1999 Citroen Saxo VTR? The long and winding road....
Discussion
Read. I should have written 'The long and winding read', because long is what this post will be. Why? Because this little French can has been in my life since January 2005, when I met my (now) wife, Natalie. And she's known it even longer - since January 2004! You know, because that's when she bought it.
Known affectionately over the years as 'Old Reliable', because of the obvious similarities between the car and RMS Olympic (or just because it was boringly reliable), the car has largely just been a form of transport over the years. She enjoyed it enough to create a readers thread on the Saxperience forum about 670 years ago, but the car has been largely overlooked with regards to proper blogs and threads by the other (normally older or weirder) cars we've (or I've) owned.
A couple of things dawned on me the other day, though. Firstly, that I'd created a blog about a Citroen BX (I know, quelle surprise....) that am doing up (here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...) and in that blog I'd spent considerable time rabbiting on about how my Dad owned a car like it that was really important to the evolution of my life, or mankind in general blah...blah....blah.
Secondly, that I'd spent many hours of my life doing up an AX GT that had a quarter of a million miles on the clock (found here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...) and that had actually proven to be a rewarding use of time, as the results once I'd done everything I was going to do were great - it was brilliant fun to drive!
The AX moved on to pastures new a while ago, but being that the Saxo is effectively the same car underneath, I could probably find the same level of enjoyment with this, what with all that free time I have.
Moreover, as well as the BX mentioned above (or one like it), the little Saxo also has its part to play in how my life came about being where it is now, as I met my wife because of it. I used to own a Saxo Furio, which I bought brand new in 2002. I spent a fair amount of time modifying it. And breaking it, too. Here's that car:
Featured the obligatory larger wheels (to ruin the ride and handling), induction kit & large exhaust (to make the weezy little engine louder) plus a myriad of other modifications of questionable taste. More importantly, I'd purchased a Haynes Max Power Modifying manual for it, and it was that manual that my future wife-to-be contacted me to purchase, as in 2004 she'd just sold this:
.....to buy this:
Well, natural progression is Nova>Saxo, right?! The picture above is the Saxo in question, and was taken on the day she bought it in Southampton. It's a 1999 VTR model, but a mk2, which is pretty rare on a V plate (majority of V-plate cars are mk1s). The build date sits it about a month and a half after mk2 production began, and being that these things are getting rarer by the day, it's probably one of the earliest mk2 Saxos around. It was cheap (at the time) too, though it had previously been in a front end collision, and had been repaired with non-gen parts (the bonnet doesn't sit right to this day!) The front panel was also ripped up, so it's lucky it's never been towed, because that bad boy would have come straight out through the bumper! And it has required breakdown recovery in the past, too, namely because a strange issue with the fuel gauge prevents it from reading correctly. Despite being well aware of this, my wife managed to run out of fuel at least twice in it. Yeah, I know.
So, what with it being so rare and all, it's good that it remained original to this day, right? Erm.....no. You see, this is a Saxo. They get modified, and this thing has been around me since 2005. I can't leave s
t alone - I have an urge to make things more st, and then realise the error of my ways down the line. The Saxo was no exception.
The first notable mods came in July 2005. It was possible back then to purchase 'black' headlamps for the mk2 Saxo. It was also possible to peel the glass lens off the front, and paint the inside with some satin black in a rattle can purchased at Halfords (naturally):
It was also possible to lower the Saxo. 30mm; 40mm; 50mm.....the world was your oyster. "Lower it 60mm" says I. "It'll handle brilliantly!"
On standard dampers. Standard, 6 year old dampers, with 70k miles on them. No 21yr old Richard. No it won't. But the front came down anyway:
You'll notice the arse hasn't. That's because Saxos use (as is well-documented), torsion bar rear suspension. It's a clever setup, to be fair. All contained within one axle, with two independant trailing arms and an internal anti-roll bar. I don't know why they've dropped them, to be honest. The packaging, efficiency and handling was great. Low COG too.
Oh yes.....it was seized. I couldn't do it, so it went to a garage, and they couldn't do it either. So it drove around (well, my girlfriend had to drive around) with the arse of the thing sticking up. I bet she looked ridiculous to onlookers. I've no idea, but it was hiliarious!
Eventually the rear came down to match:
Some subtle side repeaters were added around this time, too. I actually like them, as they clean the lines of the black side moulding up. They're still on it to this day:
The final mod of the year was a set of Ultra-smoked rear lights:
The Saxo spent the remainder of 2005 being used to get about. Uni; a part-time job; socialising....even the odd cruise!
2006 rolled around in January, as years tend to do, and brought with it a shot in the spotlight! Chris Barrie (him of Red Dwarf and Brittas Empire fame) was running a series called 'Massive Speed'. One of the episodes was dedicated to 'Hot Rods', and with that, hot hatches. The obligitory Escorts and Golf GTIs were featured (including that silver A-plate mk1 Golf which seems to get absolutely everywhere), but with their finger on the pulse, they decided to dedicate some airtime to the hot hatch of the moment - the Saxo.
A request was put out for a standard car to be featured alongside a modified (ahem) car. A red VTR was lined up, but had to pull out last minute, and the VTR was drafted in to help.
They'd originally asked for a standard car to contrast theruined modified car, but when the Saxo arrived it was decided to try and ignore the fact it was actually lower than the modified one!
Mr Barrie doing his thing to camera. The fact he had to bend down so far to reach the bonnet made us giggle:
A top bloke, by all accounts. Rocked up in a Transit van, and paid for everyone to go for dinner later that day. Would happily engage with anybody and was genuinely enthusiastic. I've done a couple of filming events with one of my cars, and never had anything like that.
Later that year, we drove it down to Yeovil to visit the Haynes Motor Museum; a place we'd be returning to quite a few times! On the way back, we stopped by a place of interest for pics of the VTR wearing the new VTS wheels my other half had received for her birthday:
2007 was fairly uneventful. Only thing that happened of note was the cambelt change. I'd also done the clutch and replaced the radiator with a larger VTS item by this point:
The rest was driving:
In 2007, O/H was giving thoughts to moving the Saxo on. She'd had it a few years, and had a hankering for a Fiat Coupe 20v, or a Clio 172, or even a Saxo VTS (her dream was this Saxo but with a VTS engine in it, but it just wasn't realistic). Something fun, but something she could still use daily. That's when bought another silver car to accompany the Saxo!:
The decision was made to keep the Saxo instead, as it would do 40mpg with ease, and was quite reliable. The TVR was the toy, and the Saxo was the runaround.
2008 started with a decision I kinda regret imposing, but hopefully it'll pay off. I normally hate private plates, but I bought a Xsara VTR for £350, and it came with this number plate. So, I removed the plate, gave it to O/H for her birthday (thinking even if she didn't like it, it was still worth a few quid) and then sold the Xsara on for £350!
Spoiler alert!: In 2018, we're about to remove it, but that's by the by!
2008 also brought some hassle. A car driven by large numbers of chavs, attract chavs. Turns out someone felt they needed her arches more than she did:
Scum breed scum, sadly. They'll never die out.
2009 onwards to follow.
Known affectionately over the years as 'Old Reliable', because of the obvious similarities between the car and RMS Olympic (or just because it was boringly reliable), the car has largely just been a form of transport over the years. She enjoyed it enough to create a readers thread on the Saxperience forum about 670 years ago, but the car has been largely overlooked with regards to proper blogs and threads by the other (normally older or weirder) cars we've (or I've) owned.
A couple of things dawned on me the other day, though. Firstly, that I'd created a blog about a Citroen BX (I know, quelle surprise....) that am doing up (here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...) and in that blog I'd spent considerable time rabbiting on about how my Dad owned a car like it that was really important to the evolution of my life, or mankind in general blah...blah....blah.
Secondly, that I'd spent many hours of my life doing up an AX GT that had a quarter of a million miles on the clock (found here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...) and that had actually proven to be a rewarding use of time, as the results once I'd done everything I was going to do were great - it was brilliant fun to drive!
The AX moved on to pastures new a while ago, but being that the Saxo is effectively the same car underneath, I could probably find the same level of enjoyment with this, what with all that free time I have.
Moreover, as well as the BX mentioned above (or one like it), the little Saxo also has its part to play in how my life came about being where it is now, as I met my wife because of it. I used to own a Saxo Furio, which I bought brand new in 2002. I spent a fair amount of time modifying it. And breaking it, too. Here's that car:
Featured the obligatory larger wheels (to ruin the ride and handling), induction kit & large exhaust (to make the weezy little engine louder) plus a myriad of other modifications of questionable taste. More importantly, I'd purchased a Haynes Max Power Modifying manual for it, and it was that manual that my future wife-to-be contacted me to purchase, as in 2004 she'd just sold this:
.....to buy this:
Well, natural progression is Nova>Saxo, right?! The picture above is the Saxo in question, and was taken on the day she bought it in Southampton. It's a 1999 VTR model, but a mk2, which is pretty rare on a V plate (majority of V-plate cars are mk1s). The build date sits it about a month and a half after mk2 production began, and being that these things are getting rarer by the day, it's probably one of the earliest mk2 Saxos around. It was cheap (at the time) too, though it had previously been in a front end collision, and had been repaired with non-gen parts (the bonnet doesn't sit right to this day!) The front panel was also ripped up, so it's lucky it's never been towed, because that bad boy would have come straight out through the bumper! And it has required breakdown recovery in the past, too, namely because a strange issue with the fuel gauge prevents it from reading correctly. Despite being well aware of this, my wife managed to run out of fuel at least twice in it. Yeah, I know.
So, what with it being so rare and all, it's good that it remained original to this day, right? Erm.....no. You see, this is a Saxo. They get modified, and this thing has been around me since 2005. I can't leave s
t alone - I have an urge to make things more st, and then realise the error of my ways down the line. The Saxo was no exception.The first notable mods came in July 2005. It was possible back then to purchase 'black' headlamps for the mk2 Saxo. It was also possible to peel the glass lens off the front, and paint the inside with some satin black in a rattle can purchased at Halfords (naturally):
It was also possible to lower the Saxo. 30mm; 40mm; 50mm.....the world was your oyster. "Lower it 60mm" says I. "It'll handle brilliantly!"
On standard dampers. Standard, 6 year old dampers, with 70k miles on them. No 21yr old Richard. No it won't. But the front came down anyway:
You'll notice the arse hasn't. That's because Saxos use (as is well-documented), torsion bar rear suspension. It's a clever setup, to be fair. All contained within one axle, with two independant trailing arms and an internal anti-roll bar. I don't know why they've dropped them, to be honest. The packaging, efficiency and handling was great. Low COG too.
Oh yes.....it was seized. I couldn't do it, so it went to a garage, and they couldn't do it either. So it drove around (well, my girlfriend had to drive around) with the arse of the thing sticking up. I bet she looked ridiculous to onlookers. I've no idea, but it was hiliarious!
Eventually the rear came down to match:
Some subtle side repeaters were added around this time, too. I actually like them, as they clean the lines of the black side moulding up. They're still on it to this day:
The final mod of the year was a set of Ultra-smoked rear lights:
The Saxo spent the remainder of 2005 being used to get about. Uni; a part-time job; socialising....even the odd cruise!
2006 rolled around in January, as years tend to do, and brought with it a shot in the spotlight! Chris Barrie (him of Red Dwarf and Brittas Empire fame) was running a series called 'Massive Speed'. One of the episodes was dedicated to 'Hot Rods', and with that, hot hatches. The obligitory Escorts and Golf GTIs were featured (including that silver A-plate mk1 Golf which seems to get absolutely everywhere), but with their finger on the pulse, they decided to dedicate some airtime to the hot hatch of the moment - the Saxo.
A request was put out for a standard car to be featured alongside a modified (ahem) car. A red VTR was lined up, but had to pull out last minute, and the VTR was drafted in to help.
They'd originally asked for a standard car to contrast the
Mr Barrie doing his thing to camera. The fact he had to bend down so far to reach the bonnet made us giggle:
A top bloke, by all accounts. Rocked up in a Transit van, and paid for everyone to go for dinner later that day. Would happily engage with anybody and was genuinely enthusiastic. I've done a couple of filming events with one of my cars, and never had anything like that.
Later that year, we drove it down to Yeovil to visit the Haynes Motor Museum; a place we'd be returning to quite a few times! On the way back, we stopped by a place of interest for pics of the VTR wearing the new VTS wheels my other half had received for her birthday:
2007 was fairly uneventful. Only thing that happened of note was the cambelt change. I'd also done the clutch and replaced the radiator with a larger VTS item by this point:
The rest was driving:
In 2007, O/H was giving thoughts to moving the Saxo on. She'd had it a few years, and had a hankering for a Fiat Coupe 20v, or a Clio 172, or even a Saxo VTS (her dream was this Saxo but with a VTS engine in it, but it just wasn't realistic). Something fun, but something she could still use daily. That's when bought another silver car to accompany the Saxo!:
The decision was made to keep the Saxo instead, as it would do 40mpg with ease, and was quite reliable. The TVR was the toy, and the Saxo was the runaround.
