Various items wanted

Hi new to this, just bought my first hijet it’s a 1.3 2004, I’m needing the following...

Rear shock absorber x2
front brake hoses x2
A new speedo or speedo cable
Any metal panels

Also got a couple of question, which oil should I use, where do I drain it from and what other cars can I use a speedometer from ? Any help would be appreciated thanks

What is the problem with your speedometer?
I understand the oil is 10/40 semi.
Do you have an OBDII connector next to your right knee? (when seated in the van!)

Sorry I don't have any parts for you.

I got a couple of new shockers, got 5/30 semi oil, but I have a lot of corrosion at the sliding door sill any suggestions what to do or if there’s any sill panels that are available

As far as I am aware there are no panels available to buy, just off cuts etc from existing vans. You will probably end up either patching with new steel or making any panels you can. Hope you are handy with a welder.
For shocks try ebay and with the speedo/cable we would need more description of the error to offer advice as it could be a few things and not just the cable.

Hi the speedo needle constantly bounces up and down, is there another speedo from another car that fits in the hijet thanks

You would be very lucky to find another that fits, i think. Mine gets stuck at 30 and 50, so I use an OBDII diagnostics wifi dongle thing along with a display on an old phone that gives engine rpm, speed, temp, etc etc.

Is that one if they diagnostic sort of things where u plug it in your car and you have an app on your phone and it shows you any problems and tell you your mpg and speed.? Thanks

Due to the design, the needle does bounce a bit till you get to 40+ Tried two gauges and both same. Mine old one did stick at 50 sometimes but swapped gauge and all fine now.

crolla95 wrote:Is that one if they diagnostic sort of things where u plug it in your car and you have an app on your phone and it shows you any problems and tell you your mpg and speed.? Thanks

Exactly so. I have an ELM diagnostic dongle and the app i use is dashcmd. It can do the fault codes if there's ever a need too. My van iis 2007 btw, I know some older ones don't have the OBD port

Ok which coolant should I use to top up and do I put it in the radiator or expansion tank

crolla95 wrote:Ok which coolant should I use to top up and do I put it in the radiator or expansion tank

Well, the expansion tank needs to be at the "full" line when the engine is cold...and the rest of the system is filled from the radiator following the bleed procedure which is shown on a sticker behind the grill on the front of the van.
There are many hocus-pocus methods involving complicated props and chanting but I like the method the van tells me. Use the same colour you already have in there or drain and fill with G12 red (OAT) or similar.

Well as developer of the system for filling up the Cooling System - it ain't Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus is a record track by Focus - a Dutch Band on one of their albums from 1971 called Moving Waves.

You aren't trying to Move Waves - just Air out of the system and the ONLY way to do that is to have a supply of engine coolant filling the radiator that is above the top of the Heater Matrix using the method I described 6 years on here and has been copied and re-copied many times.

I haven't been working on Hi-Jets for 17 years to be told that my method is Hocus Pocus so the best thing you can do Go-go-Dancer is go and stand in the corner with a hat on with a large D for Dunce or Dope and do all the chanting you can manage for hours repeating. " I am an idiot. Woody knows best".
You were 17 years old when I started on Hi-Jets and I have probably broken up the most Hi-Jets of anyone and have learnt quite a bit about Hi-Jets. I don't have the electronics knowledge that Highly Jetted had or everything about them, but as regards the interchangeability of parts between 993cc, 1200 and 1400 Diesels and the 1300 Matt would contact me to find out.

Crolla your Hi-Jet being a 2004 will definitely have an OBD2 Connection under the dashboard where gogo piaggio described.
Your speedometer is the only one that is compatible with your gearbox speedo drive and the rear axle ratio.
There are companies that re-callibrate other speedo's to suit a given vehicle but they will need to know the speedo drive ratio in the gearbox, the differential ratio and the rolling circumference of the tyres you will be using.

The Speedo Needle bounce is usually caused at low speeds by a worn cable. You can remove the inner cable from the Gearbox end and remove the connector on the speedo and force Grease down the Outer speedo cable with a tool I made especially for the job and an air line to force the grease down the cable ( I use ZX1 Red grease - they are based in Horsham, Sussex and their products are superb ESPECIALLY the ZX1 Engine oil additive. With a 250cc bottle of the additive, the engine is much smoother running, gave my MPV an extra 8mph top speed on LPG and one filling lasts 20,000 miles regardless of how many oil changes you do in that distance.) It isn't cheap at £16 for 250cc but I was so impressed with it, I bought 3 litres of it and use it in all five of my vehicles and some customers vehicles too. Fuel consumption is also reduced.

