Felly Fav and Trum. *Wanna see a fupped engine?**

[Yoss]

So a few weeks ago egg, of Mondeo fame, PMd me this picture and asked if I wanted them. Well you'd assume as there's two different types that they'd be a set of four wouldn't you? Two fronts two rears obviously.

 

Now my rear mudflaps have the Škoda lettering on them but fronts don't so I thought this'd be a nice upgrade. So of course I said yes I'd have them and a few days later they arrived.

 

But once they arrived and I removed one of my fronts it soon became apparent they were quite different.

 

Though oddly when held up by hand they were actually a very good fit with the recess fitting the shape of the sill almost perfectly.

 

And the part numbers were very close.

 

But to fit them would involve drilling new holes either in the car or the flaps including one in the lip of the wheelarch which I definitely wasn't comfortable with so I abandoned that idea and just decided to clean up and refit the old ones.

 

I was at least pleased to find the old flaps came off easily. Something you can never take for granted on old cars. Especially as captive nuts were involved, they've always been a pain in my old BL stuff but no such worries here and I was really pleased to see the ends of the sills are absolutely perfect as it's a bit of a mud trap behind the mudflaps so these were all cleaned up before refitting.

 

 

Back indoors later I was doing a little research into the mystery flaps. I was starting to wonder if maybe mk2s had a different design but all pictures seemed to have 'Škoda' rears and plain fronts. Then trawling through our friends at Skoda Dily revealed this:

 

 

So the estate has different mudlflaps! Seems odd as although it's longer the bit round the wheelarch looks the same. But I guess it must have a bit of extra reinforcement.

 

The front of the sill (forgot to insert it further up).

[egg]

Ah sorry, I sent you some duff ones there! Sorry Yoss!

 

Had no idea they were from an estate, just in the box of bits I inherited.

[Yoss]

As I now had a spare set of rears I thought I'd pick out the Škoda lettering in white. I wasn't sure if it would be too much (especially whilst I was painting them, with them six inches from my face) but I'd seen them on rear engined cars and liked it. And if I didn't like it I still had the originals, easy enough to swap back.

 

Anyway, now they're on I love them! They are definitely staying.

 

 

And egg threw in a free pair of clear side repeaters. Even this wasn't as simple a swap as you might imagine. The bulbs aren't the ubiquitous 501s that everything uses now, they were 233s, same as my Triumph used for its sidelights and Halfords don't sell them in orange so I had to wait for someone to send me them from internetland.

 

 

So now it's properly pimped feel free to tell me to bugger off to Retro Rides.

[Yoss]

Ah sorry, I sent you some duff ones there! Sorry Yoss!

Had no idea they were from an estate, just in the box of bits I inherited.

No worries, I didn't know either, we live and learn. Who's to say I won't have an estate one day!

[Yoss]

Not much going on with the fleet at the mo but I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from our trip to Bournemouth. I like Bournemouth as you can park very close to the beach.

At least you can in this weather, it's a different story on a nice day. Mrs Yoss is already regretting leaving the car. But we managed to park next to some proper Autoshite.

I still don't think BMW have made a better looking car than this.

 

Boscombe Pier

 

 

It's so bracing!

[Yoss]

Been taking the Triumph for a little blast to Newbury and back via some of the better roads in alternating bright sunshine and flash floods.

 

Had to avoid the bigger puddles after we hit a big one and the bow wave came in the sunroof and I got told off by Mrs Yoss. Could have closed the roof I guess but where's the fun in that.

 

 

The resulting effect reminds me of that hi vis airflow paint they use in F1 testing. I like it and won't be washing the car for some time!

[Yoss]

Well not THE Grand Tour but a grand tour of sorts.

 

Felicia's been on holiday again. Covered around 1200 miles in six days. I do a few more pre trip checks for these longer trips and take extra fluids and tools but it never needs anything, it's a Felicia after all.

 

First day was Southampton to Newcastle via Thirsk and Tynemouth. Who else has holiday photos like this?

 

And this is the view from our hotel room. That's your actual Tyne that is.

 

A couple of days there and we headed north again. This the border at Carter Bar on the A68.

