Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

31

Car Parts, bits For Sale & Wanted / WTD : Passenger Side Wing Mirror Glass, & Headlight level sensor.

« on: 03 July 2019, 09:38:02 »

Hi,
Anyone going to Billing (Sywell!) got either....

2001 Facelift 3.0L Elite Saloon Passenger side Wing Mirror Glass - Heated. (not the whole unit, just the glass)
2001 Facelift 3.0L Elite Saloon Headlamp Level Sensor widget (Got the dreaded "Headlight Range" error)

I know I can probably get either/both from fleaBay, but given the VBOA event is this weekend I'd rather give the money to a member here if possible.

Cheers
Malcolm

32

General Discussion Area / Forgot to say amongst all this other waffle....

« on: 25 July 2018, 23:03:46 »

Me Mig failed the MOT today. I was devastated  . Emmissions - nope. Brakes - nope. Tyres - nope.

Blown rear number plate bulb . Swapped in a spare and now got another 12 months ticket.

33

General Discussion Area / Pensions

« on: 25 July 2018, 14:38:22 »

Old school retirement...

I will be retiring at at least 67... With the current odds, I won't need a pension

Planning to live on the state pension alone is planning to live in poverty once you retire till you die. It's less than £8K per year, and as you say you won't get it till you're 67 - perhaps even 70 by then. However, if you save your own money into a private/workplace pension, you can start to draw that at any age post 55. You can then retire and live on that from 55 to 67, at which time the £8K state pension comes in as well.

Or you could just piss all your money up the wall on expensive 'phones and other Apple shyte. I was going to put buy expensive cars, but this is an Omega forum so doesn't really apply.

34

General Discussion Area / Anyone for a fly-past?

« on: 09 July 2018, 11:49:53 »

If you're in the London area tomorrow (1:00 PM 10 July) then the RAF are having a centenary flypast over Buckingham Palace (assuming their navigational skills allow them to find it  ).

100 aircraft will form up over East Anglia, then fly in past Ipswich, Colchester, over London, and disperse to the west. Heathrow is going to 'pause' for up to 15 minutes to allow some of the formations to pass overhead. If you can read Aeronautical-ese, details are here :

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/593e87342e69cf4a3e148bb4/t/5b365c78f950b77e28c3a55d/1530289310313/RAF+100+2018+ACN+V2.pdf

Unlikely there will be this big a flypast (of manned aircraft anyway) over the smoke ever again.

35

Car Parts, bits For Sale & Wanted / Irmisher Rear Bumper.

« on: 30 June 2018, 20:28:31 »

Anyone want it? Bought it off eBay and had it painted (mica grey) before realising it didn't fit a facelift without bodgery. Never actually fitted to any car.

Can be collected from VBOA Market Harborough, or if no-one wants it it's going in the bin. Don't want anything for it, though if this heat keeps up an ice-cream would be nice.

36

Omega General Help / Front Strut Top hat alignment

« on: 25 January 2018, 18:02:43 »

I'm sure I've seen it wrote down somewhere, but stuffed if I can find it now. The metal top hat that supports the top of the front spring (together with the rubber bush) has got two holes in the top of it - one slightly larger than the other. What's the alignment? Fore/Aft or Port/Starboard? I think they're water drain holes.

37

Omega General Help / My jobs to do this winter/spring

« on: 04 January 2018, 15:59:16 »

Was going to wait till it's a bit warmer, but have now got a miss-fire so have had to swap to something else. Whilst the car is in the man cave, there's a long list of jobs that I'm going to tackle. So treat this more as a blog than a request for help at the moment. However, if you think there is something I should tackle that I've not mentioned, do pipe up.

FWIW 2001 Y reg Omega B Elite saloon, RHD, 3.0 V6 auto.

