Fabergé Greggs

New car means new fixing.
Went to fit my new temperature sensor.

It was just unplugged? I've reconnected it and I'll see how we go, the readings on VCDS seem sensible.
Had a look at the gear linkage which had loads of side to side play when in gear and was difficult to get 1-2/5-6. This bolt was really loose?

Tightened it up and we seem to be all good.
Love me a free fix.

Went for my first spin in it. Wouldnt idle- noticed a split vacuum hose to the dizzy, which once sorted helped a lot; it seemed to also need a fair bit of choke. Its got an MOT currently so wonder if they leaned it off for a pass? So i ticked it a bit richer. After i got to a petrol station and added some fresh pez it ran better still. 
I think it probably still need needs a proper service and tune up but its running really nicely now…..

However- 
this one can stay

And this one ive added….

So the paints knackered, and its a bit accessorised. So very 1990. But then again its unwelded and original- not very 1990 at all.
 

hi there, thanks for having me.
This is my exploit yellow Punto 75elx that I have owned for 10 years, and have restored.
I love this car, enjoy the photos.
simon

Given they do have a bit of a reputation in that regard I'm under no illusions of things staying all that clean, but I'd like to scrub at least the worst of it off just so I can see if any new leaks do appear.  The 'box just sweating a bit from seals and such that's deemed to be normal I don't have a problem with.  For all it looks a right state I don't think I've ever been aware of this car leaving a drip of anything where it's parked (aside from water dripping out the interior before I sorted the bulkhead seal anyway), so it obviously isn't losing much.
We did suffer a major technical failure today.

Okay, that might be slightly overselling a blown tail light bulb.  Needless to say this was a five minute fix.

Really do need to get some paint on that rear panel.
Also, aren't Nissan Qashqais huge?

This car is still very much making me smile every time I see it.

What looks like a sweet example of the 'big' post-war Lanchester.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3314573882008599/


BTW, look at the 'giffer tat' bungalow where it lives!

Christ almighty was that a fight getting it back in. A helper would have been very useful in doing it. I really did not want it taking nearly two days to do. I had the weekend to myself and I really wanted to get on with my Midget. Right now I have a backlog of things left to do in the house and not going to get any more car time this evening.
Also these bastard clips kept falling apart. They go into the metal body work and the trim fixing screw goes through it. The threaded nut thing kept falling out and into awkward places. Usually as I just got one side in then the other side fell out. 

Also discovered the screw cover on the jesus handles acts as a prop when open to stop them closing up. Neat little bit of design there.

 
Anyway it's now in and fully tightened up. Definitely not a job I'd be in a rush to do again.
Colour is obvious different but it's a million times nicer than it was. The headliner is more ivory (even though it was supposed to be beige) and the standard type you usually get in lighter coloured interiors. I'm sure the other trim pieces could be had (or redone) in ivory to make match as it looks like standard VAG light coloured interior. Beige in the Golf I think was a one year option and very rare anyway.
As is, is certainly not horrendous though and a million times nicer than it was. At the very least it's nice not to have it raining foam into your hair every time you close the door. 
 

I knew I had got the right street:

First impressions were that it was unexpectedley tidy:

 

I've copied and pasted these initial updates from another forum.   
 
This goes back to 2021/early 2022. First two posts will cover the back story and then I'll add what I've been doing to it this last month.  There's been quite a delay on this because my wife became very ill in mid-2022 and all life turned to making sure she came through her illness (which she has, all-clear been given etc etc).  Life is sort of back to normal (although i'd argue that something like that changes life and perspectives across the entire family.  Not sure what normal is now tbh).  
So back to 2021..............I've wanted to have a build thread of my own for years but I've never had a car that I felt had sufficient interest (or age) to warrant a thread.  But Covid changed my attitude - felt that life can be so precarious that I really had to step up my search for something.  I live in West Wales and alot of my local friends are electricians or carpenters or plumbers.  They go to a lot of houses and farms.  I told them all to look out for anything under a cover or tarpaulin or looked a bit forgotten that to give me a ring.  In 2022  I got a call about this car from one of the lads.  He didn't know what he was looking at, just that he knew it needed saving and 'it looks quick'!  

