sutty2006

I found a set of Astra brake callipers in the shed. Pretty sure they are too big for 13 inch wheels. So I may still use the original brakes. Amazing the amount of shite I’ve got 

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint! 
 

Where are you nowadays Andy? Been a while since I saw you last. 
 
a little more done on the engine. Got bored n started to paint. Taken almost 3 layers of paint off it. Black, red, black. 

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint! 
 

Where are you nowadays Andy? Been a while since I saw you last. 
 
a little more done on the engine. Got bored n started to paint. Taken almost 3 layers of paint off it. Black, red, black. 

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint! 
 

This was in B&Q car park. 😄 Check that plate out.😆

I need to pull my finger out and find 1 here before prices get too silly
I did find a couple of 2dr Asconas,but no-one wants them,do they?
#sarcasm 

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint! 
 

I aim for this 

B203 turbos do fit with some modifications. But that might be a future project for the red hatch I’ve got 

Last year I made an effort to paint the engine bay myself. Colour is amber gold. I should have used that sealant coating because the paint reacted a few times. Third time lucky and I made it have it, 

I bought a Peugeot 307sw off and old work colleague 4/5 years ago for £100 needing a clutch and an MOT. Right front wheel was missing 1x wheel stud, said it had snapped off 2 years previous and he’d just siliconed it back in place. Dodgy bugger did 50 mile a day 6 days a week on that! Tyre was almost bald. I drilled it out and went the scrap yard for another stud. Took 30 minutes to fix. 

I don’t think I’ve ever driven with a bad enough fault known or unknown. But I do remember in 2008 on the Scally Rally through Ireland one team had a Rav 4, oldish pair of blokes. Found them broke down at the side of a road with a flat tyre. They’d had a flat a mile before, hurriedly changed it and continued only for the spare to blow too. A rear coil spring had snapped and punctured a hole right round the inner sidewall. They hadn’t noticed it when they changed the wheel so did the same to the spare. Luckily they were waiting for a local farmer to bring them a spare and a hacksaw! 

Fix the abs problem and Chuck an MOT on it. Then go from there. Even if you run it for 12 months then flog it you won’t loose much on it. The VW bothering clan will be all over it, especially if you put a pineapple on the roof!! Lovely colour too, not many cars of colour about anymore. Everything’s silver or black at the moment. 

Its things like that which 'rubber mallets' were invented for. The clue's even in the name FFS. Just hammer the bulge back in and it'll be fine 

God bless the try-hard's that think they're Bertie Big Biscuits because they can spunk £300 a month on a Renault Megane with a Merc badge on it. All they're doing is giving me a reason to drive older vehicles.

I don’t think I’ve ever driven with a bad enough fault known or unknown. But I do remember in 2008 on the Scally Rally through Ireland one team had a Rav 4, oldish pair of blokes. Found them broke down at the side of a road with a flat tyre. They’d had a flat a mile before, hurriedly changed it and continued only for the spare to blow too. A rear coil spring had snapped and punctured a hole right round the inner sidewall. They hadn’t noticed it when they changed the wheel so did the same to the spare. Luckily they were waiting for a local farmer to bring them a spare and a hacksaw! 

I was unfortunately listening to Radio 1 yesterday morning (not my choice, we have a couple dumb guys at work) and a caller (snowflake) rang in complaining of Flintoffs comment he made about Radio 1..... “makes my ears bleed that does” 
 
Well said Freddie. Well said. 

That resto-mod Alfa was fucking tremendous. I think it is my fantasy car now. I could have watched Harris drive that for hours.

 

Undid the tensioner bolts. Bottom needed a crows foot to be able to get the leverage onto it.


Then pushed the tensioner all the way back and rebolted it to lock it untensioned.


Walked the belt off. This was a bit of a fight as the pressed steel sprockets had rust on the teeth and was grabbing the belt.


Removed the tensioner entirely.


