[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

Took the wheel arch liner out, which is way more time consuming than I expected and got access to the washer bottle. Also have sight of the auxiliary heater which is all nice and clean, protected by the arch liner.

Popped the motor out to see the front connection.

Pipes intact so had my father operate the washers, only to discover the washer fluid coming from above my head and pouring down my back!

Couldn't see anything under the wing so opened the bonnet only to find the washers had now packed up.

Then I realised they won't work with the bonnet open.

Found the break which was hidden inside a foam collar to protect it from breaking. Obviously not worked that well.

I should be able to splice a repair piece in there to sort that.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate 2.

So that was the good news.
The bad news is I found the suspension spring is broken.
The really bad news is that the scuttle panel and wiper arms all have to come back off to get the bolts undone that hold the top of the strut to the body.

At least it will be quicker getting it off second time round.

Booked the MoT today so best get a wiggle on and find out how to get the spring off.

 

[Alan G H]

Ratdate 2.
Booked the MoT today so best get a wiggle on and find out how to get the spring off.

Doesn't look too bad a job, as long as you have spring clamps.
I took a stab at the year, but I suspect most Tourans will be similar.

suspension; shock absorbers Touran (TOU) 2010 year Volkswagen EUROPA 411000

suspension<br/>shock absorbers Touran (TOU) 2010 year Volkswagen EUROPA 411000 spare parts

volkswagen.7zap.com

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Autodoc have a good guide on YouTube which shows them pulling the driveshaft and hub.
Then there is a different video showing the hub being left in place and separating the strut.
I will have to buy the strut spreader tool either way.

Ours is a 2005 with bolts holding the top in place, which makes it easier than the other system.

Looks perfectly achievable.

I have a good set of spring compressors and after my near miss in the past I use two ratchet straps for safety as well.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

Turns out I can just pull the bulkhead, leaving the wipers and scuttle all in place.
Spring £20.
Spreader tool for the hub £7 or I can get the tein pack of two different sizes for £9.50 which is a better long term investment.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

Hub bottom joint undone, drop link detached, ABS and brake hose moved out of the way and driveshaft pushed forward out of the hub.

Spring due tomorrow together with the spreader tool. Gave the hub a few cracks with a lump hammer and I'm sure it is moving so should be straightforward to get the strut off.

Everything came undone without any great dramas. So much easier to work on than my Meriva, just shows that VW pay that bit more for the rust prevention treatment on their fasteners.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

The spring is well past its best.

Surprised just how good everything is under the wheel arch.

Strut came out a lot easier than I expected.

Just 3 bolts hold the top mount in place which luckily I could get off with all the scuttle plastics in place.

Next challenge is the strut nut. Already got the compressors on the spring to take some of the pressure off, then I'm going to hit it with the impact gun.

Had notification through today that our flight home from my upcoming holiday has been changed to the evening instead of the morning. Good news because it means an extra day holiday, bad news because we don't get home now until 2am and the MoT is booked for 8am. Original plan was to drop the car up the afternoon before but can't do that now.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Evening Ratdate.

Broken spring removed and put on the wall for the scrappy to take.
New spring on.
New spring back off because after I had compressed it I found it was upside down! There is hardly any difference and I hadn't checked with the top mount. Unfortunately my spring compressors wouldn't fit the other way up.
New spring back on.
New spring back off! My compressors were bottoming out before I could get the strut nut on.
New spring back on with compressors repositioned.
Had to get my cheap n nasty set of compressors to pull one side of the spring down because it was lifting up out of the bottom seat and twisting.
Finally got it all back together on the strut.
No need to go to the gym, doing the compressors up 3 times and undoing them is enough!
Strut back in the hub.
Driveshaft back where it belongs.
Strut now bolted up with one bolt, the other two have conspired against me so they can be tackled tomorrow.
I've enjoyed being out in the sun playing with the spanners, but could have done with getting the spring on correctly the first time, I'm knackered from all the compressing, decompressing then recompressing.

Didn't help that I went for a 5 mile walk with the dog before starting.

Off to Halfords in the morning to pick up my latest subsidised buys - they keep sending me £5 vouchers so a nice set of Draper security bits is costing me just over £1.50 and have a lifetime guarantee.

Think my total from Halfords in free gift codes over the last year is now over £90, which is far more than I have actually spent with them.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Nice

Ratdate

Not nice

That's the bolt that clamps the hub assembly onto the bottom of the strut. It looked quite decent until I cleaned it up.
Off to the local VW stealership in the morning to pick up another bolt, new nut and the big bolt that goes into the end of the driveshaft, which is a stretch bolt that has to be renewed anyway.

Bought a pipe mender today to repair the washer tubing but it is too big, looks like a 4mm one will fit but the ones I bought are 6mm.

The rear indicator bulbs have faded and could really do with being changed too.

Then finally it's ready for its MoT.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

New strut bolt and nut cost £4.50. Charged me £2 for the nut, which still reminds me how daft I was when I didn't collect any metric nuts when I worked in Armstrong Forest Fasteners for 2 years. All my stuff at the time was imperial so I've got loads of that and not many metric fasteners.

