Wow Ken, what a sad ending to a stunning series III XJ. I feel for you... in contrast the world will be no less a beautiful place without my Audi in it

However what a lovely replacement - is that an XJR from those wheels?

 

Lovely to hear from you Alec! - I was only thinking yesterday it had been a while since your last update on the 5 series. I hope your fleet of cars are serving you well!

I can't imagine the police would be interested in my adventure, it was only a light prang. I'll probably just chalk it up to a bad experience and move on. It turns out my usual mobile repair guy will only charge £300 to sort it all. My insurance excess is probably £250 anyway. Most likely I'll get it repaired and forget all about it.

The lakes would have been a lovely break, so I was sad to miss them, but Aston's operation just came at the wrong time. I also had a lot on so it may have been a bit stressful getting the Daimler ready too. There will be other trips I am sure, and another opportunity to meet up with everyone.

 

Thanks Chris...

Yes, a sad end but I was lucky enough to acquire one of her sister cars 6 years ago so there will be lots of salvage value, particularly for the unique bits and pieces from that year and for some of the bits and pieces on this one that were in better condition, and the rest will be parted out.



As for the replacement, yes, that's the '01 XJR noted in my signature. 94k km, 3 previous owners, complete history and dealer service records since first delivered, recent full dealer service including tensioners and chains etc. More to come on that front but I won't use your thread for that.

Glad to see the progress on the garage (probably lots of jealous souls on that front as well as the car front).

Really glad to see and read about Aston's good progress and looking forward to seeing his baby brother grow into the photo journal. Enjoy!

 

That's a lovely sight of those two Series III XJ's Ken, and those great big wide garage doors; a rare sight here in the UK, I wonder is that standard in Canada?

Best of luck with the XJR, I think the X308 is a wonderful car, and the V8 a very refined yet powerful engine.

 

Thanks Chris... the doors are "standard" for a new "single car garage" at 8' x 7' but they look bigger in the photo, probably because the Series 3's just aren't as big in either width or height compared to what's on the road now (they're even dwarfed by the new Mini's).


We built the house almost 20 years ago now and there is no lane therefor the front/integrated garage. Instead of putting in a single 16' wide door which is more typical nowadays, we opted for a bit more width and put a separate door on each side to break it up visually from the street.

As for the XJR, we are t minus 22 days until we fly from Edmonton to Victoria to drive her back. We've done that trip numerous times before but this will be the first time in a super-charged V8 hot rod and we're quite looking forward to enjoying the difference between it and the V12's.

 

The standard garage door width in the UK is just 1.8 meters (6 feet); barely wide enough to get a small car through. Some people are lucky and have a 2.0 meter (6 feet 7 inches), or in extremely rare cases a 2.2 meter (7 feet 8 inches) door. It is seen as the ultimate luxury to have a 2.4 meter (8 feet) like yours, and not many standard garages are that wide in the UK. So your garage doors might be standard by Canadian standards - but that's huge to us in the UK.

For this reason, hardly anyone actually puts their car into a garage in the UK, and it is more common for people to use their garages as "junk storage" instead.

I have never driven a V12, something I have always wanted to try; but I hope you enjoy the supercharged V8 as much as I do. The whine from the supercharger adds some exciting drama on the rare occasions you might decide to give it some welly - and Jaguar's V8 is so refined you don't hear it very much in normal use.

I hope you can find the time to post some photos and your thoughts when you get it; I love to drool over the photos of other peoples Jaguars!

 

A rubbish day

On Sunday I had a great day! - We cleared away loads of the rubbish from the work we have been doing in the house, and the unwanted junk we took out of the shed last year.



All went in the skip... and sadly plasterboard is not allowed in the skip, so we are merely left with the task of getting rid of that slowly. Would you believe I have to pay £3 to take it to the local tip, and I can only take one bag per week, so it will take me 2 or 3 months to get rid of it all. What a mad world this is!





Just my spare Daimler wheels, and the damaged Mercedes Alloy, which I am keeping to be turned into a cool man-cave coffee table at a later date.



Nice and clear!



A saggy Mercedes

So then my attention turned to the Mercedes, which has been sitting patiently in the corner of the garage.



I had intended to remove the undertrays, but I never got around to it. However leaving the Mercedes for over a week in the same place revealed something interesting. The suspension is no longer sagging evenly. It can be seen that it is lower on the left than the right.



What is more, the arches are no even...

Front right:



Front left:



Rear right:

#

Rear left:



I still think my plan to refurbish the hydraulic blocks first is a good idea, but I do wonder if I have a leaking strut, or a perished hose?... time will tell.

I also had a look underneath, and there are three places fluid is dripping down.



I did not bother to investigate what these puddles smelt of, and because of the drip trays I guess their positions do not really reveal much; other than that I have work ahead of me....

