The Dark Wob

I had to take the old man out earlier for his microchip injection so had a ring round the area. Local parts factors, no, tried 2 Pug dealerships I was sort of near, no-one answered the phone in either parts dept FFS. I found myself driving right by a renner dealer, doubled back and walked in. None in stock and none showing at any of their network garages either.

Turns out the ones the 405 licker has are Phase 1 and he's not sure of what price to sell them at...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SASIC-Radiat ... 1696378927

That parts showing as available but the seller is away till the 12th! I'm going to go up there tomorrow, hopefully it won't be pissing it down and drill and tap it myself and stick a bolt in it for now. It's ok where it is for a bit longer thankfully.

Is it actually leaking? If it is could you not just cut that bit out and rejoin it with a couple of jubilee clips?

paulplom wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 4:01 pm Is it actually leaking? If it is could you not just cut that bit out and rejoin it with a couple of jubilee clips?

Nope, not leaking. It's the main bleed on the coolant system. Bleeding XUD's properly is absolutely critical. I scrapped an engine years back rushing it at 7.30 one evening after replacing the metal pipe that runs behind the drivers wheel, it only had a pin hole in it. I'd been driving it like it for about 3 months just topping it up when the low water light came on. My mate at the garage nagged me till I did it, that went well

Citroens with the XUD in tend to be better thought out as were the early XUD cars. On 405's you need to use a special piece of equipment, ie a 2l pop bottle as a filler to make sure there are no air bubbles left in the system.
I can't find the 405 specific link at the mo but that's the gist of it.

In other news the Volvo appears to be sinking into the floor again

Stanced innit m9

The Guru Gritton stumbled across one of these in his stash at the weekend so ordering the new pipe is on hold, should be in the post first class tomorrow hopefully.
This is also hopefully wending its way to me. My neighbours V50 is suffering from a battery drain. The garage down the road has spent some time on it and said get an auto electrician to look at it. She's seen me working on the car in the street and I mentioned I'd seen a diagnostic doofer advertised the night before for 70 quid, I suggested going halves on it, she was having none of it and paid for it on the spot I don't think they are short of a few quid, they paid Volvo to put a brand new gearbox in her 08 V50 a while back, that was 3.5K apparently, it's got sentimental value as it was her mums.

I'll have a proper look over the car when the diagnostic arrives, take the CEM out, clean it up etc. I told her I couldn't promise anything but I'd do my best to improve the situation.

Both items are on their way, fingers crossed Herpes doesn't live up to their rep.
The Volvo battery has let me down again, it really doesn't like the cold. A Varta off eBay is 135 quid so I opted for a quids worth of deionised water instead. It's a sealed* AGM battery unless you use a hammer and screwdriver on it. I've stuck a bit of water in each cell as this one ran totally flat some time back and got nailed when the alterator decided to fail.

It appears to be taking a fair charge at the mo but it's not drawing as much as it used to as it used to hit the thermal trip on the charger repeatedly. I also bought some of those battery tablets. I may dissolve them all in as little water as possible and add them to this one or will drop them in the 405 battery as it isn't top notch either. Decisions decisions.

The pipe arrived this morning so have dropped it off, hopefully I won't get stung too much for fitting it.
I also had a call yesterday from a friend who lives down the bottom end of the town in a lovely old mill. Just a fractured seat bracket that was much more awkward to do than it looks and a rather ropy exhaust silencer. The slightly unorthodox way of cutting the hole for the silecer end cap wasnt my doing but it served the purpose with the pipe rammed into it would have been nice to not have to weld the silencer on from underneath but he didn't want to risk snapping the bolts off. The roughly linished shiny bits are the pigeon shit left over from a previous repair.

The sealed battery experiment seams to have done something, not had to jump it since.
Today my old man came down a couple of pegs in the automotive world The Z is stuck in Portugal and he's stuck here. His wife has had enough of him borrowing her 18 plate Swift hybrid so I've found him this 100 quid shabby shitter It was owned by an old boy thats no longer with us. Out of MOT since last October and only did about 400 miles last year. MOT history doesn't look bad at all really, it's booked in for tomorrow. Drove ok about 15 miles to the garage, emissions on the 1360cc engine were really good last year so we'll see what it fails on.

Give it a good run. I'm sure it'll piss the test.