purplebargeken

Landing at Crewe at 17.17hrs.
Poo count nil. Fall count 1
Weather is a little cloudy but still nice.
The female see it, say it announcer has a pleasant, light Welsh tint to her accent.
Nothing else to report.
Chester train station is a bit rubbish.

On the last leg of the collection journey. Just left Chester.
Poo count remains at zero. Wee count zero.
Fall count 1
Weather remains pleasant and Spring like. Nice.
Refreshment status: hydrated via Oasis Citrus Punch. Very refreshing.
Passenger cheerfulness rating a disappointing 5/10. Miserable bastards.

On the train to Chester, ticket office closed… please obtain tickets at your destination, hmmm.
Started well, tripped stepping up a bloody kerb and fell ffs. Oww.
Poo count nil. No idea what flavour the pully bit of the train is. Weather report… sunny!

I need bits! Whole cars too if I like the spec/colour

Well, it’s scheduled to commence at about 4pm today…..
No idea what model of locomotive will occur. Poo count likely to be minimal.
Found a breaker of Loopoo cars in Crewe if needed at any point for bits.
Hope it passes the large feet/pedals interaction test…

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

Try ceoemail.com. I’ve used it for several companies when customer (non) service have been useless. I’d assume CEOs do not want to deal with such matters and are pissed off to receive  such emails and someone further down the  food chain get a rocket.
Usually works well but I’ve never used Virgin .

Trying to get hold of a useful person at virgin media is nigh on impossible. Useless twats.

Well, it’s scheduled to commence at about 4pm today…..
No idea what model of locomotive will occur. Poo count likely to be minimal.
Found a breaker of Loopoo cars in Crewe if needed at any point for bits.
Hope it passes the large feet/pedals interaction test…

Let’s face it. We (this forum) are a minority. Most people aren’t that interested in cars other than the convenience of getting from A to B (or B&Q), without going via C and D  and smelling other people’s BO.
They prefer internet connectivity to handling  and cup holders to performance. 
Brand snobs are even worse. They pretend they know about cars but they wouldn’t know a 118d from an M3, all they know is their BMW is better (I.e more expensive) than your Ford.

This evening I had a few hours to put these new rear pads in. 
Apart from the E320, pretty much every car I've bought in the last year has its rear or front end in the air soon after I've bought it. 🤣

 
This is the offending side.


There certainly isn't much meat left on this pad! (More in a moment)

 
Slider pins are covered in white grease. Now I'm never sure if you should grease these pins? I thought you did but I have read that BMW say not to.

Pulled it all off and inspected it all.
Disc looked reasonable. It's had some heat through it but no massive scoring that I could see.

Slider pins were covered in grease. The bottom one I'd already started cleaning up (then remembered to take a photo) hence why it has less on it in this picture.

Piston doesn't look too bad under the boot from what I can see?

Carrier was crusty and filthy. I cleaned this up and greased the pad touch points. 

Piston went in but did take a fair bit of force with the spreader.

Now those pads...
Bottom is the inner and top is the outer.

I don't know what the pros think but my view is that I bloody luckily got away with not damaging the disc! There is a wafer thin amount of pad material left and the top just started kissing the raised lip of the disc.


I reckon the disc will be perfectly okay to reuse and isn't damaged? Incredibly close to doing so though.
I'd rather not change it if I don't have to, as they're not that old. Doesn't feel to have any high or low spots either.
Bloody lucky though!
The other side has loads of meat on the pads still. I didn't take pictures as I wanted to get it finished. The caliper piston and carrier were actually in far worse a state than the passenger side. Yet it span more freely. 🤷‍♂️

I put it all back together with new pads, cleaned up sliders and carrier. After pressing the brake pedal, the drivers side rear rubs ever so slightly but you get a tiny bit of spin after letting go. The passenger side however is really stiff and you need the wheel on for enough leverage to turn it. 
To me I definitely need a new passenger rear caliper. But tbh I think I might need both and be done with it. My thought is also that the drivers side might either be or become soon seized if the other side already has. 
I should also say while I think about it, I did try some hard braking on the way back. It didn't brake straight and true. More squirrelly and needed a fair bit of correction to keep it braking straight. Hopefully two new rear calipers will sort it all out properly.
Also noticed the passenger side has an older (rusty) Bilsten damper while the drivers side had a shinier newer looking Sachs damper. Tempting to lob a new one on that passenger side to have a matching new(ish) pair. Depends how much they are though.

I was expecting the earlier cars to have been mostly mini but after offering a caliper up found this not to be. 
Also noted the brake hoses are like this at the front and looking like originals at the back. I think mini at the rear will do and ive got some for another bit of BL tat which should work but just a smidge longer, while complete Ado16 set are avalible on ebay the 50 quid price had me hunting for alternatives via work coming in around half that. 

