What did you do to your x40 today???

[canis]

Well, that's not bad. All looks very repairable. Do you know where the oil is coming from?

[clarkey1984]

I'm 99 percent sure that my chemical metal repair on the turbo oil feed pipe has started to wear out, as there is evidence of oil around where it bolts to the turbo, I'm guessing it's that, a little concerned about the rack though (on the presumption it's the rack itself with the issue) as I can't see those being cheap, all in all it could have been much worse though.

[canis]

Meh, there's tons of these in scrapyards now. You could get a steering rack easy enough. I've got three. :-)

[canis]

I swapped out the chassis leg.

I discovered the top mounts were of differing types, the offside one was the useless type. Y'know the ones - where you can't get a spanner into them.

I had planned to rebuild it, so I saved up the fifteen quid to buy a set of angled ring spanners, but they don't go deep enough. So I had to canibalise the 1600.

Naturally I had the drop-links problem. How on earth they expect someone to overcome the corrosion these items will innevitably incur by holding it fast with a puny little hexagon tool just baffles me. In the end I had to destroy it. But I got the leg off, and moved to the T4 to install it.

So I got the leg off the T4, and the coil spring promptly collapsed. No wonder it was making funny noises! Anyway, now the top-mounts match (I prefer the older variety which you can pack with grease under the cap) and the car drives beautifully. I've not even checked the tracking yet, but it feels like it's pretty good as it is!

Meanwhile, my tick-over speed has dropped slightly again. Not enough to stall, but enough to make sitting in it with the engine running rather unpleasant. I've also noticed the slight blow in the exhaust has got worse. I don't know if they're related, it being a turbo and all. Thoughts, anyone?

[clarkey1984]

I'm intrigued by the older type top mounts you mention, as after switching to coilovers meant to fit a p2 I had to use the later type on my orange one, three sets it ate in total, and the t4 had the best pair of the 2 and a half pairs I had on it when i swapped the springs and new shocks, neither are very healthy now, although not bad enough to fail the MOT, are you referring to the p1 type with proper bearings in the top, because of you are I'd much prefer those on mine, although I always believed that the p1 ones don't fit P2 suspension.

[canis]

Yeaash, I keep hearing people mentioning coilovers. As far as I understand it, a coilover is a spring where the shock absorber is mounted inside the spring, literally a coil over. So when people say they've fitted coilovers, I wonder what type of suspension they had before. All V40s have coilovers, or I'm missing something. Perhaps someone will expand on the definition?

At this stage, I'm unsure how far compatibility extends. Certainly the legs are interchangeable, although perhaps their component parts aren't. It's entirley possible the nearside leg was swapped by the previous owner for the early type, or perhaps the offside was swapped for a later type. With this car being halfway between the phases, it's difficult to be certain.

I would like to entirely dismantle both chassis legs, and put something together out of the parts I've got lying around - mainly so I can paint them and prevent further corrosion. I do remember my old donor car also had differing top-mounts, I was gonna post them to you until I noticed they weren't identical. Right now I'm just focussing on the imminent MOT test.

All that said, I can't see much difference between them. But stay tuned, I'm sure I'll run into a brick wall somewhere, and run indoors to pound my frustration into the keyboard soon enough. :-)

[canis]

Today, I built an exhaust out of putty and rust, a strip of lead, two jubilee clips and about half a mile of mig wire. It's nicely quieter now, but how long this papier-mache tube will last is anybody's guess. The centre silencer looks like it's about to burst in a shower of brown shards.

[clarkey1984]

She's dead the garage have had a good old prod and poke and can't find anything wrong with either the turbo or the stem seals and valve guides, suspected bottom end issue, this just isn't viable to repair now.

[clarkey1984]

And just like that I'm back in the game, just bought this for £250, 3 miles down the road with 6 weeks MOT.

[canis]

This evening, I discovered why the fog lights weren't both working. The dead one was cracked, and the lens fell apart when i poked it. The working one had broken free and was at a funny angle.

Fortunately, I had some decent ones which I'd installed in the 1600 - but never got them working and even in test only one bulb worked. But I managed to make a good pair out of the two.

So now I can drive around on sidelights and foglights and be uber-cool! Or something.

Originally Posted by clarkey1984

She's dead the garage have had a good old prod and poke and can't find anything wrong with either the turbo or the stem seals and valve guides, suspected bottom end issue, this just isn't viable to repair now.

And just like that I'm back in the game, just bought this for £250, 3 miles down the road with 6 weeks MOT.

Nooooooooo! Damn. Now begins the task of transferring all the good bits to the new one. Can't you just swap the engine blocks instead?

So c'mon then! Tell us more about the new one. What is it?