What have you done to your car today?

Driveshafts in, gearbox oil in, turbo primed...

First start successful!! No funny noises, nothing leaking out of it yet (no coolant in it yet), new clutch works and feels fine, charging, DID I DO A THING??? :eek:

adam cool dude said:
I have been looking at Alto Works for the past few weeks myself as a first car for my daughter.

You planning any mods for it? I expect at 100BHP it will be pretty nippy. Was my go to car in Gran Turismo 3.
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They are fun! But they do require special care (which this one hasn't been getting in its past lives, hence me overhauling the engine)

Also need to bear in mind that they aren't very safe and don't have airbags etc. The H chassis Alto is basically a C chassis Alto and they go back to... The 80's?

It has a few things already, SuzukiSport wheels and bits and pieces, SuzukiSport backbox, SuzukiSport adjustable suspension, KC-Technica intake, catch can, Jimny valve cover, HKS SSQV, etc etc

It was running around 75~HP when I blew up the (already very tired) original turbo, so I will be running it at stock boost (64HP ish) at least for a little while with the new turbo, just to make sure everything is doing OK.

100HP is pretty easy to achieve, you just need a Hitachi HT07 with an HT06 exhaust housing and a boost controller.
 
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MOT time, a clean pass, the last advisory was back in 2018 with the last fail for anything that needed work was 09, not bad for a 30yr old car.
One of the front wings had started rusting so got a fabricator to cut that out and replace with new steel, considering its a pearl finish they did a cracking job with the paint. Was a proper back street shop as well but very well reviewed.
 
lordrobs said:
My parents came round to babysit so we could do some shopping. To make it easier getting out after they arrive I decided to turn the car round on the drive.

It cranked for longer than normal, started with a bit of a judder and threw up the EPC light on the dash. As I'm backing it up I though damn, that's running rich. Spin it around and by now the fuel smell is really strong. Jump out to find it pouring fuel out under the engine bay :rolleyes:

Luckily it is a company car so someone else's problem but we're meant to be going on holiday in it next week. Not brilliant timing for it's first mechanical issue.
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Had something very similar on my S4, drove for 5 miles, stopped for 15min and then when I re-started it was a bit lumpy. I started smelling petrol so turned it off straight away, lifted the bonnet to find the hose going to the HPFP had completely severed off (a small bit of it was attached to the HPFP nipple with the hose clamp properly secured, whilst the actual hose was dangling and leaking petrol). It just rotted at that end despite the rest of it showing no signs of age whatsoever. Cut the old bit out from the nipple, cut out another half inch from the remaining hose to be safe and then re-fitted the hose to the HPFP together with clamp, been right since then.
 
Cristian said:
Had something very similar on my S4, drove for 5 miles, stopped for 15min and then when I re-started it was a bit lumpy. I started smelling petrol so turned it off straight away, lifted the bonnet to find the hose going to the HPFP had completely severed off (a small bit of it was attached to the HPFP nipple with the hose clamp properly secured, whilst the actual hose was dangling and leaking petrol). It just rotted at that end despite the rest of it showing no signs of age whatsoever. Cut the old bit out from the nipple, cut out another half inch from the remaining hose to be safe and then re-fitted the hose to the HPFP together with clamp, been right since then.
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Yeah it sounds like my one is the acknowledged, but not recall worthy, fuel rail bolt under torqued issue. The bolts were never torqued up enough which causes them to loosen initially allowing a hammer action from the firing of the injectors to fatigue the bolt and eventually cause it to sheer off. This in turn trashes the injector seal and you then get a 95 RON fountain under the bonnet :( like this

Doesn't look like my one will be done this week so we'll have to do some creative packing to get us all plus luggage on holiday in a Polo :(
 
Yikes that is not a pretty sight, not to mention the puddle of petrol which can... start things! At least the fuel rails on my S4 are tightly wedged under the supercharger. :D
 
panthro said:
Trying to sell it. I hate selling cars. Is it normal for people to offer £2k less than the advertised price?! And to base their offer at £x amount above the WBAC price? Idiots!
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People quoting WBAC or Autotrader really **** me off. Neither platform has any idea about the quality of your vehicle, just how many miles its done. It doesn't differentiate between a ****-heap and your pride and joy.
 
Got some new wheels installed, they look lush :cool:

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Relax the parking is perfectly acceptable!

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Conscript said:
You ain't fooling me. Getting the proper ones refurbed in black?
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|Rumbled :p

I'm getting rid of the diamond cut finish after getting recuts multiple times over the 9 years of ownership. The finish is just terrible for longevity and enough is enough. I'm having mine done in OEM shadow chrome, so blends into black on the insides like the 18" OEM wheels.
 
Citroen C1 time again - Post LED bulb fit after the MOT it looked like they were pointing straight at the ground, I don't use the car at night so never noticed until I needed the car and both bulbs pointed about 3ft infront of the car and no further. After a good look I've "somehow" managed to break both bulb mounting points when I fitted the LEDs back in, each side is knackered!

After having a hell of a time getting them back out (the clip that holds the bulb just wouldn't move) I eventually swapped back to halogen H4's but it still the same. The mounting plate/spring in both headlights is broken/deformed just from putting a bulb in apparently! So I ordered a new set of OEM Valeos from Autodoc and here my tale of woe just gets worse.

I swapped over the old headlights with the new OEM Valeo ones (checked for RHD when I ordered them) and when I switched on the LED's, I've now got LHD headlights FFS! I rechecked my order with Autodoc and the order is correct so, just like the spark plug screw-up, it looks like either the warehouse types may have picked up the wrong ones OR when Autodoc say "for right hand traffic" that means LHD to them, whereas to me it means oncoming traffic will be on the right i.e. RHD.

Either way, I've had enough with the constant little sodding niggles with this car. The car itself is fine, its the continual hassle of something that should be a "simple job" turning into a ****ing nightmare all the sodding time. At least its cheaper to fix than the RS6 anyway!
 
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I forgot to update, but the engine is back in, everything seems to work, nothing seems to be leaking, driven maybe 15 or 20 miles so far.

*knocking on wood a whole bunch*

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The thing I can't believe is that I had the car blown apart for 2 whole months, and the only thing I misplaced was one of the metal washers/plates that goes on one of the cradle bushings, so I just made a replacement one out of some sheet metal. To be honest the jury is out on whether I actually lost it, or if it was never there. :p


The only other hurdles I faced (other than discovering I needed to buy more things several times, hence the amount of time it took) were the turbo oil feed banjo bolt snapping, two of the exhaust manifold heatshield bolts snapping (par for the course really...) and the threads pulling out of one of the crossmember holes for the front antirollbar. Everything else went just about as well as it could have! Which frankly amazes me. I'm proud of myself!
 
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ianh said:
I swapped over the old headlights with the new OEM Valeo ones (checked for RHD when I ordered them) and when I switched on the LED's, I've now got LHD headlights FFS! I rechecked my order with Autodoc and the order is correct so, just like the spark plug screw-up, it looks like either the warehouse types may have picked up the wrong ones OR when Autodoc say "for right hand traffic" that means LHD to them, whereas to me it means oncoming traffic will be on the right i.e. RHD.
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Been a problem with trying to order some light clusters recently, for some reason most of the UK car parts sites have LHD ones FFS, even when listed as RHD the images are for the LHD and when checking the actual products they had in warehouse stock were LHD... *shakes head*
 
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