Project Domes shonky autos - Grand Cherokee departs, Kangoo titivation and 911 dug out.

[S2000]

No Makepeace?

[dome]

Well, what a week that was! I've been caught staring wistfully into space a few times in the last week since we got home. Ironically I think what made it better was the fact it wasn't one of my heaps that we took as I worry far too much about stuff like that normally to be able to enjoy things. Oh and the fact that my only experience of track driving is me mincing around Knockhill in the MR2. Not much chance of me taking Eau Rouge flat except as a passenger. 

Anyway, both cars made it home safe. Here's some stats from the Clio. We never bothered calculating things based on fuel fills, neither of us could be arsed. The trip was reset before Stu left home and here's the final stats.

 

Bearing in mind that this includes the track time I'd say that was pretty damn good! The wee thing never missed a beat and was surprisingly good to drive long distance-Stu specced it pretty well with full polybushes, lowered but not stupid springs and rebuilt standard shocks (The fancy Sachs ones that everyone raved about when the Trophy was new) The factory Recaros definitely helped.  It was only when we got back on shite UK roads again that it felt  a bit harsh. 

 

Anyway, let's have a fleet update

BMW

Selt. Away tae fuck. 

Porsche

Still Fucked. Engine removal will happen when things align. Filed under ignore

Kangoo

Going well, turned 119k miles last week. After driving a well sorted 182 it's going to Stus at some point to get some upgrades-new bushes and a general poke around. 

Jeep

I'd ordered some service parts up which were waiting for me when I got home.

First up, rear axle.

I wanted to try a fluid change to see if it'd quieten the rear end. 

Correct fluid acquired along with the correct friction modifier needed for the LSD

I got stuck in with my Lidl oil pump. TLDR it's shite. it eventually drained the old stuff out but took an age to pump the new stuff back in so I fucked it off and used my big syringe. 

The rear end is a bit quieter, it might still need a pinion bearing though but that's a job for A. N. Othercunt.

I cured* this by fitting a new stereo to replace the standard one which cuts out. No pics but it's got a Sony thing now with DAB and bluetooth

Next up a new Aux belt which was a bit worse for wear.

THis was a piece of piss, helped by this on the slam panel

Today I got under it and gave it a poke around. 

Grease nipples

Greased! For probably the first time ever. Note my Bilstein shocks, because RaceHeep

It also got an oil change-handily I had 5w30 in stock and my Halfords trade card gets me Euro Crap Parts stock at bargain prices-£7 for a Mann filter was pretty good.

The transfer case has a leak and the fluid level is low so I've ordered up the correct stuff after cracking off both fill and drain plugs.

The power steering doesn't feel great so I've ordered the correct fluid for it to flush the system out. I've a hunch it's had ATF put in it which it shouldn't have. 

Other than that it's not bad underneath with nothing obviously fucked. It feels a bit vague to drive but I have been mostly driving pointier stuff recently so I guess that shouldn't be a surprise. I might get alignment done as the wheel is off centre. It does drive straight though. The MOT is until January so I'll let it earn its keep a bit and get it through a test before doing too much else to it. A brake fluid flush and new rear springs and shocks might happen, as might some new bushes to tighten things up. There are none particularly bad but most of them look original.

Long(ish) term I'd like something like this on fleet. I'd also quite like something dare I say it modern and turnkey reliable to lug me and bikes about. We'll see. 

 

[goosey]

to

to straighten the steering wheel 

make sure your front wheels are pointing straight ahead, put the key in the ignition so the steering lock is off (important) slacken off the 2 bolts (yellow arrow)

then turn the adjuster (red arrow) till the steering wheel is straight you may have to turn it clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on how the wheel is cocked, tighten the bolts ( yellow arrow ) when finished

if you do take it somewhere to be tracked make sure they DONT clamp the steering wheel as it will damage the steering box 

[dome]

Ok, I guess it's time for an update.

911

I finally managed to align things with the use of Clio Stus workshop and mate Craig being free to give me a hand to get the engine out of this pile. 

