crad

Had to pick up a part from Mercedes-Benz of Gatwick today. Accidentally parked in the sales area 😀

Ferrari F0.4, 2350 yoyos, cloggyland

 

A return to daily duties for this thing as the Saab's ignition switch seems to be getting increasingly unreliable and I nearly ended up stuck at Rutherglen Tesco with a flat battery earlier in the week.
Naturally it had to end in tears and I came out to the car at the end of my shift tonight to find the windscreen had cracked. How? No idea. No signs of rust around the screen, not been particularly cold/hot, probably a fucking pothole given the roads around here look like they've been fucking carpet bombed.

So, windscreens are apparently a pig to remove and usually break in the attempt, so second hand ones are mega rare. Pilkington will make one, but it takes 8 weeks and costs over £300. Also the one place that had Acclaim/mk2 Civic windscreen seals in stock, a place in Australia, now doesn't have any left.

 

Had my Oxford 5g reception boost this morning, 12 hours later no improvement in WiFi. Also no headache, sore arm, fever or anything. Let's see what the morning brings. 

Parcel recieved. Bargain. 

Undid the tensioner bolts. Bottom needed a crows foot to be able to get the leverage onto it.


Then pushed the tensioner all the way back and rebolted it to lock it untensioned.


Walked the belt off. This was a bit of a fight as the pressed steel sprockets had rust on the teeth and was grabbing the belt.


Removed the tensioner entirely.


Belt seemed to be in pretty good condition. Tensioner had some noise in the bearings though.


Finally the water pump.



Spent a good chunk of time cleaning up the block face.


After the Clio water pump leaking incident, I took no risk this time and used Hylomar on the mating surfaces.



Carefully bolted the pump back onto the block, trying my best not to get blue goo on everything.


Prepped the tensioner spring by cleaning the retaining pin. New Vs old springs.


Bolted the tensioner on and locked into the fully (belt) untensioned position.


New belt on and release the tensioner to lock the belt.


Spun the engine over 4 or so times. Then undid the tensioner again for it to grab up the slack. You can just about see the extra room the tensioner has moved.


Covers back on. I spent a good half hour or longer giving these a scrub with carb cleaner, scraper wire brush and wire wool. Not perfect but a lot of the dirty grime has gone.


Pulleys on


Belts on and tensioned.


Front pipe work back on. Changed some of the crusty Jubilee Clips with fresh genuine Jubilee clips.

A bit of a war with trying to get the ignition lead bundle into the right place and even more of a fight trying to get the distributor cap on. The cap is truly buggered, not only are the pick up points worn through and dirty, the retaining legs are rusty and bent. I've got a replacement rotor arm coming but not got around to sourcing a decent cap. When I last looked at it, I thought I could get away with just the arm, but now looking at it, it definitely could do with one.


Unbolted the thermostat housing. When I saw this crystallised crap, I decided to call it a night. The cooling system is in need of a good flush through. Not only crystallised coolant but also brown sediment is all through it. Apart from it sitting with old coolant for a long time previously, I suspect someone in the past has mixed coolant types too.

A bit more done tonight.


Firstly removed the undertray. I find it interesting how modern this car is, considering it is a 1985 model. Not only an undertray on the car but these plastic fixing nuts are just like you'd find on a modern car. Like a modern car, they break up when undone!



Radiator out and drained down. Coolant tank is a bit manky and quite a lot of brown crap came out of the radiator. Think the system needs a very good flush through.


Also alternator bracket off, wiring and hoses out the way.


Top cover off


Set timing. Not entirely clear on this picture but there is a notch out the cam tooth.


Bottom timing checked. The bottom cover is only bolted, so this must be a reference/verification marker mostly for timing purposes.



Belt is actually in surprisingly good condition. No visible cracks and tension seems reasonable. Genuine BMW branded belt too.




Removed bottom pulleys. 5 bolts to remove these. To stop it turning, I used these two wrenches and pushed/pulled together. Seemed to do the trick.


Inner pulley came off.


