Daily dci

Updates.

Wash day for both Dci's. Orange was pretty clean but blue van was in a state so well overdue.

Washy.

Blue van also had interior clean as well.

Also treated the blue dci to a set of new Alpine speakers for the front to replace the crackly 187k originals. Simple plug and play install using the adaptor plugs.

£25 new on Amazon prime.

Straight in no mods.

Super easy to fit, 7 mins and done. No rattly cone anymore so its a win. Have a few longer trips to do over next few weeks so its a nice improvement.

Thanks for reading!!

Brigsy said:

Updates.

Wash day for both Dci's. Orange was pretty clean but blue van was in a state so well overdue.

Washy.View attachment 1697558View attachment 1697559

Blue van also had interior clean as well.

Also treated the blue dci to a set of new Alpine speakers for the front to replace the crackly 187k originals. Simple plug and play install using the adaptor plugs.

£25 new on Amazon prime.
View attachment 1697560
View attachment 1697561Straight in no mods.View attachment 1697562

Super easy to fit, 7 mins and done. No rattly cone anymore so its a win. Have a few longer trips to do over next few weeks so its a nice improvement.

Thanks for reading!!

Click to expand...

Cracking little speakers those alpines 👌

Updates.

Blue dci plodding on as usual racking up the miles. Orange dci has not moved for ages due to recent rush to get cars ready for CSF and a bit of driveway congestion.

Anyway took it for a run out on Wed night. Fired up as willing as ever. Started driving and noted brake pedal needed 50% travel to stop, however was solid enough. Assumed shoes needed adjusting as handbrake was quite high. However noticed when pulling away that the handbrake only seemed to be pulling on os rear wheel.

More investigation was required, so today i pulled rear drums off to have a look. Started on offside, noted rear cylinder leaking, not a good start. Went to nearside and once drum was removed, issue was obvious as shoe lining had come off on the trailing shoe. The lining was on top of the cylinder, suprised it had not caused carnage.

Assume position.


Shoe lining has left the chat.

Everything rusty as fcuk but solid enough. Removed the shoes and cylinders and give the drum backing plates a wire brush then a coat of vht black to tidy them up. Had to reflare the brake pipe and fit a new union as seized on the pipe. Its a kunifer pipe i fitted several years ago so dead easy to work with.

Quick paint and pipe flared.


Drums were looking terrible with rust and paint mix. Knotted wheel on the grinder to derust and a quick coat of VHT black.

Not perfect but improved.


Quick run down the motorfactors and a new set of shoes/cylinders for £33 and new pins to hold the shoes on. The old ones were bent as that thin with rust!

Very rusty.

Freed off the adjusters and built the shoes up so they drop in place to avoid battling the springs in situ.

New shoes and cylinder fitted.


Adjusted shoes until the drum was a tight fit then fitted and torqued the hub nut to 175nm. Dug out the eezibleed and a ltr of fresh typ200 brake fluid i had in stock.

Eezibleed makes easy work.


Bleeds up easy and no leaks. Brake pedal has minimal travel and solid, handbrake 4 clicks, thats good enough for me.

Test run and all confirmed good, brakes feel excellent.

Tesco run.


A bit more work than anticipated but only 3 hours to sort. Thanks for reading!!

That would've taken me all bloody day to sort😂 Great work 👍

MLB said:

That would've taken me all bloody day to sort😂 Great work 👍

Click to expand...

Me too

Not the worst job to do. The springs on the rear shoes are a pain in the arse though

Checked fluids on blue dci yesterday. Went to shut bonnet and it just bounced instead of latching. The catch had stuck open even though its well greased/opened fairly often.

Took it out and the pivot was tight with rust. Freed it off with plusgas and pivot is loose/free now. Cleaned up and silicone grease applied. Old car life!!

Updates.

Blue dci was getting super knocky on the front suspension, and i had the bits in stock. Had a spare day yesterday so cracked on.

After checking it over a while back it needed n/s track rod end, top mounts both sides as originals on 190k, o/s driveshaft due to bearing on wet boot weeping oil and outer boot on last legs.

Assume position.

Started well, track rod end changed in 20 mins. Drained gear oil and offered up good used n/s driveshaft i had in stock expecting it to be plug and play.

This should have been a simple fit and move on, but the fcuking outer cv was different on the splines for whatever reason and wouldnt fit my hub. So with options limited - finding a new shaft locally on a sat was not happening, refitting old shaft to do it in a couple of weeks was more work - i opted to build a good shaft up out of the pair.

I removed the outer cv off new shaft, fitted the old outer cv which was luckily still good, used the good cv boot and fresh cv grease and cv boot clip.

No pics of this as i was up to my eyes in cv grease and pissed off. It all went together smoothly luckily and filled up with fresh Elf nfx gear oil.

With this done i moved onto the top mounts. New snr mounts combined with the original retaining cap. Bumpstop was shot on o/s so replaced that for a sachs one.

