Schaefft's (transatlantic) Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Double the Trouble!

[Schaefft]

Only the best, hand picked shite!

Not a lot of progress, I've reassembled the center console in the Celsior (I took the radio out to check if there was any obvious source for the lack of audio, but it's probably a missing JDM specific amplifier in the back) and put the CD player back into place inside the boot.

I've also changed the plastic adjusters in the pair of E39 headlights I polished previously. First one took over 4 hours, second one was a breeze at 90 minutes. Why BMW...

In other very special news, I've sold the manual 540i.. I bought it in Edinburgh about 2.5 years ago (cheapest one for sale I could find) and drove it until the MOT ran out. The combination of a V8 with a BMW manual was absolutely glorious and I really would have loved to see it back on the road which was the original plan. That didn't happen unfortunately so I decided to put it up for sale to save some money and eventually buy the real deal...

After dealing with the typical mouth breathers and time wasters you'd expect a cheap BMW to attract a guy who apparently likes his rusty German Autobahn stormers (Mercs of the early 2000s) had someone sent to pick it up. He said he would weld it up and get it back on the road which hopefully is true as 540i with a 6-speed are as rare as they get, in any case I got more than I paid for it when it was in much better shape so I can't really complain there.🤷‍♂️ Let's just hope this won't be another case of making a quick buck at the cost of a future classic as is all too often the case.

[tooSavvy]

Don't be hard on yourself...

A £in yrr pocket & tear in yer eye 'bye bye'...

Wayy better than a ££ doon the drain & tears in both eyes.  lol

[Schaefft]

The last car I didn't really want to sell ended up in Germany (the first S8 I had). That car has been receiving a complete nuts and bolts restoration which is still ongoing. If the 540i only has half as much luck I'll be glad it found a new owner.

The Celsior received a little attention yesterday, I replaced the cracked corner light (no photos). Today however I finally tackled the rear suspension of the Mercedes which has been on jack stands for a few weeks now. No proper photos aside from showing all the shiny news bits that were put back on it!

If anyone is interested in the old shocks, they are actually still good and dont leak a bit, its just the bushing and outer appearance that let them down!

Unfortunately Im struggling with getting the brake rotors back on the car again, the new parking brake shoes have too much meat now for them to get back on. I think its all coming down the the parking brake cable having been adjusted in the past. Doesnt sound like a big deal, until you find out that Mercedes wants you to drop the exhaust to get to the adjuster thats sitting right above it and the driveshaft... I've ordered a set of allen keys that will hopefully allow me to squeeze my hand in there and get let some of the tension off again...

[Schaefft]

Great success! To get the disc on I only had to drop the exhaust!

Fortunately that actually wasnt too hard, the hangers are bolt mounted, all of which came out fairly easily. It took a bit of force to get the discs over the new parking brake shoes and Im sure that this is not just because they have to bed in?

I'll probably have to crawl underneath there again and adjust the cable a little more before its all done...

Mating surfaces cleaned up nicely, nothing will stick on there anytime soon. Also its nicely contrasting with the rotting splash shield, beautiful.

Hopefully more progress tomorrow...

[Schaefft]

Put everything together but its 2 weeks later and its still not wrapped up. For whatever reason the parking brake shoes are binding with the inside of the disc on both sides and I absolutely cannot figure out why aside the below, even after taking off quite a lot of friction material already. The shoes are as "released" as they can be and the disc goes over them without much trouble at all. Theres just too much floppiness in the shoes though causing them to get jammed up bad enough to almost block the wheel once you get up to speed. The springs are all in place as intended and reasonably firm but sill no luck. The backing plates are badly corroded (and over 90 quid per side...), as far as I can tell there's nothing on them that would keep things in place a little better though. Video of the worst side below:

In other news, you can park a Lincoln Mark VIII in Newcastle's narrowest carpark, its just a pita because the designers must have fought everyone is still driving old Minis when it was built in the 90s.🤦‍♂️ Normally I'd to a few more minor fixes on it like getting the neon taillight bar in the back to light up again but this Mercedes is taking up all my time...

