juular

Since writing this yesterday, a rear shock bush has burst and now rattles like fuck, and my reverse light has fallen off.

2013 Mini Countryman Absolute worst heap of shit I have ever driven. Car feels absolutely massive, yet there's no room on the inside. The seats are designed for people under 4ft. You can't see out of it and the mirrors are symbolic. Clutch pedal needs legs like Mandy Sellars to operate. Absolutely grim as fuck in traffic. Speedo is on the centre console. WHY. All of the switches and instruments are designed to look retro and cool, but turning on the wipers is like operating a rubik's cube. Handling attempts to be sporty, but is just rattly, crashy and wearisome. Engine attempts to be rorty, but is just noisy. It's noisy at idle. It's noisy at 70mph. It's tiring and grating. It looks like a tarted up frog. Fuck off.

1995 Peugeot 205 D Bought over a year ago with the intention of getting it through an MOT then moving it on. I don't like small cars, I like having a bit of space and prefer to drive a van or a big saloon. I'm especially not a fan of small rattly French hatchbacks. But I still have this car and drive it daily and that's all you need to know. Interior : it just is. Things are where they're meant to be and they work. Everything rattles. Nothing has fallen off. The seats are more comfortable than they have any right to be. 3 hours down the M6 and can still feel both of my legs. The suspension travel and body roll is comical. It will take any road surface without caring. Every single panel is dented, and it looks the better for it. It hasn't been washed in the entire time I've owned it. The mighty 59bhp N/A XUD sings in the voice of angels. It's normally fairly sedate, but with the fuel pump cranked up it's downright sprightly. It has the torque of a diesel, but revs like a petrol which is just bizarre, and will keep on pulling all the way up the revs. No matter where you go it winds up everyone else who thinks it's a shit, slow 90's banger driven by a potless waster. Nobody parks near you. It's probably doing 4000rpm at 70mph but it's not that noisy, and it still has plenty left. It will cruise at 90+ on a private motorway and feels unfazed. It guzzles vegetables and spits the dregs over the windscreens of sanctimonious tesla drivers. Parts are cheap. Tyres cost hardly anything and go on forever. The power steering is satisfyingly heavy and precise. Despite the body roll it corners in a way that inspires laughter and never seems to run out of grip. The brakes are fairly shit even when in top condition. The ventilation is absolute shit. It's such a cheery, eager little car and it puts a smile on my face every time I turn the key.

This is the TLDR version 😄

1988 Volvo 240 GLT Writing this in the hope it will encourage me to fix it. I wasn't sure what to expect from this car, as I bought it for the sake of having a project while having never set foot in one before. I did however very much appreciate its style; in my opinion it looks exactly like a car should look. Big, boxy, functional, sort of brutal, yet still with lots of attention to little details like the most excellent flush door handles, the chunky and reassuring shoulder on the bodyside and the tremendous deep-dished alloys. It has so much presence. Inside, it's the same story with 'chunky' being the only word to describe everything. The dash is obelisk-like, the gear shifter in-your-face, the instruments big and bold, the switches industrial and heavy duty, and even the indicator and wiper stalks big, monolithic and with a somewhat satisfyingly long throw. You don't do anything in this car by accident. Driving this car after coming from a bloated modern full of needless tech, it's simply good for the soul. At the same time, it's attractive. The corduroy effect carpet on the doors, the fine chrome accents and the use of very high quality materials make it incredibly pleasant to sit in. The buttoned heated leather seats are effectively big chunks of chesterfield sofa, and I don't think I've ever sat in a car seat that is so forgiving and yet supports your lumbar in such a healthy way. If I have one complaint it's that the centre console is so chunky that it can impede on my left knee, but then I have been told I 'sit funny', and to be fair I have the same problem with many RWD cars that have large transmission tunnels. The Lexus LS400 is way worse in this regard. It doesn't feel like a luxury or even an upmarket car, as such. It is completely unpretentious. But it does feel like someone set out to build something that does everything to the best of its ability, and to last a lifetime. This one hasn't been babied, yet there isn't a single crack or chip in the dash or instruments after 35 years, and I suspect you'd have to really be abusing it to cause one. For an 80's car a surprising amount of thought has went into storage. It has door pockets that have bottle holders. It has shelves and cubbyholes everywhere, plus a cavernous glovebox. It even has an indent under the windscreen for holding coins in the days you'd pay tolls manually. The boot is big enough to hold a number of dead bodies and or several hundred grand of coke. All of the instruments are backlit in a way I can only describe as '80's', which is stunning. The sound system has plenty of volume and is surprisingly clear and crisp, but has hardly any bass. Adjusting the mini-EQ on the head unit only results in distortion. The small door speakers lack the power to give low frequencies a chance. I suspect a speaker upgrade would be needed to get the full benefit of the head unit which itself is actually very good. Driving the car at first is a little bit disconcerting as the power steering is unfathomably light. No doubt this was meant to appeal to those who didn't like the idea of driving a 'big' car but I'd definitely say it crosses the line into being over-assisted. As such, it really never does feel like a big car especially when navigating tight spaces or parking. The shape is so square, the visibility so good and the mirrors so huge that you're never in any doubt as to where exactly you're putting it. This is a car a learner could drive. The visibility makes driving in general a very relaxing experience. Motorway driving in particular is much easier with the narrow pillars and wide mirrors giving you almost no blind spot to worry about. The B230E 2.3 mechanically injected engine is the opposite of rev-happy. It's torquey. It drives like a diesel. Most of the power is available from around 1000RPM and pulls hard to around 3500rpm, where it smoothly tapers off. Country and motorway driving is supremely relaxed, and gear changes are few and far between. RPM at 70mph is around 2500, at which point the engine is mostly drowned out by road noise. Smooth and supremely competent is the best way to describe it. 0-60 is around 11 seconds, which although it isn't even warm, it's enough to never feel slow . Pushing the car on a twisty road was an eye-opener for me. It didn't take me long to realise it is surprisingly capable for such a big sensible safety-focused lump. At no point does the car feel heavy or unbalanced. The GLT has a lower, stiffer setup from other trims and it can be thrown around with significant enthusiasm without ever feeling unwieldy. The biggest surprise is how accurate the steering is at speed, even on uneven ground, especially given how overassisted it feels. It's a car that can be flicked into place without much thought and is surprisingly eager to corner. There always feels like there's plenty of torque available just when you need it, and the brakes are possibly the strongest and most reassuring I've felt. Some of the competence must come from how incredibly solid this car is. I've had the pleasure* of welding it back together and can say with confidence it may be one of the strongest cars ever built. The steel is twice as thick as some cars. The pillars even have an integrated roll cage of sorts. It's absolute overkill. Where the car really shines is in poor weather, snow, or rough ground. The suspension has plenty of travel and never feels crashy, and the back end always feels more planted than you'd expect. Driving through floods and snow it still feels always competent and almost feels like it relishes the prospect of a good storm. If you wanted a simple, solid, comfortable car to drive to the Arctic Circle tomorrow, make no mistake, you'd want a 240. Except when it's broken (as mine is).

