83C's Shite-esque Fleet: Sweary McSwearyface.

[loserone]

What's @HMC selling this week?

[bramz7]

P1 at Exeter St Davids right? 

[HMC]

11 minutes ago, loserone said:

What's @HMC selling this week?

Not guilty (this week)

[83C]

The last stop:

[83C]

Things moved quickly after that last post. 

I got here:

And collected this:

From a small dealer nearby. 

I thought I’d do an update at the petrol station, but I’ve just got back to Shropshire and I haven’t actually stopped for fuel yet.

Its an S211 E320 CDI, the later 3.0 V6 and I have to say I’m pretty happy with it, 45+ mpg on the motorway and it didn’t really drop much from that on the A-roads. Working A/C is a huge bonus too.

[83C]

So, S211 ownership beckons. I blame @Talbot for this, because he recommended one in my what car thread.

Now here I have to admit to a bit of a mistake. I did a bit of research and saw that the OM642 3.0 V6 replaced the OM648 3.2 straight 6 with the facelift in 2006, so intending to avoid the SBC issues I went for a car fitted with the OM642. Saw this one and thought being a 55 plate it would be an early facelift. 

Er, no:

SBC unit is the alloy block in the bottom left corner. Bugger. 

Anyway, it seems to be all working fine at the moment. 

Interior is a nice place to be, comfortable and quiet. Just what I need for a regular commute. 

Anyone, maybe @Snake Charmer have any idea what this plug is for?

The only cosmetic issue is this rear bumper damage: 

According to a VIN decoder the colour is Cubanite silver, so whilst it’s not an urgent priority I’ll keep an eye out for a replacement.

[Snake Charmer]

Looks to me like a trickle charging connector but as it is close to the cigarette lighter socket may be to power something a previous owner used. Does the car have Comand Navigation? May have been for a Satnav. 

Check for voltage with the ignition off as l'm sure the cigarette lighter socket fuse can repositioned to power on with ignition off, that might indicate a charging connector.

[Snake Charmer]

How are you getting on with the car?

[83C]

46 minutes ago, Snake Charmer said:

How are you getting on with the car?

It’s going well so far, just switch on and go. Fuel economy seems pretty reasonable too. It’s not quite as good as an L322 at providing a magic carpet ride over rough roads but it’s really not far off. The price of course is that it’s not particularly sharp in terms of handling. No doubt the 16” alloys and 225/55 tyres are largely responsible, but as much as I’d like to stick a set of 17s or 18s on the whole point of the car is to be comfortable and absorb shitty roads, so the 16s are staying. Somehow the S211 doesn’t look as daft on smaller alloys as the E61 or F11 5s do.

[83C]

Now that the green L322 is gone I need to get the blue one back into service.

First order of business is to get the suspension sorted. This car has had various air suspension niggles ever since I’ve owned it, and the fact that it has taken so long to sort is largely down to my own laziness and the fact that the car still worked. Late last year I replaced the complete front struts and the air compressor which definitely helped, the front bags were so shot that they killed the old compressor trying to keep up with the loss of air. There has been an air leak from the rear for a while, most noticeable when the car is shut down with a hiss that drops to nothing about 5secs after the engine is switched off. I’d bought new rear bags in anticipation of needing to replace them because the old ones are the originals (or at least branded Land Rover) and I assumed likely to be just as shot as the fronts. So today I jacked up the o/s/r and went looking for the leak. First surprise was the rear bags being alright, the airbag was still pressurised and no leaks evident. I ran it, heard the leak as I shut the engine down and stuck my head back in the arch quickly which revealed the leak noise wasn’t coming from the airbag. A few more repeats of that and I managed to pinpoint the leak:

The blue line goes directly from the compressor to the reservoir, and it’s been rubbing on the bit of subframe enough that it’s worn through and made a pinhole where the dark bit is. Some gorilla tape and a bit of silicone hose later:

It’s a temporary fix but for the purposes of dealing with the air suspension issues it’ll do. Ran the car again, heard the compressor kick in, shut the car off and no air leak sound. Next step was to clear any fault codes, but here I ran into an issue:

Hmm. This fault has been a constant pain in the arse, so it seems I’ve still got some work to do. However there are no longer any codes for air pressure being insufficient so that’s a plus. Online wisdom says that C1A13-64 is usually caused by the air compressor exhaust being blocked, but I’ve replaced the compressor and drilled the sintered filter. Not sure yet what the next stop will be, I need to do a bit more research as to what might trigger this. Definitely open to suggestions. 

