I hate EGR valves
As you may have read about two weeks ago, I was having power problems with the car, but I took the EGR valve off and gave it a good clean and all was well again. Well, I’m sorry to say, but on the way to the meet at Tunbridge Wells, the wretched spanner light came back on and threw up two P0400 codes again. On the way home, it did the same thing… and then the next time it swapped to being the EML… 
So last weekend, I took the valve off again and gave it a more thorough clean and took it for a spin. Still really responsive, but still got the EML light on 
On Monday, it went into limp mode 4 times on the way to work throwing up P2279 codes each time… so being so pissed off with it, I just bit the bullet and bought a new EGR valve on eBay for £70. Not bad considering a Vauxhall dealer was selling them for £95 on eBay, and if you walk into a dealer they want somewhere in the region of £130…
Got it delivered, nice and shiny! Yay!
Went to replace it, and obviously with me being an IT tech and not a mechanic, made a right balls up of it straight away. Got the socket wrench out to take the bolts off, and straight away, twisted and snapped one of the bolts because I’d not been smart enough to let the engine cool down properly, so it was still quite warm and therefore made the bolts much more pliable. 
So I spent the next two days on the phone trying to find somewhere that sold M6 thread 55mm bolts with a hex head and couldn’t find anywhere that I could get one by the weekend, so settled for a set of 60mm ones and had the hacksaw ready… Went out again to have another bash at fitting them, and ballsed it up again. Got the ratchet on the wrong way round and ended up trying to tighten one of the nuts instead of un-tighten it… and therefore rounded off the nut. Tried to undo it the right way, but it was too round for the socket to get a grip on it Got some pliers and all kinds of strange looking tools out and just ended up grinding more and more metal off it… After about an hour or two of shouting and swearing, I had an idea. Get a hammer and a smaller socket. So I got a 9mm socket and the biggest hammer I could find. Socket wouldn’t fit by hand, but hammered on surprisingly easily. Out comes the socket wrench, and the nut comes straight off and went straight into the bin while shouting “FUCK YOU, BASTARD” 
Once I got the EGR off, put it next to the new one. What a difference! 
Put the new one on with all new gaskets and with a big smile on my face, started it up. That smile lasted all of about 10 seconds when the EML light came straight back on Rev’d it a bit, turned the engine off and on a few times trying to clear it… Still there. Drove it round the block, still there.
Took the valve off and it was pristine clean, didn’t look like anything had gone through it at all Noticed a lot of crap still in the inlet manifold, so I sprayed it with some more carb cleaner and reassembled it. LADmachining on AON (Legendary bloke, he is) suggested to take the battery off for a bit to clear any codes, then drive it for a good few miles for it to clear the error… so I did that, and after 76 miles, it finally went off! So did another 12 to be sure, still off! And I’ve been out again today and done maybe another 60 miles, still off! So… for now, I’m happy again
I’m not gonna say it’s fixed until next weekend though. 
Another busy day
Well I’ve had quite a busy day today 
First up, tyres. 
Thursday morning, ordered two Falken FK-452 225/40/18 for the rear tyres from Blackcircles… They were an advisory on my MOT as the side walls are beginning to perish… but one of them now has a slowish puncture, so I’ve been limping on it until pay day so I could finally get some.
Got to the garage this morning to get them fitted, all happy I don’t have to worry about that dodgy rear tyre any more. Walk in, “Oh, I tried to call you and left you a message. Unfortunately there’s been a bit of a problem…”
Turns out, the numpty at BlackCircles who sent my tyres to the garage sent two Falken FK-452′s, no problems… but one was a 225/40/18 and the other was a 215/35/17. 
How can you get it that wrong? Apparently they left me a message, but when I asked what number… it was my old mobile number from the last time I used that garage. They could have looked on the BlackCircles order and noticed I’d changed my bloody number.
So went home, and got this lot together for an afternoon working on the car
I wonder what he’s doing 
Well first up was to give it a good wash… so I did
Fitted new dust caps, as I lost one of my VX logo ones, and someone nicked another one… so I had two chrome ones and two black ones
Now we all hate the old orange light, don’t we?
