Project Domes shonky autos - ***Manta Porn Klaxon***

[dome]

Porsche up next. 

Because there was so much to do on this I was running the risk of getting overwhelmed. Last Saturday i decided to be a bit more methodical.

First up, lights. 

I'd removed them all so it looked a bit unhappy.

Indicators were first, these were cleaned up and refitted along with the driving/fog lights(I forget what these actually do) 

 

No after pics but they got cleaned up and put back in.

 

Next up, headlights. these had dried out from their waterlogging so i refitted them and replaced the worst one with the spare I had.

 

That's better.

The motors not connected at this point so they're a bit skelly eyed just now.

Plugging the the motor in and it turned for a few seconds then stopped, I'm guessing at what it thinks is up or down. It won't do anything else at present though so I need to delve back into the motor.

The new light switch also arrived, overnight parts from 1985 

I have a full set of functioning lights now, I just need to get them to go up and down.

I then moved onto the throttle body which I'd pulled off. It looked pretty crusty so i gave it a clean up.

 

 

 

That's better.

I'd bought a new intake boot to replace the split one so fitted that and thought I'd see how it ran.

A lot better as it turned out!

I let it run for a while and then dropped the oil. The capacity is 5 litres but about 9 or 10 came out. it seemed to be oil too with no signs of water or fuel in it so no idea what's been going on there!

I fitted a new filter and some fresh oil and ran it up to temp again and then dropped the coolant. It was full of rusty water so I flushed out the radiator and refilled it. It'll take a few more flushes to get it cleaned but I've ordered up a new water pump, thermostat and timing belt kit so I'll flush the block when i do that. 

Next up, the washer pump. I stripped it apart(remember when you could do that to car parts?) and freed off stuck gears.

I stuck it back together and it kinda worked

 

The trouble was that it only worked with the bolts loosely tightened up, at which point it was quite feeble. Tighten the bolts further to improve the seal just resulted in it sticking. I tried cutting an oring and fitting it to space things out but to no avail. I'm ashamed to say I bit the bullet and bough t new pump

Next up, brakes. One of the rear lines wasn't too clever so I spent a lunchbrake (see what I did there? Sorry) making up a new line.

The flexis weren't too clever either but being the hoarder I am I discovered these which i had from one of my 944s

I'm 99% sure these will fit which is handy

I've got a front solid line to replace too (the other side at the rear and front have been replaced already) and then I can flush out the master cylinder and lines and reassemble everything. 

I've had one drum off so far and there's plenty of meat on the shoes and the cylinder seems fine so I'll check the other one and hopefully get some working brakes soon

Next up

Finish off brakes

Timing belt/water pump/thermostat.

Gearbox oil change

Clean interior and refit seats.

 

 

 

 

 

[dome]

Oh and the Jag went off to its new home tonight. Sad times but you can't keep them all

[RustyRuss]

Cant thank you enough again mate for all your hard work with her. She has gone to a good loving home and will be used only on nice dry days from now on and i shall carry on looking after her and giving her the love she needs. 

[mercedade]

I am much excited for the Porsche updates. 

[dome]

Well, it's been a while but things have progressed with the Porsche. 

First up, some servicing. A new timing belt, water pump and thermostat had arrived. The timing belt looked OK but there was no history of it being changed and they're cheap and easy to do on these. 

Old parts removed, this gave me a chance to flush the block out

New water pump fitted and belt and pulley on

 

And alternator belt on and tensioned up-although not very well as it still squeals-I need to redo that. Here's what I tried to use to tension it...

I think the thermostat was due replacing, not only was it broken but it's country of origin hasn't existed for 30 years 🤣

[dome]

Brakes up next. I made up a couple of new pipes for some of the crusty ones and fitted them along with the rebuilt front calipers.  I'd ordered new discs but they hadn't arrived at this point.

Braided hoses because racecar

The master cylinder was cleaned up and refitted, I gave it a pressure bleed and gained a pedal. Not a great one, but a pedal nonetheless

 

[dome]

At this point I could actually drive it for the first time. Here goes...

Bonus pop up lights! Yeah, they stopped working...

And then, before I fucked about any more, an appointment was made with the man from the ministry.

And yeah, it failed. In more ways than one. The fuel pump died in the middle of the test🤣

Recovery vehicle ahoy!

More to follow!

[dome]

So, the fuel pump had failed mid test but my tester carried on and funnily enough, it failed. 

Brakes and a bulb (that i swear worked before the test) and obviously he couldn't test the emissions. 

I'd tried to order front discs but they hadn't arrived in time. I ordered up new shoes and fitting kit for the rear too. 

And a fuel pump...

