Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Oldsmobile Resurrection

[Dabooka]

Well best of luck, hope it works out.

[Schaefft]

Fuel pump replaced but now the starter attempts to turn over the engine for half a second before the entire power to the car is cut. Power comes back on shortly after. Battery and terminal look good, do you guys think its a bad earth?

[LightBulbFun]

5 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Fuel pump replaced but now the starter attempts to turn over the engine for half a second before the entire power to the car is cut. Power comes back on shortly after. Battery and terminal look good, do you guys think its a bad earth?

sounds to me like a bad earth or connection somewhere to me that immediately gets hot under the current draw from the start motor and disconnects in a bimetallic strip fashion 

and then as it cools down it remakes the connection 

 

I hope your able to fix the issues and get the car to the FOTU  

[Schaefft]

Ground wire to the terminal was coming lose, terminal itself was fine. Why is this so stressful, I have to leave in a few minutes to get to our AirBnB😂

[Schaefft]

Things looked good until it started to rain and the wiper motor died😂 Fortunately we only got to Durham, turned around and took the Lincoln instead. Lincoln in Lincolnshire, fine with me. Next time!

However, if you are curious how many tools and other garbage fits into the boot of a Toyota Corona EXiV, here ya go:

[Schaefft]

Updates!

The Corona is still running strong, I still cannot believe how comfortable it is considering its based on a Celica! With the new fuel pump it literally fires up with the first crank so I guess the low mileage is still noticeable after all.

It mostly rained today so I couldn't get anything done but I've started removing the wiper assembly a few days ago to replace the knackered motor. It was an absolute pain to get it out, I honestly cannot tell what Toyota was thinking when making the nut between motor and linkage next to inaccessible. It's literally impossible to retrieve it without a magnet.

Got it all out in the end which at least allows me to clean everything underneath the wiper cowl now. I'll rip out the remains of the aftermarket immobalizer tomorrow and give the engine bay a proper clean. It's probably been covered on coolant residue for quite a few years at this point.

I'll also try to order everything I need to clean up the outside of the car relatively soon. Its actually surprisingly easy to find Corona EXiV specific parts, they all ended up in Russia and the breakers there offer pretty much anything you could wish for. I just have to convince them to ship to the UK or Germany. If anyone has any suggestions or contacts there to make this possible, please let me know!🙂

The inside of the car is near pristine. I'll order a new rear view mirror, aside from that I only need a new amplifier which was located underneath the passenger seat. Water must have leaked inside at some point as its basically destroyed from corrosion. There's no other indications for a leak so this was quite surprising to find. I can order a replacement from Japan for something like 500 quid which is definitely not gonna happen. Similarly to the Celsior I have absolutely no clue whether there would be an aftermarket solution and it doesn't seem like any of the breakers have one in stock...

[yes oui si]

That Corona makes me feel tingly. 

[Schaefft]

Got a few more things done today. Aftermarket Alarm/Immobilizer is gone now. It was a pretty clean install so it was fairly straight forward ripping it all out, I have to admit that ripping out unneeded wiring is quite satifying lol. If anyone wants it let me know, its complete. Not sure why you would but here's your chance!

Washed the engine bay as well and blasted years of filth out of the wiper cowl, rain gutters and behind the fuel door, a pressure washer does wonders flushing out the drain holes. It's not perfect but definitely a big improvement:

Door bands got most of the corrosion removed and greased although it probably took my quite some time to clean them up over and over again, there was just so much brown muck coming out of the doors again and again. Much smoother and quieter now though.

Rinse and repeat about a million times:

I did have a go at sorting the exhaust leaks as well. The exhaust really needs replacing, its just just too rotten but it hopefully helps somewhat, I'll know when I've replaced the squeeky alternator belt which I had to order a new replacement for, turns out the one I had is too short.

The amount of dirt that was sitting in the cowl and lower fenders:

More to come soon.

[Schaefft]

So I bought the fuel pump that previously failed off ebay but they just send it straight back to the manufacturer for them to confirm its dead. The manufacturer now wants a "garage invoice" stating that the pump is faulty. What kind of BS is that? The pump is dead, I paid the postage to get it to them so they can confirm, what do I need to tell them to f*ck off and refund me?

[barrett]

Hey, I'd forgotten all about this car! This is definitely one of my favourite things ever, it's such a looker and the hardtop/velour factor is incredible. I'm sure I said it before but if you ever decide to part with it, please let me know! Ideally once you've carefully worked your way through all the problems and got it running and driving perfectly, yeah?

