paulplom

1.3 GL is a nice spec - a mate had one about 20 years ago, in navy blue with a red interior.  
My last Mk2 was a red R-reg 1.6 Ghia - lovely car until I melted a piston cruising at 100mph on a private section of the A47.  I swapped it for a Vanden Plas Allegro - with hindsight not one of my smartest financial moves.

I gave up on threads a while ago but I have wanted one of these cars since they were brand new, plus I think things might get interesting*. So here goes.
So far I count myself as the EIGHTH AS member who has owned this, including the chap who posted it for sale in behalf of the then owner. I think that's pretty great. I hope when I die I return as a car that goes around the country bringing joy to a whole range of different owners.

So far we've had 
Jon.k
Northernmonkey
Robson3022
Paulplom
Kiltox
83C
Schaefft 
Yours truly. 
The first didn't technically own it, he simply posted it for sale on behalf of the owner who had originally wanted to scrap it because of a pulley on the engine which had come adrift. So kudos to John.k for saving what certainly feels like a car which had plenty of life left.
In short (because it is documented elsewhere) it was owned by Westley Richards gunsmiths manufacturer in the West Midlands. It was a personal car to the directly and then used to chauffeur some very wealthy (like Arab Royalty wealthy) to and from the premises. 
After Jon.k's arm was bitten off by NorthernMonkey, it passed through varioous members' hands and gave generally good service along the way.
I promised myself I'd own it one day.

Been quiet for a good while, built a spare Yaris over winter.  Raced a couple of Autograss meetings for Amelia recently.  Ste's wife, Hannah has won a race or two.
Reason for this posting is I've just been told the Stephen will race an F2 at Kings Lynn on Saturday 6th April.
We were going watching, it's a big F1/F2 meeting. But a hire car was on offer,  so £550  and on you go. ( plus licence and whatever, he's not booked in yet).
Last time he raced an F2 was well over 2 years go. It's good to watch him, but I thought the worrying was over for me.
Next day,  Amelia races a Yaris at Nottingham Autograss, on the way back, which is much more sedate.

PS Plus is only just over £2 a week and you get access to hundreds of games for free too. Including online play.
Me and my son both have PS5s and he signed my ps into his account so I get everything free. Everytime I switch my playstation on it logs him out of his mid game or whatever leading to some pretty fierce arguments 🤣

PS Plus is only just over £2 a week and you get access to hundreds of games for free too. Including online play.
Me and my son both have PS5s and he signed my ps into his account so I get everything free. Everytime I switch my playstation on it logs him out of his mid game or whatever leading to some pretty fierce arguments 🤣

PS Plus is only just over £2 a week and you get access to hundreds of games for free too. Including online play.
Me and my son both have PS5s and he signed my ps into his account so I get everything free. Everytime I switch my playstation on it logs him out of his mid game or whatever leading to some pretty fierce arguments 🤣

PS Plus is only just over £2 a week and you get access to hundreds of games for free too. Including online play.
Me and my son both have PS5s and he signed my ps into his account so I get everything free. Everytime I switch my playstation on it logs him out of his mid game or whatever leading to some pretty fierce arguments 🤣

PS Plus is only just over £2 a week and you get access to hundreds of games for free too. Including online play.
Me and my son both have PS5s and he signed my ps into his account so I get everything free. Everytime I switch my playstation on it logs him out of his mid game or whatever leading to some pretty fierce arguments 🤣

I was on Grand Turismo 7 earlier working through the Normal licences, then onto the Master licences. 
This one was really easy to pass, must be all the practice I’ve had.

Just seen some 1 litre bottles of wine .. 13% as well ...
Are they making longer straws to fit them ???

I did an oil change on the A8 today.

No idea how the last person used an oil extractor because the lance on mine wouldn't go all the way into the sump. Similar to the Saab, there is some kind of baffle at the bottom and I wasn't confident. So as there was no undertray I just dropped it out the bottom. The sump plug is huge! Just as well I did as there was at least 8.5 litres in the sump and I'd have been pumping for ages and got drenched when the heavens opened shortly after. Thankfully I was all done in half an hour, the tidying up took the same again.
I think I need a code reader to reset the service indicator.

Some random offered a straight swap on my Amazon. 

He has a fucked L322 Range Rover worth about £1500 on a good day. Yeah, how about no and get the fuck out of my garage, blud?

I fucking hate L322s anyway; they're too fucking big and drive like wobbling fat cunts. 

There's no point in me starting another collection thread today as the first 2/3rds of the journey is exactly the same as the last one I did. Plus if you read my last thread you'll see that John Craven's behaviour was so obnoxious that I've told him that buses aren't for him and he's to stay home.
Even the brand of car is the same.
In short:
Car to the train station to catch the 9.18 to Edinburgh.
Megabus at 10.40 to Newcastle, arrives at 1.20.
Unfortunately there is only 1 Megabus on a Sunday on this route so it means I have to kick about in town for a few hours before getting a 10 or 11 bus to the sellers house for 4pm.
Hopefully everything goes smoothly. Car is paid for and insured and I have located a nearby fuel station.