Sliding doors

I have had three quotes for my 5.3 meter wide electric garage door; which came out at £2,400, £2,600 and £3,400 - all for the exact same thing!



Sadly the lead times are between 5 weeks (this was Mr £2,400) and 3 months (this was from Mr £3,400) so whichever way I go I'll not be able to put anything valuable in the garage for a couple of months. It is a tough decision whether I want to pay £2,400 or £3,400 for the same thing.... hmmm....

The interesting part is that Mr £3,400 gave me brochures, so I know exactly which model of garage door he is fitting for me; and have even seen the install instructions. I can buy the door myself online for less than £2,000 and I estimate it would take me 3 or 4 hours to install it. So he is making at least £1,400 profit or £350 per hour! - probably more if he buys the door cheaper... wow!

Now I can see why these guys have big houses and flash cars. The chap around the corner from me had his own electric garage door company - and he lived like a rockstar. He actually has a very good reputation and quoted me the lowest price of £2,400, so I think that's who I'll be using.

I just hope he does not do anything "rock star" while he is on my property... I could do without hookers wandering around the garden and Cocaine lines on the Daimler bonnet.

The fit out starts

Slowly our house is becoming tidier, as some of what Lindsey affectionately calls "all your car crap" is being relocated into the garage and shed. At present the shed is stacked out, as I can't put valuable things into the garage until it can be locked.

But on Sunday I made some steps toward having decent storage in the garage. I purchased three kitchen wall cupboards from B&Q, assembled them, and fitted them side by side on the back wall. They are 700mm high x 1000mm wide - so I have 3 meters (nearly 10 feet in old money) of storage.

Just a shame I can't use it yet....









This impact driver was my Birthday present last week. My wife was going to buy me a £200 Makita, but checked with me first. I had a look and said lets go for this "King Showden" Chinese copy at around £80 on amazon. After all I will not be using it all that much. The batteries are a whopping 5Ah, and you get two of them including a charger, all packed into a plastic case. I'm very happy with it!



It has been absolutely perfect - and to me just as good as the Makita I borrowed from a friend before Christmas.

However there are some things in life you cannot scrimp on.... I always buy expensive driver tips. The cheap ones tend to wear too quickly.



That's all for this week...

 

One less mouth to feed

No, no, no I've not sold one of my children.... Well in a way I have; the BMW is finally gone!

It sold on Friday night , these are some of the last pictures I took before she was listed for sale. I am going to miss this car, but I won't miss the lease payments!



















Now I have more space in the garage for the Daimler and the CL500 to stretch out, so I have re-positioned them side by side.



Shock horror... is the Daimler having bladder problems too?

If you study the photo above, you will notice that there is a pool of something below the front of the Daimler. This was there when I moved the Daimler from it's other orientation near the doors.

It is completely dry, so it may have been from a previous position I had left the Mercedes (I cannot remember where they have all been now...) but I does give me reason to keep an eye on this one too!

Aston

Sadly I had little time to spend in the garage over the Bank Holiday weekend. Friday I had a lot of jobs around the house to do, and Saturday we have visitors. Then yesterday I had to take Aston to hospital as he was coughing up snot, and spiked a temperature of 40 degrees. My wife took over today so I could come to work, and Aston is seeming better now; thought still has a temperature. Hoping by the end of the week he'll be back home.



Back to the Mercedes

However I did have time to get a look under the Mercedes. The drips have not changed much other than the one at the center of the car. That looks much worse.

I looked underneath the car, and it appears it is dripping from the end of a bolt.



Does anyone know what this black thing is? - The gearbox?

 

Chris,

I can't help you with your mechanic's questions other than wishing you luck identifying and implementing a fix - hopefully it won't be much more than the Merc just thinking she's a Jag and needing to mark her new territory?

As for the BMW, they can be a joy to drive in the right circumstances but they don't have a soul anymore - that third picture could be a Honda Civic and the interior could just as easily be a Hyundai Genesis. I could never get comfortable in any of the ones I've ever driven going all the way back to the 2800's and the 2002's so I'm presuming a better fit for you if you're going to miss her as much as you say.

I hope Ashton gets home soon and bounces back quickly and stronger than ever! One thing about our kids is their ability to continually teach us what's really important in life regardless of what's going on in theirs. Enjoy.

Ken

 

Thanks Ken,

...and I agree with you on the BMW... I'll miss having a luxury car to waft around in, and I'll miss the way it spoilt me with massage seats, 360 parking camera, keyless access... etc... but I will not miss it the same way I missed my Jaguar Super V8 when I sold it years ago. I was not attached to it in the same way at all.

But then again I don't really think many new cars have that "special" feeling any more; particularly not Jaguar, which is a totally different company to that which it was 15 years ago. I am also very disappointed with Aston Martin, who seem to lack any imagination these days. There are not really many brand new cars that I really feel passionate about any more. When I chose the BMW I perhaps went for the lesser of many evils; as opposed to the car I loved the most.

