Mi16 Daily Driver Advice

[S13Nick 0]

hello, brought a 205 mi16 today as a daily driver. just want some advice on the engine what to look for and things to avoid etc

 

cheeers

[kyepan 291]

Using mine as a daily driver ( when I don't cycle) but it's certainly my only car....

 

firstly make sure its got enough antifreeze, oil, and it gets regular changes of oil / filter and has it's air filter cleaned once a year.

 

You want to make sure your alternator, starter and associated wiring are all in tip top shape. Problems of this kind will manifest themselves as hot start or intermittent starting issues...

 

Secondly make sure the cooling system is working properly, because you'll probably be sitting in traffic. This is a more expansive topic than it sounds, but just get it warm, let it stand and listen to see if the fan cut in on both speeds and the stop lights don't come on after it sits on the top speed for couple of minutes.

 

 

Thirdly Make sure that your dizzy cap, ignition amp, leads, coil etc are all also in good nic, if these are on their way out it will lead to less than perfect running and misfires when hot.. test when warm, high load, high gear low rpm accel to expose leads / dizzy / coil..

 

if all is in good order, there is no reason why it can't be a reliable daily driver, and a sleeper too.

 

ahh completely forgot, if in doubt or you get any issues, assuming its running proper mi management, there is a program to diagnose issues in a sticky at the top of the xu maintainance area

Edited September 17, 2008 by kyepan

[S13Nick 0]

ok cheers

[SeanO'Connor 0]

Join the AA aswell, I have been a member for years, my daily driver is a modern car, and the gti for a bit of fun, however you never know!

[kyepan 291]

A couple of realisations i've come to recently....and some good hard learned advice.

 

Reliability centred maintainence, Don't fiddle! Can't impress how important this is, if you're fiddling with things, chances are other things will get broken taking things apart and putting them back together.. Like cleaning, moving wiring looms etc, rounding bolts. If you do this in a rush or when you don't have time to go and get things you need to fix it, you'll end up with bodges. Plan to do any work at the weekend, start early, order the bits you need and be prepared to go and get more, order backups like bolts just incase they round or snap.

 

Don't hold things together with anything less than the right number and type of bolts, don't be afraid to go to pug to get the right ones if you end up rounding or knackering or find anything is missing, get pally with the chap on the service desk and he should help.

 

Use locktite where things are subject to alot of vibration, gearbox, starter, exhaust, these things work loose and fall apart. Torque things correctly, under torqued fall apart, over torqued splits castings(starter in my case) and are impossible to undo if you later need to.

 

Steer clear of after market exhausts and other after market bits, stick to OEM pug or decent pattern parts, the replacement parts are vastly cheaper, they go together more easily and don't have fiddly extras (clamps and gaskets) that are damn near impossible to find if they break, especially if its a Saturday / Sunday afternoon. Buy bosch electrical components, steer clear of pattern coils, ignition amps etc they are s*ite.

 

And finally, don't buy the following second hand bits, unless its a new recon. Starter, alternator, wishbones (avoid buyparts ones as the bushes are s*ite). Never buy second hand rads, as chances are they will be furred up with aluminum oxide and just lead to overheating.

 

Buy a decent tool kit, it will save you hours and hours of swearing if you have to work on things. Every now and again Halfrauds do a £99 offer for their 100 piece PROFESSIONAL tool kit. Also make sure all your Allen key sockets are included, a decent extension with universal joint and most definitly a decent breaker bar (longest you can get)

 

hope this helps... sound like my dad..argh.. had to happen eventually

 

J

[GLPoomobile 958]

I'm probably going to sound very negative, but I think it's important to bare the following things in mind. I'm not trying to be a scare-monger

 

My Mi is my 4th GTI, and has been the most unreliable of the lot (The others where very reliable actually). Here's why - any GTI is going to have very old wiring which will be corroded and damaged in places, but if left alone, will usually just work to some extent. As soon as you disturb something, the fragile wiring then usually goes wrong and you end up trying to trace intermitant faults. Anyone who has changed a light bulb on the passenger side only to find something else does not work afterwards will know what I mean (easy to knock the earth wires in that location). So with any engine conversion, someone will have fiddled with all that wiring, and you then have to trust that it is going to work afterwards. Not to mention the splicing that can be involved to get the MI loom in the 205!

