Generation Cyb

 Work gets underway with a service and a few more irritating problems cleaned up.

In last months report I announced that I would be looking into the braking system aswell as what I have done, but unfortunately time has not allowed me to carry out the required jobs properly to date and a number of irritating problems have not helped, so I will save the report until next month.

In the present I decided the highest priority was to give the car a fairly comprehensive service, as is always wise after buying a car where the history is not well known (I did not have the more recent service records). The timing belt was not changed as I’m a little reluctant to undertake such a potentially expensive job at the moment, but just about everything else was covered apart from the brake fluid as the whole system is to be overhauled in the near future.

Incidentally, I’ve just declared the car SORN as is now the law. If like me you don’t get a tax reminder, send for form V890 as soon as possible, otherwise the DVLA come round to your house and make you pay £1000, and if you don’t pay they beat you up and crush you alive (ever seen the TV advert with the man getting crushed alive in the brown Sierra?)!!!

Getting back to the point, the service. Firstly the air filter was replaced, an easy job on most cars including the Maestro, except that the air filter on the ‘O’ series is at an awkward angle. This did reveal some oil in the filter, which may indicate a problem with the engine not beingable to breathe properly. I’ll investigate another time. The engine oil and filter were changed. Again this is a fairly straightforward job, but remember to turn the sump plug the right way to undo – I was trying to tighten it because I didn’t stop to think about the fact that it turns a different way from the front of the car as its at the back of the sump. The oil was absolutely black, CHO hasn’t been serviced for quite a while! I also discovered a possible leak as is typical on the ‘O’ series units. Again, I’ll investigate this another time.

The spark plug change revealed few problems. Plugs were difficult to remove with my short handled spark plug spanner. The old plugs were not badly worn, but I replaced all the plugs with new Champions to be safe. Remember during servicing to sweep dirt from around the plugs so as not to get it inside the cylinders and do not overtighten new plugs. Further examination and cleaning of components was also necesarry including the oil filler cap (which was washed in white spirit to remove the brown sludge).