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Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - New Car Update 16/3


Stanky

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1 hour ago, mitsisigma01 said:

White dog shite, rare as rocking horse shite nowadays, haven't seen a good one for years

Weirdly I think this has been discussed on another thread not that long ago

I think the answer was that dog food used to have a lot of ground bone in it but now it doesn't, and the white shite was due to the high calcium levels from all the bone

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On 3/11/2020 at 1:45 PM, Dan_ZTT said:

I think the answer was that dog food used to have a lot of ground bone in it but now it doesn't, and the white shite was due to the high calcium levels from all the bone

That's my understanding of it; when my guy eats turkey necks and liver, his pooh is always crumbly and white and dissolves in a shower of rain. 

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Well, thats made things a whole lot worse.

Full of optimism I went out, jacked the Daewoo up, put it on a stand, removed the wheel and dismantled the caliper. It was binding quite badly, I couldn't turn the wheel in neutral with the wheel off the ground so it definitely wasn't happy.

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I got the caliper off the carrier with a crowbar and screwdriver, undid the brake fluid reservoir cap and then tried to push the piston back into the caliper with a g-clamp

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And it wasn't having any of it. I should have stopped here in hindsight and put it back together again. But I didn't. I decided that the best thing to do was gently push the piston out by havign my daughter press the brake pedal, this went fine, the piston slowly pushed out a bit allowing me to inspect the condition of it.

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thats not great is it? I didn't go any further than this, as I didn't want the piston to pop out entirely. Seeing the state of it made me think I needed at least an overhaul kit with piston and seal but this would need to wait for another day. I then tried to push the piston back in. NOPE

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Because its come out wonky hasn't it? FFS. I spent about 2 hours wiggling, clamping, twisting, and using plumbers wrenches to try and straighten the piston up and get it to retract but it wasn't playing ball. I wedged both pads in against the U-shaped other side of the caliper and then used the brake pedal to push the piston out to try and straighten it up, but all that happened was the piston pushed out lop-sided again. FUCKING THING.

I've now given up, I put it all back together minus the pads on that side and need to carefully consider my next move. I can take it to my local garage if I go slowly and only use the handbrake - so possible if I either go late tonight or early tomorrow morning. They may have tools that will allow them to extract this piston and replace it with a new one, or do we think its too far gone now (as the surface is pretty pitted and is clearly getting jammed on the bore of the caliper?) and its new caliper time? TBH the brake fluid could really do with being changed and the garage will be able to do this at the same time with their gear but it'll not be cheap I fear.

Any other ideas people? How do you straighten up a piston into a caliper? its not having any of it, even with force spread evenly using a bit of scrap 2mm steel over the end of the piston and using a stout g-clamp, it just refuses to retract. Luckily, there is about 3mm clearance between the end of the piston and the inner side of the disc so it can still turn without contacting the disc and fucking that too.

Incidentally, the sliders still slide fine, its definitely a damaged piston thats causing the binding.

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An entire brand new caliper is £80 from ECP after discount and with rebate from returning the old one. Realistically the work at a garage isn't going to be less than that is it? And all* I'd need to do is clamp the flexi and undo the union on the old caliper then screw it into the new one, undo the clamp and bleed it through a bit, right?

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Looks pretty borked. 

You could put something square and solid in that just fits between the furthest out part of the piston and the "fingers" on the caliper and pump the pedal to force the piston out onto it to and square it up, then push it back in, a little rotation of the piston wouldn't hurt to move the corroded patches away from each other. 

With a bit of lube and some wet n dry that would buy it a bit of time untill you get a new caliper. 

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If you were desperate you could get it going again with some wet n dry and a bottle of brake fluid, pump the piston all the way out and disconnect the caliper and get it onto a bench.

Clean the piston up with WD40 and fairly fine wet'n'dry and possibly also the bore. Get the seals out with a pick tool and clean out the grooves too.

