Project Korean Cortina - going back in time!

[twosmoke300]

I've heard of this too. Is there any truth in it? A quick Google brings up other mentions of this phenomenon, suggesting that sandwiches behind door cards have entered the popular consciousness, but is there any evidence that it actually happened or is it an urban myth?

Not sure about cars but an old agri tech was telling me they had a David Brown/Case in under warranty with random loss of hydraulics . The dealer changed loads of expensive valves etc etc but it would never misbehave when they had it . They were beginning to thing it was the farmer being silly.

 

A man came down from case and told them to strip the whole back end out as there must be a cracked pipe inside etc .

 

Once it was stripped they found the problem . An old selophane sandwich wrapper floating about in the gearbox.

Obviously it was getting sucked into the pick up every now and again but drops off when suction stopped.

[mat_the_cat]

Not sure whether I'm mentioned this before, but the car is currently stored in a workshop where I work. It's good in a way, as there's more space than I have back home but it does mean I can only work on it during my lunch break and a little bit after work. Or if I take a day off. The other downside is that the electricity supply is pretty crap, but I shouldn't moan about free storage!

 

So I took the wings home with me this weekend to give them a little bit of fettling. There was a small amount of surface rust on the inside of the lower parts, so I wanted to address that before fitting. Given that rust you can see is usually just the tip of the iceberg, there's probably some in the seam between the two pressings too...

 

So before I took the rust back to shiny metal, I worked some phosphoric acid based rust converter into the seam. Because I'm coating with Zinga, it needs to be applied directly to steel, and not to the phosphate layer which is formed after rust treatment. Hence applying the acid first.

 

 

After this I sprayed cavity wax into the seam, and wiped off the excess with white spirit so that the Zinga would still stick. I've brought the wings into the house, and that's my task for this evening whilst drinking wine!

 

[HMC]

Quite therapeutic to read the whole thing through and see crumbly brown bits replaced by fresh steel!

 

When are you planning to have it back on the road?

[Richard]

Shitefest is the target I believe.

[mat_the_cat]

It is indeed! I've booked the trailer hire for that weekend, and also got it in for an exhaust system to be made on the Friday. So it won't be tested at that point, but should be driveable and MOTable. Bear in mind that it hasn't moved an inch under its own power for 10 years, and was rolled into its current position on axle stands 8 years ago, so I'm a little nervous! I've not been able to run the engine more than a few minutes due to noise issues with no exhaust, and I know the fuelling needs tweaking. So plenty of fine tuning/finishing off this summer I think.

 

My mate is having a car based stag do at some point soon...possibly a trip to the Nurburgring but more likely just the Evo triangle here in Wales. So I reckon that'll be the target for actually getting it road legal. Still got to think about a respray, but my bike (which I'm selling to fund it) is on eBay at the moment and already fetching more than I thought/hoped. Which is nice.

[mat_the_cat]

Final job for today - the ZInga has dried so I thought I'd squirt some wax into the seams. The wings are nice and warm by the fire, which'll help with penetration. And Lana has gone to bed now, which'll help with avoiding complaints along the lines of "What's that awful smell, can't you do that outside?"

 

 

Below you can see just how far it's penetrated into the seam - much better than the factory sealer, which will hopefully mean no water can get in.

 

 

I'm really going to town on preserving the outer panels - I can fairly easily patch the underside of the shell but getting a good invisible job with bodywork is a lot more difficult.

[mat_the_cat]

At the weekend we hired a carpet cleaner to do the house carpets, and I thought I'd try it out on the seats. It's actually done a pretty good job, and the amount of crap it pulled out was unbelievable!

 

 

The edge of the driver's seat is a little worn, which is probably to be expected after nearly 200k miles. Fortunately I have some matching fabric for a repair (to be done professionally, not by me!) although I can't for the life of me remember how I got it.

 

 

Must have been from a scrapyard car, but I've only ever seen one early Stellar in a yard (before they changed the seat fabric) and I'm sure I didn't get any fabric from it...

 

This week I've been cleaning up the light rust on the inner wings. Took them back to bare metal where needed and gave them a couple of coats of Zinga again.

 

 

My original wing/bumper brackets had literally crumbled to dust, but managed to find replacements many years ago which have just been sat awaiting fitting. Hopefully tomorrow I'll coat them with S-50 wax, and fit the wings on Friday.

[the judge]

Top work old boy!!!! keep going,nearly there!!!

[mat_the_cat]

Got the wings on today, which was the easy part! It then took several hours to get the alignment as good as I could, although still not perfect. Had to juggle the position of the doors and bonnet too, and each adjustment had a knock-on effect.

