500tops

It's easy to forget quite how good looking the early Disco was

Collection of the new toy has not yet happened sadly, as I came down with Covid a couple of weeks back and I tested positive full the full 10 days frustratingly. Seeing as I had to keep myself away from other humans for a bit it seemed like a good opportunity to do some project car procrastination work.
I've had a change of heart with the recently acquired shed of a BX that I picked up for parts, and I've decided that it should be given a second chance to live on. This was largely down to two reasons: firstly, there isn't really anything on that is useful for my other BX. Secondly, when I finally managed to get it start I discovered through sheer belligerence that the gearbox will in fact engage reverse, the  Phase one of it's second life will involve getting it running properly and tracking down all the mechanical niggles, and as I tend to do a lot of odd jobs up at my parents' house it will get used for running round their land during this period. Phase 2 will be to replace the windscreen, which will be useful experience for when I have to undertake this job on the Prelude. Phase 3 will be welding, which will be quite some undertaking and is unlikely to happen this year but may be a job for next summer. The end goal for the car is to get it roadworthy at some point in the next couple of years, whilst at least keeping it running and getting a bit of enjoyment out of it in the meantime.  In the spirit of this car being an absolute shitter, I will be trying to keep costs down to a minimum on this one so expect some ingenuity*.
First job then, best chuck some fuel in from the big jerry can purposefully kept there for the cars that can't make the trip to the local pumps. After seeing that rear quarter, imagine my surprise to open the fuel flap and find that the filler mounting panel wasn't completely borked.


Next job on the list then was the noise... I managed to track down a back box and rear section for under £60 delivered which I thought was a result. Fitting it was fun, as the car refused to start that day and so jacking it up was an experience (you will see the absolute state the sills are in further down). As it was sat with the suspension fully lowered it took two jacks on the first side, one to lift the frame rail near the rear axle to get the sill high enough up, all the while with the car feeling like it was at risk of snapping in two. I was not risking axle stands, and the positioning of the jack meant that the wheel ramps had to go in backwards. Shiny new stuff ready to go on:

I discovered that the rear section hanger had fallen off the car, the previous owner had replaced it with a cable tie which I added to - I will weld a proper hanger on at some point, but in the interim it's not a major problem.

Much better

The back section is off a saloon, so I will need to cut and extend the tip at some point for aesthetics, but with the cable tie bodgery the back box is sat a little further back than normal so a proper adjustment will need to wait until the crustyness is addressed. For now at least the car won't scare the horses as much.

I didn't fancy jacking the car up a second time to get it down off the ramps, so I persisted with trying to start her. Eventually she fired up, and I just had to address the wrong way round wheel ramps. Some pallets and a bit of stunt driving was in order.

Unscathed from the death defying jump, I moved on to 'fixing' the torn in half air hose.


Beautiful. Opening the filter housing to perform this repair* revealed that the previous owner had decided to omit an air filter. I also noticed that the fuel filter was looking a bit past its best, and the fuel hoses attached to it were pretty ropey.


Euro Car Parts had an air filter for £1, an offer I couldn't resist. Whilst there I grabbed a fuel filter for £9. Out of necessity I then raided Halfords for their finest fuel hose. A quick search of the garage later for clamps and we were good to go.

Much better:

I did later find the original air filter. It turns out it hadn't been tossed; it had just been relocated to the boot for some reason, then squashed for good measure...
Filtration sorted, I finally twigged that the random air feed at the side of the engine wasn't connected to anything, so I fitted it back to the warm air feed where it should live.