With the rust and gank cleaned up as well as you can reassemble, lube up the seals with brake fluid and the piston should go back in under firm hand pressure.

If the piston is pitted after cleaning it will need replacing eventually, the pitting will wear the seal but it'll be reet until you can order a new one off eBay.

Or just get a rebuilt caliper from ECP, depends on your £/time ratio.

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I tried twisting the piston in the bore but it wasn't having any of it, I also jammed the pads one on top of each other in between the piston and fingers of the caliper, but pumping the brake pedal - even with the engine running - only resulted in the piston coming out the bore wonky then jamming. It resolutely refused to retract at all, or come out - so even if I got a new piston in an overhaul set I couldn't get the current corroded one out the piston. I suspect any more force will also bork the caliper so easier to just replace it I think.

It'll need doing either way, once I factor in an overhaul kit, brake fluid, wet n dry and seal I'd halfway to an entire new caliper anyway, and thats before I ham it all up after spending 11 hours in the sleet getting this one out!

 

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Just been out to check on the union 'twixt caliper and brake line and its a banjo bolt, not a 'normal' brake union fitting like I had on the Geep. Anyway, I tried loosening the hex bolt a bit (expecting it to be seized solid) and to my amazement it cracked off and brake fluid seeped out. I did it back up and squirted it with some penetrating oil for good measure, but that bodes well for caliper replacement in the week, should be a case of whipping the bolt and banjo thing off, giving it a quick wipe off to remove any muck and then fitting it to the new caliper before I lose too much brake fluid. Hopefully it'll be relatively painless and braking performance will be restored.

I loosely reassembled it all and put the wheel back on, and gave strict instructions it was not to be driven at all until further notice.

I also pushed the car back a bit as it was in a slightly awkward position for my in-laws to get their car off the drive, reassuringly it rolled fine with me pushing on the b-pillar so I think the other brakes are fine and its just this one thats had it. 

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Today, having started work an hour early to attend a webex meeting with people in the Netherlands and Austria I took an extended lunch to go and pick up the replacement caliper from ECP. The shop was as busy as usual, with 6 of us in there at about quarter to one. I waited outside until I could stand 2m away from the next herbert to be on the safe side. I'd ordered both front calipers as they helpfully listed them in 'left' and 'right' sides without saying if those were from the drivers seat, or from outside the car looking at the front. I told the counter person I wanted the drivers side one which he duly provided and kept the passenger side one. I also got a small bottle of dot4 fluid. Anyway, recovered it all back to HQ and then spent an afternoon fixing a shambolic mess of a spreadsheet I'd hammed up last week, luckily before it got presented as fact* at a management meeting.

At bang on 5pm I turned the laptop off and strode out to the Daewoo like a boss, determined to at least get the new caliper on before it got dark. jacked up, wheel off, axle stand in

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I'd only done it all up hand tight the other day as I knew it was all coming apart again so this was easy. caliper removed from carrier and bolts set aside

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As you can see, my vactan and zinc primer treatment is holding up* well* in the background. The brake line is attached with a banjo bolt in 13mm flavour.

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New caliper in old box.

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I deftly undid this with my rolson mini socket set, rapidly wiped it all off with a cloth and then screwed the banjo and bolt to the new caliper. Then remembered I'd forgotten to fit the copper washer so took it all off again and then did it back up properly. Leaving the scene looking like this

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only minor brake fluid leakage all over the disc, and on the road

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I sprayed the disc and general area off with carb cleaner and wiped it all up with a rag, leaving this

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Looks alright. Next up was refitting the pads to the carrier which was painless. I cleaned them up with a wire brush so they fitted properly and copper-greased the anti-squeal shims into place. There is plenty of meat left on the pads and I didn't want to buy two new sets because I'm a mingebag.