Big pulley didn't immediately seem obvious it come off, but internet says it did. A bit of light prying with a screwdriver got it to pop out.


Bottom cover off


Verify crank timing here. Yellow mark is not mine, must have been done by the previous person here.


Marked pulley for distributor. Looks like someone again has been here before with slight yellow paint and red marker. I redid with a green marker to make it still clearer.


Also marked the dizzy as a sanity check.


Then packed up as I'm working outside at the moment and don't want to wake neighbours up. Also had to wash down the drive with the hose pipe to make sure no antifreeze was left on the floor.

Did notice that the clutch fluid reservoir is empty. Pretty sure this wasn't previously but I can't see where it possibly might have leaked from. Neither the master nor the slave looks wet. I had noticed it crunching into first gear when I was moving the car around on the drive, so it seems like it's low enough that air has got in.


The cap is also split on the container, so I've ordered a whole new container+cap as it wasn't much more expensive. I do need to source some new hose to go between the container and master that is compatible with brake fluid.

Started prepping for the cambelt today.

Final bits arrived. A new tensioner spring and coolant cap.


Coolant cap is apparently the correct code for the car, but it's of a very different design to the original. It fits on the tank, so presumably ok. Anyone know if this is right?


Fitted dash


Had this green connector left over with no obvious place for it to live?


Started up and it looks like we've got a functioning dash now. Not had a chance to check the Speedo works yet though. Fuel gauge appears to be MIA though. Is that what the green connector is for?!


Jacked up car to place on ramps. Ramps because I'm not needing to get to the wheels and also all my stands are in use holding the Dolomite up.

This took far longer than it should have, as the ramps kept wanting to tilt sideways from the cover of the tyres. I did try driving up, but the car really didn't want to get to the top. Probably could have had a run up, but I don't like driving up ramps. Anyway after half hour farting around it was up.


First up was removing the viscous fan.


I bought these tools to do the job from Amazon. Nothing like the brand I actually bought and neither did they seem great quality.


Two tools, one to go between the nuts on the pump pulley to hold in place. The other end I let push against the PAS pump pulley.

Then a not very accurate 32mm spanner to loosen the nut. Reverse thread, so clockwise to undo.


Fan came off with a crack and not too much effort. Then spun off the rest of the way by hand.


Airbox off next. This frees up a fair bit of room and allows access to the dizzy.


Air filter has this interesting dirty line across. Lines up exactly on the otherside where the intake is.


Dizzy cap off. Vacuum line for advance is completely shot. I'm going to have to get an assortment of hose thicknesses and redo the lines. Most are knackered. Likewise some of the coolant and fuel hoses don't look too healthy either.



Speaking of healthy, the dizzy cap doesn't look terribly terrific.


The rotor arm is date coded 1984! So original to the car and a good 120k use. No wonder it looks knackered.


Going to have to source a new cap and rotor from somewhere. Ignition leads look Ok and I may leave them until MOT'd and more budget available.


Aux belts off next.


Which are truly knackered. The one that still has teeth left is all cracked up.


Called it a night for today as next will be draining down the coolant system. I didn't want to do that today as I'm having to do this outside, thanks to the Dolomite occupying the garage at the moment. Being outside, I need to make 100% sure the area is thoroughly washed down from any spills to prevent any local animals attempting to taste residue.

So have a few underside pictures to admire the remarkably rust-free underside. The cars undercarriage is tidier than up top!

I did this the other day but couldn't be bothered to write it up, as it'll be long. Anyway this is a electronics repair heavy post, so if you're not interested in such things, I'd probably skip this post.

The dash on this car is in need of some TLC. Especially as the Speedo isn't working. Number one culprit is the notorious Service Indicator board that suffers from Varta death. Basically the NiCad cells leak and the acid from them eats away the PCB. A real problem on any 80s and 90s electronics.

Firstly while the dash was apart, I attacked the clouded up front with a headlight restoration kit. No idea if this was going to work, but my thought was if it's good on clear headlights, why not dash plastic?