2008 started with a decision I kinda regret imposing, but hopefully it'll pay off. I normally hate private plates, but I bought a Xsara VTR for £350, and it came with this number plate. So, I removed the plate, gave it to O/H for her birthday (thinking even if she didn't like it, it was still worth a few quid) and then sold the Xsara on for £350!
Spoiler alert!: In 2018, we're about to remove it, but that's by the by!
2008 also brought some hassle. A car driven by large numbers of chavs, attract chavs. Turns out someone felt they needed her arches more than she did:
Scum breed scum, sadly. They'll never die out.
2009 onwards to follow.
2009 appeared, and with it the Saxo's fortunes began to head in an alternate direction.
This is the Saxo's engine, sat on the floor in our old garage. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not in the car:
The reason for this seemingly daft turn of events was that - somewhat out of the blue - it had been replaced, by this:
The registration doth lie! Yes, a 16v VTS engine. Some months earlier, in 2008, I had purchased another Xsara to smoke around in (this time, a 1.9TD). When my requirement for an old smoker lapsed, I spotted a chap in Southampton offering to sell a mk1 VTS, or swap it for something economical. The VTS was out of MoT etc., but it was worth more than my £400 Xsara. No matter to him, as a deal was struck and the cars exchanged. I was an excited little boy that day, as I'd always wanted a VTS!
Original plan had been for me to run a VTS as a daily, and O/H to run the VTR. However, life decided to alter the plan. First, O/H fell pregnant with twins, and before long we were planning to up sticks and move town, so she could be closer to her parents. That brought about with it the opportunity to move the VTS legally, as I booked it in for an MoT near work, and then at the end of the day, drove it home......to the new house! One un-MoT'd car moved, totally legitimately! Thing is, it was still un-MoT'd, because as it turned out, the bulkhead of the VTS was made of rust.
With the twins now arrived, and the VTS residing at the new house, I had a decision to make: Fix the VTS; Sell the VTS as a project: Break the VTS.
I did a bit of research into what would be involved in converting the VTR to a VTS engine, and discovered much to my amazement that it would be pretty easy. Despite one being a mk1, and the other being a mk2, it seems the fact that the VTR was such an early mk2 meant that it still used the 'single plug' engine bay loom, as opposed to the 'three-plug' setup most mk2s have. The VTR did have the 'silver-top' engine (meaning it ran roller-rockers), but it was still only the 90bhp version, so effectively the older spec. That meant that aside from some DIY wiring for the cooling fan (the VTS used a totally different arrangement to the basic VTR version, with a variable speed controller), it was almost plug 'n play.
This was all good news, as it meant the conversion of the VTR would be unnoticeable, with regards to 'modification'. No blue crimp connectors. No soldering iron - everything looking factory and original, even down to the retaining clips for the wiring loom. In fact, the only bit I couldn't use was the resonator box for the air filter, as it was to fit a mk1, and the slam panel is in a different position. Otherwise, loom; coolant hoses; gearbox; exhaust....all original VTS. And the VTR, as a model, is a little bit lighter than a VTS, so we instantly gained a MASSIVE (probably unnoticeable) performance advantage
All was good. The Saxo went straight into service, this time with me as my daily, as Nat was using our new Mondeo ST200 as a family wagon. Straight away, I realised that all the people who over the years have tried to profess that the VTS wasn't really much quicker than a VTR, were simply saying it because they had a VTR, and couldn't afford a VTS. Or they were mental. Or both.
There was a big difference! Initial pull at lower revs was the same as the low & grunty VTR, not because the torque figures were the same in the mid-range (the VTS does make more torque, but needs winding up as per a true DOHC 4-banger), but because the VTS uses a shorter final drive, giving shorter ratios than the VTR. This allows it to pick up quickly, and then once it hits 4k rpm, it finds a second wind that is totally missing from any of the 8v variants of a TU engine I've ever driven. Also, you may remember the VTS being quoted a surprising 0-60mph time of 7.2secs by Citroen. That may have been optimistic, but it was actually timed at 7.7secs by a number of mags, which is still very quick for something with only around 118bhp. The reason was the gearing - it could do 60mph in 2nd gear (just). That meant no time-sapping second gearchange, and that meant a quick 0-60mph time. The VTR, by comparison, could only muster around 57mph in second, although it hit its rev limiter over 1000rpm before the VTS, which shows just how tall the gearing in a VTR actually is.
Anyway, the shorter ratios, combined with a greater volume of compressed flammable stuff being sucked into the cylinders meant fuel consumption increased a bit. The days of easily hitting 40mpg had gone, with the Saxo now struggling to better 32mpg in daily use. Furthermore, the VTS is supposed to run a bigger exhaust silencer, but we were still running the standard VTR one (the Piper in earlier pictures had rusted away). This meant a raspy din and more puffs on the overrun than PSA ever intended. It was a good laugh!
Was.
Was a good laugh....
You see, I did the conversion in two days. I'd booked them off work in August 2009, and allowed myself two days to complete the job. I would renew the VTS' cambelt while the engine was out, because it would be daft not to (you can see where this is going).
This two days involved removing the engine/box/loom etc. from the VTS, and wheeling it out for the scrapman. Then it involved removing the engine/box/loom etc. from the VTR, changing the belts etc. on the VTS lump, and attempting to get it in and get it running. For two days' work, it sounds a tall order. It was, to be fair, but by the end of the first day I was cooking on gas. I'd removed everything from the VTS, and had the VTR in, nearly ready to remove the engine. I downed tools around 9pm and came back the next day to remove the driveshafts and lift the engine out.
The following morning arrived, and I went to start on the shafts. Immediately I hit a problem - the offside shaft, which has a bearing halfway along to support hit in a housing on the back of the engine, was seized into the housing. I spent an hour trying to free it off. After all, I wanted to keep it for the VTS engine, as the VTS shafts were goosed (one of the things it failed the MoT on).
After the hour passed, I took my angle grinder to the shaft and cut it in half, still on the car. With better access I was able to remove the housing and shaft together, and with better access came bigger, heavier tools. Eventually the housing was freed from the shaft, and refitted to the car. A new driveshaft was sourced in Southampton (again....seemingly the hub of Saxo activities in this thread) but it meant a time-sapping 30 mile round-trip. The old driveshaft (now in two pieces) was carefully placed in the box to collect a surcharge credit. I'm just thankful he (on the counter, not the Lord Almighty) opened the box, only glancing at the shaft (which was held together by the box), before shutting it and giving me £50 back. (I felt bad afterwards as I work in parts too, but I'd had my fill that day! I wanted the £50...)
All this fart-arsing around meant that by 1pm on day 2, I still hadn't removed the VTR engine. By 2pm, however, I had. There followed more fart-arsery, and by 4pm I'd figured out the wiring mods needed for the cooling fan, and done everything into the fusebox in the cabin.
By half 5, I had an engine sitting in front of me, which ran fine. I had an engine bay ready to receive it. It should have been about 2pm at this point, but my driveshaft shenanigans had led me to overrun, and the car was needed the next day for work. A third day off was not on the cards.
I began to attempt to change the cambelt, but immediately ran into bother: The drive belt tensioner was seized up, and the adjuster rounded off. What's worse, the belt was fraying and it needed changing. I had a new belt, along with a timing belt kit, but I couldn't slacken the old one off. Eventually, I cut it off, and began to start removing the timing belt. I then found that two of the timing cover bolts were rusted into their captive nut housings. 6pm had been and gone, and I had work the next day.
I elected not to change the timing belt.
I peeled back the lip of the plastic cover enough to rotate the engine (which had done around 100k miles) enough to check the condition of the belt externally (and confirm it wasn't the original one, as they're only meant to last 80k miles, and I had no paperwork with the VTS to suggest it had been changed).
I span it over enough to find a 'Gates' logo on it, and knowing that Gates didn't supply PSA for their engines (Dayco did), coupled with the fact the belt looked OK, I continued to button what parts I had managed to loosen back up, and somehow lever a new drive belt on!
The engine went in, and the pictures above were taken. It started up, and ran fine. All dials worked, including the rev counter, which I particularly liked as the VTS one red lined at 7k, whereas the VTR one redlined at 6k rpm. That meant I could bury it into the red line, by nearly 1500rpm before hitting the limiter! (simple things...)
The Saxo VTR? (or VTR 16v) was pressed into service for my 25 mile round-daily commute. Ran fine. No problems!
You can see where this is going....
This is the Saxo's engine, sat on the floor in our old garage. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not in the car:
The reason for this seemingly daft turn of events was that - somewhat out of the blue - it had been replaced, by this:
The registration doth lie! Yes, a 16v VTS engine. Some months earlier, in 2008, I had purchased another Xsara to smoke around in (this time, a 1.9TD). When my requirement for an old smoker lapsed, I spotted a chap in Southampton offering to sell a mk1 VTS, or swap it for something economical. The VTS was out of MoT etc., but it was worth more than my £400 Xsara. No matter to him, as a deal was struck and the cars exchanged. I was an excited little boy that day, as I'd always wanted a VTS!
Original plan had been for me to run a VTS as a daily, and O/H to run the VTR. However, life decided to alter the plan. First, O/H fell pregnant with twins, and before long we were planning to up sticks and move town, so she could be closer to her parents. That brought about with it the opportunity to move the VTS legally, as I booked it in for an MoT near work, and then at the end of the day, drove it home......to the new house! One un-MoT'd car moved, totally legitimately! Thing is, it was still un-MoT'd, because as it turned out, the bulkhead of the VTS was made of rust.
With the twins now arrived, and the VTS residing at the new house, I had a decision to make: Fix the VTS; Sell the VTS as a project: Break the VTS.
I did a bit of research into what would be involved in converting the VTR to a VTS engine, and discovered much to my amazement that it would be pretty easy. Despite one being a mk1, and the other being a mk2, it seems the fact that the VTR was such an early mk2 meant that it still used the 'single plug' engine bay loom, as opposed to the 'three-plug' setup most mk2s have. The VTR did have the 'silver-top' engine (meaning it ran roller-rockers), but it was still only the 90bhp version, so effectively the older spec. That meant that aside from some DIY wiring for the cooling fan (the VTS used a totally different arrangement to the basic VTR version, with a variable speed controller), it was almost plug 'n play.
This was all good news, as it meant the conversion of the VTR would be unnoticeable, with regards to 'modification'. No blue crimp connectors. No soldering iron - everything looking factory and original, even down to the retaining clips for the wiring loom. In fact, the only bit I couldn't use was the resonator box for the air filter, as it was to fit a mk1, and the slam panel is in a different position. Otherwise, loom; coolant hoses; gearbox; exhaust....all original VTS. And the VTR, as a model, is a little bit lighter than a VTS, so we instantly gained a MASSIVE (probably unnoticeable) performance advantage
All was good. The Saxo went straight into service, this time with me as my daily, as Nat was using our new Mondeo ST200 as a family wagon. Straight away, I realised that all the people who over the years have tried to profess that the VTS wasn't really much quicker than a VTR, were simply saying it because they had a VTR, and couldn't afford a VTS. Or they were mental. Or both.
There was a big difference! Initial pull at lower revs was the same as the low & grunty VTR, not because the torque figures were the same in the mid-range (the VTS does make more torque, but needs winding up as per a true DOHC 4-banger), but because the VTS uses a shorter final drive, giving shorter ratios than the VTR. This allows it to pick up quickly, and then once it hits 4k rpm, it finds a second wind that is totally missing from any of the 8v variants of a TU engine I've ever driven. Also, you may remember the VTS being quoted a surprising 0-60mph time of 7.2secs by Citroen. That may have been optimistic, but it was actually timed at 7.7secs by a number of mags, which is still very quick for something with only around 118bhp. The reason was the gearing - it could do 60mph in 2nd gear (just). That meant no time-sapping second gearchange, and that meant a quick 0-60mph time. The VTR, by comparison, could only muster around 57mph in second, although it hit its rev limiter over 1000rpm before the VTS, which shows just how tall the gearing in a VTR actually is.
Anyway, the shorter ratios, combined with a greater volume of compressed flammable stuff being sucked into the cylinders meant fuel consumption increased a bit. The days of easily hitting 40mpg had gone, with the Saxo now struggling to better 32mpg in daily use. Furthermore, the VTS is supposed to run a bigger exhaust silencer, but we were still running the standard VTR one (the Piper in earlier pictures had rusted away). This meant a raspy din and more puffs on the overrun than PSA ever intended. It was a good laugh!
Was.
Was a good laugh....
You see, I did the conversion in two days. I'd booked them off work in August 2009, and allowed myself two days to complete the job. I would renew the VTS' cambelt while the engine was out, because it would be daft not to (you can see where this is going).
This two days involved removing the engine/box/loom etc. from the VTS, and wheeling it out for the scrapman. Then it involved removing the engine/box/loom etc. from the VTR, changing the belts etc. on the VTS lump, and attempting to get it in and get it running. For two days' work, it sounds a tall order. It was, to be fair, but by the end of the first day I was cooking on gas. I'd removed everything from the VTS, and had the VTR in, nearly ready to remove the engine. I downed tools around 9pm and came back the next day to remove the driveshafts and lift the engine out.
