What did you do to your x40 today???

[canis]

Oh yes, that is bad. But it's not oiley, is it. Be interested to hear what the garage say.

[baldmosher]

Removing the cat shouldn't cause smoke should it? It removes pollutants not carbon?

Changed rear pads, front discs are lipped and getting corroded, so I hope that's causing the occasional wheel wobble at high speeds as that'll be one less thing to think about fixing.

Still having ongoing setup issues with the DICE I bought, hoping to finally sort that this weekend after finding a download from Swedespeed

[baldmosher]

@Canis, the Haynes manual is going to be virtually useless for yours! Sounds like a cracking project. I'll stump for a T4 one day.

[clarkey1984]

Originally Posted by canis

Oh yes, that is bad. But it's not oiley, is it. Be interested to hear what the garage say.

Oh yes, it's oily, to the point where I have to polish the rear of the car because the oil smoke stains it a lovely shade of yellowy brown.

[canis]

Ah, oil. Valves and guides and things, then. I presume you've had a compression test already? That's the trouble with these engines, isn't it. You can't run them with the rocker cover off, so it's pure guesswork without rendering the car immobile and subjecting yourself to a fairly involved job of liquid gaskets and stuff. But just think - once you've done it, it's done for life. They'll never need doing again for another twenty years.

[clarkey1984]

The garage have had a quick look tonight and popped all the boost hoses off, only a light mist of oil which I'm led to believe is pretty normal, they've advised me to take the 3 bolts out and pull the downpipe over to see if that's oily, if so it's the turbo, if not then stems or guides or both, they did say that they can do it if I want but if i fancy saving myself added labour costs I may as well check it myself, whatever the outcome it's booked in for surgery starting Monday.

[canis]

When I first started the engine of The Black Toenail before handing over a wad of cash, I did notice the tick-over speed was rather low. Not bad enough to stall, and nothing wierd happened when driving, but still too low.

So low in fact that the car would shudder when held on the brake in 'Drive' mode. Switching between D, N, R and back again made no difference to the tick-over speed, so I could see this wasn't simply about drag from the torque converter. This car was just deliberately running slow, for some reason.

This seemes to have been getting worse, and once or twice did even stall. And the dreaded engine management light came on - and this I really don't need. I bought this car because the last one had a defiant EML light I couldn't track down, I don't need two like that!

Yesterday I took the Fiat to a scrap dealer, who slapped £100 in my hand, which I gladly accepted and ran away. I'dve only paid £60 if it had been me, but then, I've no interest in Fiat parts and no customers who might want any. I decided I didn't want a shed full of Fiat parts, so £100 seemed like a fairly good deal.

This gave me enough cash to buy (yet more) petrol, a gallon of oil, aerosol carb-cleaner and a tub of grease. I'm not sure what oil these use yet, so I've thrown in some 10/40 part synthetic for the time being. Anything's gotta be better than the limp black sludge which poured out of it. I spent considerable time cleaning the idle bypass valve, and as far into the throttle as I could reach.

I did notice the throttle felt a bit sticky in it's closed position. I also noticed someone had tried to "repair" the poor idle by twisting the throttle linkage to almost it's maximum extent. Gradually I encouraged the throttle to break it's crusticles of oil into an emulsion of sludge and carb-cleaner. The plan was to start the engine and have it suck all this **** in and burn it all. Turns out they don't run very well without the intercooler pipe attached. Hey - I'm still learning!

I gave everything another blast with the aerosol, left it thoroughly wet, and re-attached the intake hose, and started the engine hoping that woudl be sufficient to get it working again.

The throttle stop screw didn't appear to have been moves, so I adjusted the throttle cable to meet this appropriately. Now the throttle could close fully, and the idle bypass valve had better start doing it's job. From the amount of black gunk which had emerged from it, I had my doubts.

I had doubt about all of this, to be frank. Yet it did seem to work. The idle speed is now much better. It's not threatening to stall anymore, and no sign of the EML light. So I'm chalking this one up as a victory.

[canis]

Originally Posted by clarkey1984

The garage have had a quick look tonight and popped all the boost hoses off, only a light mist of oil which I'm led to believe is pretty normal, they've advised me to take the 3 bolts out and pull the downpipe over to see if that's oily, if so it's the turbo, if not then stems or guides or both, they did say that they can do it if I want but if i fancy saving myself added labour costs I may as well check it myself, whatever the outcome it's booked in for surgery starting Monday.

That sounds like an excellent garage. "I'm here to do the work you can't be arsed to do, for which I shall charge. I'm not here to hold you to ransom just because your car's broken down." Good honest advice.

I like that attitude.

[clarkey1984]

Originally Posted by canis

That sounds like an excellent garage. "I'm here to do the work you can't be arsed to do, for which I shall charge. I'm not here to hold you to ransom just because your car's broken down." Good honest advice.

I like that attitude.

Yeah they seem really good, despite living where I am for nearly 5 years I've not had anything beyond my scope car wise until now so don't know anywhere local at all, i asked on the local community page for recommended garages and this was the one everyone said, the rep seems very much deserved thus far.

Today the new light switch arrived, which instantly cured my foglight issue, they now go on and off with the switch and also don't go on and off all by themselves anymore which is a relief, plus the backlight circuit works so in with the blue, slightly annoying that the AC panel is still way dimmer than everything else but meh, you can't have everything, I also need to get the boost gauge wired up.

The paint has finally hardened properly on the black (formerly fake wood) bits so refitted these 2 today, not quite as glass like as I hoped but you can't expect the world when it's rattle canned on in my shed and costs a pound a can from b and m i suppose, I did try some meguiars polish and also some cheap petrol station wax polish but all that has done is introduced micro scratches into it and hasn't took the orange peel out at all, oh well, it's black, and good enough.

[clarkey1984]

With the mot expiring this week the garage and I agreed that it makes more sense to see what it needs first off, rather than having the necessary repairs to sort the smoke problem out for it to then fail on a shed load of things, actually not at all bad, the headlight alignment i was aware of, as well as the emissions of course, far from bad.