The dash has this clouded and fuzzed up appearance. It's bad enough that you can't clearly see the dash dials. Not entirely sure what has caused this but I'm blaming this been a car which has been smoked in. Nothing good comes from smoking and automobiles.


After 10 minutes work, it came up a right treat! Really pleased how well this has worked.


Going back to the notorious Service Indicator PCB, this one has suffered really badly. Damaged enough to be pretty much unrepairable. Even if it was, it wouldn't be necessarily reliable either.


Even the Speedo contacts on the otherside have corroded.


This board is a proper 80s bodge fest. Believe it or not, this was quite common out of the factory for 80s electronics. Much cheaper than spinning a new PCB for a design issue!


Thankfully a replacement dash was supplied with the car. It was bought as fully working but the Speedo appeared dead too when it was plugged in and tried.

Pulled the dash apart to retrieve our prize.


This is in much better condition. However there still is evidence of corrosion to some of the traces.


Someone has replaced the cells in this before and thankfully is what likely has saved this. Even if the replacement job is a bit crap.


The ribbon cable plastic however came away without much persuasion.



Firstly I charged up the cells to see if they would take one. Unfortunately they too seem rather dead and barely took one.


The ribbon cable I fixed with multiple pieces of insulation tape and carefully ensuring the pieces are stuck to the wires. I'll replace this sometime in the future with a proper replacement ribbon cable, but the intention here first is to get it working for an MOT.



Putting the PCB back into the rear dash housing came across a problem.


Turns out the good PCB is from a 1982 car. By 1985 they'd tweaked the connector positions and changed the plastic mouldings to suit.


So after going back to the 1982 back plastic, I could put it back together again.




Found a car wiring diagram and connected up the dash to my bench PSU.


Powered on. Initially with low current limit to limit the damage incase anything wanted to fry and/or I got the wrong pins. Then upped when it appeared no dead shorts.


Success!


Tried the service reset pin and got it to normal.


Wired up the Speedo to a bunch of contacts to test it. Twitching them gave no response on the Speedo. Darn. Time to pull the dash apart again.

Firstly check the Speedo works. Applied power directly to the pins and tapped the signal line to ground. Got movement. Great the Speedo is fine.


Buzzed out with my multimeter to find the break. The signal comes in on the main light board and then off to a connector for the Service Interval PCB. The Speedo then connects into the Service Interval PCB. Top was fine, so the break appeared to be in the Service Interval PCB.

Starting from the connector, I buzzed to the Speedo connection and found there must be a break on the boards. Again buzzing along the tracks till I found the break.


The tracks for the Speedo are the ones in the top left hand corner where my thumb is. Inconveniently these are right next to where the NiCad cells are. So the leakage will pool in that corner, eating those important tracks away.


I soldered on some replacement wires that took the signal directly from the top ribbon connector to the Speedo connector. While there, I reflowed all the other pins.


Putting the dash back together, I flicked the lines again and got the Speedo twitching. Success!


I then packed up for the day.

Next day I ran the dash up again. This time I noticed some flickering segments.


Pulling the dash apart yet again, I found quite a few cracked solder joints. I reflowed these with fresh solder.


While there I removed the cells on the PCB and fitted an external battery pack. The idea being that the source of cell leakage will be well away from the SI PCB.



Putting the dash back together and repowering I found that the Service Indicator was starting to act really weird.


So I pulled it all apart and rechecked everything. I couldn't see anything amiss.

Confused, I stuck the other dash SI screen on to check it wasn't the resoldering and see if that was doing the same. This was acting even weirder.


At this point I was getting pretty frustrating, having disassembled and reassembled the dash countless times. I tried replacing all the electrolytic caps to no avail.


Unfortunately there appears to be no readily available schematic or even datasheet for the main chip on this board. So without that, I was shooting blind and I didn't really want to go to the bother of reverse engineering the board. No least that this is a very early model board and different in layout and parts to the 1985 board that came out of the car.

