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

[Zelandeth]

Taking a closer look at that wiring mess reveals the tail is attached to the aftermarket alarm sounder...so that's definitely thoroughly dead then. Good thing I erred on the side of "I don't think so" when asked by the insurance company if it had an alarm. I'll pull that out then and see if I can find the other end of this to at least confirm that there's no power going to it.

Yay, I get to stand on my head under a dashboard again!

On the running theme of seeing if I can get vehicle systems back up and running I made a run over to Formula 1 in Newport Pagnell so this could happen.



While the AC system was totally flat when I got the van I had noted on my first inspection that both service caps were loose, plus the condenser looks way newer than 20 years and 100K miles...have to wonder if a new one was fitted at some point and they just never bothered gassing it up? I still have a bottle with some dregs of dry nitrogen from goodness only knows how many years ago, which in its last gasp shoved around 40psi into this system a few days ago. Checking this morning showed the pressure hadn't visibly dropped. Having something in there had also allowed me to check that the compressor clutch worked and the compressor ran - albeit only for a couple of seconds as I had no idea if there was any oil left in the system.

It was a tense 30 minutes while the system ran the vacuum decay test (which basically is a leak check to see whether any air leaks back into it) was carried out - zero decay reported. Which says the system should hopefully be gas tight. It also shows it's reasonably dry (as water boiling off from the drier core etc would result in a *small* bit of vacuum decay).

Machine was happy with all of the tests and charged properly. Real test was going to be starting up, pushing the button and seeing what happened.



I should really have had a camera pointing at the service gauges to video it, but suffice to say they behaved exactly as expected.

It's a bit hard to tell you'd think when it's all of 6C outside, but the system was definitely working. Suction line definitely got cold and there was heat quickly apparent on the liquid line. Definitely colder than ambient air coming out the vents too... exactly what we were after. No nasty noises from the compressor (that I can hear over the rattle of an SDi idling next to it anyway...though I'd by lying if I didn't admit it's a lot more refined than an XUD).

Having working AC should really help me deal with the bit of damp in the cabin. Basically we'll run the heater at "as warm as I can deal with" on recirc with the AC on for a while and see if that helps. As the air con dehumidifies the air passing through it, that will help actively pull water out of the cabin.

Next significant jobs in mind:

[] Exterior clean.

[] Dismantle and clean EGR system as it sure it's thoroughly sooted up. Especially given I've no idea how long that vacuum leak had been playing havoc with things. Can't see any obvious signs of it having been apart before, so it and the intake pipework will be well due a clean if that's the case.

[] Paint front bumper so it looks slightly less scruffy.

Longer term I have an idea in mind regarding the paintwork as a whole...open to inspiration that others might have too though. I'm already finding myself really quite attached to this little van so I'm going to try to make a reasonably tidy job of things. The rust around the window over the cab will be getting sorted and we'll see what we can do for the offside rear quarter too before the aforementioned larger scale paint job too.

What colour do *you* think she should be painted?

[mickthemaverick]

I wonder if you should consider copying the paint scheme from the Big Van (Daddy van?) but maybe reversing the colours. Blue van with white highlights?

[Dormouse]

I trust you are not influenced by the Jester colour scheme offered by VW?

[Xantianut]

Doormouse I always liked the Polo Harlequin.....

[Zelandeth]

You two appear to have read my mind. The Polo Harlequin was always something I thought was a brilliant thing.

Applying the concept to this van does require a bit of lateral thinking though - as it doesn't have a side door. If you think about the original Harlequin models, both Polo and Golf, they're five door models. I think if we just kept the whole rear quarter in the frame colour that's going to be way too much red (as the combination with the red base was always my favourite).

This was a very, very, very quick and dirty photo edit to put my thoughts onto "paper" in a way.



I didn't want to go creating lines - using the existing panel lines to keep it looking clean is the only way to go.

Normally the tailgate would be yellow and the rear bumper green. That won't work here as there's no rear quarter to separate the green from the rear "door" and bumper. So something needs to change - the bumper seems the most sensible one. Though I'm open to suggestions there!