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Next up, fitting the new caliper over the old carrier and whatnot. Easy enough as the piston is fully retracted giving loads of space to play with

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In place and bolted up to the sliders. As you'll be able to see, there is loads of gap between the new piston and the old pads, so I started the car up in P and gave the brake pedal a good squeezing several times to get the slack taken up. This pushed quite a bit of the manky old fluid down into the new caliper so i topped the reservoir up with fresh dot4.

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Wheel back on and tightened up, and tools put away.

With the slack taken up, I went out for a tentative first drive to see what it was like. I'd not bled the system yet, so apart from 3" of pedal travel with no discerable effect (underpants in wash at time of typing) its loads better. No binding, car brakes nice and straight even under hard braking from 50mph on an A-road. Driving normally with hands off of the wheel it gently pulls to the left with the camber of the road and having got back from a 20 minute run all 4 wheels were still barely above ambient temperature, suggesting the bind was indeed only that wheel and its now fixed.

Tomorrow I need to bleed this caliper, but I'm optimistic that the bleed nipple will cooperate as its brand new* (refurb) rather than rusted to buggery original. I also need my father in law to assist with the pedals end of this operation and he was out this evening so it can wait for now.

I aim to do the bleeding tomorrow and then be back to full working order. I'll take the totally FUBAR old caliper back to ECP at the weekend for my £50 rebate. Incidentally, I'm astonished that if I get a £50 rebate on this caliper, Pagid can actually make money selling them to the public via ECP at £80 a shot. Considering refurb costs, new pistons and seals and stuff, distribution and the cut that ECP need to make on this stuff (nevermind delivery to the branch) £30 doesn't seem like very much? Whatever, not my problem. I have (spongy) brakes again now.

 

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Yes sliders are all clean, freshly greased with silicone grease and boots are in good condition. I have a spare set of boots if needed, but as the current ones are OK I left them alone. I need to find a short bit of hose to bleed the caliper with now...

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Caliper bled and normal function restored, my father in law did the pedal while I opened and shut the bleed valve into a jar of new brake fluid. It farted out a big bit of air, then subsequent goes just pumped fluid out so I stopped after 5 goes. I topped the reservoir up afterwards and took it for a drive and the pedal feels fine now. Normal levels of travel to slow the car down. The car tracks fine on a run up to 60mph and slamming on the anchors from 60 > 20 and it braked in an absolutely straight line.

After the run the wheels were all only just above ambient temp so I'm calling that fixt.

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For the price - especially after discount it was a no-brainer. It'd have cost me £40 in parts for the rebuild kit alone and goodness knows how much time. Whereas a brand new one with the all important not-seized bleed screw was only another £40. All in all it was 75 minutes work over 3 days, I spent over 2 hours on the old caliper on saturday and got nowhere.

My inner womble is satisfied that the old one will go back for refurbishment though so not like its just being lobbed in a scrap metal pile (not by me at least). I'll take it back to ECP today I think because I'm not sure how much longer they are likely to be open for.

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Had to head up to Guildford to collect a car seat for the youngest this evening and took the Daewoo to give it a run. 48 miles each way with a mix of NSL, 30 and 40mph limits and it behaved impeccably - when we got there I jumped out and felt the driver side wheel and it was barely warm so no more binding. I had reason to get pez on the way back, the previous 5 gallons delivered a dismal 29mpg (from a smoll 1.6 auto...) so I'm optimistic that the brake fixeration should raise this to anywhere upwards of 32mpg, giving a payback period for the caliper in mere decades, rather than centuries.

to be fair, most of its work is local pottering and the gearbag is a sack of shit, always miles off where you'd hope it would be - either revving madly or at 1500rpm and miles away from the torque - but if we can get to an average of 35 to the gallon I'd be a happy boy. The fact it is actually performing as hoped is consolation enough right now. I fixed the brakes* and no-one died (yet)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Happily, the replacement of this caliper has also stopped the weird chattering noise from the gear selector. It used to make a funny chattering/clicking noise at idle in P unless your foot was on the footbrake, having replaced this caliper the noise is gone.

