Vauxhall Astra G Estate 1.7dti Diagnostics – Glow Plug Relay

As part of my glow plug fault one of the suspected problems could be the glow plug relay so thought I would replace it. I manged to find one on ebay and the part number is

09 132 691 or 09132691
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1, First locate the glow plug relay which can be found attached to the battery tray
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2, To remove simply slide in an upwards direction (don’t pull to hard as there are wires attached)
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3, At the bottom of the connector you will see a push clip simply push this in an wiggle/pull the connector/heatsink until they come apart
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4, Insert replacement ensuring correct pin alignment

5, Slide back onto battery holder
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Vauxhall Astra G Estate 1.7dti Diagnostics – Glow Plug Resistence

SoI have a glow plug fault and to try and narrow it down I thought I would check the resistance of them.

Parts required: Multimeter that has Ohm function

1, Identify glow plug location
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2, The connectors have a serated type plastic on either sides, if you push these in and pull up the connector will come off the glow plug. Note the 2 underneath the ECU can be a bit fidly especially if you don’t have lanky fingers like me 😉

3, Switch on your multi-meter and select the Ohm function. Now to need to find our baseline resistance value. For this touch the positive and negative ends together and you should now get a reading on the screen mine was 0.7 (this value will vary on device quality/calibration etc so don’t worry if it’s not the same as mine).
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5, Attach the black probe to the negative post of your battery.

6, With the red probe touch the tip of the first glow plug and your multi-meter should display a value. Mine was 1.3
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Now the working value range seems to vary greatly depending on which website you read. A few say it should be between 0.1 and 6 ohm but after some reading I concluded that if it’s either zero or stupidly high then it’s likely to be dead. In order to get the resistance value you need to subtract the value gained in step 3 (mine was 0.7) from the value you have just got from step 6 i.e 1.3 so 1.3-0.7=0.6

8, Do the above for each glow plug until you’ve done all four.

Result: Four plug one I got 1.4 plug two 1.3 so all good BUT when I got to plug 3 I got 73.4 which is obviously well out of range, I tested it a few times just to be sure. Plug 4 was 1.4
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So it appears my third plug is dead so will be ordering a replacement set.

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Vauxhall Astra G Estate 1.7dti Servicing – Part 3 Oil Filter

Time for part 3 of my DTi servicing guide and this time it’s the oil filter.

My service book states oil and filter changes should be done every 20000 miles or 12 months which ever comes sooner. Personally I do mine every 10000 miles or 12 months.

As I couldn’t be bothered to roll around on the floor to drain the oil via the sump plug I used my 12v pump to empty it. (I will get a pic of the sump plug when I get a chance)

Parts Required: Oil filter – Again I used a Bosch one as it was only a couple of pound more than another brand from eurocarparts *Your new filter should have come with 3 new rubber o-ring seals make sure they are there as sometimes they are missing!*

5l Oil 10w 40 semi-synthetic – Up to you which brand you use I just get whatever ever decent one is on offer at the time. This is the stuff I usually use eurocarparts

32mm socket – This can be had from ebay, amazon, motor factors etc.

1, Run engine up to temperature

2, Remove dipstick and insert thin tube from pump and feed down.
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3, Insert other tube into suitable container

4, Switch on and marvel at your clean hands!
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5, Once tube is running clear(ish) switch off and remove

6, Remove pink connector from air filter pipe
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7, Identify oil filter housing
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8, Use 32mm socket and undo housing in clockwise direction

9, Remove housing and filter
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10, Separate housing and filter
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11, Your new filter should have come with 3 new rubber o-ring seals and these should be used when changing the filter. Remove old ones and replace with new.
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12, Attach new filter to holder and insert into housing and tighten up anticlockwise to 26Nm

13, Fill up oil via filler cap. Manufacturer stats oil capacity is 4.5L but check as you top it up as too much can be as bad as not enough.
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14, Run engine and check oil level again when cold.

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Vauxhall Astra G Estate 1.7dti Servicing – Part 2 Cabin Pollen FIlter

On previous cars i’ve found these filters are generally missed by home mechanics as well as garages.

Parts Required: Pollen filter – I used a Bosch one as it was only a couple of pound more than another brand from eurocarparts

Tools Required: xxx hex bit
5.5 socket (or 7/32 if you don’t have one)

1, Identify and remove 3 hex bolts at bottom of glove box.

