Daihatsu Debut - The nightmare is over

[Station]

I would've personally put a fuel injected engine from a Nippa in there, the mounting locations look the same.

 

 

You can also fit the engine from a 16v 130bhp Daihatsu YRV which is automatic (with steering wheel control) as well (I'm considering getting this engine to do it and kill myself in the Nippa):

 

 

But fair play to you for keeping it original.

[Austin-Rover]

Mechanical work is on hold at the moment whilst the new fuel pump makes its way from Australia ( ! ). Some small jobs have made themselves known in the meantime - a knackered driveshaft oil seal and a few weeping connections on the cooling system to tighten up.

 

Instead, work has started to repair the holes in the rear valance below the boot lid rubber seal. An odd place to rot, but easy enough to repair. I also started on reassembly of the front end. Last summer, I found an eBay ad for someone who was breaking a B plate Turbo. Sadly, by the time I got in touch the main body of the car had gone (along with loads of useful stuff) but I did manage to get a replacement front bumper (the original was cracked and damaged) and two headlamp surrounds (near side original broken at the same time as the bumper I assume). The replacement front bumper didn't come with the bumper iron behind so I had to bolt that to the bent original. Today I find that the Turbo model has different headlamp surround mouldings from the 'cooking' models. They match up to a chunkier front grille (which wasn't available to buy!). This means I need to repair the broken one - or find a Turbo front grille. I should imagine both options will prove troublesome.

 

Does anyone know of anything I can buy, or any method to use to join up cracked plastic parts once more? Superglue is not man enough for the job, and has already been attempted in the past. The front grille is also in dire need of being put back together - only one vertical reinforcement remains from stopping it falling in to two pieces.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Araldite? Every plastic thing I've glued with it is still together, including a washing machine handle with a massive spring putting a load of stress on the joint, and a Brabantia bin lid catch where people push down on it hard.

 

Superglue failed all of these too.

[hairnet]

look in bike mags in wh smiths - theres places that repair fairings and stuff

[catsinthewelder]

Try araldite first but if that fails you could try plastic welding it with an old soldering iron.

[artdjones]

Wurth do a good twopack plastic glue but you have to buy the application tool as well.

[lovejoy]

Alo, just caught up with this saga  -  you really need to come and get all the G11 bits I have in

storage at my garage in Dorset....   no bumper, i'm afraid !   but good door trim panels,

engine block with all internals, loads of other stuff....

 

I have had half-a-dozen of these cracking little cars, and NEVER, ever had a problem with any of them,

even on runs from Dorset to Cornwall and back, with bikes on the roof !!!

 

That red auto was noticeably less lively that all the 5-speed manuals I had, after much investigating,

I concluded some carburettor linkages were no longer present, as there seemed no way the

secondaries could open, although there was the parts attatched to that which should have linked

up to the main throttle body.

 

I first got acquainted with G10's and G11's in the Caribbean, as my future wife had a G11, it impressed

me so much, I bought one each time I was in the UK as a cheap runaround;  the chinese-eye runout

version was superb, I may still have a grille and slanty headlites for that too.

 

Stick with it, they are cracking little cars,  a pity junkman doesn't agree   )

[Austin-Rover]

We have the technology! Araldite to make the initial join between the broken parts, followed by a glassfibre and resin kit for a more robust repair. Still anticipating the arrival of my fuel pump from Oz, mind.

 

 

[Austin-Rover]

The fuel pump made its way from Australia...at which point I got stung for VAT. Oh well! At least we're back in business engine-wise. It'll sit and run quite happily, warming up, fan cutting in. All is well. The idle is a touch fast, but I expect some fine tuning will be needed once it's out of the garage. I can't wait to find out how good/bad a 1.0, 3-cyl, 2spd auto actually is. One thing is for certain, and that is it will be different!

 

In other works, the rear valance has been welded and painted. Austin-Rover Oporto Red is a spot-on match for whatever colour this car actually is. Quite chuffed with that, especially as I had loads of Oporto Red rattle cans in stock! The rear end is now bolted back together and the car is 'complete' once more.

