Going off air

Hello. I know what you're thinking - he's here again with another post apologising for the lack of posts; not much happening, winter weather, etc, etc. I thought it best to put something up here as there's been quite a few things happening under the radar over the last few months.

 

There's a double-meaning in the post's headline; yes, I went off-air in terms of writing anything here - apologies for the two year gap, and secondly, the much discussed and documented air ride is no longer on the van.

I had all kinds of issues, mostly with Airrex and quality (or lack of) issues with their product. Both front struts failed, leaving me with no option other than to find a quick replacement - I need the van year-round after all. This is where the wrangling started; I had bought the struts through iKustoms who originally ordered them through an Airrex UK distributer. Unfortunately for me the UK distribution had changed hands and the new party wanted nothing to do with replacing my struts. I was well out of warranty and had nothing in my way of consumer-rights as time had passed since the purchase date.

To make matters worse I had sent the struts back to the new UK distributer who then 'lost' them. I had no front suspension, no replacement, no refund, no one taking responsibility, Airrex suddenly couldn't speak English... this went on for nearly a year.

Eventually they admitted fault and honored me with a fresh set of the latest version of their front struts. I was then able to bundle everything together and sell the kit on. I look back and kick myself for going down the airride route. Having said that, there's now much better products on the market, these were unavailable when I specified my setup.

But we should only look forward I suppose. We've still been using the van regularly; Cornwall and the southwest, city breaks, VW shows, days out, it's still being used. I've made a few little changes here and there, changed a few camping products - I'll go in to more details soon.

Stop... Spanner Time!

Regular readers will know that I'm not the most mechanically-minded T5 owner. I will turn my hand to some jobs as you may have already read, but others I prefer to leave in the hands of the professionals. So what happens when a small job presents itself but there isn't enough information available for me to tackle the job?

Time to break out the Haynes manual! Used by car-hobbyists worldwide, the Haynes manual can really help in that gap between user-knowledge and bothering a mechanic with something quite trivial. And here it is, just released:

It says something about the popularity of the T5 for Haynes to go ahead and create a workshop manual, maybe it's release goes hand-in-hand with the launch of the new T6 Transporter?

Should you fancy getting your hands on the workshop manual, here's a handy link:

Preventative measures

Okay, so Winter might not be camping and show-going every weekend but it does make for a great time to sort any little issues you might be having with your van. We've got one. It's the dreaded dual mass flywheel.

Now it's not often that Stone174 gets his fingers dirty and starts talking about things under the bonnet, but there's so much forum-talk, speculation, doom and gloom about the subject, I thought I'd do a little research and put something up on here.

Dual Mass Wha...?
The dual mass flywheel (or DMF if you like) is fitted in most modern diesel and petrol engines, both passenger car and light commercial vehicles. In fact nearly all Diesel Light Commercial Vehicles built today benefit from a DMF, providing van drivers with smoother more refined vehicles.
Engine torsional vibration (TV) has increased over the years due to greater cylinder pressure and increased compression ratios. These increases have been so great that a cure had to be found for the extra vibration. The DMF absorbs all the torsional vibration and gives the added benefits of reducing noise, reducing fuel consumption and protecting the driveline from the harmful vibration and occasional injector misfire.

Worried yet - what are the symptoms?
We first noticed ours going after the van had been stood for a couple of weeks; engage first gear from cold, pull away with a bit of gas and judder, judder, judder...
Once warmed up it all goes away. Using the van daily and it doesn't happen. Leave the van for a week and it's back.
Many people say there's nothing to worry about, it's just a build up of condensation on the flywheel, perfectly normal. I'd say ours has got noticeably worse over the past 12 months.

Time to replace?
There's never a good time I suppose, but there's always a bad one. More often than not we're in the van doing something we've been looking forward to; heading to a show, a week off work etc. The last place we want to be is on the hard-shoulder and making small-talk for several hours in the back of a recovery wagon (no offence to the AA). So, combined with a 90,000 mile service and MOT, we've chosen to replace the DMF and clutch in one go.

Is there a cheap option?
In a word, no. We're not ones for scrimping on pattern-parts, this is one item that needs to be OEM.

