brownnova

That Z3 is a good looking thing in black with those wheels… like it a lot… 
As I do pretty much everything on your fleet in all honesty.

Will look that video up! Thanks! 

Ah, that’s interesting. And there was me hoping it would be a simple fuse!
And yes, quite the list. A bit longer than I had hoped it would be. Part of me does think in hindsight I should have paid more for a more sorted one. But this one was a good colour and spec, and only 45 mins away and all the others I could see for sale were grey or silver and much further away! 
Anyway it’s done now! 

Thats quite a list.
Heater blower will just be a symptom of a blocked scuttle drain. Water then overflows into the passenger footwell via the pollen filter and drips on the heater blower, seizes the bearing and burns our the motor.
The good news is that a new blower is about £50 new or less from a breaker and the whole lot is easily sorted, if a bit fiddly.

Tried furniture Polish on the seat belt? Extend it all the way and coat the belt near the bottom and roll it in and out a few times. 
Bonus points for having the B pillar trim off and getting some lube directly to it. Had this in a zx and doing that and cleaning the belts helped alot, was alot better at retracting and being a seat belt in general! 
Not a bad list though, a fair few things ignorable, the rest curable with some parts sniping and a sunny weekend👌

Today was so nice it would have been rude not to have the roof off… 

Alas…. What it is not, is fixed. I utilised the manual opening technique to go for a drive with the roof off. Proves that the mechanism folds absolutely fine. The bit in the previous post is the roof storage box sensor, and apparently the actual roof will work fine even if this is goosed. 
Before spending on it I wanted to live with it w couple of weeks to determine a full list.
 In no particular order. 
- Roof inop
- damage to front bumper
- intermittent door lock failure message 
- drivers seatbelt jams 99 times out of 100. 
- suspension is creaky
- Brakes are creaky 
- pads and discs advisory on last MoT so will get these done. 
- missing towing eye cover 
- missing side repeater 
- damaged seat back (drivers) 
- damaged boot lid and boot lid hinge. 
- slight leak into the boot. 
- damaged wing mirror casing
- all dash buttons worn. 
- no idea when it was last serviced. 
- heater blowers don’t work
- main beam works on flash, but not doesn’t stay on.
 So yeah… I bought a cheap one. And surprisingly it needs work. But nothing on that list is too major (hopefully). And I did deliberately buy this one so I had money left over to spend on it. 
Plan is to chuck it at the Saab specialist for the roof and suspension bits. And then work through the other things myself one by one. 

Today was so nice it would have been rude not to have the roof off… 

Alas…. What it is not, is fixed. I utilised the manual opening technique to go for a drive with the roof off. Proves that the mechanism folds absolutely fine. The bit in the previous post is the roof storage box sensor, and apparently the actual roof will work fine even if this is goosed. 
Before spending on it I wanted to live with it w couple of weeks to determine a full list.
 In no particular order. 
- Roof inop
- damage to front bumper
- intermittent door lock failure message 
- drivers seatbelt jams 99 times out of 100. 
- suspension is creaky
- Brakes are creaky 
- pads and discs advisory on last MoT so will get these done. 
- missing towing eye cover 
- missing side repeater 
- damaged seat back (drivers) 
- damaged boot lid and boot lid hinge. 
- slight leak into the boot. 
- damaged wing mirror casing
- all dash buttons worn. 
- no idea when it was last serviced. 
- heater blowers don’t work
- main beam works on flash, but not doesn’t stay on.
 So yeah… I bought a cheap one. And surprisingly it needs work. But nothing on that list is too major (hopefully). And I did deliberately buy this one so I had money left over to spend on it. 
Plan is to chuck it at the Saab specialist for the roof and suspension bits. And then work through the other things myself one by one. 

The Corona only made a brief appearance as its now switching storage spaces with the Z3, which is reawakened from its slumber over the winter. The Clubman isn't mine, neither is the Rover 200 convertible rotting away just outside the frame.

Today was actually the first time I could have a really close look at what I bought at Mathewsons back in October as the car went into storage not all that much later.

A wash was badly needed, even under a tarp the dust quickly built up.

