Dave's shonkers - bye bye S3 (sadface.jpg)

[Dave_Q]

So the recommended pulling apparatus didn't work that well, the M8 bolts just kept snapping.

 

Even with the key ground off the thing was so rusted on that the M8s just weren't strong enough to pull it off.

 

Eventually I ended up with snapped bolts in both holes I couldn't get out, so I ended up being pretty brutal and hammering a screwdriver down the back of it to get it off enough to get a puller on it. I'll need a new sprocket but I've ordered a genuine one for £15 so not the end of the world.

 

Here's the sprocket:

 

And the crank:

 

The toolage required to separate the two:

 

The crank has had a bit of a chunk taken out of it by the mangling of the old woodruff key against it (I think.) Otherwise I think it's OK to use.

 

I did consult the combined sages of Autoshite on the two-poster thread and got various answers involving MIG, threadlock and chemical metal, what I am planning to do is use chemical metal or similar to fill in the missing bit of crank, then use medium threadlock on the crank to pulleys interface before doing the bolt up until my torque wrench bends.

[Dave_Q]

MEGA CATCH-UP POST OFF OF NEW OLD NEW FORUM

 

11th July:

Some MOTs have happened recently, 50% success rate.

 

Wife's Alfa: Passed with advisories for a balljoint dust cover and a handbrake cable.

 

Fireblade: They didn't even start the test as they saw that the fork seals I've only just replaced were leaking on one side. 

 

I also made some slight progress on the Subaru the other day.

 

Some parts arrived - new crank sprocket, crank oil seal, woodruff key, and magic glue for the keyway.

 

 

I immediately ruined the new oil seal on the sharp edges left by my overenthusiastic sprocket hammering.

 

Only moderately deterred, I changed over the waterpump. The old one looked RANK:

 

 

I hadn't ordered a new thermostat so that is on it's way along with another oil seal.

 

Having ruined any chance of putting it back together that day I removed the leaky power steering pump and cleaned up the block as much as I could. You can also possibly see in this picture where I applied some Super Steel to the area above the crank to "repair" the damage I did to it getting the sprocket off.

 

 

 

 

Overall I'm feeling slightly deflated with the lack of progress and the fact the bike needs more attention when I thought it was sorted. After the Subaru is fixed I must have a look at the Berlingo's new suspension clonks before we go on holiday in it at the end of the month. After that I need to do a cambelt and sort out the handbrake on the Alfa.

 

Sometimes it feels like the to-do list is long and the available time and money is short, but I'll get there in the end.

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

13th July:

SHITS GOING BACK TOGETHER YO.

 

Had a few hours on this yesterday and managed to get it nearly all back together.

 

I mentioned earlier that the timing marks didn't look entirely correct and I was planning to use the tooth counting method in the service manual.

 

Luckily the new belt came with the marks on (white lines) so that saved me a job marking it up.

 

 

Obviously, as soon as you turn the engine over to check it's all OK the white lines disappear.

 

 

The cam to cam timing marks didn't seem to want to both line up at the same time.

 

 

Cue lots of tooth counting to check it's all right.

 

28 teeth between cam timing marks, 54.5 teeth between the left inlet cam and the crank, and 51 teeth between the crank and the right inlet cam.

 

All clear?

 

Anyway I quadruple checked the tooth count and the marks still didn't seem quite right, but they weren't when I took the old belt off so meh.

 

Built the rest up, except for the power steering pump (waiting for new non-leaky one) and radiator (ran out of time.)

 

 

I couldn't resist firing it up quickly to check it still ran, and it did. 

 

In other positive news, I found a second horn behind the grill that was disconnected for no reason. I reconnected it and now my horn has the full manly range of a dual tone horn, rather than the metrosexual beep of a single. Happy days.

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

18th July:

 

This is par for the course with me to be honest, pretty much everything I attempt takes three times as long as planned, and needs twice as many parts.

  On 7/13/2016 at 23:34, mouseflakes said:

Glad to see it's all coming together. Quite a lot of shenanigans involved by the look of it.

 

Anyway the Subaru is all back together now, the power steering pump didn't come with the bracket but the old one swapped over, and on reassembly the bottom rad hose turned out to be a VAG one cut in half. I procured one from my local breaker.

 

Not much in the way of pictures I'm afraid, here's one of it in Sainsburys car park to prove it moved from its spot outside my house.

The next task was the Berlingo which has had a knock coming from the front end for a while now.

I've had it on stands and had a good poke underneath - nothing rubbery seems too knackered and I can't seem to replicate the noise.

