French Car Forum

Ideally I'd like to get the metal centre caps that Merc used on stuff like the W123. The only difference I believe is that the ones for commercials weren't usually painted. Wheels are 14 on this.

They've just never quite made it to the top of the to do list as there are a million things on it. Ideally I'd like to keep the pricetag below £50 given...

That's not great, Simon! Only that MIEV breaking on e-bay at present, with the wrong wheels and a new one is>£300! The centre piece will knock out - that's how they balance them. It might well be be possible that an alloy wheel refurbisher could straighten that out.
New one for £150 on ebay at the moment, part number 5402FX, I think it's the rear...

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I was slightly mis informed, the mil light came on on his way to work after about 8 miles going up an incline which is not that steep but fairly long.

Anyways I had the car back and the code was for a cat problem again, the same as the last time.

So i removed the tail exhaust box, it rattled. Thats corroded a lot in the 4 months...

Got in from work this evening to find that new tyre in the porch - & I thought e-t-a tomorrow was a bit optimistic. I mean I only ordered it at 9:45 Sunday evening & it was here, from Burnley, just after 4 o' clock this afternoon. By any standards, that's impressive! :yes:

The engine's back!

rebuiltengine.jpg

New bush in the bottom end, so there's no play in it now, and new rings... best get on with the frame and wheels to have somewhere to put it!

Now I've seen one fitted, that little curved bar makes more sense - & is sufficiently pedestrian-friendly to be MoT compliant.

Not sure that the smell of Dettol would be an improvement, I'd be inclined to investigate the void under the scuttle - & clean it out BUT then, I wouldn't have been brave enough to tackle 1/2 the jobs you have (e.g....

Its like both my white c5 and the white leon, very minimal damage on both, in fact both were busted bumper and fog light, busted headlight, slight dent on bonnet, slight dent on wing with the leon both doors marked. The c5 was cat c the leon cat s. Both I had owned just months, and both I got more than I paid for them. This time i bought the red...

I'm just out of hospital following major surgery and am now hoping to get the X7 serviced and on the road by the end of the month. If successful that means I'll be looking to sell this estate on as I can't justify keeping them both, as much as I'd like to.

Here is something to help whet your interest, Jim;

Technically I haven't actually seen it, I just know it's there by the power of the selfie feature on my phone. To get down low enough to see it I would have to open the door and trigger the full footwell light. You can't actually notice they are on when they are, only with a selfie camera or mirror. No wonder Peugeot are so coy about them,...

Oooh, some car work! A year almost to the day since we picked it up, and after 11,700 miles, the Picasso flashed up the AdBlue warning. I was away to Halfords anyway to get a chain splitter (see on you bike thread....!) so I grabbed a 10l bottle. Was looking at it wonder how I was going to get it in without getting it everywhere (the filler is...

yes i know :D we talk about it, no worries :D
we talked about when it comes to us (law like urs-do not remove dpf .... ), how the DPF filters will be back, but our genius experts have managed to figure out how to solve it, because we are still a tomb of German diesel vehicles, it was supposed to be delivered somewhere and Croatian Bosnian Serbs...

The vac advance must be moving the whole internal mechanical assembly, weights mechanism included. This will add any vac advance to that brought about by the centrifugal weights. The part that stays still is the coil-pickup, with the rotor arm just going round in the centre of it all with engine revs.

Do like the bit about Sussex and the Balkans....

It’s a shame about the oil leak, so I think it will be sold on to my local Peugeot specialist who’s offered me a decent price for it - as it came with 3/4 tank of fuel too, l shall have made a nice little earner on it for replacing the radiator! The leak is too bad for me to ignore and carry on using it sadly

That's a very fair result Mike :)...

cornesoutafrica, photos on your webpage are awesome! :)

I'm still around Chris although I've not had anything French since the 406 V6 coupe nearly 4 years ago , since then it's been 2 Landrover Freelander 2's . The first a Td4 which sadly got written off by a twit in an Audi , the second an Sd4 auto which I absolutely love , your fleet has certainly been varied . Love the Volvos btw .

Mark

LNA.... a re-badged 104.
PC: Practical Classics

That Volvo with the bed for a driving seat is scary by the way!!!!

Too scary to sit it let alone lie in.

Yeah, I'd like to put one like yours, but black, on my VTS :)

Well it seems I've hit my 'Post Like' Millennium today, thanks to member 'Plumb0b', and yes, of all the interesting and varied things I've posted on, it was my comments on a good old battery check and BSI reset!

So thanks Plumb0b, I am awarding you a virtual tufty badge :rock:

Well deserved Marc, I've put you on the Big Big Carpet for less...

So, ex-Shalford Green Gatage Barry finally retires. He did work on our BX19RD, and introduced me to re-gassing.
Tom, a colleague of his, still works for the 'new' SGS, now at Dunsfold aerodrome.

Well, the 207 is reassembled and has been MOT'd. It failed yesterday on a broken coil spring and an oil leak from the engine.

The coil spring surprised me as the car was sitting perfectly level but it was the bottom coil that had snapped off. It's now had a new spring and a strut top which has apparently made the steering lighter according to...

Miked, it is not against the rules (AFAIK) to name a garage/service that has done a good job. In fact, there is a dedicated section for such;

So today (I got the car in August!) I finally got to drive it! Since the MOT owner offered to buy it off me, I've been itching to have a go.

