Project Domes shonky autos - Car that lived by the sea in Scotland in rust shocker*

[big_al_granvia]

Take the 50 quid and run mate

[Flat4]

4 hours ago, big_al_granvia said:

both looking braw mate, some good work there. dont scrap the scrap wheels, i dont have any spares for the civic

Are they the same fitment as the Civic? There's a few variations.

[rickvw72]

Nice Accord! I really fancied one in that colour when I looked.

How whistle is it on boost? He one I’ve bought sounds like a lorry turbo. Mine does pull hard from low down, wondering if it’s been played with?

 

Or it’s about to explode

[dome]

45 minutes ago, rickvw72 said:

Nice Accord! I really fancied one in that colour when I looked.

How whistle is it on boost? He one I’ve bought sounds like a lorry turbo. Mine does pull hard from low down, wondering if it’s been played with?

 

Or it’s about to explode

There's a little whistle at low revs, not sure if that's normal or not? It pulls well but I doubt mines been remapped. It's tempting to do, especially as mines low mileage but I'm not sure how well the chassis and brakes would take another 50 odd bhp. If it helped the economy I might be tempted though.

 

[CreepingJesus]

Of course it will, if you boost'n'coast. It's a sensible mod.

[Fraz]

11 hours ago, dome said:

There's a little whistle at low revs, not sure if that's normal or not? It pulls well but I doubt mines been remapped. It's tempting to do, especially as mines low mileage but I'm not sure how well the chassis and brakes would take another 50 odd bhp. If it helped the economy I might be tempted though.

 

As you know, o drove that 2.2 cr-v yesterday and it whilsted at low revs too. Probably a standard noise, 

[dome]

I serviced the Accord yesterday. 

Up she goes to drain the oil

It came out not too black and in roughly the right quantity so that's a start.

While it drained I moved onto the air filter.

Yep, that'll be overdue then...

Fuel filter next.  @rickvw72 covered this better than me in his thread. It's a spin on filter with a water drain on the bottom of it. 

Sounds simple, except on the Accord it's mounted right up on the bulkhead under the windscreen so you have to remove the whole housing and associated bracketry to get access.

It's behind the primer bulb here.

I got it off and into the garage.

Unscrew the water drain to let the fuel out of the filter then remove the bracketry and carefully clamp the housing in the vice to remove the filter.

Yep, that was overdue

 

That's better.

Refitting was straightforward. You stick it all back together apart from the outlet hose from the filter then prime it till fuel starts to flow. Then reconnect the house, prime it a bit more til it goes hard(stop sniggering at the back) and it fired up first time.

Fin.

[dome]

Kangoo was finally put back together last week. 

Annoyingly the steering wheel doesn't sit straight now with the new column, it's about 45 degrees out.

Annoying as there's only one way it can go on the rack and one way the wheel can go on the column. This means the column has been split at some point and put back on wrong. I'll need to adjust the tracking to fix.

Took it a blast and it was going well

Yeah, about 5 minutes after this it died....

I coasted to a halt and started prodding. There was no noise from the fuel pump so I called my mate to ask where the fuse/relay was. On spotting a blown 30a fuse under the bonnet he said "yeah, check your lambda wires, if they melt they'll blow that fuse." 

Oops. 

The wire must've came loose from all the moving up and down of the engine required when doing the timing belt. GLFery resulted in them melting to the exhaust, popping the fuse and killing the pump.  I chopped off the melted wires, stuck a new fuse in and we were away again?

It turns out the melted wiring was for the post cat lambda which has been chopped on this thing-it doesn't seem to bring the EML on amazingly so it was just a case of chopping it and all was good. 

I rewarded it by fitting a fuel sender from a petrol Kangoo I liberated from the scrappy.

This was running the Clio sender/pump which worked fine but the sender float was a different shape and didn't read accurately. This new one should.

[Mudster]

On 7/16/2020 at 12:27 PM, SiC said:

Such good engines in those Hondas. As reliable as the VAG PD130 with plenty of go. Just don't let the  oil level go to low as fucks the chain. Bit dead until around 2k rpm, remaps fix that. Suspected Honda did it to match their petrol engine style. 

Given the age and low mileage, this may suffer from the two issues these did - cracked exhaust manifold (this year was around the new part revision) and clutch. Both have had modified revisions by Honda that sort these out but given 44k may not have had them. Saying that, I (and 2 previous owners) got 97k out of my original OEM clutch on my Civic. 