 

It's a single knock that mainly appears during low speed manoeuvres, when going from forwards to backwards such as reversing out of a space then driving off. I'm gonna go post in the stupid question thread to see if anyone can diagnose it for me.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------

 

July 19th:

Today, whilst waiting in a leisure centre car park I decided to de-tint the car. 

I'd read that heat helps, so with it being roasting today I thought it would be a good time to have a go.

All the side windows came off quite easily in one piece, the back window was more of a pain as it already had some holes and tears so was never going to come off in one go.

I've now been left with a sticky residue that I'm struggling to shift.

 

I've had a go with thinners and a scotchpad, but it's very slow going, it took about half an hour to not quite finish one window.

 

I'm going to get some more specific glue remover, and maybe some razor blades.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

22nd July:

I managed to get the car de-glued. I had a non-exhaustive look for sticky stuff remover in one shop, then decided to go for the WD40 (or in this case GT85) approach, with a bladed glass scraper.

 

Once I got over my initial fear of scratching the glass it came off the side windows pretty quick.

 

Note the times, about 15 min to do that window, would have been a bit faster without my 2yo daughter helping* me.

 

The tailgate window is more of a pain, you can't just go nuts with a scraper as you'll scrape the heater wires off. I scraped between the lines and used a scotchpad/washing up sponge to get the rest off. There are still a few small bits on the back window but I feel a bit Longbridge Quality Control about it - it'll do.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

July 23rd:

 

A quick, boring non-picture post.

This Subaru has always felt a bit slower than the old one, not sure why.

To be honest the old one didn't feel that fast to me, but then not much is compared to any motorbike.

So today I did an ECU reset, this is to clear out any long term fuel trims from having been run on standard unleaded etc. 

It did seem slightly better, so I took it up to my local private* test track to attempt a 0-60 run.

 

 

Book time is 5.5 seconds, and I reckon a driver who was less concerned about fixing it if it breaks could launch it quicker and make up the extra half a second.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

24th July:

More happenings today, have I been busy or what?

Washed the cars today, I understand that's what some normal people do on a Sunday. However I'm sure they spend the day thoroughly cleaning one car rather than lobbing a bucket of water over 3.

Paid particular attention to the Berlingo, mainly on the inside as we're off on holiday in it on Friday, and it was about a foot deep in biscuit packets and child debris.

Still lets have a look at how good* my efforts have made the outside look.

The 20-yarder - looks alright from here, like a car a real person might drive.

Let's have a look a bit closer shall we?

Hmm, that's a bit peely.

I didn't do this one.

I did do this one.

I consider myself partially responsible for this one - altercation with Focus in November.

More peelage.

No idea on this one, came with the car.

 

It has been suggested that I could try to do something with the cosmetics on this car, but firstly, I can't be bothered, and secondly, I think that "pas des fucks donnée" is a reasonable look to rock on an old French shed.

 

Not content with that, I hopefully managed to fix the leaky fork on my bike. I've replaced the ebay spesh seals on the leaky leg for OEM Honda ones. When I got the old one out I saw this:

The springy bit had come out of it's groove, this might have happened on disassembly but hopefully that was the problem and it's now fixed.

It certainly doesn't seem to be leaking now, but I might hold off on taking it for test until after holiday, just in case it needs anything else and I'm wasting my retest period on a campsite in the Netherlands.

[Dave_Q]

So all that Ctrl+V action has bought me up to today.

 

Just back from holiday, the Berlingo completed the 1000ish miles to .nl and back with no problems at all.

 

I never managed to solve the issue of the clonk, but I did replace a drop link which solved another, different, rattle. I also fitted a set of 4 Uniroyal rainexperts off of tyre leader.

 

Soz no photos or anything, but there's plenty in the last post. Just imagine it with a large roofbox and the boot full of camping shite. 

 

Fireblade in for MOT tomorrowish.

[Dave_Q]

Woah, nearly a month since my last update, brace yourselves for some rambling. 

 

I did get the bike in for MOT:

 

 

It failed. On brakes, front brakes binding and fluctuating i.e warped discs. 

 

This was most unwelcome news as new discs for this thing are not cheap, £125 EACH for EBC, £140ish OEM, which were out of stock.

£100 or so for second hand discs which could have been just as bad as mine.

 

Eventually I sent mine off to http://www.stmotorcycles.co.uk/ for straightening. £75 including return post.

 

He told me that on receipt the runout on them was 0.5mm and 0.8mm, they're now 0.02 and 0.04. (spec is 0.3mm max.)

 

Rather than ordering seal kits for the calipers, I found some later 929 calipers for £70 front and £15 rear. Seal kits for the fronts are about £50 a side. 

