I was wondering why my Capri got hot in town...

it's an air filter right :)

LOL. Got my moneys worth though.

At least with a Capri, there's not a single job that's hard on them. 10 minutes saw the radiators swapped.

The message from Conor contains these words:

You have my sympathies. My Audi leaked from the transmission cooler into the radiator last week. What a mess. And now I find the thermostat's jammed open. Worse, the only reason Halfrauds might have for existing - stocking things on Sunday - didn't work. Not a stock item.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk, Guy King wrote something quite bizarre, possibly in an effort to confuddle the world. It went like so;

You'll find your gearbox is about to die a painful death if the Audi is auto then.

Happened to me with a ovloV 760 GLE, radiator rusted through between engine coolant and transmission cooler and sent a bit of water through the auto box.

The message from "Pete M" contains these words:

It is and I drained, flushed, drained and flushed again the box.

"Conor" wrote

Same on my Sierra. I read about modern cars on which a simple job like a failed water pump involves 10 hours of labour charge and an £800 bill, or where a service costs £1200 and I just shudder.

Seconded.

Mind you I've just got another Sierra to replace my old one that rusted away beyond reasonable repair and I'm going through the transition from my trusted OHC 1600 pinto engine to the new fangled 1800 CVH. Its probably because the CVH is new to me, but so far I am not very keen on it and jobs look more difficult than my old engine. Hopefully I am wrong.

Regards Bucket

the cvh is a lot of hassle compared to the pinto, but mainly because you don't ever need to do anything to the pinto other than put petrol in it :) the cvh tends to smoke a bit more than other sierra engines (other than the diesel ones that is) but it's just as robust the weakest one in the bunch is the twinkcam, because once that head gasket goes, or it boils over, you are looking at BIG bills

it was my first "job" when i started in the mechanics game in the car park, in the snow, with just a screwdriver the bottom hose didn't want to come off and it took 3 hours if they had said to me they only wanted the rad and were scraping the rest of the car i would have cut the thing off :)

"Bucket" wrote

Hopefully I am wrong.

Sadly, you are right.....Pinto engines (I have the 2.0 GLSi) are well within the capability of anyone half-handy with spanners and screwdrivers.... The CVH engine came along after Ford et al decided that easy home maintenance by the owner was no longer to be a design consideration

"Duncanwood" wrote

Lol! Pintos are very unforgiving of missed oil changes but that's not the engine's fault!

And on the plus side, when your timing belt - another Pinto consumable- fails, valves and pistons don't meet. What a fiendishly simple idea!

Out of interest, have you used a pressure washer - or high pressure hose on the front of the car?

John

I haven't but I'm not sure if the previous owner did. The pictgure is a bit misleading. There are slivers at either end of where most of the fins are - they've rotted from the middle.