fatharris

Shall we try something different?
I woke up today and gave the Beat some air - the interior still needs a scrubbing from the winter mildew.

As documented earlier, the Beat failed the MOT in November for high emissions and leaking exhaust gases. I took it to a local fabricator who made a link pipe for it at the cost of £270, took it back to the MOT centre and it still wasn't passing. 
During the exhaust work, it was noted that the rear of the catalytic converter had melted. Luckily, I had finally sourced a second hand unit from someone in the Beat club, and I've been waiting for an opportunity to do something with it.
I never actually had the chance to check over the work that the exhaust people did, and I'm pretty disappointed with the work I saw.
The exhaust was blowing and holding no pressure when I covered it when I picked it up. Saw this extra nut haphazardly screwed onto one of the cat securing posts - it's not even the same fucking thread pitch!
It was also given a slathering of exhaust paste at both ends of the link pipe in a failed attempt to stop it blowing.

The other end of the cat had been chopped off and replaced with a generic flange, so I took the cat and link pipe off and went off to the exhaust place to source a new flange....
....and once again, I came back empty handed, with nobody in the area supplying bits for making exhausts.
That being said, I /did/ have a suitable flange, it just happened to be welded to the broken cat!
I took a couple of reference photos to the rough position and angles of the flange:

You can see from the comparison photos that the old cat had been shortened, they would have just chopped the end off just behind the weld of the old flange.

First things first, the donor flange was chopped off. Had to be careful not to damage it 😅

Marked up the cut on the new cat. Added a slight angle on it to match the previous one. Just had to cut between the lines 😅

Once that was cut, everything was refitted to the car, and the rear exhaust was supported, to give the correct angle. The loose flange was reattached to the link pipe.

Took a bit of time to get it supported in a manner that didn't allow contact with the subframe, but once I was happy, I applied a couple of tacks to the flange, and removed the cat to go back on the bench.

It was quite a gap, but this is never an exact science 😅
Anyway, it doesn't have to be pretty, but it's welded up and survived the hammer test.

And bolted in. Thankfully, this bolted in nicely and I even managed to close up the flange gaps that the previous people failed to close, without resorting to paste!

Firing up the engine revealed that there's no blowing now, and there's pressure when I put my hand over the backbox, and nothing touches the subframe so that's a proper result!
However, I did notice a couple of rust scabs underneath, so now is as good a time as any!
Raised the car up on all four stands.

And gave it a thorough pressure wash on the underside, ready for some more work tomorrow.

Either way, this is ready for another MOT, so this is just some extra-curricular activity now 😅
Cheers!

Rover:
What a whirlwind three weeks this has been already!
I had a quick check of the paintwork when I got back from the collection and attacked a section of it with some cutting compound - this had little effect and I'll revisit this at some point. Very peculiar defect though, appears to be below the lacquer.

The day after, it went to it's first show as an exhibit, completely unprepared and unwashed. It did draw considerably more attention than I was expecting!
 
And unlike the Beat, this had room for the entire family! My daughter finds the atmospheric dump valve PSSSHHHH'ing hilarious

Whilst using it for the week, it became apparent there were a few more jobs required on it than expected. The main one was the Rover dribbling out the front bumper and marking territory:

Didn't take long to find the cause:

Yep, a power steering return line leak. So it was time to test out the ramps I acquired from FB marketplace and get on with a fix. Power steering return lines are NLA on 600's and pricey when good ones come up.

The bumper came off with minimal confusion and after a bit of faffing, the power steering return line was removed:

Five seconds with a wire brush found the pinhole cause of the leak. A tale as old as time, and unfortunately my usual repair of self-amalgamating rubber tape and ty-wraps wasn't going to cut it this time.

After weighing up my options, I elected to source some braided hose line, and replace the affected section. The hose ends were soaked in very hot water to soften the ends and enable me to force the hose further onto the pipe. Hoseclips were added, and a new p-clip mounting bracket was bent into shape, before the pipe was re-fitted:
    
Whilst the front end was dismantled, the headlight protectors were removed and were cleaned thoroughly, as they were minging on the rear face! The intercooler was also removed, to give it a bit of a de-grease and pressure wash, as the power steering fluid had built up at the bottom and clogged the vanes.

Called it a night after that.

Time for an update:
BX
Finally had a  couple of hours free to further modify the chassis/boot reinforcement rail I had made the previous year.  A bit more bending, fettling and drilling produced this final effort:

This would allow the rail to meet the rear boot vertical closing panel at a slight angle, negating me having to find some way to induce a curve in the rail to match the original.
 

A 'step' was added to the top face of the rail, to allow it to sit flush with the existing metalwork at the top, and some spot weld holes drilled into the boot floor:

Once that was all done, there was nothing left to do than to clamp the rail to the existing bracket (very tight, to straighten the bracket) and weld it together.


Now it's all prepared, it is an insert-interference fit into the existing rail and when I get some more free time, I'll get the surrounding metalwork prepped ready to weld in in permanently. Hopefully sooner than next year!
 

Got back home safe and sound. This drives lovely!

Decided to throw caution to the wind and try the sunroof. Mercifully it worked!

Love finding stuff like this in the service history 😀


Turns out it started life as a Rover Group manager's car!