I did however manage to get the snapped lug stud on the Celsior replaced. Some gentle force with a sledge goes a long way. Just try to avoid destroying your wheel bearing.

 

[spike60]

I think you're going to have man up and get the backplates, they don't look like they're doing a whole lot to locate the shoes. The spring looks to be at a bit of an angle and looser than I'd expect, the ones I put on usually put up a stiff fight before they latch.

[Schaefft]

33 minutes ago, spike60 said:

I think you're going to have man up and get the backplates, they don't look like they're doing a whole lot to locate the shoes. The spring looks to be at a bit of an angle and looser than I'd expect, the ones I put on usually put up a stiff fight before they latch.

Yeah, these are the new springs that came in the kit and they are quite tightly on there (more so after I gave them another twist). I think the backing plate is just too far gone  allowing for too much movement, also preventing the shoes from sliding back into position again. 

[Schaefft]

I eventually took the plunge and ordered the splash guards, 170 quid for two pieces of pressed sheet metal coming all the way from Latvia...

While those are on their way I started to tackle a few minor issues on the Lincoln. One of the vents in the dash desintegrated, when I ordered the evap tray for underneath the car the seller was kindly throwing two of them in for free.

An amazing transformation, I know.

The bigger news though is that one of the styling elements that make the facelifted Mark VIII stand out is finally fixed! The full width Heckblende is actually illuminated by a neon tube at night, giving it a fully illuminated light bar setup in the back. Unfortunately the ballasts all die from age over time, rendering it functionless. The great thing is that the Mark VIII community has come up with a fix, replacement ballasts (with much reduced size and added intensity functionality) are only 100 bucks and easy to wire in for anyone who has used a soldering iron before.

First tests with it all wired up:

I think the final results speak for themselves! I've always been a big fan of lightbars (which is now a re-emerging feature in automotive design which Im pretty hyped about) and the Mark VIII was probably the king of them all back in the late 90s.

The paint on the car is pretty rough as well, I think at least parts of it did receive a respray in the past. The trunklid had this oddly dull gloss to it. After 3 hours of cleaning, polishing and ceranic coating its now the best looking panel on the car😂

The car will need a respray eventually as the clearcoat is badly damaged in many areas. But a bit of paint correction should go a long way if I can find the time.

The next things I'll tackle is replacing the faulty key fob with OEM ones and get an original key cut, get an OBDII dongle to read fault codes (believe it or not but almost none of my cars ever even had OBDII...) and polish the headlights. It will need a service as well.

[GMcD]

Very cool. The way the MK8 badge stands out due to the back light is very neat. 😎

[RoadworkUK]

Fricking incredible.

My two standout PHWOAAAR cars seen on my 1995 famiily holiday to Florida were the MK VIII and the Oldsmobile Aurora. So you're scoring fairly highly by having multiple examples of each, I must say.

[horriblemercedes]

Cool collection! I like the work you do.

Your S8's plate reminded me of my Jaguar. That's VO52 WPP

 

Also, I forgot how good-looking Senators are. It's a shame about that 540i - I would love a manual one of those.

[Schaefft]

8 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

Fricking incredible.

My two standout PHWOAAAR cars seen on my 1995 famiily holiday to Florida were the MK VIII and the Oldsmobile Aurora. So you're scoring fairly highly by having multiple examples of each, I must say.

It's a bit mental, nobody needs more than one. At the same time I feel like it's impossible to find a buyer for either who would put the same amount of effort into these, one of the reasons all these cars need so much work are their previous owners. Most just don't care enough about 90s cars yet.

6 hours ago, horriblemercedes said:

Cool collection! I like the work you do.

Your S8's plate reminded me of my Jaguar. That's VO52 WPP

 

Also, I forgot how good-looking Senators are. It's a shame about that 540i - I would love a manual one of those.

