Hi greenday, pleased to be here !
Here's a [long] story on my introduction to the Largo. I have wanted one for a long time for weekend trips etc and while looking for a 'everyday' 7 seater for my son and his family, I came across this one. To cut a long story short we have now taken it on as a joint project and I found him a Zafira for the daily school run etc, thank goodness !
This Largo had a short mot, bald tyres, heating problems and gunk in the Rad. Perfect !
Having done a few projects over the years, mainly Mk1 and 2 Golfs and Nissans [my current weekend toy is a Nissan S13 runining about 240bhp] I hoped for the best and feared the worst but was already thinking 'worst case scenario' would be an engine swap , perhaps a 1.8 or 2 ltr turbo from the Nissan SX as they were fitted with the KA24DE in the US, not to mention a Skyline lump, although just a dream at this point. Most things can be fixed with time and patience though so it was time to get the Largo home, it drove lovely and the engine sounded sweet with no 'hiccups' other than I thought I was in theback of a freezer van ! [No heater + really cold weather]
Once home it was time to investigate and it soon became apparent that the gunk floating in the radiator was a gasket sealant. I don't know if this is available in liquid form in a gallon tub, but thats exactly what it seemed like was in there
We set about flushing the system and removing all the smaller pipes under the hood to clean up, both the by pass valve and heater control valve were completely bunged up with it as well as the matrix heater. Lots of cleaning and flushing and short blasts with the airgun and it started to clear. We put it all back together and ran it up 2 or 3 times and repeated the procedure before getting the last of it out. I soon learnt what a 'PITA' the cooling system can be to get the air from the system, but I m pretty good at it now !
Engine was now running sweet, water circulating nicely but temp gauge and heaters up front were still cold ! After bleeding the matrix heater again and making sure the water was flowing through it we decided the thermostat must be stuck open with gunk. We hadn't gone here yet as all the sealant seemed to float and be in the top smaller hoses, matrix and top of rad. So next up it was out with the Thermostat, apart from we found there wasn't one in there ! Having got a replacement we thought we would get that in and all would be good, oh no nothing is that simple !
If you haven't lost the will to live so far, here comes part 2. Bolting the thermostat housing back up we discovered the reason for all the sealant and lack of a thermostat, a bodge job repair to the mounting point. It was right around the time the thermostat housing [the part on the engine side] cracked open as we were putting the lower bolt in that we realised this. bh As a temporary job we put the two other bolts in and then used some liquid steel to seal it while joining it by nicking up the third bolt. This held while we took it for a couple of spins around the block and had it on tick over, but still the cabin air was only just warm and then the water let go and poured out from the thermostat area over the floor. First thoughts were engine out, but once we had had a cup of tea and calmed down I had another look and discovered the thermostat housing was part of the oil pump/ timing chain cover so we started looking for a replacement. Local Nissan was of little help and those available on-line showed a few varietys available so it was time to go about removing the one we had. Off came the front pulleys, the water pump and then we had to drop the sump to disconnect the oil pump pipe and remove the bolts holding the cover in place. The cover is quite expensive yet not too bad, but we were having trouble convincing ourselves that we would be sent the right part from the US which could lead to another load of aggro, so I found a local weld shop who did Ally welding to give that a go. Thirty quid and some time filing the welds flush and we were back in business. We got everything back together and left it while the gasket sealants took hold. It was a couple of days later that I had chance to get back to it and top it up with water and to be honest I was quite excited about getting her run up properly at last. That is up to the point where the water immediately started running over the floor from the thermostat area once again!!
I removed the front seats and engine cover to get a better look and to my relief at that point I found it was a split hose, the one that runs from under the thermostat to the engine. We still don't know whether this is what actually failed and not the temporary repair in the first place, but it was blown and weak. Off with the pipe and to Nissan, but not a lot of help there ! I expect some of you have had to replace this pipe and are aware that it is a different diameter on each end so not any old piece of pipe the same size will do. In the end I found a small hydraulics company that supplied us with the two sizes of hose and an industrial strength coupling reducer to join the pipes. We had to play about with lenghts and bends to get it around the inlet manifold without kinking the pipe and then fixed it all up with new hose clamps. The cap near to the thermostat had a perished seal, so I borrowed the one from my S13 to make good seal. Now the moment of truth !!
Topped it up with coolant and bled the system, fired it up and bled it some more from the various points. It was a long wait and then hey presto, one sweet sounding Largo with hot air front and back !!
We replaced the front tyres got the rear fog working and it has just flown through it's mot. The Grandkids love it and it's just had it's first outing to take the kids to a local farm to see the spring Lambs !
The good thing is I went into it with my eyes open and took on the challenge, so although in many ways it was a pain, it was better than expected and was great to be on the tools and finding my way around the Largo. We will get on with undersealing it next and then perhaps sort out the suspension bushes. Although it's not that noisey, it' feels slightly spongey as you would expect from age. Then what ? [Who knows !]
I will attempt to post a couple of pics later.