Of course I'd put about a million pounds worth of super unleaded into the tank before the MOT so changing the pump could be a financial disaster but it had to be done. 
Luckily I only spilled a few drops so just a couple of grand hit the deck

Interestingly/worryingly I found this on the inlet side of the pump. 

No idea what it is. I drained most of the tank and didn't get anything out of it. It has a prefilter in the tank too and ran it through a mesh filter and no more appeared so I'm not sure where this had came from. i may have missed this when I had the pump off previously. 
Anyway, new pump fitted and it sprang to life so i could concentrate on the brakes. 

The front discs have the bearings built in so i had the fun of pressing in and out the old race. 

Old discs were pumped

We go for F1 levels of cleanliness here at Dome towers. I left them in the bag to avoid getting grease everywhere.

 

 

It was surprisingly easy, I had visions of sticking the races in the oven and discs in the freezer but thankfully didn't have to.

Back brakes next-parts accrued.

On the rear one of the shoes actually fell apart when removing it so that's not ideal. Again this went together amazingly easily with only 1 part pinging itself across the garden I even found it within half an hour!!1!

 

Back in for a retest and....

Yass!

 

Question is, could it drive further than the 300 meters to the test station? Stay tuned!

 

 

[dome]

Seeing as summer had started to arrive and Fife was warming up I thought I'd better get the non functioning electric windows working before driving it. 

The switches are known to get a bit crusty and cause problems. One of the great things about this car is that nearly everything can be stripped apart, including the window switches 

I cleaned these up but sadly it didn't fix them. Off with the door card and let's have a look.

The motor was getting power but it didn't seem happy. I unbolted the motor from the regulator and lubed it up, lubing the runners and mechanism at the same time. This got it working (temporarily...) so I could take it a drive. 

Tools in the boot, walking shoes on and a route that left me no more than a couple of miles from home.

Oh and one more thing-some colour coded tape to hold the sunroof shit while I waited for my new mechanism to arrive from down south-thanks to@Supernaut

 

Ok, Let's go!

And, do you know what, it did well!

I stopped here through choice I have to say....

It's loosening up and feels healthy although it did have a bit of hesitation on part throttle. You can get over this by giving it full throttle though which is nice. 

It feels much like the early 944s I've had. It feels quick but the speedo shows you are still within the limits. Handling feels good although the steering feels a bit stiff-i need to lube the rack and UJs and check out the top mounts. I think with a bit more fettling and some more miles it'll loosen up nicely.

I've got a set of new tyres to replace the 20 year old Pirellis which feel rock hard, that should make a difference too.

It's interesting the difference between this and the Jag in terms of how they were stored.

The Jag was driven into a garage 20 years before I got it but hadn't been touched. This made getting it back on the road fairly straightforward as nothing had been fucked with.

This however has been fucked about with over the last 12 years-the exhaust is a good example. There was a blow from the centre section. On inspection the 3 bolts that held the clamp together were loose. And seized! 

I chopped the bolts off to replace them and then the fucking box fell off! Someone worse at welding then me had been at it.

The old back box, rear section.

Aye, that'll be fucked.

I had the old silencer from the MR2 system which amazingly was just about the right length and a big enough bore that I could chop the front end with the flange off the old back box and fit it inside the box.

It was a tight fit so the welding was only done to secure it-it is gas tight. The rear needs a bit of attention. The rear section had been bodged to fix* the old centre section so I'll need to do something there. It's a lot better than it was though.

The brakes still don't give much confidence. I had been told the rear drivers side was marginal so had a look. It turned out only one side of the slave cylinder was moving so a new pair of these were ordered up-I fitted one on my lunch break earlier in the week.

Final thing that happened was that @juular came over the other night with a pressure gauge to check out the K-Jet system to see how it behaved. Overall it's pretty good-a lumpy cold start and the hesitation on part throttle were the only issues. The emmisions were borderline on the test with it running a bit rich.

First off, pull a plug. Fitted new by me these looked OK to me which was good. 

Then on to the pressure test. 

This showed some issues which the K-Jet wizard @juular can explain better than me. The warmup regulator was removed and the filter cleaned which brought the pressure back closer to spec. A test drive followed and the part throttle hesitation seemed a lot better. 

Idle mixture was tweaked and that was about it - it's mostly working so let's not mess with it too much!

So, some success but lots still to do but that brings us up to date.

[grogee]

On 5/18/2022 at 10:52 PM, dome said:

Time for an update. First up, Rangey problems. I know, right? Whoda thunk it?

A few weeks ago on the way to work I was treated to the ABS kicking in at weird times at low speeds. Before long I had the ABS and Traction control lights. 

