Also have to say, it's really nice to go into a garage and have them be so complimentary about the car, to have so many of the guys there ask so many questions about the mods, how things are set up etc. They are just all so positive about it and the work done on it

Unlike last years attempt to get it on the road via a cheapo half price mot place, where i was basically told (after it was failed on total nonsense.... which i low and behold isn't even an advisory here because the issues didn't exist...shock eh?), to take the car away and they never wanted to see the heap of **** ever again.

Easy to see why the garage that mot'd it today is where i trust to do things properly!

Yup, always a relief to have a garage you trust. Even when I wasn't living in Ellon I used to time visits to the parents with when MOT/services were due so that I could use my local indy

Good news about the cinq passing emissions btw

It's only gone and passed its bloody MOT!!!!

I'm hoping this has already seen a nice long celebratory drive!

Martyn said:

I'm hoping this has already seen a nice long celebratory drive!

Click to expand...

Nope. It has only ran straight from the mot station to the garage.

Needs the finer details of paperwork sorted, such as tax, full time insurance etc.

Has a few things i want to change now i have finally had a chance to drive it properly on the road.

Mainly exhaust related, needs wrapped to stop metal to metal contact on the arb. A few parts underneath i want to tidy up/underseal etc, all very minor stuff, including a proper t-cut tidy up, then i'll have fun

Huge smile on my face reading that

Congratulations on getting it through it's MOT. I think we definitely need a mini meet in Dundee to celebrate

Been my daily runner for the past 2 weeks.

A few small teething issues, but nothing major as they turned out.

First one was the ignition lead of cylinder 1 popping off the plug for no apparent reason, which resulted in a missfire. Pushed the lead back onto the plug, around 50 miles later it popped off again.... hmmmm. Deep recesses so it can only be a tiny, tiny compression leak from around the spark plug basically pushing it up like a cork over time. Have since tightened the spark plug (was tight before, just nipped it up another 20thish of a turn), hasn't done it at all since.

Second issue i thought was a failing/sticking idle control valve. Every morning i'd start it up and it would rev at about 1800 as it should for a few seconds, but as soon as i touched the throttle, idle would become 2400rpm and be very occasionally rough both at idle and under load until the thermostat started to open and then it would drop to normal. So went to swap it over to one of my spare 1.2 16v tb's and as soon as i went to take the current one off, found the issue... just before mot i was testing for leaks etc and made my own gasket for it..... gasket is fine, i just hadn't tightened the bolts up enough and it was rattling off loose the inlet manifold! So basically as soon as i touched the throttle in the morning it was pulling the tb away from the inlet and air was bypassing the iac valve altogether and it couldn't adapt.... tightened it up, seems ok again.

Just a small upate..well smallish.

Been my daily for the past while, and i do mean daily, it's only had about 3 days off in the past 2 months.

After the FS meet and the re-occurance of the lead popping off issue, the bodge of a different lead with a different design on cylinder 1 has been in place, it hasn't happened again. Clearly there's an underlying issue, but until i work on it next, not chasing that up.

However that work will need to start soon, frankly, i'm not happy with it. "something" isn't right, It's probably related to that plug issue, but i can't put my finger on it. It just feels a little flat, reluctant to rev, sounds a little off and has some strange wee running niggles. Such as an intermittent stutter when cold, it'll do it once, then not do it again all day. Even if left to sit for 6 hours, i'll start it up, drive home 4 miles and it wont happen, just occurs first thing after sitting overnight. And i know the gearing is short, but the engine braking i have right now is just ridiculous, i let off the throttle in 1-4 and it's like somebody is pulling the handbrake on! it's "ok" on 5th. except it isn't anything like a sticky caliper, because if i put the clutch in the car happily rolls. It's clearly just engine related too. Compression all seems perfect, so doesn't seem to be a physical issue with the engine, but the symptoms don't really scream "sensor" either, but as i have spares of everything like coil packs, lambda, map sensor, coolant temp sensor, i'll swap stuff out one by one and try and isolate what it is/isn't.

I'm going to be swapping back onto the spicier cams soon rather than these "emission regulation" ones i fitted just to detune it and get through the mot, so that'll be a great chance to problem solve with it in bits.

Ideally, would like to take it off the road for a week just to dig deeper into stuff and even more ideally, would like to swap to something else for winter, purely because my work car park is nigh on impossible to negotiate in the nice weather, i don't fancy grounding out on the cold, wet/icy mornings that will be on the way.

Decisions, decisions, I am half considering selling up.

Nothing to do with the car (which is still running as a daily, and running fine), more that i'm likely losing storage and need something suitable for really bumpy/rutted tracks and carrying large loads, so with nowhere to potentially store the cinq (or the suzuki, which i'm also looking to sell) or the various parts i've amassed, the idea of a "winter" car has gained ground as more of a year round jack of all trades.

Obviously it's not the preferred option and i can't really imagine being without it.... the ideal situation will be taking it off the road for some minor fettling just to perfect the rough edges whilst something else takes the battering as a daily, at least over winter rather than exposing the cinq to salt on the road (even though it has been sealed underneath) etc, but as it stands, storage is an issue and 2 insurances is a complete no go given already running the modified one is pretty pricey and a second car can't be added to policy with specialist insurer = full price new policy with no ncb

Still have it and Still running! and in all honesty, there has been very, very few issues since it went back on the road in general.

