Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - Looming MOTs and a day out 06/06

[lisbon_road]

I favour option (2).

I've messed with the inside of VAG door mechanisms. 

Good luck. 

[Stanky]

Managed to get this job mostly sorted today. It was warm-ish, dry and not too windy and a meeting had been cancelled, opening up 90 minutes in my exciting work schedule so I decided to crack on. I tried to extract the hoor handle end cap with mole grips, but there was too little purchase on the stupid thing, so I went to DEFCON 4, drilled it and wound the biggest, most aggressive-threaded screw I could find into it.

This allowed me to properly grab it with mole grips and by levering it with a screwdriver and yanking at it with the grips it eventually came out the door

Stupid thing. This carry-on is necessary because you need to detach the tab on the end of the door release cable from the handle, obscured by the end cap. with the end cap off, you just pop the tab out of its retainer.

Then onto the inside. Door card off, drop the electric window far enough to reveal the two bolts that hold the glass to the runners and lift the glass out carefully. Then detach the multiplugs for the central locking, electric window & door speaker from the a-pillar, pull them out of the bellows and poke them into the inner door

Then stuff gets really fun. the inner door 'card' is a metal plate held to the outer door with 10 blind rivets. You need to drill these out then wiggle the door card off the door outer, carefully unthreading the wires and lock pin wire and inner door release and things, it came off, eventually.

Then I could get to the actual module that was misbehaving.

the multiplug detaches and then 2x XZN bolts undo and it comes out. You need to swap the inner door release, lock pin wire and outer door release clips to the new one and then bolt it back into place

The reason for this carry-on if that the modules fail due to poor construction which causes various issues. These include the interior light not coming on with that door open, the door not opening/closing on the central locking, or more worryingly that it can either deadlock itself closed (meaning mega destructive access methods required) or that if you unlock the car on the fob, open the door with the dodgy module, chuck the keys inside then shut the door, the car can and will lock all the doors again, because it doesn't know that the door has been opened, locking the keys/shopping/kids/cat inside. So when they start to play up, they get replaced ASAP. @SiC had kindly provided a brand new module with the car. They are a service item apparently....

With the module refitted to the door with the XZN bolts and multiplug reconnected, I could reassemble everything. this was basically the reverse of removal, involving poking wires back through holes and things, refitting the door card and glass etc. It all went swimmingly, except I hadn't checked to see how big the replacement set of blind rivets were. It turned out they were 6.4mm diameter. My riveter only goes up to 4.8mm. Ball_sacks.

So I couldn't re-attach the inner door 'card' to the outer door frame properly. undeterred I found some suitably fat, stubby bolts to keep it together and just carried on, outer door card back on, handle reconnected and stupid end cap pushed back into the hole. I did manage to find the grub screw in the bottom of the inner door, but forgot to refit it to the actual lock mechanism before I reassembled the door. I'll do it in about 6 months when I'm doing the job again.

So, mostly success. If anyone has a riveter that'll take 6.4mm rivets that I could borrow I'd be most grateful.

 

[AnnoyingPentium]

On 3/10/2022 at 4:32 PM, Stanky said:

Then stuff gets really fun. the inner door 'card' is a metal plate held to the outer door with 10 blind rivets

The earlier ones used screws but as a typical VAG cost-cutting measure all post-facelift Fabias got rivets which are a pain in the arse to deal with.

Sorry I can't be of more help, though.

[Stanky]

<UNLIKE>

</UNLIKE>

Thats the Sirion out of action for a while then. I asked the MOT place to sort out tightening the suspension arm ball joint nut right up and threadlock it, since I've retightened it twice now, clearly incorrectly. I also asked them to replace the CV joint boot since thats a prick of a job which I have no desire to undertake again. Last time I did it, I had to take the engine out (slight exaggeration).

I knew about the exhaust leak.

The chassis rail will be a treat* - its up by the fuel filler neck so I need to drop the tank out for that job, plus potentially remove some brake pipe brackets as well. Then get someone in to weld it, then put it back together and get it in for a retest. fun fun fun. 

[lisbon_road]

The ball joint: I'd gently jack it from underneath to stop the taper from rotating, if that is the problem.  I've known garages to clamp the joint in a vice or mole grip to made an indentation to raise a bit to do the same, but I wouldn't do that personally.

Welding sounds tedious.  Are they being over zealous?  Are these the bits that have been done already?

We know you've put a lot of effort into this one so hope it works out.  One fix at a time. 

 

[mitsisigma01]

On 3/10/2022 at 4:32 PM, Stanky said:

My riveter only goes up to 4.8mm. Ball_sacks.

