The dog rough estate

[mr_fish]

wasn't there a cheap engine block on here for sale?

Nice to hear you got the A/C working. shame about the engine but seems like its had a hard life.

Dont give up...its nearly there!

[DeeTurbo]

Yeah, Tom306 was selling one. I think the price went down to £50 in the end. I'm not sure what happened to it in the end, he might have weighed it in for scrap.

To get the bits to do a head gasket it would cost just over £90, that's the gasket, gasket kit and bolts. Not sure how much it would cost to get the head skimmed.

Not worth it when there are engines advertised for £100 on ebay.

It's a shame as the engine in it is really good on fuel, really quiet and smooth for a diesel.

[Toms306]

Price went down to £20 iirc!....nobody collected in time, it got stripped for parts and the head/block scrapped. Gasket was still mint despite being 170k and no service history lol!

There are loads about though, as you say.

[DeeTurbo]

I lost out on that one lol.

MOT is due on the 7th and there are still a couple of bits to do before then.

I've got some TRE's to go on as the rubber is damaged a little on them and the front discs are warped.

I've also got a throttle and handbrake cables on order as both feel worn and dry.

[Toms306]

Can't be much left that you haven't replaced now lol!

[DeeTurbo]

I was thinking about this the other day I really do think I've replaced near enough everything.

I think because my hatchback has been so good to me in the past and me not having many problems with it for the 14 years of ownership my bad car karma has got me back with this estate car. It's so far had all the common faulty that 306 suffer from and none of them have ever happened to my hatchback.

I just see it as a good training aid lol.

[Danny2009]

I have a complete engine with injectors pump ect ready to drop in drop me a pm if interested

[DeeTurbo]

The weekend I did a couple of small jobs and a check to see if it's ready for it's MOT.

When I turned the ac on I noticed drips of water from under the glovebox. I knew it wasn't the heater matrix as it was dripping in a different place.



The water was condensation of the evaporator in the ac unit. There was a broken piece of the housing. I silicone sealed it and it's been fine since.

Next I replaced the cracked flexi on the N/S/R. I was lucky the union to the body wasn't seized but the other end was so I removed the body side and turned the flexi instead of trying to turn the union on the other side as I couldn't get it to free up.



I also replaced the hand brake cable both side with newer ones that were with a beam I bought a while back.

Anyway pick the car back up this morning from the garage as I arrived back from work to late last night. I was surprised to see no advisories so I must be doing something right.



I've bought a new accelerator cable from ECP and the dam thing is in kit form. It was only £20 in the sale, if I bought it for there full price of £40 I would have returned it and bought a proper one from the dealer for £10 to save on the effort of getting it to fit and know I'd have a better item. So I've got that to fit one of the days this coming week.

[LewisG]

Wow, this car has come so far, when you first got it, it didnt look fit for the road but now its passed an MOT with no advisories, you deserve a big pat on the back my friend.

Can you let me know how the accelerator cable replacement goes, mines really rough and feels horrible so would like to change mine too.

[DeeTurbo]

So then a little update.

The car been running ok, I've been using it daily as the AC isn't working very well in my hatchback.

The other week the day before driving up to the lakes for a race meeting there was a strong smell of burning and then the stop light illuminated on the dash.

I really thought the car was going to go up in flames. I had just joint the motorway to get home from work and I had two karts in the back. I stopped on the hard shoulder jumped out and disconnected the batter thinking it was a wiring fault.



The burning smell was really strong in the bay so I started to investigate and found this.



I didn't have any idea to what the fuses were for so made a couple of calls, thanks to Adam and Chris.

Two 15amp fuses for the fans where there should have been 40amps!!!

I removed the fuses, turned the AC off and drove home. The stop light turned off when I turned the AC off.

I've since put the correct fuses in and I've not had a problem. The car drove faultlessly up to the lakes and back.

I've bought some upgraded gear linkages as the gears are really sloppy at the moment. I'll be changing them soon if I get chance or when I do the engine swap.

[LewisG]

What gear linkages did you get?

[DeeTurbo]

This is the one I bought.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...1391727026

[Toms306]

Same ones I have on the Moonstone. Left the miles ones on the China. Doesn't seem to be any difference so far though, both good.

[DeeTurbo]

Like all the other shit on the car the linkages are badly worn so it should make a massive difference when they are changed.

[DeeTurbo]

Yep I've still got this heap of shit and got around to doing something on it today.

I changed the brown relay. I did change it last year but for a used item but every now and again the pump wouldn't prime so I bought a new relay.





I tested it was the relay and not the pump by installing a little volt meter to the supply to the pump.



I'm also still getting water in the drivers foot well after raining so going to add a better weather screen behind the speaker.

The cold starting issue is still there, I did think the relay might help but it hasn't.

[7057sam]

Definitely the relay

Always thought it was the relay on my focus then turned out to be a tiny fuel leak between 1 -2 cylinder and the oxygen used to get in when it wasn't driven.

[DeeTurbo]

The injectors and head are dry and no sign of leaks. I had that on my hatchback when I changed the injectors. One union was leaking ever so slightly and the caused a starting issue on that, as soon as I stopped the leaking the starting issue was sorted, wish it easy as that on this car.

[DeeTurbo]

Some more bits fell off the car this week.





So need to get some more trim bits.

I also gave it a wash today.



This side the car doesn't look too bad.