So I fixed that
But then the back looked out of place now with the old orange light
So I fixed that as well
Took off a few bits from the car… and prepped them for a colour change
While letting all that set, I started about cleaning out that bloody EGR valve that’s been causing me so many problems recently… After I did some swearing when I realised my socket set only went upto 12mm and I needed a 13mm, I found a 56-pc socket set in my parents tool box that went up to something silly massive, and down to like, 3mm… so found what I needed, took it off and found it like this
So flushed it out with some Wynn’s Air Intake & Carb cleaner. By this time it was dark, so I went and re-fitted it, did a lot more swearing as I couldn’t see what I was doing… Got in the car, fired it up and did some more swearing when the EML light stayed on. Checked it all over again, fired it up, no more EML light! Rev’d it, did some more swearing as the EML light came back on… Checked it all again, fired it up, no EML. Rev’d it, no EML
Couldn’t drive it yet as my Dad was parked across me, so I went and did some more painting and lacquering of the bits, then packed everything away:
Took the car out for a drive after, once my Dad went out, and my God. Not only did the EML light stay off like a good boy, it is so much more responsive. I’ve never actually seen it so responsive. So I’m happy happy happy
Just about to go give the painted bits another coat of lacquer or two, and then they’re all going back on the car in the morning
Rapid loss of coolant, pt. 2
I’ve got mixed opinions of this garage now…
Let’s start from yesterday morning… Filled her up with more water and drove down to the garage… As I walked in, it was a different guy sat at the reception desk who didn’t know much about what had happened over the last few days, so I explained to him that it was in on Friday for loss of coolant, returned on Saturday after having a new water pump and cambelt fitted, payed over £300 for the work and it had made no difference on the 2 mile journey home… He looked at me a bit sheepishly and said they’d get someone to take a look… so I quickly ran back out to the car to grab my coat and as I came back, the mother was complaining about something or other to do with prices and how we’ll have to negotiate some reasonable price considering their work hasn’t been up to scratch… but I dragged her out and left them to look at it… I didn’t mention the fact I’d done and tests, that I suspected it might be something like the radiator or anything like that… I just left them to it…
I got a call a bit later on to let me know their progress and I was told it was the radiator at fault. The guy who did the water pump on Saturday apparently mentioned that it looked like there was something up with the radiator… Now I’m sorry, but why was I not told about this and why was nothing done about it? It’s in for loss of coolant and overheating… and in my books, a broken radiator would cause loss of coolant and overheating… so does that not ring alarm bells?
He said they’d already ordered the part for same-day delivery, but when it turned up, it was the wrong one and unfortunately due to the time of day, it was too late to order another one for same-day delivery… but they’d put an order in for one with next morning delivery and promised to have it all sorted…
I was a bit worried yesterday afternoon though, as it got to 3:30pm and I hadn’t heard anything… so I called them up to see what was going on and the guy told me it was on the ramps being worked on and he’d go find out… came back to say they haven’t got the old radiator out yet, but they’re working on it and promised to give me a call back in an hour… An hour and a half passed and I heard nothing, so I called them back again and got through to someone else who told me it was still on the ramp and he’d find out… Came back and at this point he said that the new radiator is in and they’re just putting everything back together… It should be finished by the end of the day, but unless I’m desperate for it, they won’t be able to test drive it because it’s too late in the day, considering they close in half an hour, it’s rush hour and they’re in the busy Maidstone one-way system After the first time it was in, I said I don’t want it to be rushed, and he promised to get it test driven first thing in the morning and call me back by 9am…
So, I’m sure you can guess from the last few calls what happened this morning… I gave them a call at 9:30am after being promised a call by 9am, and the guy said they were running late and they’d only just taken the car out, should be back in about 15-20 minutes, will give me a call back as soon as it’s back… 10:40am I got a call telling me it was all done and ready to collect… so I hyped myself up for the argument I was about to have regarding the cost and went to pick it up…
Before I had a chance to open my mouth the guy said “Sorry about the time it’s taken… Now normally we would fit a cheaper, universal aftermarket radiator but we couldn’t get one to fit your car in time, so we’ve ordered you a genuine part from FG Barnes Vauxhall… It’s all been fitted, we’ve driven it for about 10 miles and it’s not lost a drop… Let me print off the invoice and we’ll have that all done free of charge for you, if that’s OK?”