 

TBH, panel gaps were never great when it was younger, but I think I've got most of them better than they were before. Wired up the indicators and side repeaters too, and things which light up always make me happy

 

 

[mat_the_cat]

You'd think a budget manufacturer like Hyundai wouldn't be able to pare costs down any further. But take the door handles for example - I've got replacement doors from a late car and the handles are in poor condition. Yet the earlier handles from the original doors, despite being several years older and having done twice the mileage, are near perfect.

 

The original is a stainless steel handle pressed around a plastic core, bolted to a steel lever to operate the mechanism. Replaced by a single casting, which was then plated and is now corroding under the plating. Fortunately I took the handles from the original doors, so simply swapped them over. A fiddly bastard of a job though!

 

 

 

Ye Olde alarm system sticker on the donor door:
 

 

I then started to wire up the central locking and windows in the doors, but the rubber tubing for the rear doors had rotted. Closest substitute I had was some corrugated hose we bought for a waterfall in our garden pond. Won't look the same but similar enough and it should do a better job of protecting the wires.

 

 

Looks like I need to replace the front electric window mechanisms, as both of them are jumping teeth when the glass is going up. I am almost certain I have known good spares though. One of the rear windows doesn't work at all, but that's a fairly low priority!

 

I managed to do the last bit of welding tonight, that is if you ignore the bodywork that's needed around the rear wheel arches. The last bit of structural welding at least so a reason to celebrate! It was at the back of the N/S rear wheel arch, where a plastic moulding between the shell and the bumper mounts to.

 

 

New metal now in:

 

 

It's now painted with Zinga, and I'll seal the weld with PU sealant tomorrow.

[Owain71]

To reward such a heroic effort, here's some old photos of a Hyundai dealership that I stumbled across on t'internet.

 

I remember when car showrooms looked like this, back in the days before the pretentious plate-glass gin palaces of today...

 

 

 

Enjoy!

[ChinaTom]

Wow thats class!!! Korean money!

Actually, I think they may be Japanese. The first two characters on the left hand coin are Japanese for 'Japan'. If so, this is 7 pence.

[gtd2000]

Actually, I think they may be Japanese. The first two characters on the left hand coin are Japanese for 'Japan'. If so, this is 7 pence.

Well spotted indeed - the silver ones are 1 Yen coins:

 

Makes you wonder what Japanese coins were doing in a Korean car in Wales?

 

[mat_the_cat]

Give the man a doughnut! It seems (disappointingly) unlikely that they were left in during manufacture if they're Japanese, but I did briefly go out with a girl after she came back from Japan. Were they a parting gift? Is that the value she put on our relationship?

 

Makes a poor story though...

[messerschmitt owner]

I've heard of this too. Is there any truth in it? A quick Google brings up other mentions of this phenomenon, suggesting that sandwiches behind door cards have entered the popular consciousness, but is there any evidence that it actually happened or is it an urban myth?

My dad once bought an Escort and inside the door was chalked 'Scrap - unfit for export'

[tooSavvy]

...... Ahh! Dealerships 'of yore'.

 

This:-

 

..made me think of this:-

 

Just imagine a sign over the slideaway doors 'Walkerville Garage'... and the window stuffed full of CzechBook wilting 'RWD' chod 

 

yup... I bought a brand new 'demonstrator' Skoda 130GL [C] and, later, a Rapid136 [E] from this very building.

 

The mechanic at their service garage, in Wallsend, told me they used to get bags of footpedal rubbers from the factory 'for coppers'... but, after VW took over (last of the RWD and 136 Favorit) they came in bagged, a pair, for a fiver!!! 

 

 

TS

[mat_the_cat]

Today was a bit of a milestone - I went through all the suspension bolts making sure they were tight, then lowered it onto the wheels and took it for the first drive in more than 10 years. A bit noisy with no exhaust, but absolutely fantastic to be behind the wheel again!

[dollywobbler]

And a month today, it'll be at Shitefest! Exciting indeed. There will be a mighty battle between you and Philibusmo for the most heroic Autoshite save. Good job there isn't an award for it then.

[mat_the_cat]

Well, from the looks of it Phil has had to do a lot more than I have, and in a lot less time too! But definitely looking forwards to bringing it down, hopefully will get a bit of interest due to the rarity value. I'm well pleased I've moved a stage further now - I forgot to mention earlier but the brakes feel great! Especially considering they need to bed in.

 

Still got a long to-do list, but it's all on one A4 sheet now and gradually getting ticked off.

[vulgalour]

Excellent stuff.  I've just finished catching up with this thread and I'm disappointed that I shan't see this at Shitefest in person.  Be sure to get pictures!

[mat_the_cat]

I'm sure there will be pictures! Will be nice to see it in actual daylight for a change.

