83C's Shite-esque Fleet: Oh Ship!

[83C]

Cleaned off the contact disc, put a bit more tension on the three terminals/contacts, put it all back together and reconnected it to the car. 

Marked up the wiper spindle and flicked it into intermittent on the switch - it now does a full 360 coming to rest in the same place, each time. Same with the slow/fast settings and also the wash-wipe. I’m calling that a win, just the small matter of drilling out the old drip tray bolts and tapping the threads for new ones, as well as reassembling everything, after the motor comes off again for a bit more grease to be added. 

In other news, my diagnostics machine still hasn’t turned up. Evri tracking just says ‘we have your parcel’, it hasn’t moved yet to the ‘on the way’ bit, let alone out for delivery. Getting a bit grumpy about this now, it’s only been 3 fucking weeks so far. Oh, and Amazon have finally emailed me to say they have received my item back that never actually left their possession, and a refund is on its way. In 5-7 working days. How are they sending it for it to be so slow? A drunken carrier pigeon? An asthmatic hedgehog? A heavily drugged sloth? Obviously the cheetah on speed/roids/performance enhancing drugs only works in the ‘take money from customers’ department. 

Amazon can collectively sit on a pineapple, inserted backwards with explosive force.

[busmansholiday]

2 hours ago, 83C said:

Evri tracking just says ‘we have your parcel’, it hasn’t moved yet to the ‘on the way’ bit, let alone out for delivery

It's probably in that fucking enormous distribution building just up the road from me. Don't get excited, the chances of it getting anywhere other than a market stall (allegedly), are pretty slim.

[83C]

Wiper mechanism all back together on the Arnage and working well. Almost a free fix, which is always good. 

Had another win with the cabin filters too - found they have a BMW part number:

Which corresponds to the same part for an E39 5-series, at around £15-20 the pair for Febi/Bilstein ones. Slight step backwards in that the n/s filter cartridge cross-head M6 bolts are a bit chewed up, but nothing some new stainless M6 cap heads can’t sort once the threads have been cleaned up. 

The Mondeo is damp inside, so there must be a leak. The rear spoiler has never felt particularly secure and most of the water seems to come from around the rear hatch, so further investigation revealed:

Looks like the adhesive pad has split away and water is getting in through the fixing holes. Bunged them from underneath and then a good layer of flexible grip seal to bond the spoiler back to the pad. Time will tell if that’s been successful or not.

Diagnostics machine still not here. Now becoming a proper fucking irritation.

[83C]

Yesterday I got hacked off enough waiting for the Autel diagnostics machine that I cancelled the order and blew £220 on an iCarsoft Pro, which turned up today. This made me much less frustrated. 

Plugging it in to the Mondeo revealed that one of the rear speed sensors is faulty, so I’ll pull the wheel off and have a look. Just need to work out whether Rear, Left means left hand side from looking at the car head on, or left hand side from the driver’s seat. 

 

Plugging the box of tricks into the Range Rover was a bit less conclusive. Trying to read the SRS module returned a result of unable to communicate. So I suppose I need to track down the SRS module and see if it’s still plugged in. A job for tomorrow morning.

[83C]

A bit of research led me to a Range Rover forum, where others have had the same issue on 2006 L322s where the SRS allegedly doesn’t want to talk to the box of tricks. Although the software lists a 2006 L322 as a specific option on the screen where you choose which model/year, apparently the SRS module is a hangover from the 2002-2005 models. Selected this option, straight in and a fault with the seat occupancy detection loop had been stored. Fault cleared, light off the dash and job done. 

Will see how long it stays off for, but last week I was looking at the wiring under the seats when the light first pinged on and noticed some of it had worked loose including a plug. Clipped it all back in, so hopefully that was the cause.

[83C]

When I took Mrs 83C's Mini for MoT last week I booked another test slot in early March but wasn't sure which car it'd be for. The upcoming list of work on the fleet includes:

• A new windscreen on the Range Rover (old one has a crack nearly as big as mine, and just as ugly), and rectify the knocking from the front suspension,
• New set of tyres on the Bentley (old ones cracked and perished),
• Speed/ABS sensors for the Mondeo, also fit new drop links and take both n/s wheels to a tyre place to see where they're leaking. 

