and today i have mostly been...

[trufflehunt]

Normally a Smart ForTwo, thereby taking all the street cred you had* from motorhome ownership, and throwing it away.

It is a good idea though. I did see someone towing a Lotus Elise behind a motorhome.

Traditionally..., the life of a Lotus.., being towed. ,

[ruwds]

hi, I am new here as I recently bought a 406. Just saw this post about the PP2000. Is it yet available? thanks

Hi there. Umm, kind of, you did see my location didn't you?

thanks for your reply. I did spot the location after I posted it. I got myself the kit, installed following some guides online, but only see four items from the car. Any tips will be helpful on what to select on the reading ecu page. I get 'identification : 10' and a scroll bar with nothing else on the screen and only option is 'ok'. Am I missing things there or?

Will try reinstalling from scratch and try again.

[Doggy]

For the last 2 days, I have mostly been sitting in traffic jams on German autoroutes.
It's just like out motorways in the 70's/80's/90's - for those of you who remember, we were all fuming about constant delays, roadworks etc. and asking why we were the only country in Europe to have the problem. Now they've got some traffic, they have all the same issues.
To be fair, there's a massive amount of new construction going on as well as lots and lots of repairs. Their repairs take the form of put in a contraflow, then completely dig up 10 miles of carriageway and start again.

Dropped off the campervan in Dachau yesterday morning:



(Full details here, if you fancy a butchers): https://www.campanda.de/wohnmobil/carad ... 04153.html

We had that for a week, staying in a couple of places near Munich, (1st & last nights), 2 days at Lake Constance, 2 days at Seefeld (Austria), where some of Mrs Doggy's friends were on holiday and a night at Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps. It was great fun, we wanted to find out if this was for us without spending a fortune and both really enjoyed it. Covered about 1000 miles in it altogether, not the most dynamic drive but not as bad as I imagined it might be.

It was nice to get back to the 406 yesterday morning, much nicer to drive and its so quiet / quick in comparison.

Spent last night at Bernkastel-Kues in the Moselle valley, absolutely gorgeous place and I tucked into the best bit of dead pig I have ever encountered.

We're having our last overnight stop at the mo - on the outskirts of Metz. About 5 hours on the road tomorrow should see us at the tunnel. Our crossing's at about 8 pm, so plenty of time for dawdling and (plonk) shopping.

Oh and the aircon's still working.

[Welly]

That sounds great and you've managed to squeeze a lot into just a week. You'll need a holiday when you get home

[406Break]

Started to brainstorm on how to fit subs or large mids in the trunk of my 6 w/o loosing luggage space.
The two pockets seem to be good places to use. Make holes in tha cover maybe, maybe not...I'll see...
Trying to decide between a custom closed box out of Fiberglass/plywood or just a sturdy plate with the original pocket still behind it.

[dirtydirtydiesel]

That space is far too small for subs, + a sub needs to be solidly mounted in a solid surface at the very least
Just my opinion but you will get much better results using quality 7x10's mounted under or in the parcel shelf.
Years ago I did this in a Citroën Zx,
Cut out the holes in the shelf just big enough for the speaker cone, then covered the hole with 5mm open wire mesh,
Which I then covered with the right colour acoustic cloth for that factory /stealth finish.
On the underside I bonded 13mm thick M.D.F with the right size holes cut in & mounted the speakers under this.
M.D.F has proven to have very good acoustic performance due to its density (gives great bass response)
The added benefit of doing it this way is you use the boot space as a bass enclosure,
If the enclosure is to small, as in your photos the speaker can't move enough air to produce the bass
Now I know that your boot is a bit big & some bass will be lost but trust me with some quality 7x10's & a decent amp
It'll be just fine unless your looking for mega bass which will envolve a big heavy sub enclosure losing all/some boot
space depending on the design/size of speakers.
I did this for over fifteen years until I got in the family way , sorry no photos as it was all pre digital cameras
P.S
Don't just drop them in holes in the shelf unless you want a saging shelf just like all those XR3I / XR2 boys circa 1989

[406Break]

How about a 165/170mm mid in a closed box? I ain't going to compete in SPL events anyway .
Thought that having 4 mids in all corners and maybe tweeters too would make a huge difference already

[steve_earwig]

There should be cut outs in the tailgate for a couple of 6" (I think), you just need to carefully cut holes in the card. Maybe a couple of mid ranges here with some tweeters in the rear pillars?

Anyway, wife's away (in GB) cats will play. Except this particular cat has heaps to do while she's away and I don't seem to be getting much done. And here comes another thunderstorm

Yesterday the air con in yoyoII decided to die. Some rushing noises behind the dash but warm air even on it's lowest setting. The car has full Toyotter service history but no mention of any servicing on the a/c, so either they took it elsewhere (and kept no documents) or it's never been done, so I surmised a lack of gas.

This morning I took it to a guy Goran recommended me in Buzin (near the airport). I didn't want to make the same mistake as I did with the Pug, taking it to a guy who repairs fridges, so this guy has the right bit of kit (and is another biker, of course.) Smashing feller too.

