Parky Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 I do like a nice Favorit, I particularly like the rear styling and the chunky rear lights. Such an enormous step forward for Skoda at the time skoda_fan and Yoss 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyrew Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 59 minutes ago, Yoss said: I assume the tailgate actually fits in the back of a Favorit (or Felicia, which is the same really). With the seats out obviously. Hmm, I'm not sure. Think I picked them up in an Octavia VRS at the time with that stupid strut brace things in the boot. Fantastic car tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted May 4, 2020 Author Share Posted May 4, 2020 Ah well, there's only one way to find out. Actually there's several ways. I could measure mine. There really is a lot of room with the seats out. It's a very deep space. We once went to IKEA in the Felicia to look at sofas. Only to look mind, we had no intention of buying one but then we measured one, a small three seater then went back and measured the car and thought we can do this. At this point the back seats were still in the car, but as we know they just fold up and lift out giving you a van in seconds. So the seats came out, the front seats were slid forward, the sofa was unwrapped, all the packaging was discarded in the corner of the car park, all the bits of the sofa were packed in like tetris and the folded rear seats slid in on top of the sofa. I had to drive home with my knees round my elbows but we did it. This is the sofa with Mrs Yoss lounging on it. It's a fair size. So I'm fairly confident the tailgate will fit. Edit: And it's not even an estate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted May 6, 2020 Author Share Posted May 6, 2020 @Andyrew Have done some measuring and I think the tailgate will fit sideways diagonal through the hatch. May have to slide the front seats forward to drop it in but I can probably slide them back again once it's in. Might have to wait a little while, Mrs Yoss doesn't consider it 'essential travel' at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyrew Posted May 6, 2020 Share Posted May 6, 2020 1 hour ago, Yoss said: @Andyrew Have done some measuring and I think the tailgate will fit sideways diagonal through the hatch. May have to slide the front seats forward to drop it in but I can probably slide them back again once it's in. Might have to wait a little while, Mrs Yoss doesn't consider it 'essential travel' at the moment. That's good with me I'm "shielding" at the moment until the end of June according to the letter i got from the NHS, so im to stay clear of people untill then it seems. Yoss 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted May 7, 2020 Author Share Posted May 7, 2020 Some of you will know I'm building a Model railway in the loft, though there only seem to be about six people on the miniture railwayshite thread so this may be news to most of you. But there's a bit of a crossover here. Skoda made locos and stock for most of the former Eastern Bloc (still do of course, and buses and trams and trolleybuses but they are no longer connected to the car company since the VW takeover) but models of their stuff is very thin on the ground but I have found this. It's not an elegant machine, quite austere and industrial. It's a Czech Railways ES499 made by Piko. They were (and still are) an East German company and at the point this was made were a state owned model railway company. Its not up to the standards of the West German models of the time but way ahead of Hornby whose models were little more than kids toys back then. The printing is superb, it has several Skoda badges on it. Look at that mark at the bottom of the body. It's barely readable to the naked eye, it's about 3mm long and 1mm deep. Probably made sometime in the 1980s, I'm impressed with this scale of printing. I think it goes well with the Favorit, it has the same sort of no nonsense angular design and even the colour is quite close. My potato cam struggles to get both in focus at the same time. I'm sure my proper camera would but I couldn't be bothered to get it so this was the best I could do. Zelandeth, Stevebrookman, paulplom and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted June 27, 2020 Author Share Posted June 27, 2020 So I was up bright and early today with the Favorit in van mode with lots of cardboard and old sheets. And a full tank of petrol so we're obviously going some distance. In fact to a workshop on a farm near Leighton Buzzard belonging to @Andyrew who had made me an offer I couldn't refuse. A pair of Favorit wings And a very unobtainable brand new tailgate! These are the photos Andy tempted me with. And here they are in his lovely workshop. I wish I had this sort of space to mess around with. Though I suppose I could if I was prepared to pay for it but I'll just struggle on with my one garage, I guess that's still more than most people have. Andy was working on his Citroen Dyane when I arrived which was to the right of