Tales of eccentrism motoring 2012 onwards ,rag tag engineering

[cort16]

"dont try taping bin bags to safety glass's" isn't something you hear every day unfortunately. Top work.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Whats this 'waxa' business all about

[Jim Bell]

Rover 100 nds moar vvc.

[vulgalour]

Top chodding, as always, particularly on the Proton front.  I keep tentatively looking at the wedge Protons for sale but they seem to be getting pretty thin on the ground now.  Not that I need one like, but I do like the look of them.

[michael t]

I missed this thread first time around, it's simply superb, love the Proton and the bin-bag safety glasses and the off cut wood and jack device

[beko1987]

I want a J reg proton now!

[Jikovron]

Live action dead beam axle fettling today! we went out the excellent wife, baby and i to a stereotypicaly bleak car boot sale and i noted from my back seat position slighly odd feel from the trailing arms over the badly kept access trails to the field as if the rear dampers had become devoid of oil and the bushes had become well past the best before trifles .

a quick investigation showed major fail and a slow bump avoidance drive back .

 

jacked and ready:

 

So today is brake lines disconnect,exhaust off, dampers off and mounts,weld,,then reverse of former ,,motivation is weak haha 

[Jim Bell]

A well spent Sunday. Good works.

[Jikovron]

Normally id be all over thus but food is needed thus this is a situation of choice between wasting time eating,,or wasting time messing about with the last working car out of 5 or so vehiculars

 

wishing you were here update: axle is off and the only casualties are one snapped exhaust hanging bolt and a handbrake cable circlip also denting the sense of achievement, nothing fought back with much gusto so i overcompensated with the preemptive muscle tensing only for it to undo straightaway

 

[tooSavvy]

MOT view on 'stick tickling' a suspension arm ¿

 

 

TS

[Jikovron]

i'd have binned the axle and purchased another but for the NLA nature of it in the dealer and also second hand items being equal

 

it shouldnt be so dire, the weld is plenty strong and it is afterall a pressed steel fabrication to begin with

 

[tooSavvy]

Topp $hiteing then

 

Wayyy back in the day, I had plates welded under the outer ends of IMP front wishbones.. just bolt everything in place and run around the edge of plate. MOT 'glue on sills' not an issue them days.

 

IMPers today have to get the repair plate 'let it/invisible welded' or its a fail... W.T.F.

 

 

TS

[Jikovron]

Job complete !  no variable negative camber anymore

 

i finished the weld up on both sides with a pair of 3mm fish shaped plates to synch up the weld pattern and provide a second brace so to speak.

 

 

Also the exhaust hanger bolt had snapped so a quick drill out and tap sorted that, i hate wobbly exhausts haha

[overrun]

Lazy bastard.

 

Bollocks - 'waxa' means geet mint as owt man, woman man.

[pandamonium]

Can I have the shitty wheel trims please?

 

I never did get these.

[Jikovron]

More things happened recently ! hence a disjointed and rambling load of proton gibberish

 

I bought a Satria GTI none runner as an engine donor, currently the car runs a stock 4g13 of 78bhp and a F5M21 gearbox, the satria has a 4G93 and a F5M22 gearbox of which at least has the same gearbox mounting, engine mounts being somewhat different but at least not completely alien

 

I tried to get it going but for some reason the ecu is not giving any injector pulse but everything else is working

 

 

I stripped out the redundant wiring ,,but tbh I think its got a buggered ecu ultimately

 

it passed its mot retest recently with a few little buts and bats required

exhaust had a few areas that were blowing quite badly

back box sounded like it was full of cornflakes

refitted ,,and thus refinement restored

the brake pads also had become somewhat cheeky ,,but the brakes on these cars seem to be amazingly good in all regards

 

The Boss baby daughter ensured I had done all the mot jobs

Also despite trying to coax the clutch to last another month so I could swap in the gti motor it failed on the way to work with the slipping getting bad enough that second would just about maintain 30.

 

so I pulled over phoned up a local parts emporium of which pulled some strings and netted it in stock for midday, 5 hours later  during which my back gradually seized solid due to the rain, a prior injury and the weight of the gearbox etc it was miserably done, never again will I ignore an imminent failure!

cable change like a maxi

all in all a great fwd clutch job, defo not Vauxhall style easy but with space around the box to refit without it hitting everything, being light and the engine self supporting it helped greatly

so once more I can deploy full power without most of it burning the friction plate away

one small issue I spotted was a destroyed input shaft bearing however the clutch plate can do that job and underload it pulls the gearset into the taper roller bearing at the back end of the gearbox ,,however in fourth gear the gearset pulls it out of gear when overrunning so ill be glad to get that gear back with the f5m22 its getting (unless that gearbox is fooked too)

http://i520.photobucket.com/albums/w327/jikovron/th_video-2014-10-22-16-13-37_zpsccrglwdq.mp4

[Jikovron]

More work done,,the mojo is flowing today , probably because my back is in top shape for the moment

 

The synopsis of the job is that I'm currently doing little cosmetic tasks that will improve the look of the car as for some reason everyone at the inlaws, and also work assume its terminally rotten etc ,,it isn't but looks it abit

 

so common rot areas for these protobishis is the rear axle, lower rear quarters, front wings behind the flaps, the front bumper, rear sills and the inner rear wheel tubs go behind the dampers

based on the list Ive done the rear sills,,and axle so naturally the front wings came next..

