theshadow

I lent the car to a mate for an evening as she wanted to take some pictures, the agreement was she jet washed the car and stuck some petrol in it, as this one is mapped and because it's an early car they need to be fed on expensive 98/99 Ron fuel.

 
I fitted some carbon look mirror caps that were sat around from a car we broke a while ago while I paint the stock ones as they had really bad laquer peel, and waited for a wing to arrive to sort out the rusty arch on the driver's side.
 

Gotta love a click bait title eh?
 
So yeah there's no way of actually knowing if it was the cheapest one when I bought it, but I offered less than WBAC were offering so I suspect I'm not far off.
The story for those that don't know.  After selling my SLK to mr R Welfare of this parish I decided what I needed to do in order to focus and consolidate my expanding shitter collection was to purchase another red car with some improvement needed.
And here it, as I purchased it.
It was my friend and neighbour Sallys eldests first car, yes, a GTI was his first car..
He's a good lad and wanted a Mk5 GTi and after years of skimping and saving bought this, a manual gearbox AXX engined car.
Fitted with a 3" sports cat and downpipe, with a RAM air filter cold air induction filter, polyurethane suspension bushes on the front, stage 1 map with paperwork to prove it's about 270bhp and feels it.
It's had everything done meticulously by previous owners including regular correct oil and filter changes, timing belt, chain between cams and tensioner, clutch and flywheel, new gas shocks, Eibach Sportline lowering springs, high pressure fuel pump and regular follower changes, all documented until he owned it, and then it's been owner serviced since (I've helped with this so know it's done right).
It's got matching michellin pilot sport 4 tyres too and it's still on the 17" Monza wheels.
Basically if I was going to get a Mk5, it's in this sort of spec.. so naturally when he bought his second car, a Mk5 5 door DSG Pirelli edition I told him that I'd be keen to have this off him.
Unfortunately he wanted way more than I was willing to pay, cars like this tend to go around £2.5-3k and I saw it at closer to £1500. 
Yes it's a good one but it's got the standard VW laquer peel, the oil leak is likely near the turbo and is a knob to get to, and its got scabby wings. There's loads of these about still and for what he wanted people had the pick of the litter, so it's been sat for 6 months. 
Even with a painted wing you'll never get it mint without painting the whole car, so you'd have to want one that was essentially good but not perfect and for what he wanted there just wasn't enough in it to make a trader a profit of appease a fussy golf wanting owner.
It had an advisory on an an oil leak (minor) and bushes showing wear at the back for the last MOT, as well as a noisy exhaust as he'd added a stainless system from eBay that had little to nothing in terms of baffles in.  He swapped this for a standard back box on my advice as it'd make selling it easier and now it's not too in your face.
So with the proceeds of the Merc in my bank I dropped him a line and said look, your mum wants her drive back and I'll offer you £x paid in today to your account.
He dropped the keys off and I taxed it, jump started it, did the oil and filters and have been using it since.

More tinkering, it also now has an undamaged boot light, a spare OSF headlight without a hole in the glass (I'm saving it) and an undamaged ashtray, plus a full toolkit.
Guy I got bits from is a professional Volvo tinkerer, has broken many dead 7/900s and has never seen a Highlander...
Also a proper rear washer jet and a new non-return T-piece for the headlight washers.
Both damaged doors have had the trims fitted with new clips and maybe tomorrow (I'll try to settle down) it'll get four Goodyear Efficientgrip 2 tyres and lose rusty dented rim.

Important:

So this is what I need:

The problem being this way of connecting the speedo...

Wherefore art though, weird-ass 1992-1994 working used dashboard?
Love this car though.

You join me live in the air suspension championships.
Everything is connected. New ride height sensor fitted, the third air bag on the drivers side fitted.
I have set the height to Low, and this is the result:

Passenger side above, drivers side below:

The drivers side has inflated a fair bit more than the passenger side. However, I think it may be on a slope. I haven’t set it to N (Normal) yet as I want to check the height being reported back by the sensor.