1) Front Suspension. The handling is frankly shocking - steering wheel adjusts the angle of lean rather than the direction of travel.
1a) New Shocks. Will ask at Vx, but even if not NLS I suspect price will shove me firmly down the Bilstein B4 route.
1b) New Springs. If not Vx then what's recommended? I suppose I could use LC spec springs :-)
1c) New Top Mounts. I think these are standard Carlton so I should have these in the stash.

2) Steering/front end
2a) Re-furbed wishbones (I'll probably strip and powder coat some old ones).
2b) Poly front bushes - From?
2c) VX verticals
2d) New ball joints
2e) New track rods
2f) Replacement wheel bearings. (MOT advise and I've got dozens of ex Carly ones in the cave)
2g) May throw a new set of brake disks pads and calipers at it too. Calipers are pretty mankey.

3) Anti Roll Bar stuff
3a) New ARB bushes - Might have these if Carly ones fit, if not then Powerflex or similar.
3b) New drop links. All German?

4) Rear suspension - have previously replaced rear springs and shocks with OEM, and rear disks and calipers.
4a) New rear donut bushes
4b) New rear track-rod arms (one is bent) All German?
4c) See if there is any oil in the diff 
4d) Work up enough enthusiasm to replace the oopsing fuel filter.

5) Windscreen wipers
5a) Replace wiper arm assembly - excessive travel and play in sweep. Scrapyard.

6) Engine : Would like to rebuild my old engine, but need a replacement crank so that can wait till summer. In the mean time, need to fix the misfire. Have got oil in the drivers side plug wells, so...
6a) New cam cover seals
6b) New spark plugs all round
6c) Possibly new ignition leads if 6a/6b don't cure it
6d) Possibly new ignition coil pack if 6a/6b/6c don't cure it.

7) Cooling
7a) New main rad.
7b) Replace heater matrix pipework with new (already bought).

Ho hum. Wish me luck.

Cheers
Malcolm

38

Omega General Help / Heater Matrix pipework

« on: 01 December 2017, 10:05:03 »

Question: Would swapping the order of the pipework connections onto the heater matrix at the bulkhead help de-block a heater matrix ?

Reason for the question was that the heat output from my blowers was pish poor so over the weekend I 'blew it through' with the garden hose pipe. It's now much better, but still not as good as my Carlton, so I assume that some (maybe most) of the pipe-ways in the matrix are still blocked.

I've previously had to cut the quick release fittings off the pipes because they decided to quick release on the M3 one night . So I've just got pipes and jubilee clips holding them onto the bulkhead pipes. I reckon with a bit of effort I could swap the order of these pipes onto the matrix. If I did this, the flow of water through the matrix would be reversed. Assuming that the blockages are close to the original 'input' side of the matrix, this would mean the newly reversed flow of water would attempt to blow the crud out the way it came in. Might not make an immediate difference, but over a few weeks/months perhaps it would blow out most of the crud? 

What do the Borg mind here think. Worth a go?

39

Omega General Help / Front caliper bleed nipple size....

« on: 17 October 2017, 23:00:08 »

3.0 Y/2000 reg Omega Elite.

What size spanner/ratchet is needed to undo the front caliper bleed nipple? I was bleeding the brakes tonight and couldn't get anything to fit. 8mm is too small, and 9mm is too large? Are they some queer imperial size? Or something daft like 8.5mm? Had to use Stilsons in the end but would like to get the correct spanner for next time.

Cheers
Malcolm

40

Omega General Help / Windscreen Wiper alignment

« on: 22 August 2017, 11:17:31 »

Strange one this.

Obviously it rarely rains here in sunny Zummerzet. However yesterday I had to go to dreary Oxford. On the way through Wiltshire it was (of course) drizzling, so wipers on. I noticed after a few minutes that the driver-side wiper arm was going too far over and was almost dropping off the side of the windscreen. I stopped, popped off the plastic cap, and made sure the nut was fully tight. A quick check, and sure enough the arm stopped it's sweep in the correct position (a snifter past vertical).