The following morning arrived, and I went to start on the shafts. Immediately I hit a problem - the offside shaft, which has a bearing halfway along to support hit in a housing on the back of the engine, was seized into the housing. I spent an hour trying to free it off. After all, I wanted to keep it for the VTS engine, as the VTS shafts were goosed (one of the things it failed the MoT on).
After the hour passed, I took my angle grinder to the shaft and cut it in half, still on the car. With better access I was able to remove the housing and shaft together, and with better access came bigger, heavier tools. Eventually the housing was freed from the shaft, and refitted to the car. A new driveshaft was sourced in Southampton (again....seemingly the hub of Saxo activities in this thread) but it meant a time-sapping 30 mile round-trip. The old driveshaft (now in two pieces) was carefully placed in the box to collect a surcharge credit. I'm just thankful he (on the counter, not the Lord Almighty) opened the box, only glancing at the shaft (which was held together by the box), before shutting it and giving me £50 back. (I felt bad afterwards as I work in parts too, but I'd had my fill that day! I wanted the £50...)
All this fart-arsing around meant that by 1pm on day 2, I still hadn't removed the VTR engine. By 2pm, however, I had. There followed more fart-arsery, and by 4pm I'd figured out the wiring mods needed for the cooling fan, and done everything into the fusebox in the cabin.
By half 5, I had an engine sitting in front of me, which ran fine. I had an engine bay ready to receive it. It should have been about 2pm at this point, but my driveshaft shenanigans had led me to overrun, and the car was needed the next day for work. A third day off was not on the cards.
I began to attempt to change the cambelt, but immediately ran into bother: The drive belt tensioner was seized up, and the adjuster rounded off. What's worse, the belt was fraying and it needed changing. I had a new belt, along with a timing belt kit, but I couldn't slacken the old one off. Eventually, I cut it off, and began to start removing the timing belt. I then found that two of the timing cover bolts were rusted into their captive nut housings. 6pm had been and gone, and I had work the next day.
I elected not to change the timing belt.
I peeled back the lip of the plastic cover enough to rotate the engine (which had done around 100k miles) enough to check the condition of the belt externally (and confirm it wasn't the original one, as they're only meant to last 80k miles, and I had no paperwork with the VTS to suggest it had been changed).
I span it over enough to find a 'Gates' logo on it, and knowing that Gates didn't supply PSA for their engines (Dayco did), coupled with the fact the belt looked OK, I continued to button what parts I had managed to loosen back up, and somehow lever a new drive belt on!
The engine went in, and the pictures above were taken. It started up, and ran fine. All dials worked, including the rev counter, which I particularly liked as the VTS one red lined at 7k, whereas the VTR one redlined at 6k rpm. That meant I could bury it into the red line, by nearly 1500rpm before hitting the limiter! (simple things...)
The Saxo VTR? (or VTR 16v) was pressed into service for my 25 mile round-daily commute. Ran fine. No problems!
You can see where this is going....
Edited by Kitchski on Thursday 15th November 15:11
In September 2009, about 3-4 weeks after I'd (successfully, I might add) completed the conversion, my O/H and I decided to get takeaway. The Saxo was chosen to collect the Chinese of choice, as it was low on fuel (from all the raggage and hoonz) and it made sense to top it up the night before work, rather than try and find time to do it before work, by which point I would already be running late no doubt (having had little to no sleep, too - thanks newborns).
So, at around half-past 8 in the evening, I headed out to the Shell garage up the road. I pulled up, put petrol in (that's how I go about my business in petrol stations), paid the man and got back in to drive away.
Upon approaching the exit for the forecourt, the engine suddenly died. No drama; No knocks or bangs. Just cut out like I'd switched it off.
For some reason, I had a horror flashback to 2002:
You see, my blue Furio (at top of the page) had suffered cambelt problems. With only 12k miles on the clock, the cambelt had jumped when I started the car on my driveway once. I remember having this horrible feeling come over me, as I started it, and then it suddenly cut-out. For some reason, I knew it was something bad. I started it again, and heard lots of tapping and banging, before it died totally. When cranking after that, I was only met with the high-pitched whurring that anyone with no compression has come to know and love. Citroen refused to repair it on warranty (bds) because I'd lowered the car (despite them saying that the warranty would only be invalided on associated parts by anything modified - maybe the stiffer suspension 'shocked' the cambelt into jumping off?!)
A mechanic friend ended up renewing four valves, as I didn't have the confidence to try it myself at the time. It was put back together, and went back on the road. That was December 2002 (I only bought it in September 2002, so you can see I drove around a lot!)
In 2003/4, I went to visit my dying Nan in hospital in Winchester. It was to be the last time I saw her, and I drove away from the hospital somewhat emotional. I got to a petrol station in St Cross, filled up, and went to leave. Pulled back onto main road, and approached some traffic lights. The engine died just as I rolled up. I cursed, thought nothing of it, and turned the key again. That, is when I heard that noise. The noise I remember from my driveway. The sound an engine with zero compression makes when you crank the starter (those who know, know!) I couldn't believe it! I knew the timing belt had gone again, and this time I had around 24k miles on it (I managed 36k miles in two years in that car overall!) I sat at a busy set of lights, half perched on the kerb, misty-eyed and awaiting breakdown.
It was a cool moment in a way, because a load of friends heard about my plight, and all came down in a convoy (including, in a rare un-nobheaded action, Simon (S10) I think?) Everyone perched up on the kerb behind me, causing hell and traffic and all sorts. There sat a Saxo, ground on the kerb, hazards on and loads of yoofs stood around it taking turns to take the piss out of the owner. It was a weirdly sad, yet happy time.
Anyway, my Saxo went home, and I did the valves myself this time (all 8 - double points!) Put it back together with a new tensioner (unlike before) and it never had a problem again. I think the cc probably increased slightly, what with all in the dents in the top of the piston...
So back to 2009, and I'm at the Shell garage. The VTR? cuts out, and all the above suddenly races through my head. My chest tightened, as the timing belt had been on my mind because I'd been pondering how the fk to remove it with all the rusted up bolts.
Very, very gingerly, I flipped the ignition key.
The Saxo started instantly, and ran fine. No problems. Full performance was still there (which I exploited leaving the petrol station - don't want to let the side down, do I? Saxo owners have a reputation, you know!) and the car behaved fine.
I continued my drive to get the Chinese, and headed home. Upon reached the road before ours, I negotiated a junction, and once more the car cut-out.
"fk sake" says I, realising I've now got a problem to look into before flipping the key.
No compression.
"WTF?!"
Seriously.
As coincidences go, this one was as ridiculous as it was cruel. I rang the O/H to inform her that her car had died, and that her Chinese was going cold. She contacted her Dad, who arrived to help me push it the 200m or so back to our house.
I went in, tried to force-feed myself cold Chinese, and went back out at around 10:30pm with a screwdriver. I forced the cambelt cover open (breaking the rusted screw fixing) to see if I could see anything.
Well, I saw the camshaft pulleys....no belt on them, though! You couldn't make it up.
So, less than a month after the conversion was done, and with some emergency time off arranged, I ploughed back into the Saxo and started undoing half the st I'd just done up.
The head had come off fairly easily, and thankfully no real issues working on the engine itself. Pistons were OK (TU's are tough beasts), but the aftermath was pretty easy to see:
12 bent valves. Dented pistons. Damaged valve seats. Great.
A set of 16v used valves were obtained on eBay, from a broken 106 GTi. They weren't even cleaned! I wire-brushed them, and the head. Garage was full of grit and dust, and conditions were far from ideal for such a job. I didn't lap them in, and I didn't check the guides for wear. It was going back together, and it would run how it would run. I didn't give a fk by this point. In fact, the only fk I gave was to change the water pump, as I was fked if I was leaving anything on this engine that could cause a cambelt to fail again!
That in itself was a nightmare, as the alloy pump had fused to the iron block. It came off after persuasion by chisel, but it put up a fight and took about 90mins of swearing. I remember taking this picture, to remind myself in the future how stressed out I got!:
Two other, smaller jobs I did while the head was in bits, was to renew the valve stem seals (blue smoke is not cool), and to strip, clean and re-dress the hydraulic lifters. I hate tappy engines, and one of these had got a bit noisy on certain cold starts. Being that winter was coming (way before GoT, this) I didn't want to chance it.
The engine was otherwise slapped back together, with gay abandon!
(You can see the crack in the timing belt cover where I forced it open! A cable tie holds it to this day...)
I fired it up, almost nervously. No, that's a lie - I was stting my cacks. But I didn't need to, for the Saxo immediately fired up, and ran beautifully. That was a relief, knowing I'd cut some corners during the process! However, the best was to come, as having got the Saxo back out onto the road, I found a smoother, keener revving and more urgent feeling machine! It was actually quicker! The power was less like a switch than before, and it pulled (or it felt like it pulled) right up to the limiter! There's a chance it wasn't timed quite right before, and that, potentially, I had!
So, some used valves, some damaged pistons, some worn guides and some damaged valve seats later, and I'd improved the engine! I'd recommend grenading your cambelt to any VTS owner!
Thankfully, the year that followed was 2010, and that had much less in store, drama-wise. In fact, all that really happened (other than it racking up the miles) was that I got two jobs done that I'd been meaning to do:
Firstly, I'd fitted the proper plastic fuel return hose to the tank from the engine (the VTR initially didn't have a return hose, just a pressure regulator on the tank), which replaced the temporary rubber job I'd fitted during the conversion weekend (that leaked, and constantly led the interior to reek of petrol). It meant removal of the seat and carpet, as the fuel lines are in the cabin on a Saxo (so if you're in a Saxo and the nearside catches fire, bail out quick!)
Secondly, I fitted some big brakes, from a 306 GTi-6. You know, cos bigger is better!
Results? Much bigger brakes, more unsprung weight and only marginally better stopping power. Oh, and we're now limited to 15in wheels as a minimum. Hmmmm....
2011 wasn't too bad, though we had some indications as to what the future may hold for the little French rattle-rocket:
Yeah. Lots of that. Failed the MoT on it too. bds. bds everywhere.
Seems my assumption that the Saxo would resist rust admirably was confined to just the bodywork. It's since transpired that Saxos rust like absolutes. Yay me!
That repairs I did that year weren't pretty, so they aren't shown because I didn't take any pictures of my rushed-handiwork (in case I was feeling down one day, and might tip myself over the edge having been reminded).
2012 was a year of natural disasters of biblical proportions, but in Saxo-land, it was uneventful to the point that no images of 2012 are to be found of the Saxo! It just continued to drive around and do its thing. At some point along the line, I'd removed the god-awful 60mm PI lowering springs and knackered shocks, and fitted some 35mm Eibach versions with replacement shocks. I remember that improving the car dramatically, but I can't remember when that happened. Probably before the VTS conversion in 2009.
Anyway, my late lunch-break has expired, so 2013 onwards will follow later.
Kudos if you've managed to stay awake through all this!
So, at around half-past 8 in the evening, I headed out to the Shell garage up the road. I pulled up, put petrol in (that's how I go about my business in petrol stations), paid the man and got back in to drive away.
Upon approaching the exit for the forecourt, the engine suddenly died. No drama; No knocks or bangs. Just cut out like I'd switched it off.
For some reason, I had a horror flashback to 2002:
You see, my blue Furio (at top of the page) had suffered cambelt problems. With only 12k miles on the clock, the cambelt had jumped when I started the car on my driveway once. I remember having this horrible feeling come over me, as I started it, and then it suddenly cut-out. For some reason, I knew it was something bad. I started it again, and heard lots of tapping and banging, before it died totally. When cranking after that, I was only met with the high-pitched whurring that anyone with no compression has come to know and love. Citroen refused to repair it on warranty (b
ds) because I'd lowered the car (despite them saying that the warranty would only be invalided on associated parts by anything modified - maybe the stiffer suspension 'shocked' the cambelt into jumping off?!)A mechanic friend ended up renewing four valves, as I didn't have the confidence to try it myself at the time. It was put back together, and went back on the road. That was December 2002 (I only bought it in September 2002, so you can see I drove around a lot!)
In 2003/4, I went to visit my dying Nan in hospital in Winchester. It was to be the last time I saw her, and I drove away from the hospital somewhat emotional. I got to a petrol station in St Cross, filled up, and went to leave. Pulled back onto main road, and approached some traffic lights. The engine died just as I rolled up. I cursed, thought nothing of it, and turned the key again. That, is when I heard that noise. The noise I remember from my driveway. The sound an engine with zero compression makes when you crank the starter (those who know, know!) I couldn't believe it! I knew the timing belt had gone again, and this time I had around 24k miles on it (I managed 36k miles in two years in that car overall!) I sat at a busy set of lights, half perched on the kerb, misty-eyed and awaiting breakdown.
