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About LinkBacksThe oil level plug ont he F23 is a right pig i found, but filling is easy as yo've shown. Looking all good though.
The oil level plug ont he F23 is a right pig i found, but filling is easy as yo've shown. Looking all good though.
When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.
Yeah I figured it was easier to drain till empty, then refill with 2l, then I know precisely how much is in there.
They're there, in their room.
As much as a fan boy of the CDR500 that I am, listening to one CD's worth of music at a time was starting to grind a bit. Also my tastes can change so much in a few weeks it's hardly worth committing any of my music to CD.
So, brand loyal as I am, I had a look to see what justkenwood.co.uk had to offer. I also know Kenwoods offer full compatibility with the dash display and steering wheels controls at a reasonable price; both adaptors are £35. Sony is £60 just for the controls I think.
Knowing optical is as good as dead for storing media, I decided I wanted on with a USB port, but not one pointlessly in the front panel so you have to take the stick out each time you leave the car. I wanted it on a lead to hide it in the glovebox.
I spotted this little beauty on offer:
Kenwood KDCW7041U
The order button was clicked and I duly received said weapon yesterday, so set about today fitting it. First thing was to sort how the USB connector was going to enter the glovebox. A Mk4 glovebox is curiously devoid of random holes like most other Vauxhall glove boxes. But, because the little shelf is removable, I thought about enlarging the hole where the rear of the shelf clips in and feeding the cable through. So I did.
So we end up with this:
Hmm, is this the trip computer wiring?
Anyway, it's a bit toight behind there, there's a lot of patch-in wires and a little black box. Managed to feed it round the corner into the glovebox void.
All works fine, you can change almost all the features down to whether the dials flash or not when you're turning them, and what type of display and what info you want shown. A nice feature is that the source button on the steering wheel is now a mute button, and the pointless preset/ return to the beginning of the CD button is now source, and the up/down buttons change the radio presets or the track, and you hold them down a second or so to skip up/ down folders.
They're there, in their room.
I wish my USB wasn't on the front now.I'd love to throw a hard drive into the glove box and not have to worry about it.
Teeth? LUXURY! When I was a child we ate by putting rocks in our mouth and jumping up and down.
I am enjoying this.
Jack, in car hard drives rock till they break.
I'm louder than gods own revolver and twice as shiney.
Thats exactly the same headunit I have. I have the USB lead going into the storage bit in front of the fuse box. I bought the optional bluetooth kit and fitted that into the glovebox. I also got the steering wheel control adapter for it too and it works great.
I had to disconnect a wire at the back of the trip computer to get it to display the date all of the time. I didn't like the bottom section being blank!
It's a very good headunit in my opinion.
As for the additional wire connector you have, the Trip Computer has an all in one connector at the back of it, not two seperate connector blocks (that's the way it is for mine). It's either a grey or black connector block for the trip computer if I remember.
No Text-Type on MIGWeb please. Leave it for mobile phones, where it belongs.
They are either lasy or ****ing useless.Originally Posted by Astra Dan
Good progress btw
CAR FOR SALE: Vauxhall Zafira Vauxhall Astra Mk3
BREAKING: Yellow Pug 306 Convertible
WANTED: Downhill Mountain Bike, Set Of Vauxhall Alloys
I had the same problem with my electric mirrors i got for my astra. One of them was a brand new copy mirror which just like yours was the worst quality mirror i had ever seen! My painted cover off the manual gm mirror wouldn't fit on either.
So what i did was smash up the new electric mirror to see how it came apart and to get all the electric bits out and then i gently took apart my GM manual mirror and fitted all the electric bits over into the GM casing. So i had 2 GM Electric mirrors, all the electric parts fitted in perfect and all wored spot on and the cover obviousely fitted fine.
Much better way of doing it.
Christys Car Hospital - All bodywork undertaken http://www.christyscarhospital.com
think that plug is for a cd multichanger. Which gets fitted in the glovebox
Ah that makes sense.
Nothing really deserving of an update, but just a note to say the Mk4 is serving me flawlessly. It's just rolled over to 95k, so that's about 10k in 8 months.
This week I drove to work as normal on Monday morning and left the car in the car park at work whilst I went to Plymouth for a few days. On my return today the car looked like this:
Started on the button of course. It was touch and go whether we came home or not from Plymouth as we'd heard bad reports about the weather. Sharon had been told to stay home today and our site was shut, too and will be tomorrow.
Not one to be put off, I went for it. Around Salisbury it was pretty much OK, little icy on some of the back roads through a village called Cholderton, had to keep the throttle planted with the TC helping me out to get up a steepish hill, but other than that it was fine till I got to the east of Winchester on the Morestead Road. Fareham and Portsmouth seemed the worst affected and as I neared the top of Fareham the road started to look like this:
Still, I was the only one on this road at all so far and I don't really mind snow and ice, it's other people that worry me. The windscreen is so dirty as the water in the washer bottle has frozen solid. I thought it had run out, but pulling the dipstick out produced a comedy ice cube. Strange as I usually keep a very strong mix of screenwash.
