Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - Fixing the worlds most reliable car 10/4

[Stanky]

aaaaah, brilliant, makes perfect sense now. Thanks - in that case the FSH is exactly that, and means that its about due an oil change so I'll do that myself and write my own entry in the service booklet.

Thanks again, I'm pleased as punch with it, and my wife even commented that its actually quite nice earlier which is high praise from her!

[skattrd]

It looks good. I'm a big fan of w203 (currently on my 3rd) and find them a good compromise in terms of size, mod cons and handling.
They do nothing outstanding but I find them very competent and make decent dailies.

That said, I've never had a manual one, so don't really use the foot/hand brake in anger, I just apply it occasionally to make sure it doesn't seize.
I did drive a manual Merc once and got slightly confused by the handbrake when in traffic on a hill.

[taxi paul]

Looks like a good one. There should be enough left on that corner just to grind off and rebuild it with filler . Good luck. 

[Stanky]

Smoll update, the merc was used today to transport a load of old shite to the local tip, which it managed with aplomb. I removed all 4 locking wheelnuts to replace with the 4 regular ones in the spare wheel well, but was thwarted when I bothered to read the yellow instruction thing which said the set of wheel nuts were strictly for use with the steel spare ONLY so the locking ones were put back on. I'll look to get a set of 4 regular wheelnuts in due course. I don't trust locking ones.

I then cleaned the interior with my 2018 birthday present Autoglym kit, especially the steering wheel which was a bit icky but has come up well.

It was too rainy to bother washing the car today but I'll probably have a go next weekend. on the plus side, the 'driving like a total twat' test on some local greasy roundabouts shows that either the tyres aren't too bad, or that the TCS still works exceptionally well. Anyway, still very happy.

[Stanky]

R U MNTL M8? Yeah. So I spent 120% of the purchase* price on rubber acoutrements for my new* car.

Aldi were knocking out Michelin (starred) rubber mats for £11 on saturday, as other car mat perverts like @Jim Bell understand, its vitally important to have a good set of car mats in any car. So, we began with a distinctly low rent solution, what looks like doormats made of the type of carpet they put in schools and quite possibly prisons. This was confined to the front footwells, with the rear footwells being naked, but for the regular carpet. Time for some improvements

All Weather mo_fo's. To be fair, they are decent. heavy rubber mats, ergonomically sculpted for the discerning gentleman. One of the old mats is visible at the top of the shot here. see what I mean?

Front passenger footwell suitably shod. The rear was obscenely nude

here we are, much better

Next up was wiper blades. The ones on it were both elderly and tatty. Bosch ones, but a vintage set. They didn;t do that great a job of cleaning the screen so something had to be done. ECP were chopping them out but at the thick end of £17 a pop they could FRO frankly. Asda do decent wipers for £5 a go, so off we went. A pair of front wiper blades were the princely sum of £9 and fitting was a doddle. Since its peed with rain ever since they;ve seen plenty of action and made a massive difference. They clear the screen very well, and are silent in operation.

So, I've spent £20 on a car I paid* £18 for, but we're getting notable improvements.

I've since spent a further £12.80 on a fuel cap, which was oddly missing and replaced with an ill fitting universal jobbie, and ordered 5l of 5w/40 oil and a filter which I'll see to if i get a favourable combination of day off work, no rain and relatively little wind. otherwise its delivering 35mpg, interior luxury, capacious load carrying capacity and a smug sense of satisfaction that it cost less than every other vehicle I encounter on the queens highway. Oh, and faux wood.

 

[Jim Bell]

Hot damn that's some tip top notch NAME BRAND floor coverings man. Looking A plus star sexy. 

 

[taxi paul]

Yes you know when life is passing you bye. When you get excited by car mats. I count myself in this gang has I removed the celica mats to wash today and found them to be Michelin ones. But was fondling the rubber  ones in home and bargain the other day. Bargain at 5.99. 

[Stanky]

I gave the Mercedes an oil and filter change over the weekend, this included having to buy a 14-sided filter housing removal tool (why Mercedes? Why?) but another tool in my arsenal for future use. Overall the job wasn't too bad, but having to remove both undertrays to get at the sump plug was a faff. However, the front wheels are basically right in the front corners so I had no issues getting it up onto my ancient set of ramps which have rather a steep rise angle.

Anyway, it runs a treat and delivered about 37mpg over 5 gallons which is entirely acceptable. I checked the plugs and air filter but they were all fine, backing up the service history suggesting it had been given a full service in summer 2018, about 8k miles ago. Overall its a great car, and has been heavily utilised taking loads of old shit to the dump recently in advance of the big move at the end of the month.

