My New work snotter - ZX1.9TD

[Sl4yer]

I loved my Volcane. Even when I picked up a new Leon FR TDi150 in 2004, I preferred to drive the Volcane because it's turn in was so sharp. I'd keep one now for daily driving if the insurance wasn't prohibitive (keeping the larger Activa for going away in).

James

[beko1987]

She's taxed!

She has discs on the rear which I haven't looked at yet, will get it all sorted then bleed and see. I think the front is bedding back in still though as it was a bit sharper today. I did push it a bit on the way to the post office, and it was fine and great fun!

Got a few jobs to do later, and emptying the XM ready for sale!

[Mandrake]

That wheel moment must have been interesting.... you'll never ignore a wobble / clonking noise again though!

If you remember, the same thing very nearly happened to me - a garage left all the front wheel bolts loose after an abortive attempt at balancing my front wheels, a couple of days later on the motorway I noticed a fairly small vibration that got worse over a few miles.

As I knew a wheel was still out of balance I didn't necessarily think there was anything serious to worry about, but then it started "clicking" slightly when cornering and I had an "oh s**t, wheel bolts must be loose" moment of realisation, I got off the motorway has soon as possible (no hard shoulder) which happend to be the exit I wanted anyway, dropped off my passengers just after the exit, checked the wheel bolts and the front ones were all loose, on the left wheel they were about 1-2 turns loose.

So I could have been just a few miles short of a wheel going missing incident myself...

[beko1987]

Thats pretty muuch everything that did happen and went through my head before they went, but you missed the lane-moving banging that occured, the sound of the wing being smashed to bits and picking lane marking paint out of the disc!

My friend had 4 tyres put on his car today (took him to collect it in the ZX) and the first thing he said he did when he get home was check the bolts!

[lexi]

What a story man!!

You buy a car to save money and then it costs you with an accident.........shucks!
Could have been worse with injury or third party involved, so quite good that way.

I had a couple ZX, one of which was nearly new. Excellent cars. Maybe hard to get a good wing now?

[beko1987]

Its now a £490 car, yes! Shame really! Yea I'm glad too it didn't smack a 14 plate merc in the side too!

Know of a nice green wing for £30 delivered, just need to wait until payday. I have straightened out the wing enough to get the arch liner back in, and got the indicators working, and generally tidied it up.

Also put the thinner spare on the rear so the front tyres are the same size! Feels like my car now, poor old XM is now empty and looking on in sadness!

[demag]

Apart from the obvious it does look rather nice. However I was rather alarmed at the amount of copper grease you put on that hub . If that squeezes out and gets on the discs you might have another fright rather sooner than you expected

[Hell Razor5543]

I do agree with demags' concern about the grease. I understand why you used it (I did the same on Gracies' front disks when I changed them), but I used enough to coat the hubs, just enough to stop the disks seizing in place.

[Northern_Mike]

It's only a smear of grease! I'm not sure how it's going to escape to get onto the discs...

Nice little ZX that. Well done.

[citronut]

i was just looking through you picys above again, and noticed were you were jacking it up,

it is not a good idea to jack them at that point as it will eventually lead to tin worm setting in,

i have welded many ZX's through people ( un/educated tyre fitters ) and the likes jacking them up by the body work,

best place to jack on is only the sub frame,

although that all said in this case you probably could not do the above with it sitting on the ground with no wheel on

[beko1987]

I had to jack it up on the sill on the m25 due to the extra lowness yes! Normally though, I jack it at the thicker points of the sills, then put a stand under something big and suspensiony underenath, leaving the jack just touching the sill on the corner I'm working on just in case!

Had cause to drive fast this morning as I was running late already, got halfway to work and realised I forgot a parcel I was having picked up from work, so turned around, blasted back home and then back to work. Holds the road really well even with iffy tyres, pulls like a train with only a slight wisp of smoke here and there, and used no fuel! Front wheels are no longer very warm either after refurbishing the brakes! Will buy some new pads for the rear and overhaul those too soon, I already have the discs!

Running 50/50 with veg oil at the moment and if anything it's smoothed the idle out! Will try sunflower oil next time though, apparently it's thinner.

[beko1987]

I forgot I had a thread on here about my ZX! Where are we after over a year of no updates:

Mechanical work -
New front lower balljoints
New front droplinks
New track rod ends
new rear beam bushes

Other
New tyres all round
Interior stripped out over new year to try and find the source of a leak. Source was never found, and it's stayed dry so far, and the interior got a damn good cleanup! Removed loads of old, surplus ICE wiring that wasnt connected up to anything and fixed a few rattles.

She's had 2 oil changes in the last year, and is now up to 279,823 as of this morning. There's still some jobs to do though:

Need to find some rear shock absorbers, current ones are very crusty
Have 2 new rear calipers to get fitted
Exhaust! I bought a 1.9d exhaust like a numpty (mine has no cat, so one long pipe to the backbox), hopefully I have found someone to wave a walding stick over the old and new one to make one good one. Currently the exhaust is tied up around the axle with a bit of old dyson cable. Has done a sterling job for the past month, but I want it sorted before the weather turns, it's a pain being under there on a hot day, let alone in the snow...

Really should get around to washing her, but that can wait. There's a very annoying ticking coming from the front drivers side corner that keeps annoying me, and the steering wheel is a bit tatty, probably no better volcane airbag-less steering wheels about though!

She plods along!

[CitroJim]

That's excellent and really good to hear from you again