Resurrection of my CQ20V

[Bowie69]

Thinking about how rusty the relay was, and likely how rusty the fusebox will be, how difficult are they to change? Any how-to's anywhere?

[John.]

Does that repair putty work well?

Quick-Steel is good stuff, repaired the tank on my bike with it. The repair was at the bottom edge so unless I run out of petrol it's got fuel behind the repair all the time......
.........that was 2 years ago, still holding strong.
John.

[newsh]

I thought I had a CV joint going on the avant a year or 2 back, was the same thing, loose wheel bolts

[Bowie69]

I was becoming convinced it was either a CV , or a prop UJ/centre bearing... not any more

Sounds encouraging on the Quicksteel front, test will be tomorrow I guess

[Bowie69]

Next on snag list: Front shocks(!) Quite scary under heavy braking on the moor roads round here...

And adjust drivers headlamp (too low).

Had a burn tonight, no fuel smell inside the car

[Bowie69]

... and a drivers side top mount, little niggles I suppose

[Bowie69]

Oh... and thermostat, it appears a bit lazy despite being only 5-6 years old.

Weeping oil filler cap.

Passenger door no longer locking with central locking

The list grows

[Bowie69]

Central locking... lock button was solid, couldn't push it down at all, very odd....

Pulled door card off, and then the button was able to move, can only assume something got snagged inside. Fiddled with the actuator a bit and having read about a switch in there that can fail, squirted a good amount of contact cleaner in there.

Now the pump only runs on for 30 seconds when locking, unlocking it switches off immediately after the buttons pop up

I guess this probably means the other switch in the actuator is not currently making contact?

It constantly amazes me with these cars, how you can coax them back into life with relatively little effort

[Bowie69]

Update on the rear wiper....

Checked the wiring between the tailgate and body, all ok apart from that one bit of insulation cracking, stripped the black/green blue/red wires and shorted them at this point to see if the wiring was OK between there and tailgate.

Then not wanting to strip down the rear pillar, I went on the hunt for the rear wiper relay, which is under the dash and not the rear seats as I found somewhere else(!). Part number is: 445 955 529A, found it second from right in the aux panel above the drivers side parcel shelf.

Pulled it out, and opened it up, smelt pretty burnt, was about to order a spare off ebay, and thought to plug it back in again and try it with some contact cleaner working in there -bingo rear wiper working! Another free fix

Honestly, this car almost heals itself

I have a spare fuse board full of relays coming from ebay for £20, which I thought was cheap given most relays seems to get >£10 each! I will then investigate replacing the fuse box board...

[Bowie69]

Update on tank leak -SORTED

Rear wiper continues to work OK, as does central locking

Replaced oil filler cap (£2.90 delivered, brand new Febi item!)

Also:

Renewed all the radiator nuts and bolts as they were either missing or well pas their sell-by date

Degreased all round radiator area where PAS fluid had been leaking slowly for umpteen years -doesn't leak now though

Repaired electrical connection to oil pressure switch (yes I admit I broke it while I was in there today)

Sorted coolant seep from top hose to block -just removed, cleaned and refitted, fingers crossed.

Replaced thermostat (the whole reason for getting the rad out), warms up REALLY quickly now, toasty inside again

Refurbed PAS pump adjustment that had seized -had to remove pulley to get access to the nut for this... but it runs lovely and free now after a good wire brushing.

Replaced knackered vacuum line ends -the rubber bits that join the hard pipe to the manifold.

Replaced squishy breather hose with second hand metal variant -nice to have that properly buttoned up.

Front suspension bits ordered:

2 shocks
2 top mounts
2 collar nuts
2 boots/bump stops
2 ARB drop links -well it would be silly not to while in there I think....

Job for next week sometime -almost becoming unbearable when it crashes over bumps...

Anyone know where you can get the nut that holds the strut in place, or is this going to come with the insert?

Beginning to wonder how much longer the centre section of the exhaust is going to last now, rattling/rasping quite nastily at the moment.... back box was a replacement before I got it, genuine item (£226 back then) and it is still good.

[Bowie69]

Oh, and with the stat out, gave the coolin system a very thorough flush with the hose pipe, lovely and clean now

[Bowie69]

Today.... a busy one

Both front shocks replaced, N/S one was so bad there can't have been any more than an inch of oil left in the bottom.... New top mounts, bump stops, drop links etc One odd thing I had, the shocks in there were Bilstein (must have been feeling flush when I stuck them in there), today I fitted Boge, as on a bit of a budget, but coming to fit the nut to the strut it wouldn't go on far enough to hold the shock steady? Ended up using the old nuts, which were actually in very good nick.

Tail light stopped working when on dipped -fine on sidelights, odd one... tracked it down to the stalk and cured it for the moment with contact cleaner.

Found the O/S gearbox mount had come loose! Hmmm... put a nyloc on it this time.

Drained and refilled coolant again, as realised I didn't have enough antifreeze in it.

Re-tightened alternator belt -keeps coming loose, this time I cut the toothed adjuster nut in half, as all the teeth were damaged, works much better now

Hoovered it out, polished interior, outside can stay as it is until the roads aren't quite so disgusting!

Rebuilt front wiper mechanism and motor -so much smoother now, and the wipers don't almost pause when wiping a dry screen at 80mph anymore Grease wasn't as bad as the rear motor, but the two wiper spindles were really grotted up, dry and sticky, very glad I did it

So it actually drives properly now.... scared by self a couple of times with the front end drifting after hitting a drain cover.... much much better now

[Jaswan]

Sounds like your getting there!

Keep it up

Jason

[Bowie69]

Job list at the mo:

Heater controls -re-lube and hopefully find out why the face vent won't close
Engine mounts -just so much vibration coming through the car they must be shot
Headlining (a big one, may wait a while as I managed to hoover most of the mould off it!)
Central locking pump run-on
Fit remote locking and get 2 keys cut!

Had a failed start on sunday, really odd, I think though I am going to put it down to water, as it was hammering down and I had driven through a large puddle and then parked it up. It sort of started, but idled about 300rpm(!), then stalled. Second start I kept foot on throttle and it was fine after that, to be honest though it sounded like a fuel issue....


But it is now my daily drive, which is the best thing, because I now have a good reason to sort out all these little niggles

[Bowie69]

More jobs done:

Dash illumination checked, as clock was intermittent, everything cleaned up, mini-check removed and all terminals squirted with contact cleaner -result? No more oil pressure warning pinging over 3K, and clock shows up fine now I have decided to replace all the bulbs though, some are looking very tired, so have a full set plus some spares on order.

Aso removed aux gauges, as the oil temp has intermittently started not illuminating, a tap and it would work, replaced all three bulbs. While I was there, replaced bulb in cigar lighter, and soldered a new bulb into the diff lock panel, didnt know it was supposed to be illuminated, but all working now

Engine mounts swapped, quite a bit of difference! Raised the engine by 10mm, now when cold there is a rattle from the exhaust as it rubs on something, goes after a minute or so.... one more for the list.

Beginning to think the heater matrix has had it, not getting an awful lot of heat from it, I remember it being amazing before, plus still getting rusty coloured coolant pretty quickly, despite all the flushing. This was another reason I took the dash and aux gauges out -good practice for when I do it in the summer

Getting low 20s MPG, but guess that's my heavy foot, be nice if it came up a bit though...

Failed starts occuring still, fine when cold, but when been left for 30mins to 4 hours, is slow to start, and idles at 300 for a few seconds before what feels like fuel pressure comes up. Injectors are newly refurbed Bosch items, so don;t think they will be an issue... all ideas welcome... though I am leaning to FPR or fuel pump, both are rather expensive though