I also decided to start tackling the interior, the passenger side sun visor has never been right and had an annoying habit of dropping free over bumps because the plastic around the hinge was broken:

Easy to see why this might be annoying when the passenger had this view:

Replacement took 5 mins to fit:

[83C]

Last week I managed to rip the front bumper off the VXR8 whilst reversing out of a parking space - I didn’t realise the kerbstones under the bumper were slightly raised compared to the paving behind so when I reversed the kerb acted like a barb and pulled the bumper off. Luckily the slam panel fixings held firm, but the wing to bumper mounts weren’t so fortunate.

The o/s/f is the worst, because the bumper didn’t pull out of the bolts - instead it snapped clean along the edge, leaving the remains attached:

Just to make life even more joyful* the H12 hex head bolts that hold the bumper on (with equally overspecced 22mm nuts on the inside of the wing) are rusted solid - the wing would have folded in before they let go, even with a rattle gun on them. I foresee a session with the angry grinder and finger sander tomorrow, and a trip to the local fixings place for some stainless steel alternatives. 

The only upside is that while the bumper is off I can do a job I’ve been putting off for a while - replacing the headlamps with a good pair I bought over a year ago.

I’ve also started reassembly of the L322 with a view to taking it for MoT at the end of next week, just a CV boot to fix and get to the bottom of why the battery keeps dying.

[Back_For_More]

Liked for the repairing, not the initial  kerb damage..... 

Plastic weld the remaining pieces from inside? 

Is the VXR8 in hefty use or a rarely used toy for blasting about sometimes? May have missed that...... sorry

[83C]

9 minutes ago, Back_For_More said:

Liked for the repairing, not the initial  kerb damage..... 

Plastic weld the remaining pieces from inside? 

Is the VXR8 in hefty use or a rarely used toy for blasting about sometimes? May have missed that...... sorry

Very much an occasional toy, doesn’t go out at all during winter so I think I’ll try and bodge this bumper back together for the remaining few months and then see if a local bodyshop can fix it properly over winter.

[83C]

Today I decided to spend some quality time with my grinder, to remove the old wing-bumper mounting bolts from the VXR8 and try to get the bumper back on. Old bolts removed:

Rinse and repeat for the other side, remount the front bumper and this is the result:

Spot the difference:

With the top flange completely missing on the offside, there’s no avoiding the ugly gap between the wing and bumper. The mounts are in poor shape on the nearside but it’s ok from 10ft away. 

On the upside, the new headlights have now been fitted and they look so much better than the old misted and faded units that were there before. 

In other fleet news the Range Rover is in for MoT at the end of next week, I’m looking forward to having that back.

[83C]

Managed to get to the local car show at Longden Village Hall again this year, as ever a good selection of machinery. A few highlights:

[83C]

Been a bit busy of late and the jobs have piled up. 

First up the Super Blackbird got sold. It was mega but I just didn’t fit on it properly so off it went to a nice chap from Norn Iron. Photo from the last ride the night before:

Down to just the one bike now, and I’ve been buying a few goodies. Evotech do some very fine kit so the first purchases for the CB1000SP have been practical mods - a rad guard and wing mirror extenders:

Really impressed with the quality and finish, made in the U.K. too.

While I was down in Cornwall the Range Rover passed a significant milestone:

If I’d have thought about it I’d have reset the trip at 222000 to get all the 2s but this’ll do. Happened whilst pulling into the Co-op car park in Perranporth. 

Back home and I’ve been on a few jobs on the fleet today, not many photos because things got quite sweary. First up the Range Rover needed an odd clunk from the front checking out, and rear toe arm adjusters freeing off prior to going for a 4wheel alignment at some point in the next week or two. Checked all fixings on the front end but couldn’t find anything wrong, and on test drive the clunk has gone too - weird. It did have a pair of front outer CV boots for the MoT, done by the test centre and the clunk has occurred since then. Not a constant clunk-clunk-clunk under hard lock like a knackered CV joint, just once when turning hard left or right then nothing for ages until turning the wheel hard in the opposite direction - clunk. I can only think one joint wasn’t quite sitting right and jacking it up with the hub at full travel has allowed it to sort itself out. I also degreased the inside of both front wheels where they’d gotten a liberal coating of CV grease. In doing so I found this:

That’ll be why the n/s/f has a slow puncture then. Fuck sakes. On the upside the tyre only has around 3.5mm left and it can be plugged, so I think I’ll have a new one fitted and this can be the spare - the actual current spare that came with the car is barely legal. I’ve had over 20,000 miles out of the set of Pirelli Scorpions I fitted 4 years ago when I bought the car so I can’t complain too much, and two tyres still have 5mm+ left so they’ll go on the back. One has just been replaced thanks to the shoulder wearing out (hence the need for 4 wheel alignment) so the two new ones will go on the front. 