It was a cool moment in a way, because a load of friends heard about my plight, and all came down in a convoy (including, in a rare un-nobheaded action, Simon (S10) I think?) Everyone perched up on the kerb behind me, causing hell and traffic and all sorts. There sat a Saxo, ground on the kerb, hazards on and loads of yoofs stood around it taking turns to take the piss out of the owner. It was a weirdly sad, yet happy time.
Anyway, my Saxo went home, and I did the valves myself this time (all 8 - double points!) Put it back together with a new tensioner (unlike before) and it never had a problem again. I think the cc probably increased slightly, what with all in the dents in the top of the piston...
So back to 2009, and I'm at the Shell garage. The VTR? cuts out, and all the above suddenly races through my head. My chest tightened, as the timing belt had been on my mind because I'd been pondering how the f
k to remove it with all the rusted up bolts.Very, very gingerly, I flipped the ignition key.
The Saxo started instantly, and ran fine. No problems. Full performance was still there (which I exploited leaving the petrol station - don't want to let the side down, do I? Saxo owners have a reputation, you know!) and the car behaved fine.
I continued my drive to get the Chinese, and headed home. Upon reached the road before ours, I negotiated a junction, and once more the car cut-out.
"f
k sake" says I, realising I've now got a problem to look into before flipping the key.No compression.
"WTF?!"
Seriously.
As coincidences go, this one was as ridiculous as it was cruel. I rang the O/H to inform her that her car had died, and that her Chinese was going cold. She contacted her Dad, who arrived to help me push it the 200m or so back to our house.
I went in, tried to force-feed myself cold Chinese, and went back out at around 10:30pm with a screwdriver. I forced the cambelt cover open (breaking the rusted screw fixing) to see if I could see anything.
Well, I saw the camshaft pulleys....no belt on them, though! You couldn't make it up.
So, less than a month after the conversion was done, and with some emergency time off arranged, I ploughed back into the Saxo and started undoing half the s
t I'd just done up.The head had come off fairly easily, and thankfully no real issues working on the engine itself. Pistons were OK (TU's are tough beasts), but the aftermath was pretty easy to see:
12 bent valves. Dented pistons. Damaged valve seats. Great.
A set of 16v used valves were obtained on eBay, from a broken 106 GTi. They weren't even cleaned! I wire-brushed them, and the head. Garage was full of grit and dust, and conditions were far from ideal for such a job. I didn't lap them in, and I didn't check the guides for wear. It was going back together, and it would run how it would run. I didn't give a f
k by this point. In fact, the only fk I gave was to change the water pump, as I was fked if I was leaving anything on this engine that could cause a cambelt to fail again! That in itself was a nightmare, as the alloy pump had fused to the iron block. It came off after persuasion by chisel, but it put up a fight and took about 90mins of swearing. I remember taking this picture, to remind myself in the future how stressed out I got!:
Two other, smaller jobs I did while the head was in bits, was to renew the valve stem seals (blue smoke is not cool), and to strip, clean and re-dress the hydraulic lifters. I hate tappy engines, and one of these had got a bit noisy on certain cold starts. Being that winter was coming (way before GoT, this) I didn't want to chance it.
The engine was otherwise slapped back together, with gay abandon!
(You can see the crack in the timing belt cover where I forced it open! A cable tie holds it to this day...)
I fired it up, almost nervously. No, that's a lie - I was s
tting my cacks. But I didn't need to, for the Saxo immediately fired up, and ran beautifully. That was a relief, knowing I'd cut some corners during the process! However, the best was to come, as having got the Saxo back out onto the road, I found a smoother, keener revving and more urgent feeling machine! It was actually quicker! The power was less like a switch than before, and it pulled (or it felt like it pulled) right up to the limiter! There's a chance it wasn't timed quite right before, and that, potentially, I had!So, some used valves, some damaged pistons, some worn guides and some damaged valve seats later, and I'd improved the engine! I'd recommend grenading your cambelt to any VTS owner!
Thankfully, the year that followed was 2010, and that had much less in store, drama-wise. In fact, all that really happened (other than it racking up the miles) was that I got two jobs done that I'd been meaning to do:
Firstly, I'd fitted the proper plastic fuel return hose to the tank from the engine (the VTR initially didn't have a return hose, just a pressure regulator on the tank), which replaced the temporary rubber job I'd fitted during the conversion weekend (that leaked, and constantly led the interior to reek of petrol). It meant removal of the seat and carpet, as the fuel lines are in the cabin on a Saxo (so if you're in a Saxo and the nearside catches fire, bail out quick!)
Secondly, I fitted some big brakes, from a 306 GTi-6. You know, cos bigger is better!
Results? Much bigger brakes, more unsprung weight and only marginally better stopping power. Oh, and we're now limited to 15in wheels as a minimum. Hmmmm....
2011 wasn't too bad, though we had some indications as to what the future may hold for the little French rattle-rocket:
Yeah. Lots of that. Failed the MoT on it too. b
ds. bds everywhere.Seems my assumption that the Saxo would resist rust admirably was confined to just the bodywork. It's since transpired that Saxos rust like absolute
s. Yay me!That repairs I did that year weren't pretty, so they aren't shown because I didn't take any pictures of my rushed-handiwork (in case I was feeling down one day, and might tip myself over the edge having been reminded).
2012 was a year of natural disasters of biblical proportions, but in Saxo-land, it was uneventful to the point that no images of 2012 are to be found of the Saxo! It just continued to drive around and do its thing. At some point along the line, I'd removed the god-awful 60mm PI lowering springs and knackered shocks, and fitted some 35mm Eibach versions with replacement shocks. I remember that improving the car dramatically, but I can't remember when that happened. Probably before the VTS conversion in 2009.
Anyway, my late lunch-break has expired, so 2013 onwards will follow later.
Kudos if you've managed to stay awake through all this!
Edited by Kitchski on Thursday 15th November 16:07
Wow! Didn't expect the Saxo to garner so many kind comments!
Fun times ensued on that sliproad
I painted it with Hammerite as it's all I had to hand, so it'll need doing again now. I'll photo it this time!
More installments to follow! Got 2013 up to today to deal with yet, and then it'll switch to a live-running one, as it's still here.
PorkRind said:
Cool little cars, i almost got the vts instead of my polo 16v, i obviously made the wrong choice but the polo took a ragging :P.
Funny story - one of the first drives out in the Saxo post-16v treatment involved joining the motorway late one night alongside a young lad who was very keen to overtake me in his Polo GTI. Probably saw the 'VTR' plate and thought "That'll be easy!" Fun times ensued on that sliproad
C7 JFW said:
Great read - some more of this please! Definitely like the story behind it and I don't think you've done anything daft whatsoever.
Not changing the cambelt's got to be up there, though?GIYess said:
WHo doesn't know someone who owned a saxo? My brother had several all within roughly 3 years as he wrote off two in as short a time! I always thought the looked quite good though. Nice tidy looking one that. I want one.
My dad hasn't. Oh, I see what you mean...martin mrt said:
Keep the updates coming, loving this thread as it brings me back to 2004/5 when I met mini MRTs mother, she was driving a Saxo VTR and it received the same mods as this. Lowered VTS wheels etc
hashtag standard. bungz said:
Teasing all the way through that I knew there would be some bodging/welding and you didn't photo it 
great reads as always.
It wasn't bodged as such, it was just rushed while upside-down on a Saturday afternoon, with a poorly welder and gravity doing it's level best to ruin my welds! But they were awful!great reads as always.
I painted it with Hammerite as it's all I had to hand, so it'll need doing again now. I'll photo it this time!
More installments to follow! Got 2013 up to today to deal with yet, and then it'll switch to a live-running one, as it's still here.
therusterman said:
Always enjoy reading your threads Kitchski, this one more than most. There's a few lads over on detailing world who are showing much love for the saxo - may be worth a look
Ah yes, I saw a guy on Facebook linking to that the other day. He's got a few VTS', and some are ex-press cars apparently? One is the car Citroen UK used in the brochure, and he spent ages looking for the exact spot this particular image of it was taken, to recreate it.I was friends with him on FB, but I think I had a cull of people I didn't really 'know' and he went in that.
2013 continued on with no dramas, until the winter, when it ran out of MoT. The number of miles the VTR? had been covering each year was dwindling, as since taking over Southways Automotive, my daily commute amounted to around a mile 10 round trip! I had another car on the road, and so the Saxo wasn't critical, though it would be nice to keep it moving.
It first received some love in November. Originally, the VTR was available with four different seat fabrics (as opposed to the VTS' two). The first was a grey velour, with little blue flecks and plain doorcards (as fitted to the very first VTRs). Then came the grey fabric with what looked like green paint splashes all over the place, including the doorcards (the VTS also used this). Both interiors were plush, by Saxo standards.
When the mk2 Saxo was launched, Citroen took the VTR and VTS in slightly different directions. Up until this point, they'd been pretty similar; The VTS received a slightly thicker anti-roll bar on the rear, some rear headrests, an oil gauge, ABS and an optional passenger airbag. Everything else was the same.
With the mk2, it was decided to take the VTS further upmarket. Side airbags were fitted, and the seats were now covered in another typically manic 1990's French patterned velour, lifted this time from the Xsara VTS. The VTR's interior, meanwhile, received what was actually the cheapest, most bargain-basement fabric used in the poverty-spec Xsara and Xantia models. Some plastic trim was removed inside (notably the inner C-pillar trims), and - bafflingly - the ECU cover! The rear quarter cards lost their upholstery altogether, and the VTS was also now wearing the 15in 5-spoke wheels, while the VTR carried on with the 14's (which I personally love!)
(the very last VTRs had a black fabric with random triangles & spots on it, IIRC)
This mean that our VTR? was making doing with this interior, the 3rd version offered:
Anyone who's driven a Saxo will know just how poor the seats are. The driving position isn't great, though if you're short it's not too bad. The seats offer very little support, however. A common modification by Saxo owners was to fit the semi-leather/alcantara seats from a 106GTi. These were not only pleasingly more upmarket, but they were also much more comfortable and supportive. The drawback is that nearly all the sets you'd find offered for sale were ripped, and if they weren't, they were a million dollars. The other issue was that the doorcards wouldn't match particularly well, unless you managed to find a very rare set of plain grey velour cards, as used in the earliest VTRs (as the 106 also used plain grey velour).
Imagine my astonishment when I hit eBay one day and found, for £150, a set of 106 GTi seats in FULL leather. Yup, the very rare, optional full leather interior! It seems nobody else had noticed it, either, so I hit 'buy it now' immediately! They were advertised as being a bit tired, but totally usable. Only a bolster on the driver's seat really needed attention, but for the money (mint semi-leather interiors were normally around £300 at one point) I wasn't fussed.
They arrived on a pallet from the scrapyard in Dorset:
(camera phones have moved on a fair bit since then, evidently!)
Sadly, the Saxo wasn't to receive them any time soon. The MoT had been attempted, and the MoT had been refused. The Saxo was rotten
It first received some love in November. Originally, the VTR was available with four different seat fabrics (as opposed to the VTS' two). The first was a grey velour, with little blue flecks and plain doorcards (as fitted to the very first VTRs). Then came the grey fabric with what looked like green paint splashes all over the place, including the doorcards (the VTS also used this). Both interiors were plush, by Saxo standards.
When the mk2 Saxo was launched, Citroen took the VTR and VTS in slightly different directions. Up until this point, they'd been pretty similar; The VTS received a slightly thicker anti-roll bar on the rear, some rear headrests, an oil gauge, ABS and an optional passenger airbag. Everything else was the same.
With the mk2, it was decided to take the VTS further upmarket. Side airbags were fitted, and the seats were now covered in another typically manic 1990's French patterned velour, lifted this time from the Xsara VTS. The VTR's interior, meanwhile, received what was actually the cheapest, most bargain-basement fabric used in the poverty-spec Xsara and Xantia models. Some plastic trim was removed inside (notably the inner C-pillar trims), and - bafflingly - the ECU cover! The rear quarter cards lost their upholstery altogether, and the VTS was also now wearing the 15in 5-spoke wheels, while the VTR carried on with the 14's (which I personally love!)
(the very last VTRs had a black fabric with random triangles & spots on it, IIRC)
This mean that our VTR? was making doing with this interior, the 3rd version offered:
Anyone who's driven a Saxo will know just how poor the seats are. The driving position isn't great, though if you're short it's not too bad. The seats offer very little support, however. A common modification by Saxo owners was to fit the semi-leather/alcantara seats from a 106GTi. These were not only pleasingly more upmarket, but they were also much more comfortable and supportive. The drawback is that nearly all the sets you'd find offered for sale were ripped, and if they weren't, they were a million dollars. The other issue was that the doorcards wouldn't match particularly well, unless you managed to find a very rare set of plain grey velour cards, as used in the earliest VTRs (as the 106 also used plain grey velour).
Imagine my astonishment when I hit eBay one day and found, for £150, a set of 106 GTi seats in FULL leather. Yup, the very rare, optional full leather interior! It seems nobody else had noticed it, either, so I hit 'buy it now' immediately! They were advertised as being a bit tired, but totally usable. Only a bolster on the driver's seat really needed attention, but for the money (mint semi-leather interiors were normally around £300 at one point) I wasn't fussed.