So yeah, impressions are still very positive considering the silly low price I paid. There is a little bit of bubbling on the passenger front wing panel and outer sill. Since pretty much every exterior panel is bolt-on on the Z3 this should be a rather easy fix however, if I do anything about it at all for now. There's a scratch on the rear quarter and a few stonechips on the very large bonnet, other than that its really just very minor stuff for what is now a 25 year old car.

I've managed to clear the airbag light (driver seatbelt tensioner) and will keep an eye on any fault codes coming up over the next few days. The plan is to take the car out for a weekend in the Lake district tomorrow, plenty of time to get a little more familiar with it then! The cheap floormats will go in the bin once I got a proper OEM-like set. I want to replace the center console dials/shifter trim with the burl wood variant as well to brighten up the interior a little, if I can find a sensibly priced set for a facelift dash that is. The chromeline package helps a little but the less matte black plastic the better.

Its incredible to think that these were sold side by side in a BMW showroom back in late 2001/2002. With its E36 origins the Z3 feels easily more than a decade older inside, the E65 still feels somewhat fresh today.
Speaking of the E65 - the 18 quid pedal assembly actually fixed the limp home mode. It sucks that things appear to break all the time. At the same time parts are so plentiful and cheap that it almost doesn't matter. With the running issues sorted I was able to confirm that the windshield was sealing properly after all, no whistling sounds noticeable at any speed. That meant the A-pillar trims could go back on for one last time:

I've also had a moment to replace the bonnet badge. They are all prone to fading and its surprisingly hard to find a badge that's not clearly Chinese junk sold as OEM part, fake packaging and everything.

That's much better:

Still plenty of other things to sort but this was a satisfyingly easy improvement for once.

Ordered a replacement gas pedal for the BMW for 18 quid. It's probably the throttle body that's the actual issue but its worth a shot.
In Celsior news, the car finally received fresh brake fluid, pads, hoses and wear sensors this weekend. I've also done a few other minor jobs while in there and unfortunately revealed a little more carelessness by the bodyshop. Let the wrenching commence!
Front brakes first. I actually didnt end up using the caliper piston rebuild kits on the left, the pistons were still sliding back in nice and smoothly.

Well, I think we can say I got my money's worth out of those pads. I don't know when these got changed the last time but it certainly been a while considering the car didn't do that many miles in the last 15 years.

The loose wire in the left photo is the wear indicator sensor btw, for some reason whoever replaced the pads didn't know how to or didn't bother installing it again. This is also what I originally expected to be a cut ABS sensor wire a few years back btw, the sensor plugs into the wiring loom of the ABS sensor, bit of an odd design on early Celsiors.

Can't say these are the worst pads I've seen but we haven't had a look at the rear ones yet.

Quick look underneath to see where the minor exhaust leak is coming from. Like the exhaust shop said, one of the exhaust temp sensors is blowing, they tried to goop it up but no luck. Unfortunately impossible to buy now, not sure if it could get welded? I've also had a look at the O2 sensors and tried to measure their resistance. Well, it seems like there is infinite resistance which of course isn't right, it should be somewhere between 5.1-6.3 ohms at around room temperature. I unplugged them to see if it would make any difference to the way the car runs. It doesn't so new sensors it is!

The 135 quid Maxpeedingrods which I only bought to get the car through the MOT are holding up surprisingly well. I've greased them up before installing them so everything is still moving nicely. Unfortunately I just remembered while writing this that I should have put some fresh grease on them... I also found the source for my very noticeable front suspension clunking. I originally blamed the coilovers but its actually the front swaybar bushes that are so worn out that the swaybar can freely move from left to right. So new swaybar bushes are added to the shopping list. I've also fixed the messed up passenger side bumper corner I accidently caught on a wall. No photos yet but some hot air, a tactical ziptie and reinstalling a bumper bracket did wonders.
The rear is next. Working on an incline lifting a rear weel driven car is always fun.

If you are wondering why Im using different brands for pads and hoses compared to the front, so do I. I think they just ended up reducing the combined shipping costs when I ordered them from Rockauto like 2 years ago. Motul RBF600 is probably some of the best brake fluid you can get if pedal feel matters to you.

Yeah, I think its about time to replace those pads...