There's going to be input from actual bodywork people on this too as we're going (if I actually do this) to try to do this as tidily and in a way that will last. I'm actually going to probably see about just *getting* some of the panels in the right colour rather than painting everything. Especially as the bonnet has several dents in it already, the front bumper is in primer, the radiator grill is painted black, and the rear door is going to need to be taken apart to some extent anyway as the small leaf has a sticky bottom latch. Plus let's face it... original VW paint will be far better than anything I can ever hope to do! Yes I'll have to mess about swapping locks over...but the driver's door already needs to come apart to sort the lock anyway as the annoying plastic actuator rod between the lock barrel and the latch has snapped...standard for a VW of this era!

[mickthemaverick]

Just a thought Zel, if you are going to have the panels done panel by panel have you considered wrapping them rather than painting? Apart from the obvious economy it also would give the body that extra layer of protection. We had some terrofic wraps done to our own design on our van fleet by a chap in Knebworth.

[Dormouse]

Doormouse I always liked the Polo Harlequin.....

The Harlequin Golf is very rare. The first Harlequin Polo I ever saw was a local farmer's wife's one. Matched her colourful character to a tee.

[Dormouse]

Just a thought Zel, if you are going to have the panels done panel by panel have you considered wrapping them rather than painting? Apart from the obvious economy it also would give the body that extra layer of protection. We had some terrofic wraps done to our own design on our van fleet by a chap in Knebworth.

Worth a thought as there are colour changing wraps available that would suit the huge slabbieness of the rear quarter panels.

[mickthemaverick]

Doormouse I always liked the Polo Harlequin.....

Matched her colourful character to a tee.

Yet another golfing reference in this tale!!

[Zelandeth]

Just a thought Zel, if you are going to have the panels done panel by panel have you considered wrapping them rather than painting? Apart from the obvious economy it also would give the body that extra layer of protection. We had some terrofic wraps done to our own design on our van fleet by a chap in Knebworth.

Not a bad shout, how does the finish compare to paint these days? It's a long, long time since I had any even peripheral involvement with that sort of thing.

[mickthemaverick]

My mate in Spain had his Lexus LS350 fully wrapped in a matt gold wrap as the car is black which is not the best living in Spain. That was 6 years ago and it still looks every bit as good as it did when first done, ignoring the scrape he put in the bumper himself!! Because the price difference is so great I think its almost a no brainer, especially when you don't have to worry about matching paint colours. If you do dent a wing on a harlequin scheme you can just wrap it in a different colour for a change.
There are plenty of vans around these days with landscape pictures which would have been done by airbrushing in the old days. Now they are wrapped and everybody wins (except the painter of course!) Keep your eyes open and you'll soon get a feel for the finish quality available!

[Zelandeth]

Didn't have a huge amount of energy available today as I'm still feeling like death from the booster jab on Friday, nevertheless I was determined to get a few things done.

First up was getting the interior of the S123 back into a presentable state. Calling it clean would be overselling it, but it's a heck of a lot better and I'm not embarrassed by it any more. Sadly attempts to find a working jetwash to do something about the outside were fruitless. Nevertheless, the interior is better at least.











It's no longer approximately 87% dog hair by volume at least.

Should be off to a new owner in the next couple of days.


Moving onto the Caddy it was time to have a look at the EGR valve to get an idea of how gunked up the system was.

By the standards of most modern cars it's thankfully pretty easy to get to. The arrow is pointing at the vacuum actuator rather than the valve itself, but you get the idea.



Given the position of the securing collar I don't reckon it's ever been off. However the innards weren't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.



Yes it's pretty grim, but I'm not unused to seeing these things totally choked solid on far newer vehicles.

Probably about 0.5mm worth of caked on gunk the whole way round.

The other side of the valve is more disgusting as it's sticky, tarry crap as the PCV system feeds into the EGR circuit right next to the valve. I did dig an appreciable amount of gunge out of the valve body, but it definitely wasn't totally choked nor did it seem to be sticky.



I'd also been able to confirm that the valve is sealing completely and consistently when closed.

