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[Jay w]

The CDX is currently in a bit of a sorry state, not made any better by my wayward behavoir a few weeks ago.

The total damage to the engine was:

I bent conrod with no big end and the little end looking VERY oval
I piston in 6 big pieces......and numerous small pieces
Crank with a very scored journal (and a bit oval)
Damaged sump due to flying internal components
FUBAR'd block due to attempted escape of conrod  

So we have sourced a FWD vactra lump, this turned out to be a massive bargain, the engine was out of an 02 police car that had been used to stop an artic (the back end was seriously shortened) the car only had 58,000 miles on it (great i thought, lower mileage than the car it is going in) then i looked through all the paperwork that was supplied with the engine and it confirmed that less than 10,000 miles ago there was a genuine vaux recon lump chucked in   Result!!!!!
Cost of the engine was £650

The old lump is coming out today, by friday the new one will be in and by the end of the weekend she will be running with the new lump, well that's the plan!!!

In 11 weeks time this car is going to be taking the family to the South of France, in that time i have to source and fit the following

LPG kit,       will use a kit from Jeremy
reverse sensors Ebay
Rear blind,
photochromatic rear mirror,
Harman kardon ipod kit   Got that
parrot kit
Rear shelf speakers
Upgrade door speakers

oh and work 5 days of the week in Epsom as well

So what are the chances of getting all of this done and being on the ferry by July 4

And BTW if anyone has a black parcel shelf with blind and speaker grilles and a photchromatic rear view mirror, please PM me  

[Jay w]

well the engine is in the hole.....by the end of the weekend we want it running....

turns out the block had 2 holes in it, one on each side  

will get some piccys this weekend

[albitz]

  .....if you get the engine up and running im sure the other stuff will seem minor.good luck

[zippo]

what a result with the new engine ,i hope everything goes smoothly mate

[Vamps]

Good Luck.

[Jay w]

today has been a real result, she is up and running and very smooth indeed.

started at 7, buy 1pm she was pulling off the ramp under her own steam.....

only hiccup was when we started her up, i forgot to connect one set of coil pcks  

a very different car to drive over the 2.5, the drive by wire setup does seem a little more responsive, and the who car does seem a lot more powerful, i really can believe that 100cc could make that much difference.

Couple of jobs still need to be done
Air con needs to be regassed
One of the vac hoses was damaged today, that needs replacing
Drivers locking solenoid
front bumper replaced
Dipstick needs replacing


A little peek at what came out of the old engine!!


Stared a few jobs on it today

The harman Kardon kit.

I have always liked these, the standard stereo is good enough for my needs, and this gives me the ability to use my ipod

The kit consists of 4 items, the brain, screen, ipod lead, controller unit.

I have sat the brain between the passenger airbag and the glove box

this area has the most amount of space, has a live feed and is easy to get the cable to

The screen is sat on the bottom corner of the screen, just within eyesight, but not too in your face


however in order to thread all the cables you need to get the interior to this sort of state


I still have to power it up and run the controller and ipod lead, whilst doing this tonight i was also getting the front end ready for the parking sensor display.


The sensors have been painted in the car colour, Nocturno Blue, they will be ready tomorrow, in the meantime i decided to lay the cabling to   get the car ready to finish tomorrow, the display cable needs to run to the control nit in the boot of the car o i decided to route the cable under the sill trim.




getting the trim off is not hard, the cover piece with the griffin on it pops off, this reveals 7 screws that run front to back once these are undone the centre pillar trim needs to be pulled off as well.

so far the display is in place and the wire run up to the back seats, the Harman Kardon unit needs wiring into the car and the controller wired in, both of these will be done tomorrow

[zippo]

your getting their mate , wouldnt have a clue where to start myself

[Jay w]

Right from the start today things have gone well

Decide to push on with the parking sensors, but before i did that there was one job i had to complete from yesterday.