Bearing in mind it had been out 5 years and 7k miles ago it put up a bit more of a fight than we expected, mainly around the exhaust. The bolts in the manifold came out no bother, the bolts holding the silencers on to the car we're an absolute nightmare though. We got there in the end with a combination of swearing, grinding, recip saw and more swearing. Bastard things. You can see them in this pic, they hide behind the bumper.

From the rear

With those off the next thing that we struggled with was driveshaft bolts. They were toit, and again didn't look like they'd been off for a while. 

Once it was ready to drop we used a high tech engine stand to drop it on to.

And out it came!

And loaded in to the Kangoo to be taken to my lockup. 

It's off to Hartech in a few weeks for them to do their thing. It's not going to be cheap but they are probably the most respected Porsche specialist so having a receipt from them will make selling it easier😳

To get it to Hartech I'll most likely use the Heep. As long as it's back together in time...

[dome]

Jeep

First up I changed the plugs in this a month or so ago. There was no history of these getting done and I spotted the correct platinum plugs on Rockauto for about £30 posted so snapped that up. It was a bit of an arse getting them changed but was worth doing for peace of mind. 

Here's the old ones. A few were a bit worn but thankfully they were the correct plugs👌

This was then dropped off with a transmission specialist in Glasgow to fix the noisy rear end. He had experience of these and diagnosed and fixed noisy diff carrier bearings for me. Definitely glad I farmed that out!

I've also changed the blacked out(badly painted) grill for a standard one. As an Overland it would've came with a fully chromed grill but they look a bit gash so I got a standard one.

Now onto the rear suspension. 

I have a bill for over £2k worth of work to the front of it from last year.  This included Old Man Emu(well known in off road circles) springs, Bilstein shocks as well as brakes and balljoints. All good, however the back end is, well, tired. 

At this point I should probably mention I stuck it in for an MOT last month to make sure it was worth spending money on. The tester confirmed it was a decent example but have some advisories, mainly on the rear end.

So, I now have sitting here for it

Rear OME springs and Bilstein shocks to match the fronts.

A full set of new trailing arms with bushings

Drop links

New rear discs and pads.

New steering damper

2 new* calipers (cheap off eBay as I snapped a bleed nipple on one of mine while trying to bleed the brakes up)

So, let's crack on then. It's lived by the sea for 8 years, how bad can it be?

Actually, not that bad!

It's at this stage just now. Everything old is off it and I've fitted a new caliper and disc to one side. 

The old springs were definitely passed their best, with the weight of the car on them there was a noticeable bend in them. They had this "hockey puck" lift which consists of runner spacers to jack it up. As the new springs have a 1.5" lift to match the front they're a bit longer.

Might be fun getting these in. 

That's where it's at now. I've ordered a new brake line to replace the really crusty one in the pic above.

In this pic you can clearly see the problem. My old stealth bomber was rusty.

[dome]

Finally got a chance/could be arsed to start putting this back together.

New balljoint fitted to the diff and new upper boomerang/stealth bomber fitted 

New lower arms fitted

New springs and dampers fitted

New caliper and disc fitted to the offside. 

It's all on and needs torqued up. Was a bit of a fight getting it all lined up but got there in the end - the axle has managed to move itself a few inches to the left so it took a bit of finagling to get the upper balljoint in. 

Still do do:

Drop links and anti roll bar bushes. 

New rear pads which I forgot to order

New brake pipe to be fitted to the rear

Bleed brakes

Torque everything up

Take the propshaft off and see how seized it is as reported by the place that fixed the diff. There's a place fairly local that should be able to fix that. 

Fit new steering damper to the front. 

 

[dome]

On 08/12/2023 at 18:47, dome said:

 

Drop links and anti roll bar bushes. DONE 

New rear pads which I forgot to order DONE

New brake pipe to be fitted to the rear NOPE

Bleed brakes NOPE

Torque everything up NOPE 

Take the propshaft off and see how seized it is as reported by the place that fixed the diff. There's a place fairly local that should be able to fix that. DONE-arranged to pick up a new prop locally. Mine doesn't feel too great. 

