mat_the_cat

Not one to rush a job I've made a start on the A pillars. I was right, there was more rust hidden!


But I've already bought the A pillars, which I initially thought would be all I needed. However the lower panel has also holed through in places, so will need to find one of those, or make up a repair strip from some angle section. 
I've cut out the worst of the rot now but am leaving the lower bit until I know what I can replace it with, as that will dictate where I cut. Also need to fix the welder before I can do anything!


At least it makes it easier to replace the aerial now!

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

I've finished off both pillars now, and cut away the rusty lower lip. Ahhhh.

The inner panel is in a similar state. I will have to rethink my plan, but reckon I'll have to cut out more of the front panel for access - which means it'll be more difficult to neatly weld in a length of standard angle section. However I can probably use that to weld in a functional repair to the hidden panel, and buy the proper repair panel for the visible outer repair.

I've finished off both pillars now, and cut away the rusty lower lip. Ahhhh.

The inner panel is in a similar state. I will have to rethink my plan, but reckon I'll have to cut out more of the front panel for access - which means it'll be more difficult to neatly weld in a length of standard angle section. However I can probably use that to weld in a functional repair to the hidden panel, and buy the proper repair panel for the visible outer repair.

Hyundai Stellar, Llan Ffestiniog, November.

 

Neither do I!

I have now come over sales ads for South American taxis 
What about a 905,000km Atos and a 890,000km Matiz?

 
920,000km Accent and 614,000km Clio

Link below to the cars
https://vehiculos.mercadolibre.com.co/otros/taxis/venta-de-taxis_OrderId_PRICE_NoIndex_True

This is the original fuel pump housing; as I mentioned earlier it has been modified so that the supply hose connects directly to the pump, although this means a tight bend leaving the housing.

The pre-filter had also been damaged (presumably when the housing had been previously taken apart) so although you can still buy the earlier bare pumps, we really needed the whole assembly which is no longer available.
At least not as a new part, but managed to find a reasonably priced used one, at £40 delivered. The filter was in great condition too, in fact the only downside was a slightly messy repair to the wiring where it enters the top of the housing.

It was easily fitted, and the hose routing is much improved.

After @Puglet has been using it for a few trips it's obvious there is a problem with the idle speed. When hot it will rev at around 3k rpm, unless you blip the throttle in which case the idle settles down to around 1k rpm. Which tends to rule out a permanent air leak.
What it seems to be is that the throttle butterfly is not closing fully, unless you cause it to snap shut by blipping it. I wonder whether the throttle position switch is stiff and holding it open slightly, or perhaps the spring is weaker than it should be. The throttle body is new though, so a fault seems unlikely...

I know I suggested recreating the photo, but this wasn't what I had in mind!

(On the way back from a Cars & Coffee meet, on only its second trip out!)

I previously said that the plan was to rebuild the supplied 1.9 axle, that was until a rebuilt one (with receipt) came up on eBay for half what it would have cost to do!

This was just the bare axle, so stuff like the caliper mounts were bolted on.

Then new bearings (integral with the hubs) and calipers.

You can actually buy brand new ones for little more than the price of a rebuild kit, but my experience with cheap calipers is that it's a false economy. Perishing rubber and unplated pistons meant they seized fairly quickly. Hopefully Febi calipers should be a little better, but time will tell. The rearmost brake hose brackets on the donor axle were beyond repair, but new still available.
Discs and pads were surprisingly cheap also, so duly fitted.

It's now ready for the dampers to be refitted, but I'm just cleaning them up and painting first. They appear in good order and are genuine Peugeot parts - I'm a bit wary of 'uprated' parts which swing the ride/handling compromise away from real-world usage.

The original axle now has a new wheel cylinder and the new handbrake cables adjusted, so as soon as it stops chucking it down it can be taken for a drive!

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

I've now trimmed the repair section for the other side. I'd wanted to have the joint on the curved section under the seal, both for neatness and also to minimise distortion. However on the passenger side I needed to cut out that little bit more, as the metal was quite thin.

I've also cleaned up both sides ready for welding; I've since painted with weld through primer but didn't get a photo.

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

I've now trimmed the repair section for the other side. I'd wanted to have the joint on the curved section under the seal, both for neatness and also to minimise distortion. However on the passenger side I needed to cut out that little bit more, as the metal was quite thin.

I've also cleaned up both sides ready for welding; I've since painted with weld through primer but didn't get a photo.