They arrived on a pallet from the scrapyard in Dorset:
(camera phones have moved on a fair bit since then, evidently!)
Sadly, the Saxo wasn't to receive them any time soon. The MoT had been attempted, and the MoT had been refused. The Saxo was rotten
f1nn said:
Loving the thread, but as someone who spent far too much money on them when they were new, a few corrections...
Yeah, I recognise your name from SSC days, I think? I was 'Icey_Furio' on there. You had a silver VTS, I think? With body-coloured mouldings?Anyway, always good to learn some stuff!
f1nn said:
VTS got 15” wheels as standard on while still on phase 2 of the Mk1 body shape in 99, prior to the mk2 being launched. The rear seats were always different on mk1 r and S models, with the S having split fold and rear headrests as standard. R models not unless (rarely) optioned
I was actually aware of the late mk1's getting the 15's, but didn't want to start overloading on detail And yes, I remember seeing the VTS' with separate headrests, and the VTR with the 'humps' either side of the rear bench. I did go out with a girl who had a very early mk1 VTR though, and that had separate rest headrests. Like you say, probably specced at the dealer.f1nn said:
As you say, the early Mk2 VTR’s were the most sparse, with c pillar trims missing and also a 120mphrather than 140mph speedo, but these were put back in for the mid 2001 revision when it changed seat trims to the below.
This is an interesting one, as my wife had only the other day said she swore some of the VTRs had 120mph speedos, but I wasn't sure. I know the early ones had 130mph speedos, but couldn't suss where the 120mph ones came in. Your comments about the early mk2 VTR initially prompted me to prepare a retaliatory reaction, until I remembered this car had a new dial cluster in around 2002, hence it has a 140mph speedo! It's bugging me that it shouldn't, but it's probably just as well it does, seeing as it has the ability to do 130mph now f1nn said:
Side airbags were not standard on the VTS at the mk2 introduction in very late 99, but came much later, 2001 IIRC. At this time the VTR also gained them as a very option, coinciding with the run out, grey squares and coloured triangles trim which ran to the end of production. The VTS rear headrest design also changed in terms of design and material around this point.
Ah, yes so not all cars had them? I remember the later headrests (they overlapped the top of the seat back, for a slightly more modern look?)f1nn said:
Also, there are two designs of 14” VTR wheel which although look almost identical, have different part numbers and require different wheel bolts.
I had no idea of that! I'm guessing they were later cars, using the shorter bolts used on the C2 et al?PorkRind said:
Ive not really followed citroens little cars with much interest, do they still make a nippy hatch or was this the last in the line!?
After the Saxo, they only made a couple of hot(ish) hatches:C2 VTR - 10bhp less than Saxo, more weight, and a crap gearbox.
C2 GT - As above but with some weight removed, and a manual box.
C2 VTS - As above, but with 125bhp (bigger valve head), 17in wheels. None of the C2s are as agile as the Saxo was. They're taller and heavier.
C4 VTS 180 - I've got one. It's not hot! Funky and interesting, but not hot. Saxo VTS would eat it.
DS3 Racing - Don't know much about them. 200bhp, but again, heavy. Haven't heard anyone say great things about them.
Crying out for a C1 GT IMO.
S100HP said:
Yeah that's it. I didn't delete him as it turns out, he left FB. He's back now, and had a read of this. He's doing some good work on his VTS' Edited by Kitchski on Monday 19th November 11:05
Well, I promised a rotten Saxo, and I'm a man of my word!
I never knew Saxos would be awful for rust. Most Citroens after the Visa have been pretty good, and indeed, the AX that I know and love only started to cause problems later in its life.
But the Saxo? Oh the Saxo! It likes to corrode!
Where does it like to corrode? It would be easier to ask where it doesn't like to corrode! That would be the bodywork. Oh, and the glass.
Underneath is a different story. The worst part for rust on a Paxo, has to be the inner rear arches. This is where the VTR? failed the MoT. Initially I got underneath the car on the ramp to assess the situation:
....which didn't look great!
Now, the failure point in the rear arch (nearside only) was small. My MoT man said would be a small patch, and he'd circled it with yellow crayon to highlight it.
Because it was such a small repair, I never even bothered taking a picture of it before I started routing around. What I did instead, was remove the rear bumper, poke a bit (only a little bit), and let out a significant expulsion of carbon dioxde (possibly with the faint scent of bacon Frazzles, as it was after lunch):
You can just see the yellow crayon mark. The hole he'd failed it on originally, as about the size of a 10p coin.
What it turned into, was bigger:
Much bigger:
I'd literally just offer the faintest lift to a random patch of original underseal with a plastic scraper, and it'd simply peel away, complete with the corroded remnants of a section of French steel. Those are the seatbelt mounts at the top of the arch!
The offside, which hadn't been mentioned in the MoT at all, fared a bit better:
You can see by the state of the rear discs that the car had already been sat around once the ticket had run out, and even at this stage my wife wasn't totally sure what to do with the car. She had no real need for it, as her days involved moved our (now three) young boys around, and as such she had a people carrier. She was in this catch 22 situation, where she should have sold it before, because she was now too attached to it. I'd been running it as a daily for the past year or so, but I now had a slightly larger car which I'd use to ferry the kids around too (and I had that old BX estate!)
Basically, she knew it was a big repair. The car had other problems by this point too, chief of which was that it kept filling up with water!
She began to get quite down about it. It was a weight around her neck, really. We met because of this car (among others), and here it was with no purpose in life. It wasn't used, it wasn't safe, and it wasn't worth anything financially either (no Saxo was, and I suspect only the early VTS' will ever climb to a noticeable value, let alone a non-original poverty-spec mk2 VTR).
The only reason you'd even consider repairing this car, and sinking hours and hours of work into it, would be sentiment.
So, one day while she sat at home getting on with whatever she got on with, trying not to think about the rusted Saxo, I set about putting it right behind her back. Back axle off, and two wheels placed in the boot to stop the car tipping off the front of the ramp (turns out the back of a Saxo isn't very heavy!):
I do my best with 'invisible' repairs, but I only had limited time to do this, inbetween customer cars. We normally use this ramp for the removal and fitting of TVR bodyshells to chassis', and the Saxo only had a limited window of operation!
Sadly, I just didn't have the time to try and replicate the 'ribs' in the side walls of the boot. Annoys me now, but I was really up against it. I was also arriving home late from work most nights, and not being able to tell my wife why (I was planning it as an Xmas surprise)
The sections are all arranged as per an original car, though. The only difference is that I've used thicker-gauge steel in the load-bearing areas, but you can't see those externally.
Then it was on to the offside:
Once all that was done, I set about painting it all. Again, a lack of time left me with a less-than perfect finished product (would have preferred epoxy mastic with OE silver over the top), but it had to do as time was pressing:
Another advantage to the removal of the rear axle was that we got to raise the car back up. Basically, a guy on the industrial estate I'm on wanted a lowered beam for a slightly newer VTR. I wanted an original one. Straight swap it is then!
At this point, I reffited the VTS springs from the mk1 (probably the same anyway) and the original VTR front brakes.
The car had been wearing a Magnex single-box system that I'd picked up for peanuts in the previous years at some point, but the size of it always bugged me. It went back on the car, but I knew I'd be pulling it off again soon.
At last, the Saxo was back on the deck
That meant it was finally time to enjoy the new seats!
With the seats in place, it was off to the MoT station. Again.
By this time, it was 2014! But, no matter - the Saxo had an MoT!
I never knew Saxos would be awful for rust. Most Citroens after the Visa have been pretty good, and indeed, the AX that I know and love only started to cause problems later in its life.
But the Saxo? Oh the Saxo! It likes to corrode!
Where does it like to corrode? It would be easier to ask where it doesn't like to corrode! That would be the bodywork. Oh, and the glass.
Underneath is a different story. The worst part for rust on a Paxo, has to be the inner rear arches. This is where the VTR? failed the MoT. Initially I got underneath the car on the ramp to assess the situation:
....which didn't look great!
Now, the failure point in the rear arch (nearside only) was small. My MoT man said would be a small patch, and he'd circled it with yellow crayon to highlight it.
Because it was such a small repair, I never even bothered taking a picture of it before I started routing around. What I did instead, was remove the rear bumper, poke a bit (only a little bit), and let out a significant expulsion of carbon dioxde (possibly with the faint scent of bacon Frazzles, as it was after lunch):
You can just see the yellow crayon mark. The hole he'd failed it on originally, as about the size of a 10p coin.
What it turned into, was bigger:
Much bigger:
I'd literally just offer the faintest lift to a random patch of original underseal with a plastic scraper, and it'd simply peel away, complete with the corroded remnants of a section of French steel. Those are the seatbelt mounts at the top of the arch!
The offside, which hadn't been mentioned in the MoT at all, fared a bit better:
You can see by the state of the rear discs that the car had already been sat around once the ticket had run out, and even at this stage my wife wasn't totally sure what to do with the car. She had no real need for it, as her days involved moved our (now three) young boys around, and as such she had a people carrier. She was in this catch 22 situation, where she should have sold it before, because she was now too attached to it. I'd been running it as a daily for the past year or so, but I now had a slightly larger car which I'd use to ferry the kids around too (and I had that old BX estate!)
Basically, she knew it was a big repair. The car had other problems by this point too, chief of which was that it kept filling up with water!
She began to get quite down about it. It was a weight around her neck, really. We met because of this car (among others), and here it was with no purpose in life. It wasn't used, it wasn't safe, and it wasn't worth anything financially either (no Saxo was, and I suspect only the early VTS' will ever climb to a noticeable value, let alone a non-original poverty-spec mk2 VTR).
The only reason you'd even consider repairing this car, and sinking hours and hours of work into it, would be sentiment.
So, one day while she sat at home getting on with whatever she got on with, trying not to think about the rusted Saxo, I set about putting it right behind her back. Back axle off, and two wheels placed in the boot to stop the car tipping off the front of the ramp (turns out the back of a Saxo isn't very heavy!):
I do my best with 'invisible' repairs, but I only had limited time to do this, inbetween customer cars. We normally use this ramp for the removal and fitting of TVR bodyshells to chassis', and the Saxo only had a limited window of operation!
Sadly, I just didn't have the time to try and replicate the 'ribs' in the side walls of the boot. Annoys me now, but I was really up against it. I was also arriving home late from work most nights, and not being able to tell my wife why (I was planning it as an Xmas surprise)
The sections are all arranged as per an original car, though. The only difference is that I've used thicker-gauge steel in the load-bearing areas, but you can't see those externally.
Then it was on to the offside:
Once all that was done, I set about painting it all. Again, a lack of time left me with a less-than perfect finished product (would have preferred epoxy mastic with OE silver over the top), but it had to do as time was pressing:
Another advantage to the removal of the rear axle was that we got to raise the car back up. Basically, a guy on the industrial estate I'm on wanted a lowered beam for a slightly newer VTR. I wanted an original one. Straight swap it is then!
At this point, I reffited the VTS springs from the mk1 (probably the same anyway) and the original VTR front brakes.
The car had been wearing a Magnex single-box system that I'd picked up for peanuts in the previous years at some point, but the size of it always bugged me. It went back on the car, but I knew I'd be pulling it off again soon.
At last, the Saxo was back on the deck
That meant it was finally time to enjoy the new seats!
With the seats in place, it was off to the MoT station. Again.
By this time, it was 2014! But, no matter - the Saxo had an MoT!
Had originally penned some of this out, but just had a powercut in Portsmouth (big one, blew up a transformer apparently!) That resulted in a dip in power for us in Fareham, which rebooted my PC and damn near killed it! I've managed to recover it...just. You lucky, lucky people!
So let's see if I can wrap this up and bring us up to date!
Next up post-rust repairs, was to renew the lower engine mount bush/stabiliser. This had needed doing for some time, and being a Powerflex convert, I opted for one of their engine mounts. I use Powerflex in many cars, and I love the improved feel and response, but with an absence of harshness or vibration.
Bush fitted at around 5:45pm one day (original on the left, PF on the right):
PF bush removed and original reffited at around 6:30pm, after I'd tried starting the engine.
PF bush sold on eBay. Fillings replaced the following week.
One of the areas I wasn't happy with, if you cast your eyes back up a bit, was the John-boy exhaust. The tailpipe was just too damn big. The exhaust note was deep and boomy too. It had to go, but with an absence of decent OE style exhausts on the market now (most cheap aftermarket stuff is awful, and doesn't fit properly), keeping the Magnex was still beneficial in many ways. It wasn't too loud with the cat in (popped and banging without it though!)
I set about trying to improve the look:
Granted, it doesn't look much better now. But wait...
As tempting as it was to keep the pea-shooter, my sister had recent had a new backbox fitted to her 206 GTi, and her original was going in the skip. Not before I harvested the tailpipe, however:
The 206 tailpipe is almost identical to the types used on the Saxo, so win-win! The alignment isn't exactly as per OEM, but it's close enough!
