You sure it was smoke free on start up before the road trip? I ask as I have never actually looked at my tailpipe when starting. Though I have seen a few 200 gob out black smoke on start up over the years. 200 are a dirty engine, 300 less so.

I think you will find they are thicker walled than 1mm. 1mm walled nylon pipe is a real bastard for kinking.

Bet you the next set will do exactly the same. I would be replacing the bearing along with the discs/pads.

This is mine, guys at work swapped a cat engine for another used one, this hose was spare so I may have purloined it and this is where it has lived for the last 18 years. This is a 200 with the early narrow style radiator, I cannot comment on the later rads as obviously they are gay! Crap camera...

Or welded it!

You are going to need access to the underside, and remove the engine undertrays just to see what is going on.

Welcome to LZ. New clutch could be your clue here, top bell housing bolts not being refitted which also hold the crossover pipe on are famous for not getting refitted when clutch gets done.

Welcome to LZ. Genuine seals? Corteco seals are good. Bit of blue hylomar on the seal outer flange might help.

Plastigauge should tell you all you need to know. If crank is std and shells say std then I would say it should be okay, but still needs checking, rest you can billy b**** your way through but crank is quite important.

Bloody hell I learnt to drive in an old 2000 series Daf. Jakes open the exhaust valve just as piston hits tdc to release any pressure so there is no effort spplied to the piston on the downstroke so the engine sort of operates in reverse. Some good vids on youtube. Daf have their own version...

Ex brakes on trucks are are psis poor. Jakes and retarders are on another level.

Chuck some oil in it, easy job.

I think that was factory 200 style dash a/c much like the 300/td5 one that hangs underneath the dash.

I did 5 miles to work and 5 miles home for 8.5 years in my D3, and if a D3 can do that with zero issues then a 200 certainly can, i tis all the later dpf stuff that can cause issues

Tbh I would say they are all shocking mpg wise, as a toy that wont make much difference,, but if you do any miles at all then diesel comes back into play. First factoy 200tdi were 1989 G reg I think so only 4/5 yrs and they will be tax/mot free, plenty of conversions out there, but a lot of...

I would imagine early ones had the same petrols as the s3 models 2,25/2.5 and 3.5, as for later ones I have no idea.

I would say that is scrap, remember back in the day when 200s were new they had a rep for snapping cranks, I even bought one that had just been rebuilt after a crank failure.

All the time hgvs are diesel then diesel will be available. But for the cheapest owner experience I would be going petrol.

I knew it would cheer you up, nice not to be forgotten, I have always told the younguns at work when you pass on knowledge that you learnt off of some old fart always say where you learnt it from, as that will make the old fart happy even if he is dead! I am always saying if you do it this way...