On to the rear and I wanted to at least free off the toe arm adjusters, ideally I want to replace them (and I do have all the parts ready) but the recip saw (needed for access reasons) didn’t even take the rust off when I tried to cut the bolts at the subframe end. Need better blades and some cutting paste I think. I was pleasantly surprised that the adjuster bolt did actually slacken off and retighten when I tried it, usually they’re seized solid which is why I hadn’t bothered trying before getting the recip on the job. I then took the opportunity to replace the adjuster bolt on the hub topmount, the hex on the bolt was getting seriously rotten and starting to round out.

Handy tip, wrap a big ratchet strap around the bottom of the hub and the upper arm, it’ll stop the upper arm springing upwards when the old bolt is removed.

I’ve had a new fuel cap in the box of spares for ages, at some point in the past before I owned the car the old cap lost the tether and pin that allows it to be stowed neatly while the car is being refueled, so today I fitted the new one.

Old:

New:

I still need to do the n/s/r toe adjusters but I’d had enough of rolling around under the Range Rover, so I thought I’d roll around under the VXR8 instead which needed a new crank angle sensor. This is when things got really sweary. 

I already knew that to access the crank sensor I needed to remove the starter motor, and the VXR8’s starter has been very lazy for some time so a new starter (genuine GM) was also ordered. Rock Auto in the states got me the bits much cheaper than UK suppliers, and quickly too. Can’t argue with a new genuine starter (no core exchange needed) for £120.

The ballache is that both components are mounted low down on the driver’s side, between the block and the exhaust downpipe and cat. Forward of the starter there is the engine mount, and aft there is the gearbox bellhousing. There really isn’t much room to work and it took a solid half hour and a fresh box of industrial strength swearing to tease the starter motor out of its hole, including bending and squashing the heatshield. But out it eventually came, to reveal the sensor:

This is the new one all fitted and ready to go.

I swapped over the heatshield to the new motor, including adding a repair washer where the alloy shield had corroded against one of the steel torx bolts, and then I tried to reinstall it. 

Oh fuck.

It did NOT want to go back in. I was lying on my side with the front of the car jacked up and sitting on axle stands (so not massive amounts of ground clearance), trying every fucking orientation, angle, twist, rotation and position to get the nose of the starter motor in - it must go nose first because the distance between gearbox and engine mount shield is less than the length of the starter. The main problem is that the starter motor body fouls on an unused bit of casting on the block, which is directly below the crank sensor in the picture. The motor body is recessed to clear this when fitted, and I’m sure when the engine is being assembled, out of the car and with no exhaust in the way it’s a fucking doddle to fit straight on, as it is clearly intended to do. But I wasn’t on the factory production line, I was lying on a cold concrete driveway with dust falling in my eyes, my arms getting tired of the ongoing battle with gravity and my mind screaming ‘fuck it!’ at me to down tools and get pissed. But after an hour of this torture it just suddenly slotted in, and I thought I was on the homeward stretch.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Now, the starter motor on an LS2 does not bolt into the bellhousing, the bolts run vertically up into the block casting you can see middle and top left of the picture above. This was great for access when removing, straight on with a 13mm socket and away they went, adding a touch of gravity to aid the removal of the starter. Trying to hold the starter in exactly the right place without it falling, whilst also holding a 150mm bolt tight against the engine block trying to get it to engage threads I couldn’t see, and then reaching with my third arm for the ratchet reminded me again that Isaac Newton was a twat for inventing gravity, and the genius* at GM who decided to use bolts that have to go upwards rather than sensible horizontal bolts into the bellhousing could join Newton in Twats Corner. 20 fucking minutes it took, just to line up the starter and get the bolts in. 

However, once they did go in it was joyous, a moment of relief that I wasn't going to be lying on the ground all night swearing at inanimate objects. It’s amazing how quickly it feels to go through throwing the wheel on, dropping the car off the stands, torquing the wheel nuts etc when compared to the previous couple of hours of drudgery, but the reward was the starter no longer acting like a heavily drugged sloth and all fault codes cleared from the dash. To be fair, you’re probably reading this and thinking just how long it’s taken you to plough through my witterings, so if you’ve made it this far then fair play.

Finally, I was browsing Car & Classic the other day and saw this. The correct number of adverts in my opinion:

[83C]

Took the opportunity the other day for a photo:

Large chunk of roughly finished metal outside the Blacksmiths Shop at Boston Lodge Works.