Parts required for the 2.5 174 engine will be:
Genuine LuK 240mm Dual Mass Flywheel
Genuine SACHS SRE Organic / Sintered Clutch Disc
Genuine SACHS SRE Pressure Plate
Genuine SACHS Releaser
Flywheel and Pressure Plate Bolts 

This is an uprated direct replacement for the OE LUK Kit found on the 2.5 TDI Transporter T5 with the 6 Speed Gearbox. The Organic Clutch Disc are rated by Sachs to 390Ft/Lbs+

Parts cost is around £675. With roughly around 6 hours to fit.

What about going back to a Single Mass Flywheel?
Initially the unit cost may be lower, however in the long run damaging vibrations that were previously isolated by the DMF could affect or damage other parts of the vehicle. Failures can occur as a result of retro-fitting solid flywheels. Vibrations not eliminated by the flywheel have been known to destroy gearbox components, contribute to broken crankshafts and increase noise or resonance within the vehicle cabin to unacceptable levels.

So there you have it, not the sexiest of Christmas presents I've ever received; not quite the glamour of new alloys and airride of this time last year - but these part are just as important. The van is booked in to Aire Valley Workshop for the first Saturday in 2014 and they're keeping it for a week.

The Volksworld Show 2013 Roadtrip

Planning had begun back at the beginning of the year for a trip south, a day in London, a weekend at the Volksworld show, and an overnight stop on the way home. Like all best-laid-plans, things started to fall apart (literally) almost straight away.

Ready for the off...

The snow, hail and rain didn't dampen our spirits, but the cancellation of Sunday night's stay at the St. Neots C&CC site due to flooding meant some frantic last-minute rebooking was in order.

Our first port of call was the C&CC site at Chertsey. A nice, riverside site with great facilities and a friendly welcome. We were pitched up and in the pub in no time at all - an almost perfect first day...

Almost perfect? You ask. Well, we soon noticed on the way down that we have become a victim of the ever-popular frozen and split windscreen washer pipe.

Pitched up, hooked up and perfectly level

The Chertsey site is ideal for visiting the centre of London. Just a brisk walk across town to the railway station where we purchased a combined rail/underground pass for the day that delivers you into Waterloo in less than an hour. Trains are incredibly regular, compared to up North, and run late into the evening so you can enjoy a full day in London and avoid the evening rush hour.

Amazing to think roads were closed with drifting snow back home

Friday saw us head over to the Volksworld show. My only gripe with the whole show was being told on the paperwork that camping opened at 3pm - so we milled-around, killing time between leaving the campsite and getting to Sandown. When we arrived at the racecourse at 14:45 (expecting to queue) but we found people had been camped up for ages, bagging all the level spots, great!

I quickly jumped out of the van and found a not-quite-level spot that did look dry and firm under-foot - some campers were already stuck and being towed out.

Parked up and aired-out

By Sunday the temperature had dropped considerably; the windchill on the racecourse was freezing. I guess this kept the show attendance down, everyone was indoors at the show and I felt really sorry for anyone with an outside trade stand or display. I'll go into more detail about the show in a future post.

If only I could convey how cold it felt...

So we come to leave on Sunday lunchtime, a quick adjust of the mirrors and the driver's side (which had been on the exposed side to the weather all weekend) promptly fell off and cracked. A slow steady journey up to the C&CC site at Milton Keynes (our replacement site) was on the cards. A stiff drink was in order when we arrived. The Accuair eLevel touchpad had also given up on Sunday morning - I was starting to wonder what else could go wrong...

Monday dawned bright and cold, as we're both early risers we headed straight for the Volkswagen Van Centre in Bletchley near Milton Keynes. At this point we were all prepared for 'none in stock' or 'that'll be X hundred pounds' but we were greeted with a very helpful 'I'll see what we can do'.

A phone call to the TPS around the corner, a quick trip there to pay, and we're back with replacements for both sides - it seemed to make sense at just £30 each - I never liked the tinted glass that Merseyspeed had fitted; they had no anti-rattle prongs either which might have explained why one fell out!

Back to VW and the helpful girl on reception collared a young lad on his tea-break who followed us out and fitted them for free. We were on our way and very grateful for their help.

Our next stop, having left our traveling companions to make their way home, was back to iKustoms for a quick spanner-check of the airride install, fit some new top mounts, and hopefully diagnose the eLevel problem. I'll not go into too many details but a quick two-hour stop here turned into a marathon five hour visit with nothing going right. Many thanks must go to Iain at iKustoms for his persistence in sorting problems large and small when us lesser-mortals would have thrown in the towel and slammed the garage door shut!