Can confirm the exhaust manifolds crack, and its awkward but it's not the end of the world. Fumes in the cabin is the usual symptom. My Civic has a CRV 'one piece' cast manifold fitted now, which shouldn't crack. On the Civic the front subframe needs to come out (see picture) but there is more space in the Accord. Still, if I can do it anyone can.

 

 

 

[gm]

I'm fairly sure my Civic has that cracked manifold problem, it fairly stinks of exhaust if I don't keep the vents on recirculate. Taking off the subframe sounds drastic though, I'll live with it for a while longer  

I might have a go at the fuel filter, I'd read it's a bugger to bleed but you make it sound pretty straightforward - famous last words ? 

[Mudster]

Mine was the same GM. Lived with it for 9 months and resolved to swap it after the MoT where it had been left idling for a while. Wasn't pleasant getting in it for the drive home.

To be fair, I think you have your hands full with MX5 at the minute! ?

[gm]

4 minutes ago, Mudster said:

Mine was the same GM. Lived with it for 9 months and resolved to swap it after the MoT where it had been left idling for a while. Wasn't pleasant getting in it for the drive home.

To be fair, I think you have your hands full with MX5 at the minute! ?

Very true - as long as the honda keeps going, it's getting left alone

i take it the manifold leak isn't an mot issue then ? mines is on a boris extension until January so not a pressing concern. although will it be leaking boost ? still seems to go well enough 

[Mudster]

It's a fail if they notice (unlikely they will notice). Turn the climate system off so the fan stops running when taking in for MoT.

[dome]

4 hours ago, gm said:

I'm fairly sure my Civic has that cracked manifold problem, it fairly stinks of exhaust if I don't keep the vents on recirculate. Taking off the subframe sounds drastic though, I'll live with it for a while longer  

I might have a go at the fuel filter, I'd read it's a bugger to bleed but you make it sound pretty straightforward - famous last words ? 

The bleeding is the easiest part to be fair, as long as the civic has a primer bulb? Mine fired and ran perfectly first time. 

[gm]

Now I think about it, I reckon I did the fuel filter on my previous Civic (same model, just less dented) and don't recall it being much trouble but when I did a search all I could find was tales of woe and calling the rac because they couldn't bleed it properly. I'm off work next week so will give it a go, access isn't the best but there is definitely a primer bulb in there somewhere  

or spend my time fannying around with mazdas instead 

[dome]

Time for an update on the fleet.

Accord

Not much to report here. One thing that was annoying me was the lack of FM reception. The aerials on these are built into the glass and notorious for being rubbish. I bought an aftermarket combined DAB/FM aerial to mount on the roof so set about fitting it. First off, remove the combined stereo/CD changer/Sat Nav. 

Here she is out. I also found the sensor for the auto headlamps had fell into the dash, this was restored to it's correct place but it's missing a cover so a bit over sensitive. Anyway, here's the stereo almost out.

At this point (well, after removing it from the dash) I plugged in the new aerial to test it. Zip. Nada.

I then tested it in the Kangoo and it was working fine so the problem must be internal to the head unit. Fuck taking that apart! I'm glad I found that out before I drilled a hole in the roof and routed the cable under the headlining... I might add an aux input so i can fit my DAB radio, I'm not fussed about FM.

Other than that I pulled the EGR valve off to clean it. It wasn't too bad at all, unsurprising with the low mileage.

It's done about 2k miles in my ownership and is still doing a very good job of being a car. MPG wise the dash tells me it's averaging 44 ish. Not bad for a big estate that spends a lot of time at motorway speeds.

MR2

This has had a quiet year so far as track days were cancelled along with the rest of life as we knew it. We booked our first outing for last Monday so a bit of prep was called for.

Oil change, new rear pads and chasing some leaks were on the agenda.

The oil leak seemed to be from around the timing chain tensioner. A new o-ring was purchased for this. The aux belt tensioner needs to come off to access this but it's not too bad a job.

New o-ring on and back together and I turned my attention to the exhaust. I cleaned up the exhaust paste and crap on the manifold and found a tiny leak so broke out the sparkly stick to patch that up.  I then gave it a lick of paint to smarten it up a bit

Before

After

A bit more presentable.

It was then off to the track day and... it rained

Have a bonus shot of the support vehicle, which I'm fairly sure i could get round Knockhill quicker than the track car...

