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

[dome]

On 24/06/2023 at 08:57, cort16 said:

 

What horrors did you see on the other 6 you looked at.?

 

Just for you @cort16join me on a trip through the cheapest 911s in Scotland...

 

First up I looked at this one in a dealers to get an idea of what a good* one would be like.

 

It was actually pretty decent but the clutch felt horrible. I didn't drive it but was assured there was a new clutch in the workshop for it. It was at a typical used car sales type place so I wasn't particularly confident about them doing a clutch on it. Not really the sort of place to buy one from IMO but it was clean and had a load of history.

Next up was this one, up for £9600 or thereabouts.

 

The guy had a fair pair of balls on him, he'd bought it as a non runner and got it shipped up from down south to avoid getting a Scottish car. 

He replaced a load of parts before finding the fuel hose on the sender unit inside the tank was the culprit. 

There was zero history with this one but at first glance it looked pretty good. Sadly when it was reversed off the transporter the bumper got fucked

More worryingly there was rust on the B pillars. Early cars like this didn't have arch protectors and this is where they start to go.

The drivers side felt soft to the touch so not ideal. A quick test drive showed a clunk from the front end and more worryingly some transmission noise from the front end(it was a 4wd one) Next!

I'd spotted this one for sale at a broker (Trader selling on behalf of the seller) and it seemed ideal-a facelifted (slightly more power and nicer interior) Carrera 2 with no sunroof in a lovely shade of grey. It was £18k until I told him I wasn't buying it...

 

 

Firstly when I spoke to him he asked if I'd seen it since the stickers were added. I said no and he proceeded to tell me how the car was owned by his neighbours son and he'd decided to part with it and said he'd send some pictures over. 

Eventually the pics came over, showing a different car. This one in fact, which wasn't advertised at the time but was there at the dealership when I rocked up, priced at £16995. The Fuchs and RS wanabee spoiler didn't do it for me and neither did the rust...

It took a bit to actually arrange to go for look at the grey one it but I was promised a massive file of history, great example etc etc. I asked for a reg number to check the history and was promised it but never got it before going down to look at it. 

When I got there it was OK, but had a few issues.

Rust on lower rear front wing/sill

Front bonnet/boot struts were fucked.

Rear discs had a fair sized lip on them and a few other things that frankly didn't make it seem like an £18k car and certainly not as good as he made it out to be. 

The seller went to great pains to point out a crack on one rear light lens and said how when the chap approached him to sell it he said he'd "put his mark on the car" and showed me a clean MOT test from a few weeks ago. 

We took it a drive and it felt pretty good. The service history wasn't available at the time so I took the reg number and went to do some homework with the promise that he'd get the history.

Checking it out when I got home showed a not great MOT history, including a load of advisories from 2022, including a rear light lens 🤔

I mentioned this to him when he called to follow up the next day and he said he now had the history and would send over some pics. He did, but these only showed the 2022 MOT fail and work to pass. I contacted the specialist who did the work and they confirmed that was the last time they worked on the car, it was sold to the current owner shortly after. 

I said this to the seller who said the current owner had spent load on it  but couldn't seem to manage to send me any evidence of this, saying "there's loads of history, you'll need to come and have a look"

Hmm, it's a 3 hour round trip mate and you pretty much shot yourself in the foot by pointing out the cracked lens that was an advisory on that test that miraculously wasn't on the fresh test you'd arranged, along with the more serious advisories? In the sea with you!

In his defence it may have had more history, frankly I wasn't wasting any more time on it though...

One more was this one

Guy was sound, he'd had it for 4 years but his (absolutely lovely) classic Mini rally car was nearing completion and he wanted the 911 gone to create space in the garage for it. Lad.

Reasonable history and it drove well, he wasn't afraid to give it the beans too. Sadly it was just a bit too rusty, each arch needed some attention and I couldn't spend £14k on something that looked a bit ropey

For context mine was cheaper than that one!

 

[Jim Bell]

Sounds like you bought very well man. 

