Omega Owners Forum
Chat Area => Omega Gallery => Topic started by: vnslkd on 04 February 2014, 23:23:38
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Hi all, my first Omega and so on. I was thinking to share my maintenance experiences and whatnot on this topic and I hope it's ok. Might help me to stay on the track with the car also :)
No tuning and stuff like that yet. I might lower it a bit on the coming summer but we'll see. Anyways, here's some story of the car:
So, my Omegas story starts about ½ years ago, when I was driving to work with my old 190 Merc and noticed this car on the parking lot of a local car dealer.
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwG.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwu.jpg)
It was actually the parking lot where they park the cars before they come to public trade, so I asked for an offer from the dealer and got a really really good one.
Anyways, as always, there is no free meal. ABS/TC lights where on, speedo not working etc. luckily there's this: http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/index.php?topic=90627.0
Other than that, the car felt pretty solid. Tires were completely shot, apparently the earlier owner changed shitty tires underneath her before swapping her. on the + side, car had a full service book (synthetic oils changed every 10 tkm and so on) and 220 tkm on the clock. Car had only had 3 owners before me. Last owner had keeped it for 8 years, so it can't be that bad, can't it ;D
After the weekend I put the 190 to sale and bought Omega. On a closer inspection, there was some rust in the rear wheel arches and so on, but nothing alarming.
So, first things first. Had to get some wheels and tires for it in order to get it to running order. The old tires where horrific, when I took a closer look on them, I was horrified that I even took a test ride on the car :)
After some searching on the local forum, I came up with a good set of wheels and tires and bought them, pictures related:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwk.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwI.jpg)
After getting the tires, it was time to repair the ABS control unit. Easy job with the maintenance guide presented here and refurbing it cost 145€ here in Finland. Took a couple of pictures taking the ECU out:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwA.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwl.jpg)
After taking care of that, I made some inspections on the brakes generally, and noticed that the rear brake discs where pretty shot. So where the front ones, they had gotten way too narrow. So, I ordered new brake discs + pads etc for every corner. While I was at that, I also ordered new spark plugs, plug wires and camshaft covers (aluminum from Vectra). Also painted them red just for the lols ;D
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwS.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwJ.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwH.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwi.jpg)
After getting her up to somewhat good running order, it was time to do some magic to that tired paintjob. Big thanks for my workmate on my summer work place for taking time to do this.
scratches part one:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwW.jpg)
part two:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwp.jpg)
side polished:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwj.jpg)
Front end polished:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwB.jpg)
getting there:
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYw8.jpg)
Done enough :y
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwT.jpg)
So, after those maintenances, winter got here too. It was time to downgrade to wintertires and so on :-\ Some rather shitty off focus pics here, be warned. On the + side, winter + RWD, can't go wrong there :D
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwX.jpg)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yYwh.jpg)
Thanks for reading so far. Coming up next is the timing belt change and installing an electric pre-heater (had to start her up couple of time in -25 degrees celsius, don't want to do that anymore when there are solutions easier for the engine. Also consumption is skyrocketing on those starts as expected ::))
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Nice job mate - keep it coming :y
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Good work :y
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Nice one mate, I like the wheels :y
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Excellent work, looks like you have a new car! :y
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Looking really good, Keep up the good work. :y :y
Welcome to the forum
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looking very nice, i do like the wheels you put on. :y
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Looks really good well worth the effort :y
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Monaro front calipers and hoses are a direct swap with no modifications necessary. They are dual piston units and the monaro hoses are longer than the stock Omega's. They fasten to the Monaro calipers such that the extra length prevents damage at the extreme lock. I did it about 7 years ago using '04 Pontiac GTO parts (Monaro's American cousin). Painted or not the calipers would look sweet behind those wheels. Follow the link for details.
http://cateraowners.forumotion.com/t5-gto-brake-swap
(http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n50/CateraMV6/MV6%20Brakes/GTOBrakes.jpg)
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Very nice, you certainly know what your doing :y
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Great looking car, the wheels look excellent..
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Great info on the brakes there ... I never realised that the monaro brakes would drop on ... Guess you would need the bigger wheels though>?
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Also the discs would be bigger too....?
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Iirc the disc is the same size .... Please feel free to shoot me if I'm wrong though
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Great info from elwin there indeed :y
Anyhow, finally got some time to do the timing belt change on this car. First time for me doing this, so it took some time (last timing belt change I did was on a Lada Samara, this was a tad bit more complicated) ::)
As always, topics are worthless without pics, so here's a few.
So, first some stuff out of the way
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAS.jpg)
And we get a view something like this
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAJ.jpg)
Next up, took the old water pump out
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAH.jpg)
And fitted a new one and locked crank to TDC
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAi.jpg)
After that, locked those cams and took the old belt off.
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAg.jpg)
Next up, fitted a new timing belt kit. The lines on that belt that came with SKF kit were completely off (or for a different belt tensioner), luckily found timing mark pitch spacing from Dayco http://www.dayco.com.au/pageBANK/documents/t00014.pdf (marked those with a little paint, which you can see there)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAX.jpg)
After that, pretightened the belt, rotated the crank 720 degrees and tuned the timing. Easy with that tool.
