Generation Cyb

After a month of not much getting done, at least CHO’s stiff door handle was fixed (well, one of them anyway).To say the last month has been an outstanding leap forward in terms of getting the car back on the road would be more than a little dishonest, in fact nothing could be more incorrrect! Being involved in several other projects (including ‘A’ levels) time spent with CHO has been at a premium over this last month. Rather than getting involved in any major repair work I have been sticking mainly to the small repair jobs and diagnosing what further remedial work needs doing (which can be rather depressing!).

Firstly I reported last month that one of the front tyres on the new alloys was losing pressure at an alarming rate. One dull Saturday afternoon I took the tyre for inspection at a tyre specialist who repair and fit tyres locally to me. They were able to confirm, as I had suspected, that the tyre was completely illegal and pointed out one very substantial cut and worn edges to the tread. Looking over the car all three other tyres have slightly worn edges on the tread and one of the rears exhibits a rather deep cut which may be dangerous. As yet I have done nothing to remedy this, but I was quoted £70 for new Dunlops and £40 for another brand by the specialist I saw. My job over the easter break will be to shop around for the cheapest tyres I can as I will probably be replacing all four. Since tyres are the only part of the car that touches the road, their importance should never be under-estimated and I’m not prepared to neglect them and have one explode while I’m travelling at speed! Here the moral is to inspect carefully any used tyres, although most should be safe and in this case the alloys are probably worth more than the tyres! Anyone know of a cheap tyre specialist?

As I promised last month I also took a look at the sunroof. I actually managed to get it to slide open (it only tilted before) but it was stiff. Once the sunroof was open I immediately found one problem, that being that the operating rods to the wind shield were completely rusted through so that this could not work with the rest of te sunroof mechanism. On Maestros rain water is drained through tubes to the sides of the sunroof opening, but if these block water collects around the sunroof in the operating mechanism which naturally leads to rust and a ceased mechanism. I have taken this no further as yet (it started to snow just as I had got the roof open – typical!) but as far as I can see there are two options. I could dismantle the sunroof assembly and loosen it up by oiling and adjusting whilst also replacing the wind shield, or I could go out and get a new sunroof (in which case I’d be tempted to go for the electric unit from a Montego). More on that another time.

One very common problem on Maestros is the rear door locks either not working on central locking or jamming completely. I put this down to the rear doors not being used very often and the locks cease with age. A few months ag I replaced the lock motor, but this had no effect and of course the real problem is down to the actual lock mechanism itself. Unfortunately it can be a real fiddle to remove this from the door involving stripping it almost completely to bare metal just for the lock mechanism. When I had this out of the door I tried pumping it full of lubricating oil and exercising it by repeatedly locking and unlocking before refitting to the door, but still the lock refused to work without a struggle. At this stage the only option is a replacement unit (unless you can be bothered to pull the mechanism to bits, and it’s riveted together). I obtained this from the local breakers which meant another half an hour struggling to pull the lock out of an F reg Maestro City (underneath another Maestro on an ominously unstable stack) in the rain. This cost £5, the minimum charge at this breaker, and again the new unit was lubricated and fitted into the door of CHO.

The difference in terms of opening the door was dramatic (the handle didn’t need virtually tearing off before the door opened) and it was once again possible to unlock the door from the interior button. The central locking on this door is still a bit tempramental though (it only works about 6 in every 10 attempts). This may be due to the battery not being fully charged and therefore not enough power to the locks, or it may be a case of the motor being weak. In any case, the problem is now far less significant than before.