It didn't even dry up enough to get the slicks on so we had to do it on the road tyres. It was good to get out though and the wee car went well. We did 90 miles in the session which will be somewhere around 60 laps and used 3/4 of a tank. Shame it wasn't dry but it held together well. Some more mods may happen-a brace under the front to match the mid brace we have and maybe some fresh bushes.

Jag

After mentioning on another thread that this would be up for sale in the near future a shiter local to me contacted me to see what it needed. A price was agreed on and a deal was done pending me sorting out a couple of issues

First up, brakes. The front brakes had developed a pull to the right. I stripped them down and checked the pistons. The passenger front had a sticky piston so I (carefully) pressed it out far enough to be able to clean it up-here was a bit of corrosion on it so emery paper was deployed. I pressed it bad in and tested it-it was now moving freely and pulled up straight so that's a win.

The handbrake shoes were catching slightly on the NSR so I pulled off the wheel to adjust it. It's still doing it a bit but doesn't sound as bad. At the same time I got my grease gun out and greased up the UJ on the driveshafts on both sides.

The main thing I wanted to do though was fit the new ISCV that I'd bought for it. I was't sure what was causing the occasional no idle from cold but an ISCV was cheap. Apparently a Renault part was a perfect fit for a fraction of the price. Yeah, about that...

Air box pipework off-the throttle body needs to come off to get the ISCV valve out

I fitted it and fired it up. The revs flared slightly but it settled down to an idle-all good I thought. I then went for a drive and stopped for fuel. On restarting it ran like shit-revs fluctuating between 1500-2500rpm at idle

I  nursed it home and stripped it down. On removing the airbox pipe I heard something rattling around inside it, Hmm.

Here's how the ISCV came out...

And here it is beside the old one...

The rest of it were what was rattling around inside the trunking...

Turns out that the Renault ISCV isn't quite the perfect fit. When you switch the ignition on the little plunger extends out into the throttle body and back in a sort of self test thing.

 Except, the diameter of the cone on the end of the plunger of the new one is too small, so when I started it back up after refuelling it extended all the way out and fell apart inside the throttle body. Needless to say a bullet has been dodged with that one as if the parts had went into the engine that would not have been pretty...

I used the old plunger on the new ISCV and fitted it, thankfully it fired up and ran. Whew.

So, on Saturday night I picked up @SRi05 from the train station and took him to meet his new chariot.

Farewell big Jag! Enjoy the next stage of your resurrection after 3 years sitting on a drive unloved

It is a lovely thing and I'd be sadder but this should clear the driveway to allow me to get the XJ40 home. I'm going to see the guy this week to see about arranging a day to give it a going over and see what it needs to get it rolling/running. Ideally I'd drive it the mile home but a tow/recovery might be a better option. I might need a few shiters to help push it up my sloping driveway though. Hint, hint...

 

 

[SRi05]

Jag parked up after a leisurely waft this morning. Cheers for being so helpful in collecting this and for the fettling. 

Sent a few messages to a friend RE the paintwork yesterday, bonnet is 100% being resprayed, I’m pondering whether to just get him to do the boot lid and roof as well while it’s in. Guy round the corner is a mobile tyre fitter so he’ll be coming with some new rubber on Friday. 

After that it’ll be used for daily waftage for my minor commute. I missed my old X300, such a relaxing and comfy place to be.

[stripped fred]

A bit of paint should finish that off nicely. They really are a great looking car. I need to sample one at some point while there are still a few left. I hope you enjoy driving yours....

[SRi05]

Just now, stripped fred said:

A bit of paint should finish that off nicely. They really are a great looking car. I need to sample one at some point while there are still a few left. I hope you enjoy driving yours....

The bonnet is the only part that's really crying out for attention, it's properly fucked. Photo's don't really show it. Looked great in the rain yesterday though ? The rest of it is fine, there's a few lacquer peel spots on the roof and boot but nothing major. 

[SiC]

Honda don't code or link their SatNav and radio systems in on this age I believe. So a scrapyard unit should plug straight in. Certainly did on my 2007 Civic when the radio part of the SatNav system went bonkers and made weird sounds through the speakers even when off. 

[SiC]

Just went back to pages 10 to 12 and re-read your Clio Cambelt change. I'm gearing myself up to the fact that I'll take off the aux belt and find the pulley disintegrating. Which means timing up the engine to do that. But it runs rough, so it'll probably be out. Which means retensioning it ... Which realistically means cambelt change... ?