I've done the A68 a few times to Edinburgh but this time we turned off and did some more remote Borders roads. Took most of the day to get from Newcastle to Glasgow but it was fun.

 

And this is the side street we abandoned the car in for two days near Crosshill station.

While we swanned off to the Grand Central hotel overlooking Central Station and drank cocktails for two days.

That one was actually in Newcastle but I'll stick it here for illustrative purposes.

[Yoss]

And then we came down the other side and dropped into Wales. We stayed in Portmerion. It was brilliant, you can actually stay in the village. They have an actual hotel and a castle but why would you when you can stay in the village itself.

 

This was our house.

Unfortunately the picture is sideways. This one's not but it's a bit dark. Combine the two and you get the idea.

We couldn't leave the car here, this was just to unload. We had an allocated parking spot down the road. The village was still open to the public at this point and it gives one a great sense of self importance being able to drive round the place whilst the public had to park up the road.

 

On the way to my parking spot I couldn't resist stopping here to show the Maserati people what proper class looks like.

Then whilst parking, this drove past.

And then found this down by the hotel.

 

But there was some other Proper Shite there. This ZS was well battered, far more than you can see in the photo.

[Yoss]

After 1200 miles of mainly wet roads the car was obviously filthy so I gave it a good wash.

 

Which is when I found this.

 

I thought it was just a bit of foliage stuck in the tread so I blasted it with the hose but it didn't budge. Closer inspection showed small bubbles coming from it. Bugger. Still wasn't sure what it was but it definitely looked organic. Checked the tyre pressure and it was a bit low. I could just keep pumping it up but both rear tyres were quite low anyway so I decided to get a new pair. My main concern was if it came out again the tyre would deflate rather quickly.

 

This is what was on the inside!

That's a proper thorn. I blame Scotland, that's no soft southern thorn is it.

 

The car is off to Kent tomorrow, so another 250 mile day trip so we had to get it replaced really. We may have driven back from Scotland with it but once you know it's there you don't really feel comfortable doing 70ishmph do you?

[egg]

Yoss, if you're coming anywhere near me, I've got a spare set of Favorit headlights you could have?

 

Nice trip by the looks of it!

[Yoss]

Not quite as far as that today I'm afraid. Sort of Chatham way and only for a couple of hours. Visiting a friend of Mrs Yoss who's just had a baby.

 

I like Herne Bay. Next time we go that far I'll let you know in advance.

 

Cheers.

[Yoss]

A lot of you won't like this but I was overwhelmed by the temptation.

 

These arrived a few weeks ago.

 

Followed by this box of bits direct from Plzen CZ.

 

You can see where this is going can't you?

 

These claimed to lower the car by 35mm which is only about an inch and a half or about two fingers and the car was sitting so high and was in fact a bit lopsided so I thought I'd take a chance on these.

 

As you can see they are also progressive with a soft bit followed by a hard bit.

And I also like the contrasting primary colours.

 

 

 

The end result is this.

I think it looks good. It doesn't really look lowered it just looks like a normal car as it was too high before. The body roll is much reduced and whilst it is a bit firm it's still not as stiff as the ZT-T it replaced. The Felicia achieves much the same result with anti roll bars. Cuts out the roll without being harsh. This might be preferable and would fit the Favorit but you'd need the lower arms and front subframe (it has all the mounting holes in it, I don't fancy my chances drilling them accurately in the Favs subframe). So basically you need a Felicia donor car and only the 1.6 and diesels had them so the chances of finding a donor are slim. I'll stick with this for now.

 

By the way, enough with the skip jokes, I know you're all thinking it and the striking resemblance is not lost on me. I wonder if the skips are a Bertone design too. Or did they have a couple in Bertone's car park when Škoda asked them to come up with a new hatchback.

[Yoss]

Took the Fav round to see a friend with a new Fabia. Both blue with white wheels.

 

 

 

 

Twenty five years progress* between these two but I know what I'd rather have.

 

 

 

 

Okay so the Fabia is obviously more refined but it doesn't make you laugh when you get in. Not sure Škoda were actually trying to make people laugh when they built the Favorit but that's a good thing I think.