That's nearly 8k miles done since it passed the mot 10 months ago, getting scarily close to thinking about the next one, eek!

The spark plug issue has never returned since new leads were used.

The factory original throttle cable snapped 5 minutes from home a couple of months back, fixed that, then a few days later the clutch quadrant let go (very old part that was missing a washer so the pin ended up "eating" through it.)

Past few days though, signs of an electrical issue. Battery light very dimly lit on dash all the time and eventually ran out of electric and had to bump start it downhill. When i rebuilt it, i fitted a new battery and alternator so unless the alternator is faulty, should be no reason for this. However i took off all the terminals at the battery, cleaned them up, no difference. Took the terminals off the alternator, cleaned them up (small bolted one on the pin was a little loose), all seems ok. Battery light now off so perhaps it was just a loose connection/dirt combo.

Other issues...... Very small coolant leak from the bottom of the rad/hose joint. Very, very small oil leak from the cambox gasket and i have no handbrake, because the rear caliper adjusters are jammed. Nothing a hammer, wd40 and some spray grease won't resolve when i can be bothered.

All in not too bad for being handbuilt in a shed :lol:

Still thinking of putting another years ticket on an selling though, as before storage is an issue and i fancy a change of direction like an old Land Rover, something i can play around with but use day to day all year round and basically be able to also use as a workshop :lol:

Good to hear she's still running.

So, the million dollar question. Will she be making an appearance at SICD?!

Project Cinq now has a bigger....older, rustier, leakier, slower brother :lol:

download/file.php?mode=view&id=4171

Yo, sibling picture is amusing but more info required plsnthx

Nice to see you've scratched your 4x4 itch though

Well the cinq is off the road again, 2 weeks mot left and it needs a lot of tinkering before it goes near a test centre, so it shall receive attention. Mostly leaks needing stopped and brakes needing rebuilt.

Land rover..... just came up local at too cheap a price to ignore. (I.e no matter how **** it is, i've effectively bought an engine with a free Land Rover attached to it....which probably tells you a lot about it!) If it's not saveable then i'll not lose a penny. It's also half the cost of the Cinq to insure and is giving me the same mpg :lol: Very late 1994 300tdi.

Issues? Rust....... I need to arrange a date for it with the local welder and will let him have a poke around at it. From what i can see the sills look ok, the inner structure is fine, boot floor etc all good, Body mounts ok, Chassis seems fine. Both outer rear arches are needing welded, a patch on the passenger B pillar needs done and whilst the front inner arches look fine from the inside the front bumper corners have a bracket that extends up the way to bolt onto the inner wings... and mine aren't attached to anything so i suspect they are crumbling from the front back. Probably the rear crossmember needs looked at too as there's a small hole under the boot door. Also the back passenger door is effectively in 2 parts as the outer skin isn't completely attached to the inner skin but hey.... i'll just rivet that one together, slap some black hammerite over the rivets and hope nobody notices

Mechanically it's ok aside from a couple of oil leaks, electrically it's a disaster :lol: More italian than an italian, my personal favourite quirk is the sidelights that just switch themselves on and off again at complete random intervals.

Well it's not like you hate a challenge so it'll be fine

And it could be worse. Your sidelights could be flashing at random women rather than at random intervals - probably a very bad thing in some parts of Dundee :twist:

I'm beginning to understand why i have so many electrical faults. Found over 20 issues with connections and badly bodged wiring up of things, (the best/worst one being the rear tail lights with exposed wires just twisted together, right in the firing line of water and dirt coming off the rear wheels) sorted what i found today and i still have sidelights with a mind of their own, so there's more to find.

At least all my bulbs now actually work, though. :lol:

A little over a year since the last post, time flies!

Cinq still parked up and still using the Land Rover as the daily. Got to the bottom of the weird light glitch, it was a short in the centre console on a bodge holding in the window switch pack, basically one plug was shorting out on that, sending electric through the illumination circuit right to the stalk and powering things up. Land Rover, surprisingly pretty much sailed through its mot a few months back, considering it was basically sold to me as an engine with a scrap body and chassis attatched, i don't think an exhaust backbox, 1 drop link, 1 track rod end and 1 tiny plate needing welded in was too bad. Amusingly now though i'm partially locked out of it as the barrel assembly in the door lock failed and my only way in for the next few days is through the passenger door with the alarm screaming :lol:

As for the Cinq, well i pretty much done all i wanted with it, i got all the teething toubles sorted, it ran pretty much rock solid reliable until the MOT expired bar the throttle cable snapping. The last few small niggles seemed to be the result of a poor electrical ground caused by a loose terminal on the alternator, all tightened up it never reappeared.

I think, all things considered my time with the Cinq is coming to a close. I feel the time has come to move her on, for someone else to enjoy or take on to another level still. It's coming up for 9 years of ownership, but the time feels right. Plan is to get a fresh years MOT i think and advertise from there all ready to run for the new owner.

I loved having the wee thing following me popping it's ht leads off every few miles it's a braw wee car and someone will fall in love with it too

It never did the HT lead thing again after that day, that's pretty much just the kind of thing that happens when you throw a road trip at a car with no road testing beforehand :lol:

If I had the time money and space I would make you an offer but with 4 cars on the drive and only 2 that are actually working and no money it ain't happening lol but I'm sure someone 2ill snap it up