[dome]

1 minute ago, SiC said:

Just went back to pages 10 to 12 and re-read your Clio Cambelt change. I'm gearing myself up to the fact that I'll take off the aux belt and find the pulley disintegrating. Which means timing up the engine to do that. But it runs rough, so it'll probably be out. Which means retensioning it ... Which realistically means cambelt change... ?

Cam locking tool loan available! 

Once you've got to the stage of getting the aux belt and gubbins off you're a good way in there. Is yours due the timing belt though?

[SiC]

Cam locking tool loan available! 
Once you've got to the stage of getting the aux belt and gubbins off you're a good way in there. Is yours due the timing belt though?

Guy said he did it 3 years ago when the aux belt snapped and the tensioner failed. It's done less than 8k miles (but 3yrs) since then and it is sounding like the tensioner has failed. The tensioner itself looks older than 3yrs imo, which makes me think maybe it was the idle pulley that failed. So replaced that with a belt but not the tensioner. If that's the case the belt might not have been done.

Last belt receipt I have was from 2007 (iirc). He was a mechanic and said he was going to get a receipt for the parts back to me. But now the deal is done, I've unsurprisingly heard anything.

I'm not overly concerned with the cambelt, it's the aux belt I'm most concerned about. If it was changed 3yrs ago, it still would be due now. Going on the fact Renault specced 36k/3yrs for aux, they can't have had too much confidence in the longevity of those parts!

My concern is that the noise is actually the crank pulley failing. Not unusual on these as they age it appears. But that means timing the engine. And you know it's probably going to be out from a badly fitted belt last time it was done. Especially as it runs rough on warm idles.

The Dolomite is in dire need of work though and really can't be outside too much longer without severely degrading even further. Webasto sunroof is going crunchy even too

So I was hoping to leave the Clio a bit and do it next year, instead of rushing to get it sorted right now.

[SiC]

Borrowing cam tools definitely would be appreciated though if I need them! Are they genuine Renault?

[dome]

11 hours ago, SiC said:

Borrowing cam tools definitely would be appreciated though if I need them! Are they genuine Renault?

No but they've been fine on the 2 belts that I've done. 

The hardest part(apart from access) is setting the tension on the belt. 

You can get the crank pulley off without disturbing the timing, worthwhile for peacebof mind if nothing else. Also pull off the top timing cover/engine mount and get a look at the state I'd the belt. I've got a full new(ish) timing belt and tensioner setup here along with dephaser. I doubt there's much market for it second hand but it's only done a few hundred miles.

[SiC]

No but they've been fine on the 2 belts that I've done. 
The hardest part(apart from access) is setting the tension on the belt. 
You can get the crank pulley off without disturbing the timing, worthwhile for peacebof mind if nothing else. Also pull off the top timing cover/engine mount and get a look at the state I'd the belt. I've got a full new(ish) timing belt and tensioner setup here along with dephaser. I doubt there's much market for it second hand but it's only done a few hundred miles.

It is very tempting just so I can see the uproar on the Clio forums for not only using an aftermarket timing tool but also second hand belts! Usually it causes enough disagreement when someone wants to DIY'ing the change!

Only issue with using second hand parts is the lack of receipt. A full genuine kit from a Renault dealer without aux belt and tensioner is £265. With that magic receipt and documented evidence of it being changed, I should easily be able to get that back if I ever sell on.

Also useful to know you've had no problems with the aftermarket tools. I don't understand on the insistence on using genuine Renault tools. They aren't anything fancy! Just a great big slab of laser cut metal in the shape of a horseshoe for cam lock, a small machined pin for crank lock and a couple of pulleys mounted on a plate for pulley lock.

I also don't understand why the fear of using other garages. These F4R and F4P engined are used for years now on the Renault range. I know the Mégane, Laguna, etc all use a keyed crank pulley but I think the rest is the same right from the 120bhp to the 255bhp tunes?

[dome]

Knackered after a long day today on the XJ40 that's not moved for 19 years.

Full update to follow but in summary

Brakes freed off

New plugs in with some oil down the bores

Cleaned dizzy cap and rotors.

Turned over on the starter and built oil pressure ok.

Fuel pump dead though

Tank needs to come out to change the pump

Unions on the bottom of the tank need to come out to remove the tank

Unions stuck in place and hard to access, right above the diff.

Tank still in place for now.