Belt seemed to be in pretty good condition. Tensioner had some noise in the bearings though.


Finally the water pump.



Spent a good chunk of time cleaning up the block face.


After the Clio water pump leaking incident, I took no risk this time and used Hylomar on the mating surfaces.



Carefully bolted the pump back onto the block, trying my best not to get blue goo on everything.


Prepped the tensioner spring by cleaning the retaining pin. New Vs old springs.


Bolted the tensioner on and locked into the fully (belt) untensioned position.


New belt on and release the tensioner to lock the belt.


Spun the engine over 4 or so times. Then undid the tensioner again for it to grab up the slack. You can just about see the extra room the tensioner has moved.


Covers back on. I spent a good half hour or longer giving these a scrub with carb cleaner, scraper wire brush and wire wool. Not perfect but a lot of the dirty grime has gone.


Pulleys on


Belts on and tensioned.


Front pipe work back on. Changed some of the crusty Jubilee Clips with fresh genuine Jubilee clips.

A bit of a war with trying to get the ignition lead bundle into the right place and even more of a fight trying to get the distributor cap on. The cap is truly buggered, not only are the pick up points worn through and dirty, the retaining legs are rusty and bent. I've got a replacement rotor arm coming but not got around to sourcing a decent cap. When I last looked at it, I thought I could get away with just the arm, but now looking at it, it definitely could do with one.


Unbolted the thermostat housing. When I saw this crystallised crap, I decided to call it a night. The cooling system is in need of a good flush through. Not only crystallised coolant but also brown sediment is all through it. Apart from it sitting with old coolant for a long time previously, I suspect someone in the past has mixed coolant types too.

I did this the other day but couldn't be bothered to write it up, as it'll be long. Anyway this is a electronics repair heavy post, so if you're not interested in such things, I'd probably skip this post.

The dash on this car is in need of some TLC. Especially as the Speedo isn't working. Number one culprit is the notorious Service Indicator board that suffers from Varta death. Basically the NiCad cells leak and the acid from them eats away the PCB. A real problem on any 80s and 90s electronics.

Firstly while the dash was apart, I attacked the clouded up front with a headlight restoration kit. No idea if this was going to work, but my thought was if it's good on clear headlights, why not dash plastic?


The dash has this clouded and fuzzed up appearance. It's bad enough that you can't clearly see the dash dials. Not entirely sure what has caused this but I'm blaming this been a car which has been smoked in. Nothing good comes from smoking and automobiles.


After 10 minutes work, it came up a right treat! Really pleased how well this has worked.


Going back to the notorious Service Indicator PCB, this one has suffered really badly. Damaged enough to be pretty much unrepairable. Even if it was, it wouldn't be necessarily reliable either.


Even the Speedo contacts on the otherside have corroded.


This board is a proper 80s bodge fest. Believe it or not, this was quite common out of the factory for 80s electronics. Much cheaper than spinning a new PCB for a design issue!


Thankfully a replacement dash was supplied with the car. It was bought as fully working but the Speedo appeared dead too when it was plugged in and tried.

Pulled the dash apart to retrieve our prize.


This is in much better condition. However there still is evidence of corrosion to some of the traces.


Someone has replaced the cells in this before and thankfully is what likely has saved this. Even if the replacement job is a bit crap.


The ribbon cable plastic however came away without much persuasion.



Firstly I charged up the cells to see if they would take one. Unfortunately they too seem rather dead and barely took one.


The ribbon cable I fixed with multiple pieces of insulation tape and carefully ensuring the pieces are stuck to the wires. I'll replace this sometime in the future with a proper replacement ribbon cable, but the intention here first is to get it working for an MOT.



Putting the PCB back into the rear dash housing came across a problem.


Turns out the good PCB is from a 1982 car. By 1985 they'd tweaked the connector positions and changed the plastic mouldings to suit.


So after going back to the 1982 back plastic, I could put it back together again.