As regards the needle sticking in one place then I would recommend a strip down and a little bit of Handy Oil or even WD40. Then use a battery drill to spin the speedo up to make sure that you have cleared the problem.

Hopefully that sorts your problems out as you say that you have got a couple of Shock Absorbers. I didn't see anywhere that you have told us if you have a van or a Pickup - I have only just tonight seen this thread.

An introduction of yourself and your vehicle is normal practice in Welcome to the Jungle. Should read "Asylum" with some of the idiots we get on here - and I am not referring to you Gogopiaggio. You do seem to have a fair bit of knowledge.
It's the One Hit Wonders (that Leopard Pagan calls them) and for me it is the " I wanters" and no introduction of themselves and particularly the vehicle they have. There are loads of differences between van and pick up of any engine size and the differences between 993cc and 1300 the list is as long as your arm.

Oh and one other thing - yes I bite hard when it's needed. My patience is very short and my cutting command of the English language can be devastating - without the need ever for bad language. Something I really loathe on a Public Forum.

I see you are on good form today Woody, a good explanation of all things Hijet. Don’t know where a lot of us would have been without yours and some of the other longer term members and the accumulated knowledge of the forum.

Well said Woodie

Cheers my friend. I hope that the weather in Cullompton is as nice as here. Currently 27c. Too hot for an old man like me to be working in. So I have had the whole day off today. Although I did get up at 4-45am for my 5-30am morning marathon. A mate of mine who I have known since he was a kid and is in his late 40's has said that he wants to go on one of my 4-5 mile early morning walks and finally arranged on Friday evening to come over this morning. He arrived as agreed at 5-30am prompt and off we went. He loved the walk through the Railway Tunnel and the Cave in the woods and the Tunnels in Niton - none of which he knew about. We were out for 2 hours and got back home at 7-30 am.

He was utterly exhausted and amazed at my stamina for a 69 year old. And it was great for me having the company of someone who appreciates the Isle of Wight countryside as much as I do.
He is up for it again - but this next time I will go at Full Steam and see if he can keep up. Will be interesting.

He did well at that time in a morning! We would love to go with you when we come down...,but at that time in a morning....no chance!

CHICKEN!! I was up at 4-45am again this morning and left home at 5-15 am and got back at 6-49am.

I got some beautiful Pink Sunrise Photos. I will WhatsApp them and yesterday's over to you. Tomorrow is supposed to be even better so I'll be going out about 4-30am tomorrow and sit and film the sunrise from the top of
St. Rhadagunds Down in St. Lawrence.

Doesn't half make for a long day!! But I love it. I would never have believed that at 69 I would still be getting up this early and walking over 4 miles every morning. Ludicrous really.

I wondered if I'd wake the dragon
Woodie does know best.

But you might share my opinion on the others by the time you've read a few of the half-remembered and half-copied sets of instructions lurking around on the forum.

And hasn't the weather been llovely! The sun has shone in Wales!

That's wierd!! I thought that it was the Welsh that have the Dragon as the emblem on their flag.? But what do I know? I'm just a Thick Isle of Wight Country Bumpkin.

What's even weirder is " Why do Forum members always look to me for Hi-Jet advice and many of them for spare parts too. I don't see many of them asking you for advice.
Not surprised really with your hour long method of attempting to bleed the Cooling System and cooking your hands and waiting for the the engine to cool down and then do it all again. What a load of Hocus-Pocus!!
Now where have I heard that before?? Oh yes someone Chanting in the depths of beautiful Wales praying that their stupid time wasting Coolant System Bleeding Method works.
Why do you think that there are so many Hi-Jets with overheating problems and head gaskets burnt through. Because they can't get the air out of the Heater Matrix properly with Daihatsu's stupid method or have bothered to put two new pressure caps on too.

I seldom bother to check the water level in my MPV usually 6 monthly or more - because my method works and the engine stays cool. If I get stuck behind a row of vehicles crawling along behind another dopey Isle of Wight Country Bumpkin in a Tractor - I just flick another of my No-Brain Inventions - The Fan Override Switch and the temperature stays constantly in the middle of the gauge.