this picture but the new floor and inner wing for it can be seen in front of the Suzuki SJ, of which he had two and a half. I was fairly sure the tailgate would fit as I had measured mine before hand but Favorit had to be reconverted into van plus mode to get it in. By which I mean the rear seats had to come out completely but once you've already folded them that only takes about five seconds a side. The cardboard and sheets were to cover any pointy bits and to go to between each panel to stop them rattling against each other. I wouldn't want anything to spoil the smooth serenity of the Skoda pushrod engine at full chat. Easy fit. I took a more leisurely drive up via Newbury and the B4009 to Princes Risborough, Aylesbury and Leighton Buzzard. Came home more directly as the traffic was getting busier. Stopped at Fleet Services and parked next to a proper giffer 75 with AA and RAC badges. And got back home after 210 miles still with over half a tank. I haven't done any proper MPGing but that seems pretty good to me, it's not a big tank. So thanks Andy, good to meet you, I envy your workshop! Always good to put faces to names on here. Andyrew, Coprolalia, egg and 4 others 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted August 1, 2020 Author Share Posted August 1, 2020 The crappy VW engine in the Felicia has started leaking again. You plug one leak and it never takes long for another one to pop up. This time it's coming from the rocker cover gasket again. You can see it collecting at the front edge of the head from where it was running down to the exhaust manifold and turning to smoke. So I took the cover off and sure enough the gasket has turned from rubber to hard plastic. I seem to have to replace this on an annual basis now though this might be down to the cheap replacements I buy. And you can't just pinch the rocker cover bolts up a bit because they are a shitty VW design. They look like this with the stupidest tiny thread. The shoulder of these meets the top of the bearing cap they screw into coming to a dead stop. Any attempt to tighten further results in it snapping off at that skinny bit between the thread and main body. Ask me how I know. I only did it once mind. I don't know why they made them like this. This is the bearing cap they screw into. And there is plenty of meat to make the thread bigger. So I ordered a new gasket (the third one in as many years) but when it arrived it was wrong. New one at the top. I checked the ebay listing and the picture did look like the one they sent me, so maybe I should have noticed but they did list AEE engines in the listing so they were good enough to refund me. But as I needed to put the car back together I decided to go for a bodge and put a smear of silicone sealant either side of the old gasket after cleaning all the oil off it. I don't like using silicone where it's not meant to be because it means next time I take it off I'm making more work for myself having to peel it all off but I needed the car to be a car again. But to compound that bodge, I also found these washers. Which fitted perfectly on top of the rubber (but now turned to plastic) seals that the stupid bolt things go through. They are about 1.5mm thick which means the shoulder of the bolt doesn't meet the top of the bearing cap and so I could wind them up a bit tighter. But very carefully I might add because of the ridiculous thinness of the thread. I certainly wasn't going to hang off the end off the ratchet handle, I just held it at the head end and twisted gently, going from one to the other a bit at a time. These washers are from a BMC Landcrab. They go on the big studs that hold the front suspension displacers in place. They fitted perfectly. Never throw anything away. That was about three weeks ago and so far it's not leaking. I'm just waiting for it to pop out somewhere else now. It has occurred to me that the crankcase may be pressurising due to worn piston rings. I could do a compression test but if this does prove to be the case I'm going to absolutely nothing about it so there seems little point. I've mentioned this before somewhere, maybe this thread, maybe another, but I really don't like this engine. I mainly don't like the fact it's a VW engine in a Skoda (I know new Skodas are entirely VW but the Felicia is otherwise a true Skoda design). I resent it even more because Skoda had their own 1.6 ohc ready to go but VW wouldn't let them use it. It had 101hp compared to VW's 75 and it was all ally instead of having a cast iron block so it was lighter so would cause less understeer. This is it in a Favorit in the Skoda museum. It's a shame they couldn't have got it into production before the VW takeover as I feel that if it was already in production they would probably have let them keep it. Pure conjecture of course and possibly a Catch 22 situation in that Skoda probably needed the money from the merger to develop it enough to get in to full production. But resenting Volkswagen is my default state of mind and I'm not going to let facts get in the way of that. LightBulbFun, BeEP, loserone and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
