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Dr.Fraud's Private Scrapyard


Sigmund Fraud

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Olá,

 

Se um mensageiro chega com um pesado pacote para que você não seja surpreendido.

 

Some suitable CZ 6V power from a place of Tertiary education plus a modified Chinese electronic non vented charging thing.

 

​[babelfish]​

Maravilhoso, muito obrigado! O Cezet estará fazendo uma aparição neste blog muito em um futuro não tão distante!
[/babelfish]

 

Also, PM sent.

 

Just read this, your enthusiasm and energy makes me want to rush out into the weather and fix something.

 

Don't be fooled, I'm normally a master of procrastination ! The real purpose of this blog is to motivate myself to fix my ever-expanding collection of broken vehicles - it's working well so far !

 

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Little Loopoo, Y U SAD ?

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Oh...

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The radiator was the original, 1999 Valeo and was borked. Thankfully Advanced Radiators had quite literally delivered the goods and the replacement was a perfect fit !

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The new radiator didn't come with a fan switch, so the old one had to be re-used. The switch base is a fairly unusual 29mm hex, and many amateur VW fettlers have been caught out by it. Not me, though - proof that money spent on tools is never wasted :

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Hoses back on, re-fill with fresh OAT coolant and off to enjoy the beautiful autumn sun !

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Now let's see what other irritating fault the ungrateful little shit will come up with, to avoid being pressed into daily use...

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  • 3 weeks later...

Loads of car stuff has been going on at Fraud towers since the last update, but unfortunately most of it has been fairly uninteresting...


After finishing the Loopoo recommisioning, I spent a week in France, where I had the pleasure* of driving this :

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I usually do 3-4.000km a year in rental cars, and it's always an experience I look forward to. Not because it's enjoyable, but because it confirms that modern cars are awful and encourages me to keep owning and driving worn-out, worthless pieces of shite.

One of the worst moderns I've driven is the Corsa D, here's the one I drove around Spain two years ago :

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I can live with dull cars, but you felt so cut off from the road driving this thing that it became dangerous. Steering feel was completely absent, and that comes from a man that used to have a Lada Riva for a daily !

I thought that the "new" Corsa E was little more than an Corsa D with different panelwork (also see: Grande Punto). Thankfully, I was wrong and the 'E' was a much, much better drive. Subsequent homework revealed that GM have changed the design of the front suspension, replacing the one that appears to have been designed by a work experience student with one that actually works. It was still nowhere as good as a Peugeot 208 (my current rental favourite), but perfectly acceptable.

The usual modern car problems were present (rock hard seats, cramped interior, poor visibility), performance and fuel economy only just matched that of the 20-year-old Pooloo.

AVAS/AMCAS and all that.


 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Text-based update, due to camera battery FAIL.

 

 

The Loopoo has been my daily for the past two weeks, without any major issues. It's a fairly grim place to spend three hours a day, but its excellent fuel economy (over 50mpg !) means it's here to stay. I was planning to re-spray the front bumper to make it presentable*, but this won't be happening any time soon as I've spent the paint money on a set of new front discs and pads.

 

The Pooloo is surplus to my requirements, but not for sale yet.

 

The reason is that Mrs.F's 6N has been somewhat temperamental over the past week, so the Pooloo is acting as a backup car for her.

 

The main issue with Mrs.F's car has been a sticky starter, so I spent last Sunday morning removing, disassembling, cleaning, lubricating and reassembling the starter motor. The Haynes BOL says access to the starter is "tricky" unless you take the inlet manifold off - that's quite an understatement, judging by the number of cuts on on my left hand and forearm.

 

Disappointingly, the problem is still present though less frequent. I now suspect that the bendix (which I didn't disassemble, as it's a PITA to put back together) is borked. A replacement starter will hopefully be sourced later this week, so you'll have the pleasure of a quality* pictorial update next weekend.

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The parts for Mrs.F's Polo arrived yesterday, but I really CBA to take the thing apart today...

 

Instead, I spent my morning browsing the internet for cars that I didn't need and couldn't afford. As always, one thing led to another and I somehow ended up buying YET ANOTHER BLOODY CAR. At least it's not another VW...

