Well car 2 has been on the road for 6 weeks now, with no major mechanical issues to report there are just some minor things we are wanting to look at.

Air Filter

We have recently taken out the air filter housing finished making little changes to the feed pipe and painted.  we went with a spray version of ht Gentian blue the car is painted in and we are happy with the finish.

Thermostat

The car is currently without a thermostat, with it fitted the temp gauge goes very high and was causing concern to us.  The thermostat was taken out and tested on the cooker and opened fine, so we think we need to refit and find out how to bleed the 200TDI cooling system.

Steering

We have some concerns over the steering, we are getting a bit of movement while driving along and your never sure about how much steering to put in when going round corners.

We have spoken to the company that provided the suspension kit and discussed the issues, and the outcome was, the movement while driving might be a side effect of the 50mm lift on the coil springs, making the panhard rod be changing the alignment of the front and rear axles so the car is essentially crabbing along the road.

The vague steering might be caused by the castor of the front axles being out with the lift.

So we are currently looking at the solutions,

Option 1 : fit castor correction arms and adjustable pan hard rod – approx cost £420 allows to keep the new TF201 kit intact

Option 2 : fit standard height springs that should solve the castor and pan hard rod issues – approx cost £80 means working to change the springs all round.

Will update the blog when choices are made.