Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Toyota Corona TLC

[Schaefft]

Finally some progress on the Maserati then. As alluded to above, the powersteering cooler on the Coupe/Spyder is a bit of a weakpoint. Maserati knows this and is happy to charge you £1500 + labor to replace it, something that clearly indicates that they are either desperate for cash (very much true) or completely out of their mind (probably also true). The specialist knows that most people will just fork out whatever they charge them since its still only a third of the price. Since powersteering coolers have absolutely no business being this expensive I went the DIY route (as has proven itself to be the right way before) and bought a used BMW 335i cooler instead:

As you can tell it's dimensions are similar although its inlet/outlet pipes are much longer:

Fortunately there's little stopping you from just chopping the ends right off (forgot to take a photo but it all cleaned up nicely). I wanted to go all the way and flare the ends of the pipes but my flare tool couldn't get a good grip on them unfortunately. You can tell that the BMW pipes didn't really have anything other than a clamp holding the hose on either, with no pressure in the system after the rack it'll be perfectly fine.

Mounted in place with a tactical ziptie:

Considering I just saved myself the equivalent of 3 cheap Citroen C6s I'm perfect happy with a ziptie instead of a bracket holding it in place. The radiator cowl was reinstalled with new hardware since the old bolts were all rotten (still have to straighten it all bit):

I've ordered some Dexron IId (apprently the only thing recommended by anybody owning these, not sure if that means much) which should be here next week. I'm hoping that the car will behave for a little after all the work that has gone into it over the winter. Definitely looking forward to driving it now that the weather is getting better again!

[hairnet]

ungrateful piece of shit etc

[Schaefft]

The other news are that the Vel Satis has now gone to new pastures, I'm hoping that it'll receive the TLC it deserves. I couldn't miss the chance to do a quick photoshoot with its direct Gallic rival before it left though. It's incredible how different two cars designed for the same segment during the same time by makers from the same country could be.

Unsurprisingly most people will think that the C6 has been the more successful styling exercise and I would agree. However, the Vel Satis isn't ugly in my opinion, it's just a different approach to creating a premium car where versatility and room were in the foreground. I also love the little squares for reasons that would be hard to explain here.

Speaking of the C6: It's MOT expires in just over 2 weeks. Considering I knew that the parking brake would be an issue and that a sub £600 C6 would most likely hide about a million issue I felt like throwing it in for a test early this time around:

Well, believe it or not but a bunch of bulbs I genuinely didn't notice before and the parking brake (in fact just the driver rear caliper which has a seized lever) are the only things currently keeping this car from another year of wafting. I've had a quick look and I might be able to get a used caliper for 25 quid. The bulbs I have tackled today, and surprisingly they were easily reachable with the parking lamp bulbs only requiring the removal of 3 clips and 2 covers:

Who would have expected that from a modern French car? The reg plate bulbs only required the lenses to pop out. However, I did notice that both reverse and rear foglight bulbs never turned on either. What would the chance of that be?

Well, after faffing about for about an hour trying to find the reason why 4 perfectly good bulbs wouldn't illuminate when they should (normally this would indicate a broken harness, although still unlikely) I was about to conclude that there must be impossible to diagnose electrical gremlins. I then wiggled one of the bulbs one more time, turned the foglights on again and it finally illuminated. With zero signs of corrosion on any of the bulb holders this was surprising but more intense wiggling eventually resulted in all bulbs illuminating again:

That leaves us with the caliper on the right. As always that doesn't mean that the car will be trouble free in the end. The clunk from the front is a shot lower hub bush which I hopefully can get individually (edit: apparently I can despite not being listed separately in the parts catalogue, odd). I also still need to sort the coolant leak from a plastic Y-piece that naturally is a pain to reach. At least I got a good look at it today from below:

With this being a typical C6 weakness I can't say I'm mad. In general this rough looking C6 originally sold as a parts car turns out to be more solid than I ever expected. Everything I mentioned above are typical old car problems you'd have with a car of almost any mileage, and all of them are cheap to sort (if you put some time in). Fingers crossed it'll stay that way for a little while then!

Bonus shot of an XJ with a C6 reg, taken from a C6:

[Schaefft]

I've adjusted the handbrake shoes on the Maserati over the last two evenings. I'm not 100% sure whether there's still something rubbing but it was certainly good enough for the first real test drive since the MOT pass months ago.

And my god is this car a blast to drive! The deeply rumbling (but also high revving) V8 is just a dream! It has gobs of torque pretty much throughout the entire rev-band, it's such a sweet engine. My 6-speed 540i is a joy to drive but 110 extra horses and actual, sharp handling really put this on another level. And it's surprisingly comfy at speed over these fairly rough country roads as well, the skyhook suspension does a pretty good job at floating over the larger bumps in the road.

I'm hoping that the car stays in one piece for a little while now so I can start concentrating on the cosmetics. I'm actually contemplating whether I should wrap it in a darker color, the wheels also need a refurb badly unless I can find a later set of 7-spokes for reasonable money.