First thing he noticed was no stickers for a/c service under the bonnet, er, ok. Hooked up the machine, pressure reading low. He then let the machine do it's thang - drain, clean, pressure test and fill.

While we were waiting I quizzed him on the pressure loss thing, he says most systems loose up to 100g of refrigerant a year, maybe more for older cars. This is because the molecules are small enough to permeate through just about everything, including the aluminium pipework, so the system really needs to be serviced every two or three years. One thing I was wrong about is damage caused by an empty system, it does all need the lubricant that's in with the refrigerant but if the system shuts down for whatever reason, low pressure or a fault, none of it is working so nothing will be damaged. (also, if the temperature in the condenser rises above 80 degrees C the lubricant can combust however the system should shut down long before it gets this far)

All done, he stuck a sticker under the bonnet with the date to show it had been serviced (properly...) and charged me a quite reasonably 200Kn (that's about 23 quid at today's cataclysmic post-brexit vote panic exchange rate ). The drive home was chilly

[Doggy]

Sounds like a good result.
Still waiting for mine to expire, which I feel certain won't be too long.

[steve_earwig]

Well hopefully it survived mine which, 2 days later, expired once again

So I called my man Matija and he said to bring it the following afternoon, that being Sunday So me and me bro, who's over just now, pulled up at 3. He plugged it in to the machine again, to find it was then holding a massive 80g of refrigerant. He then blew it up with CO2 and proceeded to look for signs of a leak. I was only expecting a bit of diagnostic work but he ended up taking the front end off the car, to find that some improperly repaired accident damaged had worn through a small pipe.

Bear in mind this was a company car, serviced and maintained regardless of cost by a Toyota franchise. All they seem to have done is replace the damaged panels on the front end, but leave stuff like the front chassis brace shaped like a banana. Also, the front of these is a cheap and flimsy facade, even the aluminium underrun thing, which I always assumed was anodised aluminium, is actually flimsy bit of plastic tat. I reckon if I'd paid a small fortune for this car I'd kind of be quite irate at this point. No hold on... Also, a lot of the clips holding it all on which weren't broken or missing seemed to feature Mercedes logos Most of them were just stuffed in holes but not actually holding anything. You gotta laugh

So, front end in a big heap on the floor and Matija is working on the pipe:

(it's right next to his thumb)

He repaired it with a blow torch and some sort of aluminium solder, and also replaced the seal on the union for good measure. (He actually said this was a trade secret, a good way of doing a quick fix and charging the customer some serious money for a few minute's work...)

Obviously me and my big bro weren't standing about with our hands in our pockets but this was a fair bit of work. Also, while he was blowing the system up again, he fixed the puncture I picked up on Saturday (wonder what the third bad thing will be...) It was all done by about 7:30 and the charge was 450Kn (about 50 quid). 2 days later and it's still blowing cold.

Btw while it was in bits I spotted this:

It's not the screen wash bottle, that's on the other side. Matija reckons this is fitted to quite a few 4x4's (even ones that are only meant for shopping trips and the school run), it's fitted on the air inlet and is supposed to drain off any water that it ingests before it gets to the engine. Thinking about it afterwards though, I couldn't see how it got out again (maybe there's a warning light...)

[Doggy]

Well that was well worth the money, I hope both our systems keep going for the foreseeable. Amazingly mine is still OK.

Today reminded me just how much you miss it.
Went to Oldham & back in a very new, hired LWB transit in ultimate poverty spec. (No aircon, cruise, electric mirrors and so on).
It did however have a posh digital display that happily informed us when it got to 34 degrees on the final stages of the A1M south.
I failed to appreciate the free sauna, but had to admit it was impressively economical - carting 2 of us and a load of about 750kg at the speed limit we got almost 33mpg.

The drive home in the 406 was sheer bliss.

[Welly]

Nice fix there Steve and so cheap interesting finding that water-catchy bottle thing you'd have never known about it although whether your now better off knowing.........

[Welly]

In that Portsmouth and Isle of White. Weather was perfect, everything nice and easy, stayed in a very smart guesthouse where they arranged breakfast in the Gardens every morning for us

Visited 'The Needles' and had a little cable car ride off the edge of the cliffs called at a couple of scenic beaches and a place called Ventnor which has it's own micro-climate and stays warmer than other areas (which it was) apparently you can find lizards in the wild as the climate is so fair.

Took a ride on this thing to Portsmouth for the day, 10 mins verses 45/50 on the ferry:


And this was the view from 'my' bar:



All in all thoroughly enjoyable, even getting the car ferry's was a breeze with no waiting around.

[Doggy]

Nice to see the weather smiled upon young Mr Welton. Holidays here in good weather are a rare privilege.

Never been to the IOW, must give it a try sometime.

[Welly]

Cheers, yes I would recommend IOW for an easy-going holiday with no too much travel.

Wiggy - just looked again at that 'bottle' on the air intake; it might be an acoustic box to reduce induction noise. I had a large black box connected to the inlet of my Honda and it was buried in the wheel arch but on inspection seemingly served no purpose. If yours was to catch water then it should have a means of draining it off.