 

I've also tackled an easy - but very satisfying - job; cleaning the filthy interior! A bucket of water, a nail brush, cloth and squirty bottle of Autosmart G101 has brought all that vinyl and plastic like new. A wet 'n' dry vac on the seats is all that's needed now.

 

Now here's the point where I jinx this weekends work. Tomorrow's plans are to overhaul the braking system, and on Sunday the driveway is being cleared and it should be driving out of the garage under its own power! I can't wait! It's only taken eleven months to get to this point...

 

Pix from today; Re-assembled arse end and spotless interior.

 

 

[eddyramrod]

I really fancied this little charmer before you got it!  So pleased to see it getting the love it deserves. 

[smellypoo]

That looks awesome! Well done for getting it running again, looks like it really deserved a bit of love!

[Austin-Rover]

The story of this car - three steps forward, two steps back. After fighting with some badly corroded connections on the brakes system, we got to a point where we changed the fluid and began bleeding the system. Got half the system done, but the other circuit won't bleed up! So that sounds like a knackered master cylinder to me?

 

Hey ho!

 

We pressed on with evicting it from the garage to get the next project in (which is nowhere near as involved as this one!) - it's certainly come on leaps and bounds from the car that was pushed in there last year - it's capable of moving under its own power for starters! Apart from sorting this new problem with the brakes - the car is at the point of sorting 'niggles' and a general shake-down. I think I can see the MoT appearing of the horizon...one can dream!

 

Pix: Light of day and a wash were i order today...

 

 

[Pillock]

Try araldite first but if that fails you could try plastic welding it with an old soldering iron.

I know this is sorted now, bit as a word of advice - if you've ever used superglue on plastic, then touching it with a soldering iron is the quickest way to make you feel like your eyeballs are being welded to live wires.

 

Superglue fumes are bad, mmkay.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

That's looking well smart, that. Nice work!

[blguy1975]

Glad I was there to see this fine machine run..at last .,Looks lovely inside too

will look lovely at some shows soon

 

Great Work

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I'm fairly sure I've posted this photo on here before, but here's a nice shot of two Autoshite bikes in the wild. The Lovejoy>Junkman>Cavette>Austin-Rover Charade with the Junkman>Conrad>Shitpeas>Nyphur Colt.

 

Japan, Yesterday by Conrad Conelrad, on Flickr

[Austin-Rover]

Patience; Exhausted.

 

Does someone want to take this ungrateful, spiteful little car off me?

 

Plus points; Rediculous amounts of money thrown at it to the benefit* of the new owner.

 

Negative points; Brake servo/master cylinder requires rebuild. Location of gushing oil leak from below the inlet manifold requires locating.

 

[purplebargeken]

You have come this far with it. Have a break for a while then tackle it again. It is a temp break in the mojo flow, that is all!

[dollywobbler]

What he says. I reckon cars seek out a sympathetic owner, and then make sure everything goes wrong. Shove it in the garage, take a deep breath and let yourself recover from recent traumas. This little car is fantastic and you've done so much to make it so.

[strangeangel]

I've just read this thread all the way through, warming to the (albeit un-cooperative and ungrateful) car and hoping for a happy ending. Fingers crossed there can still be one

[hauserplenty]

You can also try removing the brake lines and cleaning them out by spraying them full of brake cleaner, than letting them soak. Chase it with a coat hanger or compressed air. To find the clog, since it might just be the lines and not the m/cyl, you can disconnect the lines at each end and attach a blow gun to one end, and see if the air comes out the other.

[DodgyBastard]

Swap you a Xantia!

[Austin-Rover]

Swap you a Xantia!

 

Is the Xantia also needy and ungrateful?

[dugong]

I'd garage and reconsider. They're not easy cars to sell (ask me how I know). 

 

[eddyramrod]

Is the Xantia also needy and ungrateful?

All cars are!  Have you not learned that by now?  I would actually very much like this, but I don't have any money, and MrsR has already bought my birthday prezzie.