F**king windows updates! I restarted it because originally Techstream couldn’t talk to the Air Suspension module. It did this before, so thought the laptop might be wrong.
If after the restart it doesn’t work, I’m going to drive it to the end of the driveway where it’s flatter and set it to N.
Its 1-1 and there’s 4 minutes of stoppage time to go…

I levered the rear n/s of the subframe down and with the help of a lot of rubber grease I was able to fit the new bush in place then use a jack to pop it in place.

All the how to videos I watched on YouTube were as far as I could tell petrol Saabs. I’m not sure if this makes a difference to the engine mounts but there was no way I could lever the subframe down enough to fit the other three bushes. Even with all the bolts off on the side I was working on and the strut top bolts loose the subframe wouldn’t come down enough. 
 
I resorted to using a tip I saw on a thread about bush replacement. That is to cut the bush in half and simply pop both bits in from each side and then stick in the crush tube to hold it together before you pass the bolt through it.
Cutting the bushes was a bit of a nightmare, I read not to saw them as it removes material, I tried to use a sharp Stanley type knife but this wouldn’t touch them. In the end I found the best thing was to use my Leatherman’s serrated blade whilst pulling the bush apart as you cut. 
 
Although I managed to cut pretty square around the bush, to save having any problems I stuck a dot of paint on each end so I can align them how they were cut. 
I used one of the crush tubes to support the bush as I cut it.

And installed


I also took the opportunity to clean, vactan and then paint the inside of the arches and as much of the subframe as I could reach. Here’s the reinforcing panels waiting on a coat of black chassis paint having already been wire brushed and vactan’d

The other side bushes were removed in the same manner 
Middle bush

Rear bush outer

I removed bushes on one side. 
The top one is the rear most bush inner that just fell out, the bits below are the middle bush. This actually felt ok but I thought I’d change it anyway. The middle bush has a plastic surround which popped out without too much trouble. 
 
The read bush has a metal surround as you can see below.

I couldn’t get the car up high enough to get my air recip saw in place so used a dremel cutting disc to slice as much as I could then I used a stone in a drill to grind away the edge. 

I used a screwdriver to level the edge up and worked my way round. I also cut into it with a small cold chisel. Eventually it was loose enough to level out. 
 
I used this wire brush in the drill to clean out the holes.

Before I went any further with the power steering pipe replacement I thought it would be best to sort the subframe bushes as if this went very badly wrong I wouldn’t have wasted time on the pipe. 
 
I had a bit of trouble getting the front of the car high enough, I could only see one video on YouTube where the guy changing them is doing it on the ground and not a ramp and he just jacked it up by sticking a trolley jack under the front of the subframe. My trolley jack doesn’t really go that high so I had to stick some bits of wood under it just to get it high enough to let me get my axles stands under the sills at their lowest setting. 
 

Where would be a safe place to jack to bring it up higher? I’ve got two trolley jacks so I can jack both sides at the same time. I was thinking of the chassis rails at the end toward the engine.  It looks like it will be handy to be higher for cutting the old bushes out.
I managed to get all the subframe bolts out even though some were very very I’m sure this is going to shear tight. The bushes at the back are absolutely wrecks, you can push them up and down with your finger 

I alway left at least two bolts in to stop the frame from dropping as I worked round the bolts. I’m planning on leaving the front ones in loose and levering the frame down as per what I’ve seen online and just changing the back and middle bushes. 
 
 
 

Not a huge amount been happening here at Sterling Towers.
Had to vacate the old storage unit due to some complicated issues I can't be arsed getting into. However, luckily I managed to sort 3 x rented garages from Telford Council after kicking their arse when they didn't reply to me and allocated a garage to someone else.