[dome]

1 hour ago, Jim Bell said:

Sounds like you bought very well man. 

We'll see. I'm fully aware that the purchase price is only the entry fee. I'll need to pay to play😳

[cort16]

2 hours ago, dome said:

Just for you @cort16join me on a trip through the cheapest 911s in Scotland...

 

First up I looked at this one in a dealers to get an idea of what a good* one would be like.

 

It was actually pretty decent but the clutch felt horrible. I didn't drive it but was assured there was a new clutch in the workshop for it. It was at a typical used car sales type place so I wasn't particularly confident about them doing a clutch on it. Not really the sort of place to buy one from IMO but it was clean and had a load of history.

Next up was this one, up for £9600 or thereabouts.

 

The guy had a fair pair of balls on him, he'd bought it as a non runner and got it shipped up from down south to avoid getting a Scottish car. 

He replaced a load of parts before finding the fuel hose on the sender unit inside the tank was the culprit. 

There was zero history with this one but at first glance it looked pretty good. Sadly when it was reversed off the transporter the bumper got fucked

More worryingly there was rust on the B pillars. Early cars like this didn't have arch protectors and this is where they start to go.

The drivers side felt soft to the touch so not ideal. A quick test drive showed a clunk from the front end and more worryingly some transmission noise from the front end(it was a 4wd one) Next!

I'd spotted this one for sale at a broker (Trader selling on behalf of the seller) and it seemed ideal-a facelifted (slightly more power and nicer interior) Carrera 2 with no sunroof in a lovely shade of grey. It was £18k until I told him I wasn't buying it...

 

 

Firstly when I spoke to him he asked if I'd seen it since the stickers were added. I said no and he proceeded to tell me how the car was owned by his neighbours son and he'd decided to part with it and said he'd send some pictures over. 

Eventually the pics came over, showing a different car. This one in fact, which wasn't advertised at the time but was there at the dealership when I rocked up, priced at £16995. The Fuchs and RS wanabee spoiler didn't do it for me and neither did the rust...

It took a bit to actually arrange to go for look at the grey one it but I was promised a massive file of history, great example etc etc. I asked for a reg number to check the history and was promised it but never got it before going down to look at it. 

When I got there it was OK, but had a few issues.

Rust on lower rear front wing/sill

Front bonnet/boot struts were fucked.

Rear discs had a fair sized lip on them and a few other things that frankly didn't make it seem like an £18k car and certainly not as good as he made it out to be. 

The seller went to great pains to point out a crack on one rear light lens and said how when the chap approached him to sell it he said he'd "put his mark on the car" and showed me a clean MOT test from a few weeks ago. 

We took it a drive and it felt pretty good. The service history wasn't available at the time so I took the reg number and went to do some homework with the promise that he'd get the history.

Checking it out when I got home showed a not great MOT history, including a load of advisories from 2022, including a rear light lens 🤔

I mentioned this to him when he called to follow up the next day and he said he now had the history and would send over some pics. He did, but these only showed the 2022 MOT fail and work to pass. I contacted the specialist who did the work and they confirmed that was the last time they worked on the car, it was sold to the current owner shortly after. 

I said this to the seller who said the current owner had spent load on it  but couldn't seem to manage to send me any evidence of this, saying "there's loads of history, you'll need to come and have a look"

Hmm, it's a 3 hour round trip mate and you pretty much shot yourself in the foot by pointing out the cracked lens that was an advisory on that test that miraculously wasn't on the fresh test you'd arranged, along with the more serious advisories? In the sea with you!

In his defence it may have had more history, frankly I wasn't wasting any more time on it though...

One more was this one

Guy was sound, he'd had it for 4 years but his (absolutely lovely) classic Mini rally car was nearing completion and he wanted the 911 gone to create space in the garage for it. Lad.

Reasonable history and it drove well, he wasn't afraid to give it the beans too. Sadly it was just a bit too rusty, each arch needed some attention and I couldn't spend £14k on something that looked a bit ropey

For context mine was cheaper than that one!