 

Not much to report today; played around with alignment on the passenger front door as the panel gaps were a bit off and it wasn't closing properly, even on the limit of striker adjustment. Think the shell might have distorted slightly (I know it did in 2000 when I had a load of welding done professionally). I've packed out the bottom hinge with a few washers, which has improved things quite a bit...probably better than a 90s Discovery!

 

Lastly, a quick (poor quality) photo now it's back on its wheels:

 

[mat_the_cat]

Back to it today after the long weekend, and next job is to get the rear bumper back on. But first there are (predictably) a few areas of rust which need sorting first. I'm in the middle of taking it back to bare metal, and hopefully will get the bumper on this week.

 

 

The welding along the lower edge of the rear panel was done ages ago, and looks a little rough as I'd had very little welding experience at that point. I actually cut the panel from a donor car back in '99, in a snowy scrapyard using only a hammer and chisel. Took me 4 hours solid!

 

 

Once I've removed all visible rust, I'm going to treat with phosphoric acid rust converter. This will hopefully penetrate the seams, convert any hidden rust and give a protective phosphate coating. BUT, the Zinga coating I intend to put on the outer surfaces will not protect the bodywork if there is any layer between it and the steel. So I will have to wire brush or grind again after rust treatment, and then paint with Zinga.

[mat_the_cat]

Tonight's exciting instalment is that I've painted the bare metal with Zinga...

 

 

...then primed with zinc primer (which almost matches the rest of the paintwork, if you squint)...

 

 

...then coated the non-visible areas with Dynax UB wax...

 

 

...before putting the bumper on (and slicing my thumb in the process!)

 

 

The visible areas of bodywork which I've started to paint are just a quick protection job until I can get (or do) a full respray, so are a bit rough and ready. The nearside rear wing has had a hell of a lot of filler in the past, before my ownership so not sure what's underneath...

(The yellow box connected to the towing socket is just a maintenance charger for keeping the battery topped up - makes a handy connection point and saves lifting the bonnet).

 

Bumper on, I turned my attention to the interior and starting fitting the door cards to the 'new' doors. They'd changed the door pressings slightly just to make life awkward, but with a bit of faffing I got one of the rears on:

 

 

Next I have to sort the electric windows - one motor isn't turning at all although there is a voltage across it, and both front mechanisms are skipping teeth rather than raising the glass.

[fordperv]

I'm loving the updates on this keep up the good work

[vulgalour]

Are the rear window switches in a central console?  Sure looks weird seeing a door with no windy handles on.

[mat_the_cat]

Yeah, they're at the back of the console. The actual door card has the hole though, just covered in fabric. Half wish I'd got manual windows now, as I only have two spare mechanisms and 3 windows to fix!

[vulgalour]

Can you weld fresh teeth on to the mechanism or is it a plastic jobby?

[mat_the_cat]

I'm not sure exactly where the problem is at the moment - whether they've stripped within the gearbox (in which case I have replacements), or whether its the 'rack' which drives the window down. In which case I'm not so lucky, and might have to adapt something from another car if adjustment doesn't help.

 

Good news is I've got the keys to go into work this weekend, and spend a bit more time on it today I've really only got this week to work on it, as the following two weeks are going to be stupidly busy. So will try and get as much done as I can before SF.

[mat_the_cat]

Had a really enjoyable day today - Lana is away at a hen do so I had the day to myself! Did a spot of mountain biking in the morning, then went over to work on the Stellar. It's the first time for years that I've been able to work on it with absolutely no time pressure, which makes things an absolute pleasure Normally it's all in my lunch break or after work, and even when I've taken days off I had to get back to take the dog out etc.

 

Bad news is that it's the teeth on the rack driving the window which have stripped, so I've resigned myself to not using the fronts until I can think of a solution. A possibility is buying a universal retro-fit kit, and adapting that to suit. Or something from another car maybe. Good news is I've replaced the dead motor in the nearside rear door, so at least one success.

 

So I thought I may as well put the rest of the door cards on anyway. First I had to make up a new waterproof membrane for all bar one door, as they were ripped to shreds. I've just realised I've forgotten to take any more photos, so that's a bit crap. Must do better next time.

 

 

I also went for another drive in it, and realised that the wiring to the starter motor was a little close to the steering column. Ended up getting wound round and pulling it off the solenoid terminal, causing a puzzling no-start situation. So I've sorted that out, and tidied up a bit more wiring too. Gave the sills a coat of zinc primer, but I'll probably coat them in wax rather than paint. Better protection and also disguises the fact that they have patches in...

 

 

[Skizzer]

Great thread. This is definitely going to be one of the (several) stars of Shitefest.