(MK2 N-reg Sterling also garaged but not pictured, damn thing *just* about fitted in the garage with the number plate plinth removed)
I sold the KV6 Sterling as it was just too far gone for me to get around to sort out. I miss it but there are better examples out there. Did me proud for a good few years which ain't bad for a rusty old Rover with a leaky rad.

Done a couple of collection capers, picking up a Fiat Panda and more recently a Ford Focus estate which did me proud when moving a couple of crates from old unit to garage:


Finally sourced and fitted a parcel shelf for my 407 which has the optional rear blind after a bunch of failed attempts, the Peugeot 407 club on Facebook are utterly useless and after winning one on eBay from a breaker, the seller refused to send it to me citing delivery charges etc... called him a twat and neg'd his arse. I finally sourced one from Lithuania and even that took some argument to get it delivered.


Also, been using the roffle-win Micra, done absolutely bollock all to it apart from changing the front tyres and replacing the wheel trim that made a bid for freedom, cleaning it and using it occasionally to go to and from work. It desperatly needs a service, MAF-sensor replacing, exhaust re-gasketed a replacement bonnet and wing-mirror backing.
To be fair, as Ma_Sterling is recovering from a knee operation and probably won't really feel comfortable driving a manual, I'm on the lookout for a small automatic, sadly these have shot up massively in price.

I noticed my local restaurant's Clio was lookong sorry for itself, it had been a victim of a hit and run, so I sourced parts on the correct colour and repaired the it:





I also did a few other small jobs around the car, got paid and treated to a free meal:

Hopefully picking up a Suzuki Alto as another collection caper. May possibly be doing a deal on a Disco 3 2.7 TD but eventually looking to get myself in some sort of petrol Jag due to CAZ in Birmingham and Brussels, but before that I'll be using the Peugeot to go to Brussels again at some point.

So following on from a post last year about lack of aircon,  it had been correctly suggested to me that the lack of cold air or ultra hit air in the winter was down to a flap inside the airbox, this suggestion was correct as I took a look inside the airbox and low behold,  the bottom flaps are broken from the shaft.



So my worst fears are true, the job will require the air flow box to cut through. Great 😡 finding someone to do the job is going to be challenging, I don't have the tools, space or patience to do it myself.
In other boring news, I bought a replacement boot mat for it.  Car breakers are utterly useless, they never get back so f*ck it, I'll buy some cheapy boot tray.

Still waiting for my passenger side sun visor, the door has never been on presumably broken by previous owner.

The bloody thing will get 2 rear tyres tomorrow as the although Ok, are starting to crack and wear. 

For a multitude of reasons I ended up neglecting this thread, shit well and truly hit the fan unjustifiably and the latter third of last year ended up being a very interesting time for me.. I'd just started a new job, and my 'friends' threw me out of a group I formed, for reasons that weren't true - the right people stood by me though, and as they say in the big country, I came up screaming. Well that's all passed now and normality, to a degree, resumed.

I dailied the green MX5 til its MOT ran out, and for some reason I bought a Civic Type R instead of putting it in for MOT.


Around this time I met my now ex.

My contract ended early, but I was well off.  Money burning a hole in my pocket, I looked for something else to smoke about, and possibly invest in... after a couple of false starts I stumbled across a W124 on C&C, freshly listed , but with a running fault. 61k miles. £2k. Read the description, and knew exactly what was going on from the symptoms: dizzy. Extensive discussion with the seller revealed the dizzy cap was one of the few things he'd not touched.



The fault was nothing more than slightly corroded distributor cap contacts: after travelling down in his Renault 4, Junkman and I cleaned them on the seller's drive, and I drove home from Llandrinod Wells without fault - the key wears a pewter R4 keyring that I was gifted when I was planning to import one from France pre-Covid to attest to that day. The car is almost perfect, and I'd be a fool to sell. A 61k 300E ffs. It's sublime. I use it for long distance leisure trips.  There's a fair chunk of history with it.