 

[Stanky]

The Daewoo passed its first MOT with us on Thursday, mention was made of suspension top mounts, some surface corrosion on the front wheelarches (both very minor observations according to the tester) and slightly binding front brakes which they reckoned just needed to be taken apart, the sliders greased and then put back together - all jobs which are eminantly do-able if it stops blowing a gale with horizontal rain.

I'll have a look in due course, having just moved house I'm absolutely broken and the weather hasn't helped. I shall source some silicone grease in the week and hope for better weather. Sticky calipers may help to explain the less-than-stellar MPG situation which tends to hover around the low 30s, granted the auto gearbag is a hideous monstrosity but still thats pretty shambolic for a 1600cc small hatchback.

[Stanky]

New update on £19 car. Having given it a service, my eye was drawn to a couple of the cosmetic challenges that the car was suffering with. Being a 2001 Mercedes, unsurprisingly its afflicted by the replacement of oil-based paint in the production process by some poster paint that Chrysler accountants stole from a local preschool on the "I'm sure it'll do" principle of cost saving.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, its not very good, and the arches are getting blisters and the drivers door bottom trailing corner is very crispy. See picture taken from earlier in the thread

I thought about using my angry grinder with the wire wheel attachment on this as it made very short work of the scabs on the daewoo rear arch, but I was a bit nervous that it might remove the bottom corner of the door entirely so started out with a balding hand-held wire brush. This revealed that the scab was quite big, but didn't seem to go very deep - it was largely surface corrosion.

So I took the decision to assault it further with my drill-mounted brass wire wheel which is more aggressive than the hand-held brush, but less of a nuclear option than the grinder. I took the paint back to clean metal on the door, then set to with the rear arch leading edge and arch lip

Which is distinctly crusty towards the bottom...

And front arch which has lots of bubbles but actually surprisngly few holes

The wire brush tends to remove paint well, and flaky rust too but not strip back to clean metal as ferociously as the grinder wheel. This is a bit of an experiment now because I was going to Vactan it, and the Vactan instructions say to apply to rust rather than good metal. So here we go. Whats the worst that can happen?

Vactan merrily painted onto the rusty bits. Here it is starting to cure, it goes on white like milk, then begins to go purple, then when cured it goes black

I left it overnight and it had completely cured. Its self-priming/sealing but luckily the weather stayed dry (though cold) for a few days, allowing me to let the vactan fully cure and then slapped some Zinc182 primer on it all with a brush

This made a big improvement, because the vactan had cured black, from about 10 feet it looked like several areas of the drivers side had rotted away completely before it was primed!

Today, in the pissing rain (more on this later) I decided I'd take the primer back a bit. I procured some wet n dry paper in 400 and 800 grit grades and went out with some small sections cut off. As it had been raining for quite a while, and continued to do so while I was out, wetting the area proved no problem! I rough sanded the primer down with the 400 then gave it a going over with the 800 to smooth it off and give it a good key for paint.

I may have been too aggressive, its gone through in a couple of tiny areas to the Vactan coat (as you can see from some tiny purple speckles in the grey primer) but we'll see what happens. Worst case scenario if I still have it in the spring I'll take it all back with the angry grinder and start over, but it should be OK. The reason I went out in the rain to do thsi today is that tomorrow is scheduled to be both dry and relatively sunny here, so I aim to get basecoat and lacquer on if I can. Since its cold I wanted to do the wet sanding today so the areas for paint are relatively dry in the morning as it'll want a few coats which will take a while to dry as its so damn cold.

Last this I did was to make sure the paint I'd bought - More of the WLW auto aerosols from ebay which I throughly recommend - was the right colour. I gave the can a good shaking up and sprayed some on an old bit of kitchen roll tube from the recycling bin

Thats good enough for me. Mercedes 'Magmarot' and a nice flat solid colour which makes blending the paint in a damn site easier than metallics which are a bastard to do in my experience.

More tomorrow when I hope to have basecoat and lacquer on by nightfall.

[danthecapriman]

Nice job there, looks like you’ve caught the rust just in time before it became proper rot and holes.

I share your frustration with the weather. It’s slowing me down no end too!

[Stanky]

So, further updates  perverts. As promised by the met office, today was sunny, dry and cold. perfect* weather for paint application.

I had dozens of jobs to do, including the dismantling and greasing of the daewoo brakes, trimming the overgrown topiary by the front door of the in-laws house, ivy removal and paint application. Paint  application first.