320touring Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 I never knew about that Skoda 1.6.. good knowledge:) Sounds a bit of a weapon! I know the wee 1.3 pushrods tune up well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted August 1, 2020 Author Share Posted August 1, 2020 I know, it seems a no brainer doesn't it, more power and less weight from the same size engine, and probably better built. My other theory is that VW had a big pile of AEEs piled up in the corner of one of their factories and not enough Polo/Golf's to put them in so forced them on Skoda. But again none of this is based on fact. I like my 1.3 pushrod. It's not quiet but it makes a happy noise. I can't really explain it better than that. Because the Favorit is lighter it's not really slower than the Felicia, certainly not at town speeds. It's a bit rattly on tickover which I think might be the timing chain as I've done the tappets recently. The timing chain has no tensioner so as it wears it starts rattling. But it's quite short. My old 1.3 Felicia was rattlier and I did 80k in that. I've never heard of a chain snapping and it's a non interference engine anyway. But when you put your foot down it sounds really nice. I much prefer driving the Fav to the Felly. egg and LightBulbFun 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
320touring Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 My brother had a 1.3mpi felly. Rattly timing chain and 2nd gear was the brakes.. Ace little thing Yoss 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted August 19, 2020 Author Share Posted August 19, 2020 I mentioned in the news thread a couple of weeks ago that Felicia had an altercation with a deer. Damage included a broken headlight, foglight and grille. Headlight doesn't show too much here but it has cracked into three separate pieces. I replaced the headlight and grille the next day from my supplies but I didn't have a foglight and the replacement grille had no badge. She's now back to, if not new, at least pre impact condition more or less. The gap between front wing and bumper is now very slightly bigger on that side but I don't think anyone else will notice. I took the opportunity to fit a new style badge. I'll admit I looked into this when the new badges came out a few years back but they were over twenty quid a throw then and it seemed a bit frivolous. Now the Chinese have flooded the market you can get two for a tenner so I thought I'd give it a go. I'm still not sure I like it, it looks a bit out of place amongst the rampant laquer peel, but it's staying for now. egg, Andyrew and LightBulbFun 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyrew Posted August 20, 2020 Share Posted August 20, 2020 I like the simplicity of the newer badge. Looking good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 Yes, that was my thinking, although at the moment the chrome on the badge is chromier than the chrome of the grille surround but I'm sure it'll blend in after a while. That's the least of the our problems cosmetically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 5, 2020 Author Share Posted October 5, 2020 One in an occasional series of Felicia parked under famous bridges. This time Humber. One in an occasional series of Felicia at the seaside. This time Cleethorpes. Then Felicia went to see another Felicia. There's a lot of proper Shite here, more of which elsewhere somewhere else soon. Felicia is now parked here. And I've left her with a nice view. Though her laquer peel is quite noticeable from up here. LightBulbFun, egg, catsinthewelder and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egg Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 @Yoss Nice (your opinion may vary) leather gear knob from Czechia for the Fav? https://www.sp-el.cz/Hlavice-radici-paky-Favorit-Silverline-Blackline-Solitaire-d965.htm?fbclid=IwAR3ZRlAk8T4Sf-AnZ9joDZ2Sbn3vzVHR2lTIF86CjNBosnR-6PN1Gb6lHvI#detail-anchor-description Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted February 24, 2021 Author Share Posted February 24, 2021 @egg. Thanks, not for my Fav, mine is already brown and square being a mk1, you can't top that. It would go with the Felicia better. But you've sent me down a rabbit hole for which I thank* you. A quick perusal has found these. Blue or red leather sun visors, amongst the many other variants, even some that match the seats of the Felicia Mystery, a special edition only available in CZ. £100 a set though (roughly), most people don't love their Felly enough to spend that sort of money but there are few in CZ who will I'm sure. I'm going back in to see what else I can find. egg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted September 28, 2021 Author Share Posted September 28, 2021 Not updated this for a long time, mainly because very little happens and what small jobs I have done I just drop in the news thread but something major is afoot. Favorit is going for a respray! This has been prompted through necessity