2009 CashCow - soon be service time

28,686 · March 15, 2025

I sold a couple of vacuums the other week on ebay,and with a part of the profit bought 2 replacement air filters.

I started with the more tricky one

Now I know to unplug the little wiring connector it wasn't too awful and it soon slid in

Judging by what could only be blood stains that I found deep up on the firewall comfort blankie maybe it's been changed before?

That done,I moved to the easier one

Wasn't awful, but it's changed now

I had a glance at the thermostat too to check it wasn't wet and all seems good. The coolant has stayed bob on level too after several trips so this might be the easiest engine I've ever bled 👌

We'd come back from shopping where I'd spotted a lovely Megane parked next to me at Aldi. 2 bland boring an cars. Doing car things

4,199 · March 16, 2025

That air filter looks too small for the air box. Having changed mine when I had one I feel like you’ve got the wrong one?

28,686 · March 16, 2025

1 hour ago, Pat Earrings said:

That air filter looks too small for the air box. Having changed mine when I had one I feel like you’ve got the wrong one?

Nope,same size as the previous one. It has to sit in a plastic carrier,which then squishes the seal against the air box, then the top lid also has bits under it to push the top in.

Luckily all the bits are there,I bet many people have thrown the plastic cage away then spent ages wondering why it was loose

28,686 · March 26, 2025

So far, it's been a good an car! Was a delight to drive to my grans and back last weekend, especially compared to the last trip I did in the Xsara with the wheel vibrating like fuck!

There is a small knock from the rear. There's some tiny drop-linky things back there which I will check out when checking out the state of everything else. That back passenger caliper has cleaned up nicely too. Probably does want the piston excersising and the sliders cleaned though.

But that sounds far too dirty for now, now it's payday! It's also a month where my company gave those of us not on a sales related comission a "Sorry we're not doing well enough to pay a proper bonus (for the 4th year running, I've stopped caring about it now), here's a £500 payment in April's wages" payment! Very kind of them, that probably still went out to several thousand people so still a decent gesture.

I went shopping with what was left after tax! First to Tayna batteries. Where I bought a new battery with 5 year warrantee and 5l of the exact spec oil my k9k supposedly loves for the cheapest I've seen oil at recently, even cheaper than the ebay stuff

The battery in it has been ok since giving it a good charge but i've still run it dead a few times, and a couple of bad cold starts will probably kill it again. Plus I want to see if decent known good voltage might help the cold start issues. And I've gone many years with the Xsara on an old Bosch battery so figured I'd go there again.

I then went a bit silly on Ali Express

If any of it actually shows up it could be cool. The inner door handles have their coating peeling off and the drivers side washer jet doesn't spray, it just pours gallons of screenwash out, emptying the tank fast...

What I hope does show up is this which had best be fucking wireless android auto as the description says

£240 inc tax which is alot, and I expect it'll have fake specs somewhere (if it does I'll raise a claim) but if it's as ok as the youtube videos of this chipped device that ive seen it'll be cool! I nearly spent a bit more on a Dudu 7 which does look really good but the custom OS would be wasted on me, I just want google maps and youtube music. I also went for the rear camera and front camera because it sounded too good to be true 😂

The new battery may also have been decided by me wanting to bolt a massive tablet into my car. It might be needed. I'd best pick up an oil filter too

28,686 · March 26, 2025

It's also happily doing 52.8mpg despite me giving it a full mix of driving styles and speeds 👍

28,686 · March 28, 2025

The expensive shiny is arriving!

Annoyingly the oil isn't c3 spec, although the right 5w30. Next to it is a bottle of c3 mannol I bought when I bought the oil for the xsara last autumn ready for my mates mondeo. We haven't given it a service yet so I think I'll nick that bottle and he can have the other stuff 👍

Anyone know if I need to activate a tayna warranty? Or just keep the invoice safe?

5,470 · March 28, 2025

1 hour ago, beko1987 said:

The expensive shiny is arriving!