Fit new steering damper to the front. NOPE - will be done when the back end is on the deck

 

Came back to this to remind myself what I had to do. Made some progress as you can see but struggled with the brake lines-i had to replace a couple of unions and struggled to get the (copper) brake lines flared with my cheap brake pipe flaring tool on the car. Have sacked it off for the day and will get a loan of a decent tool so I can try again.

[dome]

I finally got the Jeep back together. I really struggled to get the new brake line installed, it ended up with me fucking the threads in the first one I bought and having to buy another 😭 Turns out it needs sae flare and not the other kind. Every day's a school day and all that. It's now sorted and has new lines from about the drivers seat back. 

The place that rebuilt the diff had point out a seized UJ on the propshaft. I toyed with the idea of a second hand prop but decided to get a new joint fitted. Same day service from a local place, can't argue with that!

Naw it isnae.

After some gentle* persuasion I managed to get my other half to go to the trouble of sitting in the drivers seat and pressing the brake pedal so I could bleed it. 

All done and back on it's wheels for the first time in well over a month. 

Stance is about right for one of these, they always sit slightly higher at the rear. It's driving a lot better now, thank fook!

I'll soon sort the stance out when I shove the 911 engine in the back to go for its rebuild...

[dome]

Speaking of 911s i needed to get the engine stripped down and ready to go off for a rebuild.

In case folk wonder how the other half live, here's how us 911 owners like to work on our engines 

If you look really closely you can definitely* see signs of the £10k rebuild 5 years ago...

It's stripped down and ready to go to Hartech in Bolton later this week. Eep

[Bren]

What kwality work could you see?

[dome]

9 hours ago, Bren said:

What kwality work could you see?

There's no signs of bodgery, it's more just the general condition of the engine and fasteners. We had a few seized bolts and it generally doesn't look great for an engine that was rebuilt 5 years and 7k miles ago. 

To be fair however those 7k miles were in the north of Scotland and there were no undertrays fitted to the car when I got it which won't have helped.

[cort16]

23 hours ago, dome said:

Speaking of 911s i needed to get the engine stripped down and ready to go off for a rebuild.

In case folk wonder how the other half live, here's how us 911 owners like to work on our engines 

If you look really closely you can definitely* see signs of the £10k rebuild 5 years ago...

It's stripped down and ready to go to Hartech in Bolton later this week. Eep

Christ and here’s me moaning I can’t get my bonnet open .

[dome]

Heep gained an extra 6 cylinders today.

Fits perfectly! That's handy.

Southbound and down today.

Tradition, old charter etc...

And the engine has been delivered here. 

Seems like it's came to the right place. 

They'll strip it down and tell me what it'll take to make it right. They guessed a dropped liner from my description of what happened. 

I suspected this too, I'm keen to see if it's one of the 2 liners that had been replaced previously though...

Slight drama with the Jeep, the lpg system developed a leak as I arrived at Hartech. 

I did the right thing and left the lpg system off til i got onto the motorway (it seemed to only leaked when being used but I wasn't sure) and then ran it til it was empty. Then had the pleasure of if filling it up with petrol for the journey home 😳

 

[Saabnut]

I can highly recommend Angus Autogas in Arbroath if you need assistance and he sells LPG. You can have a look at my Lancia whilst there as well.

[dome]

3 hours ago, Saabnut said:

I can highly recommend Angus Autogas in Arbroath if you need assistance and he sells LPG. You can have a look at my Lancia whilst there as well.

Thanks, they're the guys that converted my S4 originally. 

There's a guy in Kirkcaldy who helped me with the Rangey, I'll try him first as he's more local.

 

[Jenson Velcro]

Liked the post for solidarity and support with the problems, not the events themselves.

[dome]

OK, time for an update.

Manta

First off, I started assembling the 2.5 Duratec for the Manta. The block and crank have been checked and polished by an engine builder so I started by installing that along with new bearings. 

 

Pakora sauce applied

And I'm happy to say it rotates beautifully, as you'd expect.

I'll get round to the pistons, the new rings are filed and ready so it's a case of fit them to the existing conrods and get them mounted.

Jeep.

LPG leak. Bugger. It was definitely leaking from near the tank/solenoid valve.