really as both front wings are getting quite rusty along the top edge. Whilst the rest of the car is generally good, it has already had one respray and the colour is very slightly different to the doorshuts and under bonnet areas. Also, whilst it polishes up OK it does fade quite quickly so I thought to hell with it, if it's having new wings I may as well treat it to a respray. So I took it to a Polish guy on Mrs Yoss's delivery. She says he's friendly and always busy, surely a good sign, and gets 4.8 out of 5 on Google reviews so I thought I'd go and see what he thinks. I'm not having the door shuts or engine bay doing as whilst I want it to look smart, I'm still using it every day so a blow over will be fine. So I took it down there and told him what I wanted which also includes a couple of small repairs to the rear arches. I have the new wings and some arch repair panels that he can cut bits out of if need be but he may not need them. He looked round it and said £1600 which I thought was very reasonable. So it's going from a £300 shitter to a £2k classic but it'll see me through until petrol is banned so it's still a sound investment I'm telling myself. This price was with me stripping as much as possible off it whilst keeping it drivable so at the moment it looks something like this. Looks like new under there, I'm pleased with that. I removed the rubber seals round the windows but then the windows rattled so much I was worried they would break if I drove it round like that. So I wedged socks in the window channels and did them up. So the windows are staying shut for the next three days but I don't think that's a problem looking at the weather. Ian_Fearn, Zelandeth, rainagain and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted September 29, 2021 Author Share Posted September 29, 2021 Got the front bumper off today. It should only be six bolts but the top two are behind the front panel. The front panel is only held on with four bolts. But two of those are behind the headlights. So the headlights and front panel have to come out to get the bumper off. To be fair the headlights come out easily too so it's no real problem. But as with anything thirty years old the nuts and bolts don't always play ball, particularly the captive nuts which tend to break free from their captors. So the angle grinder has been out a couple of times. But I was still struggling to get it off until I realised the number plate was holding it on. The self tappers went right through the bumper into the metal beam behind. After taking that off the bumper just fell off. This also means I can reattach the number plate easily for the trip to the spray shop. I was thinking I was going to have to gaffer tape it on. Also note the Triumph is parked in front and the garage is empty. Whilst I am going to drive it to the paint shop I decided not to drive it to work for the next couple of days so the Triumph is coming out to play. wesacosa, CaptainBoom, Dyslexic Viking and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 1, 2021 Author Share Posted October 1, 2021 Just dropped it off at the spray shop. It seems to be mainly modern expensive looking stuff and vans in there but there was a Pug 205 in one corner which makes Fav feel more at home. Now on the bus home. This is like a collection thread in reverse. mk2_craig, Dyslexic Viking, Fumbler and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 6, 2021 Author Share Posted October 6, 2021 So I've just popped in to the spray shop to drop off the rear spoiler. When I took it off there were four random holes under the centre pillar of the spoiler. So they said they could weld up the unrequired ones. Trouble was I'd left the spoiler at home so didn't know which were the right holes. Also needed one of the end fixings drilling out and retapping. And I had to go to Norfolk for three days. Anyway, I dropped the spoiler off today and this is the progress so far. New wings. Rear arch repairs. This panel just beneath where the front wing bolts on has also had work. And a couple of patches on the inner wings. They have four units now, two either side of the alley. My car is sharing a unit with three Mercs, two SLKs or SLs, two door convertibles anyway and giant ML, though I did spy an MGB keeping the average cost of the vehicles down. It might be a few more days as they only have one bodywork guy in at the moment but I'm not fussed about that, it's just nice to finally see the new wings on. egg, Amishtat, Dick Longbridge and 16 others 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Pelican Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 Great to see this getting the treatment LightBulbFun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 6, 2021 Author Share Posted October 6, 2021 Thanks. Hoping it'll good for another thirty years after this. LightBulbFun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 That's impressively clean behind the bits you've removed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJK 24 Posted October 6, 2021 Share Posted October 6, 2021 Great work! I hope they’re going to paint and treat the inside of the new wings?