Having flatted back the zinc 182 primer yesterday, I dried it all off with a rag then set to with the WLW aerosol on the arches. With moderate result. After 5 light coats, this was the result

 

 

 

I managed a dusting of red on the tyres despite covering them with a manky old towel, though since they are a motley assortment of China's finest death rings its of relatively little consequence to roadholding. Paint match is 10/10 as for as I'm concerned. Really good job WLW - even after 19 years the blend is pretty much spot on. Here is the finished article after 5 coats of magmarot base and 3 coats of lacquer (from 6' away)

Other than the damage to the public highway (I pay my damn road tax) I reckon that doesn't look to bad at all for a ham-fisted moron with a rattle can on a cold day. It doesn't bear up to very close scrutiny, with a slightly bumpy finish due to the rough finish on the zinc primer, but its pretty much rock solid in terms of surface rust now. A healthy dose of vactan, zinc primer and several costs of basecoat finished with 3 lashings of lacquer seems to have sorted it for now. If it goes mega manky over the winter then we'll try again in the spring but I'm optimistic its been caught in time and dealt with properly.

Next up, the passenger side which is less grim but still a bit bubbly. Front arch

And rear arch

Needs giving a seeing to. My new brass wire wheel should be arriving on Tuesday so if next weekend if not too wet I'll try sorting that out.

Keep 'em peeled, shite paint fanatics.

 

[Stanky]

As mentioned in the Fixerating thread in the main forum, the sun shone today and I set to with myriad jobs including the Daewoo brakes. The MOT man suggested that there was a slight binding in the fron brakes, more than likely due to the brake sliders needing a re-greasing. I bought a tin of silicone grease for the princely sum of £2.25 from ebay which arrove on friday so as it was dry (though not warm) I set to today to dismantle and clean up the front caliper sliders.

Here we are at the beginning. Drivers side wheel to begin with.

Front wheels are held on with 4x 19mm bolts. Helpfully* these had been previously done up by the incredible hulk so the regular ratchet stood no change and I had to have a furkle around for the father-in-law's breker bar which mercifull made short work of the wheel bolts hold on the studs. FFS.

With the nuts cracked off, I jacked the front up and slid a axle stand under the chassis rail and removed the wheel entirely

A bit of jiggling with a 14mm socket had the caliper off the carrier

And pads removed

I expected these to be original, but there is lots of meat left of them and they are APEC branded which suggests they may have been replaced once during its life. I used a screwdriver to remove the brake dust from the centre channel while it was apart

Next up, silicone grease. The internet suggested this wad the best option for greasing sliders as its not corrosive to rubber boots so I splashed out £2.25 on this 25g tin of the stuff. No 2 for added lolz

with the caliper removed from the carrier and pads pulled out and set aside, the sliders, err, slid out of their boots. This is the driver side top one

The old grease was a bit manky, having gone yellowy with moderate corrosion around the barbed section at the top/flanged end of the slider. I wiped it clean with a rag, and cleaned the barbed end with a combination of wire brush, screwdriver and cloth. here it is de-greased

I re-greased it with a smear of the silicone grease all over

and re-inserted it in the boot, working it back and forth then pulling the boot free to expel the trapped air. Next up the bottom one

this was less manky, but still worth doing. I wiped it clean, cleaned the barbed bit up with a screwdriver and wire brush before re-greasing and re-fitting with the trapped air expelled. The caliper was then cleaned up with the wire brush, the piston forced back into the caliper with use of a g-clamp (and the top taken off the brake fluid reservoir), the pads scrubbed up with the wire brush and re-fitted to the carrier and the caliper fitted over the top. I screwed the slider bolts home, fixing the caliper to the pads firmly and then without starting the engine pumped the brake pedal to push the caliper piston back to its normal position. Having done similar in the past with my (also automatic) Saab 9-3 this is REALLY important because otherwise you bung it into reverse and start moving backwards, frantically pumping the pedal to take up the slack between piston and pad as you inexoribly approach the neighbours PCP'd virtually new car, broadside-on.

with the slack taken up, its just a case of refitting everything. A smear of high-temp grease on the mating edge of the wheel and wheel re-mounted, then jack up enough to get the axle stand out then down onto terra firma and onto the other side.

Here we are with the wheel off the ground, and nuts ready to be removed with the breaker bar. Its was just as sodding difficult to get these to budge. The process was followed this side as well, with a 14mm socket used to remove the sider bolts and free the caliper from the carrier

The eagle-eyed* among you will have noticed the other MOT advisory of rust in the wheel arch in this pic.