The big driveshaft bolt was £5.75.

Had my nephew do that one up for me while I held the brake on. The initial 200 Nm is easy enough, but the extra 180° it then needs is a killer. Even with a 5 foot scaffold pipe on my ¾" power bar it took him a few attempts to get it torqued right up.

I did it last time while he held the brakes on and it was hard going. I'm guessing it has to be up over 300 ft lbs of torque on that.

Swapped the tubing repair connectors I bought for a smaller one that fits so now we have washers.

Two new Amber bulbs in the rear light because they had faded badly 😢.

Try and get the switch panel back in place before the test and it's good to go - at long last. Find out on the 8th whether it needs anything else.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Post holiday Ratdate.

To say I am pleased is an understatement!

Got back from Lanzarote early hours and got to bed at 03:30 only to have to get up at 07:00 to take it for the MoT, so my eyeballs are falling out.
Car needs to be used now to clean the brake disks up - I did do loads of hard braking before the test to clean them up as best I could.

But the cruise control that was working appears to have stopped working, but that's for another day........

 

[BORNXenon]

Congrats mate, good news after all the hard work!

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

It's already done more miles today than its done in the last 6 months by taking my hairy sidekick for his annual booster vaccinations.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

I "fixed" the cruise control by switching it on!
It's been so long since it's been regularly driven that I had forgotten about the switch on the left stalk that turns the system on.

My Meriva is much better - you press the end of the stalk and it works.

I only realised when I had spent ages watching 👀 YouTube videos showing how to program CC in.

Must have been suffering from jet lag still....

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

While I was driving round with loads of wires broken it achieved better fuel consumption than it ever did before. I was getting around 50 mpg easily, whereas it normally sits around 38 to 40 mpg. Now with the broken wires it was running in limp mode, using default settings and the turbo and egr system were disabled.
So I had a thought, which is always a dangerous thing! On the VW 1.9 PD engine the EGR is vacuum controlled so for an experiment I disconnected the vacuum line and plugged it with a plastic golf tee. It drives just the same and the mpg is already improving - so far so good. Well today the engine light came on which was entirely expected but the car is driving fine, so I am going to continue my experiment a bit longer.

Apparently I can adjust the amount of EGR gas that the engine expects so I might have a play with VCDS to see if I can get it to not trigger the light with it plugged, or failing that reduce the recirculation to the minimum possible.

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Sunny Ratdate.

My EGR delete experiment continues and my mpg has climbed from around 36mpg to over 41mpg and continues to improve.

It throws an EGR flow insufficient 16785 code, which is entirely expected 🤔.

But what is not expected is that it consistently gives me 17055/6/7 and 8 codes, which is glow plug failure. Nothing wrong with the plugs.

Also throws a 16725 code - 16725/P0341/000833 - Camshaft Position Sensor (G40): Implausible Signal

Absolutely nothing wrong with the cam sensor. If I re-enable the EGR all faults clear and stay cleared.

Strange things these Volkswagens!

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Bank Holiday ratdate 🐀 🐁 🐭

Mpg now over 42mpg and still improving, which, given the cost of fuel, is only a good thing.

Thought I'd have a play with VCDS again having watched a few YouTube videos where the % of exhaust gas can be altered. But unfortunately I only have two options - enable or disable cruise control, not the EGR option shown in a few videos 🤔. I can get security access but from that point on there is nothing to alter the EGR flow. I was hoping that setting it to the minimum i might not get the warning light popping up every now and again. No matter, easy enough to plug my VAG reader in and clear it off.

Oddly enough it usually triggers on very light engine loads, when I would expect the actual EGR flow to be very low anyway.

Be interesting to see how well it does on a good long run and I'm off to Chessington in a week or two so I'll see then.

 

[kratos]

You're confirming what is widely known , egr delete is better for the engine performance, worse for the environment.
I'm not a tree hugger , I want an orange tree in my back garden and sunny summers .
I think my bm puts 15% exhaust gas back into the combustion for re burn.
Cant be 100% certain, but that figure springs to mind after reading about my engine code type over the years.
When on of my vacuum contrllers for the egr broke years ago , it ran with the fault lamp , it ran as nearly as normal, but jeeeeez
It got hot , seriously hot like doing a regen constantly.
I still ran it until the weather warmed up until I could be bothered to change it one fine day.
A hot diesel is an efficient diesel.
A good thread

 

[Koicarpkeeper]

Ratdate.

Unfortunately due to a bizarre quirk in the law I wasn't able to take the Touran, but it is going to get a decent run on my next road trip next week to Warwick Castle and Foxton Locks. Will be interesting to see if it beats its previous best of 51mpg. Should do it easily because I'm nudging 44mpg in my mixed driving.

Today I fumigated Ratty and his mates with one of those A/C sanitising aerosols that you release into the cabin with the A/C on full and set to recirculating. Certainly smells so much better and I have a new carbon impregnated pollen filter to install to replace the one that was full of rat pellets.