Reassembled everything...and absolutely no difference. Very slightly surging engine speed still there (it does exactly the same at any engine speed I found, regularly once a second), along with excessive smoke on light throttle.

Definitely have vacuum at the EGR valve, and you can hear it physically snap shut if you pull the vacuum line off. It however doesn't really have any noticeable effect on the running of the engine either way.

One thing I did notice is that when this behaviour is present, the rev counter also behaves slightly erratically, randomly twitching upwards from the actual engine speed - and it seems to do it more when on the throttle than off.

Then out of nowhere, the engine completely smooths out. The note deepens (because the flap on the intake, which I assume works in partnership with the EGR valve is now fully open), and the diesel clatter becomes a little sharper, so something has obviously changed - I'm guessing with the injection timing. Checking the EGR at that point shows there's no vacuum present, so the ECU isn't calling for the EGR system to be in operation. It's also noteworthy that after this point when things decide to behave that the rev counter twitching also stops I'm increasingly convinced these two symptoms are connected in some way.

So I don't think the EGR valve is the cause of this issue...bit it's definitely *involved* in it. Think the next step really will be to find someone locally with VCDS and get a look at some real-time data. Everything being fly-by-wire here makes guessing pretty pointless... imagine on a newer car we'd have a check engine light illuminated - but this car doesn't have one!

The rev counter misbehaving being clearly tied into it is making me think camshaft/crankshaft position sensors? Or however else the ECU gets the engine speed/position data...makes sense though if there's a disparity between the requested and reported engine speed, it would throw the fuelling all to hell.

Think it's likely been like this for a while so I'm not worried about it really, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to try to get to the bottom of it. Especially as the van drives so much nicer when this fault is staying out of the way.

We got any SDi experts on here?

Oh...and I've ordered a replacement engine cover. Looks quick and easy to fit/remove unlike many, so I'm not adverse to its being there.

Something which may well be getting changed in the not too distant future - which is a shame as they're only a year old - is the tyres. I had to brake moderately hard to avoid a suicidal pigeon this afternoon and discovered that these tyres really aren't great on a cold, damp road. Also the front ones have way more grip than the rears...great, aside from when all four wheels lock up, then the front regains grip well before the rear - which by then has started to try to overtake the front. It was a moderately firm braking manoeuvre, but I didn't expect quite *that* degree of upset. Even the big van would have been okay.

Methinks some Uniroyal rubber may be in the future. I will get the tracking checked in the meantime though - not least because the steering wheel is slightly off straight and means I can't see about 2/3rds of the warning lights on the dash when driving straight ahead. Bit of a daft design there from VW. Likewise the switchgear most of which is hidden behind the steering wheel.

[Zelandeth]

This surging behaviour seriously has me intrigued. Managed to catch it doing it again today and got a better video properly catching it.



This clearly shows how it's essentially a regular "blip" approximately once a second that happens irrespective of the engine speed - and that during this behaviour she chucks out a shedload of smoke.

You can always *smell* that something is off when it's doing this, the smell from the exhaust lingers for ages. If you're in a car following it, it makes your eyes water apparently.

Physically disabling the EGR valve by removing and plugging the vacuum line to the actuator has no effect. I know the valve is moving as you can clearly hear it snap open or closed - and it sealed well enough that carb cleaner wasn't even seeping through the orifice while I was cleaning it yesterday. So I think the valve itself is innocent.

However if I unplug the *electrical* connection to the solenoid valve which controls said valve, the problem completely goes away. Idle immediately smooths out perfectly (it sounds to me like the injection timing or duration also changes as the engine note itself does change too), you hear the throttle valve in the intake snap fully open, and the throttle response becomes perfectly smooth through the whole rev range - and we see absolutely zero smoke aside from the expected tiny initial puff of black if you absolutely boot it, and that's not enough to be visible in the headlights of a following car. Also notable that any noticeable smell completely vanishes too...it just smells like an early 00s diesel VW.

Now I'm sure unplugging that would trigger an engine management light if I had one and I'm sure will have logged a fault code, and disabling an emission control device like this is illegal, so it's not a permanent fix...however it provides me with useful data to add to my diagnostic process and *definitely* puts the van in a less polluting state while I get to the bottom of the root cause. You've seen the cloud if you've watched the video above!