I've got to update the to do list as some of the priorities have changed.

[sb194114]

good work on bringing this back from the dead keep up the hard work just wish i had the money and time to get mine up to standard

[7057sam]

Great work

Paint work has come up very well

[DeeTurbo]

Thanks guy's, yeah doesn't look to bad after a quick wash.

Ordered some trim clips so hopefully the door strip will go back on ok.

[Toms306]

Good to see you're persevering with this still! Even if it still doesn't look great...

[DeeTurbo]

Well it's my work horse and it does drive great. I do like driving this now and again makes a change from the hatchback. I know that sounds silly but the two cars do feel so different.

If this didn't look so bad I'd be tempted to move the hatchback on to save on the cost of running two cars.

[DeeTurbo]

I bought some 076 injectors a while back for my hatchback and I was going to stick them in that and put the ones out the hatchback in this, but in the end I couldn't be arsed so I've today stuck them in the estate. Mainly to sort the starting issue and also the ones in the estate have been very tappy.


Injectors out the estate.


The injectors came out very easily, the easiest diesel injectors have ever come out for me. I only needed to lever the one out and even then it was only a little force required on the lever, the rest came out by hand.

The crap down the injector seat.


I gave it a good clean to help the replacements injectors to seal.

Nice and shiny.


I was going to stick the injectors in without cleaning the nozzles but they didn't look to great.



It's a good job I gave them a clean as the needles were all gummed up. I've never known the tips to be so gummed up. It was difficult getting the needles out. I think someone had been using red diesel or something else they shouldn't have been.



The tips being cleaned.







All cleaned.



How I held the injector body in the vice.


All installed now and drove the car home from work (16 miles) and I have to say they do sound a lot better, no more ticking.

I also found this.


I had a spare and when swapping it over I found the rear calipers are sticking so that will have to be done another day.

[DeeTurbo]

Good news;

The starting issue seems to have been fixed with the replacement injectors.

The car started up first turn of the crank.

[7057sam]

Nice to see you got your starting issues sorted

Much more planned now ?

[vincent1]

What did you use to clean the injectors looks good stuff

[DeeTurbo]

I'm tempted to go stage 2 with it as I have the map, IC, pipe work and a new clutch but for now I've got some old Alpines type R's to put in the front and an amp to power them. The headunit I'm thinking of staying stock for the oem look but depending on the sound quality I might have to up grade. I also have a spare Alpine CDA 9855 that I took out the hatchback when I upgraded the one in there.

Ooh also got some 21mm torsion bars to go on as the 20mm ones allow the back to sink loads when the car is all loaded up.

I used oven cleaner basically need some sodium hydroxide to eat away the carbon and sludge and that was the closest thing I had. It works really well but it is very nasty shit. you have to wear rubber gloves and eye protection at the every least. Any of that gets on you it will start to burn away your skin. Same stuff they use in Fight Club to make the soap, in one scene they put it one someones skin.

[aircool]

I used oven cleaner basically need some sodium hydroxide to eat away the carbon and sludge and that was the closest thing I had. It works really well but it is very nasty shit. you have to wear rubber gloves and eye protection at the every least. Any of that gets on you it will start to burn away your skin. Same stuff they use in Fight Club to make the soap, in one scene they put it one someones skin.

I would've never thought to have used oven cleaner, is there much to damage on an injector on these?

[DeeTurbo]

Next on the list was the rear wiper, it was struggling to wipe then stopped working.

I took it apart and found the aluminium body had corroded and the corrosion had seized up the shaft.


I removed the shaft and cleaned up the bearings, lubed it up, put it back together and now it works lovely.


I also swapped the 20mm torsion bars for some 21mm ones I had to help stop the car dragging it's arse when I have it fully loaded. Yes I know I need to sort out the trim, I had some clips off eBay but where crap and didn't go in the door to hold the trim, need to go dealers for some.



Old next to the replacements.

Do you like my home made slide hammer made out of a bit of stud and a shaft from the trailing arm?

Whilst under the car I noticed,


Bloody drop link had snapped again, shitty Ocap parts.

The 20mm bars were set to 330mm via dummy shocks and I set the 21mm ones to 320mm to drop the rear down to compensate for the stiffer bars.


The fronts are on 40mm drop Gmax springs and the Dturbo dampers on the front drop the car another 20mm. When the rear was set to 330mm on the dummy dampers the rear was a little high, now it looks a little better. It should be lower but when I load it up it'll be on its bump stops, so it's a compromise.

Dam drop link.


Replaced it with a Lemforder one.


The OSR caliper doesn't seem to back off when off the brakes as it should and has now knackered the pad.


So could do with rebuilding that caliper. I've tried regreasing everything up and it seems a little better but it should be rebuilt to sort the issue.

When I did the heater matrix the uni joint didn't go back on the rack shaft in the right place so I took the column off and realigned it. At the same time I find the steering wheel doesn't come down enough so I spaced the out mounting points of the column down around 5mm.


Next on the list is sound, I've been meaning to put my old Alpine Type R's in for awhile now and I was thinking of placing an amp in the front to power them and I was thinking of mounting it under the centre console but the amp's a little to large to fit.



Next I though I'd try another amp in the cubby hole in the back.


I thought that looks really good.

I also tried the old amp rack and I would like to use them but they would get knocked about and when the car is loaded there will be a cooling issue as stuff would be covering them.