Yes Aston is doing very well; he'll probably be home by Friday. He is a constant reminder of what is important in this life!

 

It has been a while since my last update, as I have been flat out busy. But there has been lots of things happening in the background.


The atmosphere is Electric!

So first of all, after a the recommendation by one of our favorite forum members, I managed to get an electrician to install power for my garage door, sockets, and lights.

All hooked up, it is working perfectly, and the lights are nice and bright too.


Sliding doors

After a long and painful wait, the garage door was fitted on Thursday (12th) last week.



It looks fantastic, and the operation is lovely and smooth. I am very, very pleased with it.

However... as is often the case these days, the supplier appears to have been somewhat of a cowboy.

It took me 10 minutes to notice huge gaps at both sides of the door, as the guides are held on four 12mm thick spacers each side.







It was pretty obvious this would let wind and rain in, so I thought it sensible to contact the installer!

I said to Lindsey I could not for a second believe anyone would deliberately leave gaps like this either side of a garage door install, and I therefore guessed this might have been left by accident. So I contacted the installer and asked.



In fairness to the installer, he is correct that the steel above the opening protruded by 6mm (but not 15mm as he suggests). However he came out and looked at it all before he quoted, so I really feel that was his responsibility to sort out any install materials needed to do a professional job.

Worse still I know I told him about that when I phoned him, and I can remember him saying it would not be a problem as he could fill it in with spacers; perhaps these are what he meant!

The funniest thing about all this, is that if he had told me on Thursday it needed timber spacers and would cost a little extra, I would have been perfectly happy. I know all too well how thick the average tradesman is, and I am used to having to pay for things they have missed.

I am not sure if I should post the rest of the messages that followed on Friday and Saturday, but suffice to say I was not happy with him spraying in some expanding foam, because that's not really a solution that can be left exposed.

His excuses included:

- My wife had signed off the installation.
- My first (above message) had said I was happy with the door.
- The door was not a weatherproof product.

He eventually caved in and agreed to add strips of timber to the sides of the opening, but by that time I had already started to think that was going to be a bit of a bodge. My thinking is that the guides are not supported evenly, and might start to disform. My preference would be to remove the four spacers, and swap out for one large 2 meter high spacer instead.

I also noticed that the roller box was also not sealed at the top, and that actually made sense as the center portion of the steel lintel sat 60mm away from the face of the garage opening, instead of 6mm proud of it. This mean that the back of the roller box is flapping about for the 5m run, and there is a clear air path into the garage. I really have no idea if this matters.

So I have messaged the manufacturer of the garage door, to ask their advice. What they say will allow me to make my decision on whether to let him fit his expanding foam and wood strips, make him do something else, or fix this myself.

In the mean time, he said Saturday night he was setting debt collectors on me on Monday 17th May 2022 (Yesterday). So I should get thrown in prison soon...


I've been naughty again...

I had a chat with Lindsey about her Lexus a few weeks ago, because its value has actually risen considerably since we bought it, and selling it might raise some useful funds for our commercial to residential property conversion we are doing in Kings Lynn.

She was open to a change, and we agreed to find something with a lower value so that we could put more cash into the property project. We started off with a £12-14K budget.

Lindsey originally wanted either an E class, or a CLS, as she thought they were the nicest looking cars. But the catch was that she ideally wanted a good spec; things like:

- Heated, electric, memory seats
- Reversing camera
- Front and rear parking sensors
- Keyless entry and start.
- Cream leather.
- Adaptive cruise control

Seemed pretty reasonable to me.

We tirelessly scoured the adverts for hundreds of E-class models around the 2011-2015 era. If one is lucky a car has one or two of the above. But most E-class models seem to be bum basic, so we ruled them out. Same with CLS models.... so we moved on to the S-class, and were looking at the W221 models. But sadly even those seem to be mostly basic spec.

So then I threw the net open to BMW, Audi and Jaguar models. We fared much better here.

BMW 5 series models occasionally have a good spec, but very hard to find. Ditto the 7 series. Jaguar XJs and XFs have a tremendous spec, but I am scared of buying the newer Jaguar Diesels as friends have had a lot of bad experiences with blocking DPFs.

So that left Audi.

There seemed to be plenty of high spec Audis, though Lindsey's wish list above was somewhat of a challenge. Then we spotted this Audi A7, which ticked off all of the above and more:





Some might spot I have blocked out the number plate, this is due to an inappropriate phone call I had from a Dealer when I was selling my BMW. He had clearly googled the plate and found my threads, and he used it to pressurise me and suggest I was "playing games", "needed the money", and should stop messing around and lower the price. It was a little unsettling, so I have decided to keep the "original" plates of our cars hidden from now on, so that when I take our private plates off to sell them they cannot be traced back to my threads.