[High Jetter]

If i'd spent 2 evenings adjusting things there'd deffo be some rubbing! 🤣

[Schaefft]

With the Maserati back on the road it was the big Citroen's turn over the last few days. With the lights all sorted the parking brake was the next item on the list.

The driverside caliper mechanism was seized but the second hand replacement from Ebay did the job perfectly fine, despite only being 22 quid. Everything came apart surprisingly easily, even the brake line fitting to the caliper didn't protest all that much despite looking pretty original. I'm used to everything being completely seized, rotten or both. I want to keep things "budget" with this one so the brake discs will have to stay for now.

The parking brake lever on the other side caliper (not pictured) was somewhat free-moving enough to work as is. The cable was just hanging there though. It won't necessarily need them but there are supposed to be clips in place to make it impossible for a cable to pop out, the clip was still there so not clue why it was left unhooked. The previous owner might have replaced the cable and gave up when they noticed that one caliper needs replacing. I've tested the parking brake and it's now working as intended, holding the car in place. Only that I have no way of calibrating the cable adjustment, which means the car immediately throws an error and disables it entirely until I cycle the key again. Technological progress... If anyone here knows how I can reset the cable calibration without Lexia, please let me know!

I've also tackled the front lower hub carrier bush today, it was just an advisory but at under 25 quid for a Lemforder one why not replace it, it was completely shagged anyway. Even there everything came apart fairly easily. The center sleeve didn't need much pursuation to pop out, that should give you an idea:

Removal of the outer sleeve required the sawzall but it did come out eventually:

Bushing pressed back in without too much hassle. I probably spent the next hour trying to make the hub carrier align with the lower control arm again. I don't know for certain but I have the feeling the front axle might have moved outwards a few cm and just didn't want to move back in. It definitely wasn't unhooked so I have no clue why it wouldn't move freely back into its original position.

I needed some ballast to keep the lower arm out of the way, fortunately theres never a shortage of heavy as f*ck batteries around here:

A few tactical kicks eventually got everything close enough that with a bit of prying the bolt went back in. Car lowered back on the ground to torque everything. Funnily enough the noise I've heard from this corner before is still there. I think its the strut assembly itself that has an issue. Since it works perfectly fine I think I'll just choose to ignore it for now then... Will need to get a frontend alignment done though.

With the day young I then decided to have a go at the Citroen's abysmal paint. Not only was it failing all over, there were also still signs of the sideswipe the PO told me about, plus the worst case of stone chip mayhem I have ever seen. Photos really hide a lot but looking at the before at the top and the results at the bottom I'm quite happy:

I could have gone a lot more agressive with wet sanding things and then polishing the hell out of it but those are some decent improvements for a start.

Front door done, rear door not. At the stage the above photo was taken I couldnt really bother anymore and just rushed to the end, it didn't help that I seemed to melt the paint or at the very least leave some strange sticky residue that would be a pain to remove again.

And the stone chip crater landscape you see at the front -

A seemingly bottomless 15ml bottle of scratch remover paint made all the difference in the end. I feel like I painted half the car with it (literally hundreds of chips and scratches) and still have some left!

So for the total investment of probably about 20 quid, plus about 50 quid of parts, we should now have a car that looks decent (from 30 feet away) and hopefully can stay on the road for another 12 months. Considering the state this C6 was in when I got it noticeable improvements are finally picking up, if I can find a way to save the paint on the roof and bonnet you could almost call the car presentable again!

[Schaefft]

Great news! The "suspension" noise I mentioned above only turned out to be the wheel arch liner catching on the upper control arm/hinge as it apparently wasn't aligned perfectly. You can see that it's getting very close to that hinge, when it's moving down with the suspension extending over crests the plastic liner gets pulled down until it slaps against the apron above, making the sheet metal noise I heard before:

Another free fix then, I'm very happy with that. Fingers crossed and we'll have a pass on Saturday and the parking brake recalibrated.

The Maserati meanwhile is starting to see more use. Similar to the C6 it also needs a front end alignment but works well otherwise. Probably the most grin-inducing car I own right now, the engine in this really is unbelievable.

As I've seen people on here use them before I also bought a vacuum oil extractor now that I have the space for one. I've tested it on the Corona which had a service overdue (although I only drove it for 3000km since I got it apparently). It's working surprisingly well on it, not a drop coming out of the drain plug in the end. I'm hoping this will mean more frequent services without the inevitable mess.

[Schaefft]

And a few more. Headlights polished up very well which always makes a big difference.

The passenger side lens wasn't too bad but quickly looked much worse compared to the now like-new driver one:

That'll do, so much better looking now, and a free fix too using leftovers from previous headlight polishing kits/sealers. Plus one less advisory on the list:

I finally wiped down the engine bay as well, probably hasnt happened in years:

Filthy:

Clean:

I replaced the 3 missing bolts in that front cover piece as well, it's probably the first thing that will need to come off again when I do the plastic coolant pipe outlet/flange or god knows what it is that's leaking down there somewhere. With that one sorted it might really be the last urgent fix the car needed. I've booked it in for a front end alignment at a local garage next week. I don't really know many reputable places in the area so we'll see what they are like, the reviews look good. They didn't have the data for the Maserati Coupe but a C6 shouldn't be a problem you'd think.

