Surface Rust

Thanks, sort of what I imagined and none of that makes me want one any less! 
I suppose I'm a little disappointed you don't hate it and were looking to move it on...
 

The first thing that struck me and I’m sure it would anyone is now far away the front of the car is when you’re behind the wheel, I feel like I need a pair of long distance glasses to see the Silver lady 😆 in terms of driving, don’t get me wrong I love it but the engine doesn’t feel as torquey as I was expecting, the Pontiac had buckets more torque and pulled away from the line with a lot more eagerness, obviously I’m not expecting it to pull like a sports car but for a 6.75 ltr v8 to be slower off the line than a 1980s American MPV is a little disappointing, again it doesn’t really bother me as I’m never going to gun it at a set of lights or what have you anyway but it’d still be nice to have that extra power in reserve if that makes sense? The only way to describe how vague the steering is is to compare it to the poll position arcade machine or similar extremely light 80s driving games, it almost doesn’t feel connected to the wheels and the light steering can easily catch you out in corners if you aren’t prepared, comfort is honestly unmatched, it just wafts down the road like nothing else of the period, the only big saloon I had of a similar period was my Peugeot 404 and that almost feels like driving a piece of wood compared to this, truly amazing. Brakes leave a lot to be desired, they aren’t great but I put that down to them needing work over them just being bad

I'll take that!  
Tester was actually very complimentary of the state of the car underneath.  

Some quick pics of the Shad as promised, Mr WC already wants to take it out in Convoy with the Guy Arab when that’s back on the road so expect some Rolls and Bus action soon, I also took it to work this morning and managed to attract a crowd almost instantly mainly from my colleagues who were probably wondering if the CEO of First Bus had just showed up for a random Audit 😆
I’d like to give it a really good wash and detail very soon as it got absolutely filthy from the drive home yesterday 

All through the eighties, nineties and noughties my dad used to average 30k miles a year for work. He used to change cars every 2 years roughly and used to try oddball choices for a bit of variety, interspersed with the typical sierras and cavaliers.
He still maintains that the best car he ever had was a Sigma, a dark metallic blue estate with gunmetal grey alloys. It had the same 12v 3.0 V6 and. I remember it fondly too, and am very jealous of yours!
If I'd been at Rustival I would have been all over it!

I left the paint to dry overnight and this morning.
I removed the masking tape and broadsheet to reveal sweet looking bumpers.


The front grille looks sweet too.
Next issue, sort out the sun burned bumper trims.

I have a plan and Amazon have delivered the solution but unfortunately I ran out of time this afternoon to make further progress.
Definitely more soon.
 
 
 

Existing in the land where sausage is square, hangover cures are bright orange and it mostly rains, exciting times come in many forms. 
I have signed up to my first navigation rally. 

What is that I hear you ask ... 
Well it is literally a rally (so driving cars, no placards here) where the focus is on the navigation (reading a map, like a paper TomTom.... You know like Waze.... No you can't ask siri) 
 

Open to all. 

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.

@EspenO was right on the money.
I borrowed my wife's floor steam cleaner, which has a small brush adaptor that is just right for cleaning Sierra wheel arch liners.

Great tool. No noise, no mess, just steam that goes straight onto the desired surface. I could see brown water dripping down the liners, the steam managed to remove 95% of dirt.

The liners were clean but not shiny enough for me, so I gave them a wipe over with a tiny bit of this stuff.

The results speak for themselves.




I can relax now, knowing that when I drive the Sierra down the road, the wheel arch liners that are hidden behind the wheels, which no one will see, are now nice and clean.
The rear bumper is fucked. The greyish blueish paint coatings are peeling, it has numerous scratches and two vertical cracks in-line with the number plate lights. Some of the scratches are very deep.





I rubbed the heavily scratched areas with 120 grade paper, in a circular motion, which got rid off the worst imperfections. I prepared and cleaned the bumper and masked it off. 

And gave it a coat of primer.

The front bumper is in better condition but it is far from perfect.



The bumpers are not black and I have acquired an aerosol can of gloss black. On the basis that I have to fix the rear bumper, consequently I also have to do the front one.
I cleaned the front bumper and masked it off. The top section of the bumper is black and mostly ok so it will not be re-sprayed.

And gave it a coat of primer.

I will leave the primer to dry overnight and spray the bumpers black in the morning.
The chrome* strips in the bumpers are weathered, especially the front one. I have a cunning plan how to sort them out.
I had a two minute break for a cuppa and chocolate croissant.

The front grille was chipped and  cracked.

