Jikovron

Today's job is currently to empty the big unit of my large machines and we have the most temperamental forklift imaginable hence we've had to jump start it and tow it about with the car!

On 22/04/2024 at 10:39, Mr_Bo11ox said:

You look like you might have the right setup to have a look a job for me actually.

I've got this thing sat on my drive slowly getting fettled. Stud pattern on these is 4 x 110, really odd size. I've got a quite rare set of refurbished Lotus Eclat (not elite) 14" alloys that i reckon would look the business on it, but they're 114mm pcd. I can well imagine that fitting them might involve redrilling hubs or whatever, if its even possible at all. Might you be up for taking a look? I guess I'd have to send the car & wheels over to you on a truck (no big deal as I'm only about 9 miles from your workshop) and you could see what you think about it.

Yeah we're into all that shenanigans, can easily work to a hand drawing like also to save a couple of quid moving cars, mind we like having stuff like it down here! 

On 21/04/2024 at 11:42, robt100 said:

Looks like you're going great guns at this. Liking to work so far, I'm also hoping the change of freight rover doors means you might pick up the old sliding ones from the Daf versions😆

Would need a panel van for those I think! 😆 

On 21/04/2024 at 09:47, jon.k said:

How much weight do you think the back doors will be able to take in those boxes? (genuine question)

Great thread!

I stood on the frames a few times to get on the roof and it flexed the door skin a smidge but wasn't enough to be concerning, he's on about using it for sleeping bags only 

Today's job was to fit a roof rack to a camper which had hit a bridge and crushed the rack and bent all the brackets, after welding new rails onto it and straightening out the brackets we got the rough smoker forklift out and immediately had to mess about with 'fork extensions' 

Tightened on and missing fasteners repatriated, and also we fitted our own design of fabricated pannier box carrier frames to the door along with relocating a ladder to the side and number plate and lights to the top of the door !

Having a look at the freight rover again, I decided to whip out the +0.5mm pistons to reuse in a seasoned 1.7 engine block as I feel the bores in this engine have suffered through an over heat, so I instructed the chief apprentice sister to whip the sump off and bop out the pistons so I could strip the 1.7 to a bare block and get the parts off to the rebore shop expeditiously 

Easy work for wor kidda who is a bloody fast learner at this sort of work 

i compared the crank to a B series but alas the bastard is different, I could have coverted a spare 1.7 to 2.0 without much effort if so !

this VW 2.0tdi which runs of three but feels like every cylinder has compression actually snapped off 2 of the exhaust rocker arms so it might be that with a set of new ones fitted that it might be OK however I dislike the idea of valves that have been forced up by the piston so will recommend a head rebuild at the very least.

Thankyou all, very kind uplifting words

So today's work has been in 2 stages 

This crafter is in for a mystery engine problem, it was bought by the owner stripped like it is with the engine unable to start, when attempted it basically just made like a knock sound every crank rotation and would just fire, so checking it manually I found all 4 cylinders felt like they had compression 1 maybe less than the others and the timing marks all made sense, so I kept persevering to which it did fire up and run on 3 seemingly

Next up today this bad lad, 2.0 petrol freight rover in the exact spec i wanted for a recovery truck, decent underneath too !

The convoy doors offend me greatly it had to be saidbso I'll have to swap those for some earlier jobs 

Chassis is all sweet so that's getting painted up ASAP and the cab will go BL blue I think 

Here's a wierd thing, the pistons stop short by 8mm which to me seems mad, its a 2.0 O series so has the 89mm stroke rather than the 75mm of the 1.7, the engine itself seems to have been bored out 20 over and maybe overheated a few times as the radiator is new as is a few ignition bits, it running terribly prompted me to take off the head as the carb settings and ignition timing seemed to make no difference to running at all !,,I might end up building a new 2.0 out of a 1.7 and reusing the oversize pistons !

Thankyou all for your kind words there's no doubt its going to be a stress fest but I'm relishing the challenge my sister has been the star really as I've basically thrown her right into the deep end with welding/fabricating and quite intense mechanical work without any sign of flagging so far, not bad for a former office based employee!