With the close of 2014 seeing the Saxo hit the road, 2015 brought with it some cold realities:
(For Fareham, that is A LOT of snow!)
But no, the drop in temperature wasn't related to the climate. It was more a cold reality that I wasn't enjoying the induction noise of the Saxo. I want my old French hot hatches to be waggly of tail, short of gear, and roarty of induction noise. The Saxo had two of these nailed, but not the third. A quick drive in another VTS we had in at Southways confirmed that an induction kit would, indeed, bring the noise.
I didn't want to spend actual money, but luckily the guy who had the axle off me the year before was breaking a 106, and he gave me the induction kit from it.
Before fitting this, I shot blasted and painted the rocker covers in red crinkle paint. I did it more as a test before I did my TVR, but I'm kinda regretting it now!
Plan was to paint the fake carbon air box gloss black, but still haven't done that! But the induction kit did, at least, bring the noise. Induction sound is pretty good now, and it feels a more eager performer with it on there, though I'm sure that's just a placebo.
Speaking of eager performance, I'm lucky enough to have a rolling road at work. I've always felt the Saxo seemed even quicker than I would have expected, so I was keen to strap it onto the dyno to see what's what. Book figure is 118bhp DIN (DIN being the metric correction factor for horsepower). It was often rounded up to 120bhp.
For some reason, the standard 100k mile engine in the VTR? seemed to be rounding up to a higher number...
The corrected engine power line is the one to look at, as it's not variable by climate. 132.7bhp! And, it did 8 runs that day, before and after I installed waterless coolant in it. It actually averaged slightly more power (by about 0.5bhp) before the waterless stuff went in. That's no reflection on the coolant itself, as it could have easily been 0.5bhp the other way, but it does show Evans claim that you increase power is false, or certainly in the case of this car.
And it's also worth pointing out that the corrected figure above is SAE - one of the rare instances where the world has gone backwards and used imperial measurements. To put that into context, DIN (metric) is worth a bit more 'per horse', and a straight comparison with the original numbers results thus:
138.9bhp/122lbft! I've absolutely no idea where this comes from! It's a standard engine, I know that. It does run a Magnex full exhaust system, but to be honest, I wouldn't expect a gain from that.
I also know that quite a few of the PSA engines that go on here (the older ones, mainly) seem to always match or even beat their book figures. It's possible the VTS is under-quoted, and to be fair, they always feel faster than 120bhp, and seem to keep up with more serious machinery.
Since this, I've done more runs, with the lowest being 128bhp SAE, but normally matching the 132bhp. I'll try and do one again before 2018 ends, and see where it lands.
Regards the coolant, that was also installed in 2015. We became an agent for Evans coolants, and I wanted a trustworthy car to practice conversions on, and learn a bit about the product. What better car than the Saxo?!
The Saxo loves this stuff! It warms up more quickly in the winter (thanks to oil/coolant heat exchanger), and it's as clean today as the day it went in. It'll last the life of the engine too.
We filmed a video of the Saxo on the dyno at full temp, and at full chat. During the power run, we removed the coolant cap:
https://youtu.be/z9MW9FxamUE
Try doing that with water!
We move on to 2016, and it was time to address another issue - water. "Oi, nobhead! You just said you don't run it on water anymore!" Ah, yes, you're quite right. I'm talking about rainwater, which is sadly something we see quite a lot of in the UK (although I think 2018 has been pretty fair regards precipitation....maybe it's just me?!)
But yes, if it rains in the sky, it rains in the Saxo. It was coming in everywhere! The footwells would fill up; the windows would fog up, and if it was frosty overnight, you'd be de-icing the inside of the windows.
It was important to get this right, too. Why? Because I'm happy to report than my wife began to use the car to commute in once more! She got a job fairly local, and needed a small car to fit in the spaces, and the S-Max is too big, and gets bumped into all the time. So she - as is exactly how things should be - is using the Saxo daily at this point
But yes, she has wet feet. First off, the interior light was drained, and it was found the radio aerial was leaking, due to an old seal that was no longer.....well, sealing.
But that wasn't it. Window rubbers, door rubbers....you name it, I changed it. I even sealed up the sunroof in desperation, but still the Saxo continued to voluntarily try and keep the ground very slightly drier.
Eventually I gave in: The headlining had to come out. I knew the drainage tubes in the sunroof weren't blocked, but I didn't know if they were holed for some reason. The sunroof in these cars doesn't actually prevent water from getting past, you see. It's designed to allow a bit past, which collects in the drainage tray and exits via tubes in the corners of said tray. If they're blocked, the drain overflows into the cabin.
They weren't blocked, or holed, however. But the drainage tray was....
Dick sprouts!
At least I found the problem, finally. I treated the rusted areas, and laid up all manner of horrible water tight repairs, the likes of which must never see daylight again. But, if it looks stupid, and it works...it's not stupid. And it does work - the Saxo is dry once more.
(And no, there are no pictures....)
This is how the Saxo VTR? looked at the end of 2016, and it's pretty much how it looks today:
2017 saw no images taken of the Saxo. It was pressed into service once more, but in the autumn, problems began to develop.
First off, it was burning oil. Not in the combustion chambers, but on the manifolds, due to rocker covers that WILL NOT fkING SEAL FOR LOVE NOR CHRIST ALMIGHTY fkING PSA YOU S!!!!! So that gave you a headache when you drove it.
Secondly, the steering developed a clonk. This car has always been a nightmare with noisy front suspension, and despite new wishbones, top mounts, dampers and droplinks, the noise persisted. It sounded more steering rack-related, and so became more of a concern.
Thirdly, it began randomly cutting out. The dials would go on the fritz, and it'd cut out completely. I found the quick-release battery terminals were well past their usefullness date, and so they were removed and replaced with conventional clamps. Not my prettiest work, but it's all I had to work with in a short space of time:
Although this cured the dial fritz issue, it still kept trying to randomly cut out. It wouldn't actually die any more, as per before, but it wasn't happy. KNowing that the timing belt was due again (through age, no mileage), and knowing that the clutch was pretty savage to use (a source of angst from my wife from day one, who missed the light, smooth clutch the VTR had fitted), and then realising that the steering rack would almost certainly mean engine out as there was no room to get to it, not to mention the wiring loom connectors that probably all need stripping and cleaning to find a bad connection that proves to be the source of it trying to cut-out.....oh, and the likely rust that will lurk in the chassis rails.....
Yeah. The Saxo came off the road last year. It was driven to a garage in Eastleigh, parked up, and the MoT expired. A fairly unceremonious finale to life as a faithful daily runaround, but there just wasn't the time to fix it at that point. It still wasn't worth anything financially, either.
In the interim period, Modern Classics magazine ran a feature on the Saxo VTS. I was contacted as it was believed I owned one. I said I didn't, but said I could probably still help with what they were after, and so (having first asked if my wife wanted to do it) the Saxo appeared briefly in the edition with the blue ex-Gavin & Stacey VTS vs. the MG ZR 160:
All that was left was time for some memories....
So let's see if I can wrap this up and bring us up to date!
Next up post-rust repairs, was to renew the lower engine mount bush/stabiliser. This had needed doing for some time, and being a Powerflex convert, I opted for one of their engine mounts. I use Powerflex in many cars, and I love the improved feel and response, but with an absence of harshness or vibration.
Bush fitted at around 5:45pm one day (original on the left, PF on the right):
PF bush removed and original reffited at around 6:30pm, after I'd tried starting the engine.
PF bush sold on eBay. Fillings replaced the following week.
One of the areas I wasn't happy with, if you cast your eyes back up a bit, was the John-boy exhaust. The tailpipe was just too damn big. The exhaust note was deep and boomy too. It had to go, but with an absence of decent OE style exhausts on the market now (most cheap aftermarket stuff is awful, and doesn't fit properly), keeping the Magnex was still beneficial in many ways. It wasn't too loud with the cat in (popped and banging without it though!)
I set about trying to improve the look:
Granted, it doesn't look much better now. But wait...
As tempting as it was to keep the pea-shooter, my sister had recent had a new backbox fitted to her 206 GTi, and her original was going in the skip. Not before I harvested the tailpipe, however:
The 206 tailpipe is almost identical to the types used on the Saxo, so win-win! The alignment isn't exactly as per OEM, but it's close enough!
With the close of 2014 seeing the Saxo hit the road, 2015 brought with it some cold realities:
(For Fareham, that is A LOT of snow!)
But no, the drop in temperature wasn't related to the climate. It was more a cold reality that I wasn't enjoying the induction noise of the Saxo. I want my old French hot hatches to be waggly of tail, short of gear, and roarty of induction noise. The Saxo had two of these nailed, but not the third. A quick drive in another VTS we had in at Southways confirmed that an induction kit would, indeed, bring the noise.
I didn't want to spend actual money, but luckily the guy who had the axle off me the year before was breaking a 106, and he gave me the induction kit from it.
Before fitting this, I shot blasted and painted the rocker covers in red crinkle paint. I did it more as a test before I did my TVR, but I'm kinda regretting it now!
Plan was to paint the fake carbon air box gloss black, but still haven't done that! But the induction kit did, at least, bring the noise. Induction sound is pretty good now, and it feels a more eager performer with it on there, though I'm sure that's just a placebo.
Speaking of eager performance, I'm lucky enough to have a rolling road at work. I've always felt the Saxo seemed even quicker than I would have expected, so I was keen to strap it onto the dyno to see what's what. Book figure is 118bhp DIN (DIN being the metric correction factor for horsepower). It was often rounded up to 120bhp.
For some reason, the standard 100k mile engine in the VTR? seemed to be rounding up to a higher number...
The corrected engine power line is the one to look at, as it's not variable by climate. 132.7bhp! And, it did 8 runs that day, before and after I installed waterless coolant in it. It actually averaged slightly more power (by about 0.5bhp) before the waterless stuff went in. That's no reflection on the coolant itself, as it could have easily been 0.5bhp the other way, but it does show Evans claim that you increase power is false, or certainly in the case of this car.
And it's also worth pointing out that the corrected figure above is SAE - one of the rare instances where the world has gone backwards and used imperial measurements. To put that into context, DIN (metric) is worth a bit more 'per horse', and a straight comparison with the original numbers results thus:
138.9bhp/122lbft! I've absolutely no idea where this comes from! It's a standard engine, I know that. It does run a Magnex full exhaust system, but to be honest, I wouldn't expect a gain from that.
I also know that quite a few of the PSA engines that go on here (the older ones, mainly) seem to always match or even beat their book figures. It's possible the VTS is under-quoted, and to be fair, they always feel faster than 120bhp, and seem to keep up with more serious machinery.
Since this, I've done more runs, with the lowest being 128bhp SAE, but normally matching the 132bhp. I'll try and do one again before 2018 ends, and see where it lands.
Regards the coolant, that was also installed in 2015. We became an agent for Evans coolants, and I wanted a trustworthy car to practice conversions on, and learn a bit about the product. What better car than the Saxo?!
The Saxo loves this stuff! It warms up more quickly in the winter (thanks to oil/coolant heat exchanger), and it's as clean today as the day it went in. It'll last the life of the engine too.
We filmed a video of the Saxo on the dyno at full temp, and at full chat. During the power run, we removed the coolant cap:
https://youtu.be/z9MW9FxamUE
Try doing that with water!
We move on to 2016, and it was time to address another issue - water. "Oi, nobhead! You just said you don't run it on water anymore!" Ah, yes, you're quite right. I'm talking about rainwater, which is sadly something we see quite a lot of in the UK (although I think 2018 has been pretty fair regards precipitation....maybe it's just me?!)
But yes, if it rains in the sky, it rains in the Saxo. It was coming in everywhere! The footwells would fill up; the windows would fog up, and if it was frosty overnight, you'd be de-icing the inside of the windows.
It was important to get this right, too. Why? Because I'm happy to report than my wife began to use the car to commute in once more! She got a job fairly local, and needed a small car to fit in the spaces, and the S-Max is too big, and gets bumped into all the time. So she - as is exactly how things should be - is using the Saxo daily at this point
But yes, she has wet feet. First off, the interior light was drained, and it was found the radio aerial was leaking, due to an old seal that was no longer.....well, sealing.
But that wasn't it. Window rubbers, door rubbers....you name it, I changed it. I even sealed up the sunroof in desperation, but still the Saxo continued to voluntarily try and keep the ground very slightly drier.
Eventually I gave in: The headlining had to come out. I knew the drainage tubes in the sunroof weren't blocked, but I didn't know if they were holed for some reason. The sunroof in these cars doesn't actually prevent water from getting past, you see. It's designed to allow a bit past, which collects in the drainage tray and exits via tubes in the corners of said tray. If they're blocked, the drain overflows into the cabin.
They weren't blocked, or holed, however. But the drainage tray was....
Dick sprouts!
At least I found the problem, finally. I treated the rusted areas, and laid up all manner of horrible water tight repairs, the likes of which must never see daylight again. But, if it looks stupid, and it works...it's not stupid. And it does work - the Saxo is dry once more.