 

Excellent due diligence and self restraint to not just get excited and buy the first one you went to see. I didn't realise they rusted like that but I guess they're all 20 years old and any 20 year old car can have rust issues.

[dome]

OK, update time. 

911

Being deceased spec I have the interesting problem of not knowing what has and hasn't been done to it. I went on a wee explore.

 

Racy shifter-it does feel really good to be fair

Coilovers. Might have a play with the damping but need to drive it a bit more first.

The ashtray looked a bit past its best. 

Handily in the rear I found a new replacement cubby the PO had bought so I fitted that.

Then went for a drive.

This will take a bit of getting used to, being in the wrong place and all...

It was on 1/4 of a tank but only took 30 litres. It has a 64 litre tank🤔 It turns out the 4wd models have such a convoluted fuel tank shape that the sender can only read the upper half of the tank. Once it drops below half a tank it accurately* guesses where the gauge should be based on the trip computer. No need to worry about that then...

I went for a drive after this. On Saturday I'd noticed the brakes didn't feel great. I thought at first that the EBC Red Stuff pads on the front maybe needed some heat in them or that it might have a sticky caliper from sitting for a while. After some gentle* driving the pedal went VERY long. Something clearly wasn't right. A look underneath showed a leak from above the gearbox. From my limited 911 knowledge I guessed exactly what this was-there's a brake line routed over the engine to the RHS rear wheel which is an arse to replace allegedly. Porsche will charge you the price of engine removal to change the pipe😮

I limped it to a services and was relieved of a comical amount of money for a litre of brake fluid. Itdidn;t take that much to fill the reservoir though. More limping got it home. 

On Wednesday I got a chance to give it a prod. I'd checked the brake lines when it was up on the ramp and saw that they had all been replaced by copper lines. Or so I thought.

What had actually happened was that the line going over the engine had been cut as far up as it could go and copper line joined to the original steel line which was still there. It had failed at one of the unions.

 

Luckily the copper lines from the junction block under the sill and at the caliper end came undone easily and I could chop up and drag out the remainder of the old line. I'm not a fan of adding any more unions that absolutely necessary to a brake system and this is the perfect example why. 

So, guess I'd better drop the engine then?

Don't be silly. 

 

Some kunifer line was purchased along with new unions. Instead of routing it over the engine (which would have been done purely for assembly reasons I'm sure) I routed it over the gearbox crossmember and then followed the line of the original as much as possible. 

Can we ignore the sills? They are solid but need tidied. Remember the bill for the respray form 2 years ago?😑

The other lines are copper believe it or not, they have been painted though. Fuck knows why.

Maybe a wee bit too much brake line there...

Can we ignore the scotch block on the brake pad sensor? We're all friends here. I think we can.

Handily the thing pretty much bled itself and now has working brakes. I'll maybe give the full thing a bleed at some point though just because I like creating work for myself sometimes....

Road trip tomorrow so fingers crossed I can get some miles on it and get some confidence in it, as is always the way with a new car. 

BMW

This is currently with my tame mechanic Craig to do a transmission fluid change and change a couple of front arms. Both jobs that would be frankly a collosal pain in the ass without a lift.

 

That doesn't look bad for its first change in 160k miles!

There's seals on the mechatronics gubbins that need changed too, this involved dropping the trans mount.

He's got that back together and just needs to check the level when it's at a certain temp and then it's done.

Manta

@GingerNuttzhas been working his magic on this. The Duratec is in and mounts are made up.

I dropped off some Land Rover V8 engine mounts to Davey today. The may or may not fit so I may need some advice on other mounts-I'll post up if that's the case to wrack the collective brains.

Other than that the rust is  pretty much gone and he's nearly ready to fit the bodykit. Amazingly for a 40 year old car things seem to fit not too badly so far.

Needs MOAR WHEELZ

Looks good!

@gingernutz says we won't need to attach this, he can run REALLY fast

 

And that is that for now. It's pishing down here so I can't be arsed doing anytihng, I really need to tidy the garage though...