But you carry on with your methods and I and most of the regulars with ours. Other than that I am really not interested in anything else that you have got to say on this Forum. I have contributed hundreds of hours of my very busy Country Bumpkin life helping hundreds of Forum members out with advice and support and parts. Helping people out - I love doing. Ungrateful Pillocks don't get any help from me anymore. I just stick with the grateful members who say thank you when I have helped them out. So Aux Revoir Welsh Wizard. Keep your words of wisdom coming. We are all entitled to our own views as you all but rightly said, and I will exercise mine when I feel the need to. For whatever reason.

Now now! I'm not looking for trouble! If using the forum stops being fun, it may as well get shut down. The main thing missing in these things is the meaning behind the words and the intonation.
Meanwhile numbers dwindle as the stocks on the road that haven't already been scrapped and broken up on the isle of wight rot away.

Well I 100% agree with you there GGP. The Forum has definitely got to be fun. I have been on here for over 6 years now and when Matt left, (Highly Jetted) he left a colossal void on the Forum. As I mentioned previously I haven't got a fraction of the Electronics Expertise he had.
Since the devastating fire and all the health problems that hit me in 2016 I have had to give up doing mechanical work on anyone's Hi-Jet over here. Even last August I had to get my favorite garage and Mot Station, Bonchurch Garage to fit a new Clutch Kit and a Cambelt Kit too, because I just cannot find the interest or motivation to do the jobs on my own vehicles even.
Over the past 6 years I have seen so many people join the Forum and never post once. Which is a shame because there is a wealth of knowledge out there but the answers are left to a very small number of members to come up with the answers - and I certainly don't know all the answers. I am wrong at times certainly but usually someone will pick me up on it. I'm still learning - - except for Humility and Patience. It is in the Woodward blood unfortunately. And I can tell you now that it is unlikely - very unlikely to change this late in life. I wish I could.
I'm certainly not proud of my intolerance I can assure you.
And as always I will apologise if the other person is happy to do so, and with me despite coming across as an aggressive Ole Git I am actually very soft and generous person who forgives and forgets at the drop of a hat.
So please don't take yesterday's harsh words badly. Yesterday was another day. Today is another day.

Since Logi left us or is on extended leave I have had to take over as Number One Mischief Maker. One thing that I am very good at. I went out for a meal with my son the week before last as we hardly ever have the chance to get together and talk. He has two Bands. One Foo-Fighter-z (he was playing in Swansea a couple of months ago) and an AC/DC Tribute band - Stiff Upper Lip. He plays over the Mainland a lot of the time. Plymouth Good Friday, Andover Saturday. I have known him have 4 gigs in one weekend. I was telling him about the things that I used to get up to when in my Teens and early twenties. We were both in stitches in the Reastraunt.

The one thing that he hates is being tailgated. I put an electric screen wash bottle under the bonnet which squirted neat RedEx Oil treatment straight into the exhaust system and produced voluminous clouds of white smog. They dropped back very quickly after a dose of that. I also had a 3 way switch on the brake lights. Up position was brake lights off. Middle position was brake lights power on so the lights worked normally and the 3rd position was flash when pressed down and then returned to the middle normal operating position. If someone was trying to look up my exhaust pipe I would flash the brake lights in position 3. Do that 3 times and I had enough and would switch to position 1 - OFF and then stamp hard on the brakes and watch the panic on their faces in my rear view mirror. Very stupid I know - but that's what I got up to and hundreds of other pranks. So I have always been mischievous as was my Dad and my Grandad. As I said it's in the blood.
Just one other thing I have done to customers that didn't pay me - and I can only recall 5 people in my entire working life - was a Can of Builders Expanding Foam with a longer length of hose attached to the nozzle and push it as far as possible up the system and give it a good dose.

Next day when they come to start the car - it would either start and if the system was pretty rusty it would blow it apart or if the exhaust was in good nick then the car would not start. I defy any mechanic to find that fault.
That is why when Raggy had problems with Skylark losing power due to the Cat getting blocked and no power the Foam trick came to mind - although I had had the same problem with a Ford Fiesta Cat and I said to Raggy that is what I thought it was. He admitted afterwards " I should have listened to Woody". But sadly I ain't right every time. My memory is failing me. Something to do with old age my aching body is always telling me - and my wife has to remind me : "You ARE nearly seventy dear". Bog-Off woman. I don't wish to be reminded.