By 16:30 we were on our way. Everything was working, we had everything crossed. Just the washer pipe to sort at a later date.

The diagnosis...

After the previous weekend and it's electrical problems we were pretty relieved to get home. Annoyingly, we probably relaxed a little too much, parked the van down the side of the house as usual, went inside and tried to forget about it for a day or so.

Some helpful feedback from users of the Brickyard forum pointed us towards possible problems - it's usually at this point you start to see pound-signs!!!

With the van booked in for an MOT at the end of the week we left it, knowing that we'd only have to limp it half a mile down the road to Aire Valley Workshop. Not so easy... a quick check of battery status on the electrical control panel in the van read; Leisure Battery 13.2v, Vehicle Battery 0.8v. No flashing red light on the door top indicated a stone-dead battery, no alarm, no central locking.

Time to call out the AA. Once again another great show of customer service; from initial phone call and text message updates, to the chap arriving with a friendly smile and a love of T5s, the experience was faultless. On a side note he did mention that he'd just come from another T5 - broken driveshaft! That brought back some memories.

With the help of a heavy-duty jump-starter he had the van up and running straight away and with the help of a multi-meter spotted the alternator was delivering 16v to the van battery. He kindly followed us 'round to the garage and brought us home again, with a helpful description of the problem for further investigation - and handy paperwork to claim back on the AA Parts & Labour cover.

A phone call the next day from the garage reveals it is the voltage regulator and alternator at fault. A new battery will also be fitted. Then MOT and service. We should have a healthy van back within the next couple of days.

A worrying weekend away

Just after New Year seems a great time to grab a quick weekend away - the campsites are quiet, cheaper than normal and the pubs and restaurants don't seem to be as manic as over the Christmas period.

With a weekend in York on the cards, certain things can be taken for granted; good company, good food, and a good night's sleep. But this time things took a turn for the worse - it seems we invited some electrical gremlins along for the weekend too...

Meeting up, ready to go

Everything was normal until after a coffee-break at Harrogate, back in the van we noticed no dash lights (the blue lighting behind the clock and odometer) and all gauges - speedo, engine temp, fuel, and rev counter needles dropped to zero.

We pulled in to the world's most pot-holed layby just off the A59 on the east of Harrogate for a check of fuses and read of the manual.

We've had some little niggles before that have usually rectified themselves with the old 'turn it off, wait, turn it on again' routine - but every time we tried this the clocks would light up and function for a few seconds of the engine running and then drop back to zero with no illumination.

It was here we noticed the stalk controls had given up too; no indicators, no wipers. Headlights are working fine and a pull of the left stalk for full beam also worked fine? Other items on the dash such as heater controls also worked fine. Brake lights also worked as normal.

Thankfully, being part of a three van convoy, we stuck ourselves in the middle so as not to upset other road users with our lack of indicators.

So on to the campsite. Another night on the now-regular Lysander Arms - as discussed in previous posts, this place is ideal for getting into and back out of York City Centre, plus with the benefit of electric hook-up you're always going to sleep well - toasty and warm.

Pitched up - we had the campsite to ourselves

It's amazing how a few pints can help erase the worry of a faulty van, plus with having AA membership and the Caddy to use as a regular vehicle it really wasn't worth getting wound-up over.

The next morning we fired the van up and everything (nearly) worked fine - okay, there's an Airbag light permanently on but we can cope with that. A half-mile drive around to the park-and-ride and everything still checks out okay; indicators, lights, all gauges on the dash fully functioning. A few more hours around York, a full English breakfast and a couple of nice coffees and it's time to head home...

Not 10 miles into our return journey and we now have the EPC warning light on the dash to keep the Airbag light company. Another quick flick the handbook reveals this to be a possible ABS fault; check brakes a few times, keep driving steadily...

...until the dash goes again.

Weirdly, every time we brake up to a junction or roundabout, just before coming to a complete halt and then for the time we are stationary, the dash comes back to life. Start moving and everything goes again - is this the infamous brakelight-switch that we have experienced before?