 

[dome]

Road trip! 

Off to Ayr to visit friends.

Essentials packed

Yes, that is my lunchbox and I'm very proud of it. We were transporting cakes. 

Other essential packed

He's clipped in to the seatbelt on one of those thingys. 

I took it easy because lunchbox and mutt on board. Oh and the other half. 

An enjoyable catch up with a mate and his kids was had then we headed home via the BMW with it's newly serviced transmission and new front arms. 

Scrap for days. The Disco is ex @Fraz (briefly) and a few other shiters. It's still earning its keep.

Mrs Dome had a 2-3 minute head start while I walked the dog. I didn't catch her til 33 miles later😳

Should've bought a turbo😭

Porsche goes very well, I'm still getting a feel for it though. It's a great motorway cruiser but I think I'll need to retrofit cruise control for sake of my licence 😐

The coilovers do feel a bit harsh for Scottish roads, I think I'll look in to maybe changing the spring rates for something a bit more forgiving. In theory that should be easy enough on these. I must be getting old😭

 

 

[dome]

Took the BMW out a run today, the transmission service has made a massive difference. Gear changes are definitely smoother and it's less hesitant at low speeds when warm.

I also had new front arms fitted at the same time to cure a front end wobble under braking-its 90% gone. We suspect rear brakes may be the source of the remainder. I'll give the brakes a clean up to see if there's anything obvious but may need to fork out for discs and pads to cure it. 

The Porsche had 911 badges on the boot engine lid in chrome. Ironically in the correct Porsche script that you can now buy in Halfords so it looked cheap. I sourced some correct* badges from eBay and fitted them today.

Lining up

And done.

Much better 👍

[cort16]

You came to Ayr and you didn't come buy to set my BMW valve clearances???

So much for BMW sealed for life. Apparently there's a place in Glasgow does a full flush that pumps all the oil out the torque converter. I had it on the long list of things to do to my 730d but sold it insread.

[dome]

Small Porsche update.

It had a dead speaker in the front. 

Old speakers out, clearly high* quality

Some new speakers purchased 

Porsche didn't make it easy as these 4" speakers aren't a direct fit. Handily someone makes these adaptors.

Old Vs new-as you'd expect there's a fair difference in the weight.

Ready to fit-i bought some cables too to save chopping the loom.

And I took the opportunity to swap out the Sony stereo it came with for a Pioneer I had in stock-I much prefer Pioneer head units over almost anything else.

I may upgrade to double din in the future-the cassette holders are redundant and the cupholders are fairly useless so I'd be able to go double din and add a cubby slot. It can wait though, there's other things I want to sort out on it first. One of these is cruise control, mainly to try and help me keep my licence 😳

[dome]

So, you're probably expecting this post to be about how I've been zooming about in my new 911, with lots of pictures like this?.

Well, yeah, About that

 

Have this instead.

I'd taken a couple of shiters a run(not at the same time) and noticed a light ticking sound from the engine on the last run. At first it sounded like a manifold leak. As I headed home though it rapidly got louder and the oil pressure started to drop. By the time I found a layby to stop it in I had a full on death rattle.

The Porsche with the £10k engine rebuild 7k miles ago? It's fucked.

It's been abandoned at my mates unit in disgust. 

I can't afford not to fix it, however I'm wary about throwing money at another "specialist" so the plan is to pull the engine out and see what's happened. 

Gutted isn't even the word. Fuck cars.

 

At least I have the BMW to rely on? 

 

Yeah, about that...

A couple of months ago I got a warning for the air suspension. A bit of googling said to check the relay located under the spare wheel in the boot.

Let's have a look then.

 

It's the green one here

Hmm

Well, that's not ideal

Amazingly, this was working a day or so previously...

A new relay was fitted and the suspension started working again. All good, or so I thought

Around this time the boot soft close stopped working. An unnecessary frippery no doubt but without it the boot needed a good slam

Then the  tailgate wiper stopped working.