 

The Fabia is very black inside and suffers, like all moderns, from stupidly thick window pillars. The Fav is so much brighter even if it's all brown. Bright Brown.

[Felly Magic]

My Fav had the same springs fitted, it didn't handle badly with them tbh

[Yoss]

It does feel good, though it would benefit from from some decent front tyres, especially in the wet. It'll get those soon I hope. Although I now find the ride a bit hard my friend says it's not bad compared to his Fabia which has 16" wheels. He wanted 15s but he couldn't have those in white and you have to have white wheels don't you.

 

I think the main problem is actually Southampton's shitty roads, which is, unfortunately where I mainly drive it. We went for a little jaunt round the New Forest and it was fine. At least on my drive to work I now know where all the worst bits are and drive round them.

[Yoss]

Well I've now owned the Favorit for a year. A year ago yesterday in fact. It went for MOT on Monday. That was a fairly painless affair as you would expect with a car with all the mechanical complexity of a penny farthing. The only problems being a perished brake hose and a loose bolt on a steering rack clamp.

 

Although, giving it a bit of wash and polish last week (I like to present a clean car for MOT) I noticed one wheel had a lot more brake dust on it than the other, which is pretty easy to spot when you have white wheels. Investigation showed, unsurprisingly, that the caliper was sticking. The piston was quite rusty but cleaned up quite well. So I was rather pleased at the MOT that both front wheels had identical readings. Job done.

 

But whilst doing this I noticed one of the front tyres was borderline so two Firestone Multihawks were ordered through Asda tyres. I arrived a bit early and they said it would be about half an hour so I went off to the Asda cafe for lunch. As I left I spotted this in the car park so went to get a photo for Lazy Spotters.

 

When I looked back two old men were giving my Skoda the once over.

Sorry, bit of a crap photo, I was rushing it a bit. Immediately before this they were peering through the windows marveling at the brown.

 

When I got back from lunch I found it in the company of other shite.

These were everywhere until what feels like quite recently but all of a sudden have disappeared. Rust I guess.

 

The new rubber.

I have these all round now. I've gone up a size from 165/70s to 175/65. I thought I could do with a bit more grip but not having power steering didn't want to go too wide and 175s seem to work well on the Triumph. I haven't tried pushing it yet as I only got the retest this afternoon but the steering actually feels lighter and the extra grip is obvious when pulling away. The old tyres were so shit they struggled to cope with the 61hp and much wheelspin would ensue even on dry roads.

 

So, here's to another year. It's been a very easy car to live with. It's used every day for work and bombing round town which it loves. I've only done about 3k miles in he last year but that's enough to keep it happy without wearing it out.

[Yoss]

The biggest problem for the MOT. The words 'steering rack insecure' sound very simple. It was also one of the things it failed on last year when the car came direct from some years storage. I just pinched the bolt up as far as it would go. Neil at the garage wasn't entirely happy as there was still some movement but it was a lot less and he could see the bolt was tight so passed it.

 

This year the bolt was loose and the clamp moving about again so there was obviously more going on down there. More investigation necessary. So back home I tried to remove this bolt and despite the clamp being loose the bolt seemed very tight. So lots of WD40 and a big ratchet I managed to undo it a couple of turns at at a time pausing to let it cool down and add more WD40. It's only a 13mm bolt and I didn't want it snapping off.

 

The thread didn't look great so I tried one of the other bolts in the hole. Unfortunately just as it got tight and you're about to pinch it up it went loose again.

 

Tight tight loose, tight tight loose.

 

Bugger. What I'm screwing into was a captive nut welded into an upside down U channel welded to the subframe.

 

So I thought a longer bolt with a nut on the end should do the trick. This is the view from above.

The shiny bolt at the back is the new one. Note how much room there is under the front bolt and how easy it would be to get a nut under there. Note how much room there isn't under the rear one at all. That's the actual dictionary definition of Sods Law. It's also rather close to the bulkhead. You could get one finger in the hole but not two. I tried from underneath or leaning over from above but to no avail. I could get the nut onto the end of the bolt with one finger but couldn't turn it enough to get the thread started and as soon as you took your finger off to turn it further the nut would fall off again.