The car has higher miles than I would have liked, at over 140K, but it has a full and comprehensive Audi main dealer history so that did not phase me. It just needs a severe detail, and stone chips touched in.

For now it sits in the garage awaiting it's time to shine. But now we have a Lexus to sell!

 

Chris, hopefully this doesn’t find you in debtor’s prison…

When it comes to the door installation, I agree that it should have a continuous buck or wooden space behind the track, not just for support but to eliminate the thermal break at the spacers.

For the header, I’m not sure the box it rolls into is strong enough to span the full width of the opening all on its own and I’m thinking the steel bean should also have been furred out for it to be fastened to. That of course may also increase the furring (spacer) needed for the vertical track.

In fairness to the installer, they don’t usually get involved in any framing other than possibly shimming as needed to make things horizontal or plumb. In fairness to you, however, he never should have proceeded with the installation unless those things were acceptably completed. Here, a trade is responsible for work that he accepts for his work.

For a car styled after a bar of soap, the Audi looks like a good buy.

 

Thanks Ken,

Yes I agree, the installer would not necessarily have known how to correct all the issues, but as you say, he certainly should not have blindly carried on when he found them. I have shown this all to the manufacturer, and they declined to comment, and refused my request for the installation instructions. I guess I will have to fix it myself, and just do what I think best using common sense. I could of course get the installer to sort it out, but I don't really want him anywhere my garage again.

The worst part is that box you pointed out, and I am not actually sure what I will be doing about that.

 

A Knight and his spurs

A bit of a mixed weekend here at the Clark's, I first decided to tidy up the few issues I had with out new garage door. Garage door installers no longer wire into electrical spurs, they just want to "plug in and go". So I have always known I would need to chop the plug off, and wire our garage door power into a new electrical spur.

Aston thinks it is amusing to switch off the socket that powers the garage door, so it has quickly become important to get this sorted!

Thankfully, when the electrician did my garage a few weeks back, I asked him to fit a 13A spur ready for me to wire it into. So I isolated the power to the garage, so that everything was completely dead, and opened up the spur.

Then I burst out laughing.... I'll show you why.

First I went to remove the screws, and one of them was loose, but oddly it just turned and turned, but could not be extracted. Then I removed the other, and thought wow these cables are short.

Then I saw inside...



I slowly pulled the cover and realised why one of the screws was loose... The threaded insert had been smashed off.

My guess is that the electrician had smashed the box apart by accident when knocking access for the cables. The cheap plastic boxes are notorious for that, and I was surprised he did not use metalclad versions... which are not much more expensive. When I was a controls engineer years ago we only ever used metalclad; I was taught that white plastic were just for unexposed use, inside houses.

So he had glued it back together using some white mastic...





Even Aston could not salvage the box.



Surely he realised I would find what he had done, when I wired the garage door in; unless he hoped I would blame the garage door guys?.... bizarre.

...anyway, life is too short to worry about such things, so I put in the metalclad one that should have been used all along - and I installed a brand new piece of cable, so there was now enough length to remove the cover properly.



I did not have any cable fixing brackets, so the cable is dangling at the moment, I need to buy and fit those ASAP.

Then I moved on to the draughty garage door side rails; some may remember the installers thought it was fine to leave huge gaps either side.



I purchased these 12mm thick plastic spacers online, custom cut for me at around £55 each. I think I paid around £130 posted.



Just in case anyone is wondering... this is the supplier (no affiliation with me, just thought it might be handy for some?)



Test fit, they look perfect.



Spencer helped me drill them out.



(Of course I never turned the drill on with Spencer close by!!)

All finished and worked a treat, sadly I forgot to take a photo... will add one later on.

 

The sickly Mercedes

Yesterday I got to spend a bit more time pulling the Mercedes apart, trying to find all the bits I want to replace/fix. I am pleased to say I have found them all now, and for the benefit of anyone curious, this is where they are:

Front valve block, and front accumulator (2203270115)

This is in the front of the left hand side front wheel arch, perhaps better described as in the front bumper/front wheel arch.



So you need to remove the undertray of the front bumper, and the front portion of the front wheel arch. Then this is what you will find.

(Note: Yes I am an idiot, and did not loosen the wheel bolts before I jacked the car up, so I am stuck with them in the way!)





Rear valve block, and return accumulator (2203200415)

This is the easiest to find, as it is in front of the left hand side rear wheel. You simply remove the rear most undertray in that area and you will see it easily.

What is odd is that despite being the rear valve block, it is accompanied by a small accumulator (the return) rather than the main rear accumulator.

This is what you will see.



Rear main (large) accumulator (2203270115)

This is relatively easy to spot once you know where it is. If you look on the right hand side of the car, at the rear, between the heat sheilds and the exhaust, you will find it hiding up out of the way.



This is what you will see.