GM saw fit to put in arch liners in the front half and rear 1/4 of the arch, but not the middle section  which geta pounded by shit off the road and rusts to buggery. FFS. More on this l8r m8.

Same process here. Sliders removed.

Cleaned, re-greased and worked in and out a bit.

These were less manky than the drivers side but still not brilliant. Pads cleaned up with the wire brush and re-inserted

Caliper piston pushed back in with the g-clamp and refitted to the carrier

and while we're here, lets wire brush the rusty bits and vactan them

Process repeated on the drivers side too, it needs paint but not today as I'm too busy. this will keep the worst at bay for a while until I can get it up on stands again and zinc prime and rattle-can it. as its out of sight it doesn't matter hugely how rough a job I do which is reassuring.

With this all back together I refitted the wheel, put the lid back on the brake fluid reservoir pumped the brakes to take up the slack and dropped it back off the axle stand/jack before taking it for a run. If I'm brutally honest it felt no different to me, but started, stopped and went round corners to an adequate standard. I'll keep an eye on the MPG to see if I can eke a bit more than 32mpg out of it.

All in all, a relatively painless task. There is even plenty of meat left on the pads so no immediate cause for concern. Just need to address the surface rust in the inner arches before too  much longer really.

As always, thanks for tuning in, white goods fans

 

[Lacquer Peel]

Cleaning and regreasing brakes sliders is really satisfying if everything isn't rusted to shit. I bought a small tin like that off eBay but it was red rubber grease instead.

[Stanky]

Most of the internet seemed to be arguing about whether to use red rubber grease or silicone grease for the sliders, with an outside contingent who reckoned that copper grease would be fine.

I decided I'd try silicone grease as its fine with the rubber boots apparently. I think red rubber grease is the same? But anything petrol-based will rot the boots out eventually, apparently.

I'll probably put a dab in the window runners in the mercedes too to make their lives easier.

Fiddling with brakes always used to give me the willies but I'm happier with it all now. I may even get round to replacing the very-slightly warped front discs on the Mercedes at some point over the winter but we'll see. Its certainly not a hard, or time consuming job, at least on this which as you say was relatively rust free.

[beko1987]

Fuck brake calipers. I stripped and cleaned them all on my old Blue Laguna and 2 decided to then stick to the point of nearly a fire. Bastards. Current ZX is being left the fuck alone until it needs discs or pads

I bought a tube of special brake caliper grease years ago and it's doing me fine. Saying that I fixed the back calipers of said Blue Laguna with WD40 and a big hammer so anythings possible!

[Stanky]

That was one of my concerns about the job! luckily it all seems to be OK, my wife took it for a run down the motorway yesterday to go and see a friend and said it was fine, her only observation was that the pedal travelled a bit further when braking, suggesting that they might indeed have been binding a bit before, and now my expert* fixing has freed them off so the piston retracts properly now.

As Lacquer Peel said though, I imagine the prospect of doing this job on 20 year old, rusted to fuck calipers is a bit less appealing than on these ones!

[mitsisigma01]

Get a Rover, twice a year every year at least! 

[Stanky]

Slapped a load of Zinc primer over the Vactan yesterday, I was lazy and just brushed the road muck off with a hand brush then painted the primer on as much as I could. Since with the wheel on its all but invisible I decided I didn't really care that much. I'll leave it a week then see about putting some white over the top of the zinc primer. Because its a bit of a fiddly area I suspect I'll need to spray the aerosol galaxy white into a pot and then brush it on, though as its not very visible its probably not the worst thing ever.

Otherwise its looking pretty decent, two of the three advisories sorted out and the remaining one can wait for next spring.

[Stanky]

A few more thrilling updates, first of all the completion of phase 1 of rust treatment and painting. I'd finished the drivers side, but still had the passenger side to do. It was less bad, but still bubbly arch lips and a few weird spots in the middle of doors and the suchlike. I got the wire wheel for the drill through in the post and ground it all back. I used my father-in-law's 18v battery drill for this and it wasn't as good as my mains one. Granted it was easier to use, I ran 3 batteries out grinding the pant down, and trying to push the wire wheel in to take the paint off more aggressively just resulted in it slipping in the drill  or jamming entirely. I got there in the end.

With the arches ground back, Vactan'd, primed, topcoated and lacquered it was looking quite a bit better

There is a bit of overspray in the arches which I may clean back with some meths or something, or just wait for it to be blasted off by road muck.