We're based at Derwent foundry, Whatstandwell DE4 5HG 

01629 818296

RRM Ltd facebook

RRM Ltd website

The only estate I've ever had so far, hoping to get it sorted for the road and tidy up old welding work, its my favourite spec for one of these : blue, late and 1700 flavour 

LOADS of time later 

The skoda has been worked on at the new unit 

This shell was a floppy mess, it sagged on the trailer bringing it down , so had to manipulate it back into shape 

ive always wanted to stiffen up the sill and A pillar to do away with the weak horrible standard solution where the front doors are endlessly sagging

the B pillar got its own pedestal to tie onto and its still got enough flex to work perfectly fine 

and then spend hours tieing abit of B pillar to the A pillar as its the same hinge pattern but thicker metal

rotten tunnel was next up, a local place folded up this for £35 which was an epic bargain, saved loads of time messing about but still had to cut out and weld in all the threaded plates for various things on the tunnel 

Hours later its all welded in, mega strong now as I specified 1.5mm steel 

I had the exact same thing happen to mine , an lt77s which had the r380 gears with the intermediate type synchro rings, the oil ran low over a few months and it gradually got noisier 

The Input shaft had the same blue tinge so I binned it all as I didn't want a potential tooth weakness just waiting to show up catastrophically , not only did they get mega hot but also the casing had a blue haze around the bearing! , ended up fitting an sd1 2.4 diesel gearbox in its place which also leaked oil so investigating transit 2.4 gearboxes currently as they have normal ratios compared to the 2.5 Di 

Farkin ell all I have to do is blink and the content sweeps into the thread, that padsaw is absolutely at home in Wallsend 

Not surprised the powertrain mounts are crying now you've got that straight though box on it, Just an SU carb to fit next eh 

2 hours ago, tooSavvy said:

Now we have a 'full pint' pulled, on the Volts....

My new Bloo mains can get whacked in 🥂 

🚙💨

Have you got a dyno print for that M8 

Winning at life as always, the only way this could have been better is if it was an old imp alt found under the floorboards cobbled on with chopped angle iron and imperial fasteners, 

This was a tangential diversion similarly at the time of my covid strike down and probably the precursor to the council getting vexed off their boxes 

This car arrived at the same time as the Skoda in March of 21  with a loose plan that it would divulge parts or be a swap for something else

So the car was a total mess, the A pillars were completely gone and the chassis rails had detached from the inner wings such that the front was mainly held on by the gearbox crossmember!

just to reduce the aesthetic harm I propped it up and popped the roof skin out.

First task was to get into the engine, free off a couple of valves, rebuild the carbs and clean it up.

it amazingly ran very nicely, no smoke and sounded smooth

Carefully picked it apart and everything apart from the front half of the shell found a new home one way or the other

The engine amongst other bits went to Texas in a mere 300kg all up crate, what I didn't realise however was that international shipping calls for special treated timber/plywood not old pallets like the first box I crafted!! Damn things 

23 hours ago, Out Run said:

That last horn effect. WANT

Ive got OM numbers engine horn , literally the best engine for all vehicles 

The piston bore of these calipers never need sleeved as the piston and square O ring are the sole elements of sealing contact, as long as the seal groove is in decent shape the bore only has to be cleared of corrosion and general dirt and any burs to allow free and fairly loose passage of the piston when dropped in without a seal fitted

In the past I've taken to heating them and using 2 flat screwdrivers to gently pry up via the piston dust shield lip to gradually start exercising the piston back and forth, it's usually either corrosion formation on the upper bore above the main seal but sometimes the seal bonds to the piston which can involve such joy as welding a nut to the piston to draw it out with a threaded bar etc.

Should have lit up those landsails down to the canvas like a well skidded grifter and driven in ATS with the tread flapping like nothing happened 😄

Keep the original registration number

Your vehicle must have 8 or more points from the table below if you want to keep the original registration number. 5 of these points must come from having the original or new and unmodified chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame.

