[Project] Starting My Xu5T Build

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

So it was now time to put it all back together

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

A job I wanted to tackle on this car for a while was the brackets for the air intake pipe over the back of the head. When I built it I put two simple tabs off the back of the head. These very quickly fatigued and broke off.
My next turbo pipework job was Bim's 205 TT. I made a much nicer job of brackets mk 2. My next turbo pipework job after that was Paul Higgs 205 1.9 TT. Brackets mk3 were better again.
So it seemed only right to make a job of the ones on my own car! Not cleaned up here and in the process of being welded but you get the idea! Maybe overkill, I think you could have a good go at lifting the engine out using this!

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So many hours of work later we get back to where we started from :D

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

So for the first time since 2012, she made the road again! Despite the time still looking half decent for a quick clean

 

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Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Mans brakes

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Now as you may remember, the ECU mapping was done by me some years ago.

Yes the car ran and would drive you along, but it was by no means perfect, in particular the part throttle and low speed areas were frankly awful. It also due to this was horrendous on fuel. At the time I'd spent a lot getting it built and had run out of cash, so doing it for nowt myself was OK. However it had always annoyed me so it was time to do it properly. Booked the car in at John Sleath Race Cars locally to me. John usually tunes 1000bhp V8 drag cars so he certainly knows what he is doing. The brief was, to make it driveable. I was fairly sure there wasn't really any more power to be had as the turbo was flat out.

 

Sure enough that was more or less the case, the car came back now a lot lot nicer to drive. No photos or power figures, but I'm not too bothered really, its around 200bhp still which is plenty good enough for what it is. John initially said, "It could do with more turbo and more power", but he had assumed it was 2 litre capacity. When I pointed out it was still 1600 he said that in that case it was "Bloody good power for 1600 single cam 8v engine from the 80's".

 

Photo of it back on the drive at home after mapping. A bit of a milestone really to have it all back up and working.

 

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Another milestone, parked outside at work, first time it had been there for a while.

 

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Next up was the PSCUK spring Curborough day. As i'd foolishly binned my Miami on a motor club 12 car in the fog, that was out of action, so the turbo pressed into service!

 

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And a few snaps from the day at Curborough

 

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Yorkshire helmet in place, safety first!

 

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Next up a few local meets.

 

Cars and Coffee with Rob and his white 1.9

 

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Thoresby Hall classic show with Paul and his silver "GIT"6

 

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Went mad and bought a new genuine check strap, painted and fitted. I now wish I'd done this 10 years ago and its aways been horrid on the drivers side.

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

So finally, the reason I'd got it back on the road, well, one of the reasons.

 

The Welsh Weekender!

 

2x 205 8v Turbos (1x1.6, 1x1.9), a 205 Mi Supercharged, a 309 2.0 8v on 45's (out of shot) and a Mustang...!

 

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This was at the start of about the best piece of driving road I've ever done in this country. 20-odd minutes of awesomeness is all I will say. The charged 205's were perfect for it, with the nimbleness of the 205 and yet a big load of torque to shoot you off up the road.

 

Plenty of driving but also took in some nice places over the weekend.

 

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And the man himself!!

 

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An excellent weekend away, largely due to Mr Yorke who with a combination of some local knowledge and good planning sorted a great tour out for us. This was the result mind you!!!

 

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Back in love with the little red car I think its fair to say. Steve Count shared the trip to Wales with me and had a drive of the turbo, I think he liked it, 3rd gear on open A roads is absolutely mustard for overtaking, with the small turbo its straight onto boost and you are past other cars like lightning. I also think its at a nice level power wise, maybe in the higher gears it could use more, but most of the time in the dry you can use the majority of it without too much wheelspin.

 

Local meet again with Rob!

 

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Then used it with the wife and the dog one weekend

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Lisa and I have some fond memories of this car, back when we had not long been together we went on the PSCUK European tour of 2006 (?) in this car when it was back then standard.

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

So as it was all going so well...