I met the owner (whom used to use it quite often but then his life took a turn for the worse and it had to be set aside to prioritise other things going on - totally understandable) before xmas 2021 and agreed a deal and paid a 10% deposit....then  xmas and life got in the way and it was only today that I was able to go and pick it up.  The plan is to ignore the exterior for the moment.....and just get the interior dry and all fitted out (I've got all the parts but he did the headlining and then life got in the way and some of the interior needs putting back). 
 
I've got a couple of dehumidifiers coming to help with the drying out too.  I then am going to get the car mechanically fettled and then MOT'd.  Once it's MOT'd then I'm going to use it for business meetings, day trips with the kids, charity runs, going up to North Wales to see my Dad and Devon to see my mum etc etc..  

Some initial pictures - bear in mind it was under a tarp(for 3 years, with the passenger window open..........) right up until the point you see these pictures. 
 
We got it into my shed and onto the ramp to see what we had.  The interior needs a lot of fettling.  On to the next instalment.  

That was a fun day. I'll stick up some photos later once I've recovered.
Amazon tried to jettison its gearbox on the M40 while attempting to chase @chaseracer

That Dyane is absolutely ace in every possible way.


Anyway, yes, one gearbox to bellhousing bolt is now stuck in someone's front grille. The other was held in by mere hope. As such the gearbox was shunting back and forward against the engine and it popped out of gear a few times. 

All fixed now thankfully! The solution was to fling away the original Volvo bolts that have Allen heads and are difficult to torque without rounding out, and replace them with normal hex head bolts.
Still proud of the old heap.

Account balance being calculated valued customer sir. Please await the waits.

Big ends gone.
Damaged Crankshaft
Leaking from bellhousing
Leaking radiator
Headlights not working
Indicators not working
Ignition barrel fucked
Gearbox mount split in two.
As mentioned the original plan was to take this to Rustival this weekend but to be honest I completely gave up because of the issues and I haven't been in a state of mind to sort it. The few times I'd had a go at tackling small things I ended up a mere bawhair from putting a sledgehammer through the windscreen and having it towed.
The furthest I'd got recently was unceremoniously dumping the engine. I didn't even have the mental wherewithal to stick the fingers up at it.

To cheer myself up I dug further.  Oil pump taken off, a hose shoved up the engine's oil arsehole and five litres of diesel pumped through to try and flush all the passages. Like a cold dino enema.


That needs a level of attention.
So I professionally recored my radiator.



Grudgingly, the engine.
I found the cause of the bellhousing leak. That was a brand new rear main seal conversion kit, I didn't even press it into the housing with my big dirty king chuck fingers. It just fucked up all by itself. Beautiful.

Let's check how well the spare crank matches up to the big ends with new bearings.

It's what it says in the book.
Not going back in here again for at least a week, so both the big ends and mains were replaced.

A generous squeeze of raspberry sauce to appease the god of ungrateful cars.

And the rest.

New seal for a guaranteed five minutes of reliability.




More sauce.

It hasn't exploded yet.


 

Classic Vw Beetle Wizard | eBay

Home and a tad more inspection.
It's dirty.


Couple of minor scratches this side

Bit worse this side, looks like maybe from carrying a lock or something

But overall, pretty smart really. Not really a union jack and bullseye kinda guy but my smallest child is trying to insist they stay on.

It's come with this seat to handlebar lock:

And two of these £150 grinder resistant D locks, which is quite a score.

I'm still gonna keep it in the house I think, as soon as the twat who's left a van on axle stands in the way gets his act together anyway.

Fairly successful day for faffing.
Inspected the Vespa transmission, the belts often get overlooked and either break leaving you stranded or wear affecting performance.

Based on width measurement it wasn't that worn but it doesn't look great so a new one is on order.
The transmission rollers also looked a bit worn with possible flat spots, so ordered some of those and an oil filter, I have some oil in stock.