Deciding against going over the notorious Blubberhouses route (not really a place to be breaking down) we elected the longer, flatter route through Pool, Otley and Ilkley back to Skipton. Pulling into Otley and the dash is back with us again; all gauges working, Airbag light and EPC light fully on. No indicators or wipers. Pull stalk to flash lights does work though. I'm glad at this point we didn't leave it any later as I didn't really want anything like lights to fail on us in the dark...

...then it started raining. No wipers and trying to see through a windscreen covered in really fine drizzle on unlit country roads is no fun - if this was any more than a handful of miles away from home we would have stopped. Full trust was placed in the vehicle in front (thanks Shaun) and for a while we were following two brake lights and white lines.

Call it good timing but the van is booked-in for an MOT at the end of this week. I'm looking forward to what the diagnostics have to say. So, does any of this sound familiar to other T5 owners? Any advice will be gratefully received.

Back to Earth with a bump

Did I mention I like quiet campsites?

After a wonderful week of camping in Cornwall (with plenty of sunshine) we certainly came back to reality with a bump. We racked-up our usual mileage getting there and back, tooling around from beach to beach etc. (around 1,000 miles) and almost made it home without incident (~okay, so I put a big scratch in the sliding door by opening it against the back of a camping chair but we won't mention that~) when four miles from home we hit North Yorkshire County Council's wonderful road-chippings (sorry, 'surface-dressing').

Cue a big chip in the windscreen, thankfully passenger side but nonetheless thoroughly annoying. And then when back on the drive at home - a leaking front shock absorber - brilliant! Welcome home...

I'll go into more positive details of the holiday shortly, probably when the van is back from Aire Valley Workshop.

Driveshaft update

All repaired and back on the road. A mere £609 lighter - which is mainly for the parts (driver's side driveshaft and stubshaft, both stripped), labour came in at straight two hours which I'm quite happy with. The guys at Aire Valley Workshop also noticed a broken clip on the pipe that meets the airbox so I'm back in a day or so to fit a fresh one.

Fingers are still firmly crossed that we'll get a big chunk (£475) of the repair bill back after claiming on our AA Parts Insurance Policy which is like a mini-warranty of sorts; as long as your vehicle is serviced at a VAT registered garage (to keep it legit) the first £500 (less £25 excess) can be claimed on non-consumable repair parts. Something we've had for a number of years but this is the first time we've made a claim. Watch this space...

10th October UPDATE: The cheque's in the post! Thanks AA :)

15th October UPDATE: Cheque received and in the bank!

Place your bets...

When you see a T5 on the back of a recovery truck, there's only ever going to be one thing wrong:

Yep, that's right - there's goes a driveshaft!

It went whilst pulling out of works' car-park with the usual enthusiasm for getting away after an average day at work. Probably at around 4, maybe 4 and half thousand revs, bang...

No drive.

I knew almost straight away that's what it would be, quite a common occurrence on the 174s - hence why I'm probably fairly philosophical about it.

The guys from the AA were great; it seemed odd at first when two guys got out of the cab - the driver was on his first night(!) with an experienced mate along to offer tips and advice. I probably didn't help by saying 'please be careful, that's my pride-and-joy', but they both took great care in getting the van onto the low loader using extra chocks due to the lowering and being extra-careful with the straps around the alloys.

Amusingly, Mr First-timer wasn't really up to witty banter during the journey from Leeds back to Skipton, but his mate chipped in and we were soon chatting about the v-dub scene, scooters, mods, bad weather and the bloke that called the AA out asking them to clear his driveway of snow so he could get to work!

Right, I'm off to bed before anything else bad can happen today - will update with a full diagnosis from Aire Valley Workshop in due course.

7th October UPDATE: Initial diagnosis is gearbox and not driveshafts/stubshafts. This is now beginning to sound expensive; the 'box is coming out and being shipped over to a specialists in Leeds for further investigation. Will let you know the outcome in a day or two...

7th October UPDATE Nº2: Looks like we're back to it being the driveshaft/stubshaft splines that have stripped under acceleration. After a phone-call with Mr. Gearbox Specialist (who immediately said 'Driveshaft' the minute he heard the numbers 174!) we're thankfully back to it being a less-expensive and hopefully less time-consuming job. He pointed the guys at Aire Valley in the direction of the problem and my initial prognosis was correct.
Further updates to follow...