So far, the antenna has decided to kick back into life and I have got the second remote fob working, so already on the road to improvement!
I adore this car. It picks up speed so nicely and everything appears to work!

I'm in love.



 

Still in Plymouth so a full write up will come in time, but @montytom is a bloody lovely bloke and even sloshed £20 in the tank to get me back.
He didn't even bat an eye when  somebody in a Volvo had a go at me for posing for the picture whilst he was reversing 😅

Five minutes to destination. Very scenic.

Well, it's a beautiful day for a collection. Heading back to my childhood city, so a quick visit to my parents and my best friends will round out the day.

 

As a fun little aside, I filmed myself doing the driveway shuffle when I wanted to get Herman out of the garage and the BX in, and sped it up, just to show the sheer ballache involved in owning too many cars.
Took about 20 minutes to do all the moving about

April
It was just me and the boy for a couple of days during the half-term break, so I got to re-live my childhood by jamming a waterbottle into the rear wheel of his bicycle, in order to make it sound like a motorbike :mrgreen: 
Worked a treat:
 
The Mazda had one final tweak before the MOT - a quick adjust of the handbrake at the calipers. Nice and easy job.

Sadly, the Mazda did fail the MOT, but not as badly as it could have been!

Annoyingly, this had a replacement cat about 18 months/6,000 miles ago, so disappointing to see emissions problems so soon thereafter.
Ah well, onto the fixing. My apprentice got his very first toolbox for his 5th birthday and was keen to assist!

Straight into the headlight fault then. The edges of the beam were marked on the garage door and adjustment attempted, but you could feel something skipping within the threads, so it made sense to dismantle and investigate.

The threads on the adjusting screw were crusty, but otherwise solid, so were wirebrushed and greased up. This left the plastic barrel nut at fault. I had a scrap headlight frame assembly in the metal pile which was liberated from their precious  cargo. Once fitted, the headlight was adjusted to the original position, the lowered again slightly against the marks on the door:

As for the emissions, the car was given a full service, a half tank of momentum and a bottle of magic cat cleaner were all thrown together - teaching the boy how to check and adjust plug gaps:

Once complete, it was gently* driven back to the testing station for a retest, and I got to snoop over a lovely old removal lorry.

And a fucking enormous rubber band ball:

And mercifully, it passed the retest! This will be having a bit of a break as I'd really like to get underneath it in due course and give it a wirebrushing and reprotecting.
JUST KIDDING, I took the dog out for a walk in it the other day and reminded myself why I didn't do that very often.

I was ready for more car-related escapades, but then some high winds happened and decided to pull down part of my tree and part of my garden wall. Class.

After much fucking about, and working around the kids/work/whatever, we've finally got the damaged section of wall dismantled and the tree removed. Forcing this lot (and much, much more) through the wood chipper took an entire day! Bit more digging and we'll be in a position to rebuild - it's a Cornish hedge so primarily dirt and rocks, but when the other side of the wall is a 10ft drop into a shallow river, you have to be logical and careful with the work.

A brief day trip to Plymouth resulted in me spotting this beauty:






Too good not to share.
Finally, the first show of the year, the Cornish Mini Riviera Run open show on May Day bank holiday.
 


And whippies with my best mate on the beach.

 
 

So it's been a couple of months, so lets recap:
March:
There were a couple of days of no rain, which was enough incentive to take the hard top off the Mazda. Absolutely needed a wash there as despite the torrents of rain we had over the winter, Cornwall is still on a hosepipe ban.

Speaking of grubby motors, the Laguna was beyond filthy, both inside and out:


Some proper graft with a wash mitt and some of those wheel scrubby brushes brought out some decent results:


With that done, with Austin steering on the driveway, we parked the Laguna in the garage for a further scrub inside:

Forgot about this old phone! It was in the seat pocket. Finally binned it.

Found this weird old watch face in the spare wheel well


Once finished, it was parked back outside. Looked pretty decent in the morning light!

Naturally though, after one school run:

Needn't have bothered.
Herman was given a scrub up, and sent in for an MOT.

He had only completed around 1,000 miles in the past year and a bit, so it was quite relieving to see he passed. Now fuel has dipped below £1.50/litre, he is now going to be used a lot more regularly. His fuel economy still isn't right though and a long drive to Plymouth last week hasn't changed that. More investigation required.
Pulled over in the Mazda for this rather aesthetic shot on the way into work one day.

Ordered some keyrings from @ruffgeezerwhich came very quickly (cheers mate) and allowed the key cabinet to be a bit more presentable!

The boy got himself a racing kids seat upgrade when MrsH's coworker kindly offered it to us. Got bloody speakers in and everything! 

Used the Beat for a fortnight as the commuter, on the basis that it was the last one with fuel in before payday. 
How was it?
Fucking shite. The weather was persistent, heavy rain with high winds for the entirety of the fortnight, and the roof is still not watertight on the Beat, which meant that every time I arrived at work, the rain hat had to be set up and secured properly.

This REALLY needs a new roof.
Found a bumble bee wedged in the bootlid jamb. Plucked it out, gave it some food and set it on a wall to carry onwards - not really car related, but it was just neat to hold a bee.