When i got the car the NSR door card had detached itself from the trim that holds it in place, it had to repaired quickly as it was detaching itself even further
When i got the trim off i was met with this


the first thing i had to do was to make up a cover, i found a black bin liner comes in handy for this

the trim had been setting overnight, i had to use something that was strong, would take a bit of a battering and was readliy to hand, so i used gripfill!!!!!! some would say it was a bodge, but it did the trick  


the black strip in on the card is the bit that was giving me the issue

Once this was done it was then onto the sensors

In order to finish the install i had to finish threading the cable for the screen from the front to the back.
first job, seat out, this is fairly simple, while i was there i decided to have a look to see if the wiring was there for the heated rear seats, lo and behold......

under this.......
i found this......

all the wiring is there  

In order to thread the cable to the boot i needed to get the edge of the backrest off the car, with the seat base removed there is a metal tag that holds the edge in place, bend that back and then lift up the edge



the controller unit is being mounted near the spare wheel recess, so i cleared that out, took the bumper off and also the rear threshold that sits in the boot.



the next job is the one can can really make of break the install, the rear bumper, i had painted the sensors yesterday in the body colour, i then marked up the bumper with masking take and decide on the most suitable location of the sensors, from there i drilled the holes



As part of the install you have to modify the foam that sits behind the bumper
Before....
After.....

From there it is just about fitting it all together, the wires for the the sensors thread through the grommet in the back panel that the numberplate light runs through.


The live for the sensors is picked up from the reverse lights, all it needs is an earth, all the connections are in the boot on the main loom, i soldered all the connections


once i had the live and earth i routed all the cables to the control unit


with all the wires fitted, the bumper bolted up and all the wiring checked it was time to test it


Once this was all done it was then time to spent the rest of the day polishing it.......3 times  

The paint was really bad on the car, it had died back because it had not been washed for so long and had no depth at all, so the first time it went round the car with T-cut, then it was clayed with maguers, and then waxed using carnauba wax, the results were amazing, it looks totally different and had a bit of depth, however i only got 3/4 of the way round it.... and that took 7 hours, so tomorrow its a case of finish the wax and then then Vax the interior

until then................  

[albitz]

looks like youve been working very hard,well done fella.

[zippo]

you aren't hanging about are you  

[Jay w]

cheers guys

I really need this up together as quick as possible as i want to have 5-10k on the new engine before we go to France (july 5) and i want the gas kit fitted soon as well

One thing i will say about her, very smooth indeed, i can imagine that there is so much difference between the CDX and Elite models, this leaves me to think that there were a few things that weren't right with the Elite.

Petrol fuel economy is a lot better as well, the 2.5 was giving me 28 on a run, last night this was up around 32!!   i was well chuffed

Now got to order 2 sets of infinity 5010CS's for the front and back doors and a set of 6010's for the rear shelf  

[Martin_1962]

cheers guys

I really need this up together as quick as possible as i want to have 5-10k on the new engine before we go to France (july 5) and i want the gas kit fitted soon as well

One thing i will say about her, very smooth indeed, i can imagine that there is so much difference between the CDX and Elite models, this leaves me to think that there were a few things that weren't right with the Elite.

Petrol fuel economy is a lot better as well, the 2.5 was giving me 28 on a run, last night this was up around 32!!   i was well chuffed

Now got to order 2 sets of infinity 5010CS's for the front and back doors and a set of 6010's for the rear shelf  

5010CS - aren't they small speakers?

I have 606CS in the front with the XOvers in the armrests

[Biggun]

Bloody hell mate! I can remember when I was young and enthusiastic (well just about!)

[VXL V6]

That's an amazing amount of work completed in a few days! Well done!  

[Admin]

This amount of work completed in this space of time will surely impress even the great Mr DTM?

That is an astonishing amount of work completed and done properly!  

[Jay w]

cheers guys

I really need this up together as quick as possible as i want to have 5-10k on the new engine before we go to France (july 5) and i want the gas kit fitted soon as well

One thing i will say about her, very smooth indeed, i can imagine that there is so much difference between the CDX and Elite models, this leaves me to think that there were a few things that weren't right with the Elite.

