406oc.co.uk

Welcome to french car ownership

No seriously though I've had two for six years now & never had a problem with the bottom hose

Running for cover

Lot's of other stuff though

Fingers crossed the bottom hose has sealed, and hopefully it stays that way.
Also I found a new tailgate moulding, thanks to a guy off Facebook so I'll get that prepared and painted tomorrow if I get time.



Another thing, it does seem woefully underpowered. I believe it's back to how it should be but it's still slow, so I'm looking at remapping it. I'm quite happy to do it myself, I did our passat last year and it's transformed the car. Does anyone have any recommendations where I can obtain a map file from?

could be worse... could be german!

When flogging the 540i, I got nearly 50 messages in my ebay inbox asking questions like:

* When was the cooling system replaced?
* How long since it last got a new radiator?
* Are any of the coolant hoses original?
* How often does the coolant need refilling?
* Does the fan work properly?
* Does the heating get warm?
* Does the heating stop getting warm when you turn it to cold?

a 20 year old bit of plastic or rubber rotting and becoming brittle is one thing, but those E39s had proper cooling issues!

The Hdi takes a bit of getting used to, it's not a huge shove in the seat when on boost like the old Xud diesels, or indeed the PD engines, but it's more gentle and so across the revs - but it should still hustle along nicely..
Try Hdi tuning in Bristol, the guy is called Steve and he can send you an off the shelf map, or you can send him a copy of yours and email it over to him so he can customise it and email it back.
You'll get 140+ BHP and a more useable range.

Other places offer the same service, but Steve has mostly positive response.

I had seen hdi tuning while having a browse, just wondered who was recommended. The hdi does seem a to be smooth and gentle. I guess I'm too used to the passat, boost comes in quite low down and pulls hard right up to the red line. Anyway I'll give them a go.
Not sure what BMW are like but my 924 and passat for the most part seem to be over engineered especially the 924, compared to them the 406 seems a bit flimsy but I guess that's just the French way my wife's old 106 was the same. The whole bleeding nonsense is what annoys me the most when trying to sort out the leak, it takes bloody ages and with 3 bleed points.where as the passat is a case of fill the header tank run it up to temperature them top up the tank. The porsche is equally as easy, fill the header tank take the bung out run it up to temperature and put the bung back in when the water comes out.

Not a big update but at least it looks a bit smarter now.

Ffs here we go again.



After the bottom hose started leaking again I ordered several rubber seals with different cross sections and inner diameters. The original seal, the one that came with the radiator and the one that came with the new hose were all too small. I found that the seal that fit the best had an inner diameter of 31mm and a cross section of 5mm, the fitting now fits snugly and securely and hopefully keeps the coolant in place.

Had a bit of bad luck yesterday a 6" nail stuck in the tyre, as usual too close to the side wall to plug and patch i also didn't notice until it was getting very low so tyre would have been buggerd either way.

Anyway I dropped the wheel off to have a new tyre fitted this morning so it's all good again. Also this arrived this morning.

The air conditioning wouldn't blow cooler than 14°c, after emptying the cam into the system it now blows around 5-6°c. Probably not as cold as I can be but it will do for now.

Had some more bad luck with the GTX or maybe this is normal for French car ownership Anyway after the undertray let go the other week I've noticed small oil drips where the 406 parks. Got it up in the air this morning and the sump plug is leaking (im sure most will already know where this is going) got an Allen key to tighten it, and like a hot knife through butter it turned almost freely so the GTX is f*cked until to can get a sump.

Can you Helicoil it?

Not possible with the 2.2Hdi sump as there is a pipe in the way - not sure about the 2.0Hdi though...

PTFE?

I could but to do it properly and not risk making it worse the sump would have to come off, so might as well put a new one on. I tried with some ptfe but It didn't work and still leaked. I found a new one for £50 and it should be here Friday.

Okay.
I think you need to remove the AC compressor to get the sump off - so a regas is definitely on the cards...

Yeah the ac compressor is bolted to the sump so will have to come off. But there should be enough flex in the hoses to allow me to move it out the way and remove the sump without having to completely remove the pump. If I have to remove it though it's not a problem as it could probably do with being properly recharged.

All ready for the weekend.

Mighty impressive.

For a second I thought that was a polished wooden plinth it was sitting on.