Ford focus mk1

[bub2006]

First up,the bike. Had a nice ride up to waddington yesterday. Didn't make it as leaking coolant. Bike recovered back looks like the rad cap is knackered. Not a big job all is good.

The van,not so good.
Been using a lot of coolant since I had it. Water pump was done with cambelt and new rad cap. Still using coolant. Had a look today and found cylinder one has a rather clean injector and a clean shiny piston. That may explain coolant to combustion. On the head joint to block there is a bit of rust and looks like coolant has been weeping through the head gasket. It's never overheated but it's been very thirsty on coolant.
Mechanic has it in the naughty corner of the workshop at the minute. Some point this week it's having the head gasket done along with the leaking rocker gasket,new coolant bottle and a full service. If it still uses coolant after then I'll be fucked as to why it is.

[DodgeRover]

Is it worth pulling the motor from that one you were striping as a spare?

[bub2006]

It's a dv6 1.6hdi with175 thousand on clock. Much prefer the old non turbo dw8 1.9 that mine has and it's only got 71k on click now.

[paulplom]

I wish we all had a friendly mechanic like yours. Nothing's a problem for him and he seems to have a pretty clear diary.

[Hooli]

Ahh French cars for the win*

[bub2006]

I wish we all had a friendly mechanic like yours. Nothing's a problem for him and he seems to have a pretty clear diary.

Nothing is a problem for him to be fair. Hes a top bloke,been friends for a few years now. He's got his regulars because he was mobile for over 10 years but is trying to build a client base from workshop which is 20 miles from where he lives. My son is delivering flyers round Matlock area and I have a placard in back window with his detail as does my mini. Always keep some business cards in van too. My van is getting done in between jobs,keeps labour down. I'm getting charged 80 quid in labour for the service and head gasket. Obviously I have to pay to have head skimmed and parts on top. He's only gone into the workshop as he said he's getting too old to be working outdoors in shit weather and winter time he was turning cars down because of bad weather.

[bub2006]

As I've said before the van shown no signs of hgf whatsoever except for coolant use which we assumed could be a leak. Well when I fetched the he'd back from the engineers,he told me they had taken over 10 thou off the head. Apparently it was a miracle that it still ran at all let alone ran as well as it did.

[bub2006]

Since the head escapade the van has not used a drop of coolant but still runs like it did before. Was our wedding anniversary last week so did a bit of trial by fire and drove it to Woburn safari park as we both wanted to go and haven't been on a drive through before. Took the van just in case a monkey did any damage. Cheaper to fix the van than the mini!

FB_IMG_1621283598799.jpg (74.31 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

Surreal to see this so close to the van and the lions up close too

FB_IMG_1621283591771.jpg (132.72 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

This little bugger decided to come for a ride. Can see in the pics as he gets closer

FB_IMG_1621283608071.jpg (97.51 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

Then he's sat on the bonnet here

FB_IMG_1621283610588.jpg (47.55 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

If you look in the rear view mirror you can just see his head sat on the roof rack. My Mrs told me to drive slowly and he would get down but instead he just sat down and held on

FB_IMG_1621283562391.jpg (132.6 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

On the subject of roof racks,this popped up cheap and local to me so on it went. Along with wind deflectors on the windows and a ladder rack behind driver seat from a scrapyard

IMG-20210513-WA0008.jpeg (612.32 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

IMG-20210513-WA0006.jpeg (687.22 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

IMG-20210513-WA0004.jpeg (437.26 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

IMG-20210513-WA0002.jpeg (294.87 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

Also this afternoon I finally got the front fogs working. The connector was heavily corroded inside from being behind the bumper for 18 years.

received_179787694030256.jpeg (216.01 KiB) Viewed 2091 times

4 months ownership now, well it will be on my birthday in a few days. Front tyres being changed tomorrow too.

[christine]

I thought for a minute it was Hooli on da roof...

[bub2006]

It was hoolis date. I dropped the little fella off in Doncaster for him.