Spent the afternoon putting the van back together between showers. Had a bit of a war with one of the disc retaining screws but otherwise pretty straightforward. I bled the calipers with my knock-off Mityvac which worked pretty well, although I did have to rope in a child for a final pedal pump based check.
I also cleared out the scuttle drains, there was some water under the carpet last time I was in there investigating for a diesel heater, the central drain under the cabin filter was blocked with minor gunk and one of the side ones had half a tree of well mulched leaves.
No pics of any of the above as I was well onto the swing of it with filthy hands, I've stopped to make tea and will finish it off this evening.

Whilst pondering my sanity with the horror show that is the P6 - I dragged this out of the cellar drying room and charged the battery up.... 

Started up first time. Throttle twist grip repaired and it's running great. 
GF not happy with the smell of 2 stroke throughout the downstairs though 🙄

When I win the lottery I’ll do a Honda K20 swap into my X1/9 with adjustable bilsteins and Willwood brakes.  It’s been done quite a bit in the states and you can buy everything as a kit to do it from here:
https://www.midwest-bayless.com/p-1029-k20-kit-stage1-acura-honda-k20-k24-engine-swap-kit-for-fiat-bertone-x19.aspx

Either that or I’ll just put some Crossclimates on my Focus. 
 

Simple but satisfying jobs today.
The carpet underlay in the front was switched round so the cutout for the pedals was in the right place.  Still don't know why that didn't occur to me when I was fitting it - though having to work around school kids running around my driveway at the time probably didn't help.

The observant among you may also spot the other thing I forgot yesterday afternoon.  The fuel switch was left on overnight.  I can however now confirm that the needle and seat in this carb are decent enough to prevent the whole tank decanting itself overnight.  Though it did leak by enough that I created my own little recreation of that video of them crossing the border the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall when I started the car up.  Thankfully after five minutes or so of driving the biblical levels of smoke reduced to invisible again.
As I had hoped the carpets had fully dried overnight.  They're not spotless by any means but I think are a hundred times better than they started out.

My suspicion was that once they were in the car that the marks would be far less apparent.
Think I was right.


Perfect?  No.  However it's a 39 year old car, and based on that context I think is entirely acceptable.  The area by the pedals is looking in really surprisingly good shape given there's no separate heel pad or anything there.

Not sure what these carpets are made from, but it seems to be pretty hard wearing whatever it is.
Next issue I wanted to address was the door cards.  Nothing says quality like trim that fits this well.

The main reason for that is that a whole bunch of these clips were missing.

Of the eighteen that should be in that door card there were three present (and four in the driver's door).  With them all present and correct it looks...a bit better.

Being totally honest this card is never going to sit absolutely right as it's been quite badly water damaged and is warped as a result.  It's a lot better though.  Doesn't flap around a bunch when the door closes now either.
Same was done on the driver's side.  That one at least has escaped any major water damage so is sitting properly.
It's actually looking like a car again!



If you're really paying attention you may have noticed that the driver's side window winder has changed from chrome to plastic.  That's because I have two plastic ones but only one chrome one and then being mismatched was bugging me.  Yes the metal one looks nicer, but I'll take them matching over individual visual appeal.
Really need to get the parcel shelf under the dash out to give it the same treatment as the rest of the carpets as it's absolutely filthy.  That might wait till the weather is a bit warmer though so I can just leave it in the sun to dry.  
The carpets will come out again at the same time as I want to get the bulkhead behind the shelf rust proofed same as the floors, and to get proper paint on the area beneath the B pillars so the current tide mark isn't so obvious.  Shorter term all the carpets need to come out the boot so it can be properly dried out and rust proofed as well.  That requires me to empty all the crap out first though!
While in the boot, I did spot a convenient spot to mount some concealed speakers if I did decide I wanted to fit a stereo at some point in the future, which honestly I doubt I will.

Between the carpets being back in the car (and no longer saturated) and the cooling shroud now actually being bolted together the car is waaaaay quieter to drive.  Don't get me wrong, it's still ridiculously loud, but it's a thousand times better than it was.  You can actually have a conversation at 50mph just by raising your voice a bit rather than actually having to shout.
Here's the before and after from the day I got the car and today inside.