Annoyingly the oil isn't c3 spec, although the right 5w30. Next to it is a bottle of c3 mannol I bought when I bought the oil for the xsara last autumn ready for my mates mondeo. We haven't given it a service yet so I think I'll nick that bottle and he can have the other stuff 👍

Anyone know if I need to activate a tayna warranty? Or just keep the invoice safe?

I believe you just keep the invoice.

28,686 · March 29, 2025

MOSTLY negatives last night and so far this morning. Thought Id grab an hour before getting dinner ready last night. Do a few jobs.

Firstly, and supposedly the easier was to re-adjust the wiper arms.

They've been working OK, but due to this bracket not being aligned correctly it did a little nudge down then sweep up first

I tweaked that, noting some muddy brown water coming out of the motor (PREMENITION 😡) but got it aligned, and refitted and it worked perfectly!

I should have left it there, it's already too late for this next bit on a fucking 2 month old motor... I took it all out again and taped a butter tub lid over the top, to try and keep some of the rain out where it has a drain hole for the scuttle right over it. Fucking gr9 Nissan...

Its at this point the wiper just stopped working fully! It was getting dark so I chucked everything on the back seat and closed the bonnet on it all and moped about last night.

Bright and early this morning I went back out. I took the entire mechanism off the motor incase I'd cocked up some alignment but nope, dead motor.

So I bought it in the house. Cracking off the top cover reveals it to be nice and dry, but the grease is sticky as fuck in there.

But this bit was still very wet

I removed the motor cover and found why....

Whatever grease was in there has got wet, and run all over the carbons, which are worn right down now. Bollocks.

I went into the shed and got my box of Hoover spares out and found my tubs of random carbon brushes. A couple look like they will fit, but I don't have confidence I'd get them in the holders and everything aligned correctly...

Inside the motor shell was wet and shitty too

I've cleaned everything up and got the brushes moving again

But my confidence level is 3/10. I think it will work now, I'm going to re assemble it with fresh grease and try it, but also I'm going to have to order another cheap one (£350 from Nissan for the entire assembly) but this time modify the motor before I fit it. This one might get me through the weekend, or my mums got to come here tomorrow for her mother's day stuff 😬 (or it's dry and I risk it)

24,050 · March 29, 2025

15 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

MOSTLY negatives last night and so far this morning. Thought Id grab an hour before getting dinner ready last night. Do a few jobs.

Firstly, and supposedly the easier was to re-adjust the wiper arms.

They've been working OK, but due to this bracket not being aligned correctly it did a little nudge down then sweep up first

I tweaked that, noting some muddy brown water coming out of the motor (PREMENITION 😡) but got it aligned, and refitted and it worked perfectly!

I should have left it there, it's already too late for this next bit on a fucking 2 month old motor... I took it all out again and taped a bitter tub lid over the top, to try and keep some of the rain out where it has a drain hole for rhe scuttle right over it. Fucking gr9 Nissan...

Its at this point the wiper just stopped working fully! It was getting dark so I chucked everything on the back seat and closed the bonnet on it all and moped about last night.

Bright and early this morning I went back out. I took the entire mechanism off the motor incase I'd cocked up some alignment but nope, dead motor.

So I bought it in the house. Cracking off the top cover reveals it to be nice and dry, but the grease is sticky as fuck in there.

But this bit was still very wet

I removed the motor cover and found why....

Whatever grease was in there has got wet, and run all over the carbons, which are worn right down now. Bollocks.

I went into the shed and got my box of Hoover spares out and found my tubs of random carbon brushes. A couple look like they will fit, but I don't have confidence I'd get them in the holders and everything aligned correctly...

Inside the motor shell was wet and shitty too

I've cleaned everything up and got the brushes moving again

But my confidence level is 3/10. I think it will work now, I'm going to re assemble it with fresh grease and try it, but also I'm going to have to order another cheap one (£350 from Nissan for the entire assembly) but this time modify the motor before I fit it. This one might get me through the weekend, or my mums got to come here tomorrow for her mother's day stuff 😬 (or it's dry and I risk it)

I'm assuming there's nothing interchangeable from the genuine Neesarn rear wiper motor I sent?

28,686 · March 29, 2025

23 minutes ago, Dick Cheeseburger said:

I'm assuming there's nothing interchangeable from the genuine Neesarn rear wiper motor I sent?