Also genuinely excited to see it once you've got your polishing gear out and giving the paint a proper licking.

[Schaefft]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:12 PM, barrett said:

Hey, I'd forgotten all about this car! This is definitely one of my favourite things ever, it's such a looker and the hardtop/velour factor is incredible. I'm sure I said it before but if you ever decide to part with it, please let me know! Ideally once you've carefully worked your way through all the problems and got it running and driving perfectly, yeah?

Also genuinely excited to see it once you've got your polishing gear out and giving the paint a proper licking.

I'm not sure if this one is going anytime soon, I'm genuinely excited about having a car that could possibly be simple to work on and reliable! Although replacing the fuel filter today really made me question the former. Instead of being located underneath the car Toyota placed it in the back of the engine bay. And although theres lots of room its still a pita to get it out as you are constantly fishing for fuel line/filter nuts without being able to see whats actually going on, while fuel keeps dripping all over your hand.

Got it in there in the end, the old filter is a genuine Toyota part and despite looking very decent it could be the original, 32 year old one! I used the chance to clean everything in the area that I couldn't reach before so step by step the state of this car really is improving.

Cleaning out all the door jambs helped as well and shows that despite the bad state of the paintwork on both bumpers this is a pretty clean car! There are definitely quite a few paint chips and rust spots to clean up all over but it could be quite the looker once all done, without much money spent on it at all.

The bumpers do need a respray though. Until then I took the polisher to those scuffs in the front and mostly got them out, will do the rest of the car tomorrow. Obviously I cannot polish away missing paint but I call this an improvement.

 

I did polish the insane overspray on the passenger side indicator as well, already started getting some of it off with a claybar before: 

I'm still trying to get hold of a Russian breaker who could send me a replacement as it is cracked, no response yet though.

Looking pretty good now, more polishing tomorrow.

[Schaefft]

5  more hours of polishing and ceramic coating and the car looks pretty decent now. Still have to coat the roof and pillars but that'll be a quick job for tomorrow. It could probably be even glossier with another 20 hours invested into it (I will defintely try to find better buffing pads now, although they are probably not to blame) but considering the state of the paint I dont think theres much of a point. The white paint doesn't really show the before and after too well, but the comparison to the car just a month ago gives you a pretty good idea of how much tlc has gone into it already, but without spending much at all really.

I will start sorting out the corrosion on that passenger side dog leg next, it still seems to be solid so it shouldnt be too hard to slow it down and look somewhat decent again.

[barrett]

That's quite a sexual set of before and afters there. Really satisfying improvements. I wish I had the patience for that sort of thing, but most of the time a bucket of soapy water is more than enough effort for me. 

[Schaefft]

I don't know where I get the motivation from either. This might be the last time this year I'll give this a wash, we'll see😂

Replacement wiper motor arrived the other day, naturally reassembling everything took 3 times as long as expected. Lets just say figuring out the orientation of the wiper linkage and how the motor finds its parking position took me a little while...

I' ve resprayed the wiper arms and reglued all rubbers of the wiper cowl while at it. All clips were replaced as well and this was the first time I've used a heat gun to cure the sun fade of the plastics, which actually turned out really nicely! Still not sure if I'd try it on anything textured but in this case it was the way to go.

Before right, after left:

All back together:

Looking much better:

Might tackle some corrosion if I can be bothered tomorrow.

 

[Schaefft]

Some more progress! I've received a new coolant temp sensor for the temp gauge and a fan switch/sensor today. Naturally it was next to impossible to find OEM parts so I settled with one for a later Celica as well as that of a late 80s Mazda. Temp gauge works now, cooling fan still runs constantly, will have to check if its related to the missing sub fan relay. EDIT: Lower radiator sensor was unplugged, fan isnt always running now so will see if the other fan switch is doing its job now. Might even feel generous and wrap these crimp connectors in electrical tape to make them water tight.

I've also started on the rear dog leg. Since I cannot weld Im actually using bumper puddy which seems to be doing the job well enough (at least until the car gets a fully respray and all its cosmetic issues sorted, should that ever happen). Still have to sand it down and put some primer on it again. Left after Kurust and Etch Primer (Im actually not sure if those are a good combination), examplary bodywork on the right.

Unfortunately the spray paint I bought seems to be way too thin, it really looks like they messed up mixing this stuff up (its double acrylic paint from Hycote, I've had good experiences with them so far). It also seems like a much colder looking white, no clue if that is a result of the messed up paint. Or does the below look normal to anyone?

