Rattiva the Second...

[Northern_Mike]

'Bangernomics' and me just don't mix

Or me, however hard I try...

I have visions of Jim and a Letraset set, making absolutely perfect, but reversed numbers for the slider..

[CitroJim]

'Bangernomics' and me just don't mix

Or me, however hard I try...

I have visions of Jim and a Letraset set, making absolutely perfect, but reversed numbers for the slider..

I did have thoughts about reversing the connections to the pot inside the slider box that sets the temperature but I'm going in search of a proper gearbox...

It may take a while but I will get it right!!!

[xantia_v6]

can't you just reverse the phase of the stepper motor to make it go the other way?

[lexi]

I thought our Citreons were Bangernomics themselves

[CitroJim]

I thought our Citreons were Bangernomics themselves

In a way lexi that's true but I do like everything working as it should, even in my daily knockabout... It sure is true that an HDi is very cheap to run. I ran to London and back today and the fuel gauge has barely moved

Last night I had a problem on the heater - no demist at all and a very springy slider on the heater control. The flaps were in a flap and would not let any warm air to the screen..

I looked at it this morning and discovered I'd made an error when we installed the new heater box. I'd not adjusted the demist flap cable properly. It would not operate the flap and the inner was kinked

Luckily I got the kinks out but then had the task of adjusting it. To do this meant unclipping the cable at the heater box end. By removing the wireless, the ashtray and moving the slider box to one side I just managed it with my hand through the wireless aperture. And I have the scars to prove it too There's some sharpish edges ion there. Another job done by feel and blind faith...

Still, all flaps now work properly and it was a joy to drive the car to London today with oodles of more or less controllable heat available Apart from the temperature slider working backwards all is pretty much tickitty-boo now

[CitroJim]

That demist flap cable had a surprise in store for me Next day it failed and I had to do it all over again because I'd not properly clipped it at the heater slider end. The clip grips on the very end of the cable and if the cable outer is not positioned absolutely spot-on the clip will not hold it properly...

Still, that apart, Rattiva has been brilliant just recently and has been working hard without a murmer. Two trips to London and back and a trip to Nottingham and back, the return leg of which saw her stuffed to the gunwales with some spoils from the Turbo CT we broke.

All that plus a lot of local running around and the fuel gauge still reads half-full. What a trooper. Who could ask for better than that?

[addo]

...Who could ask for better than that?

A woman, of course.

[Chris570]

...Who could ask for better than that?

A woman, of course.

+1

[CitroJim]

...Who could ask for better than that?

A woman, of course.

+1

<wry grin...>

[CitroJim]

I've felt for a while now that Rattiva has always been a bit firm at the rear and given away by her being a bit crashy over speed humps that neither New V6 or the Activa are.

Today I had the rear corners off and checked them. The corners came off quite easily using the Pleiades tool (now sporting a new bolt after Chris (Incredible Hulk) 570 sheared the old one on the Turbo CT in Nottingham) and light percussion. Both were more or less flat at just under 10 bars each.

I've replaced them with a second hand pair of Hydractive Estate Spheres.

I wanted to check the centre sphere but as this was a C5 type saucer I had no tool to fit and it would not budge using a strap. Out with the cold chisel, punch and club hammer and after a few whacks, off she came.

Only to find it was reasonable at 40 bars All that work. I didn't really want to reuse it now it sports a gouge in the side so I fitted a second hand accumulator that had lost enough puff to make it reasonably right for the job.

I reckon the centre hydractive was the original so if that's the case then those C5 saucers do last well.

I had a heck of a job making this sphere seal and to save repeating myself, this was the cause.

Ride is now improved and all the previous crashiness over speed bumps is now gone. Just shows how much part the corners do play even in soft mode for a good ride.

Mindful that Rattiva is a winter car and that the PAS pipe is a weak point on MK2s, I had a look at mine and whilst it looks a bit rusty (green arrow in the picture below) it does not look too bad.



I gave it a wire brushing and a good thick coat of Hammerite all along it's exposed length to hopefully protect it.

Last job for today, whilst the mudshields were off was to fit a mod kit to the Eberspacher heater (visible in the picture above). the mod is an intake duct that attaches to the air inlet port above the exhaust port so that the heater draws clean and dry air from under the bumper...

[KP]

Good work Jim

You should see about getting some kind of remote setup for it so you can get the car to heat/warm up before you need to use it.. once you have it you never look back

[myglaren]

Good work Jim

You should see about getting some kind of remote setup for it so you can get the car to heat/warm up before you need to use it.. once you have it you never look back

Our Eberspächer heaters all had a clockwork timer, similar to central heating timers, that lit them up a predetermined time each day.
They ran engine heating for half an hour then diverted to cabin heating.
They were also set to light up half an hour before finishing work, in theory. In practice we rarely knew when that was though.

[DickieG]

To set up timed heating in addition to a timer you'll also need a second water pump to circulate the coolant, BMW 5 Series have them as standard on E39 models so a good donor.

[KP]

R19 16v's have a seperate pump in them but RR's of which a fair few are being broken at the minute, have the full webasto dealio in them

[CitroJim]

That Ive not updated this blog in a while is a good sign in that Rattiva is going about her daily duties without a hitch and doing them splendidly too...

She's been brilliant in the recent cold snap too and firing up her Eberspacher without fail to keep me warm and her screens nice and clear

As a treat for her today I changed her LHM which looked more like best bitter rather than Vulcan's blood. It was manky in the extreme!

I also found more past butchery. Pulling out the filter head from the LHM reservoir the D shaped filter fell off. Closer inspection showed a lump of plastic missing from the level float tube, cracks all over it and a missing 'S' clip to hold the filer in place.

The missing clip and bits of plastic were found in the bottom of the reservoir.

Luckily I had a nice spare head and that's now been fitted along with nice bright new LHM.

This was the colour of the LHM The black bits in the tray are from outside the reservoir and not from inside thank goodness...



Just as I was about to bleed the brakes Owen (Trooper30) called round to see me. He gave me a hand to bleed the brakes and was astounded by the horrible LHM bled out... Thanks Owen for your help today!

It may be subjective but I'm convinced Rattiva rides even better on new LHM