The Bentley's tyres will be done first as the first available slot for the Range Rover's windscreen was after the test slot, and the Range Rover has ticket until the end of March. I've settled for a set of Hankook Ventus S1 Evo's all around as the Arnage wears a slightly oddball 255/50/18, which came to just shy of £700 fitted at home. I declined the opportunity to fit the Bentley approved Pirelli P Zero Rosso, because the Hankooks have better ratings for load, noise and wet weather, and also:

Yep, over £2,200 just because they're 'approved'. For context, the bigger Pirelli P Zero Scorpions on the L322 were less than £600 for the full set. 

Fuck. That. 

So it'll probably be the Bentley that goes in for test next Thursday providing tyre fitting all goes well, unless the Mondeo is done in time. 

And in diagnostic machine news, Amazon have finally remembered to refund me for the one that never left their possession. Only a month on from placing the order.

[83C]

Collection day today, off to another prolific shiter in the South West. Not much in the way of photos or updates as I’m driving, but I’ve just stopped at Taunton Deane Services.

Inlaw’s Kia Sportage is the chariot of choice.

[83C]

Tavistock achieved, collection achieved.

Didnt have any time for collection shots as @HMC was a bit pushed for time, good to see you again though.

Pez station shot at Sourton Cross:

Child 2 approves, she’s along for the ride back to Shrewsbury.

Onwards!

[Sunny Jim]

Hope you enjoy it as much as I'm enjoying the vRS! 👍

[83C]

Stopped at Sedgemoor services, then back home. 

Not long got in, will do a full rundown on it tomorrow.

[83C]

Porsche: generally ok. Drives very well, it’s totally sold me on why Porsche are so popular.

Needs:

• Oil leak finding and sorting.

• Exhaust shield rattle tracing and fixing.

• Central locking issues dealt with.

• Carpet removing and drying out.

Came out ok after a thorough jetwash, and amazingly doesn’t leak:

Decided to make a start on the Mondeo, including getting both n/s wheels off to find why they lose air over 4-5 days. 

Spot the difference:

Bollocks.

And the key for the locking nuts is also fucked.

Double bollocks.

[83C]

Locking wheel nuts are shite. 

Nearside front wheel: smash a 24mm socket over the remains of the locking nut to remove the outer spinning collar, then smash a 17mm onto the remains and wind off. Get very sweary removing the remains from the sockets. 

Nearside rear wheel: try the same again. Spinning collar doing its job a bit too well. Fuck. Drop down to a 15/16ths socket, tighter on the collar but not crushing onto the centre. Twat fuck out of the locking centre with a selection of punches to try and expand the centre enough to grab the outer collar. Fail. 

Swear, lots. 

Smash the 15/16ths back on, add a selection of 1/2in extensions to provide leverage. Finally succeed in waggling the collar off the centre. 17mm back onto the centre and wind off. 

Then go to undo the remaining normal nuts and find all are starting to expand, some enough to need the 20mm socket.

The joys of working on a car, eh?

Just got the offside ones to remove now...

[Noel Tidybeard]

you're lucky- mondingos have a habit of the shiny outer bit of nut falls off leaving you with 18mm wheel nuts...

now, how common is a 18mm socket? 🙄

[Popsicle]

1 hour ago, 83C said:

Locking wheel nuts are shite.

I feel your pain, they're the first thing to go in the bin on any motor I get. As you've found some can put up a good old fight.

[83C]

The front droplinks need replacing on the Mondeo, this I knew about before I got the car and it comes with shiny new replacements. 

Saw the old ones, thought ‘wonderful, get the hex bit in there, wind the nut off, jobs’ a good ‘un.’ 

Except it wasn’t, because Mondeo. 

Standard procedure for me with things like this is to use a rubber mallet to drive home the hex bit in order to ensure it’s seated, to try and make sure it doesn’t round out. 5mm bit in, seated, and 17mm spanner on the outside. Turn, turn, turn, tur- fuck. 