I filled the chip and crack with chemical metal.

Rubbed it down.

And gave it a squirt of primer.

I will spray it black in the morning.
A few minor cosmetic jobs aside, the Sierra is ready to hit the road. However, I still have tomorrow and another four man days (two weekends) to do a few more jobs before the maiden voyage scheduled for the 1st April. I want to clean and spray the front suspension components, clean and re-paint the engine sump and spend a bit more time touching up the brush painted areas. 
More tomorrow.
 

Congrats to @grogee for guessing correctly.
Meet my latest financial burden. 1988 Mitsubishi Colt GLX 1500.

Fiat Uno

So, onto today's activities then.
First off, I lopped off the rotten upper section of the reinforcing bracket between the inner wing and chassis leg. New on was measured up and filed down a bit to make it match.

Got the welder set up and cracked on -

Ground the welds back and it looked pretty okay after that.

With that done, the repair sections were given a coating of weld through primer:

And the first panel clamped in place.

This one turned out to be a bit of a faff as there were loads of curves that I wasn't immediately aware of, but the hammer got everything in the right place for the welding to happen. Ground down, it even looked all right.

With that done, it was onto the next section.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a proper pain in the arse as my CO2 bottle ran out at 9pm. Not a problem as I had an Argon/CO2 bottle that I used for a couple of minutes in the cupboard.
What an arseache that ended up being. Not sure if it was the gas making a difference, but the welds weren't going down right and I was blowing holes every other time.

Aaaaand annoyingly, the replacement bottle ran out, less than five minutes into the job so I called it a night after grinding down what I could. Looking forward to moving on from the welding!
Cheers.

Welcome back!
If you can read this then the migration is done and you're on the new server. The search is currently rebuilding, so you may find that doesn't work quite right. Usually that takes a day to complete. Please let me know if anything isn't working properly or anything appears missing (especially email notifications for hotmail/icloud users). 
A fresh backup is currently running which will drive the server quite hard. That'll take a few hours. Hopefully by tomorrow everything will have settled down and be up to full performance.
For the most part, everything should be pretty much identical. It'll be a success if it is.
Thank you for your patience!

TL;DR the site will go for some major maintenance this coming Friday afternoon/evening. I’ll figure exact times closer to the point. Expect a few hours downtime when this is all going on.
The current server setup has been online for nearly half a decade and in computing world, that’s an actual lifetime. It has had a good innings but it’s coming to end of life.
Not only is the server operating system getting close to not being no longer receiving security updates (end of June 2024 is the cut off) but the underlying server hardware is pretty old technology now. I suspect the hosting provider has chocked that server full of other clients and hammering it hard too. Both reasons are very likely why things seem to go really slow at times and you may on occasions get that very frustrating 502 Bad Gateway errors when trying to access parts of the site. This occurs when the site takes too long to generate a page and times out (around 30 seconds). 
Ultimately, we need to migrate to a new server and do it soon. Hopefully it will eliminate those errors. Of course I can’t guarantee for certain those errors will completely go away but I fully expect them to. Likewise, its important we move to continue getting the latest security updates to keep the site stable and secure.
To use an analogy, previous recent updates have been the oil and tyre changes on the bus. This is basically a whole new bus where the branding/customisations need to be reapplied.
A few months ago in the background, I have built up and started testing a new server enviroment. Some may have seen the previous announcement a few months ago about the testing site at https://autoshitetesting.co.uk - thanks everyone who checked out and gave it a poke. The server that this site is on will become the new server the forum will live on (will still stay as autoshite.com when fully live). This is the latest version of our Server Operating System (Debian) and should give us security support till the end of June 2028. The hardware is the latest technology in CPU, memory and disks. These all should offer multiple times the performance of the existing server setup. I’ve jigged things around so hopefully it will keep it to around the same monthly hosting cost despite the increase in performance.
It’ll take a good few hours to copy all the data from the old to the new and then make the switch. I don’t expect any major hiccups but there maybe a few kinks that may need ironing out once live too. I’m hoping that most machines should pickup the new server IP address automagically and we won’t lose anyone along the way. I’ll try putting up a site somewhere else that we can still provide support if things go wrong (probably https://autoshitetest.co.uk). So note that down now.
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and have had everything roughly in-place, but I’ve needed to find time to finish this off and go live. Life has been busy for me recently and I’ve needed to find a good slot. Not just a few hours but possibly a day or two if things go really awry. I certainly don't expect any issues (otherwise I wouldn't be kicking this off!) but I need to budget contingency as its a major switch with a few unknowns.
The aim is for possibly Friday afternoon/evening to kick this off. I can’t say exact times yet but hopefully can say closer to the time.
I like being on here as much as many of you do and this work is needed to keep this forum all hunky-dory.
I'll leave this thread unlocked for now if anyone has any questions or concerns on this.