The Mazda was finally washed and had a looking over for the MOT the following month. It was absolutely gipping.

Took two full washes, but it came up all right. The tape covering the front wings was due its annual change though, so I whipped that off. The metal garden wire I used to secure the bumper had snapped too, so that needed replacing with a stronger type of wire.

Once the wire was re-applied, the tape went back on, and the car deemed ready for an MOT. New wings this year though, definitely.

Finally, on the commute home one day, there was rather a large traffic jam. When I got to the front of it, I pulled over, as I recognised the person, and the car.

Yes, t'was my nemesis, the Fiesta. I had noticed it had kicked a wheel out of bed, in the same area I was working in a few months ago! Fearful I had fucked up when changing the driveshaft, I had a look in the afflicted area and felt exonerated.


Yep, the lower arm had snapped. Mercifully, that was the final push they needed to make the change, and the Fiesta was duly scrapped thereafter, replaced with a 2007 Civic diesel.
Good riddance!

Motor de-boned prior to heading home



Filled both motors and hit the road



And I've just got back in the door. Dan is buzzing about the Merc and I'm buzzing that the Mazda did 36mpg.



The Mazda did give me a mild panic at one point when I went to apply the brakes and the car both pulled to one side and failed to slow down properly, but I'm putting it down to thoroughly waterlogged, cold brake pads - they hadn't been applied in over 120 miles at that point and it had been lashing it down the entire time.

They were absolutely fine on the return journey, but I'll pull the pads out and check them sharpish.

Knackered now

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Choice of conveyance after the Laguna decided to shit a wheel bearing



Chod spotted at Exeter



PC: 1 hurried along by coffee.

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Not a great deal to update on.

Polished and waxed the Beat.





Got up at a very unrelaxo 0430 alarm, picked up my mate in Plymouth:





And headed up the line to Somerset for the Haynes Museum breakfast meet - we'd registered for a spot in the paddock as part of the '90s' theme.



There was a decent mix there:












We popped into the museum afterwards as well and had a great time

As my friend is soon to be leaving the country for Japan for a while, he let me all his car cleaning kit and spare spray paints he had etc. Always gratefully received!



The chicken hutch was letting in rain, so a new roof was hastily cobbled with some scrap aluminium. Dry inside now




Took advantage of a deal at Halfords that went viral, which resulted in me picking up these two lots for a total of £35:



Finally, after being taken off the road in July because fuel was silly, Herman is going to be lightly fettled in the hope of passing the MOT booked for this time next week.





Took the rear lights off to clean the space behind as the water flow was always weird. Found acres of dirt in there!



Even though it had a lengthy wash, there's still loads of bird shit embedded into some of the surfaces, it's already burned through the lacquer too, just to add insult to injury.

That car was immaculate when I got it 9 years ago

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Quiet day today, so I pottered about the garage. First job was fixing a puncture on the boys bicycle, then reattached the head on ol' faithful. Bit wonky now, mind, but still sweeps



After that, it was onto more jobs around the garage, firstly greasing up the garage door mechanism - a job I've forgotten to do for years, but makes a huge difference.

Finally, I looked at the garage door frame. The bottom of each side had rotted away over the years.

The entire frame is probably due replacement soon, but I had some spare wood of 'roughly' the same dimensions, so it was time to chop the old rotted section out.



Naturally, the world's worst camera doing stellar work today:



Not perfect, but it's better than a gaping hole.



The other side was starting to go as well, and I already had the tools out, so it made sense to do that one too.



Like a metaphor for my cars, it's a lot worse on the bits that were out of sight.



Last job of the day was fitting another layer of insulation to the garage door, and sealing as many drafty bits as possible. Again, budget of zero and trying to use up stuff from previous DIY projects over the years, so it's not a flawless finish but hopefully it'll make a difference.

The foam was secured with screws and penny washers, and I'll get some glue on there when the weather warms up.



All in all, a pleasant day had

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As part of the ongoing dream to be able to use the Beat as a fun commuter, one of the challenges I have is trying to make the cockpit more watertight. This is an ongoing exercise in futility, but another key part of this arrived in the post today so I got started.

First things first, popped the heaters on in the garage an hour before I went out, to get it a little bit more comfortable than the ~6⁰c ambient temperature.



Baking in there now

I would be working on the drivers door, which would require the door card to be removed:



Which exposed this mess.



I was warned about this by Tony when he did the work package on the car back in '21. He did say there was a lot of sealant in the cavity to make up for the rotten bit, but this still resulted in a lot of lateral play in the window, which I'm hoping was causing a negative effect on the sealing of the windows.

After a bit of faffing, it came out relatively easily.

As demonstrated by the photos, the old one was completely ballbagged!



You can see the difference in the guide slot too.



As it had disintegrated internally and split into two pieces at the time of the rebuild, it was filled with sealant in an attempt to keep it going. Buggerance to clean off though.



A little bit of fiddling and manual adjustment was required, particularly on the lower adjustable bolt thread, which was pointing ever so slightly upwards, affecting the lining up of the remaining bolts.



Eventually, it all came back together fine, and the window appears to have less play in it now.



Will it provide a better, dry solution?

Well, we'll have to find out in due course, preferably not during the salt season!



Cheers.

