TheRealNips

Guess what! She's back! A 3" pipe at the very back of the engine split and dumped coolant onto the manifold, hence the thick steam. Compression test, oil test, water test, rad check, coolant check all came up clear. I'm going to run her for about 400miles on 99petrol and then get the timing belt and thermostat done. Seems like I've dodged a bullet. Grand total to fix.... £80! Car needs welding and a good clean, but happy she's back!

"Winter is coming" and "you know nothing..." :lol: Im finding it hard enough just to break my car and thats in a container. I might do an interior on the drive, but wouldnt try much more than that at this time of year...

Every garage I've ever been to charges £10 for all the wheels. Its not worth mucking around trying to do it yourself, this is the kind of job that you just pay for.

I used rockauto.com Use the menu down the left side to choose nissan, then correct year, then correct engine and then choose your bits. The timing belt for my NA, including sales tax and import duty, came to a grand price of £108. I had the DAYCO 95180K1S kit. Rockauto were really good, took paypal, posted it the same day and I got it 8 days later, which is quicker than royal mail sending stuff within the UK. The kit was good quality and fitted great, just a shame my Zed died after 2000 miles!

Im interested, but no idea what ill be doing work wise yet and I'm also Zed'less now. Ill find out as soon as I can what im up to workwise

If anyone wants all the pictures, just PM for my facebook and ill add you. Ive got too many to post on here! Here is a few from the break-down: Last picture is the mileage on the BRAND NEW bmw hire car. yes you read it right, 7 miles! The newest car I have ever driven and (I have a suspicion) the newest car I will ever drive!

I dont know that, thanks! Makes sense really. Its going to suck for the next couple of weeks not knowing and ive got no excuse to not ride my bike into work now :sad:

Well we are back in the UK now. However not by the way of a Z... We left Paris yesterday and were making our way to Calais for duty-free, food and an evening out before our late ferry home. As we approached a "Peage" (Toll-gate) I was slowing down and noticed a noise like the de-mist fan was at top speed, as I got to about 20mph just entering the 6'6" wide toll lane the car cut out. We rolled to the machine and my wife took the ticket, I tried to re-start it and it wouldn't. Steam/smoke started billowing from under the bonnet. I jumped out, opened the bonnet and the steam/smoke was pouring out from under the plenum and coming out in the coil pack gaps. We rang for assistant, got towed off the toll lane to a scrapyard that did towing as a side business and the car is still there. The AA got us a taxi to Paris airport, a french hire car (2015 VW golf) to drive back to Calais, then at the port we were given a brand new (and I mean brand new, it had 7 miles on the clock!) BMW M3D on British plates to use on the ferry and to get home with. Got home last night at nearly 3am. Zed is still in France somewhere (we don't actually know where exactly because we were on the toll-road when it happened and it was in the middle of no-where. The scrapyard had fields in all directions as far as the eye could see). The AA say that they have to get the car checked, then assessed to see if it can be fixed, and if not it will be re-repatriated. I was warned that it could take a couple of weeks. In the 30 minutes I had before the tow truck arrived, I had a look around and as there was plenty of golden oil in the engine and the drivers foot well was soaking wet, I guess the heater matrix went, dumped all the coolant, engine overheated and cut out. There was no steam in the cabin, no warning lights on the dash until it cut out and the temp gauge was (and still is) reading normal. I squeezed the radiator top pipe and it felt empty. Its annoying because I checked the water and oil the day before and it didn't need any oil and only wanted a cup full of water. I'm desperately hoping that it cut out before any lasting damage was done and that a new heater matrix and new coolant will fix it, but I cant even try as its about 200 miles away in another country! Not really the triumphant ending to a 2300 mile, 9 day road trip through 9 countries, however the Zed managed 2150 of them with ease, It was a pleasure to drive on all types of roads we used, motorways, fast A roads, mountain passes, etc. My wife spent the 150 miles in the french hire car moaning at how uncomfortable it was and wanted the Zed back. She then got in the BMW, loved it, but said it had no character, a sentiment I would completely agree with! I would happily do it again even with breaking my car. It was an amazing trip through amazing countries and sceneries, The Zed drew attention everywhere it went and outside the Monte Carlo casino it outshone the Rolls Royces, Bentleys and other ghastly cars with their 24" chrome rims! If people are interested, ill plan another rally next year as it was fun by ourselves, but with several cars it would be even better!