Old and cracked.

New and shiney.

All refitted and torqued to spec. With it sat on all 4 wheels again i took it out for a test run to check the os driveshaft was ok. Luckily all good so cracked on with the other bits.

Time for oil change as due. Vac pump to get the oil out, fresh Valvoline synthpower 5/40 and purflux filter.

Vac pump makes life easy.


Used my new sealey funnel to fill up. It clips in the same as oil cap and makes life very easy when filling up with the large funnel on top.

Nice bit of kit.


Also changed diesel filter for new delphi. I was reluctant to touch this after the starting issues it had a while back but went for it as it was due. Primed it up and no issues started right up.

After this was done i adjusted the rear drum brakes, de lipped the drums and took shoes up. Followed by a quick wash as well overdue.

Clean.

Drives great and no more knocking, noticeable difference, it had got a bit sloppy but you get used to it with daily driving. Gearchange seems better with fresh oil, first time ive used nfx, seems good. Not bad for half a days work in total.

Geo needs doing ill see if i can get my mate to do it this week. Should be ok for its mot next month.

Thanks for reading!!

Sports are 23 spline shaft

Non sport are 21 spline

Krarl said:

Sports are 23 spline shaft

Non sport are 21 spline

Click to expand...

I actually think the new shaft was sport, got it off ebay and seller has had my eyes out. Id check the cv but ive launched it into the wheelie bin in rage.

Length seemed ok with old outer cv on so sent it, had 10mm so plunge when fitted.

Aye be sound that, send it

I think the shafts are pretty much the same but the CVs on the sports make up for the bit of extra length

I've now changed both top mounts and it certainly removes a lot of background clonking, and mine had only done 50k, so it must a noticeable difference on your 190K daily. Good job done

vtec-e said:

I've now changed both top mounts and it certainly removes a lot of background clonking, and mine had only done 50k, so it must a noticeable difference on your 190K daily. Good job done

Click to expand...

Cheers mate. Massive difference with new top mounts on, old ones were well past their best.

Updates

Had toe set on the blue dci a couple of weeks ago. Toe set almost neutral as i dont need every bit of turn in and want max mileage out of the tyres.

On the geo lift.

Noted inner arb bushes are well past their best so got them to do soon.

Apart from that its looking good for mot at the end of the month. Drives great again have been all over in it over last 2 weeks over a thousand miles, Blackpool, Newcastle a few times and various local running about.

Orange clio needed a wash, so it got a wash.

Still clean for 160k.


Used it a bit last week. Shopping run and the umbrella holder makes a good baguette holder.

Baguette in a baguette.

@Krarl tagged me in the classified add for the van shelf and rear interior panels for sale thankfully as they seem to be in demand and i was awol as at work so would have missed them.

Ive been keeping my eye out for some for the blue dci so snapped them up. Arrived promptly in a massive box from @callumjslade early this week.

All looks spot on.


Cracked on this morning and made a start fitting them to the blue dci. Ive never had the rear doorcards off this and was expecting quite a bit of rust on the inside of the sills but was pleasantly suprised. Minor corrosion both sides but nothing too bad at all, give it a coating of BH Hydrate 80 and BH cavity wax to finish.

Not the worst.


Hydrate 80.


BH Dynax UC


With that done on both sides i moved onto fitting the interior panels.

The interior panel fitting was straightforward enough. I knew i was missing a couple of bits of trim so had to improvise. The van has different plastic upper trims that go around the van panel/rear qtr window and i did not have these. Also did not have the front lower plastic trims and metal bulkhead so seatbelts would be exposed.

To keep it looking presentable i cut down the original rear plastics chopping the parcel shelf holder off. This leaves a gap which looks a bit crap as the car parcel shelf is higher than van so cant even scribe it tight to mate up with the van plastics.

Large gap visible on passenger side.


Id like the proper trims but id imagine they will be fairly hard to find now. To make it look better i cut an offcut of carpet and glued it to the back of the trim to cover the gap.

Looks tidy enough.


For the front i cut the part out of the doorcard to cover the exposed seatbelt and used some velcro to attatch the trim.

Looks ok without bulkhead.


The shelf is massive and fits decent. It can be folded back so full access to the boot area as above or layed flat down and lifts with boot open.




With this done i loaded all the crap i need in for work.

Hard hat, high viz, boots and other shite.


Its a much better place to be when your sat in the front.

V6 ENGINE UNDER THE COVER !? Absolutely not with the diesel rattle up front😆



Not driven it yet but will be interesting to see if it cuts noise. Ive also lost my rear speakers so might be a downgrade on tunes, will see.

Thanks for reading!!

I've got a pair of brand new non sport balljoints if you want em? Found them in the garage the other day long with a load of other shite like some cheapy rear wheel bearings

Krarl said:

I've got a pair of brand new non sport balljoints if you want em? Found them in the garage the other day long with a load of other shite like some cheapy rear wheel bearings

Click to expand...

