This morning the postman delivered a nice second hand BOL for the Pug.
Later this morning I pulled up at the local motor spares place to get=20 the oil filter and air filter to do the service I don't think it has had=20 for at least 5 years (10,000 miles by the MOT certificates).=20
According to the receipt stack, the last major thing it had done was a=20 replacement of lots of pipes and gaskets after it blew oil all over the=20 inside of the engine bay.
The parts place had a choice of two air filters on my model so I went to=20 the public carpark and brought it round to the front of their place so=20 we could work out which one.
Out the front of their shop is a touch of an incline.
I put the handbrake on and pulled it on an extra notch. Bang. I put the=20 car in gear and popped the bonnet. I walked in the door and was greeted=20 with.
"Was that a handbrake cable you'll be needing too?".=20
So this afternoon was spent changing the handbrake cable with the aid of=20 the BOL. I managed to swear about the usual accuracy of the BOL too.=20
Removing old one once you've unclipped both ends involves unclipping the=20 body clips and removing the cable from the hub. In reality, removing the=20 cable from the hub meant undoing all of the springs, getting the shoe=20 out and smacking the rust bonded cable tip out of the drum.=20
Oh, and I had to cycle down to the parts place because I didn't have a=20
32mm socket for the hub nut. =A36 for a single socket.... ah well I needed= =20 it and I like to buy quality tools to build up the 'decent stuff'=20 collection. I'll have to get to a Pug dealer at some point soon and buy=20 a new hub nut though since you're supposed to lock it in with a fold in=20 the groove. I went for damned tight and a knock down of the previous=20 damage.The only other job I got around to was changing the air filter. Remember=20 where I said I didn't think it had been serviced and the receipts I have=20 mention hoses and gaskets? The thing I took out resembled an oil filter.=20 The outer chamber of the filter holder was caked with thick black gunk.=20 The filter was caked in gritty black crud. After I removed it, I pulled=20 an old sheet to bits and set to with white spirit. It looks like nothing=20 made it through the filter so it had done more than it was designed to=20 do but I'm not sure how much actual air was getting in.
The engine didn't sound bad for a deisel to start with but now it is=20 positively purring by comparison. It is much smoother at low revs and=20 has more power throughout the range. Dropping below 30 in 4th isn't=20 lumpy any more. For the first tank it returned 53MPG and I blamed my=20 heavy foot a few times for that. Now it isn't running rich and can=20 breathe, I think that may improve.
Warwick