I found they are known to seize up so opened up the glass tailgate to check it. Sure enough the wiper mechanism felt stiff. I disassembled this and lubed it all up, then put it back together. Only now, the tailgate wouldn't open, either glass or the main one. 

Fuck cars

The loom going into the tailgate is a known issue on these so after a monumental amount of fucking about involving an allen key taped to a pole and prying the trim of the tailgate to reach the emergency release. Incidentally I had a receipt in the service history for a repair being done to this wiring already.

Here's what I found in the wiring. 

Yeah, nice work 😑

I ordered a replacement section of loom and splice it all in. And, no difference. Now, at this stage that wasn't a major issue as most of the affected systems looked to go through the other side. However, that side looks fine.

I wanted to test the continuity before replacing the other side as there was no obvious breaks, then the Porsche died and I frankly lost all interest in it and everything else with 4 wheels.

Fuck Cars.

I've offered it to a mate for cheap, if he doesn't take it I'll either try and find someone to fix it or sack it off.

Have some music

The forum wouldn't embed the original video because swears, click here for some top Scottish rapping though... https://youtu.be/7g1QETb6JFs?si=tbJT0JEBiYJ9vB6a

 

It's not all bad, the Kangoo got it's tracking done. Not by my local National who I've used before as a new guy was having a bad day. It took him about 10 attempts to open it off the fob and then threw a paddy at the warning lights on the dash (only there because the ecu has traction control and the van doesn't. I think of it as more of a feature and have chosen my stereo backlighting to match them)

Anyway, because the van was too low at the back they couldn't get the kit on the back wheels, despite me having helped them lift the van up to do this the last time. The guy refused to do this this time.  Fuck National

So, I got the tracking plates* out

And dialled it in by eye. It drives spot on now. It had been out since I fitted the new hubs, I'd just not been using it enough to bother. Handily i did this before everything else went to fuck.

It also got some appreciation when parked up at Glentress as I was mountain biking

Well yeah, it's a van but there you go. 

 

So, naturally, I've agreed to buy another car. Just waiting for the private plate to be removed and the new plate to update on the system so I can insure it and drive it home. WCPGW?

 

 

 

[cort16]

Ah man, what a fucking nightmare that's a real kick in the plums given it was a car you really wanted for so long. Not that it's any consolation  but you did everything possible to find a good one way more than 99% of other people looking at one would have. It's just pure bad luck, when the car gods aren't shining on you they're are an absolute bastard.

I hope when you look at it, it's not as bad as first expected.

[cort1977]

Sorry to hear this, sometimes things just don't work out. Hopefully it's fixable for a man of your abilities.

[hairnet]

On 7/1/2023 at 6:34 PM, dome said:

 

 

Mrs Dome had a 2-3 minute head start while I walked the dog. I didn't catch her til 33 miles later😳

Should've bought a turbo😭

 

 

 

lessons aff jimmy macrae?

passed over for coultard at merc? 

 

[hairnet]

and having read the rest from there to catch up

sorry to hear about the jawohl auto

not funny when its serious coin

[sdkrc]

Gutted to hear @dome. Sounds like you're due some good karma before Christmas. 

I was gonna suggest having a disgusting, shitty beater car as a backup but you've already got several nice ones.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Sounds like a proper mare. MR2 to the rescue?!

[Schaefft]

Man, this sucks, sorry to hear this. What exactly was done on the rebuilt engine? Just another reason to avoid anything that was touched by anyone but the factory when comes to complex repairs like this.

[dome]

33 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Sounds like a proper mare. MR2 to the rescue?!

Ha! I've totally forgotten about it. I keep trying to get my mate to buy me out of it but he's not interested. It was spoiled for me as a cheap, straight but not perfect track car when he went and paid for a full respray and never told me🙈 It's not costing me anything so I'll ignore it just now.

[dome]

43 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

I was gonna suggest having a disgusting, shitty beater car as a backup but you've already got several nice ones.