I was hoping to have a good argument as I’ve not had one for a while, but they were open and honest about their mistake and put it right free of charge… which I was quite surprised at, if I’m honest. All is well though, I’ve driven it around all day (stupidly took the mother shopping) and it’s been perfectly fine, so fingers crossed it’s sorted… I was saying I wasn’t gonna go back there again, but seeing as they’ve admitted their mistake and put it right, I think I may use them again for other things if I need to… although there are plenty of other places in the local area… so we’ll see what happens
Rapid loss of coolant
Well I’m having some fun with the car at the moment… A few days ago, I finally moved house down to Maidstone & due to my commute to work being a fairly long one now (an hour or so up the motorway), I thought I’d do a dry run to work one morning just to give me an idea of what the traffic like at that time in the morning, what the best routes to the office are, etc… So Friday morning, I got up early and did a run to work to try and get there for 8am… Got there in time, no problems… Started to drive back and I had a really, really economical drive back on the back of an AA Transit van
As I came off the M25 and joined the M20, the temperature warning light started flashing at me, so I slowed down and tried to limp it to the next junction to take a look, see if I can top up the coolant and limp it home… but it didn’t quite make it that far… I checked the temperature read out on the hidden menu which read out to be 140ºC It then just lost all power and I had to pull over on the hard shoulder. Called out the AA, a guy came out and pressure tested it on the side of the road. He suspected it to be the water pump, but couldn’t really tell from the tests he could do at the side of the road, so he towed me home and said give it an hour or so to cool down, fill the tank to the brim and then you should be OK for two or three miles to get it to a local garage to get it properly checked out…
So I did what he said. Left it for an hour or two, filled her up and then took it down to Nationwide Autocentre in Maidstone town centre… they called me up and said “Yes, it’s the water pump, but due to the way the engine is built, we need to replace the cambelt as well”… I wasn’t too sure about that, but I basically said “Fuck it, do whatever you need to do to get it working”… so they fitted the water pump and called me back yesterday to say it’s all done… Went to collect it, paid a shit load of money, drove it home, swore a few times and got a bit pissed off… as pretty much all the coolant had gone… So the water pump & cambelt has done…. nothing? Absolutely fuck all.
Unfortunately, they’d closed so I couldn’t call them back, and being a Sunday, they’re not open today… so I’ve gotta wait until tomorrow to take it back and shout at them, but I’ve been doing my own tests today…
They claimed that their “test drive” was leave it running in the corner for a bit and if it doesn’t leak, it’s fine… which is fair enough I suppose if you’re investigating a coolant leak… but I found out today it only does it when you rev it… I went out, took the expansion tank cap off, filled her up and ran the engine… Revved it a couple of times to try and help get the heat up a bit… let it get up to about 85-90ºC and let it sit there… Absolutely nothing happened… although what I did notice was that it was frothing up like this, but was dying back down again after I stopped revving it:
Didn’t quite look right to me… but the coolant level wasn’t going down… so I turned the engine off for a sec, screwed the cap back on and started running it again… on idle, it was perfectly fine still… Ran it for another 5 minutes or so, no leaks… so I was pretty happy… Got in, revved it, and watched the level get lower and lower… but couldn’t work out where it was going… so I got the mother out and showed her where the go faster pedal is and got her to rev it while I looked under the bonnet… I noticed some water here:
It looks like it might be coming from the radiator but I’m not sure? Got my little torch out and started looking around but couldn’t see from the front where it was coming from… but when I pieced the bumper back on, this happened:
So I’m still pissed off… but still not quite sure where the leak is coming from… but it’s definitely leaking still so off to have a shout at the garage first thing in the morning
New engine bay addition
Just a nice small addition to the engine bay this time. I bought myself a new battery cover with the Vauxhall griffin on it. This will look a lot better once I finish the engine bay mods