Found a car wiring diagram and connected up the dash to my bench PSU.


Powered on. Initially with low current limit to limit the damage incase anything wanted to fry and/or I got the wrong pins. Then upped when it appeared no dead shorts.


Success!


Tried the service reset pin and got it to normal.


Wired up the Speedo to a bunch of contacts to test it. Twitching them gave no response on the Speedo. Darn. Time to pull the dash apart again.

Firstly check the Speedo works. Applied power directly to the pins and tapped the signal line to ground. Got movement. Great the Speedo is fine.


Buzzed out with my multimeter to find the break. The signal comes in on the main light board and then off to a connector for the Service Interval PCB. The Speedo then connects into the Service Interval PCB. Top was fine, so the break appeared to be in the Service Interval PCB.

Starting from the connector, I buzzed to the Speedo connection and found there must be a break on the boards. Again buzzing along the tracks till I found the break.


The tracks for the Speedo are the ones in the top left hand corner where my thumb is. Inconveniently these are right next to where the NiCad cells are. So the leakage will pool in that corner, eating those important tracks away.


I soldered on some replacement wires that took the signal directly from the top ribbon connector to the Speedo connector. While there, I reflowed all the other pins.


Putting the dash back together, I flicked the lines again and got the Speedo twitching. Success!


I then packed up for the day.

Next day I ran the dash up again. This time I noticed some flickering segments.


Pulling the dash apart yet again, I found quite a few cracked solder joints. I reflowed these with fresh solder.


While there I removed the cells on the PCB and fitted an external battery pack. The idea being that the source of cell leakage will be well away from the SI PCB.



Putting the dash back together and repowering I found that the Service Indicator was starting to act really weird.


So I pulled it all apart and rechecked everything. I couldn't see anything amiss.

Confused, I stuck the other dash SI screen on to check it wasn't the resoldering and see if that was doing the same. This was acting even weirder.


At this point I was getting pretty frustrating, having disassembled and reassembled the dash countless times. I tried replacing all the electrolytic caps to no avail.


Unfortunately there appears to be no readily available schematic or even datasheet for the main chip on this board. So without that, I was shooting blind and I didn't really want to go to the bother of reverse engineering the board. No least that this is a very early model board and different in layout and parts to the 1985 board that came out of the car.

I'm pretty sure something has failed on the board or one of the extra parts on the newer revision board resolves. After spending another day poking around, I decided enough was enough. Remember the main aim here is to get the car through an MOT. The now fixed Speedo is part of that but the Service Indicator really is not. As the flickering was rather annoying, I've pulled the main IC out. This allows the rest of the cluster to work, just loosing the temperamental Service Indicator function.

There is a good chance anyway that it won't be much use for my use either! As this will be a low mileage classic, there is a good chance I'll be changing the oil on age much before the indicator tells me.

After putting the dash back together, I rechecked the Speedo worked and also tested the Temperature gauge, as well as the fuel gauge worked. Both with a Potentiometer attached to the revelant pins.



Feeling a bit dejected, I fixed another important bit. The key light.

A good start as it still just about worked when pushed.


Pulled the key apart.


Cleaned up the contacts and put a fresh battery in.


Much more useful! (I'll probably never use it...)


 

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint! 
 

Bring your own envelope for the vin plates and rego document more like

I do really want one of those bumpers! Someone once offered one up for swap for a standard one, in Carmine red too but never heard owt back. 
 
today I have been mostly servicing the red 16valve hatch. 
 
and doing work on the 2.0 engine. Got the sump off, it’s a bit dented so I’ve found a spare but need to take it to work to give it a good clean (ran out of brake cleaner). Also put the engine on my bench with the help of mr crane. And replaced the crank seal 

 
the old fashioned way

small slither of grease round the spring to keep it in place 
 

 
and hey presto! 
 

 
also started cleaning the block and head. Soooo many layers of paint!