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Thanks, it seems to be tradition that once a year, I get unhappy with something in there and decide to improve it. There's still a few jobs to do this year to make it a bit more comfortable,  but the emphasis has been to make this as low budget as possible whilst still being safe/strong - it's been quite satisfying seeing my spare piles of DIY shite and gubbins slowly being used up over the course of the last couple of years!

Misc:

Ah yes, this little nugget of joy popped back in:



My friend was away with work so I offered to get it MOTd for her. Failed on a driveshaft.

So, old driveshaft out. Typically, all the fixings were rusty as arseholes and the job took twice as long as it should have.





Annoyingly, after I placed the order, I got an email saying that the shaft was out of stock for a fortnight. Emailed back and asked for a refund, got no response for a couple of days, and suddenly, a knock on the door and a new shaft was here

Once fitted, I went underneath and gave some of the exposed crustiness at the rear end a quick touch up to give it another couple of years. It passed its MOT and got handed back to my friend.

The winter got really rather cold and so I hit up Facebook marketplace and got a bargain infrared heater:



It was naturally cheap, so it was a bit ropey - it was covered in body shop detritus and overspray, and all four of the caster wheels were hanging off.

So, time to give it a bit of a spruce up:



The caster wheel mounting frames we re-shaped and braced inside with wood before replacement:



The reflectors removed and polished:


As were the bulbs, which were covered in overspray. The cable was also replaced for a much longer one.



It's still rough, but it is better that it was!



And all working:



Unfortunately, whilst it was lovely heat, once it was off, the heat disappeared, as is its nature, so it was time to move in a different direction.

I made some enquiries with a neighbour and got put in touch with a fella that was living off-grid. He worked as a builder/roofing guy and had recently refurbished a local pasty kitchen - he had all the removed foam roof insulation for sale at super cheap prices.

For £110 delivered, a deal was done and the insulation arrived on my doorstep that evening.

As expected for the price (it was looking to be about four or five times as much to buy it new!), It was in pretty poor shape - it had been in the rain, it was soaked in cooking grease and covered in dirt.



A morning of pressure washing and scrubbing them with parts cleaner yielded items that were clearly second hand, but didn't smell.



This was placed in the garage with a dehumidifier to allow it to dry fully.



It was a tight squeeze!



Eventually ( I was working on this when the kids had gone to bed) after a few days, I had cut all the boards down to their required sizes (you can see it in the background of the IR heater refurb photos) each roof joist void would get 6 bits of insulation to cover the entire area.

I used a combination of nails and steel wire to hold the insulation in place. Took a few weeks of faffing about, but it shaped up nicely:



Doing the joists above the plastboarded ceiling was a pure ballache - no space to move at all, and dirt constantly falling in my face



The benefits of the insulation demonstrated itself during a light snowfall halfway through the insulating:



And it's worked! Last night the outside temperature dropped to 2c, garage stayed at around 8c.

The garage ended up being an absolute nightmare to manoeuvre around during all of this:



The garage door was also insulated with some leftover foam from when I took the soundproofed partition wall down. Planning to add another layer.



Finally, there was no way to close the door from the inside now the foam was in the door.

Enter, the most useless tool ever - the box spanner.



Makes a decent enough grab handle.

The future plan will be to get a diesel heater during the summer months when the prices are lower, and to have some form of spray bar to distribute the hot air a lot more evenly around the garage.



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End of year update:

Mazda: This has been the daily for the rest of the year, doing everything from the commute to the school run. Unfortunately, it was leaving rainbows on the driveway and dumping PS fluid at an alarming rate:



Remarkably, this was the same fault as was in the Laguna - a pinhole in the return line. To add to the issue, nobody seems to supply pipelines for this particular model year of MK1 MX5. So, this had the same style of repair as the Laguna - clean, degrease, rubber tape, tywrap. Touch wood, it's been absolutely leak free for over four months.

It's got an MOT in April so we'll see what comes from that.

Laguna: The Laguna has been running lovely for MrsH as her daily. The rear door lock actuators have started getting a bit sluggish in the cold weather.

Only other fault was MrsH called me on the way home to say her car was sounding extra loud. Told her to swing in by the swimming pool where I was at with the kids before she went home.

Glad I did, she'd have ripped the bloody thing off on the speed humps in the village



Luckily, they were removable nuts and bolts, not studs, so once I got the car home carefully, it was sorted within a couple of hours. The gasket even held in place from the detached exhaust so it ended up being a free fix.





The roof headlining has been getting damp in downpours again, so that requires further investigation.

BMW: Nothing done. Needs some attention/a damn good clean before it goes back on the road. Runs out of MOT in March and it only did 1200 miles for the entirety of 2022. That's the fuel prices for you!



BX: Nothing done (again). Currently living outside under a cover.



Beat: This went straight through another MOT with no advisories!



Mostly been off the road, getting a few jobs done.

First one was getting the car up on stands and having a check of the underside for any signs of rust coming through. Couple of little bits of hammerite needed topping up, but otherwise clean underneath.



Another job was the stereo was cutting out at high volumes (necessary during high speeds with the roof down).

So, strip down of the centre console again:



The initial thought was the amp was over heating. Took off the heat sink to check:



And spotted that the thermal paste had slipped. Replaced.



