an area prone to water ingress.

Also under the main engine bay fuse box is another fuse box, these are also prone for getting water in them and causing lots of weird faults. Easy enough to check by removing the top fuse box, dry out and clean the lower fuse box. Run a bead of sealant round the edge of the lower fuse box before fitting the top one back on.

[Bmwdumptruck]

1 hour ago, Popsicle said:

I had similar problems with a Zafira (same set up as Astras I think). Were the box is in the side panel of the boot some of the big electrical plugs had got water on them and gone a bit green/rusty. Electrical contact cleaner and a light sanding cleaned them up. It is an area prone to water ingress.

Also under the main engine bay fuse box is another fuse box, these are also prone for getting water in them and causing lots of weird faults. Easy enough to check by removing the top fuse box, dry out and clean the lower fuse box. Run a bead of sealant round the edge of the lower fuse box before fitting the top one back on.

I do also have a leak in the boot area that I’m also so far unable to find. Had another go at that today too but still cant see where its coming in. But it seems to be more on the offside away from the rear fuse box.  I had the rear one out, all the connectors look all shiny and clean as does the box itself.  Opened the back of it, no sign of moisture inside although I didn’t go as far as pulling the circuit boards out. More concerned I’d damage them.  
I read about the front one earlier and will check underneath, although the way the high level light works there’s obviously the signal getting to the rear one as thats from the switch on the pedal. 

[Paul-l]

Different car I know, but on my Leon the tail lights don’t work if it thinks the boot lid is open

[Bmwdumptruck]

So back to the caravan.  We’ve had a few Saturday’s cleaning and sorting the van, today we got the two awnings it came with out and set them up to see whats what.  First is a fairly new Airbeam porch awning. Never had one before so quite a learning curve.  Went up ok, previous owners left a few straps messed up, and it was a bit grubby in places but in general I’m quite impressed other than it’s a bulky old thing to fold up and get back into it’s bag.  I’ve a similar sized awning with 3 bendy tent style poles which is literally a third the size when packed away and with just a small bag for the poles.  This thing is much bigger in its bag and has the pump as well, and I reckon all up probably weighs double the older one, so not convinced it’s all it’s made out to be.  
Oh the worst bit though is the bag was really filthy having been left in a muddy puddle the day we collected it….and it’s got a good four or five holes/rips in it, badly bodged with duck tape, so at some point we’ll need to try and sew some decent patches on it. 

[Bmwdumptruck]

The second Awning is an Isabella, probably just about the best awning money can buy.  This one will have cost more than we paid for the van!!  However, the numpty previous owners have done their best to make a right mess of it, it’s filthy, including ingrained fat and oil stains one end where they seem to have set up a camp kitchen, which was also included in the purchase.  Yellowy fat stains and splashes all up the end panel, which has then been rolled up to ensure they’re spread over the entire area including the window panel and mesh fly screen too.  Wankers….  Ground sheet also got it’s fair share, although we actually have a better groud sheet/carpet which we’ll dig out instead, so this one will just go into store to sell on when we sell the van.  They’ve also broken one of the fibreglass poles, but fortunately its an inner telescopic one and I’ve just flipped it over so the damaged end is now up inside the outer tube.  One of the zippers is missing too so they cable tied the end of the zip to stop it openeing up. A new one is a tenner on ebay.
Oh and the buggers have nicked the curtains too.  They sold it because they’d decided to swap to a home built moho/camper, so I guess they kept the curtains for that allong with the front two drawer cabinet that was clearly in the sales pics but apparently got damaged somehow so he’d thrown it out, it got in the way anyway…..yeh right. Easy two drawer unit for their conversion is my guess. Fortunately I found a near identical one on ebay.  
Oh and the big one, they really are pissing me off now…. I pulled the loo cassette…. Yep you can guess……🤬🤬🤬.(if I knew where they lived they’d be waking to find the contents deposited back with them)🤬🤬🤬

[Bmwdumptruck]

So after palying with the caravan today I had an invite to join my local bike group for an evening ride. So we packed up early enough so I could get cleaned up, fed and out for a meet at 7pm in Olney.  The plan was to practice riding in the dark.  A route had been set and we headed up to and through Northampton and on over to Weedon Bec to the old Army barracks.  I only found out about the barracks last year, but there’s two really good motoring themed cafe/coffee shops. Tonights visit was to Gasoline Juice workshop and cafe. Really interesting place and very unusual to find it still open at gone 9pm on a sat night.  Well worth a visit if you’re in the area. 
The Jag is actually a Daimler DoubleSix coupe, didn’t know they actually made them.

[Bmwdumptruck]

So just to add more spice to my motoring life it looks like I’ve bought another motor.   After my experiences with my lads Fabia I’m left with quite a selection of spares.  So I did wonder whether to box them up and offer them on here to any 1.4 16v owners.  Or I could just buy a 1.4 16v car to potentially use them on……..so I have🤔🙄

Hopefully collect it next weekend.  Had to be red, and sorry I couldn’t find any laquer peel.  Low miles at 47k which seems to check out.  Needs a cv joint and theres no sign of it ever having the cam belts replaced so that’ll be done asap. 
 

So now I REALLY REALLY need to get the Astra sorted and sold. 

[Bmwdumptruck]

So the Astra…….

turns out the lights were just bulbs🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️. Who knew that they’d devise a system where theres just one 21w bulb each side that does both side and stoplight and I guess the rear fuse box brain alters the power to dim and brighten the bulb as necessary. Anyway it now works. 
 

And the leak…..well I think I’ve traced that to the seam under the roof rail down into the tailgate where the sealer has gone hard and brittle and broken away. A bit of silicone will hopefully solve that.  
I’ll be phoning my mot man in the morning and see if I can get a cancellation or an early /late booking later this week.  

[Bmwdumptruck]

And as of this morning we now have a years mot on the astra.  Couple of advisories, rear discs a bit rusty but mostly just lack of use, should clean up with use, and a rear axle beam bush just starting to get a bit of play in it.  So next is a good wash and get some nice pics and stick her up for sale properly. 
After replacing the maf sensor it was nice to see a really low emmisions reading too.  
And no sign of any water in the boot after Sundays sealing of the seam. 

[sierraman]

I’d check down the backs of the strut tops, they seem to rot out there. Can go surprisingly crispy underneath as well yet still look cosmetically good. 

[Captain Mainwaring]

Reading this thread has right cheered me up this aft for some reason. Nice one for keeping/saving it.

[Bmwdumptruck]

Managed to give her a wash yesterday afternoon, might even try and give a quick polish too.