Next up I gave it a good wash all over. It looks like quite a small car until you wash it and realise there is actually quite a bit of metalwork to deal with. I just used a sponge and hot water because i wasn't sure how the new paint would stand up to a jetwash. I also used my magic stinky wheel cleaner and a toothbrush to sort the wheels out. Here are the results

I'm pretty pleased with it overall now. If you get up really close the paintwork is a bit bumpy, but you have to be less than 6 inches away to be able to tell. The colour match is excellent considering its a rattle-can job. The only bits that might want dealing with now are a couple of areas of lacquer peel on the bonnet, and an ugly repair on the roof where it looks like its been keyed then repainted with a brush and some not-the-right-shade red acryllic paint. It'll be easy to grind back and treat and paint but I need a dry, calm day to do it, so maybe June 2020?

Next up some oily bits. From extensive reading the only inherant fault of the M111 engine is that the cam solenoid on the front of the block leaks a bit of oil. By itself this isn't an issue, but the original wiring for this part allows oil to wick up the harness, along the loom and into the O2 sensor and ECU, borking them if left alone. I ordered the replacement part from ebay, having confirmed with MB that the new part with part number 271-150-27-33 was the right one - I was slightly confused as there is a lot of overlap with the M111 engine and the supercharged M271 engine, and the '271' in the product code made me think I might be buying the wrong part. MB confirmed that actually the part was right, though it was introduced when the M271 engine came in as this is a shared (faulty) part.

Anyway, I popped the bonnet open to have a good look. I knew it was a bit leaky (after 19 years and 110k miles)

its not mega-bad really, a bit mucky but no major concern. The new part is basically a 20cm connector with altered wire routing so the oil can't wick up the loom, and just extends the loom by 20cm. lo-tech but apparently works. I unplugged the old connector and undid it from the loom, checking inside the plug that connects to the solenoid (cylindrical thing on the right of the picture) for oil. It had a small amount of oil in it, but the wiring was totally free of oil which was a good sign. I went to add the new harness in, then realised that the green label on the connector was the later part number

So it has been fitted with the updated part already. idiot, should have checked this first! anyway, as it was all apart anyway I cleaned out both ends of the harness extension with contact cleaner, and gave the solenoid and front of the block a clean with carb cleaner to make it less mucky, refitted it all and went inside to warm up. On the plus side I have a replacement part in case its ever needed, and there isn't 19 years of grot and oil soaking the entire loom.

I took it for a good run on saturday to help a friend collect his new car so its been given a good run. The MOT is due in February so we'll see what that throws up I think. I'd like a new set of matching branded tyres rather than 4 mis-matched Chinese budgets, but in all honesty I have struggled to break traction on the current tyres, even on a wet roundabout and deliberately driving like a dick so its not critical. There is plenty of tread left so they'll go through the test fine. I don't want to spend £200 on rubber before the test though in case there is something terrible I am not aware of.

Otherwise not much to report. It just does everything I expect of it. I might buy a new star emblem, or maybe just one of the round flat ones to cover the hole there there right now. I'm in two minds about it.

[Stanky]

MOT day today, place bets NAO on the fail sheet!

I checked over everything I could, the visible rust has been treated, all the lights work, they tyres have tread on them, no warning lights are on the dash and it starts, stops and goes round corners like I think it should. Will £19 car get a straight pass, a marginal squeak through with a list of advisories as long as all our collective arms or condemned?

Updates to follow while I wear out the F5 key on my keyboard and put substantial load on the MOT checker website during the day.

[Stanky]

A fail, but not a bad one really. both front balljoints are kippered and one tyre has exposed cords on the inner edge (which i didn't spot). I was going to replace the tyres anyway as they are a selection of China's finest ditchfinders but was holding out in case it was massively condemned at the MOT.

It also go advisories for a worn suspension bush and ARB d-bushes.

Anyway, the garage can replace both bottom arms, including the balljoint and bush from the advisory for £200, and I've asked them to sling a set of 4 mid-range tyres on it as well, and I'll keep and flog the 3 not-illegal tyres as part worns to recover some of my costs since there is life in them and someone will pay a tenner a corner for them I suspect.

So, they are cracking on with it, they said otherwise the car is in fine shape underneath, no rust or concerns (so my wheelarch treatment was the only work needed in that respect) and with fixed suspension it should do a good few more years.

I couldn't have replaced it for less than the £450 odd it's going to cost me so might as well get it fixed up.