Pack it with small holed ,thin, large diameter washers 🤔🤔

1 hour ago, Stanky said:

Thats the Sirion out of action for a while then

Should be able to get it all done in time for a free retest 😖😖😖

 

21 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

We know you've put a lot of effort into this one so hope it works out

🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

[Stanky]

@lisbon_road

The ball joint and CV boot they can do, I'm happy to pay them to do those two jobs. Then I can recover the car back to HQ, get it on the lift and drop the fuel tank (which might then give me room to replace the rear beam bushes myself as a fringe benefit) 

The garage doesn't do welding, in their words they "aren't allowed" as they have houses either side of the workshop - its a bit of an olkskool place - so it would be outsourced to a welding specialist anyway. If I can strip the tank out myself, and deal with anything else which is hiding then get a mobile welder myself, it should be an easier, and therefore cheaper job.

Its getting fixed, its just going to be a month or two off the road before the work is done.

They are always honest, this is the other side to the bit that was done last year and was mentioned at the last test as being something to watch carefully. If its the bit I think it is then other than being awkward to get at, its not very large and shouldn't be a complex shape to fabricate and weld in, once the tank is at a safe distance.

 

[hairnet]

Who is Rufus stone

[Crackers]

5 minutes ago, hairnet said:

Who is Rufus stone

Some bloke who lives between Cadnam and Ringwood. Doesn't talk much.

[Stanky]

Pics of the problem area

I'm going to try and undo the filler neck later on today, I understand that this is actually subject to an active recall in the UK as they rust and leak so will contact Toyota and see if they'll honour it - Toyota are the parent company of Daihatsu (who pulled out of the UK market in 2013) so we'll see. If not, and I b0rk the neck removing it, I'll order a new one from Amayama for £52 as this is not in its first flush of youth. 

The frontmost bit of grot will be fiddly due to the brake pipe bracket. not insurmountable, but fiddly. 

[Stanky]

Smoll update, the fuller neck is now out and access is significantly improved for the rearmost bit of chassis rail at least The filler neck is held onto the car at several points, there are 2 torx head bolts going into captive* nuts inside the filler flap - these bolt through the inner wing into captive nuts in the flange at the top of the filler neck. On applying torque one of the captive nuts on the flanged bit of the filler neck snapped clean off, meaning it just rotated in the hole. The other began to undo a few turns, then stripped the torx head so the bit just spun in a mangled crater. Well, we're off to the usual flying start then aren't we?

On to stage 2, drill them out. If the metal the screws are made from is that flimsy then they won't put up much of a struggle, and they didn't

I was able to drill the heads off with my little drill and an 8.5mm cobalt drill bit

freeing up the top end of the filler neck from the inner wing. I used a magnet-onna-stick to clean all the swarf up.

Next up was the underneath bit. The neck is held on with 1x 12mm bolt into the bodywork, roughly halfway up the inner wheelarch, this came out without too much fuss and I copper greased it and bolted it back in loosely (note to self, its not lost, its in the original hole), then there are 2x rubber joiners between the bottom of the filler neck and the inlet of the fuel tank. These are attached with adjustable screw type hose clamps which were TFFM,BT. One survived my attempts to loosen them off, but the other one - the main filler neck one - snapped. The threads of the screw section were solid rust and almost inpossible to get at to clean up with a wire brush, so RIP clip thing. I'll replace with a jubilee clip in due course. With these off, I could pull the filler neck out of the rubber hoses after much wiggling and prising with a screwdriver they were free

You can see one of the spring clips on the breather hose on the left. I stuffed the main filler hose up with an oily rag to stop all the petrol fumes coming out and from moisture getting in, and used my engineering prowess* to wrap a foam ear plug in electrical tape and stuff it into the end of the breather hose

Then with some wiggling, the neck came out

Its seen better days TBH. Its not holed (yet) but is pretty grotty and rusty, and the section that bolts to the filler flap end is megab0rked now so this will be getting replaced I think. I'll keep it in case I can get it done under the recall, but I'm doubtful - I imagine I;d need to present the car for the dealers to do the job, rather than them just give me the part but we'll see. 

With this done, access to the rearmost bit of chassis rail is much better

With the damper undone from the top mounting and the spring pulled out, access to the grotty bit (to the right of the spring) should be pretty easy. I need to have a think about the brake pipe bit though.

[Zelandeth]

Just chop the brake pipe clip off then weld it back on afterwards?  

Don't imagine a bracket like that will be held on by more than a couple of spot welds.

[Stanky]

10 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Just chop the brake pipe clip off then weld it back on afterwards?  

Don't imagine a bracket like that will be held on by more than a couple of spot welds.