It's a shame but the intend was to save the money and just get an M5 to invest into instead before they are unattainable. The buyer just sent me a message that the 540i is all welded up now so there's hope! The car really was amazing, I cannot imagine what an M5 might be like!

[Schaefft]

Great news! There is another car arriving soon! And because theres no point in waiting with the announcement, here it is!

Yes! Its another Oldsmobile Aurora! And it has Northstar-typical OMGHG issues! Now it might seem a little mental to own 3 of these cars without even one of them being driveable. I got it cheap enough that I can basically get my money back by just using its parts for my other two Auroras (one of which is still semi-abandoned in Germany, thread here...) though. My goal is to get at least two good cars out of the three which should be very much doable. If can save all of them that would be the best outcome though.

Some background info I know:

1 previous owner, bought the car new in the states, imported it to the UK in 1997. It has 80k miles on the odo which seems a little hard to believe considering the state of the seat and the fact that it has headgasket issues. Normally the 4.0 last a little longer than Cadillac's 4.6. Bubbling in coolant reservoir, I would assume the garage whos selling it has tried the easy way to fix it already.

Its located down in Reading, hopefully arriving here on Saturday. I can tell by the photos that its far from pristine, with some pretty questionable modifications done to the indicators to make it road legal. Stay tuned!

[wuvvum]

Still a proper bargain for what you got it for mind, even with the issues.

[RoadworkUK]

Swooon. When I first saw an Aurora in 1995 its wheels immediately reminded me of those on the 12v Granada Scorpio.

 

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, RoadworkUK said:

Swooon. When I first saw an Aurora in 1995 its wheels immediately reminded me of those on the 12v Granada Scorpio.

 

The Aurora actually came out just around the same time the last gen Scorpio did. I definitely know which one id personally rather have.

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Still a proper bargain for what you got it for mind, even with the issues.

If you imagine that the back boxes and cats alone are worth what I paid for it, for sure. I'll need to have a proper look around the car and see what really needs doing. If I had an engine laying around that would be ready for a swap I'd do it straight away, I'll have to see how easy it would be to swap in a 4.6, too. That would be interesting...

[Schaefft]

Today was the day of the arrival of the Aurora! So whats the verdict?

Cosmetically the car is actually better than expected! Aside from the oddly warped rear window trim and torn driver seat the car actually appears to be in excellent condition for its age. A lot of what I thought would be corrosion and paint damage just turned out to be lichen growing on it after having been parked up for a while. The inner sills in the back which are quite crusty on my other Aurora are in decent shape and overall the interior is nice and clean.

The taillights have been butchered which boggles my mind, you'd expect someone who has owned this car from new to give a shit about integrating a pair if indicators properly. Fortunately even those don't matter too much, I could get a set for 100 quid if I needed them.

Original title when new, bought in Texas in November 1994, making it a pretty early example.

Mechanically however there are a few concerns beyond the suspected headgasket issue. The alternator doesn't seem to charge which isn't a big deal, just very inconvinient as it won't allow me to run the car for long. However whats more concerning is that  the transmission slams into drive and reverse pretty harshly. At 80k miles this would be quite unusual as the 4T80-E are quite sturdy transmissions. The fluid levels seems about right so Im wondering if its an electrical issue as system voltage might be too low for the shift solenoids and sensors to do their thing properly. Replacement gearboxes are easy to find as they were used in the STS as well, it might not even matter if the entire drivetrain needs to be swapped due to the headgasket issue though. I ran the engine for a few minutes and it sounded perfectly healthy, nothing unsual happening in the coolant reservoir either (apparently there have been bubbles before) but I expect it needing to come out no matter what.

Next steps I wanna do is recondition the battery if possible (an AC Delco no less, OEM!) and see if proper system voltage fixes the harsh shifting. Once I got a better idea about the condition of the transmission I will take the fuel pump and injectors from the green car and throw them on the purple Aurora, hopefully that is all thats needed to get that car running again. I can then assess the condition of its engine and transmission and figure out if they are fit for use (I got the feeling it'll leak oil like crazy due to standing for years, despite only 100k miles). Then I'll have to make the decision which one will need less work to return to the road.