The disc is getting very thin as well so rear discs are added to the shopping list...

Certainly cutting it thin with these. The rears actually had the wear sensors properly in place, replacing this one finally got rid of the last (permanent) dash warning light. Unfortunately the passenger side rear caliper piston was really struggling getting pushed back in so I might need a new caliper there. I'm not sure how much extra I paid for the Bosch pads compared to the Beck/Arnley ones but they were certainly much more neatly packed and actually came with a sachet of brake grease. I used copper grease on the sliders for the front calipers instead.
About the bodyshop's carelessness mentioned further above:

The rear trailing arm bolt is completely loose, the nut was never tightened after the sill got welded there. Mistakes can happen but I'm really starting to get the feeling that things were just slapped together in the end to rush the car out the door. Something like this is pretty dangerous. I had to replace the nut (with a Mercedes one no less) as it wouldn't properly tighten anymore, I'll have to have another look the next time its on a lift though.

While having the wheels off I finally had a chance to raise the rear coilovers by 20mm to level out the car a bit better. I don't think its perfect yet but lowering the front should result in a nicely balanced stance.

Let me know what you think! The rear discs, swaybar bushes and O2 sensors will hopefully be the last few bits to make it mechanically solid. Being 32 years old now it'll probably always need something but any MOT relevant work should near with these 3 things soon.
Some bonus content, the Cadillac is finally moving again and received a wash. That immediately revealed the various paint defects it has, the photos are hiding them remarkably well fortunately!

Another big blue landyacht that will receive some more attention this summer.

Thanks for the advice, I'm still hoping to get a call back from the agent eventually because the sale did end up falling through (way too early for that at the moment though). The property was rare enough with the combination of price, seller's motivation, location and curb appeal that I can't imagine anything similar coming up anytime soon. We've been looking for over a year by now after all and our set of requirements are quite specific. But we'll see.
Quick update on the Celsior today. The new driver seat triggered a seatbelt warning after putting it in the car. Turns out even the seatbelt buckle is slightly different on the Celsior, it has 4 wires coming from it while the UK LS400 one only has two (which are used for the nighttime illumation of the buckle on both cars). The wiring loom of the seat is identical, it's really only the loom of the buckle thats different, very odd but an easy fix.

I finished (for now) polishing the bonnet as well. I could keep going forever to get it all perfect but a) I got enough after like 5 hours and b) my Halfords polisher died once and for all. That means it might be time soon to finally get a better polisher with more power that should hopefully speed things up significantly.
600 grid wetsanding to get the worst scratches out first:

1500 and 3000 grid discs next (thats where you really need to be careful to not burn through the clearcoat. In hindsight I didn't have to be nearly as careful as I was, the super close-up results probably would have been better.

Done. These photos were actually before I spent another 2 hours today polishing the paint further, daylight wont show all the fine scratches that would become very visible under streetlights.

It's probably still not perfect but the difference is like night and day. The before photo below was after me cleaning the hell out of the bonnet, including using the claybar that normally removes everything. I ended up having to sand the dirt off of it.


So yeah, there's the proof that you can polish a turd as long as there's some clearcoat left on it. The problem really is that damage over such a large area takes absolute ages to remove. A better polisher might make a difference but as of right now it would take days to really cover the entire car. It might save you a respray though.

Depending on when I get a replacement polisher I might have a go at saving the paint on the front bumper. Its mainly scuffs that should mostly come out. The rear bumper received such a piss poor respray at some point that there's little hope in rectifying that though. Next update is hopefully me figuring out what O2 sensors I need to order and finally doing a brake flush. I might even change the ancient pads and/or hoses.

