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

[Yoss]

Ha, I hadn't considered the unscrupulous Invacar owner using their key against me. 

I have been known to pick Mrs Yoss up in the bus and take her into town but not often. 

 

[Yoss]

So here's a little anecdote that involves all three of my cars. 

The Triumph had two slow punctures which was annoying and stopping me from using the car as I was too lazy to pump them back up. So I jacked the back of the car up and got the wheels off, then washed them down with soapy water to try and find the leaks. Not easy getting the offside rear wheel off with the car in this position but I managed. 

This showed the same problem on both wheels with bubbles coming from the base of the valves. Fairly common on old alloy wheels.  So I bunged them in the back of the Favorit and set off for my local friendly tyre fitter. I usually tend to do it this way if I need tyres because I don't like other people taking my wheels on and off. They're either too tight or I don't like where they're jacking it up or in the case of the Triumph they're awkward to refit as there's no central spigot and the wheels are held in place with special wheel nuts. But I digress... 

They got the tyres off and the valve holes were indeed corroded and not entirely round. 

So they cleaned up the holes and spent a fair amount of time going all the way round both rims.

They had two buckets of gloop. One black one white. The black a sealant for the valve, the white a lubricant for refitting. Also a neat little trick I wouldn't have thought of was to mark the tyres before removalso as not to have to rebalanced them. That's why they're professionals and I'm not. 

 

But whilst there they commented on my Favorit saying they used to deal with a lot of them what with the place next door. 

Which tripped a little switch in my brain. Of course! The place next door used to be a Skoda main dealer in the days when they were happy to sell four cars a month. But as I think happened to a lot of the original Skoda dealers after the VW takeover they were forced out as they became too small for the ever increasing sales figures. But this place still specialises in used Skodas (though not quite as used as mine) so I thought it'd be rude not to pop in for a photo. Blue is still a very popular Skoda colour. 

Whilst wandering around looking at the cars I might be driving in fifteen years time it occurred to me that the Felicia was sitting at home with a problem that they might be able to help me with. I came home from work a couple of weeks ago and Mrs Yoss said there was something wrong with the Felicia. It kept stalling. Everything pointed to the throttle body. It drove fine but wouldn't idle. I had a brand new throttle body in the garage. Fitting was a doddle, it took me longer to find it in the depths of the garage than it did to fit it. 

This largely cured the problems but it still wasn't right, especially from cold, where you had to keep the revs up manually with the pedal and it would occasionally go in to limp mode. I tried all the tips on t'internet that suggested things like disconnecting the battery for thirty minutes or hold the two battery leads together (not whilst attatched to the battery obviously) to get the ECU to talk to the new throttle body but it was becoming increasingly obvious that it was going to need VAG com to sort them out. 

So I had a word and they said bring it in the next day. Unfortunately they wouldn't let me watch, said I wasn't insured to be in the workshop, so they took it off me but it was in the company of some fine shite.

Meanwhile I went and sat in a Rapid Spaceback and wondered quite why they make this and  the Fabia estate, they seem to be aimed at exactly the same market. 

I could hear them playing with it, it has a very distinctive exhaust note, and it soon reappeared. 

They said they they'd recalibrated the ECU and throttle body but it might take a little while for it relearn its values. Or something. There was no real way of knowing until it was started from cold. The idle speed was initially a bit high but soon settled down and the next morning it was spot on. Started about 1200rpm and soon settled down to 800. Drives like a new car now. But it shouldn't take a computer to make a throttle body work. 

[Yoss]

And whilst the Triumph wheels were off I thought I'd give them a bit of a polish. The car is definitely not a show car but the wheels need a polish occasionally. When new they were lacquered but that all fell off years ago. Now they're bare ally so they need the odd polish, though thankfully less so now it's garaged. 

But they do come up lovely. Worthy of some pics on their own. 

 

There's actually two types of Dolomite Sprint wheels. 

The date stamps here show 75 and 76. The lower one has a GKN makers mark. It also has slightly thicker polished bits in the middle and the outer rim is a different profile. I have one of the upper type and three of the lower but it doesn't really show unless I point it out. 

 

I really should have cleaned the front ones too. Shoddy. 

[Yoss]

The Triumph has started feeling a bit wobbly at speed. Not on the bends, it's still great there but in a straight line it keeps changing direction slightly and wobbling the steering wheel was showing a fair amount of play so some investigation was needed. So I thought I'd take the rack out and check things out. 

