EVERYTHING SORTED - NEARLY!

[collywobble]

Well, not as serious as I thought. It appears that having a car standing idle for over 3 months and not having had the air con regassed since 2013 may have resulted in a loss of gas. My garage re-gassed it,  put some tracer dye in (which I haven't seen any sign of) and the air con has been working fine for a fortnight now.

The non-starting was down to a loose earth wire on the injection pump/ECU - which the AA man didn't know where to find!

Have stopped the oil leak from the oil trap/oil filler cap with a fillet of Loctite 5699- those wooden stirring sticks you get in coffee shops are ideal for applying sealant in difficult places!  Now just need to remove the caked on oil from the engine - SWMBO suggested the wallpaper stripper we have which has an oven cleaning nozzle - anyone ever tried using one?

New leak off pipes and vacuum hoses plus a new MAP sensor make the car feel and sound much smoother and quieter, the repaired SID display and the new walnut dash have smartened the interior up, all that needs to be done now is to unblock the rear window washer nozzle for which I have bought a long 2.4 mm drill pit which I will use in my fathers old Stanley hand drill so as not to damage the nozzle, and then take off the tailgate interior trim so I can find out why the rear interior and tailgate lights don't work.

A recent run over Countisbury and Porlock Hills to Dunster and back via Withypool gave 41.8 mpg which isn't bad for a car with 169k on the clock.    I may even give the car a clean too!

[sgould]

Looks like a keeper!!

[collywobble]

The same 2.2 TiD engine was fitted to various Vauxhalls and apparently was good for 300k mile in taxi use. 

If I get 250k out of it I will be quite happy.  Good quality oil, a bottle of Forte additive every service and no supermarket diesel helps!

[Norfolk Jim]

If it's any consolation Colly......................... my old 55 plate 2.2TiD Vector Sport that I sold with 129k on clock is still going strong and now has about 223k on it having gone to Brussels and back weekly since Dec 2012. It has failed MOT twice in that time - once for bad rear tyre and once for number plate bulb and still no advisories. Last MOT was June at 222,761 where it needed new tyre as cord showing inside.

To me that is awesome record for MOT.