The next week, I found my mum's ideal Civic on eBay, a Polar White automatic EF on 53k. I bid on my mum's insistence but don't win, a few days later the seller messages me offering the car as the sale has fallen through. I negotiate and secure the car, and it's off to Saffron Walden to collect:



it promptly shits its battery, but the seller is stand up, comes out with a jump pack and follows me to the nearest Halfords where we go halves on a Yuasa Silver, which I then fit in the car park, and the car gets home without fault. It's not perfect but it's a well maintained gem and is the best EF I've driven. Previous owner bought it on fuck all miles for his Japanese wife to run about in, and had it for 14 years or so. No expense spared in that time. It's my mum's winter car as her EK is actually tidier and lower owners, but it's still flippin class. It's currently off the road having its brake master and servo overhauled.
 
As a result of the white EF arriving, I sold the type R and bought my mum's F reg Civic auto as a runabout.

I also bought another MX5, seeeking to upgrade from my Monza which was undesirable in general by Mx5 standards - late 1.6 meant less chassis bracing, and 90bhp. Also the coilovers had seized.



Low miles and unmodified, but turned out to be a bit of a pig in a frock.

At the end of January my runabout Civic takes me and my mate to Bridgwater to buy his first car, a similar Civic:


 
A couple of days later, I started a new job.

On day two, my Civic got written off.



I got an extortionate payout.

Around the same time, I found out my new* MX5 wasn't worth keeping.

I sold the green one, having sat on it over winter.  On the same day, in the same collection mission, I bought another Civic, a manual, to replace the dead one. It's way better. It ended up with many parts from the dead one before it met its fate, and the green MX5s wheels, as I wasn't letting them go. Here it is last week:



shortly afterwards I sold the blue MX-5 too, and replaced it with a well cared for red UK model, which is now sporting several improvements over how I bought it:






My mum's other Civic is wearing the spare set of alloys from the blue coupe from last year, and now has fully working retrofitted air conditioning to OE spec:


Things are pretty alright here.
 

Last Sunday I saw @mrbenn's for sale thread. A ULEZ compliant early 00s Ford at a good price. Added points for shiter provenance, and air con! Ben has owned this for 11 years and was sad to see it go, he's clearly spent a lot of time and effort on it, the condition of the car shows. Everything works how it should, and it handles beautifully. 
After a trip up I'm stopped in Leicester heading back to London. Why Leicester though?
 

DOY news.
The fuel gauge has never worked. Something else the vendor didnt say, besides it being salvaged.
Anyway its extra confusing as the lpg kicks in and so simply looking at miles  covered on the trip meter on the tank isnt an option. Plus I didnt fancy driving to shitefest like this and ending up stranded somewhere.
So. I figured the sender in the tank had power. Then to e bay. This part varies between w140 models and is not easy to get hold of; which went some way to explaining the daft prices asked. No thanks.
I rang the local MB dealer who confirmed the part number, and the fact that its no longer available. I think this is the first time ever in tinkering and fettling over 50 mercs that this has happened; and explains the silly prices. Usually MB are solid when it comes to supplying older model parts. Maybe a sign that they don't rate the w140.
In the end i bit the bullet on e bay as this is my only car and needs to be fully functional.
The next step was removing the nut that secures the unit in the tank and seals the tank. The nut is ally, and the tank steel. I presume there was some electrolytic corrosion going on as it defeated all attempts. the nut is something like 45mm. I lost my shit a bit with it half lying down in the boot, adjustable wrench on the nut and it would slide off and id bash my hand on the tank. In the end I bought something old school from screwfix which sorted it, and will be a useful tool in the future.


 
And put it back together

The bashed up edges tell a story, but in the end it was satisfying to sort.
And now i can see how much fuel the 2.8 is using as it struggles to move this big beast.

Collected DOY earlier with 12m ticket. Still looks dodgy by the roadside, mind.