So first of all the column has to come out. That's an absolute doddle on these. Undo the pinchbolt where the column enters the UJ in the engine bay. Then back inside the car it has an adjustable column. Simply undo the big knurled knob all the way, push it up as far as it goes and there's a hexagonal hole at the top of the mounting bracket through which you can pull the pinch bolt out. Then lower the column again and the clamp holding the column simply falls apart leaving the column free. It takes less time to do it than it took me to write this. 

This is the clamp. 

 

Once the column was out I could remove the bush in the bulkhead and the here the first problem was found. 

I found another one in the garage and whilst the housing could do with a clean up the bush is in much better nick and a better design. Here you can see the hole is smaller. 

And it's a completely different design on the inside. 

 

I really would like a bigger garage or proper workshop but you have to work with what you have. The rack slides out through a hole in the drivers side of the subframe so I had to leave as much room as possible on the offside whilst still having enough room to remove the nearside wheel. 

 

Though as it happens I managed to get the ball joint splitter on the track rod end without taking the wheel off, though I didn't know if this was possible until I got under there so I had to leave room just in case. 

Pop! 

Track rod end gaiter was already shot. though the joint itself feels OK, but I have new ones so I'll change them. The offside one does feel a bit loose. 

But whilst working on the offside I found some nasty rust. At least it could be nasty if I hadn't noticed it. As it is I think it's only surface rust at the mo. 

I know why this has happened. There's a small (intentional) hole in the inner wing and on the inside it's right under the brake master cylinder. This was leaking for a while and I had to keep topping it up. It's in a fiddly place and even with a funnel I'd spill it occasionally. I cleaned it up on the inside and repainted but some was obviously coming through that hole, you can see where it was running down then spreading along the seams. So once I get the rack out the first thing I'll be doing is grinding this back then treating and painting it. 

 

More to follow. 

[Yoss]

So I got the steering rack clamps off and the poly bushes I fitted about ten years ago are perfect. As they should be really but you never quite know until you look for yourself. So that's one less thing to worry about. 

 

The rack is quite a tight fit. There's a tunnel shape in the sump that fits over it. That big gold thing is the sump, a massively heavy cast iron lump that contains the gearbox at the rear and the diff at the front with a shaft running through the middle in a tube. Unlike the BMC FWD's they all have their own oil supplies that are kept seperates by various seals. Anyway crap pic as things are in the way but you can just see the rack. 

 

The front engine mounts have to be slackened off to jack the engine up a bit to pull the rack out, but that's no real problem. The rack can then be swiveled to get the pinion bit out through this small triangularish hole in the subframe. 

Then it just slips out, fortunately with about a foot to spare. 

 

I have a brand new rack. 

Unfortunately its for a different car! I bought it years ago from someone who though it was a 1300 rack but comparing the twoshows that whilst very similar the pinion comes out at a different angle and the track rods are slightly shorter. My guess is it's a Herald/Spitfire rack. I only paid £20 for it so if it is Spitfire I'm sure I can get my money back. Even better if it turns out to be for a TR I'll be able to charge £££. Anyway I've had a play with my rack and it seems fine. Stuck the track rod in a vice and wiggled the pinion and there doesn't seem to be any play. It's a bit looser than the new one but the tension can be adjusted with that big hexagonal thing on the pinion housing. So I'll adjust that and put fresh grease in and that'll do. 

The UJ betwixt column and rack is also fine. 

So I'm hoping the new bush and track rod ends will do the job. 

 

On the rust front, I cleaned up all the bubbly bits, and no holes. 

So that's a good result. Unfortunately whilst I was down there I noticed some bubbles where the sill goes under the front wing and had a little go with the wire wheel. That's a bugger! 

 

[Yoss]

The bare metal was treated to Kurust rust converter yesterday. My camera does exaggerate some colours and this is a perfect example. The stuff is milky white then turns any rust left a blue black but this pic makes it look like it glows in the dark. It doesn't unfortunately, that would be neat. It then got a coat of my trusty Bonda primerwhich also allegedly has rust inhibiting properties. I've had this tin years and it is getting a bit low. I don't know if you can get it anymore. So this left me with this. I made sure I worked it well in to the seams (as I did with the Kurust obvs) and this afternoon gave it a couple of coats of Triumph no.17 Damson. There we go, good* as new*. I'll do the bit of subframe black before I put the rack back in but I had the rattle can in hand so I thought I may as well give it a bit of Damson too. Can't have too many coats of paint. 