I can see the local headlines now:
'HUGE DROP IN SALE OF THE WEE CARS AT ST. GEORGES, THOUSANDS JOBLESS'
'It was like the Mary Celeste' said Frances as she packed away antique toy cars which remained unsold at just five pounds each.
'No difference to my trade, haven't sold any of them wee cars in a year', Alan of Alan's Emporium.
'That bugger said he'd have the beige Oxford Maestro I got in special, now I dont know what to do with it', Mulligans Irish Gifts.
'HAHAHAHAHAHA'. Nemesis, Fitzroy Avenue.
 

If a ham fisted idiot like me can do a head gasket on a DOHC engine (Saab 900), then anyone can.
Just be methodical. It'll give you a great sense of achievement, after THE FEAR has long since vanished.

I hadn't done any welding in a while so spent a few hours over the last couple of days welding this Lada.


 
Outer sill was very frilly and inner sill wasn't much better. I rebuilt the inner sill then welded on a new outer I'd purchased last year.

 
After that I finished some bits around the b-pillar and around the rear arch.

 
I trial fitted some wheels but can't decide whether to fit them to this or the other Lada.
 

 
The other Lada is already lowered so might pull off the wheels better.
 

If a ham fisted idiot like me can do a head gasket on a DOHC engine (Saab 900), then anyone can.
Just be methodical. It'll give you a great sense of achievement, after THE FEAR has long since vanished.

Oh forgot to add the Lancias in question.

Hi Shiters,
In a rare fit of practicality I sold my old Merc 190e (I know, I know) back in September due to an impending house move/renovation which demanded a more suitable day-to-day tip run/DIY fetching and carrying type of thing.
Something that did a few more empeegees and had a hatch with folding seats was the criteria so something along the lines of a battered old estate car was on the list...
Obviously, with me being a serial Italophile as well as being a serial Merc licker I saw this wee Panda for sale and snapped it up (it fits some of the wishlist at least)
I've always admired Pandas for some bizarre reason - I think it's their lack of pretence at being anything other than a cheapy little runabout.
So, what do I think of it I hear you all ask? Well, it's super cheap to run while I'm spending lots of hard earned on house shite. It likes to be ragged around and it really annoys commuters in their sales rep specials if you dare to overtake them. It goes pretty well for a little fella - it's the later 1.2 VVT engine so it boasts a mighty 69bhp!
I don't mind that it's silver - my old Lancia Delta was silver so it takes me back. The interior is a bit like sitting in a coal mine but there's lots of glass so it's not gloomy.
So far it's had a cambelt/waterpump change at a local* Italian specialist - this was actually an excuse to go and drool over some Lancia porn
Things that need doing - a new foglight at the offside one is discoloured and then a basic service in a few weeks time.
Anyway, here it is...

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.

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.

The Corvette is one I distinctly remember, it came in a set I had once for Xmas, long gone now unfortunately. At the time I was sourcing everything from the car boots, new 1-75 seemed thin on the ground, I think my mums line was that you could get 5 of them at a jumble sale for the cost of one new one. I don’t know if a lot of you were the same as a kid but I always looked for the usual cars in the street so these were an unusual departure for me! 
 
I remember I’d always have a favourite’ one that I’d have, Rover SD1, Cortina 1.6, Porsche 959 spring to mind. I’d always play the same game if you like, I’d line up all the broken ones as a scrapyard (I was fixated with dereliction and scrapyards) as a kid. My mum was confused as to why I always wanted to keep the broken ones instead of binning them.
 
Thinking back that was a really content time, a Saturday afternoon playing at scrapyards on the rug in front of the gas fire watching ‘Hollywoods Greatest Stunts’ or the A Team. Just a Lion bar for company but it was escapism that as an adult for some reason you cannot fully achieve. There’s always some other shit floating around in your head like work or jobs that need doing, so you aren’t ever fully free. I think that’s why I like collecting diecast, it’s as close as you’ll get to those hassle free days as a kid. 

I'm now basically an undercover FBI agent....




roof mounted for attending  shows and chasing bad guys, dash mounted for everyday waftage.
Not the right style of light, they have been out of stock for ages, so got this cheap Chinese strobe light in the meantime