2, Open glove box and remove 3 further screws (make sure you support it when removing the last one as the light is attached).

3, Disconnect glove box light by simply pushing the back connector backwards.

4, Identify the pollen filter housing cover and remove 2×5.5mm bolts.

5, Remove the housing cover – There are a couple of awkward clips at the top and bottom so don’t just try and pull it off as they will break, I found just twisting and getting the bottom out then the top worked.

Picture of the cover as you can see someone has previously broken one of the clips!

6, Remove old filter, it won’t come out ‘straight’ so you will need to twist it slightly.

As you can see the person who previously fitted mine managed to crease it.

After removal if you look on the end of the filter it will have some directional arrows, these ‘should’ point inwards towards the centre console when fitted and not towards the bulkhead/engine bay.

Old vs New

7, Now before fitting the new one I recomend you refit the old one a couple of times so you can see how it goes in and how easy it is to crease it. I refitted mine by inserting it like this (DONT FORGET TO HAVE THE ARROWS POINTING TOWARDS THE CENTRE CONSOLE).

and rather than pushing it in from the end I ‘fed’ by alternately pushing in the top and bottom part nearest to the holder.

It ended going in nicely with no creases.

8, Refit cover

9, Insert glove box halfway and reconnect light.

10, Screw in six glove box screws.

JOB DONE!

 

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Vauxhall Astra G Estate 1.7dti Servicing – Part 1 Air Filter

So picked up another Astra estate and first thing I thought I’d do is give it a service, I always service my own vehicles and found lots of great info on the internet so thought i’d make a few blog posts about how to do it.

Air Fliter

Pretty straight forward this one.

Parts Required: Air filter – I used a Bosch one as it was only a couple of pound more than another brand from eurocarparts

Tools required: None

1, Locate the air filter box in the o/s of the engine bay.

2, Unclip the 4 metal lid fastners.

3, Lift the lid while angling it to clear panel by the headlight.

4, Remove existing filter (my old one was actually pretty good and still usable)

Old vs New

5, Remove/hoover any debris from airbox

6, Fit new filter, replace lid and secure clips.

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Fleetwood Garland 165/5 Caravan Damper

So had a problem with my 1993 Garland since I bought it 2 years ago, when braking the caravan seems to over run and and there’s a clunk and a thud. The same goes for when pulling away from stationary. I narrowed it down to a knackered damper. I tried to push the hitch in to test it but it wasn’t budging at all.

I took the A-Frame cover off but couldn’t find any reference to the damper part number which is apparently stamped on some caravan chassis. I found two plates one that was on the A-Frame

And one that was on the hitch.

I googled 48.24.571.002 and all I could find was an old ebay ad stating (Ref;275E) BPW Damper 02.3722.08.00.0 for BPW coupling  48.24.571.002 P92535 Genuine BPW Hitch Damper 02.3722.08.00.0 BPW coupling  48.24.571.002 P92535 and then hit a dead end.

However I had identified that the hitch/chassis was made by BPW. I dropped BPW an email and they told me that that I needed part 02.3722.07.00 the cheapest I could find this was £81.16 plus postage which was a little high for my liking so I decided to do some digging. After matching up lengths/operating weights etc I found that part number 87000709 for the Avonride/Knott chassis was a match, I found this for £41.96 plus postage which is half the cost of the BPW one from the same supplier.

Due to the bargain hunter I am I pursured my search on ebay and found item number 201166665608 described as KNOTT AVONRIDE TRAILER DAMPER 750-1300KG 576000 87000709 FITS IFOR WILLIAMS for £39.25 with free postage.

Surely I should have been happy? but wait a minute I don’t buy manufacturer parts for my cars unless I can’t avoid it so why should I for my caravan? after a bit more searching I found item number 201322048394 described as REPLACEMENT TRAILER DAMPER FOR KNOTT 87000709 750-1300kg KFG13 & IFOR WILLIAMS for £27.25 posted!

So for a bit of investigating and perserverance I managed to save £65!. I ordered today and will hopefully be fitting it at the weekend.,

So for reference the BPW damper is

545mm with damper
Body length 330mm
Rated upto 1300kg

There is also a Ifor Williams matching part number which is P00937

I hope this post saves someone some effort/money let me know if it has!

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Diesel Corsa Guide

This entry is more for my benefit than anyone elses as it's aimed at the older diesel Vauxhall Corsa's and will be a single place where I can keep all the info without having to keep 100's of bookmarks with snippets of information.