The nut goes about three clear turns on the thread before it binds enough (threads cleaned with a wire brush and cleaner) that the hex bit rounded out the end of the stud instead. Working it back and forth makes no difference, each time it just rounds out. 

At this point I’ve given up for the day, as I have to be at work in a bit so I’ve slung the wheel back on and parked it in the naughty corner. Progress tomorrow will be weather dependent. 

Just to make me even happier* the locking wheel nut doesn’t fit on either of the offside wheels either, so they’ll have to smashed off too.

Fucking joy. 

[83C]

4 hours ago, Popsicle said:

I feel your pain, they're the first thing to go in the bin on any motor I get. As you've found some can put up a good old fight.

Yep. Always get rid of them. I’ve got a selection of 12pt sockets and 1/2” extension bars specifically for the job, so I can hammer them on and then swap to the decent extension and breaker bar once in place.

The locking key itself looks like it’s been ugga-dugga’d up to eleventymillion, the pattern is absolutely bolloxed.

[Popsicle]

8 minutes ago, 83C said:

Yep. Always get rid of them. I’ve got a selection of 12pt sockets and 1/2” extension bars specifically for the job, so I can hammer them on and then swap to the decent extension and breaker bar once in place.

The locking key itself looks like it’s been ugga-dugga’d up to eleventymillion, the pattern is absolutely bolloxed.

Seems like you're well prepared, there is a strange satisfaction to getting the bastards out and sticking your middle finger up to the horrible bloody things.

[83C]

20 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

you're lucky- mondingos have a habit of the shiny outer bit of nut falls off leaving you with 18mm wheel nuts...

now, how common is a 18mm socket? 🙄

I have 3 - shallow 3/8th, deep 3/8th and shallow 1/2". 

To be entirely fair I don't think I've ever used the 3/8th ones, but the 1/2" has come in handy for exactly that sort of job.

[83C]

Today’s automotive chores:

New windscreen day for the L322, as this won’t pass the MoT:

Whilst that was being done, I went off on a trundle around the industrial estate for a nut splitter for the Mondeo. Turns out they’re hard to find, not many places stock them anymore, even the specialist tool shop. Last port of call was the Beta dealer at Bearing Man Ltd, and they did have one. Then things got a bit more spendy:

I like Beta tools.

My wallet really doesn’t.

[83C]

Yesterday was, er, entertaining:

Got a call from my sister asking if I could come and rescue her as she’d parked her Discovery in a hidden snow filled ditch whilst taking the kids sledging, right on top of the local hills. Almost made it to where she was, by the time I got there the snow was drifting and obscuring the road enough to make actually picking the limits of the tarmac out very difficult. In that second picture just to the right of the tyre tracks it drops into a ditch, as she was around 400m away we decided to leave her car for the night and just get her and the kids home - no point risking the same problem with the Range Rover. The change in weather was rapid, when I went up there was still road visible, coming down it was an inch or two deep in snow - the difference was maybe an hour or so at most. Tonight’s fun will be recovering the Disco, shovels, ropes etc at the ready…

[83C]

Disco recovered:

Sister’s 110 in the middle.

[83C]

The snow-imposed hiatus in getting various members of the fleet progressed has given me some thinking time, and some eBay/car parts browsing time. 

Purchases first - nothing exciting but for the Boxster I found someone selling a new set of spark plug tubes for less than new price as they'd bought and not used them, so to that I've added spark plugs, oil and oil filter. Hopefully they'll all arrive in the coming week and I can get on with trying to get the engine a bit more oil tight. The smell of hot oil presumably getting onto the exhaust and visual evidence of the oil escaping the engine is less than ideal. 

The replacement wheel nuts for the Mondeo have turned up, hopefully this week the remaining McWank locking nuts will be smashed into oblivion, drop links changed and other rear ABS sensor changed out, and then it'll be MoT time. 

The L322 needs some front suspension rattles looking at, there's a fairly significant clonk from the o/s/f been developing recently. The car came with a new offside lower front arm that hadn't been fitted, so that'll be the starting point. 