And a few more:

Quite a journey today. Freiberg, Germany to Menaggio, Italy via Olten and the Gotthard Pass. Started the day off with 145mph down the autobahn and the entered Switzerland at a more respectable (boring) speed! Took a break in Olten then drove to the bottom of the Gotthard Pass. Took the old road to the top winding through the villages, etc. Short break at the top, before taking the old road down to the bottom. The old was cobbled, so left the car in 2nd and did the whole thing about 10-20mph, amazingly the cobbles were smoother than a lot of our tarmac roads in the UK! We then drove into Italy and into Menaggio. Here are a few pictures from today:

I worked out about £700 on fuel, but please remember my Nissan is over-fueling at the moment due to a thermostat being stuck open and the choke being on consistently. Shes doing about 280-320 miles on a tank. About a tank a day, trip is 9 days. Does depend on how I drive and I did get carried away on a section of autobahn this afternoon. The wife didn't believe there was no speed limit, she believed me when we went 150mph past a police car! :lol:

Havent had much time for connecting to the internet, but here are a few teasers of the car. Nothing very photogenic yet (due to location and mostly my photo skills!) but tomorrow is Switzerland, Alps, Italy and Lake Como, so i should be able to make the car look good!

On the ferry, made a good deal of noise in the ferrys belly! - - - Updated - - - I would be up for that! - - - Updated - - - I would be up for that!

So, after a lot of saving, planning, packing, cleaning, polishing and waxing (the car and wife! :lol:) we are all ready to go! Lets hope she makes the 2300 miles Ive got planned!

Done

"Some find the aggressive 'bottom-feeder' looks slightly odd, but they have dated well." "The twin-turbocharged engine is a muscly, if somewhat characterless unit," "The 'T-bar' targa roof is easy to remove, but is quite heavy," Why would you say things like that? Surely you would be trying to sell the pants off this?

Lovely and sunny down here in the sunniest place in Britain... :D

Fair point! but you understand what I mean...

I used to mock cars for being "hairdresser cars", "girl cars" or "men who love musicals cars". However I owed a series 1 MX5 for a year and only sold it because it was rusting away. It was a 1.6L and was great fun. You could drive everywhere with your foot flat to the floor, go sideways when you wanted but you always knew you wouldnt end up in a coffin. I miss my MX5 and wish I had never sold it as it was a cheap car, throw the roof off and go for a play, And it did 40MPG! I used to mock the Audi TT for the same reasons, then I drove my wifes 1.8 turbo quattro thing. Its quick, really quick. Quicker than my (NA) Zed. Its 4WD so it can be thrown into a roundabout at 50 and come out the other side in a 4 wheel drift with you safely still attached to it! The styling on the later models look better, but im actually looking around for one myself now. I think my key point here is this: Dont mock a car until YOU have actually driven it yourself. And even then I dont mean around the block. I mean driven it for a while, across all types of traffic, roads, animals and times of day. I can mock Peugeot 106s for being crap because i had one for a year, I can mock the series 1 vectra V6 because I owned one of them, I can even mock a 1993 ford fiesta popular 1.3L! People are too quick to mock these days and their only experience is because their mate once stood next to someone who owned one. Oh and JeffTT I support you for correcting English, its a hard habit to stop. I was an English teacher in China for 10 years and I still accidentally correct peoples English now (almost always under my breath these days....!)

I took abuse yesterday for blocking the road in my bus. It was a one way street with a bus stop and 8 taxis had parked on the bus stop outside their office leaving me no room. So I had to stop in the middle of the road to load. Car driver was beeping, passenger got out, came on the bus, shouted at me and then spat at me. Luckily the security screen got in the way. CCTV is being sent to police as spitting is a form of assault apparently.... Madness

My friend and father will be at the Tescos meet, but they wont be in the Zs so I guess will park elsewhere. My father will be in the MX5 and my mate will be in something very rare and special!

My friend and I will be working our way along the M27 for the Tescos meet. I think we are leaving about 5.30am as he is bringing something very rare and special but its not quick!

"If it a'int broke, dont fix it" :lol: I hope it gets sorted though! Nothing worse than looking at a broken Z :(

what time will the meet at Tescos be? If they are opening the back gate at 8am, are we meeting at Tescos earlier?

Are we still meeting at the Tescos? In an earlier post, there was mention of having to display a club exhibitor pass, is that still true? If so, where do we get them?