It has copper pipe from the tank to the engine bay.

This didn't look too clever

And nor did this.

Don't worry about the rust, it's surface rust on the spare wheel well, the tank is inside that. 

I decided to replace the copper pipe with the correct hose for LPG. If that didn't fix it I'd take to A Professional as fuck messing with the scary bits of LPG. I knew that the shutoff solenoid worked and that the leak was downstream of that. I also knew that the tank was pretty much empty as I'd ran it out on the way back up the road. 

Anyway, it took me a month because

1. I ordered 3m of hose and needed at least 4

2. When I finally got enough hose I discovered that I had the wrong size of fitting for the tank end. Thankfully I managed to get the correct fitting from my local guy who also gave me some confidence in what I was doing and identified where he thought my leak was from the old pipe/fitting

3. The weather here is pish just now.

Anyway, I finally got a chance this week and cracked on.

Snake!

More snake!

Got enough hose this time

And the compression fitting fitted and ready to go. 

The hose is routed along the inner chassis rail and runs alongside the brake/fuel lines. I'm pretty happy it's secure but will double check it after a few miles. 

With this fitted and ready to go it was time to test it. I hoped there would be enough LPG in it to get it switch over and idle so I could check for leaks. 

Handily we had 30mph winds on the day I was doing this so I drove it on petrol to somewhere remote within walking distance of home and switched it over to LPG.

And-it worked! Either that or I've lost my sense of smell...

I celebrated by driving it to the local LPG station and filling it up. It's running fine on LPG with no leaks. Win! I even treated it to a wash but it's getting dark so you're out of luck for a pic.

It felt strange getting back into it after a month of driving more modern stuff but you soon get back into the way of an old school 4x4, it burbles along very happily and is a nice way to cover distance. Which could come in handy as...

 

911 

After a week or so I got a phone call from Hartech with the results of the strip down. It had spun a main bearing wrecking the crank. They also reported bore wear on the engine and gave me a price for a rebuild. It turns out that the £10k rebuild from the "specialist" pictured a few pages back was essentially a work of fiction. 

I've thought long and hard about it and have [Pistonheads]pulled the trigger[/Pistonheads] on a full rebuild with an upgrade to their 3.7 conversion. 

I'm also shipping the car down to them for them to get it running and mapped with the new engine, possibly trailering it down with the Jeep.

Because fuck installing it myself with the money I'm spending on it😶

So, the Porsche has gone from scratching an itch and hopefully getting out with my wallet relatively intact to being a long term keeper. At least until 996 values approach what I'll have in it. I'm thinking of it as a long term investment plan. Which will go like fuck and get used as much as possible. Euro trips coming up!

 

[Boycie]

On 28/09/2023 at 17:09, dome said:

And we're back on a boat.

 

 

Rammel!

Dempsey's here too. 

 

Best theme song ever , they were in my work one day ...in the only day id taken a holiday in 4 months ....still gutted

[dome]

4 hours ago, Boycie said:

Best theme song ever , they were in my work one day ...in the only day id taken a holiday in 4 months ....still gutted

Don't worry, it's not like you missed out on seeing a young Glynis Barber wandering about your office.

Oh...

[Boycie]

1 hour ago, dome said:

Don't worry, it's not like you missed out on seeing a young Glynis Barber wandering about your office.

Oh...

...... I still cry myself to sleep 

[GingerNuttz]

Couple of Manta pics.

 

Just doing tons of bodywork.

Test spray of the colour on the boot.

Quarters are body worked ready for the kit to be bonded on but I need to wait till  @dome is here so I canny be blamed for any squinty arches.

Doors are all prepped and in primer with the rears ready to spray on Wed or Thurs.

Engine bay and all the inner arches should be white before middle of next week.

There's piles of other pictures but I canny be arsed going through my phone for em, slept 3 hours since yesterday so I'll update it all at some point or just post pictures when it's painted since it shouldn't be long.

 

[dome]

Smoll update. 

911s engine has been built so it was time to ship the car down to them for installation and fettling.