The road past Corhampton Golf Club was very clean almost virgin snow and the tempatation to stop to take pics now I was so close to home was too great:
I spied a convoy of cars coming and fearing they'd think I was some sort of goon I hopped back in the car and got ready to move off. I put my indicator on just as the first car got level and to my surprise he stopped and waved me out. Or at least that was the plan! Totally stuck, I'd parked in a sort of rut which I obviously couldn't see. I tried to wave him on but he generously got out and started to push the car. I said it's a bit embarrasing as I'd only stopped to take pictures and he laughed. Another guy from a Land Rover also got out and helped to push. A bit of rocking later and I crept away rather sheepishly, almost into the side of another guy who couldn't be bothered to wait.
Anyway, I got home through the very strange looking streets of Fareham. Loads of cars abandoned everywhere, almost had an eerie feeling to it.
This is our road and the amount of snow on the roof of Sharon's Nova:
The Mk2 and the GTE are looking pretty smug under the carport and in the garage respectively.
They're there, in their room.
Pics are awesome dude, all the abandoned is weird isn't it...
I'm louder than gods own revolver and twice as shiney.
Awesome write up and photos Dan. I love having little adventures in my car.
Teeth? LUXURY! When I was a child we ate by putting rocks in our mouth and jumping up and down.
Well here's a bit of fun.
The passenger seat tilt handle managed to get broken very soon after I got the car. Not a major problem, the handle still worked, but the neat hook that holds the seat belt for you was broken off. A bit of superglue was OK for a temporary repair, but it broke again and the end didn't fit right with a mm gap for some reason. Anyway, was quite surprised when I got the part number for a new one from EPC that it was not only the right number, but a quite reasonable £4.96+ vat from Vauxhall. Came in 3 days later.
So today I set about trying to figure out how it comes to bits. I could just see down the slot the the only thing holding the metal shaft of the handle is a sprig clip that fits in the mechanism at 90 degrees, so it sits across it in the little groove. No way was I able to get anything small enough in there to lever it up. I was also worried that without tension the spring would just fall out into the seat back. But I thought sod it, and got a good grip and prepared to give it a good old tug. But before I'd even wound up to 50% power, the handle simply slid out, with the spring clip staying in place!
I was quite pleased by this, and even more pleased when, once I'd got the tapered end of the new handle under the clip, it simply slotted home. Result!
Ahh. Sometimes, as we all know, it's the stupidest simplest problems that can be the most satisfying to sort out.
They're there, in their room.
Its a strange place for the latch to break, but ive seen a few like that. Nice work dan
Blame me,
I'm louder than gods own revolver and twice as shiney.
Small update again.
At the Spares Day in February I bought a complete Mk4 Astra cruise control setup. Annoyingly the stuff I bought was for a 1.8 and the bracket for the control motor is intending for it to be fitted right where the ECU on mine is. So I had to have a rethink. Fitting the control cable and trying to keep the run fairly straight pointed towards the area in front of the battery. The tray is plastic and handily unbolts do I could drill holes in it:
The control cables runs nice and smoothly to the throttle, and a nice clip from my drawer of random adds to the factory look:
The cabling can then be tucked away tidily under the slam panel and behind the air filter:
Then it passes through into the cabin along with the bonnet cable:
Then I fit the new stalk:
Then it was on to the wiring. Infuriatingly, the entire inside of the car is wired for cruise, with no sign of any in the engine bay. Still it's not that hard and I just had to patch into the existing connectors and that.
I wasn't happy with the fit of the previous bumper, so I fitted a brand new one!
This was at the meet today. Noice.
They're there, in their room.
V.nice.
I'm louder than gods own revolver and twice as shiney.
prodrive front bumper too awsome. good work on the cruise control, im hoping mine is a bit more straight forward tho having fly by wire throttle
Ta! Yeah I think you just need to fit the stalk, then worst case is get it activated.
They're there, in their room.
Nice retro fit!! Something i always think would be handy on the nova (esp on the 400+ mile trips to pvs and billing. Tho with the tb's i dont think ill bother lmao)
Prodrive bumper looks ace
Thanks!
I might do something with the side skirts and rear bumper, but I'm very pleased the way the front bumper flows with the lines of the standard skirts, so that's not desperate.
Main things on my list are smoked front and rear lights and I fancy smoothing and colour coding the side rub strips and fitted facelift SRi (with read dot on the i) badges.
I saw JohnnyA's got some Depo smoked front lights on his Mk4 and they look pretty decent quality, so might pick some of them up at the shows.
They're there, in their room.
Check my van thread, i think you will like my light modifications - right up your street.
As for the skirts, colour coding would finnish them off. (also same as my van)
self modded lights ftw, really easy and effective mod to do
Hmm that's what I thought on my CDTI, fly-by-wire throttle, already had the clutch switch fitted as standard, thought buy the stalk for 15 quid or whatever, plug it in, get it programmed. Turns out not all mark 4s have the interior wiring already there by the steering column, well mine doesn't anyway, took the plastic surround off and there's no spare wires anywhere
Dan, i take it yours was a spare plug dangling from the loom? I've got nothing there spare at all, and I'm guessing this aint going to be a straight forward wire patch like yours in the engine bay! Don't think I can have it!
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