So I'm just walking down a street in Poland and...
Little minter too. It was there when I went out this morning and still there tonight.
Nice to see that they're finally starting to preserve cars like this,
 

Was I going to let being a parent stop me from getting in the garage until half eight tonight? Apparently so.
Does that mean I wasn't going to achieve something today? Does it bollocks.
First things first, stock up on brain juice:

Buy a toy for the boy who did great swimming today:

And when the kids finally get to bed, start getting to work on stripping the engine.
Oil pump out first, this was a piece of cake, although I'd already made my first error of the day and left that end plate on - it was meant to come off at this point, but didn't affect anything until later.
I used my paint pen and placed dots and numbers everywhere to allow correct orientation of all items upon refitting.

The Conrod caps were removed and the shells inspected - they will benefit from a replacement, but the crank itself looked good so far.


With all the Conrod bearing caps removed, it was time to utilise one of the more precise instruments in the garage:

And eventually, 4 hefty pistons were removed.

The rings were inspected and there wasn't any obvious signs of wear. I'll be looking a lot closer at everything over the coming days.
Big end caps were labelled prior to removal:

And the shells on these were spot on, with only minor wear evident. They'll be going back in on the rebuild.
With the flywheel end main oil seal removed, and all the caps off, the crankshaft was lifted out, signalling the end of the internal stripping.


The only dilemma I have at the moment is the crank pulley end - there's slots for two woodruff keys, but I've only retrieved one during the disassembly. Hopefully it turns up.

Either way, there's only a few external bits and pieces to come off, including the water pump and mount bracket, then it'll be ready to go to the machine shop later this week.
So, a short period in the garage today, but a productive one.
Cheers.
 

Apart from accidentally cutting someone up on a roundabout today - honestly, lane choice and indication suggested they were going around the whole way, not coming off, and then the Princess did that weird bogging down thing that it does sometimes I've never been able to solve - this thing drove past me while doing some shopping.

Not my photo, I wasn't able to get one, so I stole it off Pinterest.  It genuinely looks better on the move than it has in any photo I've seen of it.  I knew it was up north somewhere, and a regular at Whitby for obvious reasons, now I wonder if it's actually pretty local so I shall be keeping an eye out for photo opportunities on this one.  Someone did tell me what it was built on once, but I've since forgotten.

Avensis sorted for another year!

Half-day update.
A mate dropped off an engine crane whilst I was at work.

With the warnings fully read and digested*:

I gave the seized driveshaft bearing a dousing in oil this morning before work - a sharp twatting with a hammer and chisel freed it up.
I removed the radiator to remove the risk of damaging it in the ensuing mayhem:

And started loosening bolts for the bellhousing, bonus was freeing up a pair of wires that had been trapped in the join of the bellhousing and block since I bought the car! These will get a solder sleeves repair in due course.

I roped the father in law to act as safety rating and operate the crane whilst I jiggled the 'box free, and eventually we got our first reward:

It's actually light enough to lift myself using the strop so that'll be my method when it comes to lifting it in.
Anyway, onto the main event. There was a bit of a faff to get the car to a lower position on the axle stands, exacerbated by the need to support the engine at the same time. There was a bit of an issue with access at times but otherwise it was okay.

Both remaining mounts were unbolted and the engine was free to be lifted.

And now resting on the deck. 


Now the awkward jobs begin - stripping the block is going to be a bit of a pain without an engine stand, but hopefully do-able.
Going to try and get out for a couple of hours tonight but we'll see.
Cheers

a prius being booted round Knockhill by the stig
 
 

Both motos still broken and no insurance on the Berlingo as of last night due to it sneaking up on me and online quotes being double what it was last year. 
Why the grin? Well it gives me the chance to use this;

Engines a bit smoky but its made the ferry quicker than the Berlingo due to respectful swift progress and lack of number plate.
Quick rest now then on to Waltham Forest. How my body holds up to 30 miles and a days graft remains to be seen. Wish me luck.

 

Not gonna lie, I was up early this morning (for a Saturday) to get some welding gas. Halfords turned out to be the cheapest for CO2 at under £14.
Got this panel in nice and quick:

As I wanted to get onto the remaining complicated panel.

This is the last of the wheel arch repair sections, so it needed to follow the curvature of the  arch itself. Typically, this requires a stretcher tool if you need a 90 degree lip, but I didn't have a stretcher tool, I had an angle grinder.

This kept going back and forth in place to get the curvature right - the more lines chopped into the lip, the finer tweaks you can make to the bends.
Eventually, I got it following the existing curve pretty nicely.


So it was a case of firing up the welder:

And very carefully welding them up - this requires a lot of time to cool in between welding the lines, as rushing it could distortion the gaps and give a different curve to the panel.
This bit isn't pretty, because it's welding to fill the gaps of already thin metal, so naturally it blows holes every five seconds.

It does grind down pretty nicely to make a solid panel.
Next was popping the spot weld holes in the lip, which was not helped by the tool jamming with the panel stuck in it.