This was not successful, not the subsequent replacement amplifier board. Eventually, instead of taking the power feed from the stereo circuit, the stereo power is directly fed from the cigarette lighter, and a step up transformer used to bump it from 12 to 24v. It seems to be working fine now.

Finally, I started looking at the issue I had with the watertight integrity of the roof. The roof skin had shrunk terribly over the years, and the previous owner had tried to compensate for this by over tightening the latch hooks, causing them to bend.



Both sides were straightened in a vice and screwed in to a sensible length, the roof seal mounting frames were straightened with a hammer, and the car parked under a hose to see if there was any progress being made.

It was still pooling in the footwells, so the screen frame seals were checked and unblocked - the previous owners appeared to have stuffed some foam in the middle of the drain tube. Whilst there, I re-installed the seals correctly, as they were displaced and slightly twisted.

The car was parked in a downpour earlier and there was a few small drops in the cockpit so I've got a few more ideas to try when some parts arrive.

Next post will be the miscellaneous stuff, but please enjoy the work of this up and coming graffiti artist spotted when doing the school run.

Who's a dickhead?
I'm a dickhead.
The piston rings arrived today, and wouldn't you know it? The parts seller was correct, they weren't the right ones I needed - I needed 1.75mm thick rings, these were 1.5mm. 
At this point, I've ordered another set from Autodoc and thrown in the towel - this isn't going to NL any more. I can't get it rebuilt, MOTd and tested in a suitable timeframe. Disappointing, but it's entirely my own bloody fault
To cheer myself up, I made a lunchtime trip to a random address in the next village over armed with some cash and came away with this:

A brand new Hella remanufactured alternator for the MX5, for just £50. Bloody stoked with that result! Had to drill one of the bolt holes out to remove the thread in there (I had to do it on the old one too) but that was it.
I'm getting good at fitting these now!

Took the battery off charge and went for a test start:

And all is working once again.
To celebrate, I moved the MX5 and uncovered an old friend.

Going to look at the exhaust this weekend to see if the replacement exhaust section I've got will bolt straight in, or if I have to get a new flange welded on.
Whilst the Beat aired out, I cracked on with the bits I had received yesterday, starting with the No.1 crank bearing hockey stick seals. These had a dab of hylomar applied to hold them in place.
In order to get them fitted in place without rolling or puckering, the Haynes manual recommends using thin strips of metal to allow the bearing cap to be fitted.
Step forward, the glorious Tennents can.

This was suitably chopped up and the cap manoeuvred into place.

Once in position, the crank bearing caps were torqued up. Following advice from Phill, he recommended turning the crank after every cap is torqued to check for free movement. This all felt fine so I'm happy.
The tails of the seal need to be trimmed to 2mm but it's advised to wait 24 hours for the seals to settle, so that's what I'll be doing. A smearing of hylomar was applied to the corners of the cap to ensure a oiltight seal.

After that, the exhaust manifold studs were fitted.

And the clutch lever arm bush was fitted. This ended up being a bit of a faff, as the new one had slightly thinner lugs than the original, and wouldn't hold in place.
I tried hammering the lugs to expand them, but they weren't playing ball, so I melted the lugs flush to the arm with a soldering iron, drilled a couple of holes and attached it with screws and washers. The bush was filled with rubber grease and the contact points of the release bearing got a thin smear of moly grease.

With that, I'll down tools on it until the rings get here. There's still a tiny chance I can get it all together and tested in time, but it seems unlikely now.
Cheers.

Last day of leave from work and once again, no parts arrived. So, more cleaning and little jobs instead.
The remainder of the gearbox was sprayed with degreaser and left to work in for a bit.
First shitty job was the bonnet catch.

Absolutely caked in old sticky grease and grime from 30 years of spraying any old shite onto it.
Bit more degreaser and some aggressive scrubbing got it looking presentable again.

Whilst re-lubricating the latch and operating the mechanism, it was clear that something wasn't quite right. The big spring on the left hand dislodged and was gouging into the catch.


I held the spring in place with steel wire and twatted the top of the bracket to bend it over to retain the screw - job done.

Was going to adjust the cable as there was quite a lot of slack in the system.

Nice and simple, just one tiny screw to undo aaaaand...

Never mind, it works just fine, I was just being picky.
Next small job, the temperature sensor earth return terminal had came away from the cable - my old crimping tool was well past it. Annoyingly, I ran out of my tiny ring terminals, and with the clearance available, a generic one wouldn't work.

In the end, I drilled out a male spade terminal to match the screw thread size and it fits perfectly.

Anyway, with that done, I cracked on, and cleaned the rest of the gearbox up.

Not perfect, but a hell of a lot better than what it was! Decided there was no better time to change the driveshaft seals. Old ones looked fine, but I had new ones so it made sense to change them!



Both sides were changed, and rubber grease syringed into the seal cavity.

I also greased up the gear change rod ball joints.
In all honesty, there's very little I can do now until the last of the engine parts get here, so I'm going to take a break.
LOL, as if.

Herman has been sat on the drive since November, and his MOT has lapsed. There's currently an ABS fault that I need to look into, but as it was the first dry day with no BX work in months, I decided to start small and fit some bits that I've had on the shelf.