There were a couple of niggling doubts due to the charging issue mentioned above and wondering if I was going to get a tug off an ANPR car (if the MID hasn't updated yet) but it was an all round ok...

Was in the UK for a couple of weeks, so hadn't done anything on the car.

Today, I decided to attempt the headlight restoration, and am rather pleased with the results - I still need to put the paint protection film on, but it was very windy today, so might do that tomorrow if the wind dies down, or clear up the garage a bit so I can get the car...

On the canals the 'step' that the upper gates rest on is called the 'cill'.

#-o
What's worse than having 2 broken Activa's....?

Why, having THREE, of course.

Wow time's flown, sorry I didn't get back sooner. There was no brand name but the seller was shirley9293 ... I actually thought I'd bought from them before with success, but that was gasketsforclassics :( wish I'd checked...

Anyhow, some changes in circumstances over the last month. White is still using oil despite running NA so I've made an...

Also, I replaced the handbrake cables and guide tubes on the C5 a few weekends ago and filled them with grease. I am smitten with the C5. It's a really good Xantia replacement. I'm pleased I went for an estate too. I've lost count of the number of times I've needed the extra capacity since I've had it. I've also used the roof bars a few times.

PM Sent

Things have been at a standstill im afraid to say. My best friend reversed her focus into a pole so I have been fixing her dent, along with the rusty front wings which every mk2 focus has. She was annoyed when i took the sander to the wings that there is already about a whole tin of filler in each one! She has had the car for 4 years when it was 6...

This car is up for sale BTW, look in For Sale for details.

If the system is overcharged and going out on the high pressure switch I'd expect to see a behaviour where the compressor would drop out and the engine fans would be on full speed (to try to bring the condenser temperature down). I'd not generally expect it to interact with the interior fan...though I don't know the specific quirks of the...

Thanks Jim

I am always lurking just do not have time to post much on here, Working again today off to Scotland, looking forward to retiring and have more time to myself.

Only 6 years to go.

I'm looking forward to getting my Activa on the road again now. I was going to do it last month but realised that I was 3 weeks through the month and refused to loose a months tax... in hindsight I wish I had done as it's now MOT time and she's not moved since last year so I'll be going the very long route to MOT to give her a bit of a workout on...

NG4 I’ve had no issues with and it runs the latest firmware and software, maps, etc.

Steering rack, I don’t know about, I’m going to ask my local dealer if they can pull anything from the history of the car, it’s been maintained by a main dealer in Oxford (Hartwell) so I’m hoping there’s something they can find out.

It’s going on next week for...

Don't use petrol for parts washing... It's dangerous both from a fire risk and a health risk...

Best to give it to a friend with a petrol car...

Well, experimentation is kind of my business at the moment. It's only natural I extend it to my side projects too :-D

The pump has been running all day today so I'll cut it open tomorrow and inspect the paper element for any crud.

Visually when I check a sample of oil with white paper it seems a touch redder so that's promising.

Regardless,...

Well all looking good on this being the cause of the odd tail light behaviour (makes perfect sense) but unfortunately not the cause of the battery randomly dying. So, no more messing about - a replacement Bosch Silver has gone in.

First time I've replaced a battery on a C5 and I must say... Gosh! What a brilliant bit of design! Easiest battery...

Yep.
Thats on top of the various other things like the usual broken/missing clips all over the engine bay and wheel arch liners, engine undertray missing...
There's also an oil leak from the rocker cover somewhere (another fall out from the cambelt that was done less than a year ago). So bloody annoying. But underneath it all, it's a fun (and...

\tfr is also very harsh to alloy of any type and seeps into seams attacking zinc coatings.....nasty stuff imho

as citronut (Malcolm) used to say when he had to work on a height controller, Work and grease, work and grease . I take this to mean that (when he had one off the car) he would move the arm several times through its' full travel, apply some white grease, full travel a few more times, grease, and repeat until the arm moved freely.

That's it...

Yes, energy density is the reason why you need to put in ~30% more compared to gasoline. But when that requirement is satisfied there really shouldn't be any real world difference in power output. And the ECU adds that fueling for you based on the Lambda signal. Or at least the ES9J4 ECU does. Most fuel injected cars will throw a fault code when...

but the gearbox is a slightly different matter. It can best be described as 'random'. It sometimes holds gears for far too long, while at other times changing up in quick succession, only to have to change down as its in too high a gear. Other than that its fine !

Unlikely to be an impending sign of failure but one potential cause can be...

XM owners' handbook (1996) also says that the gauge should be read (a) when cold, and (b) after leaving the engine switched off for at least 10 minutes. Guess that the latter is to allow oil level to return to 'stopped', rather than the oil to cool down, which takes an age.

I love it when the colour is carried over to the interior. One of the best things about the Fiat coupe in either the bright yellow or electric blue with black leather is that there's that big slab across the dash in body colour. Skoda kind of gets that effect going too as it's mostly black - but has the exposed metal on the door tops. Actually...

BTW, given the number plate on that XM... In its past, was it ever the personal transport of Roger Bradford by any chance?
Roger was never an XM man really and this wasn't anything to do with him, however I do still have a couple of CXs tucked away which were to do with Roger...

Peter is correct this was Geoff's car (1 of 4 XMs he had at the...

Well done on the new purchase!
Always pleasing to see an old Citroen being saved :)