 

I took the gaiters off the rack and as expected it looks fine. The only odd thing was the grease was more like a thick oil. I thought this was odd and even went back indoors and googled it and yes, as I thought it should be LM grease. It obviously just breaks down over time. As far as I know this could be the original rack, certainly never been changed since I've had the car. So most of the oil/grease was removed and replaced with fresh LM. 

Reassembled and deagreased rack (there was grease everywhere by the time I'd finished). 

I thought I had some track rod ends but I could only find one and that was too big, must be a Landcrab one. So a pair have been ordered. Can't really do much until they arrive now. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

26 minutes ago, Yoss said:

.....a coat of my trusty Bonda primerwhich also allegedly has rust inhibiting properties. I've had this tin years and it is getting a bit low. I don't know if you can get it anymore. .... 

Still available, apparently.

 

[Yoss]

Brilliant. I reckon my tin is the best part of twenty years old and they haven't changed the label at all. I like that. Don't change things that don't need changing. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

5 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Brilliant. I reckon my tin is the best part of twenty years old and they haven't changed the label at all. I like that. Don't change things that don't need changing. 

Let's hope the formulation hasn't changed.

[Yoss]

Like paint stripper you mean. None of that works any more, not even the stuff that claims it does. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 minute ago, Yoss said:

Like paint stripper you mean. None of that works any more, not even the stuff that claims it does. 

.....or Hammerite

[Yoss]

Today was a good day. 

Last week a Felicia L&K popped up on Facebook. I don't use it so my wife opened negotiations and once in contact I took over mentioning I was a bit of a Skoda licker and included a picture of my Fav. The seller replied that he'd seen that car on Autoshite! Well that bodes well. 

The idea was to replace my Felicia with this one if it was better than mine. Didn't quite turn out like that. It was better than mine in many ways and is certainly the best Felly for sale out there at the moment. It's an L&K for a start, a top of the range special edition from when they first came out.

But I decided to stick with what I have. It has comedy lacquer peel which gets worse almost by the day but is absolutely solid with no rust at all which makes it pretty much rare these days. Plus it's an SLXi which is top of the range of the face lift cars and has a few things the L&K doesn't (and vice versa) like power steering and ABS. The L&K has heated leather seats and door trims and a top tint windscreen - very tempting. 

On arrival I asked the chap what his forum name is. Skoda_fan. Ahh, a quick glance around should have made that obvious. 

Anyway, hello Graham it was nice to meet you and have a poke around your fleet. Definitely wasn't a wasted trip even if I came away with nothing. Loved the Estelleespecially the red stripey seats. And this is the best Favorit Silverline I've ever seen. 

There's something about the paint they use on Silverlines, it seems to be porous but this one was lovely, at least the side I could get to. I kind've lost interest in the Felicia once I saw this! But on the other hand I like having one of each so shouldn't have two Favorits. 

Now since yesterday when I knew I was potentially getting a new car I started thinking of all the useful bits I could salvage off my one. The power steering could go on the L&K, the anti roll bars could go on the Favorit as it doesn't have any, the glass is the same on both cars, I could even have a Fav with electric windows. But then I started feeling guilty. Despite it throwing a few a few things at me recently that made want to take a hammer to it they are rapidly disappearing and it would be criminal to break one as good as ours. I think this has shown me that I'm stuck with it for many years to come. 

I got to Graham's nice and early and as it was nice morning I decided to take a more leisurely run home and ended up doing the whole 115 miles from Chatham to Southampton without using any motorway and what great run it was. I haven't enjoyed a run so much for ages and being such a nice day there was so much chod out there. Every couple of minutes I'd see something of interest. These were the only two I could snapbut the highlight for me was a pseudo rally Saab 96 that I stopped to let out on the A25 near Oxted.  And of course the Favorit never missed a beat. Why would it of course. 240 miles in one morning. I would happily drive this car anywhere. 

Anyway thanks again Graham for putting up with me. 

 

[skoda_fan]

Hi Yoss. Thanks for coming up and it was a pleasure to meet you. Always nice to meet someone who appreciates my collection of old shite instead of the usual "why don't you get rid of that lot and buy a proper car" type comments from normal ie boring people! Your second photo clearly shows that the paint used on early Octavias was none too clever either. Not too worried about the Felicia as I won't be heartbroken if I "have" to keep it....though I have had some interest from CZ so she may end up returning home. G.