That is my current preferred course of action!

[Stanky]

Onto phase 2 of the operation. Removal of the tank. This had mixed outcomes...

All started off well, I was able to loosen all 4 bolts holding the tank to the car fine - however access to the exciting bits was poor. There is no access beneath the rear seats to the fuel tank, meaning that you have to drop the tank to get access the fuel guage sender, fuel feed and return and other exciting things. Prior to commencement of the works, this was my view

Its fairly strightforward, 4x 12mm hex-head bolts hold the tank to the car. At the leading edge, it bolts through the floorpan, and on the trailing edge it bolts through captive nuts in two brackets. I used a selection of sockets and braker bars to get the 4 bolts to loosen which went well, none of the seized and snapped. I carefully undid two bolts on opposite sides of the tank, then carefully set to work on the other two. This is where it all went a bit* wrong.

With the last bolt undone, the tank dropped down onto my chest, as expected. What i didn't expect was how flipping heavy it was. I was reasonably* sure there was about a gallon of fuel in the tank, having run it to below zero on the guage before the MOT, then slopped 1 miserly gallon in to see it through the test I was expecting a gross weight of about 10KG max. Oh how wrong I was...

The astute among you will have spotted the drain plug in the bottom of the tank, as did I. I thought about it for a good 4 seconds before deciding that there wasn't much fuel in there, and it'd probably be a twat to get to reseal if I did undo it so why bother?

Fast forward to the fast developing situation of a fat man, wedged under a moderately heavy (and certainly heavier than expected) fuel tank, flat on my back in the garage. I couldn't lift the tank back up and get the bolts to locate, and couldn't drop it out because the fuel guage sender multiplug, fuel return and fuel supply lines were still connected to the car (because they are 100% inaccessible with the tank fitted).

I wrestled with it for as long as I could, before the t-rex arms set in and I used my phone to call Wife_Stanky with a simple statement of 'Im stuck under the car, can you please help?'

She rushed out to the garage and obviously the first thing she did was get photos

The specific issue I had was that I needed to release the fuel guage multiplug (the shortest connector) from the clip it was attached to in the floorpan, because it was taking about 40% of the weight of the tank at this point. See the chin-end of the tank thats held up in the above pic? Thats because of the fuel guage multiplug. I needed someone to pass me a trim removal tool to allow me to prise the pop-rivet out of the floorpan to get some crucial access and to take tension off the wire, on account of being squeezed between the tank and the floor, and if I had moved then the flimsy cabling would have been taking the full weight of the not-so-empty tank - something I suspect it would not have tolerated!

My wife duly provided me with the pop-rivet remover and I took the full weight of the tank onto my ribcage. Next up was to remove the fuel lines. The return line was a small bore pipe with a tiny VW clip of satan which I had sufficient strength between my index finger and thumb to slide off the top of the tank. The input fuel line however was a different story. I tried all sorts, with my feeble arms getting weaker by the minute until I my wife passed me a plumbers adjustable wrench which finally allowed me to pinch the two tabs and popped the fuel line off the connector on top of the in-tank pump.

Fucking hell.

Anyway, with able assistance, the wretched tank was now free of the car and I slid it off my ample belly onto the floor, massively relieved I hadn't managed to slop a load of very expensive premium unleaded into my eyes in the course of the job.

The tank itself was actually in good nick, I cleaned it off with a paintbrush and a brush-and-dustpan brush but other than a couple of spiders, it was just dry dust really. I used my 12v oil pump to decant what turned out to be nearly 4 gallons of premium unleaded into a jerry can, and poured it into the mercedes (note to self, fuel guage lies) with only a small amount left in the tank, which I bunged up every orifice of with rags and things. I reckon the tank, which I was expecting to be 10KG max was probabaly closer to 30kg!

Leaving a big hole where it used to be!

The boot floor is in good condition which is a relief, I cleaned this up with a broom to remove the worst of the dust and spiders webs but I would like to get some underbody wax in here soon-ish since it will be 100% inaccessible once I put the tank back on.

Thanks once again to my wife for rescuing me, or I'd still be under there now!

So, its now ready for the welding to commence...

[SiC]

How are you getting on with the Fabia? Any further with that door lock mechanism/inner membrane riveting?

[Stanky]

19 minutes ago, SiC said:

How are you getting on with the Fabia? Any further with that door lock mechanism/inner membrane riveting?

All sorted for now - @lisbon_road lent me his rivnut tool and I re-did all the rivet holes with m6 rivnuts, allowing me to refit the metal door membrane thing properly, and meaning I can get at the innards a lot easier when the door lock mech goes on the fritz in about 11 months time!