Pulsation Dampner (220327215)

Again very easy to find when you know where to look. You need to take the front undertrays off, to reveal the underside of the engine. The pulsation dampner is located just behind the front right hand side wheel, behind it in fact.



This is it:



The plan...

Now that I know where everything is, and have seen how old and crusty everything is (I feel safe to assume all parts have never been replaced), I can resume my plan. I have bought all the accumulators, the pulsation dampner, the block rebuild kits, and some Pentosin to top up. These should all arrive over the next week.

and my plan is now:

- Refurbish the front and rear ABC valve blocks (I purchased two kits for £119.98 from X8R)
- Replace front and rear main accumulators (Part A2203270115 I purchased a pair brand new for £257.32).
- Replace the third accumulator (Part A2203270415 I have purchased new for £154.17).
- Replace the pulsation dampner (Part A2203270215 I purchased one brand new for £114).
- Tope up the fluid after the above, to test (I purchased 1ltr of Pentosin CHF 11S for £15)
- Inspect/clean OR replace the ride height sensors (Part 0105427717 at between £20-50 each - not purchased yet)
- Change the ABC fluid and filter (may get a Mercedes specialist to do this...)

This might be next weekends work, or I might leave it until the following weekend, as I have a week holiday after that so it might be easier. We shall see. I then look forward to putting everything back together, lowering the car back down, and topping the fluid up... then giving it a try!

Mercedes number plates

Since I bought my first W220, I have always hated those special Mercedes number plate surrounds. I know everyone else loves them; but I think they look cheap, and they make the number plate area look fussy and over the top. You can see the broken one at the front in this photo. Most I see have AMG writing all over them, but this one appears to be plane.



So I took pleasure in removing the smashed one on the Mercedes, as well as the hideous alumimium 3D number plate someone had fitted. I prefer a simple glossy finish plate; preferably fixed with no screws (velcro or sticky pads).







I look forward to replacing this with something that suits my tastes better!

 

That new Audi

With a million miles on the clock, I was pleased to see that the interior of the new Audi A7 is very good, pretty much unmarked everywhere except for the drivers seat. To my surprise all the buttons seem unworn, and the steering wheel too. A stark contrast to many of the other cars with far less miles, yet worn through buttons on the center console, worn steering wheels, and worn drivers door switch pack. Very strange indeed...

But that drivers seat does have a few issues, and I have no problem with doing a few leather repairs. This is what I was faced with:

Centre section of squab:



Squab sides are worn along the piping, and the beginnings of cracking/crazing.





Side bolster has signs of poor quality previous repair, and wear on piping.





Seat back is a little dirty, with signs of previous poor quality repairs:



I set to work first cleaning the entire seat, with first Mequiars super degreaser and a soft bristled brush. I then used Gliptone leather cleaner and some warm water. then I left to dry.

Sadly I did not taken any photos of this, but it looked so much worse afterwards...!

I have started to re-dye the areas, and I will post some finished photos when it is complete. It is already looking much improved.

 

Lindsey's new car is Evil

The new Audi A7 is very menacing sitting in the garage. I can see they took some inspiration from the R8 in the design, and it looks a bit like someone stretched the R8 out and added rear doors and a boot. That makes it slightly awkward looking from some angles, and I certainly don't think it has either the sleek lines of the Audi R8, or the purposeful look of the Audi A8. It sort of manages to achieve nether of these things, but still looks like a nice car. I suppose it is a design compromise between the two in some ways.

I think it looks like something slightly evil, perhaps a super villains car.

Anyway, it was also peppered with stone chips on the front, obviously from high speed getaways by previous super villain owners.

So I thoroughly cleaned the bonnet, wiped it over with alcohol wipes, and then applied some touch in paint. After drying, I went over some chips 3 times to make sure the paint was proud of the original paintwork.

Then last week I used 2500 grit wet and dry paper to work them down to the same level as the paint. Few of them were perfect, and some really could have done with more touch up paint, but it looked good enough to hide the chips at a glance.







I used my rotary polisher, and Meguiars Ultimate compound to polish these up. I did just a few to test it and they looked pretty good. Then last Tuesday when I was working on the Mercedes, Lindsey surprised me by giving it a go and did lots more of the work.

I finished the last few on Sunday, and it looks pretty good now. I just need to repeat it with the front bumper.







Some may also notice a puddle of water by the wall of the garage - it looks like it is from the garage door, but it is actually not (thought some water does come in under the door too). to my annoyance both side windows leak slightly. I can see what it is and I can fix it, but it is rather annoying to discover this, particularly as its been caused by the garage builder doing something silly. But I won't go into that now... other priorities.

I also cleaned up the Audi floor mats in the bath, and all the staining came out. Sadly I forgot to take any after photos.





At the age of 41, I am learning my ABC again

By this I mean Mercedes ABC - Active Body Control. Yes I attacked my saggy suspension issues last Tuesday. Aston could not really help with this; too dangerous, but he was in the general area under Mummy's supervision.