I'm pretty sure something has failed on the board or one of the extra parts on the newer revision board resolves. After spending another day poking around, I decided enough was enough. Remember the main aim here is to get the car through an MOT. The now fixed Speedo is part of that but the Service Indicator really is not. As the flickering was rather annoying, I've pulled the main IC out. This allows the rest of the cluster to work, just loosing the temperamental Service Indicator function.

There is a good chance anyway that it won't be much use for my use either! As this will be a low mileage classic, there is a good chance I'll be changing the oil on age much before the indicator tells me.

After putting the dash back together, I rechecked the Speedo worked and also tested the Temperature gauge, as well as the fuel gauge worked. Both with a Potentiometer attached to the revelant pins.



Feeling a bit dejected, I fixed another important bit. The key light.

A good start as it still just about worked when pushed.


Pulled the key apart.


Cleaned up the contacts and put a fresh battery in.


Much more useful! (I'll probably never use it...)


 

They got it wrong.  ‘Fucking PINK!’ should be on there for accuracy.

No, it's definitely not one of these...
 

Used the caps that they came with but if doing it again I'd try something different/wider. I found the caps confusing too. 
Yes, it's pretty orange peel-like, but suspect it's thick enough to flat back. 
Did get some runs but again, it's quite forgiving 
I'm not planning on rubbing back / lacquering, I prefer the slightly satin finish, it means it's easier to touch up if needed. It was never going to be a perfect job. 
However my friend who painted his Mazda 121 managed to get a lovely finish by taking time on the prep and finishing. 

Wiper motor was removed, freed up and the earth cleaned up. 

The switch had no continuity, so i took it appart and cleaned up the contacts.  It was pretty crusty. 

The wiper switch is in a sort of box over head, this has had speakers butchered into it in the past and had a big chunk cut out of it going across the corner making the panel a bit floppy and looking a bit poop.
I had an old speaker grill kicking around so that went on over one hole and i folded up a bit of steel to make a blank plate. I thought id wrap it with something if i had anything kicking around.
Hey look, the old floor mats from the burgandy astra.  Slice. . .yoink

Plush!

 
 
 
 

Light work
The number plate light wasnt working.  The very very old bulb had blown so i put it to one side so i could attempt to match it up at work. I then proceeded to drop the bloody thing. 
These style of lights are very easily avalible in plastic chrome and with a more modern bulb for not alot.  But its survived all these year i wanted it to live on. The cover bolt sheared as did both retaining studs.  

Glass washed and metal cover cleaned up

Broken studs drilled out so i could nut and bolt it on and a Suitable big headed self tapper was dug out the box of doom.  Terminals cleaned up and wires tested. Let there be light!

And mounted back up on the back off the roof.  Im stood of the rear wheel here. 

So thats the lights sorted. 



Sadly theres only one main beam as the filament must be dead. the sealed beam spot lights on the rear, one worked one was dead,  today the working one decided its time had come. 
 
 
 

Large! But what a honey. 


Better keep @Six-cylinder away. 

Gearbox pan re fitted and fresh oil chucked in via the reverse light switch. 

Trusty block 'o' wewd could then be removed and i opted to rotate the tyres as the fronts are getting low and id like to get as much life from these untill the gearbox issue is resolved / the cars fate is decided. 

Nail found in one causing a wee leak so it was handy that i did. Will get that sorted asap.

A general poke around shows  winter hasnt been kind and these archs dont seem to be self healing. 


Sad times, but given this was scabby from the start and i did a basic quick repair of grind back, rust treat, filled and rattle canned in a few hours its lasted fairly well. 
 

Destruction derby.
Feast your eyes on some ex Derbyshire council 1.7cdti gloriousness. 
06 plate only on 70k now so plenty of life left.  Another kerb walloping cattywampus tracking victim with a chewed up O.s tyre so the spare was put on. 
Most of our vans seem to have at least one flat spotted rim.  

Fresh oil and filter. Nothing else to report. 