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylAf.jpg)
Finally, assembled the car back to one piece and started it with no problems. I also fitted a new auxiliary drive belt. After a testdrive, gave a quick wash to the engine compartment, was damn filthy in there ;D
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/ylA3.jpg)
Next up, oil change + a new thermostat. Haven't had time to install that pre-heater either but luckily it's been warm here.
- Miro
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Very nice, how do you fill the oil with the Vectra cam covers....?
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Very nice, how do you fill the oil with the Vectra cam covers....?
By moving the plenum out of the way. Would also be possible to switch the lefthand cover to the right side and vice versa to get the oil filler cap to a bit more available position, but after that the sparkplug leads wouldn't sit to their places as good as they do now afaik.
Minor discomfort in use tbh, but luckily it doesn't seem to be consuming too much oil, so no need to top it up between oil changes. Anyhow, while the plenum is off, there's no excuse to leave this undone http://www.omegaowners.com/forum/index.php?topic=90653.0 :)
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Excellent ... Omega keeps you busy for sure :y
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So, back again. Remembered the last oil change a bit wrong and did a 2000 km easter trip to northern Finland (born and raised there) first. Everything went quite smoothly, but once again Omega managed to surprise me ::)
Wipers managed to f**k up on the way there, luckily there wasn't much rain. The wipers linkage had came loose from the wipermotors shaft, fixed it there. Took few minutes after a lot of wiggling to get the wiper arms out of the way. So far I've made two trips there and first time my outside temp sensor fubard on the way and now this, so maybe the car doesn't like going up north ;D
On the + side, chancing the old water pump stopped my little coolant loss. It was making some noise already and there was a little play on the shaft, so no wonder.
Fuel consumption was quite ok, about 8,5 litres/ 100 km or about 27,7 mpg. Four grown men in the car + "some" stuff (lots and lots of beer hidden in there) ::)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yAVw.jpg)
Went to the trip on winter tires, wanted to play it safe. Although summer tires would have been already justified, but you never know when some springstorm bites you up there.
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yAV4.jpg)
And today I finally changed back to summertires and cleaned the car a bit. Now it seems to be just hard driving for a while, no big services in sight. Oils and similar light service only, and repair those rusty rear wheel arches also. Atleast I hope so :-X
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yAVZ.jpg)
And, yeah, I know, would do some good to lower it a bit. Atm my budget doesn't allow me to do that, so I'll have to wait a bit. I would also like to change that original grill to an Irmscher grill, or something like that and some other "spoiler" to the rear door. Only aesthetics, so no hurry on those :)
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You certainly have been busy!
The summer wheels weren't getting me at first but I have to admit they are slowly growing on me :y
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Nice motor mate its coming on nicely :)
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Good looking motor and :y and liking those alloys :y :y
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I might even see your Omega irl sometime :) It's good that there are others keeping their omegas in good shape here in Finland :) Like it!
-Mika
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A well kept motor, love those wheels :)
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I've been quite quiet about Omega's life for a while, but no worries. Still going strong.
Got air conditioner maintenanced today, there's a small leak in the maintenance valve in the high pressure tubing. Had only 136 grams of R 134a left, I'll try to find a good second hand one. Luckily the leak is so small, that AC should stay alive for the rest of the summer.
Otherwise things have been good and I've only washed and driven her (Haven't driven that much lately, got my Honda Hornet back on the road also :)). Polished paintjob also few weeks back, I'll up some pics later. Maybe things have gotten too easy, now I'm getting paranoid because I think that the coolant level has dropped atleast 2 mm since the timebelt change ;D
-Miro
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Thanks to TheBoy for updating the image URL's, pics should be visible once again :)
Damn thing hasn't let me down yet (:P), so not much to tell for now. Made some longer hunting trips with her and she has been running nicely. On my first trip for this fall, I had my summertires on and as expected, there was some heavy snowing the day before I drove back home. The roads were used by some timbertrucks, squeezing the snow up nicely which had been followed with some raining in the night. So the roads were "quite" slippery. Not excatly the most relaxing (or the fastest) 200 km's to drive before getting to some bigger and unfrozen roads >:(
Passed MOT test last friday with flying colours and even a bit of praise from the inspector.
Winter is coming, again, and I haven't installed that pre-heater yet. Should really get on with it. Also planning to clean the breathers and maybe chancing the thermostat, but we'll see. And waxing her up too before they start to salt the roads. Going to get some pics out of those jobs once I get on with them.
-Miro
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Lovely motor
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She's been running well and oilservice coming soon. Front strut bearings started to make some noise earlier, changed those and all is well (and quiet) again, when steering. Didn't take any photos from that, but I did find some photos from last summer accidentally. Had saved them on PC, just forgot those :D Anyways, here they are, just a bit of polishing and stuff.
Clean, but not shiny
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yuf8.jpg) (http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/)
Front end done, some old Merc there ;)
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yufO.jpg) (http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/)
Sideview
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yufj.jpg) (http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/)
Got myself on camera too
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yufB.jpg) (http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/)
Finished product
(http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/yufT.jpg) (http://kuvapilvi.fi/k/)
-Miro
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Great looking car :y
You have put your own style on it, very nice in my opinion.
:y
Maintained well too.
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Shining now! :D
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Very nice car.Opel grille looks smarter than Vauxhall one I think.Really do like the wheels.
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Nice indeed :y
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A lot of hard work gone into that! :y