 

The 929 calipers have teflon coated pistons or some shiz, and are gold which is obviously better.

 

I also replaced the fluid when doing all this, the old stuff looked quite rank.

 

MOT retest passed, and the bike celebrated by shedding it's indicators. 

 

The left one was the indicator broken, the right one was the undertray they bolt into which has always been broken since I got the bike. 

 

You can see where I've attempted to repair it previously with epoxy, filler, etc. 

 

This time I decided to do a proper job.

 

I've never used this stuff before but I managed to do a decent job I think.

 

I trimmed back some of the hairy bits with scissors.

 

I then did some top quality* paint prep by whizzing over it with an 80 grit flapwheel.

And painted with quid shop aerosols.

 

The finish isn't mega, but it's barely visible on the bike. 

All that was last week, and the new indicators I ordered still haven't turned up, meaning I've done about 15 miles on the bike so far this "summer".

 

 

 

 

In news from the rest of the fleet, the tracker on the Subaru sent me about 15 text messages from midnight to 5am the other day telling me its battery was low. I went over in the morning to find that there wasn't enough juice to open the central locking. 

 

This was a problem as the key I got with it only does the ignition and nothing else. 

I managed to get the bonnet open from outside with a little research, but decided that maybe having a key that opens the door would be a good idea. 

 

Subaru locks were expensive, like £150 for a full set. I also didn't really want to change the ignition if possible. 

 

I investigated rekeying, saw it seemed easy enough. I also ordered some Nissan Micra door locks based on parts bin guesswork, and the pictures looking similar. 

The Micra locks are identical and could be used as a straight swap.

 

They're easy enough to split down.

Soz no pic of tumblers everywhere.

 

Anyway the long and short of it is, after a couple of hours faffing I now have a key that works the ignition, drivers door, and boot. 

My rekeyed locks are not 100%, they're a bit stiff, so what I will do when I can be bothered is put the Micra lock that I didn't raid for tumblers in the passenger door and keep it's original key somewhere safe as a backup for my backup.

 

[Ghosty]

The last time I saw someone using fibreglass on a Honda, Old Man was bodging one of his old Civics for an MOT.

[Dave_Q]

The last time I saw someone using fibreglass on a Honda, Old Man was bodging one of his old Civics for an MOT.

 

I had to go and get the fibreglass kit specially, it's not a regular part of my arsenal. 

 

Hammers and spanners are more my thing really. 

 

 

Anyway I got bored of waiting for my ebay indicators to turn up, so went out yesterday and bought some from an ACTUAL SHOP.

 

Here's the finished product.

 

 

Still a teeny bit wonky, but it'll do.

[Dave_Q]

Just been over to darkest Lancashire to pick up an ebay purchase for my wife.

 
Rather than trog back through the roadworks on the M62, I came back via one of my favourite local roads, the A640.
 
These pictures are looking out over Marsden Moor from Buckstones, between Huddersfield and Denshaw.
 







 
Plus one bonus one with some sort of Instatwat filter.

[dugong]

I nearly fell off the A640 many moons ago by driving my mate's mum's Rover 618 like an utter twat.

A great road, mind - and brilliant fun in a GF8.

[Dave_Q]

Been a while since I updated this.

 

Some checking revealed that in the last set of photos, the MOT had actually expired on the Subaru.

 

I'll spare you too much text on the subject but in short it's finally passed today. Initially it failed on emissions, exhaust leak, battery clamp and a steering rack boot.

I fixed it all, (featuring mega pain getting the downpipe off as per my old one) took it back, failed emissions again, put a new lambda sensor in, and finally passed.

 

From first fail to passing today took just over a month.

 

During that time the Berlingo also needed MOTing, thankfully it went through just needing a bulb.

 

 

In the meantime I've decided that I need a shit 50cc moped for some reason.

 

First I bought this:

 

 

It's a Piaggio Typhoon 50, £45 off of Gumtree. It apparently ran when parked, but was quite disassembled when I got it. I loosely assembled it but it didn't go, it had fuel but no spark. I decided I couldn't be bothered as it was in poor condition all round and was more effort than I was hoping.

 

I therefore sold it to the next optimist and bought one even worse.

 

 

As you'll clearly be able to see from the pictures, it's about 1.7 Taiwan Golden Bee 302s. The whole-ish bike is a 54 plate and there a 09 plate one which is mainly in bits behind some shit pushbikes.

 

The 09 plater is also the newest vehicle I've ever owned, by a fair margin.

 

I was told the whole bike is a runner, I've got as far as trying to start it with a jump - the starter relay goes click. Next I'll see where the starter is meant to be and if it's got one fitted.