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​Speaking of VWs, the Loopoo had had a slightly uneven idle ever since it returned to the road. In typical AS fashion, I had initially ignored the problem, hoping it would go away. But three weeks later it hadn't and was starting to irritate me. So I dug out a spare coolant temperature sensor that I had in the shed, and installed it to see if it made any difference :

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A quick test drive suggests it did. Excellent !

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​An even more irritating problem was the noise. Not the one generated by the car, but the one emitted by the in-car entertainment* system :

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It was becoming simply unbearable. So the factory Beta head unit was replaced by my trusty, old JVC that was previously installed in the Pooloo :

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All together now : Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn...Wir fahren, fahren, fahren auf der Autobahn...

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You really need a wider tool kit.  I have a bendix compressor tool in the garage that really made light work of the job.

On the one and only car that I have used it on over thirty years ago.

 

I didn't know there was such a thing as a bendix compressor ! Now that I do, I want one !

 

In a dark corner of my workshop lies a box full of obscure, expensive tools that never almost never infrequently get used. I think it hasn't been opened since 2011, when I opened it to throw in an a-series flywheel puller.

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Impressive. I've had an X-reg lupo for 9 years, the first 5 of which it was a daily driver.

Brilliant little cars, only a well specced k10 makes more sense. Quick question i always found it undergeared, how does yours feel with the new box? Is it a straight swap? And what car did it come from?

Sorry for all the questions but a fucked box is one of the things keeping mine of the road ( along with my own feckless nature).

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Agreed that the 1-litre ratios are far too short. They've clearly been chosen for city and B-road use, but they make the car useless on the motorway.

 

The Loopoo is now using the box out of a T-plate 1400cc Polo. I've described the ratios as "4+E" above, as the current 4th is the same ratio as the previous 5th, and the current 5th is an overdrive ratio.

 

On the road, the car copes with the longer, wider spaced ratios remarkably well. 70mph in 5th is now 3000rpm, which makes it a quiet and economical motorway mile muncher. In-gear acceleration in 5th is rubbish, but one would expect that from such a heavy, underpowered car.

 

 

AFAIK the post-1997 085 type boxes all use the same bellhousing and linkages, and are therefore interchangeable. There's endless combinations of ratios, but broadly speaking there's four groups of ratios corresponding to the four engine sizes that came with 085s - 1000cc, 1400cc, 1600cc, 1900cc (diesel).

 

They're fragile boxes that like leaking their oil and destroying their bearings. This means that a second hand box will always be a gamble - known good boxes are neither cheap nor plentiful. Plenty of specialists* charge £££ to recondition them, but the internet is full of horror stories that suggest they don't always do a good job.

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Breaking news : I've finally made contact with the seller of my new* shite, and collection has been arranged for later this week ! I am now at liberty to reveal that it's tiny, was made in the late 1990s, has a 1950s engine and is not a Ford.

 

I've absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with it. Perhaps I'll run it for a few weeks, get bored and proceed to sell it for profit a loss.

 

 

Pooloo is now officially FOR SALE !

 

Proper* ad to follow, price to a fellow shitter will be a Gumtree-mong-beating £200 ! For that price you get a desirable* early 6N Polo which looks shabby but has good running gear and no rust issues. It's MoT'd until late April and would therefore make a most excellent WBOD !

 

GR16 XMAS PRESENT, guaranteed* to impress that special someone in your life !

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My car buying frenzy continues...

 

I viewed a very late and very minty 6N1 yesterday, and agreed to buy it on behalf of Mrs.F ! It will undergo a thorough check at FRAUD GARAGES over the Christmas holiday and will then take over daily duties. I have paid strong money for it, but expect it to provide many years of frugal and reliable motoring for Mrs.F.

 

This means that her current 6N1 will be up for sale in the new year.

 

It also means that my Pooloo REALLY needs to go, as having 11 cars around the house is silly, even by my standards.

 

Fellow shitters who may be interested should act fast, otherwise it will go on Scumtree and evilBay later this week.

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Tiny shite has now been collected ! It's even smaller than the Loopoo and is its polar opposite in terms of perceived quality. In fact, it's so cheaply made that it could have well come out of an enormous Kinder egg !

 

The running gear can best be described as "tried and tested"... A 1950s mechanic would certainly not be puzzled by what's underneath all those wires and pipes :

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I expect that everyone can now tell what it is ?

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