I had the whole day off work, and enlisted the help of Lindsey's brother, Adrian, too. He is probably four times stronger than me, and was a great help on all those tight ABC hose nuts.



By the time he arrived, I had already disconnected most of the hoses on the front ABC block. Sadly the last connection just would not budge.

Adrian used the full force of his muscles on the offending nut, but sadly he only succeeded in rounding it off. So I decided to see if there was somewhere else further down the hose that I could disconnect it, and Adrian moved on to the rear block.



After lots of struggling at the front, I finally found that the front block was not really serviceable at all, because one of the valves was rusted into place. This may also be why the last hose cannot be removed.



With a heavy heart I decided the best thing was to replace the entire hose, and buy a new "used" valve block. Both parts are ordered and on their way for a future installment.



So in the mean time, Adrian fully removed the rear block, and I took it apart, cleaned it thoroughly, and used the X8R kit to replace all the seals. It is a wonderful kit and has everything you need, even the plastic X spacers that inevitably break during removal.

I took no during photos, mainly because my hands were covered in oil... but also because I forgot....!



Adrian replaced the rear block for me, and also fitted the replacement small "return" accumulator at the same time, so at least that's two things done!

We did not bother to take a look at the rear accumulator (under the exhaust at the rear), as the parts had not arrived yet. But we did take a look at removing the pulsation dampner.



Adrian used the full might of his muscles once again, but this was jammed on incredibly tight. No amount of WD40 was going to release it. When I came to look myself, I found that once again Adrian's immense strength had completely worn the nut on the end of the pulsation dampner round!

By this time I was ready to throw the towel in for the day, I had been at it for 8 hours. So this will be a project for another day. I think I'll need to remove the whole pulsation dampner assembly from the car by releasing the lines instead. I can then hopefully put it in a vice (cushioned with bits of wood) and get it released. I will also have to order some of the "plusgas" that Alexander recommended, and which I forgot to order before this work.

In the mean time, my main accumulators have arrived, so as soon as my new front block and line has arrived, I can have another go. I think the pulsation dampner will be my only major issue now.

So this is how my ABC suspension "to do" list currently looks:

- Replace rusty front ABC valve block, and main front hose (Used parts on order which cost £71.66 hose, and £108.10 block)
- Refurbish the rear ABC valve block (DONE WITH KIT FROM X8R)
- Replace front and rear main accumulators (Part A2203270115 I purchased a pair brand new for £257.32).
- Replace the third (smaller) return accumulator (Part A2203270415 bought for £154.17 and fitted).
- Replace the pulsation dampner (Part A2203270215 I purchased one brand new for £114).
- Tope up the fluid after the above, to test (I purchased 1ltr of Pentosin CHF 11S for £15)
- Inspect/clean OR replace the ride height sensors (Part 0105427717 at between £20-50 each - not purchased yet)
- Change the ABC fluid and filter (may get a Mercedes specialist to do this...)

Shedding some light on the situation

What do they say about idle thumbs, and the devils work? Well I did one more thing....

I completely removed the front bumper, and also one headlight. I am aiming to thoroughly clean the headlights and polish them back to a showroom finish.



So with no front bumper, and a missing headlight, the poor Mercedes looks even more sorry for itself now...



That's all folks... hope to do more soon, in fact I am hoping to do some more work on the Daimler soon!

 

It has been ages since my last post, mainly as life got a bit busy a few weeks back. Work has been crazy, and I ended up being over in Holland for a week for work too. Then Aston got ill and ended up in Hospital for just under a week.... before we darted off on Holiday!


Land of the Dragon

We took a holiday in Wales for a week. My sister and her husband were visiting from Australia, so we all went together. I let my mother borrow my Audi A6, while we took Lindsey's new Audi A7.

Saw lots of Welsh castles.













But my poor Audi A6 took some battering...

First some woman shunted it in the back when it was parked up. I think she gave it too much revs when she was driving over the bumps in the field, and ended up ramming it!





I decided not to bother claiming on the insurance, or even hers, again. I just don't want the claims on my record after the price increase I got when a man went into the back of my Jaguar back in 2017. My own indiscretion in 2018 (I wrote off my Jag) comes off my record next year, and I am looking forward to having a clean record.

So I now have even more repairs to do on the rear bumper, I think the car is cursed!

Then... to make matters worse... my old mother scraped the front bumper on the wall, when going around the multi-story car pack in Cardiff.

I was feeling pretty sick of cars when I got home.


Being even more of a big girls blouse (than I normally am)


Yes I was in a pathetic stress after the Audi damage... combined with how much fuel is costing at the moment, and the stress of our project in town (converting an old shop into flats), I think I probably overreacted like a pansy.

