Lock Down did my car no favours

EGR valve became stuck closed on the cars first real trip out, resulting in really poor economy and performance. The Catalytic Converter warning light came on. Initial checks led me to think that the Flexi-pipe had gone & was causing the sensors to error message.  Anyhoo get back from Derbyshire & get the car booked in, it is due an MOT in a month so, got that done as well.  Mechanic said the warning light was for the EGR Valve.

Next day I pulled the cover off the EGR to reveal that several teeth had been destroyed. Checked the movement of the valve, which seemed ok. SO I rotated the gearwheel by about 10 degrees. And reinstalled. All good.

Bugger!

I could have done without that, the car started making a knocking noise on Christmas Eve, so cancelled the jobs in the diary, rescheduled some, and farmed out another, and parked the car up until I could get to the workshop. Picked the car up yesterday, Yay all good, could have done without the £400 bill (admittedly I did get them to give it a full service as well) for replacing the Near-Side Drive shaft. Strange that it had given no tell-tale creaks or knocks on full lock, just catastrophically failed on Christmas Eve. Anyway all good & back to work next week.

Set Ride height to “comedy”

 

Saw this as I was travelling today, I have seen a few old Citroens dragging their arses around, when their suspension systems fail, however seeing this old Xantia riding high on its adjustable suspension. It cannot have been comfortable for the passengers as it appeared that the suspension was transmitting every single little pot hole & cats eye through the cabin. It did make me chuckle though.

Project Stealth part II

Project Stealth is officially up and running. The van will be collected this week and I will do some before pictures to show what a shed the T4 is as a Van. The First job is to clear the back and run some speaker and RCA cables before the interior gets put in. I shall also install a Pioneer Sat Nav system, with a couple of extra screens, as well as TV tuners (digital and analogue) Ipod adaptor (which means no need for CD multichangers.