It make a solitary click when you slightly depress the brake pedal, and another click when you remove your foot. Otherwise, blissful silence.

I think it was the sticky caliper making the transmission lock flick on and off like crazy

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In a fit of Corona-virus-self-isolation-crawling-up-the-walls-with-boredom I ordered in some bits from GSF the other day, which duly arrived this morning

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I R XCITE

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An air filter each for both cars, and new spark plugs x8 of two different flavours. Lets move the cars up onto the drive so i can legitimately say I'm on my own property doing this and get stuck in

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Not exactly 5-spanner stuff here. 4x 8mm captive screws hold the lid of the air filter housing on, then pull the old filter out. I think this might have been last changed in 2013?

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Its not gone far since then, but its still a bit manky. And in with a nice* new one. Hengst wasn't the cheapest one that GSF sold, but it was the second cheapest, cos thats how I roll.

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Lid on, bolts done up and TICK. next, the plugs. The engine is covered with a big protector as they all are these days, so that was removed. The front 2 bolts are easy, but the back ones are horrible things and you seem to be unwinding them for eternity before they finally let you extract the cover. Underneath there is no rail, just the push-fit pencil coils. I pulled one out, put the spark plug socket and 3/8 extension down the hole and oh... ummm we'll need another extension then won't we?

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I rummaged in the garage for another extension and found a weenie one which gave just enough room to get the ratchet on the end and undo the plug. It came out fairly easily and while old and clearly heat-worn it was the right colour, a sort of rusty brown indicating (I think?) clean combustion

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New one in. Bosch R6's which again were the 2nd cheapest ones GSF sold that would fit the Daewoo.

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Gapped correctly out of the box as well. I repeated this with the other plugs, 2 and 3 were a bit oily and manky

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So I'm not sure whats going on there? Maybe oil slopped down the bore at some stage? or maybe a leaking rocker gasket? I don't know.

I used the genius idea of putting the new plugs on a bit of old hose to lower them in and get them to bite the thread. The advantage of this is that you're not dropping them electrode-first down the hole, and if you start to cross thread the plug, it'll just spin on the hose rather than chewing up a new thread in the cylinder head.

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All in all a successful mission. The car started and ran fine afterwards so I'm calling that a success. I kept the two least manky old plugs just in case and they'll go in the boot as emergency spares. After the Saab debacle this seems like a good idea. I reckon this work should give me about another 30bhp - ten for the air filter and 5 each for the plugs? Taking it up to about 35hp TOTAL.

thanks for tuning in to 'stankys sharty substitutions' for today. Mild mechanical maladies fixt in a flash.

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Bit more fixing today, for some reason air filters for this thing are weirdly expensive. I finally got round to buying one at GSF the other day and it turned up earlier. I swapped the dusty current one over and then had a serious look at the spark plugs. Apparently M111 engines are hardy things but like to eat plugs, so I bought some Denso K20TT plugs at GSF at the same time as the air filter.

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I took off the plate that sits between the cam bulges in the cylinderhead and was presented with a disappointing sight

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Hmmm, male torx? I don't have the right bits for removing those. Lets try with an 8mm hex socket instead shall we? I managed to remove one coil pack without totally b0rking the bolts, then had a go at taking the plug out. This had been previously done up by Thor and was SERIOUSLY tight, so much so I repeatedly checked and double checked I wasn't turning the ratchet the wrong way. Eventually it released its grip on the cylinderhead threads and came out. Looking at it, its in surprisingly good condition, and is also a fancy-pants NKG Iridium jobbie which are like £20 a go, so I chickened out and gently put it back after putting a tiny bit of penetrating oil on the thread and lowering it back in on the end of a bit of syphon hose. Do we think old (20k miles?) iridium plugs are better than brand new Denso non-iridium plugs? The Denso one can go in the glovebox for now

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and I'll have a think. The colour is right on the plug tips and they don't seem excessively burnt on the insulation ceramic stuff so probably alright?