 

So plan be was to get some super strength allegedly permanent thread lock on the new bolt and leave it overnight. I took it back for retest and showed Neil what I'd done. It was a lot better but there was still slightly more play on this clamp than the other one. I told Neil the trouble I was having and he said put it on the ramp we'll have a look. This is the benefit of going to the same garage for MOT for over twenty years. Although it's the same job, being able to stand under the car rather than being on your back with limited arm movement puts a whole different take on things. It was still bloody fiddly but Neil was determined not to give up and finally got it to take. But we had nothing that would fit on the nut to do it up. He did it up hand tight until it stuck and I took it home.

 

Back home I found my worst 13mm spanner and did this.

 

This allowed me to do the nut up slowly until it was touching the old nut then use it to pin the nut in place whilst I did the bolt up from above.

 

Final picture of the finished job.

This shows the lack of access nicely. The camera was pinned up against the bulkhead too.

 

'Steering rack insecure'. Sounds easy. Took three bloody days in total. I thought it might have made the steering noticeably sharper but it didn't. The mounting rubbers are quite soft. I could get some poly bushes but then I'd have to undo that bolt again. I can live with it.

[The Moog]

Top work. One of those simple jobs that can be a right pain.

 

Hopefully you won't need to touch it again.

[SierraMikeHotel]

I hadn't come across this threat before so just read it from the start.  Two things strike me - that era of BMW 3-series is indeed the best-looking car they've ever made, especially in estate form, and (again looks-wise) I think the Felicia has aged remarkably well.  S-reg makes that 20 years old and I think it looks quite fresh.

 

The Favorit was a bit more edgy and of-its-time which has made it look old-fashioned now, still a good-looking car though.

 

I doubt I was saying that when they came out.

[Yoss]

I agree, the Felicia has aged well. To the point where it is practically invisible in a modern car park and nobody gives it a second glance except the odd period VW owner coveting my wheels. It's twenty years old in October, I haven't decided what we're doing for its birthday yet.

 

It's surprising how different the Favorit is seeing as the Felicia is based on the same structure. It does look very dated, partly because Skoda were sitting on the design for a few years before they were allowed to build it by the then Communist government. It fits in with things like the original Protons, Alfa 164 or Citroen XM or BX, (both I think we're also Bertone designs) where curves are very much frowned upon.

[Yoss]

Top work. One of those simple jobs that can be a right pain.

Hopefully you won't need to touch it again.

 

Thanks. I certainly hope not to, but I'm keeping the sawn off spanner in the glove box just in case. Along with the screwdriver I also adapted with an angle grinder to get to the adjustment screw on a Pierburg carburettor.

[Yoss]

My friend said he was going to pick a car up today so I met him at his workshop to be greeted by this.

 

The last tax disc said 2004, but it's been in a garage in Bournemouth since then. It has stonechip right up to lower swage line on the doors, which may have protected the car but it doesn't look nice.

 

The first place I always go for on these is the inner wings above the suspension turret. There's a box section under the wing that collects mud which stays damp and rusts the wing above the turret with eventual catastrophic results if left unchecked. Despite the engine bay being rather grotty the inner wings were ok.

 

Justyn even got it running despite being laid up for 14 years. Not instantly but new points and condenser and spraying carb cleaner down the carb and it burst into life briefly. So the carb was attached to a fuel can rather than the stale stuff in the tank and it fired. Unfortunately the clutch hydraulics had gone so we couldn't drive it off the trailer.

 

 

This was another nice, if small, touch.

'The Talbot Garage'?

 

Had a nice red interior too which I forgot to take a picture of. Couldn't help noticing the carpet was about a thousand times better than mine. Having been garaged it hadn't faded like most.

[gigglepin]

Just flcking through the posts and spotted the word trum,,,,sussed the triumph connection..looking at the pics of the 1300 ..was surprised to see my self in the background 

[Yoss]

Just flcking through the posts and spotted the word trum,,,,sussed the triumph connection..looking at the pics of the 1300 ..was surprised to see my self in the background

 

 

Sorry, just noticed this. I really should check my own threads more often. Please elaborate.