Firing up the car and leaving it running for a bit showed that the flap inside does draw warm air when cold and cold air when warm which is positive. The cold air feed is missing though, and I didn't have any suitable ducting at hand so that's a small job for another day.
The offside rear door was another niggle on the car - the lock was jammed and you couldn't open the door from outside or inside. Some gentle* persuasion on the handle and lock pin eventually led to it giving in and locking fully, which then allowed me to unlock it. Opening this door was like opening Pandora's box sadly

Nice. File that under 'I'll do it some other time' then.
LHM was next up, as the dash warning light was constantly illuminated and the level was low. Luckily the car come with 2 bottles of LHM rolling round the footwells, so I raised the suspension to the wheel change height and topped her up. Behold! warning lights gone:

I found it best to ignore the seemingly faulty fuel gauge and oil pressure gauge, and instead I set the digital clock  for a low effort win. To offset this, cosmic balance was restored by the LHM warning lamp illuminating again.
My intention for the next day was to clean the car in order to get it to a point where I didn't feel like touching it could make me ill. First though, to celebrate the fact that the car now reliably started each time I wanted it to run, I went for a short drive round the fields. The dog joined me in the celebrations.

Cocking around completed, I thought it best to take some before pics of the grottyness.




Then the fun stuff

I got to use this thing in anger for the first time, I'm not sure how much it cleans but it makes you feel like you're doing something helpful at least:

And here she is somewhat cleaner for my efforts:


I got cocky and washed the engine bay too.

Whilst I've gotten away with this on countless cars over the years, the tired starter motor on the BX has since given up. I'm going to give it a bash tonight to see if it comes back to life once dry, but the solenoid was already a bit iffy so I suspect I may have to repair or replace the starter now. On the plus side, at least I won't get my hands too dirty now!
I didn't want to end on a downer, so with the light fading I found a small job to do. The bonnet release wasn't working, and the secondary catch pull is also missing. So if the bonnet gets shut past the secondary catch, you have to do a contortionist act to get back in. A quick look at how the mechanism worked revealed that the bowden cable should probably be seated in the arm. I removed the latch, undid the cable adjuster, tightened it up, then refitted it... I shut the bonnet, and then I can't tell you how satisfying it was when the bonnet release handle popped the bonnet effortlessly. Sometimes it's the little things in life I guess.


Next up was the secondary latch. The addition of a cable tie looped through the spring on the rear produced something half useful.


So that's where I'm at with this thing now. I'd like to use it for some of the work I need to do up at my parent's over the net few weeks, so the priority now is to get the starter motor repaired/replaced. I'd also like to fit this which I've had in the garage for some time, as currently the car is radio-less and I feel like it would fit in nicely:

It's made some nice light relief from the other projects whilst I've been a bit under the weather, and I have to say I'm getting a little bit attached to this old thing the more time I spend with it. It's a long, long way off, but maybe one day she will see the road again.

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/fiat-126-boxer-motor-voll-restauriert-steyr-puch-replika/2001848240-216-4871
Was converted to a Citroen Visa boxer engine with 35 hp and electronic ignition.
 

https://df.olx.com.br/distrito-federal-e-regiao/autos-e-pecas/carros-vans-e-utilitarios/opala-diplomata-85-6cil-1009732007
 

"has no registration" so I think you're right about the latter, which is a shame.

Two and a half months and going on 3000 miles after I bought it I finally gave the Caddy a halfway decent wash today.



Which is almost unheard-of for me as it's usually about the first thing that gets done.
Definitely wish I'd bought this about 15 years sooner.

Aside from the power available, just having a hose that's long enough so that you don't need to move the base unit at all once it's set up saves so much hassle.  Onboard detergent tank is a nice feature to have too.
I don't think the door shuts etc on the Caddy had ever been cleaned since it left the factory.  I'll still need to go over the areas like this better but it's an improvement.



I did find a used intake throttle assembly for £30 delivered, so we'll try that first.  If it doesn't change things at all we might need to do a bit more detective work.
Getting some paint on the front bumper and the wheels is high on the to do list too.
Fun fact: Yes, you absolutely do need a small step ladder or similar to reach the roof on the Caddy.  It's taller than it looks!
I am glad to report though that having blasted the substantial amounts of moss and general slime out of the seal between the windscreen pillar and the door closure that the annoying whistle from that corner at speed is now gone.
Wish I'd done that *before* driving to Glasgow and back...

Can't remember the last time I saw one of these that wasn't horrendously rusty - this was only a bit rusty.


