Happy new Hijet owner :D

Hi all

As of yesterday I am now the proud new owner of an S reg 1.3 Hijet mpv (44170 on the clock) which I plan to turn into a 4 seater weekend camper. Overall I am very happy with it, mechanically all seems fine and dandy there are just a few minor issues that I need to have a look at:

Both rear inside door handles don't seem to work - will investigate when I get time to get the door cards off
Key can unlock drivers door but cannot lock it - hopefully some wd40 and a jiggle will fix
Passenger side wing mirror was blown down driving back on the m62 leaving me with a great view of my rear wheel and nothing else - not too sure, might see if I can stiffen the joint somehow or maybe restrain it at the top - any ideas?
Heater doesn't only blows cold when directed at footwell and cabin but works on other settings - ????????

Apart from that nothing else has reared its head yet but I'm sure they will in time. I've got some ideas of how the floor plan is going to look but I'll talk about that once I've sketched it out

MattS wrote:
Both rear inside door handles don't seem to work - will investigate when I get time to get the door cards off
Key can unlock drivers door but cannot lock it - hopefully some wd40 and a jiggle will fix
Passenger side wing mirror was blown down driving back on the m62 leaving me with a great view of my rear wheel and nothing else - not too sure, might see if I can stiffen the joint somehow or maybe restrain it at the top - any ideas?
Heater doesn't only blows cold when directed at footwell and cabin but works on other settings - ????????

Pretty damn tidy from the picture!

Mirrors floppy - pretty normal on the drivers side - set it up right, unscrew it from the door, put glue down the ball upside down

Yep, work locks with wd40, again pretty normal.

Rear sliding door lock are very simple when you get the card off - don't suppose its got child locks?

Heater:- does it actually blow hot then at some point?

Thanks! I'll upload some more photos when I get time

I think glue will be the last solution as both me and my girlfriend will be driving and despite the mirrors being quite big there is a good foot height difference between us.

As far as child locks go I'm not too sure. How do I tell if It's got them and how are they disabled?

The heater blows hot air when its set just on the windshield, windshield and footwell (hot air out of both), but when on footwell and dash vents it blows cold air out of both (on all temperature settings) :S I'm not sure about the other settings I'll check when I next have the chance.

In terms of seating, I think I'm going to swap the front seats out for some off a smart car (does anyone know how much they go for?), what I was thinking is if I can either extend the sliding rails (or maybe use two sets of rails) so that the seats move far enough back to clear the handbrake, I could then mount the seats on a swivel plate so they can be turned facing the other direction when camping. While this is probably possible the really tricky bit is doing it without adding any height as I don't have much clearance between my legs and steering wheel at the moment. I think in the end it will probably be much easier (but much more boring) to modify the existing rail so that I can slide the seat off completely, turn it round and the slide it back on

I dont think the seats would have the space to spin round between the door and the handbrake - but it's just a guess. Corner to corner they will be bigger then their width, and there isn't much space around them.

I think your vents work fine, from memory this topic has come up before. I only ever use mine on either screen only, or feet and screen. They live on hot all the time, if the weather is hot, I turn the fan off and open the window!

I think when you open the sliding door, on the edge of the door there might be a little toggle lever - but I am only guessing as its about 3 years since I had an MPV hijet.

The mirrors go a bit crap because the ball wears away and the plastic clamp wears away, and the plastic goes brittle so when you try and take them apart the plastic clamp breaks normally. I have tried to take a couple of mirrors off the ball without any success.

Nice looking Jet, alloys and tinted windows?
Fitting a sports steering wheel fairly makes a difference to cabin space, no leg/wheel interface probs
Im on my phone so cant link to it but theres a VW style front end for sale on Ebay just now. Splitscreen Hijet anyone?
Mines blows cold out the vents, so did the last one, when it blows cold out all settings is worry time.

Wrong fuckin post for the VW front end im getting senile

I'll probably only tint the rear windows :p

I guess we'll have to find a position that me and the lady both agree on then glue the bugger in place before I break it

I agree that the handbrake would stop the seats swiveling where they are, that's why I was considering extending the slider rails so they could be slid far enough backwards so that there would be enough room to turn. However that might be a tad complicated.

As far as seats go, I know people have fitted seats from a smart city car with success but in case I can't get hold of any is there an alternative? I've been cruising ebay and mr2/mx5 seats seem quite common and look like they might have a low enough profile

Mines and HJs have Smartcar seats, pretty sure someone else has too? They work well but if you find something else let us know
You can drill the mirror above the ball and put a nut % bolt through which improves it a bit, ill take a pic of mine and post it up later.

Ps Smart roadsters have heated leather seats

MattS wrote:I guess we'll have to find a position that me and the lady both agree on then glue the bugger in place before I break it

Logi wrote:Wrong fuckin post for the VW front end .......im senile

I've corrected that for you Logi..........we're all here to help you mate .

Hey just thought I'd give an update on the van.

I've fixed the inside sliding door handles - the bolt that connects the clip for the child locks had loosened meaning they were permanently engaged on both sides, so I had to strip out the mechanism to get to the nut at the back but it shouldn't be coming loose any time soon.

I went for smart car seats in the end, picked up some nice matching blue ones from ebay for £50 that went in with relative ease (pics below).

Still haven't secured the wing mirror but that will get sorted as soon as the van is on the road (waiting to sell my old car) but the main focus for the moment is fixing the windscreen wash system which I've created a separate thread for. After that it's going to be taking out the rear seats and fitting a pull out bed of some sort.