So in perhaps an irrational panic, I made the decision that I am done with "nice" cars for a while. I think the Audi drives like a go-cart, and I decided I may as well have a real one. After all the Audi does 44mpg, and I can probably get more from a super-mini.

So in a bit of a rash decision I purchased this:



It's a Citroen C3 1.6e-HDi airdream.

It is supposed to be one of the most economical cars on the road, zero road tax, and it managed an indicated 76mpg when I took it home, despite most of it being heavy traffic, or 70+mph motorways. I would struggle to get 40mpg out of the Audi in those conditions. Time will tell exactly what the fuel consumption will be, or how long I can tolerate this car..!

But at the end of the day, my view is I can easily sell it on if I need to.

So my driveway is now back to "heaving" again... as I now have:

Audi A7
Audi A6
Citroen C3
Daimler Super V8
Mercedes CL500 (in bits)

I am fully aware I have a car problem!

But after endless busy weeks and weekends, this weekend will hopefully see me spend some time on the Daimler and the Mercedes.

 

First an update on the Citroen... as I know its what everyone wants!

Buying the Citroen

I saw the Citroen advertised for £1500 as one of those "taken as a trade in" adverts that dealers list. I noticed these typically cost £2,000 to £2500 for fair examples, with perfect examples commanding £3000+, so this did not seem too bad.



Bad bits going in:

• 138,000 miles is relatively high.
  • Needed a service (was overdue by 700 miles)
    • Cracked rear passenger light, and damage to bumper.
      • Dirty interior.
        • Horrid wheel trims..

The good bits:

• This is the highly economical "e airdream" version.
  • VTR+ spec with cruise control, air conditioning etc.
    • Good tyres (of questionable brands)

Me being the impulsive idiot I am, I just went for it. I'm no good at haggling really, and the chap did not really seem to want to budge on the price so I just paid it. I assumed the service would be around £200 - £250, and I was very relieved to discover the air conditioning was ice cold. The car appeared to have been owned by a young doctor (from the receipts), and had been getting regular oil changes with paperwork and stamps to prove.

The journey home

As my wife will happily confirm, I am hopeless with manual gearboxes... I ride the clutch all the time, and when I pull away the engine makes that high revving "engine about to explode" noise that is usually reserved for cars being driven by the elderly. Passengers will usually find themselves jerked about like nodding dogs as I incompetently change gear...

It was therefore very unfortunate that I got stuck in traffic twice on the way home...



First of all there was a huge que to get on to the M25, and then another to get from the M25 to the M11. I was frantically changing from 1st to 2nd like a mad man. Each time we stopped I changed out of gear and lifted the clutch, to allow the car to do it's ECO "stop start" thing.

When the traffic was moving, I maximised the speed I could do... and tried to stick to 70mph as much as I could. I was therefore shocked when I got home and noticed it had averaged over 76mpg on the trip computer (yes I was surprised a shopping trolley like this has a trip computer too). It only appeared to have used one bar of fuel on the guage (1/12th), and that is impossible (it would mean less than 12p per mile), so I can only assume the guage will suddenly jump as more fuel is used.

I use Fuelly to do tank to tank mpg calcs, and will look forward to finding out what it does when I start using it in anger.

...but... it is not all blue skies!

On the not so serious side, there is a knock from the suspension on the passenger side. Odd but I never spotted that on the test drive. The ventilation fan seemed to be pathetic in positions 1 to 4, but deafening in position 5. This meant whenever the car got hot I had to carry out a "blast" to cool it down, before turning it back down while the car would warm up again. This was rather annoying.

Normal radio is absolutely awful.... I had forgotten how bad radio reception is on a non-digital system. So annoying having to re-tune to a better/clearer station every 20 or 30 minutes.



But there was a more serious thing too.... About 20 miles from home I took a slow right turn, the type where I ride the clutch around in 2nd gear...... and it conked out!

I know a competent driver would have dropped the clutch and restarted the engine... but remember I have been driving tanks with automatic gear boxes for over 20 years, so I did not instinctively know what to do, and instead coasted the car on to the verge like a clumsy baboon. I chuckled when a group of lads in a Clio roared past laughing and pointing; I can remember doing things like that as a young toad.

I turned the key and the little Citroen fired into life, but my celebrating was short lived because the car messaged "ENGINE FAULT" and the check engine light came on.

I prayed this was nothing serious, and I nursed the car home carefully. The engine seemed to run OK, but the car conked out twice more, always in the same scenario (i.e. in 2nd gear with me riding the clutch like a pensioner as I turn a sharp corner).

I explained it to my wife when I got home; we both suspected the conking out might be due to my pathetic driving skills...

Lindsey took the car out for a run herself, and reported no matter what she did she could not get the car to stall. So we decided it really probably was my driving that was doing it!

