Oliver's son - 79 Opel Kadett

What sort of screw driver did you need? That link isn't working anymore, at least for me. Car companies (i.e. GM and torx fasteners) tend to like to do that stuff so the owner doesn't have any choice but bring the car into the dealer.

I trust you got your vacuum issues sorted?
 
airmenair said:
What sort of screw driver did you need? That link isn't working anymore, at least for me. Car companies (i.e. GM and torx fasteners) tend to like to do that stuff so the owner doesn't have any choice but bring the car into the dealer.

I trust you got your vacuum issues sorted?
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It's called an Innenvielzahn in german. New link should work. Of course, this did not stop me from fixing the vaccum issue - even if a special tool like this is ten bucks, i still paid only one hour of work at a local garage for an engine tune instead of 4+ hours plus parts for sorting out the vaccum issue. After working on the carb and the brake system, i'm not afraid of too many things any more by now.

EDIT: The wing mirror marks the third spare part order in a row where i get the wrong part on first try. In one case (boot lid lock) it turned out to be my mistake, in two cases (mirror, master cylinder) the supplier was at fault.

EDIT 2: The supplier does not have a matching wing mirror in stock. I'll get a refund on the wrong one and am without a mirror again. Off to ebay...
 
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Some updates: I not only got a wing mirror off ebay, i got it for half the price the "professional" spare parts supplier asked and as the seller lived ten kilometers away from where i was on holiday, i could pick it up in person and save shipping costs.

On the way back from said holiday, after more than 1200 faultless kilometers, i got stranded at a garage about 20 kilometers from my girlfriends hometown with the engine studdering. While i was sure the reason was moisture in the distributor cap after driving through torrential rain the day before, i lacked the philips screwdriver to remove the distributor cap (note to self: never go on holidays without your tools again), so i had to ask for professional help.

While drying up the distributor cap fixed the inginiton issue and left me with a brilliant-running motor, the mechanic and i discovered a knocking noise from the engine. The mechanic, a pimply-faced guy in his early twenties, was clearly intimidated by the Kadett's ancient engine and, after some head-scratching, said: "You'll better wait for my dad to come back from lunch. He knows such old engines."
Half an hour later, a blue-collared fat guy in his late fifties with a speech disorder showed up, let me run down what i did and did not fix or change at the engine in the last years, listened to the knocking sound, removed the V-belt, basically disconnecting both the fan and the alternator from the motor and after having the battery power the ignition for longer than i thought it could while listening carefully to the noise, it's (possible) source and how it changes over the rev range, he finally told me that judging from the fact that the noise comes from the timing gear casing, yet the engine is running just fine it can only be the timing chain tensioner. While it would be safe to drive the car home to Berlin, i should look into it ASAP. So i got myself an engine timing rebuilt kit (consisting of the seals for the timing gear casing, a new timing chain and new timing gears) and a tensioner. Will look into it tomorrow and at least replace the tensioner.

In not-entirely unrelated news i decided to pull the engine, take it apart and at least replace all seals and all bearings while i'm at it over the winter. Most likely i'll leave the replacement of the gears and chain until then, but the repair kit was only five bucks more than the seals alone.
 
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Dr_Grip said:
Yep. :)
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EDIT: As the sun is shining and it's a few degrees warmer than expected i decided that it's best to replace the timing chain tensioner right now instead of staying in bed and curing my cold. We'll see how that goes.
 
Dr_Grip said:
EDIT: As the sun is shining and it's a few degrees warmer than expected i decided that it's best to replace the timing chain tensioner right now instead of staying in bed and curing my cold. We'll see how that goes.
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As some of you may have seen in the Q&A forum, it did not go well. I consulted with some other Opel OHV engine owners and we decided that if i am planning to pull the motor in the winter anyways, a noise from the timing chain can be tolerated until then.

In completely unrelated news the starter battery died on me so i had to spent 40 bucks on a new one.
 
There are massive bans in many major cities, not having a cat is less relevant though - what matters is whether you have a three-way cat or not. Petrol cars with a three-way cat get a green disk, allowed to go anywhere. Petrol cars without a three-way cat get no disk at all, banned from many inner city areas. The time of year is also irrelevant.

For Oliver's son the H-plate for an historic car is the saviour though, lets you go into all inner cities.


For more info see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verord...e_Kennzeichnung_emissionsarmer_Kraftfahrzeuge (yes, Germans love their long word combos).

These are the restricted inner cities:

https://pic.armedcats.net/n/na/narf/2010/11/05/756px-Umweltzonen_in_Deutschland.svg.png
 
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All year round, including foreign cars. During hot summer days there may be further restrictions due to ozone levels.
The old cars only are excepted with an historic H-plate or with a collector's swappable 07-plate. Just being old is not enough.
Temporary 06-plates allow you to enter the zones without a disk, but only if your car is eligible for one.
 
To get the H plates the car has to be 30 years old and have passed a T?V test which attest that it's "worthy of preservation". That usually means good and original condition.
 
And, depending on the T?V person, common cars may fail the inspection unless in uber-mint condition because the preservation worthiness is higher for rare cars. For example, to get H-plates on a Beetle you either need a rare model or James May levels of restoration.
 
For your car, any filled circle. Outline-only circles are planned zones not in effect yet.

Red is the weakest ban, green is the strongest. In red/yellow you can even go in with some diesels without a particulate filter.
 
Good news is that Police Departments in most german cities flat out refuse to enforce these rules, claiming they got enough to do without it.

This means that unless you get pulled over for another offence, no one will care if your car has a green badge or not.

Parking your car is another story. People writing out parking tickets get a bonus for a certain amount of tickets per hour, so they got an incentive to ticket your missing green badge. So just keep moving and park legally.
 
Dr_Grip said:
Good news is that Police Departments in most german cities flat out refuse to enforce these rules, claiming they got enough to do without it.

This means that unless you get pulled over for another offence, no one will care if your car has a green badge or not.

Parking your car is another story. People writing out parking tickets get a bonus for a certain amount of tickets per hour, so they got an incentive to ticket your missing green badge. So just keep moving and park legally.
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Would anyone notice if you had a green car and ripped off the cats?
 
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