Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Just a quick update for today.

Found a bit of black leather dye and gave that a bit of a rub into the one slightly scuffed bit of the driver's seat bolster. Usual spot because it gets bashed pretty much every time the driver gets into or out of the car.

Looking a bit better now that's done I think. It was about the only noticeable mark on the interior really...

[Zelandeth]

Finally been out for a decent run. Took us over to Leicester for the dentist this morning. The only description I can come up with is to quote the one used by Practical Classics a couple of issues ago when talking about an Avantime. That is to call it "a motorway devouring mile-thief" - you could very easily do a lot of miles in this car very easily.

Two out of my three passengers fell asleep too, which I always take as a good sign for comfort.

[daviemck2006]

The activa can devour motorway miles rapidly. Trouble is if it’s too rapidly they devour the entire contents of the fuel tank rapidly too! When I collected mine after it’s clutch job at Jim’s on the Scottish runway that is very similar to the M74 I’m sure I saw the speedo claiming 140 and the fuel gauge was visibly moving downwards!

[CitroJim]

I always found the Activa to be a fantastic cruiser and mile-muncher and on a trip and driven with a modicum of restraint, not bad on fuel either...

In a lot of ways the Activa is a better cruiser than the V6... Suspension is better for sure... Also, the torque of the TCT is such that so few gear changes are needed it behaves almost like an automatic...

I see the Activa as a true GT - a Grand Tourer in the finest tradition...

[Zelandeth]

Just had an interesting, short lived electrical glitch.

Started up as normal, let the suspension sort itself out etc then pulled out of my drive. About 10 seconds later the battery light on the dash appeared. Accompanying this was a loss of functionality of the indicators and I noticed that the code LED on the stereo was blinking - as though the ignition was off. Being only 10 seconds from home I turned around to investigate - and as I pulled into the drive it sorted itself out.

I switched the car on and off a few times but was unable to replicate the fault.

I then shrugged and continued about my business without any further issues.

My gut feeling is dodgy contact in the ignition switch or one of the relays it controls (I know this car has had the relay mod done to take some of the load off the ignition switch). Thoughts?

[CitroJim]

Zel, I must now tell you that the car has done that very, very intermittently in my ownership for ever - almost from the first day I had it...

With me, always when on the move - the engine would cut and then just restart again - I never got to see just how much died when it happened so you have already seen more than me...

I have checked all the usual suspects and swapped the double injection relay... I thought the latter was it as the problem then went away for ages but no...

It's one of those faults - like on my Saxo - that I wish would go 'solid' and thus enable a bit of sensible fault-fining to take place...

It was so, so intermittent with me it could go 6 months or more between occurrences...

I could never provoke it at will despite much effort...

I guess you'll be wanting a load of wiring diagrams soon

I just warm up the scanner

[Zelandeth]

So long as it's one of those "it does that occasionally" faults I'm really not going to worry about it...I very much doubt I'll manage to track it down if you've not managed! In this case the engine never cut out, just battery light on and no indicators (or I think heater blower), then 30 seconds later everything back to normal.

Almost wonder if it's a software glitch in the BSI firmware or something like that with it being so random and infrequent...

I'll probably look into it at some point more out of engineer's curiosity than a requirement to fix it.

Just got back in from a trip to Banbury and back (mercifully *just* dodged rush hour), the lights are okay. Definitely better than Gabriel's were, but not as decent as those on the Lada - but given you're looking at about 60% less reflector area that's not surprising!

However she has now decided (literally as I backed into the drive) that 1500rpm is a good idle speed... interesting. Going to go check it's not something daft once I've dropped off everything I was out to get. Best one like that I ever had was on a Fiat Panda where the little rubber "boot" on the end of the throttle cable came loose and wedged itself in the throttle pulley, jamming it about 2/3rds open. That was an interesting trip home.

What do you bet I can't make it happen again now...

Edit: precisely as expect, car is now idling just fine. Well it gave me a chance to give the suspension a bit of exercise, check the LHM level and confirm that both headlamp washers do in fact work. Still seems to be a little rough at idle to me, but not sure how much of that is me not knowing this engine very well. Flew through the emissions test anyhow so can't be that far off! Hopefully a knowledgeable set of ears on Thursday can confirm it's fine or does sound a bit lumpy. My usual ports of call at that point would be a hose check, clean the throttle housing and a set of plugs if they look anything other than as new. I did catch a very quick 15 second or so video standing next to the tailpipe for reference, if I get time I'll throw that at YouTube later and link here.

[Zelandeth]

Have to confess to having been a bit childish this evening...