It seems to be behaving itself now, the door locks and unlocks on the fob, and it recongnises that the door has been opened if you unlock it on the fob, then only open the passenger door. Also the interior light works on that door too so I'm calling it fixt.

I need to get a cambelt kit ordered for it, and get that done ASAP. I need to get the daihatsu welded and out of the garage first though!

[SiC]

Do keep the old door mechanism - I'm pretty sure it's just a few cracked solder joints on the connector that caused it to fail. The new one was an Amazon special and while it looked ok, it's probably not the same quality as original VAG. 

Funnily enough I have recently discovered what rivnuts are called after seeing them so often. Definitely makes sense putting them in rather than rivets. 

Hope it does you well. A good little car that one is. 

[paulplom]

At least your mrs answers her phone. I'd still be under there now.

[mitsisigma01]

On 3/28/2022 at 3:53 PM, lisbon_road said:

Welding sounds tedious.  Are they being over zealous?  Are these the bits that have been done already?

Over zealous .... If that's the worst they could find they are being complete c**** !!!!

 

[N Dentressangle]

10 hours ago, Stanky said:

 

Fast forward to the fast developing situation of a fat man, wedged under a moderately heavy (and certainly heavier than expected) fuel tank, flat on my back in the garage.

and I have also been that foolish fat man at least once, bleating helplessly for my wife 😄

[Zelandeth]

Definite echoes of me discovering how much heavier the propshaft on the camper was than I expected in that story!

[Stanky]

Not made a huge amount of progress on this, but work is carrying on apace gathering parts. I've got a brand new metal filler neck coming FOC from a Subaru dealer in Swindon, they are still a Daihatsu authorised repair agent so were able to source the filler neck under a still active recall so thats saved me £52. Its being posted to me so should be here next week some time.

I've just ordered a handful of bits from Japan, a replacement breather hose connector and clips, fuel filler neck > tank connector clips and a gasket for the top of the filler neck where it meets the inner wing, plus some vactan for the underneath.

The thing I'm having difficulty with though is the hose connector between the filler neck and tank, circled in red below

This hose has been discontinued and is unavailable basically everywhere. It measures up as being 18cm long (7cm from tank to elbow, 11cm from elbow to bottom of filler neck. I reckon its got a 30 degree elbow? I can't get a technical spec for it so this is using my good* eye and a measuring tape. The inner diameter is 33 or 34mm.

Can anyone suggest what I can use instead? This bit is 18 years old and if i have it all apart, probabaly wants replacing for good measure, or is all modern replacement fuel-resistant hose utter dogshit and I'm better off reusing this, since its not cracked or degraded as far as I can see?

What do people think?

[Stanky]

Small update, I've been busy de'rusting the outside of the fuel tank with a wire brush, painting it with vactan and tonight, applying zinc primer. I need to buy some more black enamel paint  for topcoat in due course.

Today my amayama order arrived, lots of small things I needed and have now got

A replacement breather hose, filler neck gasket, filler neck bolts, screw hose clips and the things that the back seat base pushes into to keep it in position, all delivered from Japan. All OEM genuine too.

I fitted what I could, I still need the filler neck to arrive before it can be fitted with some of the top side stuff, and I need a couple more coats of zinc primer and then a few coats of enamel on the actual tank, but we're getting there

Onwards!

[dozeydustman]

This is all looking good Huw. Toying with getting one of these for Mrs_dust when we move away from Chichester and both need to commute.

[Stanky]

1 hour ago, dozeydustman said:

This is all looking good Huw. Toying with getting one of these for Mrs_dust when we move away from Chichester and both need to commute.

Rust aside, these are cracking little cars - the 'normal' tune 1.3 still packs 100bhp in something that weighs <800kg its a lot of fun and very frugal too.

[Stanky]

A modicum of progress on this, the filler neck has been dispatched and will be with me next week sometime, I was given the option of Hermes delivery for £5 or Parcelforce for £8. I opted for Parcelforce, lets see how good a decision that turns out to be shall we? The cost isn't a big issue, but these are hard to track down - I think I have been given one of the last 3 revised filler necks in the UK so if they fuck it up I'm going to be a very cross boy.

In prep for this arriving, I've carried on painting the fuel tank. It had 2 coats of Vactan, 2 coats of zinc primer and now had 2 coats of toolstation matte black enamel and looks pretty sexy

And should last a good few more years. Its sitting in the garage awaiting the filler neck arriving and some welding help before it can be refitted. 