 

My own loom was supposedly "rebuilt" at a cost of £300 (this is invoiced) when the engine conversion was done by a VERY reputable company, when the reality is that it was essentially an old loom with various bits spliced to varying degrees of quality. It looked a mess, and I had hassles as a result. Yet when I viewed the car, one of the selling points was how tidy the loom appeared to be (as in how it was routed etc) compared to other MI conversions I'd seen. This is something that can be VERY difficult to check unless you are really clued up, and the reality is that you will never know how good the loom is unless you either pull it out and check it thoroughly, or wait for a fault to occur and then go and investigate. But certainly if the old brown plug is still present, that joins the sensors and starter solenoid wires to the rest of the loom, then I would advise chopping it out, replacing the wires and connectors to the sensors, and fitting a Superseal plug in it's place (also chop the wiring back a few inches on the loom side to get rid of brittle and corroded wire).

 

Protecting your asset - not all of this is MI specific, but there have been a number of scary points raised over the years that could potentially leave you with a burnt out wreckage, and are therefore worth guarding against

 

1 - Put a long cable tie around the MC reservoir and MC body, to hold the 2 together. It's unlikely to happen, but IF you had a seal failure resulting in brake fluid spraying out the side, it would ignite on the exhaust manifold. Later Pug's had a pin to lock the reservoir to the MC, or the whole assembly was located behind the bulkhead. In our case, it's easy enough to just cable tie the 2 together.

 

2 - There is a difference in bore sizes between the MI fuel rail and 8v fuel rail. If memorey serves correct, I think the 8v hose between filter and rail is 8mm at both ends. The Mi rail is 11mm bore (IIRC) so during the conversion the MI hose is often retained, meaning it's actually slightly too large at the filter end. This can result in leaking, or the hose even popping off (the supply is high pressure remember). There's a number of solutions to this. Miles supplies a banjo union for the original 8v filter which has the correct sized outlet to fit the MI fuel hose, so you should have a tight fit at both ends. Or you can do away with the original filter and use something with tail ends instead of those crappy banjo unions, and you can also relocate the filter so as not to spray fuel on to the manifold IF you spring a leak. Whatever you do, always use high pressure (fuel injection) fuel hose, proper fuel hose clips (NOT jubilee clips!), and the correct bore hose for you requirements.

 

3 - Check your +VE wiring to the starter and alternator. You'll have a thick cable going from the battery + down to the starter and then to the alternator. Make sure that these are secure at the ring terminals, and that they are not fraying and in danger of breaking away, and also that they have the rubber boots over the ring ends. If these come away and short against something, it could create an engine fire.

 

 

Oh, and another thing I've just thought of. The 205 has a "shunt box" which is a black fuse box that originally bolted to the slam panel in front of the battery. It's likely that this will have been moved to fit in the Mi induction route. Check it has been secured somewhere else and not left dangling. If it's dangling, you'll find it under the AFM and probably right by the end of the clutch lever. You don't want it flapping about there!

[Baz 421]

My old one was fine as a daily driver when i wanted to use it. Wasn't particularly amazing or to my knowledge never had thousands chucked at it, this was apparent in some areas...

 

it did however have a rebuilt engine, and need various tinkering here and there, but i don't see a real reason why they can't be a reliable and reasonably cheap to run daily car.

[Bakes100 20 1 Cars]

I use mine as a daily driver, just check all coolant hoses and also cables to check for any rubbing as after a while it will eventually wear away through use! Found a couple of these on mine luckily before they did any damage.