General Doblò 2001 / The beginning of ...

[Lullaby]

Dear Lady's and Gentleman,

It took me a while to find the right car te mess around with, and then my eye spotted a 2001 1.2 SX with 230.000 km (142915 mile), it seems for many people to be a old brick on the road, but jet I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's a project car to customize at several levels and meanwhile there are a lot of common problems who are mostly posted on this forum (slight problem of no answers is a small bummer). For me it doesn't matter much of the fact that I have the workshop manual and the right tools to fix most problems. Some stuff will be bought from the scrapyard and other stuff will be customized, special tools wil be bought when needed.

The first thing that I dit to the car was a full service maintenance of everything I was capable to (newbie), happily surprised it wasn't a difficult job. At this point the car has to be for august to the MOD, I'm not planning to; because of rebuilding en etc. This way I don't have to pay tax after 8 weeks when the license-plate is suspended and don't have to pay insurance (This is saving me around 130 Pound every month (gasoline included)).

I know almost everyone wil think it is impossible to rebuild it to AWD, but I think that everything is possible (yes it will be a money pit). The first thing I wanted to do is to take everything apart for revision. The hole engine-bay has to be empty and everything will be checked and measured like the cilinders, valves and everything I can think off. I am not doing this to build the engine to the best it can be, I'm doing this to learn and understand what everything is intended for. Meanwhile stripping down the car I can search the internet for parts that are useful, and keeping in mind that when everything is out of the car I can measure and overthinking all the possibility's. In worst case scenario there wil be a point of realizing that it is a impossible job and then I can built everything back with some extra like a small charger (found already a lot of video's of customizing all small things that is definitely possible).

Thankfully there are different cars whit compatible components like parts of a Punto, although these cars are mostly customized for hp. Not necessary for me, but helpful to see how people tune their cars and internal components like different crankshafts or whatever. Also all the tips how to DIY is perfect to watch on the internet off the fact that cars have a hole lot of comparison on parts how they work.


And now it's time for some foto's: The first problem I had was all kinds of electrical problems, so I had to figure different thinks out and also had to replace the headlights because they were internally broken and the plastic frond was extremely dof.

Photo's are not in the exact same order like I dit the job, but it shows the basics.

 

[Lullaby]

In the first week of riding my car I notice that the cooling liquid was dropping fast and decided to drain down the system and check for leaks or/and ruptured hoses. At the end it seems that the waterpomp was leaking. I think they used the wrong paste, or paste it and started the car directly without drying for a day (recommended by manual). So.... meh, timing belt and pump replacement? After checking the belt it seems that they already dit the job and that was the thing I was expecting and reason of leakage at the pomp. Because knowing it will be a project car I dit not bother to fix it, I just used a anti leak bottle at a later moment (fast temporary fix) it was working for 10 to 11 months.

When I drained out the system I filled it up with water and left the cap off and started the car to the point it reached up to 65-70 Celsius (149-158 Fahrenheit), after that I let the engine cool for a small moment to not burning my hands on everything. I repeated this 4 times to get clear water out of the system and then added new (and the right one) coolant. After filling I starter the car and take it up to the point the fan was spinning and carefully after cooling it a bit down let the system escaped the air that was left and filled the last coolant.

Nice satisfying job and low experience needed (just be careful when you take the cap off when the engine is hot while the fan is spinning before, there will be quite some pressure and steam), I would recommend it to every one just to prevent rubbish in the system and protecting the engine. It is extremely low kost and your engine will be thankful afterwards.

PS: In the future I will be upgrading my cooling system for several reasons and replacement of location(s).

 

[Lullaby]

After a few weeks I was experiencing some trotted issues and bad starting, sometimes it was stalling after a ride when the engine was hot and had troubles to restart. After looking on the internet i decided to clean the EGR. The garage was telling me it had to be replaced and it will be a cost of 120 euro's (+/- 100 pound). That was ridicules and I'm testing several garages if I want to do something to see the difference in DIY or garage costs.

I think it is a real easy job: just take the filter of and remove the EGR (always note what you are doing or make pictures). After removal it was just a matter of deep cleaning with break fluid and WD40. After de basic clean I took a toothbrush and air pressure to remove the last dirt. Also, check the connectors (broken cables or something) and clean them when needed. My biggest problem was the side intake (the bending tunnel was almost completely clogged, and with the airgun and a lot of cleaning it was a proper piece of work).

Ones cleaned and replaced the engine was running smooth. So with some home cleaner, break cleaner, WD40 and air pistol the job was done with a cost of almost 0,00 euro/pound. So never trust the garage

PS: If I don't swap the engine I will trow an other bigger one on it like 46mm for some extra air intake if needed. And also I will be using my cold degreaser in the shed.

 

[Lullaby]

Last summer, few weeks ago, right now, upcoming time the rebuild and making it bigger.