Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - New Battery Day 25/10

[Tubbo]

After disconnecting the bolts and connectors from the alternator so it is loose inside I found I needed to disconnect the power steering fluid rubber hose which sits below the alternator to get it to drop down. I then removed the drivers side wheel and took out the drive shaft from the wheel assembly so I could move it to one side to allow enough room for the alternator to drop down further.

 

[Tubbo]

[Stanky]

Is there any prospect of it coming out the top? I need to remove the throttle body and things anyway so will be making some room...

[Tubbo]

I then unscrewed the offside subframe bolts as much as I dared and then jacked up the car to allow me enough room to turn the alternator onto it’s side.

 

[Tubbo]

2 minutes ago, Stanky said:

Is there any prospect of it coming out the top? I need to remove the throttle body and things anyway so will be making some room...

I think you will really struggle to get it out the top!

[Tubbo]

I finally had to jack the car up and slightly under the sump to gain enough room to just slide it out.

 

[Tubbo]

Hey presto

 

[Stanky]

Easy as that eh?

[Tubbo]

It looks to me like the only other way would be to remove the exhaust. Hopefully you find it easier than I did 👍

[Tubbo]

Just now, Stanky said:

Easy as that eh?

Yep 😂😂

[Stanky]

I might see if there is any way to slide it behind the engine to the other side of the engine bay, gearbox side where there is LOADS of room, but suspect I'll be doing exactly the same as you have done here! Thanks for the pointers

[Tubbo]

No problem and good luck 👍

[Split_Pin]

Ah I was reading the F/S thread on this and thought it looked really interesting. Good choice!

[Stanky]

@Tubbo - you may wish to look away now! Alternator out in just under 39 minutes. And it came out the top 😁😁😁

I was removing the throttle body and inlet manifold anyway as I wanted to renew the gaskets for both. I'm reasonably sure that there is an air leak after the throttle body which is causing the idle issue and gaskets are a cheap place to start. With the TB off and cleaned throughly using carb cleaner on the bench, and inlet manifold out there was loads of room to get at the alternator. I undid the top bolt, allowing it to pivot around the tensioner bar, slipped the belt (v old and being replaced) off and then used a spanner jammed between the locking nut and the driveshaft to hold it in place while i undid the bolt end

/\ /\ /\ view from the top with the TB and inlet manifold removed

/\ /\ /\ alternator brackets visible with it removed

/\ /\ /\ The prize!

I'm prety pleased with that TBH, the majority of the pipework I removed I pressure tested scientifically* by putting a finger over one end and blowing down the other. My lips now taste wird and oily. Nothing untoward there so its now a waiting game for the inlet manifold gasket to arrive, and I need to take the alternator up to JASM on tuesday, swinging by Hedge End toyota for the throttle body gaskets I ordered.

I left the alt belt in situ so i can see how the new one needs to go when it arrives early next week. I can slip it into place with all this gubbinz removed and then hook it over the alternator pulley when its back from being refurbed before reassembling it all.

if tomorrow is as nice as today I may get the wire wheel out and have a go at some of the crusty bits with some vactan.

[Tubbo]

Excellent job that man! See it’s easy when you know how 😆 I’m chuffed it was relatively straightforward for you. There is a card in the wallet with a diagram of the belt routing that I noticed when I was going through the paperwork.

[JMotor]

Nice buy. 

Wonder what those Sirions are like? 

It's another car that seems to have disappeared quite quickly in numbers too. Suppose the rust doesn't help. 

[Talbot]

There are some very odd things that make some jobs much easier, that if you don't know about them are just not obvious.

CX for example.  I remember someone on the CX forum trying to have a new battery fitted.  The garage (fast-fit IIRC) couldn't work out how to get the old one out and were struggling like hell.  Quick comment on the forum "Remove the NS headlamp", which is 1 cable and three clips.

Battery swapped and headlamp back in.  It doesn't *look* like removing the headlamp would make any difference...

[Stanky]

The alternator out the top was more luck than judgement - I was removing the inlet manifold anyway, but once out there is quite a bit of room to get down to the alternator. I fully expected to have to go through the process Tubbo mentioned earlier to get the wretched thing out.

I spent some time this afternoon looking at the rear end. with it up on the lift I could get both back wheels off and have a serious look at the rust. The bad news is that it's gone both sides, the drivers side I knew about and actually this looks relatively simple to deal with. Its been welded here before, there is a triangle-shaped fillet thats been welded in before, but its gone further down that this in a pretty bad way so I think the best option is to cut the whole section out and then form a new C-shaped section from 2mm steel and have it welded in by my brother in the summer.