I held that in my hands earlier but the motor is smaller and I think too different even if the parts worked in the same way 😢

With pretty much no other choice I re-packed the cog box with nice grease, then got my tube of rinzoseal from the cambelt change. The top has gone all hard despite the cap being screwed on so I stabbed a new hole at the top and encased the original shitty seal in it

Plugged the motor back into the car and it runs 🎉 Smashed the linkage and stuff together and back onto the car (aligning it first try now I've done it 17 times 🙄) and I have wipers again!

I'm going to buy another cheap motor, but then have it apart and hacked before fitting it to the car. The annoying part is it's going to be hard to fine "an decent pattern part" from the utter sea of shite. I may as well try again but modify it first.

Doesn't help that the wipers are huge and drag like fuck once the screen is dry on wipe 2 of 4 then a pause then a wipe 5... Wonder if binning the aero blades on it and fitting old style blade might help 🤔

In other news, the battery is in! I've gone wrong there too and ordered a mildly smaller in figures battery than what was on there. However it spins the engine over multiple times faster than the old battery, and will probably be good enough.

Its still got a cold start issue... It spins itself over faster now so gets through it very quickly but still clomps into life and fires a load of fuel smelling crap out of the exhaust briefly before never doing it again and being fine all day. Fuel filter and primer bulb is next on my list for that , I've done the other 2 things it could be! Much safer to tip toe around the issue now the battery won't die just before it catches now though .

28,686 · March 29, 2025

The postman bought the oil filter this morning, so with the sun still out it seemed rude not to

Oh look, there's the glow plug I dropped 😂

Oh look, there's some cv joint grease that's leaked out from my not good enough cable tie cable-tieing 😡

But I located the gearbag fill plug and removed it

Then the drain plug. The fluid was brown but not awful, no idea if it's original or not 🤷

I found the tube I was going to use to fill fitted the bottle's tube, but it took fucking ages to squeeze it in

So I got my hand pump out that I bought to fill my xm's gearbox many many years ago and it soon got full!

Onto the engine now and the oil filter needed my chain strap

Old oil wasnt full of sand or anything, I'd imagine of all the car this was changed the most recently*

Gave everything a wipe down, fitted the new filter, filled it up with oil, drove backwards and forwards a bit and put the undertray back on, using the last of the random fixings I have that fit the holes 😬

Going to reset the oil indicator next

27,918 · March 30, 2025

@beko1987, have a look at Nis-spec 1st, in Facebook. They are a breaker. I have used the before.

28,686 · March 30, 2025

Will bear them in mind, thanks! The problem I have with getting a used wiper motor or similar is if it's a genuine original part it will be better quality, but is it only 49 miles from death itself like my original one was (fucking wish I'd kept that now for spares 😂)

I had a look at the drivers window today. It's always been very slow to return, and I accidentally put it down too far earlier in tesco car park...

I think it's got some sort of failsafe pause on it as once we got home and I tried again it did come up slowly, very slowly and I had to help it.

Reading forums it's 50/50 if the mech is fucked or it's the glass binding on the rubbers.

With the door card off and weatherstrip removed I can see the top of the winders, so emptied much plus gas into them as I wound the window up and down. Lots dribbled down the cables too 🤞

It was a bit faster , but I noticed there was a load of shite inside the seals themselves, so spent half an hour giving everything a good scrub out

Can't really see fuck all, that big plate has to come off and it brings the entire mechanism with it and I couldn't be arsed with that today so wiped it all down. I'll have to come back here one day to fit the new door handles I bought.

I then got distracted and did things like clean all the switches (I'd got them covered in plus gas and realised they unclipped once out) and polished and rainx'd all the side glass (I'd got my window filthy by spraying plus gas on all the rubbers).

Overall it's better. I took the battery off again and did the window reset thing which it failed to rise for so who knows if it's actually learnt itself.