 

The other one has been stripped to a frame and is also missing most of it's engine, so I'll probably keep the bits and weigh in the frame.

 

Hopefully there's enough parts that I can get a bike on the road for not much more than the purchase price - which was £32.

 

 

 

Coming to a road near you approx summer 2020.

[320touring]

I'm almost tempted by mopeds as it allows you to tinker in the living room warmth during wintarz

[hairnet]

you iz worse than billy

 

but at least you can fix them

 

oh the the glassfibre a honda thing last time i saw someone do that the bike was older than he was

[Dave_Q]

I think even Billy would pass on the TGBs to be honest.

 

I do share his compulsion to keep buying worthless heaps with no redeeming features, but I've got a long way to go to get to his numbers.

 

Current fleet in numbers.

Cars including wifes: 3

Motorised 2 wheelers: 2.7

Bicycles: 7 complete, enough bits to build at least one more.

 

I'm an amateur really.

[Dave_Q]

I'm almost tempted by mopeds as it allows you to tinker in the living room warmth during wintarz

With your passion and skill for bottom of the market vehicles, rank mopeds are a natural progression. What's not to love about a sub 50 quid vehicle?

[320touring]

Lol my toledo was only 51;)

[UltraWomble]

 

In the meantime I've decided that I need a shit 50cc moped for some reason.

 

Because there is something wonderful about having a PTW that you really dont give a shit about and would happily throw on the floor for popping down the shops or into town on.

[Dave_Q]

I've bought myself/the Subaru some presents.

 

 

Firstly, some exhaust. 

 

Regular readers will recall this car came fitted with a 5ish inch diameter Fujitsubo mega-drainpipe-happy-fartcannon, which I binned off for a standard one.

 

I've since decided that I've made the car a bit too quiet - one of the joys of driving an ASBO twatwagon is that it sounds like one.

 

So I found a Prodrive stainless backbox on the bay of E, and by the combined powers of Midlands Massiv and GGG logistics I picked it up from Junkman on Sunday.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

The other thing is an ECU. The wagon is the poor relation of the Japanese Impreza range, coming with a smaller turbo (TD04 vs TD05 in saloons) and less of the boost. My car has around 0.7 bar peak boost dropping to 0.5 by the redline. 

 

Remaps are hard and expensive for this old tech stuff, but what you can do is swap the ECU.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

The Z4 ecu is off an early saloon and should boost to 0.9 bar, upping power from 220 to approx 250-260bhp. The only issue is that the internet is full of scare stories that doom will happen as it's designed to run with a TD05, and one should go and give many monies for a "proper" remap.

 

I'm taking that with a pinch of salt, the management on these is quite clever with closed loop electronic boost + fuel control, knock and lambda sensors etc etc. I'm fairly sure I'll be fine as a mapper would target 1+ bar on this turbo anyway.

 

 

Only been out for a quick drive but it definitely seems quicker, I've only seen 0.75 bar on the boost gauge but you won't get full boost unless it's under full load like a 3rd gear pull on a motorway sliproad.

 

The exhaust is good as well, without wishing to quote every review of the late 90s it gives just a nice bit of an extra burble without being too intrusive or boomy.

 

Overall a GR12 upgrade for £90 all in and an hour to fit, big thanks to FPB7, Junkman and Conrad D Conelrad for the DELIVERY SERVICES on the exhaust.

[320touring]

Yaaaaaaasssss!

 

BOOOOOOOST:)

[Dave_Q]

It's good innit.

 

There are actually ways to DIY remap these, but it involves getting PCBs made and soldering things up and flashing chips.

 

http://www.alcyone.org.uk/ssm/ecumod.html

 

Plus of course with it being pez you're never far away from going a bit too lean and melting things.

[Ghosty]

I remember thinking as you left Glossop last Tuesday 'that's the quietest Impreza I've ever heard'. Nice to see you've recitfied that!

[Dave_Q]

I remember thinking as you left Glossop last Tuesday 'that's the quietest Impreza I've ever heard'. Nice to see you've recitfied that!

 

It doesn't seem too much louder from the inside, I'm going to give it a while to see but I will probably get a straight through centre section to go with it - at the moment the car still has 2 cats.

[hairnet]

Yaaaaaaasssss!

 

BOOOOOOOST:)

boooosht dear boy booosht [/connery]

[Dave_Q]

Boring news - replacing the lambda sensor on the Subaru seems to have increased my mpg significantly*

 

 

Just filled up and I got 20.3 mpg out of this last tank - prior to that it was 17.6.