Petrol fuel economy is a lot better as well, the 2.5 was giving me 28 on a run, last night this was up around 32!!   i was well chuffed

Now got to order 2 sets of infinity 5010CS's for the front and back doors and a set of 6010's for the rear shelf  

5010CS - aren't they small speakers?

I have 606CS in the front with the XOvers in the armrests

5010's are 5 1/2 components with separate x-overs i have a set in the Alfa and they sound great, they will need spacing though

Cheers for the comments guys, i have been a bit flat out on it this last week or so, it's going to be doing 30k a tear so everything has to be just right.

LPG kit gets ordered next week so i can make a start on that soon   this time i am going to try and do a how to

[Varche]

Blimey, what a fast worker.

You don't fancy nipping down to see me in Spain from when you are on holiday. I need my cambelt and gearbox changing.

You (well we) should have it done by lunch despite it being a seven hour drive from where you are staying. You would be back having a sundowner by 7p.m.

varche

[Martin_1962]

cheers guys

I really need this up together as quick as possible as i want to have 5-10k on the new engine before we go to France (july 5) and i want the gas kit fitted soon as well

One thing i will say about her, very smooth indeed, i can imagine that there is so much difference between the CDX and Elite models, this leaves me to think that there were a few things that weren't right with the Elite.

Petrol fuel economy is a lot better as well, the 2.5 was giving me 28 on a run, last night this was up around 32!!   i was well chuffed

Now got to order 2 sets of infinity 5010CS's for the front and back doors and a set of 6010's for the rear shelf  

5010CS - aren't they small speakers?

I have 606CS in the front with the XOvers in the armrests

5010's are 5 1/2 components with separate x-overs i have a set in the Alfa and they sound great, they will need spacing though

Cheers for the comments guys, i have been a bit flat out on it this last week or so, it's going to be doing 30k a tear so everything has to be just right.

LPG kit gets ordered next week so i can make a start on that soon   this time i am going to try and do a how to

Fit 6.5s in the front - plenty of room

[Martin_1962]

While the door is off put the XOver in the armrest - chop out some of the thick foam

[Jay w]

well the LPG kit has been ordered today, another kit from Jeremy.

This time i am going with an 80l tank and the same Stag 300 set up i had last time.
He has been very kind and supplied me with a french adaptor and a spart fuel filter as he was saying the french don't filter their gas to the same quality as we do, as a result i may have to clean the injectors when i get back to the UK and a filter change is recommended as well at the same time.
The system is the same one that JamesV6 and i have used, i believe Marie has the 4 cyl version, its a fully adjustable system that can be mapped using the software supplied that will also help with fault diagnosis

I have no vested interest in this chap as others on here will testify, but he is a mountain of help, i am hoping that the kit should be with me before the weekend, if it is then we start with the tank this weekend and do the front end during the next week.

here is his ebay address, he was telling me he is doing less on there now as word of mouth is selling more kits than ever before
http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZu-fit-lpg

i will be tring to do a 'how to' however as i found last time, my methods and my car will be different from others, i have already hit an issue of mounting the vapuriser as i now have another waterpump in the way, never mind we will overcome

[zippo]

is that the same  kit that  Danny had fitted  :question

[Martin_1962]

I moved my pump Jay - about 1 inch was enough

[Martin_1962]

is that the same  kit that  Danny had fitted  :question

I think the Jeremy kit is Stag but Dannys is OMVL Dream

[Kevin Wood]

well the LPG kit has been ordered today, another kit from Jeremy.