[Yoss]

I'll be honest, I started having second thoughts on the way up to yours but not for the normal reasons. One, it would seem a shame to use a near mint L&K as an everyday car. Yours is very good with a couple of little faults that I managed to find but they would only get worse out on the winter roads. 

But the main problem was with my own car. It's really solid, the only rust is a blister under the base of the windscreen which I've treated so it won't get any worse. But any potential buyer wouldn't be able to see past the lacquer peel, so I'd only get peanuts for it and it'd probably go to someone who just wanted a cheap car and it'd be dead within a year or two. 

The other option would have been to break it for spares myself. If it's going to die anyway I may as well benefit from it. But the more I thought about it, the sadder I got. It really is too good for that, it just doesn't look it at first glance. 

So by the time I arrived at yours I was looking for reasons not to buy it. Had it been absolutely perfect I may have bought it and figured out somewhere to keep it, but I wouldn't want to use it every day. Likewise, I've realised that whilst replacing mine with a better example would make sense, I didn't realise quite how attatched I was to mine until getting rid of it almost became a reality. Weird eh, I mean it is just an inanimate object but my brain has decided otherwise. 

I'd always wanted an L&K and the chances aren't going to come along very often but when it did I couldn't tear myself away from my own one! If I had a double garage I'd have had it and tucked it away but my garage is full of Triumph, and I've had that 24 years so that's definitely not going anywhere. 

 

 

[egg]

Yoss - why didn't the L&K have PAS - cos pre-facelift?

[skoda_fan]

That's very honest. Don't worry mate I absolutely understand. I've been out for a run in the L&K today (having been all Mazda'd out over the weekend!) and am now feeling the same as you do about yours, ie what the hell am I thinking?! I'm now 90% convinced I'm going to keep her for posterity as I originally intended, unless I get an offer I can't refuse from the Czechs. I know where you're coming from and it's the reason I bought back the Silverline after I'd sold it and the reason I bought TPJ for an inflated price after I'd sworn to myself I was done with rear-engine Skodas (all of my previous ones I regret selling). They all just get under your skin.

[Yoss]

17 hours ago, egg said:

Yoss - why didn't the L&K have PAS - cos pre-facelift?

Yes, simply wasn't even an option on the early cars and yet by the end it was standard on all but the most basic L version. There can't be many cars of that era that have heated leather seats but no PAS. 

My personal holy grail is the Felicia Bohemia. Had most of the extras of the L&K except the leather (but had nice velour instead) and came in various bright solid colours. If I find a good one of those I'll be looking for another garage. They're down to single figures now though. 

The Felicia options list is a fascinating thing (to no one but me) and if you could get one car with all of them you'd have a really fancy little car. Some were standard in some markets and not even an option in others. There were lots of other special editions in CZ. But the list includes air con, leather, top tint screen, headlamp washers, front fogs, remote central locking (mine only works in the door), various alloys, ABS, subtle colour coded rear spoiler over the screen (on the Bohemia here and the Sportline in CZ), side airbags, full length sunroof, colour coded seat belts (again the Sportline had seats and seat belts matching the car. Red, green, yellow or blue), I'd love red seat belts. 

I could write a small pamphlet on all the differences but very few people would be interested. 

[egg]

Thanks. Well if there's interest anywhere, it will be here!

I'm assuming the air con system and ABS were a straight lift from VW?

[Yoss]

I expect so, I don't know the VW's well enough. I know with the aircon if you want to retro fit you have to cut a hole in the floor so if you ever find one in a scrapyard it's best to cut the floor out around it as well to use as a template. Unlikely to happen. I've seen a couple over here with it but they were sold in places like Egypt and Jordan and the Dominican Republic where almost all of them had it. 

See those two little buttons between the the three heater dials? That's it. 

[Yoss]

Felicia Mystery. 

I snapped this one in Budapest. 

They have these seats. and random dots on the door trims.

Plus mini spoiler over rear windscreen. Some seem to have alloys and some don't. 

Also available in purple, with purple seats. Those were the only two colours available. 

But this I really like. This may well be the sunroof from the Polo of the era. 

[skoda_fan]

Blimey didn't realize there are almost as many variations of Felicia as there are of MX5! Used the L&K for work today. I've fallen back in love with it.

[rainagain]

On 5/27/2019 at 7:33 PM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

.....or Hammerite

Yep sadly this stuff seems rubbish now

[Yoss]

Sportline.

