Hello all! back in the saddle after some time.

Got the car back from the garage finally. Garage has done a good job on the door.
It was a complete nightmare however. The door that I bought that was the same colour as the car for a straight swap; turned up and was a complete mess, filled with dents and scratches supposedly good condition. Got my money back on the door but cost me an extra £160~ to get it stripped, filled, repaired and sprayed.

I could only afford to have just the door done, no blending, but the garage has done a good job and theres a slight colour difference but I'm not fussed, just glad to have the car back on the road.

Now that it is back, I'm going to have an attempt at tackling other issues

1: Water leak.
I asked the garage to carry out an examination of the water system to check for any leaks. They performed a pressure test of the system and apparently the leak was so small they couldn't find it. So, I've just dumped a bottle of radweld into the system and took it for a spin to warm it up.

2: Oil leak.
The car has got a serious oil leak believed to be coming from the valve cover. I have bought a new gasket kit for it which has arrived and have also bought a 1/4" torque wrench which hasn't arrived in order to get the 13lb/ft torque which is 156lb/in of which my wrench will happily do that.

I will get round to doing this when the wrench turns up.

3: Fuel consumption.
Ever since I've had the car, I've had some serious fuel consumption issues. The car is an automatic and is naturally a bit thirstier but ~20mpg is far to low. So, after my spin out today, I tested the wheels for temperature. The drivers side front wheel burns to the touch while the drivers rear is a little warm. Passenger side is perfectly fine.

I believe that this is a problem with the brakes seizing up and is apparently quite common with this car

I don't have access to a driveway in order to work to the car with but may have access at the weekend so will double check then.

4: Air + conditioning belt.
From what I can tell, my air conditioning works ok. I tested it today by having the blowers on full at the front vents on cold, having my hand over the vent I turned the air con on and there was a definite noticeable change in temperature but It wouldn't surprise me if the system needs regassing.

Is it a possible DIY job, if so, how?

Also, how do I check the tensions on the air con belt, some days it squeals like a pig so it needs more tension but how much?

Any comments or information would be appreciated

Rad weld and these engines do not mix very well. Good for temp clear but you do need to find the "leak" - how much do you need to top up?


Oil - very common issue at the top of the engine. simple job jut be careful not to over tighten and snap the bolts.


Brakes - front very common - it will be either / both the sliders or lower piston sticking / stuck.
The piston can be freed off and cleaned when caliper off the hub. 2 person job - push brake pedal and push the piston out about 10-15mm - peal back the dust cover and clean up the piston sides. Push back in to caliper. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- this is only a temp fix and a replacement caliper for £45 (c£60 and £15 back when old one returned - with warranty for 2 years) can be sourced on ebay.
The sliders remove clean (Emmery cloth as required - re-grease with silicon grease and re install.
And yes this will take about 5-10 mpg off your consumption


Acon - don't think this is a DIY job.

dazmatic wrote:4: Air + conditioning belt.
From what I can tell, my air conditioning works ok. I tested it today by having the blowers on full at the front vents on cold, having my hand over the vent I turned the air con on and there was a definite noticeable change in temperature but It wouldn't surprise me if the system needs regassing.

It's darn cold outside so testing if the air coming out of the vents is cold say precisely nothing!

Here is how to tell if your aircon system is gassed and working:
1) Start the engine with the aircon turned off and let it idle
2) Turn the fan onto it's lowest setting and the radio off (the fan needs to be on, but you've about to use your ears)
3) Turn on the aircon button... three things should happen within a second or so:
a) The revs should increase by 100rpm
b) There should be a click of a relay in the passenger footwell
c) There should be the click of the compressor's magnetic clutch and then possibly the sound of the compressor depending on what state its bearings are in

If your aircon is out of gas then none of a, b or c will occur.

dazmatic wrote:Is it a possible DIY job, if so, how?

There are DIY kits but personally if your car has sprung a leak, I would get a professional to do a vacuum test on it. No point wasting money on gas if it will just leak straight into the atmosphere again

dazmatic wrote:Also, how do I check the tensions on the air con belt, some days it squeals like a pig so it needs more tension but how much?

It's much more likely to but the alternator belt. The aircon belt would only squeal when the magnetic clutch is engaged... the rest of the time there isn't much load on the belt so there wouldn't be cause for it to squeal.

Cheers all.

Rad weld and these engines do not mix very well. Good for temp clear but you do need to find the "leak" - how much do you need to top up?

We shall see. It was what the garage recommended after doing the pressure test. Put it this way, when I put the rad weld in, it was enough to over flow so had to put the rest in to the over flow.
There is this yellow sludge on the dip stick and it was on the rad cap and housing. I've done my best to clean it though. It isn't oily either, it's just scale build up. I think the scale may have affected the rad cap and is leaking from there.

Brakes - front very common - it will be either / both the sliders or lower piston sticking / stuck.
The piston can be freed off and cleaned when caliper off the hub. 2 person job - push brake pedal and push the piston out about 10-15mm - peal back the dust cover and clean up the piston sides. Push back in to caliper. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- this is only a temp fix and a replacement caliper for £45 (c£60 and £15 back when old one returned - with warranty for 2 years) can be sourced on ebay.
The sliders remove clean (Emmery cloth as required - re-grease with silicon grease and re install.
And yes this will take about 5-10 mpg off your consumption

Cheers. I can't afford new callipers but I can do a clean up though. Hopefully they aren't that bad and free up easily.

It's darn cold outside so testing if the air coming out of the vents is cold say precisely nothing!