Primed and ready to weld in:

Ideally I'd have left the aerial off, but access is incredibly restricted behind - the original poked through from the back and was tightened from the outside, but all I can find to replace it need tightening from the rear. I'm hoping I can reach the back to tighten, but don't rate my chances of actually threading the nut on!
Then began the long process of welding it in, swapping sides regularly to allow to cool.

Driver's side is done...

...but I ran out of gas when the passenger side was almost complete

I didn't quite cut it perfectly at the bottom, so need to bridge the gap with weld.

I've now trimmed the repair section for the other side. I'd wanted to have the joint on the curved section under the seal, both for neatness and also to minimise distortion. However on the passenger side I needed to cut out that little bit more, as the metal was quite thin.

I've also cleaned up both sides ready for welding; I've since painted with weld through primer but didn't get a photo.

You'll have to wait for the sound video because I just did this.



The wiring on this was getting on my tits.  Had a lot of instances whereby things work but not quite all the time, or fuses randomly blowing.  The original factory wiring is shite. I have now ripped out EVERYTHING.
You can see on the right here that the back of the fuel gauge stands in as an unfused positive terminal for almost everything under the dash including the wiper motor, indicators, heater fan and who knows what else, held on by a piddly 6mm nut. That is going to change.

I present the main light switch. Again, unfused and permanently live, with the permanent live cut and twisted into the feed to the small footwell lights, from factory.

The big feed to the wiper switch. Again, some dodgy chaining of big positive wires going on here.

The circuits which are fused are run off a shitty engine bay fusebox which is riveted together, and the rivets are starting to come loose causing random dropouts. That and the small issue of continental/glass fuses being total shite and hard to come by when you need them most.
Solution : bin off the fusebox in the engine bay, and run everything off a pair of blade fuseboxes inside the footwell.

The fusebox on the left is the permanent live one, which will run the interior dome light, indicators / hazards, and headlamps.
The box on the right will be ignition switched, but I am also going to add a main ignition relay so that the ignition switch isn't constantly handling all of the current running through the entire car.  I know it's designed to take it, but the switch (and key!) can get very hot and I'm just waiting on the contacts burning out, especially if I decide to add any more load in the future.
The important thing is that everything is going to be fused, and that the fuses are going to be easier to replace when needed.
I seem to be doing this all off the top of my head, WCPGW.

I've now trimmed the repair section for the other side. I'd wanted to have the joint on the curved section under the seal, both for neatness and also to minimise distortion. However on the passenger side I needed to cut out that little bit more, as the metal was quite thin.

I've also cleaned up both sides ready for welding; I've since painted with weld through primer but didn't get a photo.

Big shout out to https://www.weldingdirect.co.uk/ who had a new control board on the shelf for a 10 year old Chinese welder, and only £26!


Back to the LT, and I cut back a bit more of the pillar which had been thinned by rust. It's very little extra work to weld in a larger section, compared with battling constantly blowing through. I didn't want to use the whole repair panel though.

Reason being to weld in the top it would be quite tricky welding in the roof gutter, and potentially difficult to seal well again afterwards. So I wasted most of the panel and just cut out what I needed. 

Unfortunately I had to leave it there as despite wearing goggles I got something in my eye, so writing this post from hospital. 
 

Not one to rush a job I've made a start on the A pillars. I was right, there was more rust hidden!


But I've already bought the A pillars, which I initially thought would be all I needed. However the lower panel has also holed through in places, so will need to find one of those, or make up a repair strip from some angle section. 
I've cut out the worst of the rot now but am leaving the lower bit until I know what I can replace it with, as that will dictate where I cut. Also need to fix the welder before I can do anything!


At least it makes it easier to replace the aerial now!

Big shout out to https://www.weldingdirect.co.uk/ who had a new control board on the shelf for a 10 year old Chinese welder, and only £26!


Back to the LT, and I cut back a bit more of the pillar which had been thinned by rust. It's very little extra work to weld in a larger section, compared with battling constantly blowing through. I didn't want to use the whole repair panel though.

Reason being to weld in the top it would be quite tricky welding in the roof gutter, and potentially difficult to seal well again afterwards. So I wasted most of the panel and just cut out what I needed. 

Unfortunately I had to leave it there as despite wearing goggles I got something in my eye, so writing this post from hospital. 
 

I've now trimmed the repair section for the other side. I'd wanted to have the joint on the curved section under the seal, both for neatness and also to minimise distortion. However on the passenger side I needed to cut out that little bit more, as the metal was quite thin.

I've also cleaned up both sides ready for welding; I've since painted with weld through primer but didn't get a photo.