As you can tell, my ivory Mark VIII is now sandwhiched between my two Auroras. That car hasn't been on the road for 18 months now. Unfortunately its absolutely dumping ATF on the floor right now, Im still hoping that a new tranny pan gasket might solve the issue but Im getting less and less optimistic. At least I was able to diagnose why the aircompressor for the suspension wouldnt run anymore, the relay I installed 2 years ago died again, and its always a bit of a pain to reach in there and get it out again, as you can see below...

Still plenty of work ahead, thats for sure...

[Schaefft]

The completely overpriced stone guards for the Merc arrived today, but not before paying another 60 quid in import tax and fees. Fuck Brexit.

Also turns out that that the wheel hub needs to come out to replace it, and off to the garage it goes... I think the driver side rear needed replacing anyway.

 

[spike60]

How much were the backplates to incur £60 duty? I was looking at some Z3 suspension from Poland but suspect it won't be a bargain anymore after import duties and fees.

[Schaefft]

29 minutes ago, spike60 said:

How much were the backplates to incur £60 duty? I was looking at some Z3 suspension from Poland but suspect it won't be a bargain anymore after import duties and fees.

Around 160 quid I think. 11£ was just UPS' own facilitation fees. But to be fair, even without those it still seem excessive.

[Schaefft]

Somehow an entire month has passed. Merc is at the garage getting the above brake disc guards replaced, hopefully this will sort the parking brake issues once and for all. Apparently the rear wheel bearings need to come out for the job. Considering their age and the fact that one of them must have been a bit dodgy anywhy Im not too mad about it.

In other news, I replaced three bulbs on the Celsior. One of them was 35quid incl. its rubber boot from Toyota. Excellent.

Have a look at the excitement below.

 

[cort1977]

On 6/6/2021 at 12:01 AM, Schaefft said:

Original title when new, bought in Texas in November 1994, making it a pretty early example.

I used to live just down the road from there.

Loving the aurora, very few left on the road in the States now.

[Schaefft]

Great news!

After about two weeks at the garage the S-Class is now MOTd and taxed again! It was another hefty bill as the garage didn't only replace the brake shields I supplied but also replaced the aforementioned wheel bearings and both upper control arms. Not sure why those in particular, all links and control arms I haven't touched yet really need replacing but I guess these were particularly bad.

Obviously things couldn't stay nice for too long so the car thanked me on my trip back from the mot station by rubbing through one of the front abs sensors. The ones that cost several hundred pounds to replace (cheapest used was 150 quid from Germany). Turns out even from factory the wiring for them is incredibly close to the inner rim, this one must have come lose at some point, might have been rubbing for ages.

My last attempt at soldering an abs sensor wire was without success but I wanted to give it another try with this one. Since only one of the 4 wires was actually severed it seemed like a good idea. Lo and behold, it actually fucking worked. Thank God! Doesn't mean that the wallet draining is stopping anytime soon as one of the 4 piston calipers in the front is binding (which was the original reason I took the wheel off, it sounded pretty nasty) but whatever. I'll probably try and compress the pistons manually first and see if I can free them up again. No point in rebuilding them as a replacement doesn't cost much more and I'll probably snap off the rusty bleeding valve, stranding the car in my drive....

Bonus picture of the pre-fl W220 S600, couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a photo of both. Oddly enough there was also a W221 S-Class in the yard, LHD, no registration plates, possibly sitting for a while. Would have made a great family photo with all of them in one picture.

 

[Schaefft]

It's finally happening! I finally have Corona at home! As some might remember I bought this JDM Toyota Corona EXiV from the drive of a banger racer right before the first lockdown after it was posted in the Ebay tat thread. Over a year later and the car has had its first successful MOT in 10 years and I will be taking it to the Festival of the Unexceptional this Saturday. If it can make it!