 

I've over the last 5 years or so got into road rallying. The full night events require a purpose built car really, and something you are not too precious about getting gravel rash. However they also run a number of smaller club events. One such event is known as a navigational scatter. You are given a series of map references of 32 points spread around a start point, and typically 2 hours. Your job is to attempt to visit as many as you can up to a max of 24. At each point there will be either a rubber stamp, or some way of proving you have been there. The key is being efficient at each location and also making good time between them. The navigator can win or lose the event really, but the driver can certainly lose it as well.

 

Anyway, I'd done a scatter previously in the turbo with a guy Ash from the club. We'd had a good result, well in fact we'd won it. So with another one on the cards we were off in the 205.

All was going pretty well and we were on for a decent result, or so we thought. However, only a couple of miles to get to the finish and all of a sudden I smelled coolant and looked in the mirror to see clouds of steam behind the car. The temp gauge was warm but not horrendously so.

And so my big mistake really, as what I should have done was killed it immediately. I assumed it was head gasket gone. Anyway, I tried to limp it on to the finish. Soon enough the over temp warning light came on and so I called it a day.

On opening the bonnet I found the top hose had split near the hose take off.

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

This was PPP on my part, as I'd noticed the hose was a bit soft and pappy but hadn't addressed it.

 

An RAC ride home later. The next day I repaired the hose using a metal joiner and a new section.

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

However on firing the car up it immediately wasn't right. On with the rubber glove and pull a HT lead off at a time and it was flywheel end doing nothing.

Quick compression test confirmed a problem and so off with its head.

 

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With the head off we went from bad to worse. Cracked liner clear to see. Now the million $ question, chicken and egg, which came first? Hose blew causing overheating which cracked the liner? Or liner cracked causing overpressure which blew the hose apart? I guess I'll never really know, unless it does it again (I hope not).

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

At this point I almost felt ready to put the damn thing back in its garage for another 5 years!

But not to be defeated I went for a look in the garage of plenty! I knew I had some more liners I'd previously bought, bonus was I found a set of brand new piston rings there in the box with them!

So without further ado....

Head off (again). Sump off. Pistons and rods out. Liners out. New liners, new rings on the pistons, and seeing as they were out, new big end bearing shells for good measure.

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Partway back together

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What this impromptu rebuild did give me opportunity to sort was the turbo oil drain (AGAIN)

This has been the stumbling block on this engine. I've tried about 6 iterations now. The last one involved a hydraulic compression fitting between the welded pipe into the sump and the flexible pipe off the turbo. The issue I think was that the pipe wasn't rigid enough for the hydraulic olives, and so no matter how tight I did the compression nuts up, the olive crushed the pipe instead of locking onto it. Therefore the oil weeped past the olive I/d all the time leaving an annoying drip.

So I decided upon a plumbing fitting with nice soft brass olives instead. Typically, a standard straight connection was too short, and the longer "repair" too long. Luckily I was able to machine down the longer type and borrow a 1/2" BSP die nut and recut threads further down.

FINALLY, sorted

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

It has to be said that the cracked liner couldn't really have come at a worse time, with Pugfest, sorry, Peugeot Festival on the way I had my laser green car to prepare for the show and shine competition.

However seeing as the turbo was roadworthy and also the Jimmy (206GT) I managed to recruit a couple of willing drivers so team Fenton made its way to Pugfest!

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Untitled by Tom Fenton, on Flickr

 

Despite the distraction the laser car also did the business and brought home the silverware winning 1st in class standard show and shine, at the 3rd attempt!

 

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So as of July 2017 that is the turbo story about up to date! Another scatter rally looms in the next week mind you, fingers crossed....

[calvinhorse 870]

Excellent update tom, enjoyed reading that

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Good one Tom, very good read as before

[Andy 105 1 Cars]

Excellent read Tom. Thank you.

P.s do you recall where you got your GAZ Gold coilovers from?

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Quick update

 

Scatter rally last night, nav who has sat with me a few times wasn't available so my mate John who has done 3 or 4 events learning the ropes with me sat in. Nice dry night and this time of year it stayed mainly light for the 2 hr duration.

 

Had a good run mostly, went down the muddiest lane ever and had a 4 min stop when the gear rod underneath popped off. Quickly popped it back on and its stayed put for the rest of the event and the run home.

 

Difficult to know how you are doing through the event so kept pushing on. Rewarded at the finish with 1st overall.