Vans- off the wall
Had a couple of my works delivery vans in for some very minor repairs. With more staff than needed in the shop and trying to give each other some space i offered to take a van or two and have a once over look at some of them. 
First up a 14 plate partner for a headlight . This wasnt a pleasant job so no pics im affraid. Just think less water and tape. 
Oil filter removed . Rad hoses are just in the way. All that space and they make the gap between them smaller than the oil filter cap.  New filter and some 5w30 c2 splashed in.

when i drove the van to the workshop the steering was shaking side to side. A check of the tyres revealed the wires poking out of an egg shaped front tyre.  Christ knows what it had driven into. 
Next up another slighter newer and longer partner

Pump deployed. 

Whilst that did its thing i addresed the other issue. One twatted mirror, the backing cover and surround were all busted so a new mirror went on.

Same engine as the last but requires a fancier spec oil.  So out with the old and in with the gold!

After this i washed, clayed and spray waxed the van.  Its my bosses van that is rarely used for deliveries and i did feel a bit bad as the mirror was smashed when it was used to deliver something to me at the workshop on my day off! 
Next up a van thats a bit more me. 
 
 

Putting a stop to that. 
Brakes then, stripped, sliders cleaned and re greased.  Hub got cleaned aswell.

Seen worse but for less that 40 quid for discs and pads i wasnt going to mess about. 

Like all the other corners. A quick brush about and a spray of supertrol on its scabby bits. 


 
With a clean pass on the MOT thats that Sorted for now. 

Shock-ing discovery.

N.s top mount then.  With no drop link to worry about the shock removal was easy with no bolts putting up a fight.
Safety squints on and spring compressors deployed. My word that springs taking alot of compressing i thought.  It got to that point where i decided that has to be enough and wazzed the nut off.  Mount falls off spring goes loose and in goes the shaft.
Id learnt something in the same week with a customers bmw of sprung loaded shocks where the shock default sits at the halfway point . Having never heard of such a thing before but put it down as modern fancy car stuff. So to find it on an 06 plate zuk was a surprise. This means you need to hold the shock somehow in the fully extended position whilst you assemble it. 
I put the top nut on and hung the shock in the vice. Putting my body weight on the spring seat and forced it downwards untill i got the shock to bottom out. I then put a bit of sliced pipe and a jubilee clip round to clamp it in the fully open position.  I had to split the bump stop and cover into its to parts to have access to the clamp. 

Spring compressed more and top mount put on sharpishly and re assembled. Lots of swearing later got the cover pushed onto the bumpstop. 
Everything was given a quick brush out and a spray of supertrol like the rear. 

Then i found the spring washer for the top nut under my spring compressors. 
Sigh. 
 
Safety squints put back on. Rinse and repeat with added spring washer. 

Hi all, 
Mazda 323 progress update...
Had the day off today in order to escort junior to his dental appointment in the Highland capital.  It's a beautiful day here today, so a very enjoyable waft up the A9 and back was had.
On our return I decided to push on a bit with the wee Mazda, as it's time as an official (legal) learner car is fast approaching.
Before...

 

Actually a very clean car for its age, the obviously know what they're doing in Hiroshima...  Vactan application...

 
And after...

I don't like waxoyl much, I think it it too thick and forms a skin before it's had a chance to soak in.  However, I do like it's blackness and see it as a thickener.  These days I heat up a blend of waxoyl, gear oil, old engine oil and dpr (like wd40 but free from work).  This witch's brew seems to flow better, and stays a bit oily forever... kind of like black butter... nice.

Next steps are to re-seal and refit the dried out light clusters, and the bumper can go back on now I've fired plenty of oily goodness down the chassis rails.  The sills are dripping all over my truck bed now as well!
A pal at work scrapped a Focus, and donated quite a fancy big screened stereo to this, so we'll get that squeezed in as well.
We have a full set of servicing bits and bobs in, but as it's running so well I think we'll just keep them in readiness for now.
She's a credit to her former keepers, and my son feels very lucky to have her, which is good to see.

 
Anyway, cheers all!