Set off again, and noticed that the arm doesn't seem to go to the same place every time. Mostly it's the correct place, but about 1 in 10 sweeps it goes over too far.

Any ideas? I'm a bit stumped. Can't see how it can be the motor/rotating arm end at fault. The parking position looks Ok too.

Cheers
Malcolm

41

Omega General Help / Quite a big water leak.

« on: 28 July 2017, 13:24:43 »

Ok, what next after HBV?

I've had a slow water leak for a couple of years that has now got to the point where I decided to do something about it.

Last weekend I changed the expansion tank for a new one. The old one wasn't leaking, but the level sensor had packed up which isn't ideal if you've got a known water leak. 

I also changed the HBV. The old one wasn't showing any signs of leaking whilst in the car, and it appears to be water tight now it's off the car. The new has also been bone dry every time I've checked it in the car.

Today the water initially was dripping from both sides of the gearbox to the rear of the bell housing, so I self diagnosed heater matrix  and water coming out of the two vents. You do get whiffs of antifrees in the car, but as far as I can tell the carpets aren't ever wet, and the car doesn't steam up. So today I've just bypasses the matrix by replacing it with a copper U bend and jubilee clipping it up tight. Then ran the car for 30 minutes. Initially water was dripping from the same place, but water is now dripping from further forwards - off the passenger side exhaust manifold to exhaust junction, and off both bottom bolts of the bell housing. The water is warm/hot, and pink (I collected some in a Pot Noodle pot).

The heater matrix U bend bodge and the HBV are both bone dry. So whilst the heater matrix itself could still be faulty, it's not in the water circuit now so the leak ain't (only) that.

So what's the next likely candidate? The rubber pipework round the back of the engine is dry as far as I can reach it. Anyone got any good piccies of the rear/top of an engine. I've got vague memories of an aluminium pipe bolted to the back of the block with god awfull access to the bolts securing it.

Cheers
Malcolm 

42

Omega General Help / Steering Idler

« on: 19 July 2017, 10:20:16 »

Just had MOT, advisory on the steering Idler P/N 9195731.

Went to Vauxhall this morning, and it's NLS. Tried to order it from Autovaux - nope no genuine OEM stock.

So where are we at now? Febi, Lemforder?

43

General Car Chat / 05 Corsa scuttle water leak

« on: 18 July 2017, 21:04:43 »

Oh font of all knowledge that is OOF...or anyone else

05 Corsa, (rain) water leak into passenger footwell. Starting to whiff of swamp, so I assume it's rain water- engine coolant level the same as it was in 2005. I rarely drive the car, but I have noticed water dribbling from the passenger side foot-well blower vents in the past. I've just stuck my hand down all the nooks and crannies in the scuttle around the battery but can't feel anything wet, or any area full of leaves.

Are there any common water traps in the scuttle on these Corsa's?

44

Car Parts, bits For Sale & Wanted / WTD : NCDC 2013/2015 4 CD Magazine

« on: 10 July 2017, 21:28:27 »

As title, anyone got a spare CD magazine for an NCDC2013 for sale?

I've just managed to extract Agnetha and Frida from my CD changer after being incarcerated in there for the last 2 years. Had to take the main unit and the existing cartridge apart to do it, and it appears that the CD magazine is toast. I had assumed eBay would be my friend, but can't see anything.

45

General Discussion Area / Dart Charge

« on: 04 May 2017, 21:58:14 »

I had the misfortune to use that cluster-f*** of a tunnel yesterday. So today I try to pay the £2.50 charge. Get all the way through the payment process, enter credit card details, press submit, and then get some strange warning about not being able to display something in frames for security reasons.

So no onscreen receipt or reference number. And no Email receipt either (yet). So I can't check if I've paid or not. However, if I log into my internet banking I can see a payment of £2.50 to TFL-Dart or whatever it's called.

So I have till midnight to pay, I think I've paid, but have no receipt and no way to check. What could possibly go wrong?