(And no, there are no pictures....)
This is how the Saxo VTR? looked at the end of 2016, and it's pretty much how it looks today:
2017 saw no images taken of the Saxo. It was pressed into service once more, but in the autumn, problems began to develop.
First off, it was burning oil. Not in the combustion chambers, but on the manifolds, due to rocker covers that WILL NOT f
kING SEAL FOR LOVE NOR CHRIST ALMIGHTY fkING PSA YOU S!!!!! So that gave you a headache when you drove it.Secondly, the steering developed a clonk. This car has always been a nightmare with noisy front suspension, and despite new wishbones, top mounts, dampers and droplinks, the noise persisted. It sounded more steering rack-related, and so became more of a concern.
Thirdly, it began randomly cutting out. The dials would go on the fritz, and it'd cut out completely. I found the quick-release battery terminals were well past their usefullness date, and so they were removed and replaced with conventional clamps. Not my prettiest work, but it's all I had to work with in a short space of time:
Although this cured the dial fritz issue, it still kept trying to randomly cut out. It wouldn't actually die any more, as per before, but it wasn't happy. KNowing that the timing belt was due again (through age, no mileage), and knowing that the clutch was pretty savage to use (a source of angst from my wife from day one, who missed the light, smooth clutch the VTR had fitted), and then realising that the steering rack would almost certainly mean engine out as there was no room to get to it, not to mention the wiring loom connectors that probably all need stripping and cleaning to find a bad connection that proves to be the source of it trying to cut-out.....oh, and the likely rust that will lurk in the chassis rails.....
Yeah. The Saxo came off the road last year. It was driven to a garage in Eastleigh, parked up, and the MoT expired. A fairly unceremonious finale to life as a faithful daily runaround, but there just wasn't the time to fix it at that point. It still wasn't worth anything financially, either.
In the interim period, Modern Classics magazine ran a feature on the Saxo VTS. I was contacted as it was believed I owned one. I said I didn't, but said I could probably still help with what they were after, and so (having first asked if my wife wanted to do it) the Saxo appeared briefly in the edition with the blue ex-Gavin & Stacey VTS vs. the MG ZR 160:
All that was left was time for some memories....
It's like all my threads have been some weird, dull set of origins movie titles, and this thread is the Avengers Assemble!
Here it is in Winchester, 2005. My wife's first uni house. That's one of my AX GTs behind it:
2010, Fareham. We'd just moved house. You can see the BX 16v here (of 'bodged BX 16v thread'), along with the Mondeo ST200 we bought as a family car. Funny that despite having the larger engine (2.5 V6), the Mondeo was the slowest sprinter in this picture!:
The Saxo more recently, in 2016 and in some esteemed (and probably known to some of you) company:
Awww...TU friend!:
2018 is here now. The question is, is the Saxo?
And if so, what's become of it.....?
Here it is in Winchester, 2005. My wife's first uni house. That's one of my AX GTs behind it:
2010, Fareham. We'd just moved house. You can see the BX 16v here (of 'bodged BX 16v thread'), along with the Mondeo ST200 we bought as a family car. Funny that despite having the larger engine (2.5 V6), the Mondeo was the slowest sprinter in this picture!:
The Saxo more recently, in 2016 and in some esteemed (and probably known to some of you) company:
Awww...TU friend!:
2018 is here now. The question is, is the Saxo?
And if so, what's become of it.....?
Time to bring things up to date!
4th November 2018:
The Saxo is unearthed from the garage it's been holed up in for around 18 months. A MoT has been booked so that it can be driven back to Fareham.
....only it won't. Why? Because it won't start! One of the reasons the car was stowed away was an intermittent cutting-out issue, and it seems that it's an issue that has stepped up a gear to prevent the engine running.
Amazingly, the battery STILL had charge! It's a Bosch unit, went on just before the car went away, and it still had enough charge to fire the engine over when I came back. No trickle chargers or anything in sight!
I can hear a relay going nuts around the ECU area, so it's time to have a look and see what's around:
Under the ECU, there is a section of loom which is supposed to be secured into a clip. On the end of the loom, is a big fat multi-pin relay:
Essentially, it's a double relay. It controls the fuel pump (which wasn't running or priming) and the injectors. I had no way of testing this, but the fact it was tripping out, coupled to the fact that when I shook it, I could hear something rattling inside led me to suspect it was faulty. I had to abandon collection and come back on the 6th. Just as well....the 4th was a Sunday, so my MoT-less drive to a closed MoT station might not have gone down well in the event of a tug.
The 6th rolled around, and I went back to the Saxo armed with a new relay. Fitted the new relay, and the car started. 20secs later it died, and the relay started tripping out again. Balls.
Eventually I got it going again, but this time got in and held it on the throttle. By doing that, it didn't cut out, and once it had run for a while, it would sit and idle happily again. The only thing I can think of is that the battery was low (unsurprisingly), and that the first time, the relay was indeed duff (as I'd tried some jump leads on the 4th just in case it was battery related). On the 6th, it might have cut out and started going nuts because the battery was low, and a bit of revving saw some juice back in it. Maybe. Or not....
Anyway, the Saxo was running, and I was away to get it in for an MoT:
Bit of a nervy time sat in traffic! It behaved faultlessly for some time, but then I noticed it kept trying to cut out on me when I was on a trailing throttle (which is pretty much how you always drive it - you just rest your foot on the gas). Giving it more welly was fine, it was just this one particular section of throttle travel.
With that in mind, I ordered a new throttle potentiometer. These car wear out if a car is driven most of the time at the same throttle position, which a VTS very much is. Keeping fingers crossed, I fitted this right away. Access was......well, some moron put a strut brace in the way, so....
(genuine original on left, Intermotor jobbie on right....got to be better than a broken one!)
This didn't cure the problem! I thought it had, but the Saxo performed its favourite trick of letting me work on it, then behaving long enough for me to relax in a bath of satisfaction that I'd repaired the car successfully, before suddenly failing in exactly the same manner as before. Still, I know it's not the TP!
An MoT was passed with an advisory on the rear axle, which has a small amount of play in a trailing arm bearing.
It was taxed and put straight into service, as is. The cutting out issue wasn't so bad that it couldn't be used, and the clutch, cambelt, suspension/steering knock and leaking oil will all be sorted in due course.
Plans are afoot to spend some time giving the little Saxo some overdue love and TLC. For the weekend just gone, we had some kid-free time and so took it out on both days, rather than any of the other cars we have. Covered around 100 miles overall, and forgot just how well it goes!
Dead easy to park in a space - it's tiny!
The fumes from the leaking oil (which is dropping straight onto the exhaust manifold) is pretty severe, so it'll be in the workshop shortly for some major work, which I'll document on her.
Also in the pipeline are:
4th November 2018:
The Saxo is unearthed from the garage it's been holed up in for around 18 months. A MoT has been booked so that it can be driven back to Fareham.
....only it won't. Why? Because it won't start! One of the reasons the car was stowed away was an intermittent cutting-out issue, and it seems that it's an issue that has stepped up a gear to prevent the engine running.
Amazingly, the battery STILL had charge! It's a Bosch unit, went on just before the car went away, and it still had enough charge to fire the engine over when I came back. No trickle chargers or anything in sight!
I can hear a relay going nuts around the ECU area, so it's time to have a look and see what's around:
Under the ECU, there is a section of loom which is supposed to be secured into a clip. On the end of the loom, is a big fat multi-pin relay:
Essentially, it's a double relay. It controls the fuel pump (which wasn't running or priming) and the injectors. I had no way of testing this, but the fact it was tripping out, coupled to the fact that when I shook it, I could hear something rattling inside led me to suspect it was faulty. I had to abandon collection and come back on the 6th. Just as well....the 4th was a Sunday, so my MoT-less drive to a closed MoT station might not have gone down well in the event of a tug.
The 6th rolled around, and I went back to the Saxo armed with a new relay. Fitted the new relay, and the car started. 20secs later it died, and the relay started tripping out again. Balls.
Eventually I got it going again, but this time got in and held it on the throttle. By doing that, it didn't cut out, and once it had run for a while, it would sit and idle happily again. The only thing I can think of is that the battery was low (unsurprisingly), and that the first time, the relay was indeed duff (as I'd tried some jump leads on the 4th just in case it was battery related). On the 6th, it might have cut out and started going nuts because the battery was low, and a bit of revving saw some juice back in it. Maybe. Or not....
Anyway, the Saxo was running, and I was away to get it in for an MoT:
Bit of a nervy time sat in traffic! It behaved faultlessly for some time, but then I noticed it kept trying to cut out on me when I was on a trailing throttle (which is pretty much how you always drive it - you just rest your foot on the gas). Giving it more welly was fine, it was just this one particular section of throttle travel.
With that in mind, I ordered a new throttle potentiometer. These car wear out if a car is driven most of the time at the same throttle position, which a VTS very much is. Keeping fingers crossed, I fitted this right away. Access was......well, some moron put a strut brace in the way, so....
(genuine original on left, Intermotor jobbie on right....got to be better than a broken one!)
This didn't cure the problem! I thought it had, but the Saxo performed its favourite trick of letting me work on it, then behaving long enough for me to relax in a bath of satisfaction that I'd repaired the car successfully, before suddenly failing in exactly the same manner as before. Still, I know it's not the TP!
An MoT was passed with an advisory on the rear axle, which has a small amount of play in a trailing arm bearing.
It was taxed and put straight into service, as is. The cutting out issue wasn't so bad that it couldn't be used, and the clutch, cambelt, suspension/steering knock and leaking oil will all be sorted in due course.
Plans are afoot to spend some time giving the little Saxo some overdue love and TLC. For the weekend just gone, we had some kid-free time and so took it out on both days, rather than any of the other cars we have. Covered around 100 miles overall, and forgot just how well it goes!
Dead easy to park in a space - it's tiny!
The fumes from the leaking oil (which is dropping straight onto the exhaust manifold) is pretty severe, so it'll be in the workshop shortly for some major work, which I'll document on her.
Also in the pipeline are:
- Powerflex bushes
- New clutch
- New timing belt
- Steering knock fix (I have a feeling it might actually be a damper....again)
- Some rubbing down/welding/painting
- Reseal rocker covers (and possibly cam carriers, though hopefully not)
- Replacement OE exhaust. I have a genuine backbox, brand new, but no centre section yet. All the aftermarket ones look cack!
- Have just received a pair of brand new headlamps. £58!
- Have ordered 4x new tyres, but to fit the VTR rims, as we've decided to run it on those as it'll drive nicer (and look pretty much original externally by this point)
- Lower strut brace - possibly.
- Prep and undersealing at the back end, ready for the winter.
bangerhoarder said:
As you're obviously not going for originality with this, have you thought about fitting the TU5JP4 cam covers? It's a straight swap I believe, and they seal much easier. Had them on a 106 GTi and that didn't leak, where a second 106 GTi with the alloy covers did.
It is a straight swap, yes. They're plastic covers, and they have separate gaskets. Stupidly, I don't like the look of them. The car isn't original, but I want all the parts fitted to be of the correct era, and ideally from a Saxo, so I'd rather have the engine looking like a VTS one (which is why I'm debating getting rid of all the red s
t in the engine bay!)adammcs said:
No I bought it already done up
Ah, so I suppose on one hand you've got an excuse..... 
stew-STR160 said:
Crikey this brings back memories of SSC...
The first car forum I ever ventured on to! (icey_furio was my username)Willo26 said:
Hello Kitchski, reading this I can't help smile. I've had many Saxos and had the same sort of thoughts feelings problems as yourself!
This was my first car, a Furio with 39k in 2011; which I made the mistake of lowering on 16 inch wheels! Looked the dogs though!
Still hooked! My girlfriend runs a VTS in summer! Currently off road with some big work required!
http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Have a scan of my thread!
Great that these cars have are receiving some love these days rather than just abuse!
Regards, Danny.
Ah yes, 16's on a 1.4 Saxo. And at the time, you thought they were better too, right?!This was my first car, a Furio with 39k in 2011; which I made the mistake of lowering on 16 inch wheels! Looked the dogs though!
Still hooked! My girlfriend runs a VTS in summer! Currently off road with some big work required!
http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.p...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Have a scan of my thread!
Great that these cars have are receiving some love these days rather than just abuse!
Regards, Danny.
Yours is much shinier though...
smiley_boy2501 said:
Led here via the front page. I'm going to work in a few hours to start a night shift and this thread has cheered me right up. Very well written.
I'm gonna find your other threads to give me something to read tonight!
You've also led me searching classifieds for something to work on in my spare time!
I didn't know what you meant until I saw the front page (and then the bender that is S10 sent me a Whatsapp message about 5 mins later!)I'm gonna find your other threads to give me something to read tonight!
You've also led me searching classifieds for something to work on in my spare time!
Hope reading the other threads didn't get you into any bother, as falling asleep on the job is generally frowned upon!