This leads me on to the thoughts. The snow and the week's rain forecast have reminded me again how much I detest working on cars outside. In an ideal world I'd build my own garage, but I'm not planning to stay in the current house more than two years and to do so here would involve casting a slab of concrete around 12m x 4m that also accounts for a 1m drop over its length, before building something tall enough to house a 2 or 4 post lift, so that means getting into planning applications and all sorts of expensive stuff. I'd do it if this were a long term home, but it isn't. Therefore I need to look at renting a unit somewhere. The fact is I do enough work (or I should do enough work but I put so much off or pay someone else) to justify spending the money in renting a unit, plus I really want to park the Bentley indoors as much as possible. Obviously the next place will have a garage, so a unit is only going to be a thing for the next couple of years until I move house. I did see this:

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129594593?utm_campaign=property-details&utm_content=commercial-lettings&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=copytoclipboard#/&channel=COM_LET

I have no idea though about what is required for taking on a commercial property for non-commercial purposes, or whether I need to be trading somehow. Setting up a company to facilitate letting a unit wouldn't be the end of the world though and I guess might have some tax advantages.

I've also had it suggested to me again that I ought to be involved with a Youtube channel of some sort, because apparently I have interesting cars and do stuff with them, as do a few people I'm close to. Problem is I'm really not the sort to be on camera, I really don't like seeing myself or having to speak in public. That said, having a garage/unit would definitely be useful as a studio/set and maybe its the thing to break my own negative thoughts about myself. I was watching a few episodes of Pollitts Projects and HubNut and in some ways it appeals to the creative side of me. The financial stuff is irrelevant, unless you know you've got a guaranteed smash hit it's probably best to look at doing videos as a hobby and if it eventually gets enough subs and views to pay a few quid then happy days. I'm buying a GoPro and a DJI drone for a holiday later in the year anyway so maybe they would come in handy. 

Any thoughts and experiences of the above would be most welcome.

[Saabnut]

If you rent a commercial unit with a bona fide company, you might be able to get rates relief depending on turnover. If not, commercial rates can be cripling! Investigate in advance!

[Popsicle]

I think anything with a rateable value of less the £12k pa is exempt from paying any business rates. As the one you're looking at is £4k pa you should be exempt. Looks a very nice unit for the money too.

[High Jetter]

Yup, you can check RV on the voa website, if your only business location and under £12k, at the moment no charge. Looks ok, though some insurers may have an issue with the corrugated asbestos roof sheets. Why so many extinguishers tho?

[83C]

With a spot of dry weather today it was time to tackle the Porsche’s inability to contain its oil. 

From a previous look under it was definitely wet around the o/s cylinder head, and I was expecting the spark plug tubes to no longer be oil tight. 

Clearly moist. Not enough to be smelling of hot oil like it does though, so more investigation required. Started the engine and ran it at a fast idle to see if any oil made an appearance, and sure enough a thin bead of it appeared down the cam cover between the first and second coil packs:

Looking up it appeared to be coming from the oil pressure sensor area. Took the engine top cover off and found this:

2.5 litres of dusty Porsche M96 engine. 

More importantly there was also this:

The black shiny thing is the rubber cap over the oil pressure switch, wiping it off and running the engine showed it is leaking around the plastic base so time for a new switch. The plug tubes definitely look wet and will need changing at some point but for now I’ll fit a new switch and make sure that leak is gone first, so a liberal dose of engine degreaser will be needed. 

[Asimo]

You would think that after all these years Bosch could make pressure switches that didn’t do that.
*See also 1961 VW Beetle etc…

[83C]

New oil pressure switch fitted:

I took the old one out with a 24mm shallow socket. Not ideal, but got away with it but just dropping the extension bar in the top of the socket resting on the spade terminal. I didn’t want to do that for refitting, so on the way back from buying the switch I stopped at Halfords and bought a 24mm deep socket. 

The new switch is 23mm across which caused an attack of the swears.