Why, are you selling one😘

Did I pass you on the M74 southbound this morning? If not I waved at some guy in a green LS400.

I was in the Kangoo as it's the only thing I own that works 🙈

[dome]

40 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Man, this sucks, sorry to hear this. What exactly was done on the rebuilt engine? Just another reason to avoid anything that was touched by anyone but the factory when comes to complex repairs like this.

I've got a 2 or 3 page invoice for the work done, it was a pretty comprehensive rebuild  which was one of the main reasons I bought the damn thing. 

I've been in touch with the company who did the rebuild, I've no comeback but I'll show them the damage and see what they say. 

Luckily* the new purchase has also had an engine rebuild, so that should be fine*

[aldo135]

20 minutes ago, dome said:

I've got a 2 or 3 page invoice for the work done, it was a pretty comprehensive rebuild  which was one of the main reasons I bought the damn thing. 

I've been in touch with the company who did the rebuild, I've no comeback but I'll show them the damage and see what they say. 

Luckily* the new purchase has also had an engine rebuild, so that should be fine*

Fingers crossed they can help you, and that the new car works out mate

[J-T]

What an absolute pisser. Having recently been in a similar position (albeit nowhere near to the same degree), I can appreciate how galling this is. It just goes to show, it doesn’t really matter how much you try to mitigate it on low cost big liability stuff, if it wants to ruin you it just fucking will.

What kind of money does an engine change hands for on one of these? 

[Bren]

Sorry about the porsche. Not great.

I have just put my e60 back on ebay with no reserve - been on since Wednesday. Not a sniff. Nobody seems to want them anymore so I wouldn't be sinking ££££ into yours.

[sdkrc]

42 minutes ago, dome said:

Why, are you selling one😘

Did I pass you on the M74 southbound this morning? If not I waved at some guy in a green LS400.

I was in the Kangoo as it's the only thing I own that works 🙈

M73 and M80 only for me today. Looks like you waved at a stranger, can this week get any worse?!

I only sell scrap cars mate. For a shitty beater car you'd need to increase your budget 

[dome]

16 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

M73 and M80 only for me today. Looks like you waved at a stranger, can this week get any worse?!

I only sell scrap cars mate. For a shitty beater car you'd need to increase your budget 

Sorry, it was actually the M80 around 9am. I was in a low flying Kangoo running late for a date with a mountain bike. 

[yes oui si]

Absolutely shit run of events

Hopefully things pick up

[Schaefft]

Maybe you should just do a Hoovie and LS-swap it:

 

[dome]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

Maybe you should just do a Hoovie and LS-swap it:

 

If I was in the US I absolutely would.

Tony Angelo did a good video on the swap with his build coming soon.

https://youtu.be/qbKmST_6cPU?si=NWN-z-iJQHsjXmcg

Sadly I can't go to scrappy and pick up an LS for under a grand though and I dread to think of the price of all the swap parts by the time I got them imported.

Also it's long term future with me is far from certain so keeping it standard is the way forward 

[cort16]

6 minutes ago, dome said:

If I was in the US I absolutely would.

Tony Angelo did a good video on the swap with his build coming soon.

https://youtu.be/qbKmST_6cPU?si=NWN-z-iJQHsjXmcg

Sadly I can't go to scrappy and pick up an LS for under a grand though and I dread to think of the price of all the swap parts by the time I got them imported.

Also it's long term future with me is far from certain so keeping it standard is the way forward 

Aye it wouldn't be quite the same with a Rover v8 with twin SU carbs. 

Have you had a chance to diagnose it or are you just having a break from it for a bit?

[dome]

10 hours ago, cort16 said:

Aye it wouldn't be quite the same with a Rover v8 with twin SU carbs. 

Have you had a chance to diagnose it or are you just having a break from it for a bit?

I'm waiting to get the chance to get it on a lift and pull the engine out. Off in holiday next week so it'll likely be into next month.

Ironically last night I got a message from the guy who sold me it giving me the previous owners widows number to collect the spare key and spare parts. 🤞 there's an engine in there!