Here is how to tell if your aircon system is gassed and working:
1) Start the engine with the aircon turned off and let it idle
2) Turn the fan onto it's lowest setting and the radio off (the fan needs to be on, but you've about to use your ears)
3) Turn on the aircon button... three things should happen within a second or so:
a) The revs should increase by 100rpm
b) There should be a click of a relay in the passenger footwell
c) There should be the click of the compressor's magnetic clutch and then possibly the sound of the compressor depending on what state its bearings are in

If your aircon is out of gas then none of a, b or c will occur.

I tried this also to a certain extent. When I hit the air con button, I hear a click of a relay from the passenger footwell and a slight hiss. Which follows on to the next thing..

It's much more likely to but the alternator belt. The aircon belt would only squeal when the magnetic clutch is engaged... the rest of the time there isn't much load on the belt so there wouldn't be cause for it to squeal.

The belt only squeals when the air con is engaged. Mind you, it didn't do it today but did do it when I picked the car up a couple of weeks back. The cold might have shrunk the belt enough to pull it tighter on the pulleys

OK - the hiss is a sign that you may be getting low on air con gas. AFAIK it's all to do with the valve inside the heat exchanger having to open wider to achieve the same effect due to lower pressures.

I'm not sure what model and revision you have, but there should be a tensioner on the aircon belt that you can tighten to prevent the squeal.

Well, the brakes have been sorted out today.

Took the drivers side front wheel off and the brake calliper. Turns out that one of the sliders and the top piston had seized. I took the slider out with a bit of effort and cleaned it and greased it with nickel grease which sorted that out.

I managed to push the piston back in and free it off but it wouldn't retract when letting off the brakes.

So, I pushed the piston out about 20mm, quite far, and peeled back the dust seal which was in good condition. Cleaned the piston up as best I could and put a drop of nickel grease on it.

This was then it occurred to me, my grease was being applied through a syringe and needle like those you get with ink refill kits, so, I lifted the dust seal up and poked the needle underneath it. It isn't sharp so won't damage the dust seal.
Squeezed grease in all around under the dust seal as far as I could reach with the calliper still on the car and voila! The piston slid back and forth perfectly! Performed the same sort of thing on the rear drivers side too albeit without being able to push the piston in as I don't have the tools for it but cleaned it up good though.

So that's one job sorted at least! Means I can now book the car in for a VIC test and reliably drive it.

Just need to get the valve cover done now.

A job for later in the week perhaps?

dazmatic wrote: Performed the same sort of thing on the rear drivers side too albeit without being able to push the piston in as I don't have the tools for it but cleaned it up good though.

Nice one - the rear caliper by the way does not push in - you need a tool to screw the piston back in. and when you do make sure that the V shape lines up with the lug on the pad - this is how it self adjusts the hand brake.

that's what I meant. I have not got the wind in tool. In the past I have used a g clamp on rears to put it under a little tension and used pipe grips around the piston to twist it in but couldn't get a clamp on so left it. Need to change the pads anyway so I will buy a tool for it.

Ok, So Ive manged to get outside today and change the valve cover gasket.

Couple of issues while I was doing it.

Firstly, the rail that the fuel injection cabling runs through, the plastic casing. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to remove it? 2 nuts yet, split it open by the clips yes, but, I couldn't get to the clip at the throttle body end and so it wouldn't budge! In the end, the casing split in 2 entirely, looks like it was already half like it anyway.

In the end it I got down to the cover and got it removed.

Second issue, 2 of the bolts in the valve cover didn't have the rubber grommets on them. Luckily enough I had a full set.

Thirdly, the gasket around the 2 centre plug wells and centre bolt hole was a whole gasket, one piece. whereas the valve cover doesn't allow for a single piece gasket as the grooves in the valve cover are full round so there is no space for the connecting pieces between each round gasket.
The previous gasket had groves cut into it to make space for the connecting pieces to sit into the channel. This was obviously a bodge job and you could see where the gasket had been overly compressed where these connecting pieces are where the gasket meets the head. Hence causing the gasket to leak further.

To get the gasket to fit, I just cut the gasket into 3 pieces, one piece for each plug well and centre bolt hole. Trimmed the gaskets round each piece so that they fit snugly in the channel in the valve cover and left them like that. So instead of having a 1 piece gasket that doesn't fit, I had a 3 piece gasket that does fit.

Fourthly, previous attempt at gasket repair had left all sorts of sealant everywhere. There was silicone sealant in the corners of the cam ends, hylomar blue all round the gasket, and hermatite red sealant everywhere also. In fact there was hylomar around one of the PLUGS itself so I think the head gasket may also have been replaced with a lick of hermatite red.
Worrying really!

Fifthly, the valve cover bolts were so unevenly tightened it was scary. I could undo them by hand!! So, I did the bolt up using a 1/4" torque wrench I bought specifically for the job and I did them at 25 in/lb. Simply because torque wrenches are a little unreliable at the lower end of the scale as this was so I done it 4 more.

I don't think some people at home in their garages at home really know how to tighten things up properly when there is a torque involved.

You have to start at the centre bolt of the cover and slowly turn the torque wrench until it clicks and then double check by turning the wrench slowly and waiting for it to click. You'll find that each time it'll turn a bit more. If it's still turning then it's obviously not up to torque so you need to do each bolt several times so that each bolt will click without moving. That way each bolt is torqued properly. You then have to work your way outwards from the centre bolt doing the opposite bolt each time.
Once you've gone round the bolts once, don't stop. Do them all again, same sequence because you'll find that you might have done the centre bolt up to torque, but once you've tightened all the bolts around it that the centre will have loosened off. So go round them all again so that they all click as soon as you start to turn the wrench.

Anyway, enough rambling, it's a good job done well and I'm pleased with it. Very disappointed with the gasket design however, shouldn't have to modify a gasket to fit.