I paid a man to do it, it was actually cheaper than it would have cost me by the time I'd rented a trailer, paid for fuel for the Jeep and Tebay pies

I'm kind of a big deal, only personalised trailers for my shite.

The Manta is coming on too. @GingerNuttzis busy getting the body ready for the 400 kit. 

And I decided to sack off the Corsa VXR seats I'd bought for it-they were heavy and were going to be awkward to fit. It's getting more like a rally car so might as well have some proper buckets.

I ordered up weld in seat rails which were of course the wrong size. I've got that sorted now so next up is seat fitting. 

We're moving house in May. Here's what you need to know about the new house.

 

I can't wait to be able to fettle shite indoors

 

[Jenson Velcro]

Have you moved in yet? Looking forward to updates on the 996 and Manta. Saw the Porsche on the lcbl thread and realised hadn’t heard anything on yours for a while (or are you trying to forget the bill)

[dome]

44 minutes ago, Jenson Velcro said:

Have you moved in yet? Looking forward to updates on the 996 and Manta. Saw the Porsche on the lcbl thread and realised hadn’t heard anything on yours for a while (or are you trying to forget the bill)

Yep, we've moved in. House prices have lowered significantly with the addition of these two to the driveway.

And talking about lowered, the Kangoo was worked hard.

No officer, I don't know why it's dragging its arse along the road🫣

More importantly, I've treated myself to a new toy for the garage...

Yet to be used in anger but it's going to be a game changer I'm sure.

Manta wise @GingerNuttz has been getting some paint on it.

We're due to have a crack at fitting the body kit tomorrow and then the rest of it can get painted.

911 wise I've not had an update for a couple of weeks. It did fail an MOT on brake pipes last week(which I knew were dodgy and had planned to fix over the winter before it shat itself) but I've not heard from the garage. I'll leave it with them🤷‍♂️

[Jenson Velcro]

Congratulations, that looks like a fantastic play room, and with the lift as well……. Very jealous 

[dome]

So, after a month of settling in to the new house it was time to get back onto fleet maintenance. 

The Heep has had a slightly wayward feel to the steering which I tracked down to the 2 bushes which secure the front axle to the upper arms. The sort of job that would be a pain in the ass without a lift of some sort...

Turns out having a lift just makes it easier to get to the hard bit 🤦‍♂️

To be fair, the first bush wasn't too hard to get out, although I spent fucking ages trying to find the correct size of sockets/nut and bolts and random crap lying around the garage to make a press of some sort. Handily this one was fucked so it came out relatively easily.

Aye, that'll be fucked.

I soon worked out that the new one wasn't going to go in easily so picked this up on facebook marketplace.

This made things a lot easier for getting the new one in. 

The socket in the picture is stopping the two flanges from getting pressed together when pushing the bush in. Great* bit of design there.

At this point sadly the success ends. The other bush, which to be fair wasn't nearly as bad, refused to budge. Conscious of having a dead Heep on my drive and also of the worrying amount the front axle moved when you undo these arms I decided to play safe and leave it as it is.

Here's me using a ratchet strap to drag things back in line. I ended up lowering it down on its wheels(carefully!) and everything lined up. 

 Great* fun

It definitely drives better now so I'm calling that a win. The other bush can wait.

As can the porous sump.

As can the fossilized exhaust downpipe bolts which would need to be removed to replace said sump 🥲

[dome]

Just went into the freezer to grab a Magnum and found the bush I was due to fit on Sunday. Wonder how long before the other half notices it😂

[High Jetter]

3 hours ago, dome said:

Just went into the freezer to grab a Magnum and found the bush I was due to fit on Sunday. Wonder how long before the other half notices it😂

I think she'd know if her bush was in the freezer 🤣

[GingerNuttz]

I'm not dead and still trying to get everything done 🤣 

First lot of primer shot today 

Needs blocked and all the wee crap bits filled in etc but it's getting there.

Worst fitting body kit ever and I'll never fit another one as long as I live.

[dome]

Got this old heap back today too.

 

Needs a brake line and handbrake sorted for its MOT, they couldn't get the work done quick enough for me down there so I got it dragged back up here to sort it myself