For years and years, I've been told I need to change my throttle cable by Phill because it was corroded and the pedal felt stiff throughout the range of travel. I bought two replacement OE cables last year.
First up, the throttle pedal cable.

Surprisingly easy to strip and disconnect at the pedal box end, although the bulkhead clip was a bit of a twat to undo, due to the sound deadening. Brute force force got it out though. Followed the routing and it was adjusted and ready to go, resulting in a much smoother and lighter pedal.

Next one was even easier, this was for the traction control.
The actuator had to be unshipped for access to the other side of the cable. With a strong clip either side, I ended up taking it into the garage, clamping the free end of the cable in a vice, applying constant tension to the cable whilst simultaneously undoing both retaining clips.


But it worked just fine the was a pleasant job.
Sadly, whilst it needed changing, it wasn't the one I was intending to change, I was after the one for the cruise control actuator:

The cable in this one is also pretty shagged, and at £90 for a replacement one, I'll be trying my luck at the scrappies in due course. It does work for now so it's not urgent.
Whilst the airbox was out, I noticed some paint fretting and light corrosion on a contact surface. Treated it with Kurist, and applied some anti-chafing tape to the affected area.
Anyway, with that all done, it was a quick and easy reassembly.


Didn't start it up as the battery is still on conditioning charge in the garage.
Up close, you can see the replacements were required!

Anyway, I did decide to knock it on the head early for the night. I tidied the tools away and hoovered the garage floor, ready for the next evolution.
Tomorrow, I'm back to work and we have a torque wrench tester. Going to take mine in so I can see what I need to set the torque wrenches to, in order to get the 20 and 60nm figures required for the head bolt torquing.

Cheers!
 
 

Another day with no parts, so it was lots of small jobs to prep for reassembly.
First job was to source a new set of exhaust manifold studs. As I had a day off work, I went around all the local factors, including an exhaust specialist to get what I needed.
And I came back empty-handed. Luckily, I've found a company that does the specific studs and nuts for a BX for £11 delivered online, so that'll arrive at some point.
I also popped into @twosmoke300 who had a camshaft sprocket bolt, as well as lending me a set of engine head stands to check the valve clearances again. These turned out to be okay, only one was just out of limits and it wasn't enough to merit stripping down the head.

I also removed the fuel manifold pipelines to measure up the required lengths and diameters of pipelines to replace them. Whilst dismantled, I gave the unit a clean, and marked where the pipelines go.

I did get lucky at the exhaust place though, and got a manifold to downpipe fitting kit - I had to angle grind one of the bolts off during the engine removal.

The cup washers required a sustained twatting effort to remove, but they gave up the goods eventually and I fitted the new cup washers and the conical mesh gasket. One of the bolts had to be fitted with the washer as it cannot be fitted afterwards.

I gave the manifold mating faces a bit of a clean and scrub up too.

Next, I cracked on with the inlet manifold.

The carb had been replaced during my ownership by Dan, but I had a new set of carb gaskets and it seemed silly to let them go to waste.
Noticed a little bit of erosion damage on one of the chamfered edges, so I filed it down slightly.

Removed the old traces of gasket until the face was smooth.

Then I blanked the holes and got busy with some parts cleaner and a brush - the entirety of the engine bay is bloody filthy, and lagged in a thick coating of oil-based grime.

After a bit of time, I reassembled the inlet manifold. Looks much cleaner and nicer to handle!

I also fitted the inlet manifold studs back into the head, after wire brushing the threads, they went back
Finally, I decided to step away from engine and turn my attention to the next big component awaiting fitment. If the engine was considered dirty, this would be considered filthy.

Annoyingly, as I removed the clutch arm for access and a re-grease, the pivot bush disintegrated. Annoying, but better it happened now instead of when I put it all back together. £7 for a replacement bush on eBay and we'll cross fingers that it arrives soon.

The inner bellhousing did clean up nicely though.

The outside of the box is also taking a bit of time, but there is progress being made.

You can see the layer of grime I'm having to scrub off here, hopefully I'll finish this job tomorrow morning.

I'm still waiting for the piston rings and hockey stick seals for No.1 crank bearing to arrive, once they're here I can really get cracking with the rebuild, but I'm not holding out much hope for the NL trip now.
Not the end of the world as it's been a great target to strive for, but finding faults etc along the way adds extra time to the final date.
Cheers 😁

Who's a dickhead?
I'm a dickhead.
The piston rings arrived today, and wouldn't you know it? The parts seller was correct, they weren't the right ones I needed - I needed 1.75mm thick rings, these were 1.5mm. 
At this point, I've ordered another set from Autodoc and thrown in the towel - this isn't going to NL any more. I can't get it rebuilt, MOTd and tested in a suitable timeframe. Disappointing, but it's entirely my own bloody fault
To cheer myself up, I made a lunchtime trip to a random address in the next village over armed with some cash and came away with this:

A brand new Hella remanufactured alternator for the MX5, for just £50. Bloody stoked with that result! Had to drill one of the bolt holes out to remove the thread in there (I had to do it on the old one too) but that was it.
I'm getting good at fitting these now!

Took the battery off charge and went for a test start:

And all is working once again.
To celebrate, I moved the MX5 and uncovered an old friend.