 

#Bluemotion #Hypermiling #Tesco99

[320touring]

#billynaebaws

[320touring]

It needs mair boost obvs!

[Dave_Q]

It needs mair boost obvs!

 

A guy at work was telling me to fit a manual boost controller today. 

 

I'm going to run it as is for a while before doing anything else. 

 

The ECU has an overboost fuel cut off at 1.08bar so I can't go much higher than it's meant to be now, although allegedly the boost builds up much quicker with the MBC than the factory system.

[320touring]

A guy at work was telling me to fit a manual boost controller today.

 

I'm going to run it as is for a while before doing anything else.

 

The ECU has an overboost fuel cut off at 1.08bar so I can't go much higher than it's meant to be now, although allegedly the boost builds up much quicker with the MBC than the factory system.

Sounds positive:)

[Junkman]

Boring news - replacing the lambda sensor on the Subaru seems to have increased my mpg significantly*

 

 

Just filled up and I got 20.3 mpg out of this last tank - prior to that it was 17.6.

 

#Bluemotion #Hypermiling #Tesco99

 

Holy shit, I get that from the Range Rover filled with el cheapo camel piss!

I know, I know, they soon explode when they start using that little fuel...

[Dave_Q]

Holy shit, I get that from the Range Rover filled with el cheapo camel piss!

I know, I know, they soon explode when they start using that little fuel...

They are notoriously poor, however I don't actually think its that bad to say 95% of my driving is done in town going BWAAAAAAAAARRP-TSSSSSH.

 

I could probably tease it as high as 25mpg if I did more longer runs and wasn't such an overgrown child.

[Dave_Q]

Shocking news dept: more boost = less mpgs.

 

 

I've also stuck a bit more exhaust on.

 

Old: rusty, restricty, quiet.

 

 

New: Stainless, straight through, much better.

 

 

I think the exhaust noise is about right now, not too loud in the car or at idle but sounds quite meaty under load.

 

 

 

According to the rules of Subaru ownership, I must claim that my modifications give some large power increase based on no real evidence.

 

Standard: 220bhp

Exhaust: +50bhp

REMAP M8: +100bhp

 

Therefore to be a proper Subaru owner I must claim it has 370bhp to anyone who will listen.

 

 

 

Back in the real world it's probably not much more than standard, but the boost builds more quickly and I'm getting 0.8 bar from 3500rpm or so, it's nicer to drive all round.

 

I also put a set of Hankook Winter i-cept RS (or something) on my 15" winter wheels - no pictures of these as they're embarrassingly flaky.

[Dave_Q]

Seasonal tidings, etc.

 

Here's a special guest fixage/long term report on this:

 

 

My wife's Alfa 147.

 

We bought it in February this year, after asking for advice on here it was 50/50 great car/all modern dieselz R shit.

 

It's not been without issues but all pretty minor so far. 

 

Immediately after purchase:

Gear linkage siezed almost solid L-R - repaired for £5 in < 1 hour with a cleanup and some plastic bushes on the linkage on the box. 

Squeaky suspension - improved with grease + use. Still a bit squeaky but 90% better than it was.

Shite handbrake - fixed with new rear cables.

No reverse light - a broken wire on the gearbox sensor, resoldered for £free.

Oil + filters change and a thermostat as running cold.

 

Since then:

It gave a fault code for crank sensor and later cut out once in traffic but immediately restarted. Changed the sensor - £15.

 

MOT was passed with just an advisory for a balljoint dust cover - I have a set of part worn lower wishbones here ready to go on.

 

Overall this car has been great, slightly worse mpg than the Skoda Fabia it replaced, but is is a bigger, faster car. The interior is just lovely and despite being a clattery dizzler its a good steer and decently rapid when pushed. My wife loves it, I only ever get to drive it when there's a problem.

 

 

Which, as it happens, there is currently. The reported issue was no heaters. The interwebz suggested things like breaky heater flaps, seized waterpump etc. 

I had a good check and determined that the flaps were moving correctly, the engine was getting warm, but the warms were not transferring to the interior. In the process of trying to see if the water pump was turning, I noticed the header tank was empty.

 

I filled it up and the heater started working. 

 

Anyway, doing this made me notice that the cambelt looked pretty sad. I was meant to do it before my wife went back to work in September but (insert excuse here)

 

So it's happening now.

 

Supplies:

 

There's an engine under here somewhere:

 

Once you remove some plastic, and for some reason the ECU, access is pretty good for a front wheel drive modern.

 

Tonight I got as far as getting most of the covers and the aux belt off. Looks like I've found where the coolant went - the pump must be leaking.