[Schaefft]

Uhh ohhh

Car got hot after sitting in traffic for almost an hour. I'm not sure if the fan suddenly didnt kick on anymore at some point. In any case its leaking from some kind of vent hole in the timing belt cover now, which probably means that the water pump gasket has given up on life. Refilled the coolant again to see if I could limp it home and now its leaking this filthy crap. No coolant in oil and Im not seeing any rainbow colors but where would this brown filth suddenly come from...

Have to get it towed back from Tynemouth tomorrow, hopefully still have breakdown cover...

[Jim Bell]

Hopefully it's just a fan relay or something that's gone man and it just needs a water pump and a flush through. 

Fingers crossed man. Its a lovely looking car. 

[Schaefft]

Yeah, hard to tell. It needed a timing belt and water pump anyway, I'm just more worried about the condition of the head now. No point in speculating until I got the car back.

[Schaefft]

Car is back in the drive now. I'm cautiously optimistic that the muck in the coolant isn't oil but just dirt that loosened up while the coolant was boiling. That are the water pump gasket/bearing completely desintegrating as water is just pouring out of it once you fill it up. Good thing a timing belt service and water pump was on the to do list anyway.

[spike60]

Sorry to see this. Oil basically floats on water so if it has oil in the coolant some would be in the header tank or radiator top, wherever you fill it. The pic looks like filthy coolant/water, it doesn't look to have oil in it, it doesn't mix readily.  Hopefully it's just the crap out of the block and radiator getting dislodged.

[Schaefft]

Some news! Not much has happened recently. I've replaced the faulty ABS sensor on the Lincoln which fixed all the related issues, was fairly straight forward aside from having to heat the bolt for 5mins before it came out.

I'm also currently investigating some fuel supply issues on the Merc. The control module controlling the fuel pump shutoff relay is known to have failing capacitors, hopefully having them replaced sorts out my hard starting issues which are only getting worse, independently from what the battery is doing.

I have also started taking the Corona's engine apart to get the timing belt driven waterpump out. The belt and pulleys are all looking excellent despite being original most likely. So is the waterpump, the bearing is completely shot however. Its so bad that it must have leaked through there actually. I'll call the dealer tomorrow to find out how much they want for the belt, otherwise I'll buy it all on Autodoc which has very reasonable prices for OEM supplier brand parts, about 90 quid all in incl. pulley/tensioner.

Naturally, getting there was an absolute pita, with the situation not being improved with this being a RHD car that has it's brake master cylinder right next to the damn timing cover. Engine mount, alternator and braket had to come out, power steering reservoir and all kinds of hoses and wires moved out of the way. Without removing the master cylinder I just about got the cover out, which was probably the hardest part of this whole ordeal. I actually had to use my Dremel to grind some of the plastic next to the bolt away to even get a spanner on there. Wtf was Toyota thinking??

This photo shows how much space there is. Jacking up the engine helps a lot getting a few extra mm of clearance here and there.

Ah, the infamous Toyota waterpump gaskets...

So the sludge I've suddenly seen appearing (and originally letting me assume the worst) really must be just old gunk that suddenly reappeared in the system. You can see how bad the thermostat got caked in it.

The solution was pretty straight forward. Take pressure washer, aim at radiator fill neck, ziptie the trigger and let her rip. That should have done the trick, I got clear water out of it in the end.

The thermostat is almost identical to the new original Toyota one (so probably still the original one), both open at the same temps. Yet the new one is longer. It fits without issues so I doubt theres anything wrong with it, just odd.

And thats it for now. Hopefully I can install the new parts in about 2 weeks or so, and my markings on the cam gear are accurate enough to not cause any timing issues. At least its a non-interference engine...

[Schaefft]

Ordered the parts on Autodoc now. 83 quid incl. delivery. Toyota wanted 47 quid for the belt alone lol. Lets see how long it'll take to arrive, glad Im in no hurry...

[Schaefft]

Found a few hours of sunlight today to get the new parts installed. Everything I've ordered fits perfectly so thank god no issues there. Also penis gasket:

Since I didn't really follow any instructions (and made my own cam pulley markings) success was anything but guaranteed. As long as that cam pulley stays where its supposed to be there's little you can screw up when installing the timing belt though.

Pointless photo of shiny new bits that are barely visible:

Once everything was installed, all thermostat housing gaskets replaced and torqued it was time to figure out if my theory above was true. Lo and behold...