Appreciated mate ill have them if going spare. Will come in handy 👌

Brigsy said:

Appreciated mate ill have them if going spare. Will come in handy 👌

Click to expand...

Aye drop me a message and I'll send em your way, no use to me mate👍🏻

Small update.

Van rear interior and shelf in the blue dci has made a decent improvement to road noise on motorway use. Its not exactly refined but any improvement is heading in the right direction.

Stereo setup sounds a little bit quieter on mid range with rear speakers removed but better in some respects as the rear qtr doorcards used to rattle like fcuk.

Picked up a set of 18" tyres in it the other day, expected it to be to the roof but fitted in well with shelf folded back and all my work gear in.

Tight.



Mot on Monday and it passed with no advisories.



Testers comments - "will get a few more years out of it yet"

Thanks for reading!!

Update.

Blue van failed to proceed today. It had not been used since last thursday and shuffled up and down the drive a couple of times. I was out today and the mrs went to use it, started as usual then stalled 5 seconds later and would not restart.

Instantly thought it was that air leak issue i had ages ago on fuel lines so pumped up the hand primer for diesel lines under the bonnet. Still no joy so i grabbed clip which had low fuel pressure logged, and tried cranking it to check fuel pressure which was 14bar when 250+ bar is requested and any less and injectors will not open.



At that point i grabbed the sniff and it reluctantly fired with a load of diesel knock and fuel pressure shot up with increased rpm.

Its not failed to start since and meets requested 250bar no problem on 200rpm crank but im sure an injector is on its last legs. Ill do a leakoff test this weekend and see whats going on. I have a couple of good injectors that i might try but they have been sat for ages so might be knacked now.

Im working in Sheffield a couple of days this week so the orange clio is on the commute. Filled up and good to go.

Thanks for reading!

Updates.

Orange clio been flying and have done 550 miles in it this week. 73mpg.

Dci life


Bit of diag on the blue clio today. Started off with a leakoff test. One of the leakoff pipes was on super tight and came off suddenly which made my arm snap the top of the dipstick off rescued the remains and it now has a screw in the top until the replacement turns up.

Anyway after that fuckup i put the leakoff pots on and fired it up. Started instantly typically.

Leakoff bottles on.


Within a couple of mins it was obvious injector 1 was a mile off.


At this point i took a sample of diesel from the fuel filter to see if the high pressure pump was self destructing. Looks ok for 192k, no filings.

Diesel sample.


I had a spare 65hp injector in the lockup from a running engine so shot round and grabbed it. As it had been stood for ages i was expecting it to be knackered as they tend to fail when sat dry, id had it bagged up so it was worth a shot and was not going to cost anything. Whipped injector 1 out which came out very easy to my suprise, wiggled it and it come straight out. Looks like its a non oem renault injector and the rest look to be the same, i think somebodys replaced them years ago.

Delphi aftermarket injector?


Stuck a new copper injector washer on and new injector in, retaining clamp and bolt torqued and hp pipe back on. Primed diesel pipework on hand pump and attempted startup. Started after 4 cranks and ran on all 4 cylinders sounding great.

With it running ok i put the leakoff bottles back on to see if it was any better. 2nd startup starts instantly.

Leakoff all very similar amounts.

Looks much better to me, all within 10%. Never going to be bang on at this mileage so close is good enough.

Took it for a test run/italian tune up to see if any fuel pressure faults would flag up. No issues and it seems to go better. Done 40 miles or so and it seems to be running great, starts instantly. Back in daily use this week.

Thanks for reading!!

Updates

Sheffield and back in the orange clio this morning. All going well until i went over a small pothole causing a loud bang. Open the bonnet to have a look and the top oil filled engine mount has s**t itself.

Boom and the oil pisses out.


Had this happen on the blue dci when i first got it and it makes a right knock if you go over a bump. Ive also replaced this mount years ago so itll be 2nd time fix. Luckily easy and cheap and can be driven until new mount arrives.

As i was back from site early managed to get a couple of bits done. I had a set of @plees brass shifter bushes in stock ready to fit so cracked on.

Assume position.


Before.

After.

The gear selection feels much better and shifts feel very positive. Great upgrade over stock and half hour to fit.

Give them both a quick wash. Blue clio had birdshit all over it and orange one was pitted with road muck.

Clean.


Coded in the C2l code for injector 1 on the blue clio as did not do it the other day. It was running great without coding, but as i have the gear to do it would be lazy not to. Took 5 mins with clip.



Blue dci has also not failed to start since injector replacement on cyl 1. Infact its never ran better and feels more torquey low down when driving. Also the diesel knock from cold has gone and the engine is a lot quieter on idle as i suspect the copper sealing washer for injector 1 was leaking. Back in daily service.

Thanks for reading!!