[Yoss]

So I was googling Tatra's as everyone does from time to time. Of course most people go for the for the more glamorous T87 or 603 but I keep finding myself drawn to the later 613.

 

So I'm browsing through the interior pics and I'm studying this.

First thing that caught my eye was the little twisty knob for the heater blower. That looks familiar. Hang on, the air vents. Ignition lock. The big plastic buttons! Even the bloody ashtray and 12v supply! Yes they've all been lifted straight out of my Favorit.

Or is it thed other way round? Did they take them from the Tatra for the lowly Skoda. The earlier 613s had a completely different dash so I still haven't figured out which came first.

 

Either way the Tatra is worth at least 30 times my Favorit (I could only find one for sale. In America for $12k. So I'm a bit chuffed that I at least own some little bits of Tatra.

[Yoss]

I keep thinking I should update my own thread rather than just piping up on other peoples but nothing much seems to happen to my fleet. Until now.

 

The Felicia has had an oil leak for a little while now. I've tried finding it. I replaced the cam cover seal. These are well known for leaking on these VW engines. No luck.

 

There seemed to be oil in the bottom of the cambelt cover so I decided to replace the front oil seal. To remove the old seal the HBOL suggests drilling a small hole in it and screwing in a self tapping screw to use as leverage. This is all very well but the seal has a metal ring in it and however carefully I tried drilling it would slip one way or the other. Not wanting to damage the alloy housing I needed to get behind it to tap it out. Turns out that alloy housing contained the oil pump. This meant the sump had to be dropped. Took me three days and the bloody thing still leaked. Not badly but it was leaving drops wherever it parked.

 

That was a couple of months ago and then Christmas got in the way. Being a postman means any other jobs in December are out of the question as it's getting dark pretty much as soon as I get home.

 

Last week we'd booked a few nights in Glasgow. We were going via Norfolk too to visit the in-laws so driving was the only sensible option. I thought about using the Favorit and if I was on my own I probably would have but Felicia is a lot smoother and quieter and I thought it's been leaking for months, how bad can it get?

 

We stopped here on the way up.

 

Then left it here for three days.

Which looks to me like the road Captain 70s leaves his Triumphs in, but I think a lot of Glasgow looks like this.

 

We used about two litres of oil on the way up which whilst not good, was at least managable. I still had a couple of litres but to be on the safe side we found a nearby GSF. They had some 10/40 going cheap as it was a discontinued line so I bought 2x5 litre tubs.

 

So we drove from Glasgow to Tebay services and as we drove in I could hear a tappety noise. The only real course of action was to go and have some cake in the very pleasant services.

 

Came back twenty minutes later and found the oil was off the bottom of the dipstick! Fortunately filling it up again made the tappety noise go away and after that we stopped every 80-100 miles.

 

This is the trail I left all the way from Glasgow to Southampton.

 

And when we finally got home.

 

Water always makes it look worse, these drops were only the size of a 5 pence piece in the dry. The one outside the house looks worse because I stopped to reverse. It's very pretty though isn't it. Ended up using 7 litres from Glasgow to Southampton!

 

Made the mistake of trying to use the rear wiper.

 

And the oil going up the back of the car has turned the faded grey bumper inserts black again. Even after washing it stayed black. So maybe I can just use old engine oil instead of expensive Auto Glym bumper trim.

 

So it's in the garage now and I've cleaned all the oil off and then lay underneath to see where it's coming from. It's pretty much pouring out now from somewhere around the front of the engine. I then removed every cover I could to get a better view and ran it again and it seems to be coming from higher up the block. This makes me suspect the camshaft seal. Unfortunately there's a plastic cover in the way and to remove it and still be able to run the engine I'm going to have to remove the cambelt and sprocket, then remove the plastic cover then put the cambelt back on. But I think that's what I'm going to have to do.

 

 

Had a great time in Glasgow though, always do, so I think it was worth it.

[inconsistant]

Great thread, nice cars. Keep it up!

[Yoss]

So I took the cambelt and sprocket and associated casing off to find this.