I plugged in my Diagnostic tool (Carista) and read the engine codes. The car was complaining a low fuel pressure, and I was concerned I'd be needing a new fuel pump. But only a trip to the garage would reveal the true extend of things.

Citroen Service

So there is me thinking Citroen ownership will always be cheap... the first service certainly caught me out.

The car was overdue it's service by 700 miles, which is part of the reason I got it cheap. But with the check engine light on I did not want to waste any time, so I booked it in and was pleased they could look at it the very next day. I had decided to use M&W autos in Wisbech, as they have a cast iron reputation, and specialise in Citroen and Peugeot cars.

At 8:30am the following morning, I got a call from the garage the an update.

• Fuel filter was old and blocked. This had caused some "low fuel pressure" messages on the diagnostics (which made sense to my code reading).
  • The DPF was full... I panicked for a moment before being told this will be a £50 charge to clean.
    • The top front suspension bush was worn, but not serious.
      • The cabin filters were heavily soiled, and had blown the fan resistors.... this is why settings 1-4 on the fan were not working.

I advised them to carry on and do whatever was needed. He said he'd leave the bush as it was not desperate, and he said the resistor was a plug in module and I might want to do that myself to save some dosh.

I collected the car Tuesday night, and my only shock was the £438 bill!...

I trust the garage, having used them in the past, and I am sure it was all needed, and it itemised the materials and labour to explain. But phew... I was not expecting that on this baby go cart Citroen!

Let's hope it saves me a lot of money in fuel!

 

A couple of minor updates...

Those Barry boy racer wheel trims are lovely

In my humble opinion, the black wheel trims on my Citroen look hideous...



I'm not really one for black wheels anyway, but these look so bad, I really cannot understand how anyone could have thought they were an improvement to whatever was removed.

So I removed them... and they are going in the bin! I'd actually rather look at the rusty steels.







Then one day I also decided to tackle the non-working heating/cooling fans. This requires the replacement of a resistor module. I looked up the correct one for my car, ordered it from Amazon, and the next day i was ready to fit it.



But the problem is... when I opened up the car, the part looked totally different!







So I had to return the Amazon one, and re-order a different (and it turns out rare) version from Ebay.

Still a few days later I was basking in nice cool air from the fans. Lovely.

That Dirty Daimler

The Daimler had been moved into the garage some time ago, but I'd never had the chance to give it a good wash since. One weekend I took the chance of an overcast morning and wheeled it out for a clean.



It was filthy!



It got the full works, snow foam, washed twice! and then polished up with some detailing spray.



I'll be doing a video on this one when I get the chance, because it was mostly video that I took on the day.

Was it worth it?...

Ever since I purchased the Citroen, I had been wondering if it had all been worth it. Was I going to save anything in fuel?

The early indications from my trip home showed an economy of 75mpg on the trip computer, but I have learnt to be incredibly distrustful of those things. I really was struggling to believe that economy was possible.

Honest John show a real figure of 65mpg on their website, and the car is only supposed to do 75mpg mixed with it's official figures, so I struggled to think that was genuine.



https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg...i-airdream-110

Then I reset the trip computer Monday morning, I drove it to work, and this happened...



Over the course of my journey, the trip computer went all the way up to 94mpg!!... it even reached 97mpg at one point...

Even stranger, the tank (which I think holds 50 litres) was showing a range of 944 miles, and I had already travelled 224 miles, so that made the range of a full tank a dizzy 1,168 miles!! I struggle to get 750 miles out of the Audi A6 and it's 70 litre tank.





Surely none of this was genuine...

The moment of truth came on Friday the 15th July. I had covered a heady 513 miles in the Citroen, and I was not waiting any longer to see how good the economy was. My indicated MPG was 94mpg, but I had previously reset it showing about 65MPG after driving it home and letting Lindsey have a thrash about the village in it. So I had no idea what it might be. I filled up, and entered my 2nd tank of fuel, and the Citroen's mileage into Fuelly, then I clicked save to see what it had done.

75.67MPG.

I was astonished.

But it got even better, because the second week I reset the trip computer at the pump, and the week's indicated MPG on the trip computer was again 94.1MPG. But this time when I entered all the figures into Fuelly...

83.37MPG!!

So the trip computer is a lying toad, and exaggerates by over 10MPG, but it is still rather good!

- Yes I do have to drive around in a car in a girly colour, that resembles a bean...

- Yes I do scare small animals and children with my lack of clutch control...

But the result, is my fuel bill will come down from £400 a week to £220 a week. Along with the reduction in insurance and road tax, that works out as a saving of £204 per month over the Audi, plus I don't care if it gets scratched, and the car only owes me £1,500 (plus the £500 service it just had).

This is how things stand after the two tanks of fuel:



https://www.fuelly.com/car/citroen/c...c16rkc/1155386

So I have my answer; yes it has been worth it. I'll be keeping this at least until the fuel prices come back down; if they ever do!