Have some pics

 

 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Frustrating, but the old girl looks well worth the graft. The fact it was only on her majesty's highway for nine years is good news with about the structure as well I hope. 

I can't remember why the owner laid it up - was it fuel pump on the way out at the time? 

[stripped fred]

It does look very smart...

[dome]

So, yesterday I set off at the crack of 10am to try and bring the XJ40 back to life.

The previous owner was there and helping/chatting as i worked so i got a bit more of the history of the car

It had been owned by him since 1996 and originally came off the road around 2001 with a leak around from what I think is the transmission cooler. A replacement cooler comes with the car but was never fitted.

He'd bought the burgundy car a few years later and the XJ40 had been left in the garage and forgotten about.

Ambitions were high but expectations were low. I'd love to get it fired up and drive it the half mile to my house (insured, obviously) but on the other hand I had no idea of the condition it was in underneath

First things first, lets get some air in the tyres.

Yes, it'd been a while...

That's looking a bit better.

Have some interior pics too. The headlining hasn't sagged like I believe can happen on these.

 

Next, plugs out and some GT85 in the bores. I wanted to turn it over on the crank pulley but it's something silly like a 33mm nut which I don't have so i left the oil to soak while I carried on with other things.

New plugs were fitted and the distributor cap and rotor arm were cleaned up.

Then, onto the brakes and fuel filter which is in front of the LHS rear wheel. 

The rear calipers didn't respond too well but the fronts freed up. Annoyingly the fuel filter I'd bought was incorrect. This 1991 car is, typically, just around time of upgrades.  

With brakes free it was time to put a battery onto it. i'd bought a new one so put it on and connected it up to be greeted with a wailing alarm siren. I'd bought a new battery for the fob but couldn't suss out how to get the alarm to stop beeping. When i got home i found a supplement in the manual for this alarm so I'll see if i can get it to shut up.

Next plan was to crack off the fuel line in the bay and run the pump to drain out any remaining fuel. Handily the relays under the bonnet all had little caps on them telling me what they were so the fuel pump relay was soon found. 

I couldn't resist turning it over on the key to make sure it wasn't seized. Thankfully it wasn't and it even gave a cough as if it wanted to live, presumably the GT85 in the bores as the fuel lines weren't connected!

I knew which connections to bridge to get the pump to run so connected a wire across them and-nothing. Hmm. At this point a lot of time went into diagnosing the problem-did the senile alarm have an immobilizer function that disabled the fuel pump?

Eventually I got into the boot and checked the fuel pump connections. Ignition on gave power going to the pump.

I wired the pump up direct to a battery to test it but nothing. Dead. Zip. Nada. At the suggestion if @jaypee via whatsapp I tried reversing the polarity of the connections in case that would free it off-still nothing. Bugger.

Early XJ40s had an external pump but on mine it is in the tank. Helpfully* it's located in the top of the tank and the tank needs to be removed to get the pump out. The blue and red wire here heading up the middle of the tank lead to the pump.

Working in the boot soon had the tank ready to come out, leaving only the unions underneath the car to undo.

Yeah, about those.

These are located above the diff. There are little R Clips that hold them in, then it's a case of pulling out the pipes and removing the tank. 

The Haynes manual helpfully says "remove the driveline"  

Yeah, drop the entire rear subframe and you give it a mere 3 words?!? Fucking hell. I hate Haynes manuals.

At this point some pics would help wouldn't they?

Yep, that's as good as you're getting. They're fucking buried.

I managed to get the R clips out and of course one pinged off never to be seen again.

The unions, however, would not come out. Solid. More solid than that. Access was terrible so no way to get grips or anything onto them. Far too long was spent swearing at them with no joy. 

Fuck.

At this point I decided to leave it for the day.

Options are.

1. Continue underneath trying to get the unions undone. I left them soaked in Plusgas but the lack of access to get anything on to pry them with and how seized they are makes this near impossible

2. Some people seem to reckon the tank can be hauled out far enough to get access to the pump while leaving the unions attached. I tried this and while i could get some movement it didn't want to come out. I think i'll try this first. If others have managed i'm sure i can. 

3. Others have cut a hole in the parcel shelf to get the pump out-I'm calling this the last resort, before the last last resort of dropping the subframe ?

Overall though I'm happy. It seems solid and in good condition and turned over happily. The seating position seems better than the X300, the non airbag wheel gives more space. 

With a bit of time (and money) it should be able to live again. If only I can get the pump changed!