The pipe8 going across the top is a rubber sheath taking a wire to the back bumper so can be moved out of the way easily. with that removed, I can undo the tired damper and ease the spring out by lowering the torsion bar, then I aim to cut the U-shaped bit to the left of those (factory) holes and as close as I can to the spring mounting and then have a new u-shaped section made up and welded in, then fill it up with as much dinitrol cavity wax as I can get in.

The passenger side had a rusty looking scab that turned into a 2" hole when probed gently with a small hammer. I decided to have a good poke about because if its in for welding then it might as well have all of it done at once. This is in a rather more fiddly area where multiple sections meet. the good news is that its quite localised, and the inner bit is in fairly good shape. I will aim to cut this out carefully with the grinder and see if we can plate over it. see below

 

Thats the 'good' side - I plan to cut out this bit as best I can and have a new bit welded in where the red outline is

MOT bods - is this likely to be Ok when it comes to be tested?

Can anyone advise if its is MOT-legal to drill a hole in chassis section to allow rust proofing to be injected in, and then the hole sealed with a rubber bung? this is within 30cm of both the suspension mounting AND seatbelt mounting for clarity. I'll get some pics up later to illustrate what I mean.

I also spent some time with a wire brush in my drill removing loose surface rust from the rear of the sills and leading edges of the inner wheelarches, before painting it all with a liberal coating of vactan. It looks like two small fillets have been welded in here in the past too. They are in decent condition, but I wanted to catch them before they go crispy and need re-doing so its vactan then zinc primer tomorrow, followed by probably black enamel since they aren't visible at all unless I have just run you over.

I had a go at undoing the bolts that hold the rear section of exhaust to the centre silencer but they aren't having any of it, I gave them a good dose of penetrating oil and will try again tomorrow. the nuclear option is to use the impact gun but I'd like to at least try to loosen them by hand before that. The exhaust I think is not a standard storia/sirion part as its bigger bore than I'd expect. Probably about 1.75". I imagine a standard end pipe would fit though so we'll see what happens when/if it comes off. its got a fairly big hole in so needs replacing. the rest of the system is in good condition, I hope to get it to come off intact in case I need to have a new bit made up in stainless.

[Stanky]

Possible long-shot here. On a car with a rear torsion beam setup, if you remove both rear dampers will it just flop down? I need to renew the dampers (though the springs are fine) but it would make life easier for the welding if the torsion beam could be swung further down out of the way.

What I don't want though is for it to suddenly drop to be pointing at the floor and rip all the brake pipes out. Basically if I can get it to be at about 35-45 degrees to the floor that would be ideal for several jobs.

[JMotor]

I'd of thought it be possible. 

If you didn't let it thump straight down and strain the flexi pipes.

It should be fine. 

[Stanky]

28 minutes ago, JMotor said:

I'd of thought it be possible. 

If you didn't let it thump straight down and strain the flexi pipes.

It should be fine. 

Is that what it's going to want to do, once the dampers are unbolted? 

[JMotor]

Yes. 

If it's a H beam style axle. Only held in certain points. It'll swing down if it's not held at the back with the dampers. 

Unless the Sirions are different? 

I would still have a jack under it to support the beam anyway. It'll help with shoving the lot back in. 

[Stanky]

3 hours ago, JMotor said:

Yes. 

If it's a H beam style axle. Only held in certain points. It'll swing down if it's not held at the back with the dampers. 

Unless the Sirions are different? 

I would still have a jack under it to support the beam anyway. It'll help with shoving the lot back in. 

pics to illustrate now in the post from 6pm today, pic #4 illustrates the torsion bar and springs, with the far damper visible

[mitsisigma01]

Did you get a ramp sorted in the end? 

[JMotor]

It's a typical H beam then. Held at the front into the car and at the back by the dampers. 

It's not OFMG end of the world if it flopped straight down, bar possibly straining the flexis. But a pain to lift up yourself without a jack. 

Plus it may be under some tension still on full droop. Nothing that will kill you (maybe full disclaimer there). Just maybe a surprise when it moves suddenly. Also may make taking the top damper nuts off a little more of a pain. 

[Stanky]

12 hours ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Did you get a ramp sorted in the end? 

I ended up getting one of these, possibly the best thing I have ever bought!

 

[Stanky]

Fixing has commenced, I got the inlet manifold gasket in the post earlier so that has been fitted. I removed the old one and gave the recesses that the new gasket goes into a thorough clean out with brake cleaner and a tooth brush, then washed with water, then dried with cotton buds. I put a smear of silicone grease around the manifold side of the gasket and gently fitted it. I'm not putting the manifold in the car as I need the alternator to be fixed first. I used an abrasive pad to clean off the engine block side of the inlet ports while it was all apart too. It got cleaned down with a rag and some brake cleaner afterwards.