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  • 2 weeks later...

A bit more fiddling as way of an update. There is a lot of satisfaction about having a clean interior, and the mercedes was very much an exception. All the bits I could get a hoover to were good, but in amongst the seat runners where even the pointy vacuum tube thing wouldn't fit there was all manner of visible detritus. crisps, mcdonalds chips, brown bits. they works. Having thought long and hard about this, and with a bank holiday weekend with nothing to do, I decided to order some e-torx bits and remove the front seats for a good clean, inspired by @beko1987's work with the Xantia.

The front seats are held down with 4x E10 torx head bolts, you need to put the seats all the way back, then get to the front two, then all the way forward to get at the back two. they were quite tight but eventually gave up their grip and came out. Then you need to rock the seat back to get at the electric gubbinz underneath

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This is the belt pretensioner and the electric adjustment stuff. It was reluctant to come out but eventually gave up the fight without snapping.

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With it all undone, you can then slide the cables out from the bars under the cushion, undo the belt bottom bolt and lift the (astonishingly heavy) seats out and behold the grot

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hmmmm

I cleaned up the hard plastics with a damp cloth, cleaned the underside of the seat with the same cloth, wiped the muck out the runners, hoovered the fluff out, then attacked the carpets having removed quite a lot of litter. The end result was quite pleasing

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over 73% cleaner! I refitted the seat with a small amount of silicone grease on the bolt threads then repeated the expercise on the drivers side. This highlighted how much of a dinlo I am, as on refitting the seat when i had cleaned the underneath, I tried moving the seat on its runners with only one runner screwed down. This was A BAD IDEA because the runners were out of sync. Cue about 20 minutes of sliding it back and forth to try and get it to line up again until finally it worked. screwed down and will leave alone for another 19 years I think.

I'm pretty pleased with that all in all. it'd have looked better if I had got either a wet n dry vac, or even a decent henry, rather than an ancient and appallingly shit beige hoover brand box thing, but the MIL expressly forbade me from using the 'inside the house' vacuum to do the job with.

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  • 2 months later...

A good day for fettling today. I had some time earlier and had a go at using my fancy pants lift/tilter on the Daewoo as I never got around to putting colour onto the bit in the arches that got vactan and primer in November. 

I put the car up on the tilter and raised it up enough to get both front wheels off the ground. I undid the wheel nuts and took the wheels off. The hasty job I did on the arches last november after the MOT was holding up ok, with minimal pin-pricks of rust. Prior to this the entire area was brown and flaky.

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It looks worse than it is, I cleaned it with a rag and it came up OK. However, seems daft putting paint straight over this so I gave it another coat of vactan both sides

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and wrapped all the suspension components that I could using polystyrene sheeting 

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This took quite a while to do both sides, I was fiddling with the mercedes as well (update to follow once work complete) so left it to dry for a couple of hours. Once dry, I used the leftovers in the can of Galaxy White that I used for the rear arch a year or so ago to overcoat it without spraying everything under there white. I'd like it to look less rusty, but not like its been painted with a paintball gun wielding drunk. 

End result wasn't bad, access the other side was a bit 'cosy' so just imagine it like this only reversed. On the driver side I managed to spray part of the lower arm but generally it was OK.

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It looks very bright, but will soon get mucky and blend in. It seems a load better now, and as this was the only other advisory (other than the now-sorted brake) in the last MOT so hopefully it'll pass OK in the winter. Its not a good car, but it is reasonably easy to work on, fast enough, and has enough interior space. Plus its pretty rare being a 2004-only 'Daewoo' branded one - before they went over to Chevrolet branding - and is something of a throwback by the standards of the mid-00s. My GX (lowly) spec 1995 Nissan Almera was better equipped, faster and more fun to drive.

Not thrilling stuff, but hopefully some preventative fixing to keep it going for a while yet. The lift made the whole job a lot more stable, and a load easier, 10/10 for the first time I've used it properly. 