Glued that sill on. Another step closer. The main job of the weekend though was to fit the engine. Step one, engine mounts and crossmember refitted. Step two, wheel the engine out to the car and refit the engine mount brackets. Step three. Sit in the shade and stare at the engine for an hour. Step four, fit the wrong bolt into the engine mount bracket, shear it off and then spend the next four hours trying to weld a nut onto it, giving up, having to go buy new drill bits, and drill and tap a new hole while shitting myself that I was going to break through into the engine internals. For added jeopardy a thunderstorm was approaching. Step five. There is no step five. Step six, fit massively oversized bolt. Step seven, assemble engine crane in 26C heat and curse being prone to migraines. Step eight. PLOP.

I have had this idea for a topic for ages, but excuses. Looking forward to this, and will post a few.

I can tolerate most things being broken or a bit temperamental, but I really need the steering and suspension to be right. It's like a phobia of something snapping off and me ending up in a ditch. I think having a wheel break loose due to a corroded suspension part has really spooked me. I also just really like driving a car that steers dead straight, corners properly and doesn't have clunks or bangs. I get irrationally pissed off by a car that clunks and I spend the entire time listening out for it, which ruins the fun.

That is one of those things that could have remained hidden for months while every other electrical component is gradually replaced. Glad it's sorted!

Where do I send this compensation claim form?

This has been parked up for a while, much to our neighbours' delight. The main issue was that we couldn't get to the bottom of an ABS fault, so much time was spent trying to get hold of some actual Lexus software (my DS210 clone didn't want to speak to the ABS module), then running diagnostics, trying to eliminate pretty much everything we could. Then the MOT ran out and the project was abandoned over the winter. I've not really been involved since then, but Mrs has done an amazing amount of work tracking down and fixing the fault. A copy of Techstream was acquired and it showed some faults that didn't show up on other OBD2 software. The output from the ABS sensor was tested through the live data and seemed OK, plus, the fault occurred at a standstill which doesn't make any sense, as it won't be getting any reading from the sensor at that point. So she thought maybe the ECU was at fault. That got pulled apart and checked over. All the obvious culprits checked out OK. Don't ask me how, this stuff is magic to me. It was then noticed that connection to the wheel sensor was in fact intermittent, so it was that after all. She pulled it out, or at least attempted to. That'll be fucked then. We'll just get a new one. Oh. At this point she didn't have much to lose, so started browsing for similar looking sensors for other Japanese cars. After all, it's just a hall effect sensor, right? Turns out the one from an IS200 fits, just about. The plug is different and the wiring is backwards, but that is a minor point when the sensor is £20 vs £244.60. Aaaand.. it worked! No more ABS and VSC warnings. Boom! It was at this point, driving it home, that the battery light came on. Because actually spending six months trying to fix something is too easy. 11.8V at the battery whilst running. Alternator out. Fun fact, alternators are best tested in their native habitat of an unkempt garden. Using magic, it was decided that both the rectifier and regulator were fried, and thus the alternator would not alternate. Parts for these are a nightmare to find, and recon places weren't accepting this particular one for rebuild which is never a good sign. Some part number trickery was done and replacement bits were eventually sourced, from who knows what model of Toyota. There we go. Finally, a mortal sin was committed. She looked under trim. Well, that's not quite so bad is it? Now onto the front wings. Oh. Screw fixing that. She found some replacement wings in good condition on eBay for a decent price. They were 300 odd miles away, but that's just an excuse for a road trip. TLDR; One day we might drive this car again.