This time i am going with an 80l tank and the same Stag 300 set up i had last time.
He has been very kind and supplied me with a french adaptor and a spart fuel filter as he was saying the french don't filter their gas to the same quality as we do, as a result i may have to clean the injectors when i get back to the UK and a filter change is recommended as well at the same time.
The system is the same one that JamesV6 and i have used, i believe Marie has the 4 cyl version, its a fully adjustable system that can be mapped using the software supplied that will also help with fault diagnosis

I have no vested interest in this chap as others on here will testify, but he is a mountain of help, i am hoping that the kit should be with me before the weekend, if it is then we start with the tank this weekend and do the front end during the next week.

here is his ebay address, he was telling me he is doing less on there now as word of mouth is selling more kits than ever before
http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZu-fit-lpg

i will be tring to do a 'how to' however as i found last time, my methods and my car will be different from others, i have already hit an issue of mounting the vapuriser as i now have another waterpump in the way, never mind we will overcome

Been thinking about that pump myself. I will get round to doing mine one day. I believe it only runs when parked up with the heater on so it should be possible to ditch it entirely. It's right where I'd put the vaporiser.

I'm thinking of redirecting the pipes around the back of the engine so it gets flow all the time rather than only on heater and then using the rather nice moulded pipes to feed the vapouriser, possibly with the pump still in circuit or possibly not. :-/

I'd be interested in the dimensions of the tank you've gone for, Jay.

It was indeed one of those systems we fitted to Marie's car and it went like a dream. In fact, due to a little wiring fault by yours truly   when we first filled the tank it refused to run on petrol so started up, pulled away from the garage and up the road to the nearest layby where we could tinker on gas without any calibration. 8-)

Kevin

[Jay w]

i have been looking at the area in front of the dirt shield under the wheelarch, it id below where the airbox sits, i believe its where the self levelling pump would have sat on my elite, its out of the way, discreet and i am sure a bracket could be made to support the unit.

I still have to sort out the brackets for the injectors, i may tap into the plenium for that, having the long one and no EGR or ICV units is a bit of a blessing really.

I was hoping that the water hoses to and from the pump could be interrupted and the vapouriser fed from that point, oh well, back to the old way of doing it, it worked last time, it just means that it is really bust round the back of the engine

Kevin as soon as it arrives i will get the dimensions for you  

[sassanach]

why dont you fit the 100 litre tank? you will lose no more usable space in the boot.

[Jay w]

why dont you fit the 100 litre tank? you will lose no more usable space in the boot.

fair point, i am on a slight budget and that would take me over by quite a bit.

The 70l tank was ok, i was finding that i could do most of my journeys with only have to fill  up for the return trip.

[sassanach]

on a run my 100 litre tank would carry me 400 miles +.where i am in the trowbridge area we are well served with lpg pumps but once you leave the area it gets more interesting.

[Kevin Wood]

i have been looking at the area in front of the dirt shield under the wheelarch, it id below where the airbox sits, i believe its where the self levelling pump would have sat on my elite, its out of the way, discreet and i am sure a bracket could be made to support the unit.

Spooky. I was just looking at that area on mine about 10 minutes ago. Either for the vapouriser or the ECU.

I still have to sort out the brackets for the injectors, i may tap into the plenium for that, having the long one and no EGR or ICV units is a bit of a blessing really.

Yes. Should make things easier. Either that or replace the plenum bolts with slightly longer ones, Pack out the recesses and run a bracket from the plenum bolts down to the side of the plenum.

I was hoping that the water hoses to and from the pump could be interrupted and the vapouriser fed from that point, oh well, back to the old way of doing it, it worked last time, it just means that it is really bust round the back of the engine

The water pump is after the HBV at the moment. However, re-jigging the pipes behind the engine would soon fix that. Makes no difference to the pump where it is in the system, and then you can run the vapouriser from the pump pipes, and potentially put the pump in series with it if room is available

Kevin as soon as it arrives i will get the dimensions for you  

Excellent. I'm hoping that I can find a reasonably large tank that will still give some room for lobbing the odd long load (bits of wood, etc) through the hole behind the back seats, so either a cylinder that uses the whole width but is reasonably slim, or one that uses the whole height but not the whole width would be good. Range isn't a huge issue. As long as it does 200-250 miles I'd be happy. Need to go and measure up the boot, I guess.

Kevin

[Entwood]

Re the 100 ltr tank ...  

When mine was measured by the place that is doing the work (goes in on Saturday) they said I would have to have an 85 ltr tank (68 ltrs useable gas) as that is the max that fits between the suspension "bulges".  