I need to make my reading today working out exactly what the sequence of operation is for the various bits of the emission control system on this engine and how the various parts interact with each other. I get the impression that understanding how that lot works will shed some light on what might be happening.

Decided that the Caddy could have a day off as errand running workhorse today.





Which went absolutely fine until I heard a suspicious "ding" at one point and saw something small and round disappearing into oblivion behind me.

When I eventually found somewhere safe to pull over, the cause didn't take long to find.



Ah. That's sub optimal. The air filter element was still present, wedged between the chassis and suspension arm thankfully (as they're surprisingly expensive), however the cover plate and wing nut are long gone. Even if I could spot it, as with so much of MK there's nowhere safe to pull over to retrieve it safely as it's on a 70mph dual carriageway with no pedestrian provision even vaguely nearby. So I'll need to find a replacement. Thankfully it's a bit of standard Steyr-Puch engine rather than a bespoke bit of Invacar so shouldn't be difficult to track one down, even if it may mean getting a whole new air cleaner assembly.

Guess we need to add "check air filter element retaining wing nut is tight" to the weekly checklist!

[Hell Razor5543]

Possibly using a split or step washer to help hold that wingnut in place?

[Zelandeth]

Possibly using a split or step washer to help hold that wingnut in place?

Yes, some method of making sure it can't just disappear again will definitely be implemented.

-- -- --

Today's automotive task:

Get rid of this bodgery behind the heater controls in the Caddy.



This is a close up of the broken bit of plastic on the back of the heater control assembly.



Which SHOULD look like this.



Thankfully as I expected the base units are identical, just mine has a few extra bits on being from an AC equipped car.

Mine:



New (used) one:



Underneath:



These (plus the white plastic lamp cover I later realised) are what need to be transferred over - and the faceplate obviously.



The greenish plastic thing in the middle is the light pipe which illuminates the indicators in the AC/Recirc buttons green when the headlights are on and the controls are off.

It needs to sit in front of the main light pipe assembly, but thankfully that unclips easily enough.

The one on the right illuminates the legends on the aforementioned buttons...and getting that sucker into position here is a royal faff, especially as you're acutely aware of what a tiny, fragile bit of plastic it is.



Really glad I had the sense to photograph the order these sat in before pulling anything apart.



This is what the top of the switch assembly looks like.



Whole new unit back together now with my AC specific bits added.



I initially didn't realise that the white lamp housing is slightly different, as the AC specific one is slightly shorter to allow it to fit over the additional light pipes.

The part numbers are different, confirming I wasn't just being daft.

AC one:



Non-AC one:



Though if you're doing this job you've likely got a complete but broken assembly in front of you anyway, so really not an issue. If robbing bits for an AC conversion though worth knowing you do need it.

After a small amount of swearing at cables (they are *precisely* as long as they *need* to be). I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's a large part of how that bit got snapped in the first place. Wouldn't be hard to put a load of strain on there when installing a stereo or routing any wiring behind the dash.



Having all four mounting lugs now present both the heater controls and the black surround on the front of the dash is far more secure.

While I was in there I pulled the cigarette lighter out to replace the failed lamp in that.



That has to be one of the most frustratingly difficult to access lamp holders I have ever come across. I did eventually though manage to extract and replace the lamp. Result being (finally) all of the dash illumination working.



Albeit with a moderately annoying amount of light leakage from the vicinity of the cigarette lighter. It really needs some assistance in the light-tightness department.



Next interior target will be the offside outer heater vent which is missing a large chunk of itself.



Which I have a suspicion will end up coming from the same breakers I just got the heater control panel from. I'll probably do the headlight control panel too as it's not securely fitted, I'm assuming because a mounting tab has broken or something like that behind it. The little storage cubby for documents under the dash being screwed shut with self-tappers may make it onto the list too as I can't unsee that now!

Small steps, but nice to have fully working heater controls again without needing a cable sticking out under the dash. For the sake of £12 of parts and maybe an hour of time, hard to say no really.