WillieO

Mind when you remove it you'll put another hole in the ozone layer when all that freon gas escapes! There is also the engine oil cooler in front of that and the tranny oil cooler in front of that also if its an auto

Does the noise change when you press econ on the aircon? This switches out the aircon compressor. If the car wasnt used for a while the aircon compressor could be lacking lub from lack of use. Also try spraying wd40 on the belts and pulleys if the noise then goes quiet you probably have a worn or perished belt. Try and inspect them from underneath with a good light and look for signs of cracking on the "V" surfaces of the belts. As already said also check that they are proerly tensioned. the wd40 evapotates and wears off so the noise will come back in a few minutes if it is the belts.

Is it possible it goes into safety boost because the battery voltage was outside the normal safe range?

stu If your water pump is not leaking then its working! Find your burst hose before you worry about the next issue. If it is one of the short by pass hoses just under and behind the top water pipe on the engine it is actually possible to change these without taking the fan off. Provided you dont have big hands. You need a mirror and torch to check em though. If water is running down onto the floor it can look like it is coming from the water pump when it is rally coming from one of these. These hoses are said to go every 3 years or so. good luck Willie

Konrad Wouldnt mind having your old ones if they're up for grabs. I am sure I could recover at least a couple of good pistons from them. Are you ever past Burton? My bro in law has a company there. He could get them to me otherwise I'd gladly send you the postage and cover your trouble. Willie

And if the water is low the temp gauge dont work too well - hot damp air is not the same as water - once you have steam well thats another gas!

Stu Could still be a hose thats gone and dumped your water - eventually it'll boil up the rest. You might be lucky and have no damage other than the burst hose. You'll have to fill it back up when cold and run it on idle to look for the leak. Obviously check your oil for water in it - salad cream and your water for oil in it - shiny colours on the surface. Hope it's not so bad as you make it sound. I've never seen a head gasket go so badly that steam poured out of it. I've lost compression or blown to the water jacket or oil has burst out from an oil way but loads of steam, not in my (limited) experience.

Thanks guys, The sticking comes from pitting and loss of chrome in a couple of spots - this exposed steel rusts and the rust packs the seal space so that the piston doesnt retract properly after you brake - result is slight dragging and hot disc. This is well before the crap brakes scenario. My brakes will stand the car on its nose. Its just that after rebuilding them and cleaning and re using the 2 iffy pistons everything worked fine so far about a year. It just bothers me that one disc is always warm/hot even if I driven 10 miles with hardly any braking while the other side is stone cold. Of course if I step on it from high speed both are hot. I have RS2 wheels and can get my hand thru to feel the discs - even the wheel on the affected side eventually gets warm. The sticky pisons need levered back while the other 2 go in finger pressure as it should be. Before I did them I had only 2 pistons each side doing anything. I reckon there are loads of probably uk zeds with seized pistons going around and their drivers thinking zeds have crap brakes - they dont. Just not good enough for track use. Stuart, I think my prevousl discs warped because they were only getting brake pressure on one side on each disc. Uneven heating> warping or wear. Might try the hydrauling grease to seal out the O2 if I cant get a couple of pistons or a 2nd hand caliper to strip. Nissan want about £45 each so I wont change all 8!

If you get done speeding you have no excuse. You could rely on a rev counter to a certain extent - if you know your mph/rpm on a manual. An auto is a bit different due to the converter slip but you still can tell pretty much from it how quick your going if you are familiar with the car.

Anyone know where to get these apart from Nissan? I have a couple that are a bit sticky due to corrosion. I'd already re built and the calipers, cleaned everything done the seals and even painted the darn things but after a trouble free year I had signs that one front hub was always hot and it seems to be because the 2 sticky pistons on one side are causing the pads to drag the disc a little. The pads have worn to the rusty bit on the piston and when I took the pads out for a looksee I could see fresh rust under the dust cover which is obviously the sticking point. Still stops great and doesnt pull or anything but one side hot and the other cool bothers me. Can only get worse, then warped discs! Willie

I was wondering what it is that finishes off a turbo. Seems to me that a manual driven hard gives the turbo the hardest time with the pressure shocks and turbine decelerations each time the throttle is slammed shut at max boost while you change gear. You then depend on recircs or bovs to ease up on it. An auto doesnt do this because you keep the throttle wide open all the way up the gears. The only time you "shock" it, as it were, is when you lift off suddenly at max boost. So maybe turbo life is more related to how many max boost gearchanges the car gets rather than simply mileage.