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 6, 2021 Author Share Posted October 6, 2021 2 hours ago, bunglebus said: That's impressively clean behind the bits you've removed Thanks, I knew it was generally good or I wouldn't be spending money on a respray but even I was pleasantly surprised once I got everything off. 2 hours ago, MJK 24 said: Great work! I hope they’re going to paint and treat the inside of the new wings?! That has been discussed and agreed. In fact the guy sounded almost surprised I had to ask, as if it was a given. Meanwhile, back home. I have several acres of black and brown plastic to clean up and treat. The bumpers and mud flaps were washed down and hosed off yesterday. I took the front fogs out probably for the first time ever. They still look in good nick but I will take them out of their plastic housings and clean them up properly. I had previously painted the Škoda lettering on the rear mud flaps white. I only did a half arsed job with some Humbrol matt white as I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. The rear engined Škodas all had them but I didn't know if it would look too much but as soon as I put them on I loved it. They had started flaking quite a lot so I've cleaned and scraped it all off and will do it again properly. Ish. I've rubbed the lettering down with some wet and dry this time to give the paint a better key. Ready to paint. The front flaps have no letters so these are the first things I treated with Auto Glym plastic trim restorer. Before and after shot. And I found the front bumper wedges nicely on to this folding chair which will make blacking up a lot easier. Though I need to go and buy some more of the Auto Glym stuff. I have tried lots of different bumber blacking sprays and gels as you might expect when you have a car with this much black plastic but have found the Auto Glym stuff the best for longevity and nice even coverage. Sigmund Fraud, Stanky, Dyslexic Viking and 2 others 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 6, 2021 Author Share Posted October 6, 2021 There aren't many jobs on this that I can do on the kitchen table. And I'm even using primer this time, hopefully they'll last better this time. EML, Ian_Fearn, MJK 24 and 8 others 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 13, 2021 Author Share Posted October 13, 2021 Bloody hell, I wasn't expecting this! Though I'm not complaining. When I first showed it to them the words blow over were used which to me doesn't include door shuts and rubbing down and filling all the minor blemishes. Maybe in Polish it means more. If they're doing all this for the same money that's even better. The main boss wasn't there today, who is Polish but speaks good English. The guy who's doing the work speaks very little English. I said about the door shuts and he said 'very little english' so I just gave a thumbs up and smiled. MGB for company. egg, Dyslexic Viking, Coprolalia and 9 others 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoss Posted October 13, 2021 Author Share Posted October 13, 2021 Meanwhile back home I've been cleaning up some of the vast amounts of plastic I removed before dropping the car off. The bumpers have come up very well I used to black them up quite regularly but haven't done it for ages as I'd stopped polishing the paint as well knowing it was going to be painted. So they had faded quite badly an gone a bit streaky but the Auto Glym has really done the job. They are still a bit tacky in this picture, they need a final buff to remove any residue. Mudflaps look good too. Internally, these are the door cappings. After and before. And yes even the door cappings are brown plastic. None of yer fancy wood here. The interior door handles were really faded. So I treated one with Meguiars Ultimate Black as they have a decent reputation at least in paintwork polishes but it still looked patchy so I did another with the Auto Glym Bumper and Trim Gel which had a much better result. The photo doesn't show the difference as clearly as in the flesh but you can see it. Left to right, Auto Glym, Meguiars and untreated. And the same with the external handles. Left to right, untreated, Meguiars and Auto Glym. Again the difference is far greater in the flesh. But also there is a lot of overspray on all the handles from its previous respray. That was cheap blowover. So a quick look on eBay found two brand new right hand handles for £20 each including delivery. No left hand ones have surfaced yet but I'll keep looking. If they were doing another cheap blowover I wouldn't bother but if they're going to all the trouble of taking the doors off and doing door shuts I feel I should make more of an effort too. egg, rainagain, Coprolalia and 8 others 10 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuboy Posted October 13, 2021 Share Posted October 13, 2021 great work Yoss and tooSavvy 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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