 

jack it up ,,grind the rot out

 

then cut out a patch for the hole and flap mounts and shape it with a house brick and some skirting board, weld in place and grit wheel it smooth

 

mask up ,key the surface with a toenail buffer and some 'davids' zinc primer goes on

 

Top coat applied which is basically some ford colour that I compared with the car tactically parked in the line of sight from the paints area

and the flap bolts greased up and popped in

 

flaps on but my method is to space them off the wings so the metal has a chance of drying out

 

Done, NS to do next but its much less rotted thankfully

 

 

this is probably the first task ive done where the primary reason was the appearance of the car rather than necessity, is that a sign of ageing? 

[mat_the_cat]

I find that sometimes, doing a cosmetic job first fires up my mojo for doing the PITA jobs...

[RoadworkUK]

This is seriously going beyond the call of normal human duty. Most people would bin a 23 yr old Proton if the air-freshener ran out.

 

Top work.

[Jikovron]

More blandness achieved!

 

The other day the tail pipe came off at the back box joint which made the car sound abit like an MGB , of which was ok but it was a little loud and also a certain points of the rev range it sounded so gash that it couldn't carry on like that too long.

 

To solve this I welded a repair patch to the rotten tail pipe at a slight angle to have it go straight out and bend towards the OS rather than upwards and point downwards as stock and also cut away the perforated section for a little less backpressure as I think the insides of the box are well and truly kippered.

 

Also whilst the tail pipe was in easy access I hammered the end into a roll tip as it took no time and I like them!

 

As the exhaust only really has a month or 2 left before it gets the 1.8 fitted I turned the welder up and welded over rust in situ to attach it, ,sounds even quieter now than standard oddly but has a little hint of rasp to reward nearing the linear rossa.

[Jikovron]

More messing about, and a new car back out of hibernation too

 

I replaced the clutch in October at 100,000 miles,,the car has

now recorded 121'000 miles and yet again the clutch is starting

to slip under load this means a timing belt will just outlive a

clutch

I think possibly the timing belt is coming up due as its 34'000 since the last one so will look into doing it this coming month

 

Anyhow aside from that droning musing about what is what with the

car, an unexpected fault punctured my dreamlike view of the world in the form of the backbox breaking off at the inlet to it and

subsequently being dragged along the road advertising to all and sundry that the car was an actual J plate, the noise the car made frankly was embarrassing to the point of driving with beige paper carrier bags over the heads to prevent identification of the apparent noise criminal.

 

 

my father removed the back box in a sort of "thanks for the help

but please at least don't break the fixings way" and I procured a slide on 1.5" sleeve to weld onto the back box

 

 

I actually bothered to clean back to steel for this repair

 

 

whilst on with the exhaust I decided to see why the handbrake suddenly became completely inoperative,,yet felt the same and still worked on the footbrake, bizzarely I initially felt nothing was wrong as it had plenty of meat on the shoes!

 

This I have temporarily resolved with some shoes off a spare axle and now they've bedded in the handbrake is reasonably equal side to side although I will swap for new everything (cylinders/shoes/springs etc)

 

`

 

I also decided to bring my triumph out of long term storage with a view to getting on the road

first up mot wise the handbrake was terrible due to the cables being partially seized and not allowing the caliper lever to properly return either for the self adjust mechanism

I sprayed the cable with loads of wd40 and applied heat but it was to no avail as it recorded basically zero brake force

so I got a new cable off ebay and fitted that up with a view to not bodging the original cable like I did before, why would I reuse a knackered cable rather than buy a £3 one madness!

I tied up a couple of broken exhaust mounts,and drained out the old petrol and it started straight up after a year dormant

 

the car is rough but structurally excellent which helped on the mot greatly and a plan of making it nicer will be looked at

 

it wasn't enough however as the steering coupling had too much

play, a lower balljoint was also absolutely wrecked inexplicably, the handbrake was good enough (before a new cable) and a wiper

wasn't clearing the screen effectively

 

disc showing how long its been dormant

 

got underneath and it was a miserable job due to the cold and how quickly steel absorbs hand heat

 

new cable/ old cable ,,and another to donate 1/4unf nuts rather

than dieing an m6 thread down it and chopping it up

 

steering coupling was behind all of this

and this

 

I tried to fit a scimitar UJ inplace of the daft O ring damped rag joint but it was a tiny bit bigger and clashed with the starter motor and inner wing,,and the subframe etc

the steering rack needed loosening off its mounts and loads of contortional double jointed carry on to tighten up the pinch bolts

 

New balljoint popped on and come the day for the retest it wouldn't start because I had the bonnet open in the drizzle and as such I had to wip dry every lead!

anyhow an mot has been achieved and I just went out seeing if anything had suffered from inactivity,,that'll be just the indicator relays being a little slow then

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Great thread this. Love the high-level shiting but most of all I like the choice of verbage!!! Its most unusual but I love reading it.