At work i read the codes

 

OK then, new sensor time I guess. I ordered one up and set about removing the old one.

 

Thar she blows

Bolt came out easily, although I'm battle hardened to putting heat on pretty much any bolt i can before attempting to undo it. 

The sensor of course was stuck in there but with just the right amount of brute force i got it out

But wait, what do w have here? 

 

Only to find the ABS ring had broken and was rotating on the CV joint. Baws.

These are known to fail and new ABS rings are available, trouble is it involves removing the driveshaft to get it out. First problem was this.

Yep, that bolt had been on there a while. I also didn't have a socket to fit it. 

What followed was a bit of fucking about. My mate Craig had a big boy Milwaukee gun and said he'd pop by to try and undo it. Which he did but it turned out not to be a 32mm or 36mm 12 pointed nut. Arses. More delays followed while i bought a selection of impact sockets including a 34mm one. My small Milwaukee wouldn't look at it and neither would my breaker bar.

Craig popped in next time he was passing and his gun took it straight off. Safe to say I've bought a big boy Milwaukee M18 gun now.

Nut off

And the driveshaft out. I had to get brutal with this, it was stuck right in there. Big hammer time. 

When Craig had been over I undid the two strut bolts but hadn't wound them right out. Turned out one was seized in the hub. I tried to get the driveshaft out with it in place but no joy. 

I rigged this setup up and left it overnight after applying copious amounts of Plusgas. Nice bend on the breaker here. 

I left it overnight like than and guess what. Yep, next morning it was loose!

Bolt out

Driveshaft could then be extracted and the offending ABS ring removed.

Yep, that'll be the problem.

CV joint cleaned up and the new ABS ring fitted.

It's an interference fit so took some gentle persuasion to get it on.

I had a fierce hangover the day I was doing this, turns out beating fuck out of a hub to get the driveshaft back in will cure that.

It was a fucking nightmare to get it back in, harder than getting it out.. Eventually though we were there.

And behold, a (almost) fault free dash on an L322. The airbag light is intermittent, I don't count that as it stayed off for the MOT 

 

 

+100 perseverance points here, I love the axle stand + breaker bar setup. I must admit I've never tried leaving a bolt with force on it for an extended time to free it. Was it too close to Sensitive Things for the blowtorch?

[dome]

1 hour ago, grogee said:

+100 perseverance points here, I love the axle stand + breaker bar setup. I must admit I've never tried leaving a bolt with force on it for an extended time to free it. Was it too close to Sensitive Things for the blowtorch?

Thanks! Yeah, the air strut does have "Do not heat" on it for obvious reasons😬

I had put some heat direct onto the bolt but was cautious about becoming a Darwin award nominee.

Speaking of the Rangey, it was on holiday transport duty for a week spend up north. It performed admirably although air con would've been nice. 

I had been aware of a slight wobble through the front end which I'd put down to a worn bush.

A week of driving up and down over Cairn O'Mount and it was a good bit more wobbly under braking.

I popped under for a look. One passenger side arm had a lot of play in the bush at the chassis end which was expected. However, the balljoint on the hub end wasn't pretty.

Yep, that looks like it's been there a while. The hub nut on this side is also a fossilized version of its former self so I decided to farm this one out. I've ordered up a full set of front arms and balljoints and it's off to may mate Craig to get them replaced. He has access to a ramp and a press so can make a proper job if it. Trying to do that on the drive is just asking for trouble 

 

[inconsistant]

Great to see you’ve added to  the small number of road worthy 924s left.
Lots of 924s have been seriously bodged during that bit of their life when they were hated and absolutely worthless. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Only just spotted the more recent Porker updates. Great to see it running pretty well and now tested too! Any further updates or have you just been using it? 

[dome]

Thanks for the prod @Dick Longbridge. 

Not a lot has happened if I'm honest, this car hasn't captured my mojo the way others have. It does tend to fight me all along the way which definitely doesn't help.

@Supernaut was kind enough to collect a new sunroof mechanism for me whilst down south. I fitted this, it didn't work. It won't mesh with the motor. But I can now raise and lower the sunroof manually at least. 

Here it is with the other sports car in the fleet.

And have a nice sunset spoiled by some old rammel.

The steering wasn't feeling great so I removed the top mounts and cleaned and greased them. Handily you can do this without removing the struts, you don't even need spring compressors.

Whilst at shitefest @captain_70s and @Supernaut managed to get there hands on an HBOL for me which is handy. 

And I also did some tidying removing the remains of the old alarm system. This was part of the quest to cure a battery drain.

 

Most of this was due to a broken clock. A new battery to replace the old one seems to have helped too.