^ Sorry to bore you.
For those who are interested, the trip was a great success.  The Volvo was booked for an MOT on Monday before I left for the ferry the next day, so everything was crossed.  Unfortunately the handbrake cable was damaged, and idiot me didn't prepare for that despite a forewarning.  Amazingly, the tester managed to bodge it in order to satisfy the brake test and the old girl got herself a new ticket.  Emissions were right on the limit, which would explain why this came on on the way back from the MOT
 
 I have to say, it ate the 300 mile trek from Birmingham to Cainryan better than a lot of newer cars I've done the same with, andI'd say the run has done it the world of good given that it did just over 1000 miles last year.   What an epic place it was to sit for six hours.


 
Back home and it's straight back into business.  My local SAAB specialist keeps in close contact with me for if any of his customers are selling or looking to purchase.  He asked me to come and take a look at two that had been left with him before being sold.  The first was a new model 9-5, unfortunately a diesel.  I got the keys and took for it a run with real anticipation,  I'd love to get to know one of these things.  Unfortunately all I could feel was disappointment, verging on anger, for what happened to SAAB in the end.  The interior is a blatant Insignia, with the same cheap switchgear that wears horribly and just looks awful at this stage, and with that clattery Vauxhall diesel engine under the bonnet, it marks a sad end for a brand with such a rich history.

The owner was after strong money for it and it just wasn't worth the effort.  I did leave with this ridiculously cheap and unloved floppy top 9-3 though...

Another "something a little different" came in as well, a Renault Koleos.  Anyone remotely interested in these should really consider one.  They have a lot of Samsung influence which is great for dependability.  They're comfy, well spec'd and the 4WD model is pretty capable.  They're also down to very little £££.
Engine management light is on.  It's 2009 and has done 59k, I'd say it just needs a real good drive.  Then it's due MOT and should be ready to go. 
 

Wing progress.
Getting the arch liner out was a twat of a job. 22 year old plastic snap rivet things meant much recalcitrance to move.

Wing was in comparison a doddle.


I opted not to do a full bumper removal because lack of bothering. I did have to remove the grill though as O/S headlamp needed to come out. Again stubborn fixings meant this didn’t happen as I have  no power in the garage and waiting for cordless tools to arrive.


A good smattering of cavity wax/underseal combo should keep the grot away. It was like new under there.

Refitting is reverse blah blah blah. Panel gaps aren’t brilliant because pattern wing which had already been fitted to another car in the past.

TBH a slightly wonky wing is better than a dirty great dent. There was very little wiggle room around the mounting holes. Colour match is pretty good and the few blemishes in the new wing are in keeping with the rest of the car, so it looks like it hasn’t been swapped.

Took the Doblo for its Spanish MOT (the ITV). There are just three places to take it to in a 30mile radius of me, and all they do is testing.
Made my appointment on line, got there a bit early as have to produce last ITV and the Spanish log book. They check my insurance on their insurance database. Hand over €51.60 and then move my car to one of the six lanes.
Called in to the bay after a couple of minutes by the young tester. He instructed me to stay in the car whilst he did a check of the tyres, then opened all the doors  and checked the inside, and lifted the carpet to check the VIN. He then requested  I switch on the lights, indicators, washers, etc for him to check, all the time fiddling with his phone.
For the emissions test, he attached some sensors to somewhere under the bonnet, then got me to rev it and hold it at 3000rpm (difficult!) for 15 seconds or so, then a couple of seconds at 4000rpm.  All good.
I then had to drive it on to the brake rollers, and apply the front brakes when he said, then move forward so the rear wheels were on the rollers to see the rear brakes and handbrake operated correctly. 
Finally moved forward over a pit where he seemed to swing off of all the suspension mounts-the car really shook as he did each one, and checked the brake pads too. He then instructed me to turn the steering wheel left to right several times. 
Coming out of the pit he went into the small booth, and stood behind a computer. Within a minute he was out, with my printed test result and a sticker for the inside of the windscreen. As he handed them to me, he said "Your car is A1. Perfect".
Twelve minutes start to finish. Next test due in two years.
TL:DR. My car passed the Spanish MOT.