Luckily I could just about get a 23mm spanner in there to nip it up, but I should really buy a full set of deep sockets. Next up was trying to get the engine bay a bit cleaner, I’m not after the concours look but being a bit less covered in crap makes it more pleasant to work on:

Also scrubbed off the o/s cam cover to see where else there are leaks:

Took it out for a quick Italian tune up, the smell of hot oil dissipated quickly and didn’t come back so hopefully that’s a win. No evidence of leaks when I got back either.

Other jobs - new wipers fitted (old ones were the wrong size and looked grim), and I’ve ordered a new front numberplate plinth to make the front plate sit properly.

[83C]

The week's motoring related shenanigans so far:

The Porsche had multiple numberplates, with the current ones mounted on the old ones with sticky pads - I suspect it was the way to get around the missing plinth issues as the curve of the front bumper is pretty tricky to get anything to sit right on. A genuine new front plinth was less than £20 with fixings, so the front now looks much better with the plate mounted properly. The rear was drilled to match the old plates' fixing holes, and then mounted straight back on - only downside being that I need to swap the yellow screw caps for black ones. It's been in daily use, including a two hour round trip as a rapid parts collection vehicle, and seems to be much better at keeping the oil within the engine. At least the oil forcing its way past the old sensor was proof that there seems to be good oil pressure. 

The big job was the Range Rover, as it is due for MoT. For a while now the front end has been a bit rattly and more recently a distinct 'clonk' has developed on the o/s/f. New droplinks and lower arms then, and fingers crossed it isn't anything else. Picked all the bits up yesterday from MM 4x4, and today was set aside for doing the work as the MoT is booked for tomorrow. 

First issue was the wheel nuts - a few have been swelling but one had gone almost completely round, necessitating going full pikey with the tools usually used for removing crap locking nuts and a 14lb sledgehammer. The locking nuts were starting to corrode too, so a full set of new nuts needed.  Once they were off and the front wheels out the way a pry bar confirmed that the o/s upper suspension arm bush was shot, loads of movement in it and metal to metal contact with the chassis mount. The n/s arm was better but still a bit sloppy. The drop links weren't too bad but on closer inspection the boot at the strut end on the o/s was shot. The lower arms and hub ball joints were all good, so the new ones will remain in stock for when they are needed. The front pads were getting worn too and it made sense to just replace them while the wheels were off and access easy, so a quick trip to ECP was required, and to the local 4x4 parts place for a new set of wheel nuts.

All back together and road tested, rattles and clonks have gone so I'm a bit more confident about tomorrow morning's test. Parked up ready and showing off its shiny new nuts:

Next up, the Mondeo of Doom. 

 

[83C]

Alongside the cars, I've been trying to do some shed improvements. Nothing major, but increasing the storage capacity with more shelves, and creating a small workbench with a vice. Better lighting was on the list as well. I fitted a new twin fluorescent tube light to replace the old 1/2 watt lamp at one end of the shed, along with a length of 1.5mm twin & earth measured to easily reach the switch. Had a look at the wiring today while it was light enough to potentially wire in the light and this is what I found:

Shoddy AF. Only the grey cable is what I’ve added, and it’s not connected.

The shed supply is running off a standard 13A 3-pin socket, with cable strung across from the house. I really don't like this arrangement but its how things were when I bought the house, so it'll do for now until I start doing some groundworks to enable running a dedicated feed directly from the fusebox into the shed. I thought the cable in would run to a box on the back of the board, where the feeds would be separated off to the plug socket that runs the fridge, and the feed for the light. I knew something funky was going on with the light wiring as the outside PIR only works when the inside light is off, and vice versa. In fact the whole lot runs into the back of the light switch, with one terminal also acting as the distribution point for the live and the neutrals all clustered in a separate choc block connector. It's been running a fridge/freezer and a Ryobi battery charger (previous owners were running a six foot chest freezer and a pair of under counter freezers off it) and thats really as much as I want to put through a 13A household plug 10 foot away. Think this has just moved sorting the shed electrics up the priority list, so I need some underground conduit and a 4 way + RCD consumer unit (lights, sockets + 2 spare). I'll get the spark who did my main fusebox replacement to wire in the consumer unit, I'll just run everything from where I want it ready for him to connect and test. Next month's job, possibly.