I did many miles in a rental accent (Melbourne to Cairns) in Aus, think this was a 16 or 17 model year, looked the same but I'm sure every panel was different to the near identical older i30. These were sold along side the new shape i30 for $AU cheap (equivalent to Dacia money IIRC.).
 

An interesting day! First of all I had a look at the mismatching tyres. Michelin Energy Saver and Conti EcoContact3 up front. Firestone Roadhawk and Marangoni Verso at the back. All with plenty of tread!

None are deathly ditchfinders so will leave them on for now. And in the boot - remember that these still have the luxury* of a full sized spare - is...

Michelin Alpin A3 winter. In a different size to the other 4. I don't want to know why!

Also paid a brief trip to the village garage. O2 sensor on order, come back in a few days.

This afternoon I miss a call from wifey as in a meeting. Call back 20 minutes later and her car is dead at work - can I bring the spare key?

So off down the road to where she works (Fraserburgh, 11 miles) in the Tesla. Get there and find that it's not the key, it's the 12 volt battery on her Ioniq EV.

Final option is to try and jump her 12 volt battery. I had of course not thought of that when I came down, so 11 miles home to get the jump leads. And as I don't know where the 12 volt battery even is in a Tesla Model Y, the second 1Z99 mission is in the i30.

Dead O2 sensor or not it still drives, just drinking fuel for fun. Hook it up to the Ioniq but no joy. So Hyundai are sending McInternational Rescue out tomorrow whilst wifey is at work.

3 days in. With its own engine fault. Trying to breathe life into a car a wee bit younger...

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

OBD reader says inoperative O2 sensor - if that's all then fine!

We used to have the exact same car (albeit it on a 59 plate, and in red). This one has clutch and gearbox both in good nick. No play in the steering, no knocking or noises from the suspension. All the electrics work. The interior looks tidy.
I have a load of paperwork which shows that it spent a good number of years on a private plate living in Bearsden - so it sounds like a long term owner had a bit of dollah. In short it feels like its been mostly looked after. Until recently anyway - all 4 tyres are different brands. Michelin and Continental on the front (and a Michelin spare!), and I have no clue "brands" on the back. 

Plans? Get the O2 sensor replaced, get the handbrake adjusted (as its too slack), perhaps replace the boot struts (not damped any more) and then pull the RH headlight unit off and see what I can do about the condensation.

Been a while since I posted on here! Did a collection thread for a Volvo S90 back in 2019. Which was sold and replaced with A Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Which was sold and replaced by a Tesla Model Y.
Anyway, the new beater! Wifey's leased Ioniq is soon to be handed back, and with changed usage needs we decided to buy something older and cheaper. We'll need a second car less than we have done, so had a think about what we have owned in the past that was good and might be suitable for buying again. And having run a Hyundai i30 from new for 6 years without any issues, we started having a look for one.
One in a lovely* part of Bolton stood out. £2,195, 110k miles, the correct engine (1.4 petrol) and trim (Comfort *with* the armrest), which looked tidy enough on the advert from a dealer who had positive reviews. Nothing scary showing on past MOTs, 11 months left on the current one, what the hell lets do this.
Saturday morning had me at Aberdeen airport boarding a Loganair Embraer 145 for the hop down to Manchester, then train to Bolton and a walk rather than the bus as it was a sunny morning! Turn up at the dealers and he's a bit confused as I'm an hour earlier than we'd originally said (though had changed the time on text messages he'd replied to. Profusely apologetic, heads off in a Kia Venga to their off-site storage and comes back 10 minutes later with the car. Which was plastered in bird crap despite their best efforts to keep their cars clean!