The headlight motor is still knackered, I've not managed to get to the bottom of it.

It's been driven a bit and drives well though, I'm just not feeling it just now. I'll probably either sell it or tuck it away for the winter.

 

 

 

[paulplom]

On 7/7/2022 at 8:29 PM, dome said:

It feels much like the early 944s I've had. It feels quick but the speedo shows you are still within the limits. Handling feels good although the steering feels a bit stiff-i need to lube the rack and UJs and check out the top mounts. I think with a bit more fettling and some more miles it'll loosen up nicely.

I had an A reg black 944 about twelve years ago. It was an ungrateful, unreliable bastard and I was constantly spannering it.

It's death knell was when it started billowing blus smoke when hoofing it. I swapped it for a mates auntie's N reg vectra in gold beige. That's how desperate I was to get rid of the fucker.

Anywat I digress. Top thread.

[inconsistant]

What’s up with the headlight motor? Not working at all or playing up? I persevered with my old one for ages, lights went up but wouldn’t fully retract some of the time, kept thinking I’d fixed it but hadn’t. In the end a £25 replacement motor sorted it, gears had stripped in the old one and wasn’t worth fixing.

[dome]

8 hours ago, inconsistant said:

What’s up with the headlight motor? Not working at all or playing up? I persevered with my old one for ages, lights went up but wouldn’t fully retract some of the time, kept thinking I’d fixed it but hadn’t. In the end a £25 replacement motor sorted it, gears had stripped in the old one and wasn’t worth fixing.

My gears are fine but there's a short somewhere. I can have the motor working on the bench and the wiring on the car checks out fine but it blows a fuse as soon as I plug it in. 

At some point in the early days of the car a short circuit melted the switch which I've replaced, I think I need to chop out the connector at the motor and rewire it. 

[dome]

Quick Kangoo update:

When I got it it had a frankly shonky Chinesium cone filter fitted. Good for BRAAAAPPP! but it was mounted too high up in the bay so would be sucking in warm air. Also under hard use(so I'm told) the cone filter would fall off which gave even more BRAAAAPPP but also more chance of the engine ingesting a sparrow or something. 

Not good.

You can't rush these things so after 2 1/2 years I decided it was time to sort this. 

Handily a friend of mine breaks Clios for a living so I picked up a KTEC Racing induction kit from him.  This seems to be a good one. Old filter off and I had to also remove the battery to cram this thing in. It's now fitted and should draw air from underneath-there's a big hole underneath where it's mounted which I forgot to take a photo of.

Here it is fitted and making the engine bay look a bit more respectable.

First impressions - it's quieter than what was on it! Haven't driven it far enough to see if it's altered the performance but I'm happy to get that shitty filter out of there. 

Also, the Porsche is still a dick. 

I chopped out the 2 wires which had melted on the headlight motor and when trial fitting it noticed the motor is earthing through the body of the car. This might explain why it worked when plugged in but blew a fuse when I mounted it and plugged it in. 

Nope, I have no idea. Nothing looks untoward on the motor but I'm guessing it shouldn't be grounding through the body when it has a separate ground wire on the plug?

 

 

[stuboy]

On 9/21/2022 at 7:14 AM, paulplom said:

. I swapped it for a mates auntie's N reg vectra in gold beige. That's how desperate I was to get rid of the fucker.

dam thats gun too the head desperation

[dome]

OK, so as you will have seen I decided to cut my losses on the Porsche and move it on-a deposit has been received from a shiter so it'll be off to its new home soon. it's a shame but I just hadn't bonded with it the way I hoped I would. The fact I change job soon and have a company van incoming sealed its fate.

Some prep has occcured-I've refitted the headlight motor so the headlights can be manually raised and lowered. I also attended to the alternator belt which would never hold its adjustment.

The adjuster is mounted to the block on a rubber mount which seemed to be the culprit so I removed it. 

The rubber was old an knackered so I removed it

And replaced it with something less flexible

Back on and adjusted up and hopefully it'll stay in place...

The garage had been a bit of a tip so I decided to tidy things up. The 2.0 Duratec engine and gearbox were loaded up and moved to my lockup-these will be off to @GingerNuttz soon to be made to fit in the Manta. 

 

2.0 sees daylight for the first time in a while

In the Kangoo with gearbox and engine crane.

Slammed Yo!

This gave me space to get the 2.5 Duratec that will actually power the Manta onto the engine stand so teardown could begin.

Looks OK up top, no noticeable wear to the cams. These may stay or may get uprated, will see how much money I have spare.

A better bet I think would be refresh this engine and get it running in the Manta, I can then look at cams and tuning further down the line.