Borders is just a little too remote although prices are a little more sensible there for sure! Don't really wanna live across the border either since income tax would go up significantly with the slightly different tax bands.
Took the Celsior to Alnwick today. Leaving the car park an elderly man approached me, he seemed quite happy to see the car. Waiting at the exit he came over to my window, quite enthusiastically claiming that I drive one of the best built cars to have ever existed. Hearing this of course made my day, it's not a given that the Celsior/LS400 is being recognized by anybody really, especially someone who would have any kind of real enthusiasm for it. I've let him know that the car only recently returned to the road after over 10 years which seemed to make his day in return. He quickly mentioned that his dad once bought a Bentley when he was 35 and continued to own it for 30 years. I sure hope he didn't confuse mine with one!😂

I had the chance to blink out the CEL codes as well. Results are both upstream o2 sensors and knock sensor #2... O2 sensors wouldn't surprise meas they are probably ancient, however the knock sensors were replaced when I changed the starter and I really don't want to take that intake manifold off again only to find it's perfectly fine. The real trouble is that some people got O2 sensor codes due to faulty ECU capacitors as well. I had mine already replaced but there's no guarantee that it all just worked. With the CEL light coming on relatively randomly, although usually under hard acceleration (it's usually gone when the ignition is turned off but can come back relatively quickly sometimes), it's not all that easy to find out what exactly could trigger it either. I've replaced the MAF just to see if it makes any difference at all and will try to read the resistance of the o2 sensors when I get a chance. That still leaves the knock sensor code though. The engine runs perfectly and I'm using E5 so I don't think there's actually a problem, it's more likely the non-OEM sensor is junk. Good thing I kept the originals, bad thing I'd only know if things are good or bad with everything reassembled...
I also started working on the bonnet paint after getting back home. With so many scratches on it it needs some serious wet sanding. Fortunately the ingrained dirt comes off very easily as a side effect. Here's what it looked like before:

I took some 600 grid and worked the worst scratches by hand. I need some new 1500/3000 grid sanding pads for my DA polisher though so this is what the bonnet will look like for a few days 😂

Several hours today were spent spannering.
Did the rear discs and pads on dads i20, but I found the shoes far too tricky to do behind the hub so I’m farming that job out. As expected both rear calipers were near enough seized as were the sliders. The second hand units were in fantastic condition, fitted them up and bled easily.
the difference in braking is night and day. Before it used to really need a firm press and took a while, now, it’s like a new car. The shoes when fitted will sort the slightly lazy handbrake as the shoes on the car at the moment aren’t down to metal but are worn quite a bit.
i then got to doing the Vectras rear drop links and bushes and my god, what a hateful job it turned out to be. Two sheared bolts (replaced now) and those bastard drop links…they are nigh on impossible to just push on. I ended up boiling them in water and it helped thankfully. All the knocking has gone and you could see how much the bushes had worn.
to get to the drop link bolt, I just ended up taking the rear spring out by removing the spring cup base bolt. Made things a whole lot easier. Everything greased up back together now.
Tomorrow the sensors will be fitted to the i20 too.

Blimey! I can't even leave out a barrel of cement mix water, without someone wanting to float a Mini wheel in it...

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

Just been taken out for a spin in this. 

Fucking gorgeous interior. 

Mate has paid £2.5k for it which seems fair.
The electrics survived the drive to the pub. 

Lost my job after a month, and only 2 days in the field, as I'm 'not a good fit'. I know there's more to it, I've done fuck all wrong and just been shit on so they could give an excuse to fire me.

Better get the Civic running, then.

I managed to make a bit more time for tinkering this eve. Not many photos I’m afraid as I just wanted to crack on.
First up was that breather hose.
The part listings online had the specs for it as an 18mm id. I did not bother removing one and measuring the hose tail. I lived to regret this.
It turns out the ends of the hose are a larger ID than the main body of it, so the 19mm oil hose I ordered didn’t fit.
I don’t want to wait for Autodoc to deliver a proper hose, and all the spares on eBay etc. are also located in Europe.
I had a scout around the garage and I discovered that my manual shite water pump that I keep handy in case of small floods has the perfect sized oil rated hose attached to it.
Bodge time:

It’s better than it was at least. The original pipe had cracked around about 75% of its circumference, and fell off in my hand. I’ve just cut it back to make it fit into a sleeve I cut from my hand pump. Job jobbed.
Then after some fucking around, swearing and pulled back muscles, I managed to get the spare pump in place.

Im really bloody hoping that woodruff key is located properly.


It’s all gone into place so I’m hoping that the key is still there and hasn’t been mangled. Once it’s all back together I’ll leave the timing cover off temporarily and bar it over first.
Im hoping to finish up tomorrow, all being well.