Now this is a non-interference engine so there was no possibility of complete catastrophe and I haven't had the car on the road yet to see if there is any drop in power due to bad timing. The car idles exactly as it did before though and cranking the engine with the fuel pump disconnected resulted in a nice even compression sound so I guess things are fine?

Next step is further pressure testing the coolant system to make sure that there are really no leaks, and then reassemble everything again and hope that nothing else will break in the near future...

[Schaefft]

Great news, or not!

So the Merc had a fuel supply issue for a little while now that was caused by the fuel pump shut-off relay clicking rapidly. This is a fairly typical issue with V8 Mercedes of that era as the capacitors of the LH module (which controls the fuel injection system) like to die. Naturally neither the R129 Mercedes specialist on FB actually seemed know about that(and rather wanted me to buy a replacement relay from them), nor were the typical ECU repair places even interested in fixing a control module they didn't have a procedure for.

I ended up going to my local old-school car audio electrician who did work for me before and had him replace the old capacitors with ones I ordered online (and had to wait for to become available for ages) for a fraction of the usual price.

That cured the relay clicking. I felt so confident that I drove the car to Durham only for it it brake down right at the end of a 4 lane exit ramp...

So one issue solved, two more to go: the car misfires when hot and gets so bad that it died when I tried to pull away from the traffic lights. At the same time the battery is so shit that it apparently doesn't hold a charge anymore the moment the alternator is off. So the car didn't start anymore either...

Pushed the car to the side of the road (2 tons yay), asked my better half to come and give me a jump start, drove the car to a safe space, got into her car and got a new battery from Halfords...

I am 90% sure that condensation is building up inside the distributors (apparently also a common issue) over time which becomes apparent once the engine is hot. The longer you run the engine the better things get again. I cannot imagine it being anything else but if you have a theory, please let me know! I've experienced the issues plenty of times before so no, it's not related to the cheap fix.😄

[Schaefft]

The updates just keep on rolling in!

Spent most of yesterday and the morning finishing up the Corona. Accessibilty is still shit when reassembling in reverse.

Aside from bleeding the brakes (after disconnecting one of the lines from the master cylinder and foolishly pressing the brake pedal without thinking...) and reinstalling the strut brace which I'll clean up and paint before it goes back on its pretty much all back together. And due to German efficiency I needed one bolt less than Toyota!

Now that I think about it, this might be the bolt that was replaced by a phillips head one that came with the new water pump.

After installing the crank pulley I actually looked at the factory manual for the first time to see if I can confirm that everything is indeed in time. The smart engineers at Toyota added a timing mark for the cam gear, they didn't think about that you actually need to be able to look at it. I guess you could use a mirror, it was almost impossible to align the phone camera so that should be close enough:

Started the car, alternator works, power steering pump belt doesn't slip, no leaks, all good!

Things that are new:

Timing belt

Water pump

Thermostat

All related gaskets

Coolant

All timing belt pulleys

Power Steering and Alternator/AC belts

The fucker better not blow a headgasket next! I guess only an extended test drive will confirm.

In other news: I actually never had a working radio in my Senator. The SC804 that came with it is a rather high end option and fairly rare, the issue my radio has is hard to fix (flexy lines for the buttons that you need to enter the pin are snapped). I mentioned it to the car audio electrician who fixed my Mercedes and Lexus ECUs and he happened to have a Grundig SC303 in his closet, and he sold it to me for a fair price!

I know its not much but for me this is another big piece of the puzzle aquired. This was one of the radios available in Opels/Vauxhalls around that time and sounds pretty good! Finally no gaping hole and wires anymore:

In other other news, I checked on my Auroras and the Ivory Mark VIII today. If things go smoothly I'll fly to Nashville for a week next Saturday. I'm gonna use the chance to return a part (and get a refund from Rockauto) and hopefully gather a few bits that would otherwise be uneconomical to ship. I've had the green Aurora running for a bit as well. Seller diagnosted a failed headgasket but its actually not running hot at all, no signs of OMGHGF but only an exhaust gas-in-coolant test will confirm. Might be lucky there after all.

Mark VIII still needs a new tranny pan (and hopefully not a new transmission), the purple Aurora needs EVERYTHING.

[Schaefft]

A month on and I finally managed to make some progress again. The trip to Nashville (which also resulted in a bunch of parts for the Aurora and Corona making their way back in my luggage) and shit weather meant that I couldn't get much done, despite the Corona really only needing its brakes bleeded and the rear brake hoses replaced while doing so.