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And now an update from the other heap. I'm not a huge fan of alloy wheels, especially 20 year old ones which are a bugger to keep clean and in good condition. Add in a couple of previous owners who weren't hugely keen on keeping all the original bits of the car intact (see centre caps of alloys, luggage blind, mirror flaps on sun visors etc etc) and it ends up letting the side down a bit. They're also a sod to refurb without paying someone £40 a wheel to sandblast and then powder coat them, and then another firm £20 a wheel to remove the tyres, then refit them once done at the powder coaters and be wheel-less for a week and its all a bit of a chore. I like steel wheels with hubcaps which are honest things and a lot easier to look after in my experience. The mercedes has alloy wheels....

To begin. This is one of the best wheels

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They're not in bad condition, hold air fine and have locking nuts, they are shod with some 6 month old tyres but the brake dust gathers in the recesses and is a general chore to keep on top of. I wanted steelies, which mercedes sold as part of a 'winter kit' for the w203 I'm given to understand. Tracking 4 down, 20 years later was a bit of a challenge, but eventually I found a breakers in Crawley who had a matching set of 4x 6j x 15" ET31 steel wheels, which is what I wanted. I drove up in the pouring rain a few weeks ago to collect them and brought them back to Stanky HQ. They were a bit old and corroded but weren't past it by any stretch of the imagination. I paid £15 each for them which is a bit more than I wanted to pay, but they weren't interested in a deal for all 4, and the alternative was to buy 4 different ones from hither and yon and pay a fortune in postage. These were reasonably local and only needed one trip out to collect.

The wheels had quite a bit of surface rust

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A mixture of crusty steel and built up brake dust. The outside face was better, but not a lot better. I set to with a wire wheel in my angry grinder to take off the worst of the flaky bits and lumps from all 4 wheels which generated quite a substantial bit of dust. A person with a double-digit IQ would have worn a mask, I held my breath as much as I could and ended up with brown bogeys for about 3 days...

The end result looked better. I also gave the lips a really good seeing to with a metal file to remove all the surface rust and old rubber to make sure when they got to receive new tyres the beads sealed properly, as otherwise the tyre place would need to file the nice new paint off to smooth off the lip which wouldn't be good

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They got 2 coats of vactan at this point covering both the inner and outer faces of the wheels and hopefully addressing the remaining surface rust. Next up was a seeing to with black enamel paint. Once the vactan had thoroughly dried, I broke out these.

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I got 3x 400ml cans of this from ebay for £12 posted, which I hoped would be plenty. I painted the wheels one face at a time, with about an hour between coats until all 4 wheels had received 4 coats inside and out, before being left to dry out thoroughly for 24 hours.

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Looking loads better, I hope you agree? Again, my 'hold your breath and spray 'til you go blue' method of PPE failed hard and I had black bogeys for 3 days. At this point I trial fitted one of the wheels to the car to make sure it didn't foul anything, the bolt holes lined up etc etc. Mercifully they were fine. One thing that was very obvious though was that the bolts that go with the alloy wheels are WAY too long for the steels. The alloy wheel bolts are 40mm thread, whereas the steels need stubby 20mm bolts to hold them onto the hubs. I had one set of 5 of these with my spare wheel in the boot so fitted it up ok

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I went to ebay and ordered a set of 20 bolts which the seller assured me would definitely fit the car. They were 25mm thread m12x1.5mm pitch with a 17mm head. I hate locking nuts with a passion because in 2019 no-one steals shit alloys off 20 year old mercedes, and ham-fisted morons do shear off locking wheelnut keys trying to remove and refit wheels. They turned up and looked like this

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Lovely shiny new bolt on the right. however...

On refitting the wheel, the bolt hit the end of the blind threaded hole in the hub well before the steel wheel was clamped in place. Buggeration. Here you can see the issue. Alloy wheel bolt on the left, brand new 25mm bolt in the middle and 20mm bolt on the right.