They also own a valeting place so the inside was pretty spotless (considering its 14 years old). A few minor dents, some pre-curbed alloys and one headlight has condensation. But apart from that the sills are rock solid, there's a few very minor bits of surface rust, and the engine looks and sounds tidy. A quick run around the block and I'm happy to get on and buy the thing. 
Off I go down the hill towards town to stick fuel in at Sainsbury's. Haven't driven a manual in 10 months so stalled it a couple of times (and nearly got wiped out by a lunatic in a battered Prius). Anyway, fuel in, then into the main store car park to investigate the rattle from the passenger door pocket - a huge bunch of car keys left by the guy from the garage! OK, lets go back and hand those over, but no it refused to restart! Pretty clear the battery wasn't having it, so ring them up. 5 minutes later a guy comes down with a battery booster pack, restart the car and follow him back where they fitted a new battery without a quibble.

I'm in Bolton, I live near Fraserburgh, and I still have friends on Teesside I'm going out with that night. Reset the trip and head down St Peters Way towards the M62. Car is doing high 40s MPG, running very nicely - until we cross the pennines  at which point it drops power and the EML comes on. Arse. Too far to go back, and I wonder if its just been sat a while as EML and the power drop comes and goes a few times. So off the motorway and lets do an Italian tune up. Nope, that doesn't solve it. Could it not like E10? Petrol has changed since I last bought some, so stick £20 of E5 in. That doesn't do much either...

I knew I had an OBD dongle at home, car drives just burning more fuel and down on power, so with the planned stopover in Teesside I bring the thing back. I am not mechanically minded, so if I describe the symptoms can you guess what the issue is?

Having mostly modernz means that fettling is kept to minimum - which is quite good.

One of the spring projects has been focusing on the motorhome.

Last August the damp smell got too much in the bathroom so this happened


As per normal the bathroom had leaked rotting the wood. The quote to fix was £6k so instead I ripped it out and then spent the winter ignoring it.

Dehumidifier kicked into action and dried out the wood. It was then treated to Ronseal wood hardner to seal it.

Based on some YouTube videos, the current approach seems to be fitting pvc panels at 5mm. We went for sparkly white to make the room feel bigger.


The panels really aren't too bad to fit, although when the back wall curves in odd ways it can be a challenge. There might be one corner that has a lot of sealant in it.

One upgrade was removing the mahoosive bathroom door that weighed 8 kg and opened into the living space

Instead a tambour door was fitted - miles better


It is mostly finished. I need to work out how to trim round the window, decided whether to fit a sink again and put in some storage for bits.



I learnt a lot and quite a few things I would do differently next time.

Once the hot and cold water has been tested then I will box in the shower and then seal the back of the toilet.

Overall cost with all bits is about £900 with the door being £150 of that.

What do you keep your cows in?

Wing mirror in the boot didn't work, the bottom plastic thread was slightly cracked so wouldn't tighten. Only worked it out after the billionth time digging the screw out behind my bottle storage


All the fun of working in car doors



£6 delivered from eBay got another passenger mirror


Plus side is that it is smooth as silk for adjustment.

Lobbed a cheap Bluetooth mechless player I had in the garage in.



Not the sexiest thing, but will do.

This led to the discovery of mono sound


Drivers side is missing a speaker. New pair of cheapies ordered from Amazon so that stereo should be restored.

It's a great wee car - took a trip to the big lights of Kirkcaldy which on the b roads meant was a hoot to drive.

Colleagues has a 4x4 Insignia TD estate with the business pack, it's loaded to fuck with kit and has a digi dash. She's asked me to look at it a few times when its done diesel type weird stuff but I wouldn't touch that drivetrain with a shitty stick.
Good looking cars though !
 

Yeh, should be amusing as long as it can get the power down. I had a  Saab 9000 with very similar numbers and that was pretty quick (albeit lighter)
£320 with the latest increase.
F40 I think, Dunno if that's much improvement.
 
 
I have been moved from the modern section. Not sure why given it's newer than a lot of the stuff in there, but someone has clearly decided this is pure shite.

I once bought a car with proper giffer hubcaps, I waited till he fucked off back in the house and slung the trims in his black bin.