My new ride

[eoin27]

mine looks fine, perfectly colour matched to the 406, and sound a hell of a lot better than the crap Philips/Clarion units they put in there as standard. The sound quality from them is awful.

Sorry mjb, I must completely disagree with you there. For a standard system, the 406 basic clarion setup is much better than any 4 speaker (or 6 speaker with miniscule tweeters) setup you'd get from any ford, vw or vauxhall of the time.

[rapport25]

mine looks fine, perfectly colour matched to the 406, and sound a hell of a lot better than the crap Philips/Clarion units they put in there as standard. The sound quality from them is awful.

Sorry mjb, I must completely disagree with you there. For a standard system, the 406 basic clarion setup is much better than any 4 speaker (or 6 speaker with miniscule tweeters) setup you'd get from any ford, vw or vauxhall of the time.

Totally agree

[mjb]

It's awful! The only way to get audiable frequencies under about 200Hz is to use the 'loud' function which just washes everything out. Even without it here's a harsh boost to frequencies around 4kHz and around 400Hz are also accented with bass and treble at '0'.

I've no doubt these 10 speakers can make a nice sound when driven right, but the head unit stinks.

I need to hurry up and get my JVC in there to flatten the sound out. I miss my mp3 cds too. And being able to see what I'm listening to. "CD4 Track 01" isn't helpful...

[eoin27]

Once again, they're still better than the industry standard. And for someone (like me) who doesnt know or care about frequencies, its a pretty good sound.

[Captain Jack]

Thanks MJB. Was driviving today and noticed the clutch pedal was depressed slightly without my foot on it! I'll check the bleed valve - take a picture of it tonight, so I know what it looks like ;)

Like I said before, the JBL/Clarion sound system is "OK", but nothing more than that. To a casual user it is better than most other factory HU's (although, Audi's concerto thing isn't too bad). No idea how much the JBL system is worth - make me an offer I guess. The HU would require reprogramming to work in another car though.

[mjb]

Thanks MJB. Was driviving today and noticed the clutch pedal was depressed slightly without my foot on it! I'll check the bleed valve - take a picture of it tonight, so I know what it looks like ;)

Sorry, I got into work on time today (as opposed to an hour early) so I'll be leaving with 2 minutes to sunset hence the bleeding will have to wait until tomorrow. I can however give you a description.

Pull the air filter box out and you'll see the gearbox underneath. Plugged into it is the slave cylinder, possibly more underneath the battery box than anything else, which is black and cylindrical shaped (2" diameter, 5" long). It'll have a black pipe coming out of it and on the far end you'll see a nut and a cap - the bleed valve. Tighten the nut and try again. Don't open the valve unless you've got a one-way valve attached else you'll let air in the system and you'll be in hell.

Check your brake fluid level too - if you've been leaking at the clutch, it might be low. Give the area around the slave cylinder a careful splash of water too - brake fluid's very nasty stuff in terms of being able to corrode/eat through stuff

[Captain Jack]

Thanks again MJB, will have a look-see tomorrow and see what I can find. Strange that the bleed valve is not on tight - would the garage even need to touch it if they are replacing brakes?

[mjb]

Not unless they were replacing the brake fluid

[Captain Jack]

Been reading on the 'coop forums and they mentioned jamming the clutch cable with a piece of wood overnight. This would (apparently) allow any air bubbles to float to the reservoir.

[Captain Jack]

Hm just checked the slave cylinder without removing the air box and, from what I could see, it doesn't look like there's a leak. At least, there's no spillage of any kind near the cylinder (actually anywhere in the engine!). The brake fluid reservoir also has plenty of fluid in there, so it's not emptying itself (at least not quickly).

Will purchase a bleeding kit tomorrow with some brake fluid (will any DOT4 do?) and see what happens....

On another note, while looking in the engine, I saw that the all-famous undertray was loose. Had to remove it.... The joys of 406 ownership, eh?

[mjb]

The engine and gearbox get hot in use, so it's possible any spilt fluid could have evaporated. However you need to consider the possibility that ont of the cylinders (probably the master?) has gone south...

[Captain Jack]

Thought I'd mark the car's 100,000 mile anniversary that I've done in it by posting a picture. It's the same car, obviously, just changed to the white dials at around 82k. It looks far better and cleaner at 61k but it's still going!

[steve_earwig]

Congratulations

Can't see any vibrations either

[Captain Jack]

This is the most I've done in a single car. In fact, I've done more in this car than I have in my previous 406 (71k) AND the Honda (19k).

[steve_earwig]

I couldn't actually tell you how many miles I'd done in any car, they've either all been too old to worry about or I haven't had them long enough. I did make a note on the D9 so I could probably tell you if I looked but it's only going to be about 40,000, errr, kilometres.