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The new nuts also have a tapered rather than domed section between the head and the threaded section which also doesn't help. OK, back to ebay, I needed 15 of the stubby 'spare wheel' wheel bolts to proceed any further. I can get away with just having 15, as I can reuse the 5 that go with the spare wheel in the boot since if I get a flat tyre, I can use the same bolts I take out to refit the spare wheel now. I also don't want any locking nuts at all. 

A chap in southampton came up trumps, for whatever reason he had 5 sets of 5 stubby 20mm bolts for sale, and took an offer on three sets which were duly posted out to me. I cleaned them up in the vice with a wire brush and gave the threads a light dab of copper grease and put them on the shelf.

Next step was to get some rubber. I went with shiters favourite Uniroyal Rainsports from Tyreleader at £40 each delivered. They arrived from Germany within 72 hours, the parcel of wheelnuts from southampton took 6 days to get here....

I took the wheels and tyres to my local tyre place who are really decent, I dropped the wheels and tyres off to them and went shopping with the kids while they fitted the tyres to the wheels. I've been going to them for a good few years now and they were pleased as punch that I left them alone to just get on with it, and that I didn't have 4 manky old bald tyres that they needed to dispose of either. They fitted the tyres, new valves and caps and balanced them for £40 which I was more than happy to pay. I love the smell of brand new tyres.

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The final piece of the puzzle was some hubcaps. I wanted genuine mercedes hubcaps, aftermarket ones are universally shit in my opinion, but originals are now 20 years old and seemed to be rather scuffed, or outright chewed up! Ebay came up trumps again with a set of 4 hubcaps which were scuffed but otherwise in good condition for £20 delivered. They arrived safe and sound a few days later and I set to with fixing them up. I used my 'mouse' sander with some 600 grit sandpaper, followed by 1200 grit to sand down the rims of the hubcaps  to get the gouges out and smooth them down

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I masked off the centres as they were in good condition and I couldn't work out how to separate the chromed metal star insert from the plastic

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Wiped them off with an old rag covered with meths to get as much dust off as I could and then began giving them a few coats of wheel silver

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I got 4x 400ml cans of this stuff from ebay for £10 which I thought would be plenty, giving each hubcap 4 coats of this basically used all of it up. In hindsight 6 cans may have been better but the hubcaps have come out well enough. One of them had particularly deep gouges which haven't come out quite as well as I'd hoped, but its not obvious from more than a couple of feet away. After this I had silver bogeys for 36 hours.

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I let them dry for 24 hours before starting on the lacquer to seal the paint. I managed to do one coat on one hubcap before my lacquer ran out and I had to order some more from halfords

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It took them 4 days to get the lacquer in stock but once there I got on and gave the hubcaps 3 coats each with a few hours in between to dry off

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The colour match vs the original (centre section) paint is mercifully very good. As you can see from the rightmost hubcap its blended in really well. 

Next up, demo fitting a hubcap to a wheel

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I'm pretty pleased with that, from 18" away they look really good (IMHO). So only one task remains. Car with alloys fitted at 18:30 tonight

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30 minutes later, with SGS jack deployed to lift each corner in turn and swap the alloys over to the steelies using stubby bolts and fitting hubcaps on turns it into full on taxi-spec c-class

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I think its a much cleaner look, will be easier to keep clean as the hubcaps are very flat with no intricate bits for brake dust to get stuck in, and if it gets to it, they can be removed, sanded and re-painted quickly and easily if the brake dust and road muck gets really embedded.

I need to take the car out for a few runs to wear the tyres in, and also then re-check the wheelnuts but I'm really pleased with how it looks now. All that remains is to do something about the lacquer peel! My lungs are probably fucked from the amount of rust, enamel paint, silver paint and lacquer I breathed in - I really need to get a decent mask for this sort of thing. But the end result is most pleasing.

Thanks for tuning in.

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