So the weekend is over and the car is still working fine! SWIMBO is very happy and I am currently unable to do wrong, this will last until today (I suspect) as all Brownie points earned by a male have a shelf life of 3 days absolute maximum. She has also planned, that with the car back, we are visiting her sister in the Lakes for Easter so I hope that the repair lasts for the duration. On a side note I do think that the engine feels a bit fresher than I remember, but it is still bedding into it’s new home and will, I’m sure, continue to improve as I clean out any crud that has amassed in the system during it time sitting on the floor/ramp.
I have planned to do a full engine service, oil and fuel filter, oil change and the car needs new front disks so I will replace those at the same time. All this has made me think about how I can improve the car, as it now has the heart of a car half her age, as she does feel a little “loose” and saggy. I would guess that the bushes have never been changed and that the shocks are probably still the originals that the car left the factory with. They certainly have not been changed in the 5 years I have owned it. So how difficult are the bushes to change and are there any that give a disproportionate return on the investment (both time and financial)? Also would a shock change significantly improve the feel or am I looking at both shocks and springs?
Just so that I can keep this thread alive, of course, and provide those of you kind enough to read it with a little more amusement as I tackle another series of jobs!
1999 HDi engine swap - It works and has driven home!
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Re: 1999 HDi engine swap - It works and has driven home!
Well we didn’t go to the Lakes in the end, the thought of a week stuck in a small 2 up 2 down in the bad weather with two small kids and five adults seemed like a bad idea! So all we ended up doing was visiting my mother, picking up the mother-in-law and her spending the week with us. I also had to take her home and so I clocked up a little over 700 miles anyway.
As I was at home I did a full service on the car and changed the front discs so she now stops really well again. I did brim the car before we started the epic week and filled her up again last night, in order to check the fuel economy (as a rough order of magnitude check on my install) and got the result of 42 MPG, so quite pleased. This was with a real mixture of motorway miles and local running around so a real combined figure. I cannot remember the old figure but I am sure that it was not more than this.
The electrical gremlin still haunts me, I have cleaned the engine earth, the alternator contacts, checked all of the wiring and I still get the occasional “battery charging fault” message and the annoying “beep” combined with the red battery symbol on the dash. It now only occurs during the first couple of minutes if the car has been sat overnight, and then not every time, if there is any heat in the engine at all it does not occur. This is a real problem as I cannot drive it to a garage and then replicate the fault. If I take it to a dealer then, I am sure, they will simply say it is the alternator and change that. The fact that the alternator is new, fitted by the dealer just before the engine failed, will not matter in the slightest. I am going to try and jury-rig something to fit into the cigarette lighter and connect to my multi-meter so I can see if the charging does alter during the first moments of warming up. That would allow me to confirm that the alternator is not at fault. I am struggling to identify a fault with the alternator that would occur intermittently and disappear when there is any heat at all in the engine.
Other than this the car is running well and the overall cost, including the service and front discs and pads, was £538.98. Not bad at all as a replacement car would have cost me a lot more and been an unknown quantity. The downside is that I am now noticing all of the niggling faults and thinking that I should fix them, oh and I cleaned and polished the car on Sat, for the first time in years, as well!
As I was at home I did a full service on the car and changed the front discs so she now stops really well again. I did brim the car before we started the epic week and filled her up again last night, in order to check the fuel economy (as a rough order of magnitude check on my install) and got the result of 42 MPG, so quite pleased. This was with a real mixture of motorway miles and local running around so a real combined figure. I cannot remember the old figure but I am sure that it was not more than this.
The electrical gremlin still haunts me, I have cleaned the engine earth, the alternator contacts, checked all of the wiring and I still get the occasional “battery charging fault” message and the annoying “beep” combined with the red battery symbol on the dash. It now only occurs during the first couple of minutes if the car has been sat overnight, and then not every time, if there is any heat in the engine at all it does not occur. This is a real problem as I cannot drive it to a garage and then replicate the fault. If I take it to a dealer then, I am sure, they will simply say it is the alternator and change that. The fact that the alternator is new, fitted by the dealer just before the engine failed, will not matter in the slightest. I am going to try and jury-rig something to fit into the cigarette lighter and connect to my multi-meter so I can see if the charging does alter during the first moments of warming up. That would allow me to confirm that the alternator is not at fault. I am struggling to identify a fault with the alternator that would occur intermittently and disappear when there is any heat at all in the engine.
Other than this the car is running well and the overall cost, including the service and front discs and pads, was £538.98. Not bad at all as a replacement car would have cost me a lot more and been an unknown quantity. The downside is that I am now noticing all of the niggling faults and thinking that I should fix them, oh and I cleaned and polished the car on Sat, for the first time in years, as well!