I then expanded the holes with a drill bit and caught myself getting lazy - the finger of the glove got caught in the drill bit, but I escaped any injury myself, which was a nice wake up call! 🤦‍♂️

Whilst working this panel, it made sense to prepare the last panel needed for the arch, so I got that sorted too. Doesn't need to be pretty because it's out of sight.

Both items got a coat of zinc primer and a blast by the IR heater - this dropped the drying time considerably, and justified the purchase price 😅

Once dry (and cooled down!), it was magnetted into position:

And tacked into place. This took a while to get perfect, so the tacks kept getting cut off to make it a flusher fit.

Took my time with it and got decent penetration with the welds

Didn't picture it, but the lower panel had another go around with the welder as I wasn't content with the penetration when it was on the Argon mix.
The repair stiffener bracket was also welded back in place, as was the little bracket that goes on the lip of the inner wing:

A coat of zinc primer applied - dry in less than an hour thanks to the IR heater:

And Puraflex added to all the joins.

Hopefully, this will be dry by the time the kids go to bed, so I'll pop back in, add another coat of primer, stick the IR heater on and put a coat of paint on before bed.
Tomorrow will be a good day to apply the stone chip paint and bring a close to all the welding/bodywork jobs!
Cheers.

Not much of an update today, it's the slow, boring bits at the moment.
Chopping out the afflicted metal is a dull task, with spot welds everywhere that needs drilling out.
This bracket was covering some weak metal directly above it.

So it was removed. The uppermost mating face is heavily corroded in places too, so that'll need changing.

This was hiding behind an equally grotty panel, however it is substantial enough and has survived a wire bush so it'll get cleaned up further.

Eventually, I had what I was hoping to be the last grotty bits chopped out of the car.

This had left quite a complex hole behind.


And I had to be extra careful as I was at the end of this sheet of steel - I bought this back in 2015 to restore the Mini, but that never ended up happening!

I got two panels roughly bent into shape before I decided to call it a night - they were the trickiest two to do so I just wanted them to be out of the way.
Tomorrow, I'll prep the surfaces for welding and make the last of the repair patches, with ambitions to weld a couple in on Saturday evening.
Cheers!

Well bugger me sideways, I've only gone and done it.
It's remarkable just how easy it is when you have the correct information to hand - this came in the form of OEM wiring diagrams for the fuse board itself.

With that, I tracked the lines and worked out which continuity checks needed doing. Was surprised to note that the fuse board connectors went in reverse order (6,5,4,3,2,1) as you view it.
It became evident that the very first continuity check was open circuit which was promising.

This meant it had to come out (again) 

With the board on the bench, it was a lot easier to repeat all the required continuity checks, and we finally had the fault pinpointed.

There was an open circuit from the 'cold' side of the fuse socket, to the first junction of the horn/heated screen circuit, namely the high power input for the heated screen relay (this then carries on to the horn side of the circuit)
Unfortunately, it's a double-layered board and I was unable to access the actual board. Luckily, I had a surplus piggyback fuse with a flylead, so I elected to add a flylead to the relay terminal. Ended up using solid core wire on the board half as it's quite a high amperage circuit.


With that all assembled, the board was re-tested and continuity was restored. The board was reconnected to the car and the horn now works!
Also, billy bonus, the HRW works and the switch illuminates, so I must have been talking bollocks about it working beforehand.

With that all confirmed to work, the interior was rebuilt (glovebox light fixed)


As an aside, I noticed the oil level gauge wasn't working any more - this was traced to the sensor plug coming off for some reason so that's an easy win.
So, I'm back to bodywork repairs for the rest of the week, hopefully without any more nasty surprises!
Cheers.

Okay, let's have another shot at getting this steering rack to track rod bracket apart.
Attempt number 1.  This failed.  The puller would always slip off well before getting any real torque involved.

This wasn't actually in use, I just stuck it on there for the photo, so yes I know it's not lined up right.
The correct tool for this job is essentially just a big ball joint splitter.  However buying one of those would require spending more money than I really wanted to, and waiting for something to arrive.
Instead, take one £15 splitter from Halfords and spend ten minutes mutilating it with a grinder until it fits.

Remember, it's not stupid if it works!

That let go with one HELL of a bang. 
The old boot was removed and things cleaned up ready for the new one to go on, which I'd already had long enough to have completely forgotten which box it was in and requiring 10 minutes of rummaging until it turned up.

Done.

Well, almost.  I didn't initially spot that there's a flat cast into the bracket where the locking washer is meant to locate.  So the nut was loosened off again and the washer rotated through 180 degrees since this photo was taken.
Only casualty was me being careless with the grinder and nearly setting myself on fire.

I was already kind of paranoid about fire was I was relatively close to the Rover while doing this job and it's proven so far to be by far the most stubbornly not fuel-tight vehicle I've ever owned!
MOT has been re-booked for next Thursday.  Shame they can't fit me in sooner, but it is what it is, I know they're always busy.  Aside from the usual sanity check beforehand and making sure all the lights etc are working, I need to try to tweak the headlight aim a bit as I think it's still way too low.  I'll make sure all the adjusters are properly lubricated before taking it in so it can be easily tweaked at the time if need be.