I haven't driven the car much at all but was able to get a somewhat decent impression on my 30min drive home. Without trying to jinx myself, the car is actually driving surprisingly well, and its so comfortable that I am seriously wondering how they managed to do achieve this on a 5th gen Celica Platform. Obviously there are plenty of things that need sorting, the blowing exhaust being the biggest issue. But overall Im quite impressed and look forward to spending some time in these gloriously brown cushy velour seats.

What makes the car so special is the fact that its a true hardtop sedan, the b-pillar only reaches up to the car's waistline:

As Japan stopped making this body style of 4-door cars altogether after this generation of Carina ED and Corona EXiV this makes it one of the last production hardtop sedans.

I didn't even realize that these came with fold-down rear seats. I finally have a practical car on the road again!

Two of Toyota's Japanese market luxury offerings of the early 90s:

A worthy addition to the fleet:

I'm still on the fence about whether I should clean the outside for Fotu2021. I've already started cleaning the interior which was badly needed and will spend the next few days making sure that everything is ready for the weekend. Can't wait!

[BL Bloke]

Great news on the MOT, I'm looking forward to seeing it at FOTU. 

[Erebus]

On 5/30/2021 at 12:16 PM, Schaefft said:

I eventually took the plunge and ordered the splash guards, 170 quid for two pieces of pressed sheet metal coming all the way from Latvia...

While those are on their way I started to tackle a few minor issues on the Lincoln. One of the vents in the dash desintegrated, when I ordered the evap tray for underneath the car the seller was kindly throwing two of them in for free.

An amazing transformation, I know.

The bigger news though is that one of the styling elements that make the facelifted Mark VIII stand out is finally fixed! The full width Heckblende is actually illuminated by a neon tube at night, giving it a fully illuminated light bar setup in the back. Unfortunately the ballasts all die from age over time, rendering it functionless. The great thing is that the Mark VIII community has come up with a fix, replacement ballasts (with much reduced size and added intensity functionality) are only 100 bucks and easy to wire in for anyone who has used a soldering iron before.

First tests with it all wired up:

I think the final results speak for themselves! I've always been a big fan of lightbars (which is now a re-emerging feature in automotive design which Im pretty hyped about) and the Mark VIII was probably the king of them all back in the late 90s.

The paint on the car is pretty rough as well, I think at least parts of it did receive a respray in the past. The trunklid had this oddly dull gloss to it. After 3 hours of cleaning, polishing and ceranic coating its now the best looking panel on the car😂

The car will need a respray eventually as the clearcoat is badly damaged in many areas. But a bit of paint correction should go a long way if I can find the time.

The next things I'll tackle is replacing the faulty key fob with OEM ones and get an original key cut, get an OBDII dongle to read fault codes (believe it or not but almost none of my cars ever even had OBDII...) and polish the headlights. It will need a service as well.

That's an incredible transformation on the boot paintwork. What products did you use?

[Schaefft]

2 minutes ago, Erebus said:

That's an incredible transformation on the boot paintwork. What products did you use?

Claybar before the polish, Meguiar's ultimate compound with a Meguiar's wool pad and a cheap Halfords dual action polisher. CARPRO CQUARTZ CQUK ceramic coating for sealing it all.

[Schaefft]

Well, here we go. The NEW fuel pump that was installed on the car has shit the bed. I only have tomorrow to replace it and only the ECP in Sunderland seems to have one single unit that available for collection tomorrow that might or might not fit. There's nobody else around here who happens to have a pump laying around that might fit the one below?

[Dabooka]

I don't have the pump but work ten minutes from Blunderland's branch of Random Car Parts if that's any use?

[Schaefft]

I have someone collect it in the morning but your offer is much appreciated! It'll most likely be a universal unit that fits a million cars. Should it not work for some reason I'll be pretty screwed though.