Hello again! 1.4i ZX Content!

[van ordinaire]

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. anything involving wipers or door innards is a big NoNo for me).

[beko1987]

I am still knocking on the door of 50 miles a day, and all is well!

It now wears a new set of the finest* Rovelo tyres, £121 fitted on my mums driveway by National Tyres, after ordering them for £30 the set cheaper through Tyreleader... and then applying a 5% discount code. They seem utterly fine, there's only so much hoonage one can do with a 1.4zx so wheelspins etc are no issue!

It now has a new cambelt, waterpump and tensioner pulley. Which has cured the utterly dreadful noise from the engine! Neither the pump nor pulley felt grat when I span them by hand, so I have no idea which one was about to explode but all is fine now! Someone had been there before though as the waterpump had a bead of clear sealent around the edge...which gave me the proper fear when I turned it back on after fitting the new pump with its proper rubber gasket but all is fine! (I've checked, twice...) It was, however an utter sod to bleed! ran it out of petrol doing it, oops

Yesterday I spent the afternoon adjusting the valve clearences and now it sounds MUCH better, much smoother to drive too although the biggest change will be in the noise. I currently have a blocked up ear so it'll be thursday morning after the nurse karcher's it out I'll be able to really tell!

There are still jobs to do though:
There's a light metallic rythmic knocking coming from somewhere when it's idling and out of gear (so handbrake on at traffic lights etc). It's still there with just the clutch down, but goes when it's in gear with the clutch down so I'm fairly confident it's not the clutch about to explode...

The sloppy gear change (although I'm more used to that now). I have a feeling both are linked and it's a rid knocking away, hence it going when put into gear. Possibly a bush or two, haven't investigated yet

Could probably do with a gearbox oil change, which I doubt is expensive or tricky to do

SInce having the fuel lifter out, and gluing up the cracked retaining ring the smell of unleaded is nearly eliminated. However from the light being on, it takes about 25 litres before the pump clicks off. Then the fuel needle sits at 3/4 full... It's then really vague for the next 230 miles until it does a massive cough and 'runs out of petrol'. Upon restarting (which is great fun gliding along at 45 down the road) it's then fine again as I hot-tail it to the neaest petrol station to put another 25 litres in... (11 miles is my max so far...). No idea what that is but it sounds quite tricky to troubleshoot so my plan is to just feed it petrol after 200ish miles, which is every week and surprisingly not that annoying, makes a change to only need £30 max rather than cars that swallowed £100 of diesel happily (406 I'm looking at yu, although it would do 700 miles to that..)

Still need to have the scuttle off and clean it all up and lubricate the wiper mechanism

I peeled the GB sticker off the tailgate and found a hole that had been smashed through the GRP... I put the GB sticker back on! This explains the crack running down the tailgate...

The rear passenger door has started bouncing again.

I dropped a quid down the handbrake housing so need to remove that to retrieve it

But it drives nicely, has some pep when you give it some revs, or is serene and chilled when you dont! It is about to spend the next 20 minutes crawling in traffic then a 10 mile punt up the m40 then 50mph B roads. Who needs a fast car!?

[Pug_XUD_KeenAmateur]

brilliantly entertaining account of life in the 'not particularly slow lane'.

I never managed to work out why Daughter's OSR Door (106) 'bounced' but there did seem to be some correlation to the weather and a replacement rubber had zero effect; it was never a sufficiently severe problem to merit proper investigation. Also I remember well extricating a lock mech from a 405 rear door in a scrappers, the limited access left me determined not to mess with such things again unless I really must.

Last time I bled my 405 I used this, it worked really well ! I'm not familiar with the 1.4 ZX, but if its gonna be a pig, might be some value in something similar should there need to be a 'repeat performance'

[white exec]

Reminds me of something done a good while ago...

20-litre container, one horizontal (jigsaw) cut:

20-lit cont 2.jpg (4.78 KiB) Viewed 9 times

20-lit cont cutline.jpg (3.96 KiB) Viewed 9 times

Makes one draining container, with emptying cap and grab-handle

And one tool/bits tray