Which looks pretty grotty and possibly looks like it is coming from the camshaft seal. So I cleaned it all up and put the sprocket back on. The timing mark for this is on the plastic cover I've just removed so I was careful not to move anything. It actually wasnt that bad. The impact gun removed the big bolt without moving anything and I only had to slacken the tensioner slightly to get the belt on and off.

 

Refitted the sprocket and started it up.

No oil here but it was pissing out the bottom so I crawl back underneath tp see this.

This is on my back looking upwards at the back of the block.

 

It's the oil seperator which looks like this.

I've no idea what these do (seperate oil I'm guessing) or why or if it's really necessary.

 

Annoyingly I've already had this off about six months ago. It has two O rings which i should have replaced but one was D shaped and not readily available so I just plastered it in Wellseal. It still leaked, but obviously nothing like it is now so I started looking elsewhere.

 

The moral is 'do it properly, do it once' not 'bodge it then look everywhere else then have to do it again anyway' I still blame Volkswagen though.

 

So do I just take the plunge and buy a whole new unit seeing as the O and D rings dont seem to be available and I've no idea if there's anything inside the thing that can go wrong and maybe increase the pressure enough to push the oil out.

[Yoss]

So, I bought one of the above oil seperators complete with O rings and a new breather hose that links it to the inlet manifold. Fitted it and lay under the car watching for leaks. I felt quite pleased with myself for about two minutes when this little trickle of oil appeared round the side of the seperator. Bugger.

 

I felt quite deflated that night. Came in and started googling images of this engine with everything removed because it's impossible to see up there with it in the car. Looking at pictures of the bare block and head I just couldn't see where it could be coming from. There's nothing there. I started thinking OMGHGF, could it be seeping out betwixt head and block. Or worst case scenario cracked block.

 

Next day I decided I was going to have to bite the bullet and and take the manifold off so I could see the back of the engine. First of all, pull this wire off the oil pressure sensor.

It's under that black bottle shaped rubber thing. But when I squeezed it to take it off oil spurted out.

 

So this is the oil pressure sensor.

And as can be seen there is oil coming out from around the electrical spade connector which had come loose from the blue plastic housing.

 

And that's all it was.

 

My friendly local motor factor had one in stock, but even then it wasn't as simple as it should be. VW obviously fit this before the manifold and the clearance between the two is very tight. A spanner wouldn't fit. A socket would - thinner walled - but there was no room for the ratchett. VW probably have a special tool. And now, with the help of an angle grinder, so do I.

 

So this cured the oil leak but I then discovered I'd put the cambelt on one tooth out. It was fine on idle but as soon as I took it out it was really gutless so I spent another morning stripping it all down again to sort that.

 

All this was eating in to MOT prep time as that also expired today. So with a basic check of lights and wipers it went in yesterday morning.

 

Didn't pass.

 

The emmisions failure was on HC's which is usually unburnt fuel and you could just make out a slight misfire on tickover, mainly from a light popping noise from the exhaust. I hadn't really noticed, it's still far smoother than the Favorit or Triumph.

 

The spark plugs are those triple electrode ones that are supposed to last longer but I may have been taking the piss at five years. The first three were a bit worn but still a good colour. Number 4 was fucked.

Not only was it all gunked up but part of the ceramic insulator was missing. Simply changing the plugs brought the HC reading down from 265 (the limit is 200) to 49!

 

The brake imbalance was simply a stuck slider in the caliper which was soon sorted and the high level brake light (which I admit I forgot to check) was a broken wire betwixt body and tailgate.

 

And thus:

 

That wasn't too bad really was it. That's why I like these cars, the MOT's are always this painless. The oil leak was trying my patience but I'm glad I found it on my own. That's probably the worst problem I've had with this car in six years.

 

 

When I went for the retest they were a bit busy. They're only a three man operation and yesterday there were only two of them. So I offered to help Richard MOT a Honda CR-V while Neil did my retest. So this is a picture of my car having it's emmisions test from the seat of the CR-V on the ramp.

And there was a nice 75 outside.

[egg]

Brilliant stuff. Well done on the oil leak. Daft location though for the sensor!