Coming off the big signal controlled junction just by Halfords etc this evening, had someone in a modern BMW line up next to me, and start revving the engine. It's lowered, has a big exhaust and actually sounded reasonably potent. I decided to hell with it, and gave it full beans away when the lights changed. Thanks to the Cappuccino years ago for being able to smoothly squeeze the power on despite the boosty nature of the power delivery. Suffice to say, Captain BMW was *rather* surprised to find that he couldn't get past this old Citroen. Not only that, but he was getting pulled away from by it. The road was a bit greasy so the limiting factor was traction more than anything.

All done at legal speeds - just getting to them rapidly!

I'm a total infant, but having that sort of power available is sometimes too much of a temptation. As is the generally unassuming looks of the car which make it such a sleeper.

[myglaren]

What's all the "revving" about.
Can't see why anyone would need to do that.

[daviemck2006]

That was one of the best things about the activa, annoying bmw and audi drivers

[Zelandeth]

The expression on the face of the passenger was the best. He was clearly looking to see whether his mate had just been shown up by some disguised concept car or something.

It was always fun showing up the likes of the Corsa crowd with the Lada...the Activa however can equally bother far more exotic prey though!

Granted I try to avoid such temptation...but it's nevertheless nice to know you *can* put them in their place.

Must have been punching even further above its weight in performance terms back in the day though... definitely feels quicker than an Impreza WRX...which is the only car I've driven that's got the same size of power unit and relies on a turbo to boost the output a bit. Not sure how much the gearing affects that impression though.

[CitroJim]

Zel, the high idle.... I thought I'd fixed that last year... It's a slightly sticky Idle Control Valve.

I gave it a good lube last time but it clearly hasn't fully fixed it... I have a spare here you can fit...

With all these faults occurring I guess you'll soon be wanting your money back

[Zelandeth]

Not having a bit of it! If I didn't want to be kept on my toes I'd drive a Prius. There's always a learning phase with any "new old" car where you learn all of the quirks, most of which you don't need to worry about!

Slightly sticky ICV sounds plausible, and explains why it cleared itself after a few minutes. It can wait till the weather gets warmer or it starts doing it regularly.

It's a bit of a voyage of discovery for me this, I know the Bosch K-Jetronic and Lada flavour of the Bosch TBi injection systems pretty much inside out, this one's a new one for me to learn now!

Got to go and reset my website's DNS redirection yet again...we have a dying RCD in our fusebox which had taken to plunging our house into darkness at random when you switch anything resembling an inductive load off. That's twice in the last week.

It's about time I stumbled across a random UPS somewhere with a trivial fault at the side of the road!

[CitroJim]

Not having a bit of it! If I didn't want to be kept on my toes I'd drive a Prius. There's always a learning phase with any "new old" car where you learn all of the quirks, most of which you don't need to worry about!

Phew That's a relief Zel!!!

I do agree though and going through the learning process is all part of the enjoyment Hence why I',m so loving the Skoda and Saxo... New challenges

It's not a K-Jetronic Zel, that was the old (but very good) electro-mechanical one... The Activa has the Bosch Motronic MP3.2...

[Zelandeth]

Have a sneaking suspicion that's closely related to the system Saab used on the 16v cars (the K-Jetronic was only used on the 8v cars). Some also used a Lucas system as well, which I've only done battle with once, swore never again - though the car in question was a right old shed so I'm prepared to be proven wrong.

Had a bit of a trip down memory lane today. Noticed a heap of streetlights out around us recently, and know that the council here likely just like in Aberdeen don't have nearly enough staff on hand to survey the area regularly enough. I'm no stranger to doing survey work and don't mind it in the slightest, so went out for an hour with a clipboard and some printed maps to scribble on. Came back with just under 50 failures to stick into their defect system tomorrow.

Now... they're either going to hate me in the morning, or love me for actually reporting faults so they can fix them. That was always the vibe I got from the staff up north, they didn't mind in the slightest because the biggest challenge they had was getting information. The amount of times they'd get "that's been out for months!" from passers by when fixing a duff column, yet when asked whether they'd reported the fault the answer was almost invariably a firm "no" defies belief.

Hopefully I've done my bit of being a good citizen for the week.

Hopefully the high vis vest from back up north baffled at least one fellow pedestrian while I was hunting for a road name at one point.

Was a strange feeling, made me oddly nostalgic for my old job. Also slightly strange in that some of the last longer survey stints I did back up in Aberdeen was in my (sadly now dead) Pug 306 Sedan. Out in a French motor again today! Activa does just fine with this - second gear at idle is helpfully perfect infrastructure defect hunting survey speed.

Spent by *far* the most time doing surveys in the Saab though. Definitely made me miss it. Big thing that has in its favour for that work (aside from being an auto of course) was a big, flat dashboard. Activa has the common modern car grumble in that there's nowhere aside from the passenger seat to put a clipboard and I've yet to find somewhere that pens don't vanish. Oddment storage space is *definitely* something that's been vastly improved on the S2 Xantia.