 

"an unexpected fault punctured my dreamlike view of the world in the form of the backbox breaking off at the inlet to it and

subsequently being dragged along the road advertising to all and sundry that the car was an actual J plate"

 

Love it!!!!

[dollywobbler]

Indeed. Odd for a clutch to slip so soon though. Suggests either adjustment issues or oil contamination. Even a hopeless former girlfriend I once had couldn't wear a clutch out that quickly (she ALWAYS held the car on the clutch. Drove me mad).

[overrun]

As Whatsapped, great to see this old brute patrolling the black top, once more, mate.

She's been dormant for way too long.

[Jikovron]

well I'm glad the thread is an enjoyable read, I tend to talk how I write this thread unless ive had to few too many haha

 

I took the triumph for a quick jolly to ensure everything is ok after the lay up and luckily everything really is comfortingly excellent (by my own standards of course)

suspension feels like riding astride damped marshmallows, 3:1 steering rack is nicely direct which is a little at odds with its lost at sea yaw and rolling,and the brakes still pull it up exquisitely

I even set the headlights up properly so that dip and main work as they should,thats been a few years since they last lit up the way ahead decently

 

just need to quieten it down abit as the engine noise dominates the drive experience inside ,and when its slowly manouvering in traffic it gets a little bit snatchy which is abit like eating a gateux and finding its not quite defrosted in the middle, livable but improvable!

 

As for the clutch your quite right D.W., wor wifey does ride the clutch at every junction, despite the provision of a proppa excellent wafer pull H/B so I think that has been the cause for sure

 

i'll pop in another or get her to do it then she may appreciate that its a right job, not an easy going cheeky service task like the air filter!

[filthyjohn]

Hey I found two shite photos:

 

 

 

[Jim Bell]

Nice to see the blue un in the sun again man.

[Jikovron]

Those pictures somehow are 4 months old,,,,it highlights how my memory time has gopne to pot, feels like we did that yesterday,,but simultaineously it feels like I binned the front hub caps years back even though it was after that pic was taken next thing i'll be 27 or something!

 

Today I was in a good get jobs done mode, but rather than do building work I simply fixed another exhaust and also also adapted a speedometer cable correctly to the triumph, it runs an H suffix lt77 out of a LDV200 and has a sprint speedo which by sheer random chance reads exactly correctly when compared to the satnav which was a right bonus to not have to send it away

 

my dad has had this 300e for the last 4 years ,I bought it then he adopted it somehow!

its been as reliable as a clay mug but inevitably the exhaust started to blow a while back , we investigated the price of a mid section and it was either unavailable or £200+ so we did a proton on it today, ripped of the crappy old bodges and got the welder out

obligatory jacking up

 

we antagonised the joints and bolts until they relinquished their hold upon the haggard centre section and chipped the guff off the box

 

I whipped out the sparkler and struggled tbh as although there wasn't any wind to speak of the air mass was flowing slowly and consistently just fast enough to blow away the shield

 

the gearbox exhaust mount had nearly worn through the down pipes but as the steel is so thick I just popped on some wear plates

 

we replaced the rear section as it was cheap as chips from Poland ! and literally zero rust on any of the w124 grot spots which was satisfyingly excellent news as I cant be bothered with needless welding ,,, G plate steel  FTW

 

if ever we look to sell it ie never,,,a poetically perfect sale picture just in case

 

anyhow a test drive revealed zero leaks and with its fresh tyres it literally has nothing to invade the serenity of the drive experience, auto box shifting like a vario ,,engine turbine smooth and despite the 240k miles it still picks up in a 188bhp style

 

 

 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

 

we antagonised the joints and bolts until they relinquished their hold upon the haggard centre section and chipped the guff off the box

 

 

 

Beautiful!!

[Jikovron]

On top of that job my sequestered memories of the triumphs foibles resurfaced and getting the speedo to work was sorted

 

 

 

the scene was set, and a rover group product was in view, something to admire at junctions in the job, and yet another car for the neighbour to kick off about (long story short,,he hates activity going on outside as he made made clear the other day, but doesn't realise I own the very road that he thinks is illegal to tinker on ,,and he also parks upon himself)

 

 

The speedo hasn't worked for ages,,,that is pathetic! I bought a 4quid dolomite 1500 cable which is at least the right length but doesn't fit either end without adapter parts

 

first job as it is impossible to fit from underneath was to make an access hole

 

 

 

then I made a cover plate to seal it back up after

 

 

 

hole for the cable,, I got that wrong though somehow and will remake the plate later for a straighter path

 

 

 

I went all engineer on it and drew a technical drawrin

 

 

 

then made it on the spinning bobbin from an old wheel nut

 

 

 

 

 

I had to make another claw clamp as this time I'm not modifying the cable to make replacement easier

 

 

 

 

 

I fitted the cover plate with grommet and everything to seal up the trans tunnel cover and simply jubilee clipped the cable end onto the back of the speedo

 

 

and now I have an accurate speedo, which confirms that when asked it really deploys 230lb/ft with positive effect!