Plan is to get the engine fitted in the next couple of days, so I started tackling the engine bay. So what needed done was to clean up and paint the area where the crossmember attaches, then gives the whole engine bay a going over with the sander to remove all the brush marks. I'm using a really heavy duty primer which works great, but it goes on thick and lumpy. I'm not bothered, the engine bay is never going to look great and in six months it'll probably be covered in oil and coolant anyway, but I at least want it to be all the same colour. With that area tidied up and the sanding done, I started undersealing the front end, then gave the engine bay a coat of high build primer. This was finished off with some rattlecan in the original car colour (79 Pearl White). The finish has a stippled look in comparison to the factory smooth finish but I'm OK with that, it looks hard wearing like a truckbed or something. Although I'd identified all the remaining rot in the boot floor I hadn't cut it all out, so I got that chopped to try and encourage me to get it sorted. I need to go further with the other side, but it's all simple flat bits. I've officially run out of metal - that's a whole sheet used on this car. I ended up having to chop off the rear lower valance sections as where they attached to the floor was rotten. At first glance they look sort of OK. Oh. That's a problem for future me. They don't look mega difficult to fabricate if I had to make new ones. Finally, I still hadn't fitted the passenger side outer sill, mainly because I needed to modify it. I managed to get two full sill panels but they were both driver's side ones. What I need to do is cut off the ends, then fabricate the curved end on the left, and weld it onto the right. So I need the mirror image of this. Copying the shape. In place. Welded on, then hit with hammers to curve it over. Then finished off with the flap wheel. My tolerance for welding in this heat is pretty much zero, so I'll be doing more mechanical bits next.

Fair point

First rate stuff going on here. Exciting times.

Looks solid! Hopefully this is the start of you being able to use this for some Summer cruising.

The sun shining for weeks on end in Scotland can only mean the world is about to implode in on itself, so I better get a move on with this. I did make an effort to go out and do normal human people things at the weekend, then realised people are cunts and that everywhere is full of them. First job was to utilise the sunshine to get the front crossmember derusted and painted so that I could refit it and allow the engine to go back in. I'll probably give the engine bay a quick coat of the car's original colour (Pearl White) before the engine actually goes in. It was then on to sorting the inner arches on the rear. I've been putting off doing this bit as it's an utterly shite job, lying on my back at an awkward angle getting covered in weld and not being able to see much. I started off with filling in the gap with cardboard to make templates. This got transferred to steel then welded in. Next up was to fill in the bottom of the arches where they meet the sills. For this I used the trusty duct tape method to mark the shapes. Transferred onto steel and cut out. And repairs done. The next job will be to do exactly the same on the other side, then the end of the welding really is within touching distance.

Does the TPS need to do a relearn procedure through some diagnostic software? I know on many cars when replacing anything to do with the throttle body a relearn is required.

Apparently I should shitpost more to make the pages less long. I therefore offer you, raccoon in a drawer.

Continuing my current theme of vehicles letting go of their juice. I don't know if it was in protest of never being washed but the lower rad hose decided enough was enough. That was easy enough to fix. I also did some upgrades. So from left to right, there's a facet style fuel pump, leading into a fuel-coolant heat exchanger from an Audi which is looped into the thermostat return line. The fuel passes through into a canister fuel filter off a land rover. This completely does away with the fiddly and leaky plastic XUD fuel filter housing and massively improves the efficiency of the fuel heating. I also refitted some clear line to the return to see what was going on. So, firstly, it starts much better on the veg with this setup. It's clear that the XUD plastic housing was still letting in air despite being sealed to within an inch of its life. There's still a little bit of surging on a cold start but it's significantly reduced. I did notice a small bit of air being expelled from the pump on a cold start so that's something to sort. It looks like while the pump is sitting overnight air is being drawn in somewhere. The next job is to redo the inlet and return fittings with new copper washers and see if it helps. I also did some work on the 240 which involved replacing all of the injector seals with genuine Volvo ones from the dealer, and replacing the intake manifold gasket for a proper one. This has completely solved the vacuum leaks (to my knowledge) but it's still running like an utter bag of shit. I'm pretty much certain I've eliminated fuelling and ignition so the next step may be to smoke test it.

Eleventy hundred out of ten. Thanks for a lovely weekend @Mrs6C @Six-cylinder

Mrs came along last year and was made welcome. She is looking forward to this one.

I just took the Delphi out of the van before I left 😑