 

Bottom end, not checked at present but it'll be getting new bearings/rings etc.

 

All looks reasonable here, again I'll replace it as the car had done 120k so it'd be daft not to when it's all coming to bits anyway.

The 2.5 has a balance shaft assembly in the sump, this won't be needed so here it is unbolted and ready to chuck away. I've got a delete blank for the oil feed which is all that's needed to delete it. That and the 2.0 flywheel (possibly lightened) should make it rev nicely.

Plugs out and number 1 was quite oily, not a big deal anyway as the whole engine will be refreshed.

Next up is timing gear and then head off, then strip the bottom end. 

[GingerNuttz]

Right update time on the Manta.

tons of holes been welded up.

Everyhting still needs finish ground before filling and paint, just trying to get through all the welding first.

New f ront outriggers still to go on.

 

 

[GingerNuttz]

Part 2 

Roof was a bloody mess with tons of pin holes in it.

plan was to replace the whole back of the roof and 2 sides since roof skins couldn't be bought but it turned out the centre of the rear roof was ok so it was just the sides and corners that needed repaired.

Shit ton of bodywork to do on the roof still but it'll be in primer by tomorrow afternoon so no rust gets into em welds.

[GingerNuttz]

There's tons more been welded and I'll upload pics later. 

Car is 95% welded apart from the sill and 4 link kit.

Pics of sill. 

 

[GingerNuttz]

Oh aye the engine mounts need fabricated and finish the chassis legs 😂

Whole car has been welded with a £300 Chinese inverter and blows the doors off that £1200 gys pearl 🤣

[juular]

1 hour ago, GingerNuttz said:

Whole car has been welded with a £300 Chinese inverter

Sounds like the moon on a stick bargain everyone wants to hear about. Spill the beans!

[GingerNuttz]

17 minutes ago, juular said:

Sounds like the moon on a stick bargain everyone wants to hear about. Spill the beans!

It's just one of em little static arc yellow things, 0.8 wire 35amps at 15-15.5V and never blew one hole in that car. 

That gys is a dog on thin stuff compared to the old 162 or this little thing, soon as you go up to 1.2mm the gys shines but that Static Arc lays down the same welds.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272512400939?hash=item3f73013e2b:g:eskAAOSwRkpiDtX5&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4GALbWMXNg%2FkHURkrIaDX5RSd4v2LLVbKfZcdlrZfbfY%2FffY2xt7Z6K6pzQsoE3MH2eZzOLkRtLSuwn%2BXEUeYwZ5olWqmPaRl7Iig7IghWeZomRm%2B%2B26OkdlkiVQdg5x5P7WGvRpBO7sOgHyzM3Tmg6kOaJ3Cd1n%2FTOb4%2FeQyoXZyEj2Pk0slxRJQlNjjnrfP8%2BjoVmeyypNokanV3l%2BY9lhFOs15F4LaGuNahpRMi4aFXM%2BpO3in8CksOJBOfQnZpEF0BE86wSG6iwo%2Bfte2EPhX40vPAvvjMve3xpoVEHQ|tkp%3ABFBM2KqBmPpg

I've ran about 15KG of wire and 40L+ of gas and it hasn't missed a beat.

[GingerNuttz]

320touring that said the little blue ones were decent when I told him that gys was a pos so I took a chance on one and would 100% recomend it to anyone. 

[juular]

@davehedgehog31 this welder sounds like right up your street.

[GingerNuttz]

Free to have a go on mine if someone is thinking about buying one and wants to see what they're like.

[dome]

OK, the thread title is a bit misleading.

Yes, a Land Rover part failed. However, it was a Land Rover part fitted to the Kangoo. Bear with me.

On my way up to cycling on Tuesday night I heard a blow from the Kangoo exhaust-not the first time as i made the exhaust from a bog standard Clio 172 exhaust with some extra bits added to make it work on the Kangoo(the tailpipe exits on the opposite sit on the Kangoo to the Clio)

I stuck my head underneath, noted the location of the leak and thought "Nae bother, I'll pop in to Halfords on my way back from work and grab a bandage for that."

However, on the way to work yesterday the blow seemed louder. As the weather was shite I ignored it and headed straight to Halfords and then popped my head underneath.

We're going to need a bigger bandage...

And the Land Rover connection? This section was added to the new 172 exhaust I bought in order to get the tailpipe to the correct side. It came from the Freelander which started this very thread! As you can see the pipe has had repairs in the past but this time it failed completely at a welded (from the factory) section.

Anyway, temporary* fix applied.

And she's quiet(er) again. 

I really should just fork out and get a custom exhaust made for this...