Also realised i didn't put my oil cap on properly... Did 70 miles today 😂 Very little escaped and I cleaned up what I could, the rest is sat deep on the top of the head which I'll need to get out one day. That could have been alot worse 😬

8,059 · March 30, 2025

Obviously you know what you're doing and will end up with a decent motor.But suppose a small trader had got his hands on it,given it a quick wash and brush up,stuck it up for sale with a bit of mark up............!

28,686 · March 31, 2025

13 hours ago, Dobloseven said:

Obviously you know what you're doing and will end up with a decent motor.But suppose a small trader had got his hands on it,given it a quick wash and brush up,stuck it up for sale with a bit of mark up............!

Hopefully it'll end up very nice! It's getting there now. Does make me wonder if someone with 0 mechanical knowledge would have had it last the summer as it was 😬

I think it's had the wash and brush up sale before, it's wearing Reading Part Exchange centre branded numberplates, I bet that's when all the service history it may have once had got shredded!

Now all it's service history is on this thread 😂 Didn't get invoices for half the stuff and cba printing ebay listing screenshots out.

Next plans are to buy the proper pair of pliers to put a proper cv boot clip on, then get looking at/cleaning up the rear. Might brave putting it on my ramps one day but I think the tyres will be too wide for me to feel comfortable doing it

66,780 · March 31, 2025

Even with the proper pliers those CV boot clips are still a fiddly twat. I'd recommend Jubilee clips every time as long as there's enough clearance.

28,686 · March 31, 2025

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

Even with the proper pliers those CV boot clips are still a fiddly twat. I'd recommend Jubilee clips every time as long as there's enough clearance.

There's tons of room, I was worried about introducing extra vibration though with the screw clamp, but it would be my preferred way to go, no extra tools then

66,780 · March 31, 2025

I've never had any issues with that. It's a relatively small weight imbalance and pretty close to the centre of rotation so there's probably not enough centrifugal force to cause any noticeable vibrations.

28,686 · March 31, 2025

Thanks, I bought 2!

I don't think I'm going to fret over the grease that escaped... I don't have any more to put more in, hopefully it's achieved equilibrium and is fine... It doesn't look like it's all leaked out from what I can see

28,686 · April 1, 2025

The repair lasted one flick of the wipers this morning then 3/4 of one screenwash application on the way home 😂

28,686 · April 2, 2025

One replacement identical wiper motor has arrived. Cost £5 more. Same part

I opened it up, and am relived to see a decent bit of meat on the brushes as new

The 2 bolts were barely finger tight. I can see why, any more and the rubber seal slips out as it tightens 🙄

I did a nice smear of sealant either side and tweaked it down until it was just so, then smeared the excess around the edge for another hopeful barrier

I'll try and fashion some sort of deflector for the scuttle drain later as well.

28,686 · April 2, 2025

After dinner I stripped the mechanism again and found the bloody main nut had come off again 😂😂😭

I don't fully care that it was the cause, the motor won't last long anyway, but probably might still work...

Fitted all that back, confirmed it's operation, fitted the linkage making sure the spindle nut was very tight, aligned it all and came in to make the kids tea. And modify the scuttle panel

A nerf gun bullet glued onto the scuttle drain hole to divert the water past the mechanism. I cut the bullet tip off after this!

I then offered up and cut up a butter pot

Wrapped some tin foil loosely around it all to try and deflect some of the water, sprayed the butter pot black so it wasn't quite so noticeable and cable tied it all onto the motor. It all works with the blades on, I feel the wipers are slower than the oem motor though (it was on the other one), but if this lasts at least 1 month I'll be happy! If it keeps lasting I might look into a used genuine motor and see if I can refurbish it maybe? I'd want one from as low of a milage car as I can find though 😂

28,686 · April 3, 2025

Some fun things arrived this afternoon!

A seat side filler thing.

New washer jets (I unclogged the current ones the other day 🙄)

And 2 power sockets

The front power socket was easy. I just cut apart it's og connector and plugged the spades in

Found a cable and plugged it in and it says fast charging 👌🤷

The seat side thing is for the passenger side, that's my bad. But even so I still don't think it would be any good, it relies on being wedged into the side, and my fat arse would just push it up and down. Fail there

But now I can have it be as bulky as my previously fine charger

Or less so and no cable draped everywhere

Front done, I pulled some bits of trim off, and found what I think is the loom for front heated seats

Then pulling the trim off the back of the centre console, one wire is for the aux, another one I don't know!

I'd like to pull 12v for the rear sockets from one maybe, but Im questioning if they'll be beefy enough even for just phones.

Someone on fb said under the back seats which I've never lifted before. Found nothing but dirt, and I'm not about to tap into rhe fuel pump or owt.

I bought the back trim in and hacked a hole in it to fit the socket. I'm now stopped as I don't think I've got enough appropriate wire

I've got a piggyback fuse, so was going to come off of the front socket fuse and run a wire , but the random car wire I have doesn't look man enough for that, any suggestions on what gague wire I should buy to run a proper feed? Plenty of close by grounds around the handbrake mech I can use.

Sure I've got the mechanical pdf on my work laptop, will see if I can find what the looms do

28,686 · April 3, 2025

This is the only other 12v wire I've got, I use it for led's coming out of 12v2a supplies

But it looks thinner than the other stuff I'd have ripped out of the Puma years ago. Although the ebay listing for this 12v wire has even the thinnest version listed rated for 12v 11a which these usb ports won't get near... Tempted to try it

28,686 · April 3, 2025

No, what I did instead was walk into town and go to the handy little hardware/car shop, and paid a reasonable £7 for this

In hindsight I should have got the rating lower for rhe same price, this is thicker than the car wiring supplying the front 12v socket but meh. Said wire also cost as much as both USB things combined posted from China within 4 working days...

The interior is mega easy to pull apart with my bare hands 👌

Was a perfect length on the spool to go from the fuse box at the bottom right to under the centre console.

I punched the aux jack out as the back of the console as its in the way, and did a test fit! This worked well so I plugged the aux back in and buried the jack down the bottom so I still have aux until my android auto unit arrives

Piggybacked it off the front 12v socket fuse

And it works!

The ground is something I want to change, it's currently using the big screw and it's bracket that holds the centre console on in either bottom corner, but another day when I've got the toolbox with the extensions out I want to unbolt a handbrake bracket bolt and use that

Or I never will 🤷 Will be rarely used but the kids will like it when it is there!

24,050 · April 3, 2025

Neat work! Do you have a link for the 12v sockets?

I've added a little bit more cabin storage on mine with cubby parts from the facelift J10.

28,686 · April 3, 2025

1 hour ago, Dick Cheeseburger said:

Neat work! Do you have a link for the 12v sockets?

I've added a little bit more cabin storage on mine with cubby parts from the facelift J10.

I've been looking at those cubby storage bits. I want to get the one to replace my door lock big blank plate. If I loose the high level vent switch I could have the nicer ciggy lighter panel too!

The USB sockets came from Ali express, as the postage was free when I ordered with the head unit but identical stuff is on ebay

The back didn't need a voltage readout so I only got one of those (the front doesn't either but I thought it could be handy!)

The tracking says my head unit should be delivered tomorrow lunchtime too 🤞 I'm bricking it that it's not going to be plug and play...

4,635 · April 4, 2025

14 hours ago, beko1987 said:

The tracking says my head unit should be delivered tomorrow lunchtime too 🤞 I'm bricking it that it's not going to be plug and play...

There's three wiring setups in these J10 Qashqais for the radio, as yours has the basic FM/CD radio without a BOSE amplifier, I suspect that the radio will plug in and play just fine. Don't expect great sound quality, a responsive touchscreen and there is almost always some unusual quirks with Chinese units but in terms of functions, it will be be better than what's in there. Just don't throw out the center console panel or original radio in case this set doesn't have the longevity that one would usually hope for.

You would only really have a wiring issue if your car had BOSE or the navigation system with the screen on top of the dash, the basic sets or navigation units with a built in screen all work roughly the same.

28,686 · April 4, 2025

It's arrived! First off I'll make some bits clear, I am aware that these android devices usually have fake specs. I've not probed mine too deeply yet, nor have I confirmed it's screen resolution.

However, I do love a nice gadget, especially an android one, and it's here!