I spent rather a long time under the car, taking advantage of having removed the tank and filler neck and things to wire brush the underneath rearwards of the front seats. This was generally in good condition, but had various patches of surface rust and this seemed as good an opportunity as any to treat that. It got cleaned down and then scrubbed hard with a wire brush all over, then given a lot of vactan, painted on by brush, upside down. This was a messy escapade.

This is an example of the inside of the rear 3/4 panel where the fuel filler pipe goes, this was probabaly the worst of it in all honesty

Thats lying on the floor, looking up at the hole the filler neck will attach to. This was all scrubbed down and thoroughly painted

I also did the same in the other rear arch, rear valence, boot floor, chassis rail on the driver side (I deliberately left the passenger side chassis rail as this needs welding still), arch lips and floorpan above the fuel tank - essentially everything rearwards of the front two seats. My plan for this is to wait for the welding to be completed, then vactan and zinc primer the newly welded bits, then black enamel the whole lot before giving it the gold star treatment with some Dynax UB wax all over the whole area. I can then wax the outside of the fuel tank too, then refit that, the filler neck, and all the gubbinz and then it can go in for another test, and for the rear beam bushes to be replaced. Its a bit of a big job all in all, but worth doing while its all apart because a lot of it is entirely inaccessible once the tank is back in. I have almost all the parts I need now, just waiting on the filler neck. Then I will buy some Dynax UB wax in prep for the underneath, but I'm holding off on this until the welding is done.

Not a riveting update, but some progress at least.

[Stanky]

This is the view of the underside currently

Verdict? Adequate, 2-legged. NAO FEED ME

[Stanky]

More news from today, @Talbot was able to come over and work on the chassis rails which were the last MOT failure issue that needed resolving. A quick recap on the situation

The yellow chalk marks the problem areas, both sides of the spring mount. I had removed the filler neck and tank by this point which gives a clearer idea of the issues. We unbolted the top mounting nut of the damper and flipped the damper itself down out of the way, then pushed the rear beam downwards to release the spring and get better access to the problem areas.

Talbot got stuck in with the angle grinder, starting with the rearmost (left side of pic) area. This needed cutting back to amost the spring mount on the right, and to about 1" to the right of the factory holes on the left but didn’t take long. While this was going on, since I had nothing to really do that would help I set to with the spring. I removed both rubber mounts and cleaned them up with water and a brush, cleaned and sanded down the spring itself and used black spray enamel paint to recoat it. I also took the opportunity to protect the mounting rubbers by sliding some silicone hose over the ends of the spring top and bottom

This should slow down the wear in the spring mounting cups.

While I was fiddling about, Tablot had made serious progress on the cutting, fabrication and welding on the chassis rail

He’d let in two sections of 1.6mm steel, a horizontal and a vertical to reconstruct the rail rear of the spring mount.

He then set to work on the fore section. This was a bit more difficult, as it was right above the bracket for the rear brake pipe, and caused some issues. To start with he moved the ABS wiring out the way, then the only option was to disconnect the brake pipe union, remove the clip for the flexi section and bend the copper line well out the way. I put a bit of old carrier bag over the reservoir cap in the engine bay and we cable tied the finger of a nitrile glove over the end of the copper brake pipe to catch the drips of brake fluid

The bracket was bent downwards to give access to cut the rusty old steel out and a new square section was welded in. While this was going on I sanded down the brake pipe clip which was pretty cruddy. We were both amazed that the union actually came undone without shearing, as it had definitely not been apart in the 18 years since it was built!

With this done, Talbot ground down the welds as much as possible, then zinc primered the bare metal and followed up with a coat of black enamel aerosol paint

We also sanded back the surface rust on the suspension mount and zinc primered that too for good measure. You can see in the second pic above just how difficult it was to get at the rusted out section which lives underneath the hardline → flexi joint of the brake line for this side.

With the brake pipe reconnected we bled the system, noting that the fluid was actually in very good condition which is good news. I topped the reservoir up with some dot4 I had on the shelf

I nipped out earlier and put another coat of black enamel on the new metal and will do another one tomorrow morning.

I get paid next week, so will order some underbody wax and spray that all around before refitting the fuel tank and filler neck, slopping a couple of gallons into the fuel tank from a jerry can and then getting it booked in for a new MOT at some point next month. I’m away in the Netherlands with work the first half of June so will probabaly be later in the month but we’ll see.

I’ll get the garage to change the rear beam bushes at the same time since I have the parts, but not the inclination to fit them!

[lisbon_road]

Good bit of work.  That isn't easy and welds look pretty good. 

[Stanky]

9 minutes ago, lisbon_road said:

Good bit of work.  That isn't easy and welds look pretty good. 

Full credit to Talbot with this, especially the bit under the brake pipe bracket which was a complete sod to get at!