WCZ said:
I love these cars so much
the first day I passed my test as an 18yr old and went out for a spin in my 1.0 lupo I saw a lowered loud vts with a bunch of young bad boyz tail gating a diesel 3 series on the motorway at 100mph ! I was in awe
This one will stick to the back end of a standard (I assume) 330d. Ask me how I know the first day I passed my test as an 18yr old and went out for a spin in my 1.0 lupo I saw a lowered loud vts with a bunch of young bad boyz tail gating a diesel 3 series on the motorway at 100mph ! I was in awe
FK2R said:
I owned a Poseiden blue Saxo VTR from new back in 1999. Was a fun car to be fair and at the time 2 years free insurance which was a great deal for someone under 25. I ran it for 7 years and had no issues at all so all good. I have checked recently for the MOT status and it is sadly no more.
Nothing abnormal there. I think they'll be down to three digits before long. The value isn't in them to warrant keeping them going for most people, with only the mk1 VTS likely to stand a real chance of going up in value, and they're pretty rare.Better give the thread a quick update, seeing as I've been receiving emails and messages with the likes of "You know your missus' Saxo is on the front page of Pistonheads?" Or another wrote: "Have you seen this?! Why are they fussed about a crappy Saxo!?"
Also...."You're a tt, and I hope bad things happen to you!" That came through last week. Nothing to do with a car.
But yes, 'tis true:
Certainly put a smile on my wife's face last night! I remember they (hello PH researchers!) picked up the AX GT a year or so ago, and did a similar thing. I remember initially thinking "Wow, that's really cool. They appreciate what I'm doing!"
I then began to wonder if I was the 'bait' in today's clickbait culture. 'Come and look at what this numpty is doing! Spending all his time and efforts on an old AX!' Nah, I'll go with the first one. This is PH, after all - people like reading about cars, even old shonky ones (or if you're like me, specifically the old shonky ones!)
The Saxo isn't too shonky, to be fair. And plans have been laid which will freshen the old warhorse up further. Discussions with my wife have been held, and seeing as she is the owner and has overall say in the direction the car will take, I had to see what my instructions were.
Happily, she's thinking along the same lines I am, regards many of the jobs above. Essentially, she wants to bring it back to how it looked when she first owned it (the two pics below the Nova SR at the top of the page). There's the small matter of it having a black 106 GTi leather interior, and the even smaller matter of the ~130bhp VTS lump now sitting in the front, but in all other regards, we're going original. She wants to make it look, feel and sound respectable; Like she's driving it by choice, rather than because she can't afford anything newer. And, make it more grown-up, because it can be child-like whenever the throttle is poked, or the steering snatched. For all other occasions, we want it as relaxed and sensible as a Saxo can possibly be. The car will continue as a daily commuter into 2019, too
So, first up was a change of gearknob. I have no pictures of this, but the original gearknob is back on. You'll have to take my word for that.
Secondly, an eBay session to find some headlights. It's hard to put into words how exciting it is to go and hunt parts down on eBay....assuming you find what you're after. Happily, I did - less than £60 later and two brand new headlamps have arrived at the workshop:
Then it was time to hunt around for some rims. I know I have the rims, but I don't remember what condition they were in. I know I needed tyres, but I didn't want to order tyres until I knew I had rims.
Luckily, I haz rimz:
And, is if by magic, I haz tyrez too:
Dunlop BlueResponse tyres, to be precise. Affectionately referred to as 'BlueRinses' by the TVR S-Series fraternity, these tyres are probably the best I could find in the original 185/55R14 fitment. Only H-rated, but then fortunately so was the car! I drive a lot of TVRs on these tyres, and they're a slightly more 'sporting' compound to the similar Dunlops I fitted to the mega-miles AX GT. They roll so quietly, and grip so well that I didn't want anything else on it.
Looking forward to driving it on these, especially as the wheels are so light (they must each be 1kg lighter than the VTS rims), and with the thicker sidewalls the ride & NVH should improve, as well as allowing the handling to be slightly more forgiving. And for my money, they're among the best looking rims ever fitted to a production car, in terms of how good they looked on the finished article. Just a shame they're a bit tired, but budget doesn't stretch to a full refurb yet, sadly. In time we will, but with winter around the corner, there probably isn't much point!
I prepared the wheels for tyre fitting this morning. They weren't looking too clever inside:
A quick going over with the wire brush later, and they could at least accept wheel weights!:
Sadly, the tyres are still not on the rims. Why? You'll spot in the centre of the wheels, in the pictures above, that there is no centre cap. The wheels have solid centres, just like a 205 GTi would have done (the 14in version anyway). The tyre guy I use doesn't have the adapter, and so the rims don't have the tyres yet. Nuts.
I've amassed a load of parts ready for the car now, so it'll be a case of picking this up when the space is here to attack it. The stuttering and cutting out seems to be worsening, so I won't be waiting too long! Expect pictures of it in bits in the near future...
Also...."You're a t
t, and I hope bad things happen to you!" That came through last week. Nothing to do with a car.But yes, 'tis true:
Certainly put a smile on my wife's face last night! I remember they (hello PH researchers!) picked up the AX GT a year or so ago, and did a similar thing. I remember initially thinking "Wow, that's really cool. They appreciate what I'm doing!"
I then began to wonder if I was the 'bait' in today's clickbait culture. 'Come and look at what this numpty is doing! Spending all his time and efforts on an old AX!' Nah, I'll go with the first one. This is PH, after all - people like reading about cars, even old shonky ones (or if you're like me, specifically the old shonky ones!)
The Saxo isn't too shonky, to be fair. And plans have been laid which will freshen the old warhorse up further. Discussions with my wife have been held, and seeing as she is the owner and has overall say in the direction the car will take, I had to see what my instructions were.
Happily, she's thinking along the same lines I am, regards many of the jobs above. Essentially, she wants to bring it back to how it looked when she first owned it (the two pics below the Nova SR at the top of the page). There's the small matter of it having a black 106 GTi leather interior, and the even smaller matter of the ~130bhp VTS lump now sitting in the front, but in all other regards, we're going original. She wants to make it look, feel and sound respectable; Like she's driving it by choice, rather than because she can't afford anything newer. And, make it more grown-up, because it can be child-like whenever the throttle is poked, or the steering snatched. For all other occasions, we want it as relaxed and sensible as a Saxo can possibly be. The car will continue as a daily commuter into 2019, too
So, first up was a change of gearknob. I have no pictures of this, but the original gearknob is back on. You'll have to take my word for that.
Secondly, an eBay session to find some headlights. It's hard to put into words how exciting it is to go and hunt parts down on eBay....assuming you find what you're after. Happily, I did - less than £60 later and two brand new headlamps have arrived at the workshop:
Then it was time to hunt around for some rims. I know I have the rims, but I don't remember what condition they were in. I know I needed tyres, but I didn't want to order tyres until I knew I had rims.
Luckily, I haz rimz:
And, is if by magic, I haz tyrez too:
Dunlop BlueResponse tyres, to be precise. Affectionately referred to as 'BlueRinses' by the TVR S-Series fraternity, these tyres are probably the best I could find in the original 185/55R14 fitment. Only H-rated, but then fortunately so was the car! I drive a lot of TVRs on these tyres, and they're a slightly more 'sporting' compound to the similar Dunlops I fitted to the mega-miles AX GT. They roll so quietly, and grip so well that I didn't want anything else on it.
Looking forward to driving it on these, especially as the wheels are so light (they must each be 1kg lighter than the VTS rims), and with the thicker sidewalls the ride & NVH should improve, as well as allowing the handling to be slightly more forgiving. And for my money, they're among the best looking rims ever fitted to a production car, in terms of how good they looked on the finished article. Just a shame they're a bit tired, but budget doesn't stretch to a full refurb yet, sadly. In time we will, but with winter around the corner, there probably isn't much point!
I prepared the wheels for tyre fitting this morning. They weren't looking too clever inside:
A quick going over with the wire brush later, and they could at least accept wheel weights!:
Sadly, the tyres are still not on the rims. Why? You'll spot in the centre of the wheels, in the pictures above, that there is no centre cap. The wheels have solid centres, just like a 205 GTi would have done (the 14in version anyway). The tyre guy I use doesn't have the adapter, and so the rims don't have the tyres yet. Nuts.
I've amassed a load of parts ready for the car now, so it'll be a case of picking this up when the space is here to attack it. The stuttering and cutting out seems to be worsening, so I won't be waiting too long! Expect pictures of it in bits in the near future...
The day of reckoning arrived! Yesterday, the Saxo made its way into the workshop so that the 'major' can commence:
A lot of work, and not a lot of time to do it in (where have I read that before?!) The car's here for some repairs, and some enhancements (which include removing components that were classed as 'enhancements' in previous years). But first up, I need to undress it:
Arch liners out to tentatively assess the condition of the inner wings:
Fortunately they're no worse than expected....so far!
Then it's a case of continuing to remove stuff:
The downside of waterless coolant - you know you've got to filter it out and reuse it!
Amassing quite the pile of Saxo parts on the floor already!
In moving the wheels around, I immediately noticed how much heavier the 15in VTS items fitted currently felt than the 14in VTR ones, which are now fitted up with four Dunlop BlueResponse tyres:
I decided to weigh them, out of curiosity. VTS wheels: 16.5kg each (with the Yokohama tyres on); VTR wheels: a shade over 13kg each with the Dunlops. In a car that weighs around 940kg, a 14kg saving is not to be sniffed at! And, it's unsprung too.
Once I'd run out of time removing things, I travelled round looking for more grief. The brake servo didn't look too clever, so I need to check whether the master cylinder is leaking past the seals or not:
The oil leaks have been pretty bad! It doesn't look as dramatic at the rocker cover, but the engine is caked in the stuff! And not just the engine, either. Everything bolted to it is also dripping wet!
The securing bracket to the exhaust downpipe is making a bid for freedom. Caught it just in time, and should be fixable with a welder:
Inner wings don't look too bad so far. I think cleaning all the grease and gunk away so they can be repainted is going to be the bigger issue!
Underneath, we caught this just in time....I think!:
Front struts are coming out anyway, so I'll have to get up there and sort all that out. I'm hoping to not have to take the front wings off, but we'll see.
I went and had a look at the back end, where all the other welding repairs were carried out 4-5 years ago. Looking better than I thought back there, actually:
Needs a little bit of TLC on the offside, but that's probably because I wasn't thorough enough with the painting/sealing:
The black paint was only stonechip spray, which I've come to discover is pretty st, so I knew that would need going over again.
I'm up against it as I only have a couple of weeks in which to carry out this work. I can't use the ramp up for too long, and then there's the 'C' word coming up. And then on the 4th January - the anniversary of when Nat bought the Saxo in 2004....15 years ago! She wants it on the road for that date, and ready to rock.
Back to it next week then! Have ordered quite a few parts already, with a list growing by the day. Time to break out a sweat!
A lot of work, and not a lot of time to do it in (where have I read that before?!) The car's here for some repairs, and some enhancements (which include removing components that were classed as 'enhancements' in previous years). But first up, I need to undress it:
Arch liners out to tentatively assess the condition of the inner wings:
Fortunately they're no worse than expected....so far!
Then it's a case of continuing to remove stuff:
The downside of waterless coolant - you know you've got to filter it out and reuse it!
Amassing quite the pile of Saxo parts on the floor already!
In moving the wheels around, I immediately noticed how much heavier the 15in VTS items fitted currently felt than the 14in VTR ones, which are now fitted up with four Dunlop BlueResponse tyres:
I decided to weigh them, out of curiosity. VTS wheels: 16.5kg each (with the Yokohama tyres on); VTR wheels: a shade over 13kg each with the Dunlops. In a car that weighs around 940kg, a 14kg saving is not to be sniffed at! And, it's unsprung too.
Once I'd run out of time removing things, I travelled round looking for more grief. The brake servo didn't look too clever, so I need to check whether the master cylinder is leaking past the seals or not:
The oil leaks have been pretty bad! It doesn't look as dramatic at the rocker cover, but the engine is caked in the stuff! And not just the engine, either. Everything bolted to it is also dripping wet!
The securing bracket to the exhaust downpipe is making a bid for freedom. Caught it just in time, and should be fixable with a welder:
Inner wings don't look too bad so far. I think cleaning all the grease and gunk away so they can be repainted is going to be the bigger issue!
Underneath, we caught this just in time....I think!:
Front struts are coming out anyway, so I'll have to get up there and sort all that out. I'm hoping to not have to take the front wings off, but we'll see.
I went and had a look at the back end, where all the other welding repairs were carried out 4-5 years ago. Looking better than I thought back there, actually:
Needs a little bit of TLC on the offside, but that's probably because I wasn't thorough enough with the painting/sealing:
The black paint was only stonechip spray, which I've come to discover is pretty s
t, so I knew that would need going over again.I'm up against it as I only have a couple of weeks in which to carry out this work. I can't use the ramp up for too long, and then there's the 'C' word coming up. And then on the 4th January - the anniversary of when Nat bought the Saxo in 2004....15 years ago! She wants it on the road for that date, and ready to rock.
Back to it next week then! Have ordered quite a few parts already, with a list growing by the day. Time to break out a sweat!
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