 

Stopped at the jet wash at a petrol station near home to blast the thick of the mud off!

 

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[Tom Fenton 1,541]

P.s do you recall where you got your GAZ Gold coilovers from?

I bought them second hand off a chap on here Andy I think. I had GHA's on before which are good for what they are, but as you know only bump adjustable, when using a heavier spring I wanted some more rebound too.

[Andy 105 1 Cars]

Thanks. Yes. I have GHA which are decent value for money but hard to match with differing spring rates. I will have to keep my eyes open for some Golds. New they are £800 per pair!

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

Good read that Tom, just gone through all 29 pages!

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Good read that Tom, just gone through all 29 pages!

Wow, you must have had some time on your hands to do all 29 pages! Hopefully you found something interesting?!

 

A few bits and bobs on the car.

First was another scatter event. All to play for really, its a 5 round series, round 1 we were 2nd OA, round 2 cracked a liner and DNF, round 3 1st OA, this is round 4.

So out on map 120 on a horrid wet night. This event a point to point, you get a start point to go to and collect a stamp, at this location you get the location of the next, and so on. This makes it pretty relentless for the navigator particularly but also the driver! Anyway, a couple of hiccups finding the first point then we were off. Sad to see a mate pulled up early ish on, he waved us past so obviously was OK, it turned out he'd clipped a kerb and bent the wishbone. All was going well and we seemed to be catching other crews which is usually a good sign. Then an unfortunate brain fart from the navigator cost us about 7 or 8 mins in a detour and then back tracking. The nav again got a bit flustered towards the end and we left turning for the finish a bit late, result being that we were 4min late back. The penalties for being late are quite severe so we were not expecting much from the finish. However turned out well with 2nd OA, now all to play for in the final round as I'm laying 2nd in the series.

 

Some other not so interesting tasks were to fit a new drivers door switch to make the courtesy light work more than now and again, and fit a much nicer steering wheel, the one on the car was quite worn.

[Telf 224 2 Cars]

Tom,

 

I found lots interesting! The bottom end build part is awesome as Im going to try and build mine. The photos really help and give me a good guide as to the correct way to do it. Brilliant!

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Well glad it was useful.

 

Since last instalment John and I have competed in another point to point road event.

Out on map 110 and mainly in fairly sparsely populated areas, we had a good start managing to drop on the first few codes without too much hassle. A couple of more tricky ones as it's very easy to miss a 3ft high white batten in a verge when you are driving along at 50mph.

One particular swine cost us 5 min or so searching but then after that we had a really good flawless run. Keeping an eye on the time to allow us sufficient to get back to the start, we managed to get to the max of 24 points and then turned and burned! Back at the finish I believe I uttered such words to John as "If we haven't won this I'll show my arse!".

Anyway to cut the story short, despite a counting error initially relegating us to 2nd! We had in fact covered the max 24 points whereas the next team was on 23, so a win in the bag and the pub did not get subjected to my posterior.

The car again did very well, although the front brakes I need to give a look over and perhaps bleed some fresh fluid into them as they took some punishment.

 

The final job that I'd been meaning to do for some time was that the heated rear screen had stopped working. So armed with my power probe and spare fuses I set about it.

After a bit of testing and head scratching I discovered some dunce whilst removing the fascia to repair the digital clock had plugged the heated rear screen switch into the fog light wiring and vice versa....so an easy repair in the end ????

[DrSarty 90 1 Cars]

Hi Tom. Just enjoyed reading this again from the start.

 

I saw and heard the 1600T at Curborough and quite something.

 

To help my Xsara turbo project, could you please outline (possibly with a simple diagram) how you've plumbed in the turbo water/coolant, plus give any recommendations?

 

I understand the flow isn't directional on most turbos i.e. there's not a specific 'inlet' pipe, but the supply should come from the rad side of the thermostat. I'm not sure about the return side though.

 

Interested to see what you've done that's proven to work and what you might recommend differently. I saw you'd had a large hose t-off give way on you.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Prism7guy 5]

Just worked my way through this Tom, awesome read, and a beast to drive!

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Shut up Steve ????

[Prism7guy 5]

Sorry.