I think the battery has possibly been killed by a parasitic drain and the car being stood. If you did have a receipt handy and it doesn’t put you out then it might be worth a try on the warranty.
Don’t worry, I was only towing the trailer on the farm tracks to move it. I’ve seen how that tow bar is mounted and I have zero faith in its ability to handle any amount of force on it. The neck of the ball hitch is bent as well, just for good measure 😂
Sometimes once the kids are in bed and it’s that hour or two before I go to sleep, I get really restless and wound up and have to go and tinker with something. 9 out of 10 times I break something and end up even more frustrated, but the mirror switch was one of those small wins on an evening that would otherwise have been wasted staring at the tv!

If the battery has died it is less than a year old and I probably have the warranty receipt still… 
For the love of crumcake please don’t tow with it… the tow bar bits underneath are completely rotten. I was supposed to cut it off… (I told my MoT man I would)  but never got around to it! Again, something which must have got lost in the Chinese whispers between subsequent owners! 
This always massively annoyed me too… you’re just more proactive at doing things about it than me! I use the kids as my excuse…. But yours are smaller than mine and you manage it! 
I sincerely hope the welding is sortable, it’s such an epic old bus. I miss it hugely! 

Me too… 
This will be the scenario when it occurs! 

What an absolute honey this is! 

Lip gloss stick in the handbrake? 

Now that it's properly spring I thought it was time to dig the Renault 6 out of the garage.  It always needs a jump start after it's been sat for a while, and I cleverly* hadn't left any room to get to the bonnet when I put it away - I remember thinking at the time "that's going to be a problem - oh well, fuck it, I'll worry about it in the spring".  Well the good news is that my brake repair last year seems to have held as the brakes were still free, and thanks to the new tyre on the nearside front all the tyres were fully inflated.  So all I needed to do was climb in through the tailgate, knock it out of gear, climb back out again, grab hold of the back bumper and pull, and out it came.  
The Rover 75 and a pair of jump leads soon got it running, and I took it for a quick run round the block and was reminded of the issues that had cropped up shortly before it went into hibernation and that I hadn't had a chance to look at properly.  So that was the first task for today once I finally got my arse in gear.
The first issue is that the bonnet latch isn't locking the bonnet.  I couldn't immediately find what was causing this, but removing the latch soon revealed the problem - the mechanism is made of plastic (yes, really) and after 51 years one of the bits had decided it had had enough and snapped off.  So that's irreparable then.  Of course bonnet latches for Renault 6s are completely unobtainium, but a Google session suggested that the Renault 12 latch is similar - or at least the plastic bits are - and those are available (albeit at some expense), so I'm going to order one - worst case I can butcher it for its plastic bits and make one good one out of the two.  For now I've put a Bungee strap on to stop the bonnet flipping up - it's a forward opening bonnet so in theory shouldn't be an issue but aerodynamics can do strange things.
The other two were easier fixes.  The nearside rear indicator was behaving funny when the lights were turned on - this turned out to be a cock up on my part, when I refitted the light unit after the car was hit last year I put the earth wire behind the clamp instead of between the clamp and the nut, so it was flapping around and barely making contact.  The other problem was that the choke wasn't returning properly when the knob was pushed in - this was a slightly stranger one as it transpired that the clamp that holds the end of the cable had come off the carb - I certainly don't remember doing this (and I would have remembered as it was a fiddly bastard) so can only assume that the bolt had vibrated loose and fallen out.  One of the three screws holding the end plate on the carb had also vanished, but I found suitable replacements for both in my stash so that's all sorted.
I then chucked a bucket of water over it to get the garage grime off - next job is to make a template up for the repair section I'm going to need to make for the nearside front floor, but I didn't get time for that this weekend.

Most of the rest of the weekend was spent playing with pushbikes.  I did get the Mobylette fired up - it took a few more kicks than last year but still not bad for an elderly two-stroke engine that's been sat for six months - but I didn't get a chance to take it for a spin as I'd been hoping to do, and the forecast looks shite for this coming week so that might have to wait a little while.

Today, we will mostly be heading north to repatriate a noisy little forced induction thing to its rightful keeper…more to follow 🙂