Source

the mot exemption is lost alot easier than the historic identity if the car, just an engine swap could do that

What is unclear though is if you change a lower spec part for a standard one off a higher spec car , like a 2300 magnum axle in place of a 1256 one,,hard to judge if they're both 'standard' parts

8 hours ago, juular said:

Phenomenal work going on there.

Do you rate the zinga? I'm doing the Amazon using copious amounts of it, so far it seems better than electrox.

Its rust prevention capability seems to be amazing , I painted some rusty sheet in the garden and nothing is coming through with just one badly applied coat months later

The downside though seems to be that it doesn't adhere very well so the metal has to be really rough before application to key it on otherwise it behaves like a scratch card 

It does seem to be overpaintable but is said to not be a primer or a paint so I think the primary application is touch up of static galvanized framework in the main 

The main benefit is that it's got an unlimited shelf life !

So the Skoda has been a slow burner but again this has been spread over the whole year roughly 

As can be noted the front end was a total mess, it just fell to bits without any disassembly , a few kicks saw it all fall out.

And indeed the metal just kept being cut away

till it was looking completely bollocked 

the donor floor needed some work after it was blasted 

The boot floor and rails fitted OK due to coming from a similar year car, the press tools where changed a fair bit as the steel thickness and pressings were continuously updated through the estelle production run particularly the mk1 and super estelles

surprisingly that was a straight forward task 

and getting it in wasn't all that bad 

By this stage the technique was in place,  yes there's no ribs but no shits were given due to cost considerations , flat sheet is cheap!

I used a copious amount of Zinga zinc coating , bloody expensive given it was 53quid for 750ml 

All that rammel needs copied/repaired and fitted back in, but need to build up enthusiasm again really

the questionable 80s bumper was in bits so I thought I'd see if fibre glass was a worthy option

and it is , if you buy the correct resin for the catalyst, I had to redo the whole deal but got there the 2nd time!

So that's roughly up to date, 12months condensed down as per the proton

So a year or so passes by and plenty has gone on for better and worse.

Proton:  10,000 miles this year!

The driveshaft seemed to be out of balance so I added some jubilee weights ,,however since balancing the wheels there is some residual minor vibration at 70 odd mph (knackered cv boot noted)

I made a cheeky towbar of which I should have just bought one than mess about adapting one that looked about right

Bonnet catch failed at high enough speed to snap one hinge and wrap the bonnet around the passenger A pillar,,all OK except the windscreen which was subsequently replaced

The engine was feeling abit off so I found the engine light feed and wired it into the dash , but that was revealing nowt!

I reckoned the fuel pump was struggling to feed the bigger engine, so swapped that for the gti unit however that didn't help either, and similarly the fuel regulator was passing at expected pressure so by then I was abit stumped 

So checked the cam timing which revealed almost a tooth out, but oddly not a whole tooth.

So a loose crank bolt allowed the keyway to fret away the key, ended up welding it and filing it back into shape, fixed!

next up was the rather long ignored cv and rack boot, only took about 20mins or so for a change 

brake pipes were looking incredibly poor so they got replaced, it involved a whole host of tools, strong language and a 3m length of 5mm bore clear poly pipe.

I noticed instantly when this blew out all its oil as the car felt skittish when cornering to the right, so I phoned about for new ones but most places claimed their suppliers didn't have them, yet one tried KYB directly who had stock of them, so swapped both sides as the better of the 2 dampers was in poor condition also

the window wouldn't wind on either side due to the tabs rotting off the glass grab thing so just tacked them back together , makes a big difference being able to open windows without them falling out of the runners

The next engine,,at some stage anon, plenty to plan to get that in given its a VW engine

That's a sort of abridged year behind d the wheel of that car, it's basically been a decent all round thing, enjoyable and easy to drive with reasonable reliability all in.

5 hours ago, Datsuncog said:

Just wondering if there's been any progress with the Super Estelle project - or indeed any of your others? Wasn't there an Ital in the mix, or did I just imagine that?

Always enjoy looking back over this thread, some top work going on!

Yeah there's been a fair bit over the last year but it's all been complicated by health maladies so I didn't really post much, but I'll do a summary shortly !