Quite the difference.
Externally not much has really changed though!

Plopsies.


Got sick of this leaking everywhere and had the seals lying around, so cracked on at the first lull in the weather.
I found 5 leaks.
Front seal.

Shifter and reverse switch housing.

Rear seal and Speedo drive.

Pulled the output flange off and replaced the seal.

Reverse switch sealed up with rtv.

Front bearing housing removed, seal changed and new gasket made.

There's a top hat seal for the speedo that I'll replace when the cable goes back on.
The shifter leak was probably from the oil being slightly overfilled wile the gearstick wasn't bolted in fully.
Ready to go back in, but have lost the motivation.

Having some more fun in the Amazon.







This post could not be completed because a weather occurred.
 
 

Ordered track rod ends from Brookhouse as it was clear Classicswede were just taking the piss and they were never going to arrive. Less than 24 hours after ordering from Brookhouse they turned up, with free sweets. A bit more expensive but at least if you need something you can rely on it turning up fast.
Easiest car in the world to do track rod ends on. Don't even need to jack it up. Just pull the split pins, undo the nuts, couple of smacks with a pickle fork and the bar comes off ready for the ends to be swapped. Keeping the bar the same length means no alignment needs to be done after.

Dreaded nylocs on these, but the difference is they're so stiff I had to jam the tapers in using a trolley jack to get the nuts on otherwise they'd just spin. Clearly good quality fasteners for a change and quite reassuring.
Next niggle. The boot wouldn't lock so I was wary of leaving the car anywhere.
In the process of removing the latch and handle I broke the linkage.

Once again the spares car has saved the day! Linkage pilfered.

Last job. Noticed a rather significant ice cube in the spare wheel well. I guess there's a leak!
Ran a drill through this to make a drain hole.

Test drive time.

Massive improvement with the new track rod ends. Steering is tight as a drum, steering wheel dead straight. This is how I like cars to drive as nothing pisses me off more than crap steering and suspension.
The next and possibly final job to do for a long time is to pull the gearbox off and replace the front and rear seals as I've got a significant trail of oil. That can wait till it's not minus bloody seven outside though!

Friends I knew through the Maestro Club used to own this. Here's a picture of it 18 years ago, doing it's thing at Mallory Park. 

Bargain Alert! Autoshite track day weapon. £500!
https://www.carandclassic.com/l/C1681381

There's only one hole in the dash, and a realtime display of what is actually in the tank is more useful to me for how I use the car.  What I have left of the original kit will be stashed away in a box so if someone else wants to reinstate things there's nothing to stop them.
While the water ingress issues have been greatly reduced since I got the car, we still have quite a bit getting in on the passenger side.

The door itself seemed to be a major contributor there, with the bottom of the door card never drying out and the door pocket filling up with water every time it rained.
A quick look inside the door clued me in onto a likely cause, and a bit of an insight into why that window rattled so badly.

That thing in the bottom of the door, that's the rail that the window should be sitting on.  Also acting as a gutter to direct water running down the glass to drip off at either end, away from the door card etc.
The glass was essentially just balanced on the metal rollers that the rail should run on.  How it hadn't fallen off or been damaged I've no idea.  The rail is in pretty rough shape, but I wouldn't have condemned it.  The very ends are a bit crispy, but I've seen far worse.  The biggest issue (aside from the window glass having escaped) is that it's been bent quite substantially.  I've straightened it as best I can, but it's still not right.  A new one is €30 from Trabantwelt, so hardly the end of the world.  While the glass isn't sitting as deeply in the channel as it ideally should be, I have managed to coerce everything more or less back to where it should be.

I suspect there would have been some sort of sealant to help bond the glass to the carrier originally as well.  
I will need to pull a lot of this apart when I change the window rubbers anyway so I'm not worrying too much about it right now.  I've just made a mental note note to open that window again if I don't have to until I've had a chance to get things properly secured again.  There's no chance of it actually falling apart on its own now though and the door doesn't rattle anywhere near as much.  Will it help keep the rain out?  Remains to be seen.