If its a run big end bearing then a cold engine with thick oil can mask it until warm although you might hear a clear knocking for a second or two while the oil pressure rises. Look out for lower hot tickover oil pressure than usual as the oil obviously leaks out easier from the run shell. Other symtoms can be it goes quiet when the engine is under light load at lowish rpm but noisy when simply revved with no load on it. Also it is a clear metallic knock knock type sound? Dont keep driving if you suspect this as you will damage the crankshaft if you havent already. As to whether there's a connection with fitting a boost controller - yes if you thrashed it a lot lately and yes if you are not gentle with it when cold. Could be expensive - hope it isnt a big end gone.

I fitted these on my 18s. 265 35 18's rear 235 40 18's front. Rears were the FK04 I think block pattern, fronts the 451 V type pattern. I have had about 10k miles from the rears and I'm nearly onto the wear indicator ribs. They wore square. The fronts have probably done about 7k miles and have plenty left. Found them OK. Sure you'll lite up the rears in the wet. But a TT'll do this with any tyres if the engine is on song. I paid £260 rears and £220 fronts. Had Falkens and Continentals on the rear before and handling is more than fine AFIK. Slight balance problem at the front but thats maybe the BBS RS2ss. Not sure. What affected handling much more was when they get to slick grade and duff rear shocks or mis aligned rear tracking. If you find better at similar money let us know as my rears will be changed soon.

can you count the knocks at tickover? - I mean is it a really slow rattle? On my service records Nissan once botched a cam belt change and got it back a few weeks later with a cambelt knock to do it again. I can only imagine the belt got damaged while fitting and a strip was torn that then hits on something once every cambelt revolution which is much slower than once every engine revoltution cos its a long belt. Could also be things like tensioners. Worth checking asap! Does anyone know if its easy to get one of the covers off to inspect the belt condition?

Run mines dry once a couple of miles short of the garage - yup 3 litres out of a petrol can and another 69 out of the pump. Got used to driving with the petrol light on and took it too far! I do brim to brim best ever 26 on 300mile moway run and 15 round the town cold weather plus odd squirt of max welly, as you do.

S not fair sniff, sniff! Tell me its not a TT please! It has to be manual NA and perfectly tuned Gordon Browns gonna be after you cos you're not paying enough tax! You're not allowed such pleasures on the cheap. Willie Got 200 out of my last tankfull = 15 mpg

Simple. It has to with taxation. not emissions. Fuel taxes are one of the most efficient taxes on activity. Even white van man has to pay them except for the ones with used cooking oil and farm diesel in their vans. Saw an lpg converted Jeep myself - did 16mpg but that was like 32mpg with a petrol driven car when you compared the fuel costs. It's a no brainer on a big engined cars at least for now. Of course the tax goal posts will get moved. It will be the same for diesels with these new high pressure injection ones. Wonder if you could get a decent 6 cylinder turbodiesel in a zed - now there's a thought. If BMW's 3 litre one would fit you could have NA performance and 40mpg with the 230bhp version. prolly as heavy as a ships anchor tho.

Scoops Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but are both wheels up in the air? If only one side is up the compression on the other will make the anti roll bar force up the side you are jacking up. That's what anti roll bars do! If you get the other up so's it is sagging the same then the anti roll bar should pull down the opposite side equally and thats what you want. Even to the extent of getting a mate to step on the opposite side hub to force down the suspension and anti roll bar on the other side too. Hope this makes sense. Willie

Hi Semco Trust you got back from Crail with everything still working! How many runs did you make and with what times? I caught your run with Dick300. Awsome noise with 2 zeds giving it large. Dicks auto zed fairly leapt off the line though! Nearly enough to get the auto manual debate going again - must have been his 14 and a half psi and big ICs! Did you catch him by the end of the quarter?

When the top connection is in place the hard bit of tube in the connection is so far up the rubber that the hard bit of tube in the cylinder head is almost touching it. This and loads of sealant gunk is probably the explanation. Plus it would not have been pressurising so as long as it wasnt driven hard and filled up every day you could just get away with it. My theory anyway

Cud be Ivor Bigone syndrome or maybes if your parked a lot a long time with the bum warmers going and a kilowatt of sound consuming yer amps you will really need a big one!

I sometimes leave mine for 2-3 weeks without running and have no problems. If your battery is a bit past it a Cat1 alarm will drain it a fair bit over say 4 weeks. You risk problems then. My Clifford one forgot all its settings after a dead battery and it took me a week to disarm the damn thing. If you have it in a garage then one of those little mains adapter trickle chargers is a good investment - keeps the battery healthy too.

Rob 7X5 3 way Kenwoods did it for me. Had to redrill some fixing holes and make up a rubber gasket to seal the fit properly. I dont think you have any chance of 6X9s in the standard housings Willie

check the temp guage sender push on terminal - the little one next to the big one for the ecu. Mine was slackish with some fine oxide on it and would make the needle jerk around as the temp warmed up to normal - cleaned and re connected now smooth and consistent.

tell the boys and girls John - what came close enough to be worthy of replacing that beast you had?