I thought replacing those hoses would be a total pain but with a bit of heat and Liquid Wrench it all came apart eventually. The front hoses were replaced earlier this year and the car did receive some new brake fluid back then. I wanted to go for the good stuff this time though so I bought a liter of Motul RBF600 which is supposed to be excellent and I think I can already feel the difference, despite the front lines still having whatever made its way in there earlier.

Rear hoses are genuine Toyota and from a '90ish Celica, actually had to order them from the dealer.

Fit was almost perfect, I had to grind off some material to loop it through its holder though.

The vacuum pump is a Mityvac MV8000 and brake bleeding perfection. Wanted something decent and this definitely is. There's a more expensive metal variant as well, this however feels very sturdy already.

As you can tell, the fluid coming out of the rear lines didn't look great. Insert peepee joke here.

All done. Applied some Kurust where it made sense while down there. Theres so much dirt just covering everything.

The strut brace (which needs to come off to fill the brake fluid reservoir...) was cleaned up and painted, all back together now:

That means that the car probably only needs a new exhaust at this point (powerflow will probably be the best way to go here, and whatever decent manifold can replace the cat one) before its ready to return on the road. Which happens sometime in spring with @GingerNuttz hopefully being able to sort out some bodywork on it around that time.😄

Since I don't really wanna drive ANY of my cars with salt on the road the 528i will once again be my winter car of choice. Knowing that the sills need replacing anyway I might as well drive it for one last winter before they get done.

Unfortunately nothing is easy and just putting a set of wheels on the car is a struggle as 3 out of 4 jacking points are pretty much gone. At the same time the car is so low that even my low profile jack is struggling to reach the rear diff/front cross member to get it in the air. Also turns out that 2 out of the 4 junk wheels I bought for the winter tires are losing air so rapidly that this is what the car will be staying like until I can get the car booked in to have them all changed in a few days hopefully...

Loving it, what a sight:

[Schaefft]

I'm flying back home to visit family today (apparently just in time to avoid a mandatory 14 day self isolation you can't shorten) so I used yesterday to move the cars around. With the E38 being the newest addition I had to take some photos next to it's peers!

 

[Schaefft]

As you will have seen in the German collection thread a new car has joined the fleet right at the end of the year.

I've already started fixing things on it, with the broken cupholder replaced with a functioning unit and the ugly aftermarket LED lights replaced with OEM ones from the later facelift Avant.

The cupholder is easy to replaced, remove the cover and slide it out using a small screwdriver to unhook it on each side.

It's quite cool that the decal on it is actually lit by a red LED all the way at the back of the assembly. I kept the LED of the old one in case one ever dies.

All done. Love the clean look of the C5's dash and this was important to me lol:

The aftermarket taillights had to go as well, they look dated with these individual LED units and cheap. I'm also not sure what the tester would have said as they are missing certification logos so away they go.

Dirty and cleaned up. I'll put them up for sale and will probably get my money back that I've paid for the OEM taillights. They were only held in place by 4 10mm nuts, very easy to replace.

What a difference these make, its looks great now. I've already started taking the pillar trims off to get to the bolts for the roof rails, the aluminium finish ones should be the final touch for the exterior to be perfect (if you ignore the front wings and wheels I still wanna get). And that piece of trim on the rear door I guess...

[Schaefft]

This happened yesterday night, right in time for Christmas Eve. Naturally I picked today with everything frozen to swap out the roof racks. I think I'll try and post a proper photo tomorrow.

[Schaefft]

Update time. Managed to button everything up today so things look decent for the inspection tomorrow. And holy crap was removing these interior trim pieces an ordeal. I don't think anyone but VW/Audi could come up with such a dumb overcomplicated way of mounting a piece of trim to the pillars. The metal clips are literally impossible to remove from the body, meaning that you will snap most of the plastic mounts holding the trim to the clip. Considering that there are a million better ways of doing this without having to worry about these things ever ratting I am really wondering what the hell they've been smoking while coming up with this utter garbage. I ended up glueing half of the mounts back together. Considering most of these seemed to have been cracked before its probably not even the low temps that were the issue here.

In total removing the trim and putting it back probably took 5 times as long as it would have in a comparable BMW (I removed my E39s sunroof at least 3 times so yeah...).

If this is how VW designs their cars then Im really wondering how theres any following for them at all.

Not having a decent tool set didn't help so I had to improvise a little...

No plastics:

Back together:

Result, a frozen alumium roof rail. I honestly think that this makes a big difference for a more upscale look. Let me know if anyone wants the matte black ones...

I'll try to get a better photo when the snow has melted. Until then have a few winter impressions from around here: