New set of over mats and fitted the new leaper on the pointy end.

 

I had almost got used to the passenger seat belt buckle rattling when not in use. But today I caved and decided to take it apart and fix it.
The buckle would rattle ever so slightly while driving over bumps or uneven road surfaces.

There's no real skill to this one, it's a case of sliding down the rubber cover and carefully un-clipping the plastic buckle covers from the sides.
Using a pair of thin pliers compress the spring and remove it, then I stretched the spring a little making sure to keep it 'tubular' and straight.
Then I reinstalled the spring and covers.

My wife tells me I'm crazy to be wasting my time on something so insignificant, but I now have the joy and satisfaction of a more silent ride.
Venus and Mars?

 

I took it in to the repair shop,to find out where the,"KNOCK",is coming from

 

Did 180 miles over 2 days and nothing broke, leaked or fell off.
Cool!

 

repair shop says the knock is coming from the rod bearings and that I should rebuild the engine...$$$$$$,I might give it a go myself on the bearing replacement,i just need to find out the parts numbers and bolt torque values

 

Turned the rear brake rotors to stop brake pulsation 196Kmiles 1997 XJ6L
Replace upper control arm bushings and re-aligned. Camber problem. Ordering adjustable upper ball joints next. 1996 xj6 VDP

 

Well got it back from the shop trying to fix my screw up but could not so I am on my own. Well, I got the idiot light to come on and it turned out to be the EGR valve. So I ordered a new one and figured that it was going to be a 5 min job.....Needless to say, it was not. I pulled the first, bottom, bolt off with ease. SO I went for the second one which actually goes into the manifold. One turn, two turns and Damn the bolt broke. So off to the easy out. One turn, two turns, and damn broke off the easy out. Now I am screwed so I took it to the shop. They looked at it and said you can
1. Install a new manifold. Yea right....not going to pay for that. $560
2. The can take a diamond bit and try to get through it. Heck I can do that $500 minimum of 5 hours
3. Take off the manifold, take it to a machine shop and let them figure it out. Nope not worth it $600 on the low in.

So option 4 is to do nothing which will work for a while. However, I will eventually need to take a Dremel to it and try to get it out. Just not looking forward to pulling the fuel rail and everything else that might be in the way.

 

Why not take the manifold out and drill them out? Its not rocket science, fairly easy process, just take your time and get a set of drills and a tap and they will be out quickly.
If you're impatient, try carbide drills, they will go through old bolt like a knife through butter

 

I was thinking the same thing but to get the manifold out there has to be a lot come off to get to it. Just trying to find something quick and easy which does not seem like that will be the case going forward.

 

what did I do today?
about 80 miles, 100mph once or twice, then washed the beast ready for work tomorrow

 

So I went to a Dremel and a carbide bit. I have made a dent but still, have a lot to do since I broke off the extractor in there. Just going to take a lot of time but I will eventually make it trough.....I think

 

I feel your pain there. Drill bits and easy-outs are very hard steel. I snapped a pinch bolt on a BMW changing the shocks a few years ago, tried to use an easy-out tool, bt broke, tried to drill the whole lot out and drill bit broke in there as well. Took hub off and to a machine shop and they drilled it out for me. Not so easy with a manifold of course.

One thing I would say is that the easy-out tool I used was a cheap Chinese copy. Since then I've had another break and binned them and bought the branded easy-outs and had no issues with them breaking.

 

Changed cigarette lighter bulb.........

 

Changed the front bearing on the left side. The rear one was rust covered as the grease seal seems to have leaked a bit. No issues with new seal or bearing. Also changed from the oe green bilstein (b4?) to the yellow b6 in the front. The rebound float seems to gone with the green ones. So my hunch that with the HR lowering springs the b4s are bit too weak on the rebound seems to be true.

And

Failed MOT on too high idle that the bloody thing manifested when I turned into the lot... plus the steering axle entry side of the rack generated a leak on the way there. Well that is what one gets not driving the bloody thing in two years...

 

Replaced front control arm bushings, upper and lower and shock bushings. Replaced subframe vee mounts up front repacked wheel bearings and replaced grease seals on front hubs. Now just need to put my new rack and pinion on, rotate the tires and align it and she's back on the road.

 

Polished the car...

 

well yesterday

change the steering rack with my father to reman part that I happened to get with quite ok price. Replacement part came with new rod ends so pretty straighforwarded job with shade of tree alignment (board with two nails used) to get the alignment "thereabouts" correct. Need to get real alignment done in the shop after...

we get the bloody throttle body clean up debacle finished. That is PITA as it has been stated over and over on this forum. We ran into wall with the old tb hose not wanting to play ball at all when trying to fit it on the intake elbow. 20 odd years have cooked it well non elastic so no change of getting it done. Either I try to source new part somewhere or go with boy racer silicone hose (red is the fastest colour right )

 

96 vpd 212k
new:
tie rod ends
upper control arm bushings,
two of the four ball joints
wheel bearings
Lower shock mount bushings
Master cylinder.
$700 out the door... could have been a lot worse.
Still need rack and pinion bushings.

97 xj6L 198k Was having idle problems at stop lights causing low voltage resulting in lots of electrical anomalies...
Tightened up the throttle stop with a small allen wrench so it idles consistently between 700 and 900 instead of falling below 600 sometimes.

 

4 new shoes and a wash

 

Got the supercharger out and intake partially out. Started doing the octopus hose.