Engines
The Corsa B diesel engines came in the following variants

1.5 D
1.5 TD
1.7 D

The isuzu engine codes are on the front of the engine:
1
5D = 4EC1
15TD= T4EC1
17D = 4EE1

On some engines only the last two digits are cast (C1 or E1), the T is displayed under cylinder 2, the rest of the code under cylinder 3+4.

Corsa B's didn't come with the 1.7TD isuzu lump they were found in astras, cavaliers and vectras.

Now the the 1.5's are thought to be the best engines as they are renound for reliability and giving maximum mileage. All corsa B diesels had Isuzu lumps in.

BioFuel
For the running on SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) again the Isuzu TD blocks are best as they have the all inportant Bosch (Nippon Denso) heated fuel filters. Apparently you can use %100 in the warmer months and just add abit of unleaded in the winter and its quite happy and no heat exchanger is required

Any Corsa fitted with the Lucas or CAV fuel pump shouldn't be run on SVO as they die very quickly as their self lubricating. The heat exchanger (FPHE) to heat the oil is thought to be much more efficient than glow plug method.

Tuning

After much reading for perfomance gains the 1.5 TD engine is the best to go with and can be done at minimal cost. PooTube is littered with videos on Corsa's with this engine giving some impressive ouput.

X15TD
Corsa 1.5 TD Isuzu Engine

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Fuel & Motorbike

Just looking back through my blog and I cam across the entry BioFuel where i’d ragged at the fact I had to pay 106.9p for a litre of diesel. Now when the shell drivers were on strike recently my local Texaco were charging 135.9p a litre so in heinsight I wish fuel was 106.9p today ha!.

Due to fuel prices and the longer travelling times to work recently I’ve been thinking more and more about getting a motorbike. Now I did my CBT when I was 16 but expired after 2 years. I have a few options….

1, Just ride a 50cc on my car licence
2, Do a CBT and ride 125cc with L plates no passengers/motorways etc
3, Do a A2 standard licence which would mean now restrictions apart form i’d be restricted to machines of max 33bhp however after 2 years the licence would be upgraded to an unrestricted one without further test.
4, Go the whole hog and go straight for the A Licence

Option 1 is straight out of the window although they economical etc I found 50’s to be dangerously slow (if that makes sence) plus it wouldn’t do a lot for my already deminished ‘image’.

Option 2 is a valid one as it only costs £135, it’s a one day affair and I wouldn’t have to do a theory test (which I would be worried about).

Option 3 I’m thinking this is the best option for me as i’d be happy to ride a smaller bike for a couple of years however the cost plays a big factor with a 5 ½ day course costing £699 and 4 ½ day course costing £599. They both include doing CBT however i’m unsure which one would be best for me, i’d probably say the 5 day one as I haven’t ridden a motorbike in 14 years (oh my god I wish I hadn’t just worked that figure out it’s made me feel old).

Option 4 5 ½ day course costs £799 so I will dismiss that one

So it’s option 2 or 3 both have specific advantages and disadvantages so will have to ponder some more, the idea is to save money on vehicles and although fuel/tax etc is cheaper on a bike could it ever really replace one of our cars? Also I understand the motorbike test will shortly be getting harder so i’d better get moving, i’ll keep you updated.

PS I can hear Mike Fiore reading this shouting at his screen “DO OPTION 3!!!!”

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Bio Fuel

Went to fill up with diesel tonight and found my local Tescos shut, alas the hunt began, next up was a Texaco which wanted 111.9p a litre! holy cow talk about take mick. Next was Gulf which wanted 107.9p then some random one which was 109.9p. I finally got some from Shell @ 106.9p.

What the hell is going on? are we soon going to be plumeted into a Mad Max frenzie where you have to drive 200 miles to fill up and all tankers will be armoured plated and have gun turrets on the top.

As I have a diesel i’m going to look into a bio fuel option. I’ll keep you posted with my findings.

PS Apparrently we can’t say “Taking the mickey” as it’s been suggested that “mickey” in this context is an ethnic slur for an Irish person even though the saying derived from cockney rhyming slang “take the mickey bliss”, meaning ‘take the piss’ Alas soon we will not be able to say nothing as there’s an off chance we might offend someone.

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Got Car

Or van to be precise off ebay. It’s not bad for what I paid for it a bit tatty but hey i’m looking forward to the 50 mpg from the power that is diesel ha.

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