I have also cleaned up, vactaned and (today) zinc primered the bottoms of the leading edges of the inner arches at the back. I'll wait for the primer to dry for a few days then spray them black enamel with a rattle can I think. It'll be hard-wearing I hope and its not a visible area anyway.

I managed to get the old exhaust rear section undone with a good dose of penetrating oil and then assault with the rattle gun. I've ordered a replacement end section from ebay for £27 delivered so I'm fully expecting something crafted from sellotape and kitchen roll tubes. I also ordered 2 new rear dampers as they were only £58 for the pair and these ones are quite tired looking. While I had the impact gun I undid the damper bolts, copper greased them then did them up again in prep for the new ones. This all went without incident.

I hope that some more bits arrive tomorrow, the throttle body gaskets ought to be ready at Hedge End toyota and I can drop the alternator off at JASM on the way. I'm not sure how long it'll take for it to be refurbed though? I can't do much more on the engine until the alternator is fixed. 

 

[Stanky]

Some further furkling, without pictures though.

I got the throttle body gasket from Toyota which went on easily. The gasket for the ICV part of the throttle body arrived in the post today so I changed that over as well. The old one was quite crusty. It seems to be to keep the coolant-heated bit separate from the air bypass for the throttle butterfly and I assume if it gives up, you fairly rapidly hydrolock the engine so lets hope its gone in correctly shall we?

The dampers arrived and I set to fitting them, then noticed a small difference (other than that these aren't 150% haggard)

Yes thats right, I'd ordered the wrong part. FFS. These are for the rear end of the 4WD variant and have a totall different mounting at the bottom. I duly arranged a return and ordered a new pair which were right. They were only £60 for both which seems entirely reasonable, but will probably wear out in a matter of minutes once fitted. 

I've temporarily refitted the old one for now to hold the torsion bar in place. @JMotor was/is exactly right and without the dampers fitted, all the torsion bar wants to do is flop down to point at the ground. judicious use of a block of wood and my trolley jack got it repositioned fine.

I also got the auxiliary belt, but on trying to remove the old one, I found that its trapped by the belt tensioner arm thing. there is bugger all clearance and someone has rather severely mangled the pulley retaining bolt in the past.  I opted to leave this the hell alone for now, I hope the alternator will be back from being refurbished tomorrow or friday and an old belt is better than no belt for testing out if my fiddling has fixed the idle issue or not. 

I bought a gasket to fit between the new section of rear exhaust and the middle section after measuring the old one. The pipe and gasket ought to be here by the weekend so can be fitted and then the car trial-stated to see how the idle is, and also to gather any new and exciting fault codes. The knock-off delphi ds150e happily talks to the car and I cleared out two fault codes. I plugged in the various bits in the engine bay and no fault codes returned with the ignition on so I don't think anything is faulty. I got some live data readouts going for the MAP sensor and with a bit of silicone hose pushed over the top, I sucked on the pipe to make a vacuum and then blew down it to build up pressure - both of these caused the live data graph to change so I think thats working as expected. I can also use this to graph the data with the car running and see if we have any other issues. I'm optimistic the answer will be a resounding 'NO'

I also took the time to disconnect the battery in an effort to reset the ECU. I'm not sure if @Tubbo did this after he changed the throttle body the first time? Apparently this is what needs to be done when you fit a new one so the ECU can 're-learn' the new one's settings or something? 

I didn't get around to painting the inner arches today so thats a job for tomorrow. I had to go and sort out my brother-in-law's mk6 fiesta which has been parked up for 5 months 'to save money' except now it needs discs and pads all round, the battery was totally flat and the battery clamp bolts had rusted solid so needed drilling out and nut & bolting and now the alarm keeps going off so I'll be back there tomorrow to sort that I should think. I dread to think what else is wrong with it. I did casually mention that cars are designed to be driven and leaving them outside unused will result in bad things happening, we shall see. Its out of MOT so thats item 1 on the list then go from there. I have a sneaking suspicion that the chronic gearbox oil leak thats now stopped is mostly because all the oil has leaked out and the drive to the MOT will kill it, but we shall see. 

[JMotor]

Wrong parts. We've all been there.

In fact it's a part of daily life in my job of being a storeman 😂. 

Otherwise sounds like you're making steady progress. Maybe not anything startling, but it's moving forward. 

As for the gearbox leak. Is there a oil level bung in the gearbox to check if there is something left in the Fiesty's gearbag? Wonder if its because the diff seals are gubbed? 

[spartacus]

It's full speed ahead with this Stanky, great progress. If the new dampers are KYB I don't think they'll be that bad.