 

One of our neighbours was I a right flap earlier having topped up the engine oil on his old heap Nissan and forgetting to put the filler cap back before driving it and losing it.
Being Sunday a replacement cap couldn’t be sourced and he needs to drive to Portsmouth this evening, I fashioned this bodge using a cork jar lid and a few cable ties, it works!

https://www.olx.ro/d/oferta/dacia-500-lastun-IDfFQzZ.html
 

As this got so much interest on the News 24 thread i thought I'd start it's own one.
During the week a friend of mine messaged me to ask if i knew if anyone in our car club was interested in a Mk1 Astra, he had meet them at Morrisons whilst in his 1940's Austin and they told him about the car that they had since new in the garage but due to old age and poor health it had to go, naturally i jumped at the chance even though i needed another car to a hole in the head.
I popped round and meet them yesterday and learnt the story behind it, whilst staying in a hotel called the Albemarle Hotel in Scarborough in 1982 the receptionist asked if he fancied entering a competition to win a Vauxhall Astra, he filled it in, had a lovely family holiday and forgot all about it. 3 weeks later he gets a call telling him that he had won, he couldn't even remember entering! So they drove back to Scarborough from Ipswich again to collect their prize.

He said the photo was in the Scarborough newspaper and the Ipswich Evening Star, he was so proud that he felt he couldn't ever sell it! Just lovely, obviously i took this opportunity to recreate this photo today!

Such a lovely family, the car hasn't ran for a few years so the battery was flat but my small jump pack and some easy start soon got it firing into life, out of the garage and onto dad's trailer.


It was at this point that it dropped it's water contents! this was the first time i'd seen the car outside and i had already paid for it and if I'm honest i was a little disappointed as the paintwork is a little patchy, i think it's had new wings and the colour match is piss poor and its had some arch repairs that aren't particularly painted well, but for a 40 year old Astra i probably should have expected that.


To be fair it's pretty good really, we found the reason that it lost it's water was because the stat was solid with crystallised anti freeze and so was the water pump so I'll get them replaced.

Shame about the zebartted engine bay but that's what has saved the car. It's only done 53000 miles, only 10000 of them was in the last 22 years!

The interior is really good apart from the dash trim that's popped out, unfortunately the radio doesn't work and the aerial needs fitting but that's no biggy.


and the very rare saloon boot!

It's still around, and still beautiful. 

A 12c in a tree 😂

https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/2133070113.htm
Visa West End
 

Wow, haven’t seen a pair of bar-ends like that for a while!

They're 13", Tim
 
 
 

It was either here or cars in colour thread.  

One year on and I've made some progress, even though life got in the way a bit!
 
There was quite a lot of rot in the chassis, I realised it would take me ages to sort it myself, so I dropped it to my friendly local welder/fabricator, who replaced fairly large sections of chassis rail, made a new rear crossmember, and also modified a pair of late Series 3 Landy axles to fit my leaf springs, as the Volvo axles are incredibly hard to get parts for, and had the wrong gearing for what I wanted.
 
The reason I wanted some longer gearing was because I had also pickup up this 2003 Octavia TDI donor car, to get its engine. It's an ASV, so a 110bhp with the Bosch pump. I originally wanted the VW 5 pot that Volvo used in the 850/V70, but didn't really want or need the extra bulk of it. The 4 pot should be simpler to setup too. My current plan is to stick with the ECU as a fly by wire throttle would be handy in this, and a manual setup is never quite perfect.



Whilst I've been getting the engine ready (flywheel and adaptor plate from Sweden, removing ancillaries that I don't need) I've also been cutting the extensive rot out of the cab. There's a lot! Most of it is now out, so I need to get good at fabricating new footwells etc. before it can go back together with new body mounts.

I've also managed to get an original back panel for the cab, from the owner of a pickup in the Netherlands, who was enlarging his cab and making his own new panel, so that's a big help!

The ads worth a read, as he seems like a nutter.
 
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165363690991?hash=item268071adef:g:brwAAOSwNLhiH3e1