Going to look at the exhaust this weekend to see if the replacement exhaust section I've got will bolt straight in, or if I have to get a new flange welded on.
Whilst the Beat aired out, I cracked on with the bits I had received yesterday, starting with the No.1 crank bearing hockey stick seals. These had a dab of hylomar applied to hold them in place.
In order to get them fitted in place without rolling or puckering, the Haynes manual recommends using thin strips of metal to allow the bearing cap to be fitted.
Step forward, the glorious Tennents can.

This was suitably chopped up and the cap manoeuvred into place.

Once in position, the crank bearing caps were torqued up. Following advice from Phill, he recommended turning the crank after every cap is torqued to check for free movement. This all felt fine so I'm happy.
The tails of the seal need to be trimmed to 2mm but it's advised to wait 24 hours for the seals to settle, so that's what I'll be doing. A smearing of hylomar was applied to the corners of the cap to ensure a oiltight seal.

After that, the exhaust manifold studs were fitted.

And the clutch lever arm bush was fitted. This ended up being a bit of a faff, as the new one had slightly thinner lugs than the original, and wouldn't hold in place.
I tried hammering the lugs to expand them, but they weren't playing ball, so I melted the lugs flush to the arm with a soldering iron, drilled a couple of holes and attached it with screws and washers. The bush was filled with rubber grease and the contact points of the release bearing got a thin smear of moly grease.

With that, I'll down tools on it until the rings get here. There's still a tiny chance I can get it all together and tested in time, but it seems unlikely now.
Cheers.

Oh wow! What a little beauty, that's had a replacement roof with a glass window, you can tell because now the rear view is like looking out of a WW2 pillbox you also find you can only drive these cars by using the revs, so it sounds like you're doing a million miles an hour, when I'm reality you're sitting at 30.

MrsH doesn't like driving it because people assume she's speeding and flip her off. Guess I've got thicker skin

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

A quiet summer holidays really, but seems daft not to update.
LAGUNA:
As usual, steadfastly reliable. The MOT was looming, and with one tyre suffering a slow puncture, and two on the limit of wear, we finally dug the original wheels out from behind the garage to get a set of part worns fitted.

Christ, this turned out to be a palaver. Took them up in the back of the Laguna but didn't want them fitted to the car yet, so I could have a quick scrub and inspect of the suspension etc before the MOT. First time I get back, start fitting the wheels, I notice one of them isn't matching in size - would be an instant MOT fail. 
To make matters worse, the wheel weights used to balance the wheel were fouling on the brake calipers. I took them back in Herman (The Laguna was on axle stands by this point) and they tried shrugging their shoulders and saying there's nothing they can do, although they eventually balanced one with the weights slightly more inboard - told me to try it on that but wouldn't do a par of them balanced like that, which meant that when I found out that it would fit, I had to go back a third time to get another one re-balanced. Very poor service and shall not be returning to Redruth Tyres again.
However, after a day of pure arseache, the Laguna finally had a set of matching alloy wheels for the first time since 2019!

It was then shunted through an MOT where it had three failures - two of which were for headlamp adjust being too low - guessing the smaller wheels didn't help! Adjusters were checked for free movement and moved slightly up. The final one was for a power steering leak. The Laguna had a power steering pipeline leak a couple of MOTs ago and was remedied with a new pressure pipe, so I started hunting. Eventually, I found the return hard line has been slightly pinholed by it's securing clip, which was a bit of a bonus as it wasn't a pressurised line. Once thoroughly cleaned and de-greased, this pinhole was remedied with some self-amalgamating rubber tape, with some black spiral wrap to protect the assembly. The securing clip was then bent slightly to accommodate the slightly thicker, repaired pipeline and re-secured.


Once that was all finished, it was returned for a re-test and came back with a clean sheet pass!

Six weeks later, the power steering still doesn't leak and the level hasn't dropped, so I'm calling that a permanent repair. That being said, today we took it to drop the boy off at his first day of school and there's a new stink in the cockpit, which will warrant urgent investigation over the weekend if the weather allows. Hopefully along with a service, as I've had the stuff on the shelf for a while now waiting.
Mazda: This is starting to be in need of a bit of work soon - the power steering has always leaked a bit, but it now seems to have increased in severity. Still liveable, but definitely needs investigation soon. Sadly, the rust is starting to take hold of the passenger side lower rear quarter again - it was only replaced about 6 years ago. Still ace to drive though.
Did forget to put the roof up during the one rain shower we had in August - thankfully survived!
 

Herman: Used all the remaining fuel in the tank when times got tight - will now be SORNed for a while until the fuel prices just fucking chill for a bit.
BX: Just don't. Untouched.
Beat: Following ShiteFest, the Beat was meant to be having a bit of a break. Then I got a call from a mate inviting me up to the Peaks District for a three day piss-up.
Some man maths were calculated to see if it was even financially feasible, and realistically I had a choice of two cars. With the Beat, I'd planned two route, in order to account for me trying to avoid motorways to save fuel and just have a more enjoyable drive overall.

So, with the figures all stacking up nicely, I loaded a couple more jerry cans in the boot, all my luggage in the passenger seat and footwell, and set off on a lovely 10.5 hour journey via the Fosse Way, stopping regularly to enjoy the scenery and take some photos.
          