As far as I can tell they came in red with red inside and black with yellow. Spec seems to include colour coded mirrors, top tint screen and front fogs but not the little boot spoiler that the Mystery and Bohemia get, which you'd have thought would be a shoe in on a so called sport. The wheels are the same as the L&K. 

Look at the lovely red seats. And those seat belts! So want. 

The yellow seems a little impractical. 

 

Colorline. 

If you think the Sportline is a bit tacky, the Colorline takes it way past tacky and back again (I mean that in a good way of course). Here's a yellow one. Available in yellow red green and blue. The interior is very yellow. I see this one has electric windows (the little switches behind the gearstick). Actually just noticed the Sportline both have them too. 

But if you couldn't decide which one to have you can have all four colours in one car. But this is just a mock up to show the different colours surely? 

 

 

Nope, they really did sell them like this. it like a Polo Harlequin inside out. 

 

Strangley we could get the blue one in the UK marketed as the Felicia Pacific but not the others. I'd love a green one. Here's one I papped in Bournemouth recently that had been livened up with Fun wheels, and home made colour coded dashboard. 

 

[LightBulbFun]

Ohh inside out Harlequin! me like!, I especially love that the driver side is green as green is my favourite colour

[skoda_fan]

That's all nuts. I had no idea. I'm not normally a lover of the later grille but it looks good on the Sportline. The seat treatment is similar to Monte Carlo editions of current models (I quite fancy a Citigo Monte Carlo). Weird how the trim in those Colour editions is like the "Frog Prince" trim in the Fun, but without the Frog, just the crown. I hadn't realized the Pacific wasn't just a one off. Words fail me on the "Harlequin"....even the dials are mismatched! I wonder how many were sold.

[Yoss]

I know, and you thought the Fun was mad (and probably is by most manufacturers standards) 

 

And so from the ridiculous to the sublime (I really should have done this the other way round). 

Laurin & Klement. 

This is the car that started this conversation. To celebrate Skodas hundredth anniversary and named after the founders Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement. This one is in the Skoda museum. And a hatch version. They were all this colour. The photos don't do it justice. They look bluer than this and are very sparkly. But the main selling point is the leather. Oddly this one doesn't have electric windows.

 

 

But my favourite is the Bohemia. Has most of the spec of the L&K but without the leather. Of the pre facelift cars it was only these and two that had colour coded bumpers and I think it transforms them. They look really neat and so much better than the facelift cars. Though I don't know if red is the best colour. This blue one looks nice. But Atlantic green has to be the tops. The boot spoiler. And whilst it may not have the leather it does have nice velour. 

[Yoss]

Ok, one more. There were others but not that interesting. This really was a special edition. Of one. I give you... 

 

The Felicia Golden Prague. 

This was displayed at the 1998 Geneva show. Not quite sure of the point because as a concept car it's not really up there. I don't know when Geneva was because the face-lift cars came out about 98 so was this the launch for them. I don't think so, I reckon its a year after and Skoda had nothing to show off, the Octavia hadn't quite arrived, the Felly was still the only car they had so they thought they'd tart one up a bit. This is all conjecture. 

 

It's very gold

All the black plastic bits were painted gold. Even the rubber rain deflector strip. 

 

Projector headlamps. Shame these never made it to production. 

 

Interior was very brown/beige.  Leather clad dashboard and steering wheel. And I'm sure my Favorit was the inspiration for this. 

Half leather seats. And the pattern on the cloth bit is the same as the Felicia Mystery but in brown. 

Leather door trims. But oddly no electric windows. 

And wierd alloys with wire mesh inserts. 

 

Now resides in the Skoda museum in Mlada Boleslav. 

[skoda_fan]

Ah yes the Skoda Museum. Where someone had the bright idea in more recent years of stacking most of the cars up on "shelving" so you can't get near them or even see them properly. Was much better years ago.

[Yoss]

I guess if they keep adding new exhibits they need shelves to store it all. Bit like my garage. I keep adding shelves in there as I aquire more crap and I still can't find anything when I need it. 

[Yoss]

I've just papped this off the Six O'clock news this evening. On a story about some idiot from Oxford that went to join Isis. They mentioned Iraq and Syria so I'm not sure quite where it was but it was one of the two. Interesting (to me at least) hard top and rear door arrangement. Possibly of local construction as whilst Skoda did their own version it didn't look like this.