[eddyramrod]

Patience; Exhausted.

 

Does someone want to take this ungrateful, spiteful little car off me?

I know I said I've got no money, but for the few of us that might have some..... how much is it?

[Austin-Rover]

After dreaming of all the different ways I could kill this car (and all the ways those plans would backfire on me and result in the car remaining unscathed) I went back out to it today to try again...

 

A little time out did work wonders - as hinted at in your replies (thank you). The cause of the environmental disaster on my driveway was the bracket for the oil filter and specifically where it meets the engine block. A new artisan (roughly cut out by me) gasket and some hylomar and (touch wood-effect Fablon) it seems to be keeping the engine oil inside the engine!

 

I celebrated the putting back on track of this God-forsaken project by giving it a quick wash. The only disaster today was my demolishing of two wheelie bins and the caravan when I had a 'senior moment' parking it up. Still, could have been worse - it could have been a Costa Coffee.

 

Arse!

[Austin-Rover]

Update time!

This little pest is still sat on my driveway - and things have progressed somewhat glacially. It's taken from April to today to sort out the brake master cylinder - not bad going! I removed it two months ago and took it along to a very helpful place in Castleton, Rochdale who rebuild and overhaul brake components. They had it for a week, and condemned it as unrepairable - due to its design rather than being rotten and full of congealed prehistoric brake fluid residue. This was bad news as I had drawn repeated blanks in trying to source a new master cylinder myself. I was told to 'leave it with them'. I did and went on holiday for two weeks and forgot about it.

 

They phoned today to say...they've found a new one! Great! Bad news is - in the meantime the Charade has been evicted from the garage...for the umpteenth time and now I'll have to sneak it back in to sort the brakes. Hopefully once the master cylinder is plumbed in, the brakes will actually bleed up this time.

 

Oil leak news; It had also been pissing out ATF from a drive shaft seal over many months, but this seems to have abated. I've had a cat litter tray under the car pretty much constantly, and all leaks seem to have dried up recently. The gearbox dip stick shows the ATF level to be half way between Min and Max, so my hope is that I'd merely overfilled the gearbox at the point of re-assembly.

 

So, the end is in sight. You never know...an MoT in the next month or so...

[dollywobbler]

Good show! Hope it behaves from this point on...

[Austin-Rover]

Since the last update, Christmas and general winter weather has sucked up any time or inclination to work on the Charade. The pre-MoT jobs list had been whittled down to two items;

 

Fit clip to rubber boot on driveshaft

Find out why the cat litter tray was filling up with coolant.

 

Job number one included a trip to Frost's Restoration Products near Warrington (much more convenient when they were in Rochdale!) for a couple of clips and the tool to tighten, fasten and cut them. The exhaust restricted access to the rubber boot a little, but there was still enough room to get the tool in. It's a pretty nifty piece of kit - once you've wrapped the band around, you feed it through a spindle and can then tighten it up by turning the spindle, fold it back on itself and then use the built in cutter. Hammer down the two tabs provided and the clip is on and tight!

 

Job number two didn't go so well. The previously mentioned oil and transmission fluid leaks seem to have been resolved. The oil leak was the gasket for the oil filter attachment - easily sorted with a new gasket. The ATF leak seems to have sorted itself out - opinion seems to be there was too much ATF in the box and its now found its own level. The oil leaks had been replaced by a steady drip of coolant - traced to where a coolant hose sits on a stub on the inlet manifold. Tightening the jubilee clip saw the leak increase (never a good sign) so off came the hose - which brought the rotten stub out of the manifold. I'm used to these stubs being a tight push fit in to the manifold - but not so on the Charade. It's a push-fit into a threaded insert with a 22mm head (which the stud attaches to). 

 

The challenge now is to undo the threaded bit and take it to the place that re-cored the radiator and get them to build a new stub on to it.

 

If ever there was a poster car for changing your coolant more than once every 20 years then this is it! (well, a poster car for doing any sort of maintenance ever, really)

 

The journey continues...