(First fuel stop - 251 miles from home - worked out mid 50s MPG!)
It was a very enjoyable, save for a van driver trying to get me murdered in the final 1/4 of a mile. Various truck drivers were surprisingly enthusiastic when they saw the car, and I got a few honks and waves  I parked up, and had a very enjoyable evening.
 
The following afternoon, I had already pre-planned a nice figure of 8 route of about 100 miles to sample the best driving roads in the area - and the Beat did not disappoint
                       
 
                      
 
                  
         
         
I had an absolutely fantastic drive - the weather was excellent, the roads were quiet and the scenery was breathtaking at almost every turn - I ended up going through Winnits Pass twice just to take it all in!
After a couple more days of relaxing and skulling beers, Sunday night was taken gently, to allow a fresh head for an early start.
Got home at a reasonable time, having had a wonderful weekend, made all the better by that little yellow buzzbox. There are a few niggles that have raised their head, most importantly the stereo was cutting out whenever the volume got too loud, but nothing too strenuous. I'll also be looking at brake upgrades in the near future as I'm not a big fan of the feeling of the front brakes.
Either way, home safe and sound, and a toast to the Beat, and mid-50s MPG across the entire time
     
Misc: Someone in the village was offering a free hot tub with a shitload of issues. I took it on and we got started, as we're still on a fixed tarrif for our energy and MrsH always wanted one - happened to coincide nicely with her birthday and didn't break our 'no presents' rule this year.
First thing it needed was a good scrub - it has been in a wet shed for months and was stinking. Cleaned up nicely. With it inflated, MrsH immediately found the pinhole puncture in the sidewall - quick patch on it, first fault fixed.

Second fault was the unit was throwing error codes whenever the heater was turned on - stripped the unit down and carried out some wiring checks and found a thermal fuse had blown - fitted the spare and a new error code popped up relating to the 50c sensor. Removed it and did a few functional checks on it - all turned out fine, which pointed to the main board being the culprit.

£23 later, a good secondhand board arrived and with a new filter fitted, we filled it up and all functions work correctly - result!

It's been taken back down for now, as I want to liberate some more pallets and make a permanent shelter for it. Energy-wise, I think our bill crept up by £15 that month, and I think most of that would have come from the initial warm-up as it appears to be pretty good at retaining heat when we turn the heater off.
Other Misc:
Saw a 'Batmobile' which was formerly an MR2. Poor thing. The back end I'll try finding a picture of again
 
Spotted another Beat in Cornwall! This was being driven by Jean, a lovely lady in her 70s, and the recipient of my donated heater knobs back from February. A very nice example and well-specced, with working R12 air conditioning, a rarity! 

Spotted some other fun chod this month at shows too:

All in all, an enjoyable summer holiday

Who's a dickhead?
I'm a dickhead.
The piston rings arrived today, and wouldn't you know it? The parts seller was correct, they weren't the right ones I needed - I needed 1.75mm thick rings, these were 1.5mm. 
At this point, I've ordered another set from Autodoc and thrown in the towel - this isn't going to NL any more. I can't get it rebuilt, MOTd and tested in a suitable timeframe. Disappointing, but it's entirely my own bloody fault
To cheer myself up, I made a lunchtime trip to a random address in the next village over armed with some cash and came away with this:

A brand new Hella remanufactured alternator for the MX5, for just £50. Bloody stoked with that result! Had to drill one of the bolt holes out to remove the thread in there (I had to do it on the old one too) but that was it.
I'm getting good at fitting these now!

Took the battery off charge and went for a test start:

And all is working once again.
To celebrate, I moved the MX5 and uncovered an old friend.

Going to look at the exhaust this weekend to see if the replacement exhaust section I've got will bolt straight in, or if I have to get a new flange welded on.
Whilst the Beat aired out, I cracked on with the bits I had received yesterday, starting with the No.1 crank bearing hockey stick seals. These had a dab of hylomar applied to hold them in place.
In order to get them fitted in place without rolling or puckering, the Haynes manual recommends using thin strips of metal to allow the bearing cap to be fitted.
Step forward, the glorious Tennents can.

This was suitably chopped up and the cap manoeuvred into place.

Once in position, the crank bearing caps were torqued up. Following advice from Phill, he recommended turning the crank after every cap is torqued to check for free movement. This all felt fine so I'm happy.
The tails of the seal need to be trimmed to 2mm but it's advised to wait 24 hours for the seals to settle, so that's what I'll be doing. A smearing of hylomar was applied to the corners of the cap to ensure a oiltight seal.

After that, the exhaust manifold studs were fitted.

And the clutch lever arm bush was fitted. This ended up being a bit of a faff, as the new one had slightly thinner lugs than the original, and wouldn't hold in place.
I tried hammering the lugs to expand them, but they weren't playing ball, so I melted the lugs flush to the arm with a soldering iron, drilled a couple of holes and attached it with screws and washers. The bush was filled with rubber grease and the contact points of the release bearing got a thin smear of moly grease.

With that, I'll down tools on it until the rings get here. There's still a tiny chance I can get it all together and tested in time, but it seems unlikely now.
Cheers.