One for Jorgy!! And me... :?

[steelcityuk]

Hi George,

Absolutely unbelievable! It sounds as though it makes that white one I bought sound like a 'minter'. Maybe I should be selling the XM rather than C5, which incidentally passed it's MOT on Saturday, no advisories and a fast pass on emissions despite a remap.

Good luck with the search George but why so desperate for a manual - I've only driven/owned manuals so don't know how they compare.

Steve.

[DerekW]

George, you and I have had a few chats on the forums over the past few years and I value your expertise. But please listen to me, walk away from this one! There will be others along (like London buses) shortly and they can't be much worse than this.

Perhaps in future you could save unnecessary expenditure by enlisting the help of fellow members to do a check on possible purchases, we are spread fairly wide over the country and I for one would be happy to view a prospective car within, say, 50 miles.

View the travel money you've wasted as giving you a quick tour of the country.

Derek

[jorgy]

Right, Im the highest bidder for a too high price, but at least not too far from what I had valued this car -was thinking £300-400. It was a moment of madness to be honest, I didn't think of bidding till the last minute. Basically I had contacted the seller with an offer yesterday and today, but he avoids my calls -think he was trying his luck with waiting for the ebay auction to finish. At least I'll finally (maybe!) get a working 2lt manual, that I can use reliably after my indy has a look and does the necessary repairs.

Thanks you for all your wise advice, I know I'm risking everything here and I might break my neck with this car, but I really needed a car asap to cut my loses. Since new job in September, a 2lt means £100 saving per month for me, compared to the 3lt. The critical bit was that I thought of a solution as to how to drive it back to my indy for strut top replacement: I'll install the custom strut top protectors that I had got for the other car -remember of them? How handy.

Will be interesting reporting further findings with the car as I live with it.

Now, I need all the help I can get!! Car has a seized aircon compressor bearing so doesn't go anywhere as such -a belt that also drives the alternator.

I have 2 options as far as I see:

1. put another aircon compressor on it. Could be pricy, and tricky to find one that fits -although it could turn out that they are all the same (as I suspect). Minus is that I'll loose all gas (if any...). And will take time to sort out a solution, while I aim to pick up car this very weekend if possible.

2. Put a belt from a 2lt non-aircon, so the compressor will stand free till I find a clean solution. I have found there are 2 belts for the 2lt non-aircon, and 2 belts for the 2lt aircon, depending on alternator type. Non aircon version: K5-LE 960MM, or K5-LE 710MM. Aircon version: K5-LON 1140MM or K5-LE1125MM.

Now, the all critical questions here is: does the non-aircon 2lt include any sort of additional roller that the aircon model doesn't , or vice versa? If 2 engines are the same setup otherwise, I'll just buy (or tell them to buy) both types of belt for a non-aircon 2lt and it should be an easy and cheap operation -one of them *has* to fit.

I know that e.g. the 2.1td engines differ in that respect so this kind of trick couldn't be done on them.

Looking forward to your lights !!

cheers
George

[andmcit]

Hi George - I don't actually feel it's a massive amount for a car - ANY CAR! What would that buy you with another
manufacturer's badge on it? To be fair to the car it IS in banger money even though we all know differently on
this forum - best bargain around but woe betide even a good car that slips into no maintenance and ignorance
- something I'm not sure this car has had the misfortune to suffer until recently with Stratfordman...

You know pretty much all about the car's main failings and most are fixables that need an enthusiastic knowledgeable
hand to rectify and may even be time issues rather than ££'s. Which piece of the dash is broken as I'm likely to have
the bit needed although it's likely the tabs on the main dash.

I know you've got replacement strut tops back home but by peeling the rubbish loose rubberised coverings and
then determining the health of the inner metal collar beneath you could find there's strength beneath the loose
surface rust and more a confidence inspiring journey home.

I'll need to remind myself of the underbonnets of my 2.0is so will report back asap for you although I recall the main
belt play/adjustment is on the alternator via a T adjusted bolt as per the hydraulic V6 belt = only longer on the AC car
as it runs that extra loop. Will confirm for you asap!

Don't worry too much about your purchase - still seems a lot of car for the money - my reservations are over the seller
although he's had barely much time to get his evil way with it since Brett had it and it sounded a decent car from the
original seller/owner/autotrader info.

All the best, Andrew

[robert_e_smart]

Hi George, I am glad that your hunt has finally come to an end.

For your seized A/C compressor, using a shorter belt missing out the compressor is your best bet. You are best to avoid taking the compressor off incase there is any gas in the system, thus avoiding having to re-gas it after you change the bearing on the compressor. I had to run a shorter belt on my Xantia to bypass the compressor on it. The compressor is normally mounted below the alternator, so you should have no problem fitting a shorter belt to miss it out.

My 2lt has no air con and a belt runs from the crank pully directly to the alternator, no idler if my memory serves me correctly.

Here a couple of pics of mine if it helps at all.





Robert

[jorgy]

Hi all

Thanks very much for helping Andrew and Robert,
so it seems it's a straight job with a 2lt non-aircon belt. I better wait for Andrew to also confirm that there's no extra roller/idler between the 2 versions -Robert, yes, the aircon version looks exactly as yours re. alternator and adjuster, and compressor is lower as u say- and then I'll give the seller specific instructions so that I can pick up car this weekend even.

cheers
George

[jorgy]

Hmmm I was just looking at my own photo of the alternator area of the stratford XM and I think that car *has* a roller before the alternator -the upper side of the belt seems to be coming from below, not like Robert's photo where it can be seen dissapearing towards the depth of the engine.

Hopefully this roller will be out-of-line with the belt, or maybe barely touching it, if u wanted to fit a "small" belt to an aircon car.

Let's see what Andrew finds on an aircon'd car.

cheers
George

[Dean]

Hi George

Mine has a/c and a roller but ive had a look and a smaller belt could be rigged to bypass the tensioner and go straight from the crank to the alternator, worst case you will need a 12mm spanner to take the tensioner/roller off if it fouls the new shorter belt, i certainly would not try driving it back with no battery, you dont want to be worrying about using your wipers in the rain or your lights!!!!.

Good luck with it George

D

[jorgy]

Many thanks Dean!! (just seen your answer).
cheers
G

[andmcit]

Hi George, sorry I've been late rejoining the party and swing of things here - this has been driving me mad
for the past day or so as I've not been able to get the time to go the 30odd miles out of my normal routine to go
the barn with the relevant cars in it!!

It may not have helped as I realise my two TurboCT cars are non aircon although there are about half a dozen
n/a 2.0i's that do including one I totally swapped rejigged with the aluminium crankcase to accept the
compressor mounting - it would've been handy to do a dummy run offering up of a different belt bypassing
the existing pulleys and I'm a bit frustrated I cannot do so.

I'd rather pay for AA membership and have the car relayed the 300 miles than bugger about with no alternator
and a stack of batteries - the weather forecast this weekend is dire so wipers/lights/fans are going to be essential!

Dean is smack on the money with his assessment - the idler on the AC setup could foul the true run of the belt
although the compressor will be fine out of the way at the bottom. The following pics I've dug out from my
piccy archive show the general differences:

the first one is a very shaky snapshot but it does adequately show a turbo lump without AC:


the following is an AC set up:

another shot courtesy of steelcityUK:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7328220@N02/3807478598/

and a screengrab of the parts fiche:


Keep us all posted on progress - I'm sure if you do get unstuck, a call for help on this forum could
get some of the guys local to you out to offer moral support - that's right inniit!@??

ALL THE BEST,
Andrew