Could this be due to their suppliers being different to others, or what ?? 15 ltrs is not a lot I know .. just wondering about the discrepancy ..

[sassanach]

granted its a snug fit, from memory the tank is 975mm long by 450dia.i will also lay odds that most tanks come from the same source.

[Kevin Wood]

Re the 100 ltr tank ...  

When mine was measured by the place that is doing the work (goes in on Saturday) they said I would have to have an 85 ltr tank (68 ltrs useable gas) as that is the max that fits between the suspension "bulges".  

Could this be due to their suppliers being different to others, or what ?? 15 ltrs is not a lot I know .. just wondering about the discrepancy ..

Feel free to pop in for a cuppa if you're in the area.

Kevin

[Jay w]

Re the 100 ltr tank ...  

When mine was measured by the place that is doing the work (goes in on Saturday) they said I would have to have an 85 ltr tank (68 ltrs useable gas) as that is the max that fits between the suspension "bulges".  

Could this be due to their suppliers being different to others, or what ?? 15 ltrs is not a lot I know .. just wondering about the discrepancy ..

i wonder if the mountings will make a difference?

there are two types, a frame that bolts to the floor, that would increase the height of the tank by about half an inch or the straps that bolt directly to the floor.
Kevin i am not sure that you would be able to do what you intended, i had a 70 litre last time and i have been told the diameter is the same its the length that will differ, if thats the case then the ability to carry long things is lost

[Iainv6]

Man, i was worn out after only READING about how much work you put in over a few days

Hope you get you're 10k in before going to France with the family, and you have a great one

[Kevin Wood]

Kevin i am not sure that you would be able to do what you intended, i had a 70 litre last time and i have been told the diameter is the same its the length that will differ, if thats the case then the ability to carry long things is lost

IIRC, the tank James had in his facelift was about right. It was long (only just fitted between the suspension turrets) but not that high. :-/ That was a 70 litre, IIRC.

Kevin

[sassanach]

i used a frame and it makes b+++er all difference to the height,i would also go for a 4 hole tank as it fills quicker,   usefull when your filling a 140 litre tank, as fitted to my caddy

[Kevin Wood]

i used a frame and it makes b+++er all difference to the height,i would also go for a 4 hole tank as it fills quicker,   usefull when your filling a 140 litre tank, as fitted to my caddy

Why do 4 holes fill quicker, out of interest? Is it just down to being able to fit a larger diameter filling valve to the tank than is possible in a 4 in 1 multivalve? Is the pipework to the filler still the same (8mm?).

Kevin

[sassanach]

the filler pipe on mine looks more like a hydraulic pipe, its pre-made.so im presuming its larger internally.i also have a 4 hole tank in the mig and i could tell the difference in filling time between it and the previously fitted  spare wheel tank.(using the same pump)

[Entwood]

Re the 100 ltr tank ...  

When mine was measured by the place that is doing the work (goes in on Saturday) they said I would have to have an 85 ltr tank (68 ltrs useable gas) as that is the max that fits between the suspension "bulges".  

Could this be due to their suppliers being different to others, or what ?? 15 ltrs is not a lot I know .. just wondering about the discrepancy ..

Feel free to pop in for a cuppa if you're in the area.

Kevin

Many thanks for the invite .. but it'll be a flying visit ... SWMBO made some promises without consulting me .. so now I'll be watching the clock all morning ...  

[Martin_1962]

i used a frame and it makes b+++er all difference to the height,i would also go for a 4 hole tank as it fills quicker,   usefull when your filling a 140 litre tank, as fitted to my caddy

Why do 4 holes fill quicker, out of interest? Is it just down to being able to fit a larger diameter filling valve to the tank than is possible in a 4 in 1 multivalve? Is the pipework to the filler still the same (8mm?).

Kevin

It is bigger 14mm AFAIR

As to that pump - I moved mine back a little to the next bolt, only on one and not two but it is still there and the evaporator fits OK.

I did need to chop the corner off the air box for pipework and remount one of the mounts.