Steady now. 
Today see the last (for now) of dicking with the exhaust. The mount picks up on two existing bung holes. A simple bit of box section with an exhaust clamp  zapped to it. I want to weld the sleeve to the front section of exhaust to loose that clamp as its persistant on leaking. No exhaust paste used on anything yet untill i a few miles proves its working.  May try and make the gap between the hydo lines and the exhaust larger too. 

Time to get a few miles under its belt then. *Turns wheel while cars on lift* Ohh is that a stuck caliper? Guess im going to be visiting minspares again for brakes.
Ohh what the fuck is this design all about.

The swinging caliper design it seems of which EBC are the only people that make the correct wedge pads at £57 and Bigg Red  make a rebuild kit for £60, ouch.

For now tho. Slung back together while i wait for all the brake parts to arrive as im bored of this thing being on the lift.
 
 

Little more progress 
The part i was dreading, getting the pissing down pipe section on on my own with nobody to hold the pipe up and assemble the clamp.  After droping the  thing or a nut about 40 times i welded the bolts into the clamp. Rather than keep fucking about. Straight on now. I grease the flange as recommended online it can swivel a bit .

Welded on a tab to pick up on the engine support. Just g clamped for now untill ive run the car and know its not blowing from the joint. 

Stub of pipe welding into the flexi, the onto the car and sleeve clamped up. 

Next time ill weld on some support mounts and ill call that done. 
 
Polybush because racecar. 

 
 

Old shite new trick. 
A quick google suggests any A series with this down to manifold flange style struggles to seal. And if it does seal after a while it will blow again as there is no flex to exhaust appart from bending it. 
With new mounts and beefed up stab bar bushes id guess we would probably be okay for longer if i could get it to seal. However the part on the exhaust came in at the wrong angle in my eyes. And was barely sealing one side. Maybe tweaked from the engine moving about alot before.  So bollocks im cutting it. Choppy choppy. 
A snip on the down pipe part and i bolted the flange up as inline as possible. I then cut the first curve off and tweaked that a bit so its pointing in a direction i was happy with. 
As far as im concerned the exhaust would benifit from being isolated from the engine like a more modern motor so having found just one seller on ebay i ordered the smallest flexi ive ever seen at 32mm ID. Also a sleeve so i can make the single piece exhaust into two, so its not a massive arse to move about when fitting. 

It would probably be fine as is but some Additional brackets and mounts will be welded on to the front part of the rear section to  support the exhaust so the flexi isnt under a downward load 
Im told the new exhausts fit well but given this so far has cost only 40 quid in parts and the new systems are very pricey, im Hopeful this will be a reliable cure to a common problem, but we will see. 
 

On that steering dead spot on my one I though I fixed it or at least helped it by lubing the the UJ that goes from the steering column into the rack.. It's right next to the exhaust manifold under the heat shield and it gets roasted. 
 

Went to a local cars and coffee this morning. Some extremely nice tin on show - I'll put some photos up later. 
Anyway I glanced at that rear left.

Err yeah I've smoked that. Other side has a reasonable chunk of pads left on it. Absolutely baking hot that side but cool the other.
I can't get a caliper today from GSF, Euros or my local parts place. So I bought some cheap pads and I'll give the caliper piston/sliders a clean up and hope I can get away with it.
Cheapest pads I could buy too. Discs will stay on for now as even though they have obviously got very hot, there is a lot of meat left on them. I'll have a check for warpage but I don't think they're bad going on that it's not an intermittent scrape. Hopefully I haven't quite fully had metal to metal yet. 

 
If a clean up and new pads doesn't work then I'll have to get in a new caliper. I don't think they're expensive for an eBay special. GSF didn't have any even listed unfortunately. 
 
Hopefully I can get it sorted today so I can at least use it in this nice weather. Steering is 100% okay too. So must be when the rack gets hot on a long drive. Not checked the tyre pressures yet - just driven the thing. 

Usually very good but not gone for about 4 years though, khan tax may apply, be careful.

Train from Lime Street to London on Xmas eve many years ago. Had a reserved seat in cattle class. Boarded the train, some cunt is in my seat. Train rammed. Spoke to conductor person who basically said tough, they may get off at Crew. People sat in the space between carriages. Bollocks to that. 
Sat in 1st class as only one person there. Conductor comes over, all indignant and says you can’t sit in here, people have paid extra.  I slowly looked around and said, don’t you mean person? I also paid for a seat but it isn’t available, so I’m staying here. Tough.  She went away stuttering and sputtering and I journeyed all the way to London in my 1st class seat.