Thanks @DialATune - its given sterling service for the last 3 and a half months and will provide another years motoring for less than 1 month's contract payment on the guy at work's 2013 E220. #bangernomix4lyf

[DoctorRetro]

Not bad result and the paint has come out great. 

If it were me, the whole car would have ended up black... 

[Split_Pin]

Good news, £219 all in for another years motoring. I call that a great result.

[Kiltox]

1 hour ago, Stanky said:

A fail, but not a bad one really. both front balljoints are kippered and one tyre has exposed cords on the inner edge (which i didn't spot). I was going to replace the tyres anyway as they are a selection of China's finest ditchfinders but was holding out in case it was massively condemned at the MOT.

It also go advisories for a worn suspension bush and ARB d-bushes.

Anyway, the garage can replace both bottom arms, including the balljoint and bush from the advisory for £200, and I've asked them to sling a set of 4 mid-range tyres on it as well, and I'll keep and flog the 3 not-illegal tyres as part worns to recover some of my costs since there is life in them and someone will pay a tenner a corner for them I suspect.

So, they are cracking on with it, they said otherwise the car is in fine shape underneath, no rust or concerns (so my wheelarch treatment was the only work needed in that respect) and with fixed suspension it should do a good few more years.

I couldn't have replaced it for less than the £450 odd it's going to cost me so might as well get it fixed up.

Thanks @DialATune - its given sterling service for the last 3 and a half months and will provide another years motoring for less than 1 month's contract payment on the guy at work's 2013 E220. #bangernomix4lyf

I hope your colleague has a 2019 E220 if it’s more than £450 a month!

This looks ace though. 

[bezzabsa]

I reckon you need to *cure the paint and rust issues with a good old 70's / 80's Black tide mark

 

[DialATune]

This makes me very happy. Keep that mighty red bugger working. It's replacement has recently let me down big time, on the other hand!

[Stanky]

3 hours ago, Kiltox said:

I hope your colleague has a 2019 E220 if it’s more than £450 a month!

This looks ace though. 

If only! The joys* of having a terrible credit rating and a burning need* for a prestige car tends to result in 'competitive rate finance, no money down' type deals. I do feel sorry for him because you can become trapped in the cycle but there.

They garage have been brilliant, having called me to give the result at about half 12, they'd sourced the bottom arms and tyres, had the old arms off (including the joy of corroded to buggery bolts)  and new ones on and all 4 tyres changed and balanced and ready by 4.30 for me to pick up. The bill came to less than I expected too so I bunged them a fiver after I paid the bill to go in the tea and biscuits fund for fitting it all in so quickly. 

The car now drives really well, no clonking over the velvety* smooth roads of hampshire and tracks nice and straight. I'm going easy on the tyres for a hundred miles or so to wear them in but overall very pleased. 

[Stanky]

Fresh from the MOT I decided that I had cash to burn and wanted to make some final cosmetic improvements. As with so many mercedes' some scrote has snapped the star off the bonnet, leaving the circular chrome plinth with a grotty hole in the middle. I looked on ebay and found a chap in Belgium selling genuine emblems for £9 delivered, which was cheaper than i could get one of the flat roundel ones, so I splashed out on it. I duly arrived last tuesday and I set to today in the sunshine to fit it.

Behold my grotty hole

I popped the bonnet and furkled around underneath to get the old base out. Its sort of a bayonet fitting, you fit the whole thing through the bonnet then twist a collar around to secure it in place. Here is the old one removed

Leaving an even-worse looking hole in the bonnet. It was all encrusted with mud and moss so i cleaned it out with a rag

Then unboxed the new star which to my astonishment was made of actual metal, not the sort of plastic reserved for Tesco Value Christmas cracker toys

This was refitted without any issue - it clips into the bonnet hole, then you twist the collar round to clamp it into position. Here it is now, looks pretty good I think?

How long until some scrote nicks it, or I impale a dozy pedestrian on it?

 

[Stanky]

Having driven the Daewoo to the hospital today, the front drivers side brake is binding a bit. The wheel is VERY warm to the touch after a 70mph run down the motorway (like too hot to touch for more than a second or two) but oddly it'll pull along at idle in drive, and doesn't pull to one side at all.

Its not likely to go anywhere between now and the weekend (it tends to sit around all week as my wife rarely drives anywhere, but needs a car from time to time) so I'll strip the sliders down again and re-grease them and see how things are looking. I'd really prefer not to have to overhaul the caliper, or buy a new one TBQH. 

Once its fixed I'll have to start taking it to work a day a week to keep it exercised I think.