If anyone has some great recommendations for Citroen wheels that would suit the C6, let me know. I prefer to keep things original but with both the wheels and tires ideally needing replacing/refurbing there might be an opportunity to give it an interesting look. C6 wheels in decent shape arent all that common either.

[CGSB]

Consistently the best thread going on here, for me. Love catching up with your updates - great work as ever.

[Bear]

Pretty sure the handbrake recalibrates if you hold the lever up for an extended duration (10 seconds or so).

[Schaefft]

  On 11/04/2025 at 19:47, Bear said:

Pretty sure the handbrake recalibrates if you hold the lever up for an extended duration (10 seconds or so).

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I thought it would but the parking brake didn't seem to care. I just went out to check the lights again before tomorrow's retest and the parking brake sudden just seems to work now. Let's see if it stays that way...

  On 11/04/2025 at 19:40, CGSB said:

Consistently the best thread going on here, for me. Love catching up with your updates - great work as ever.

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Much appreciated, if anything I hope it helps people understand that not all that much effort and money can already make a big difference.

[Schaefft]

To prove that I'm not resistant to vehicular drama, calibrating the handbrake cables before the retest today resulted in the handbrake not working at all anymore 🎉 There is still noise coming from the EPB module but it's refusing to react to any command, only leaving a motor circuit shorted to positive/ground error (C1556). Let's hope the motor didn't fry itself, we'll find out soon enough.

In good news though, a few weeks after the initial collection attempt the XK8 Convertible finally arrived home today. A pair of remanufactured intercooler hoses, a belt and a service later we have a full ticket on what is still one of the most beautiful Jags built in the last 50+ years.

Only that it hasn't seen a sponge in quite a while. Sitting in various yards and on the back of a truck didn't do it any favors:

The first thing on the list was therefore a bath, which gave me a chance to have a closer look at the condition of the paint.

Verdict: definitely some crustiness to be found on the rear arches, particularly on the driver side. The bonnet needs a polish and bumper ideally a respray, we'll see if that ever happens. A proper clean already made a big difference though.

The interior will need a good scrub as well, might do that tomorrow. The most annoying thing right now is the fob not working, the usual programming procedure involving the indicator stalk isn't working with either remote despite new batteries, I suspect the relevant transmitter module having bitten the dust. The radio is dead as well. Other than that it's once again mostly cosmetics. I will have a closer look at the front suspension when I get a chance, the alignment is off and it's noticeably pulling to one side under hard braking. None of that should be too complicated to sort though, looking forward to getting to know it a bit better!

[tooSavvy]

  On 29/03/2025 at 19:58, Schaefft said:

Finally some progress on the Maserati then. As alluded to above, the powersteering cooler on the Coupe/Spyder is a bit of a weakpoint. Maserati knows this and is happy to charge you £1500 + labor to replace it, something that clearly indicates that they are either desperate for cash (very much true) or completely out of their mind (probably also true). The specialist knows that most people will just fork out whatever they charge them since its still only a third of the price. Since powersteering coolers have absolutely no business being this expensive I went the DIY route (as has proven itself to be the right way before) and bought a used BMW 335i cooler instead:

As you can tell it's dimensions are similar although its inlet/outlet pipes are much longer:

Fortunately there's little stopping you from just chopping the ends right off (forgot to take a photo but it all cleaned up nicely). I wanted to go all the way and flare the ends of the pipes but my flare tool couldn't get a good grip on them unfortunately. You can tell that the BMW pipes didn't really have anything other than a clamp holding the hose on either, with no pressure in the system after the rack it'll be perfectly fine.

Mounted in place with a tactical ziptie:

Considering I just saved myself the equivalent of 3 cheap Citroen C6s I'm perfect happy with a ziptie instead of a bracket holding it in place. The radiator cowl was reinstalled with new hardware since the old bolts were all rotten (still have to straighten it all bit):

I've ordered some Dexron IId (apprently the only thing recommended by anybody owning these, not sure if that means much) which should be here next week. I'm hoping that the car will behave for a little after all the work that has gone into it over the winter. Definitely looking forward to driving it now that the weather is getting better again!

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Slightly different *problem... but Cheapz iz Best.

I have had an eBay 'trannie cooler' fitted to AVAS - from the next gen - and the hose bodggerie is quite OK.

🚙💨

[Schaefft]

Next week's weather forecast looks a bit grim so the top had to come down on the way back from Newcastle:

It's still an expensive looking car. Slap a private plate on it and people wouldn't know it's been cheaper than a used econobox. It does need work however. The driver window didn't want to lower anymore, a bit of an issue when it needs to whenever you open or close the door with the top up. Turns out wiggling the wiring loom going from door to body usually does the trick, there's clearly a bad connection in there.

The body flex is noticeable as well, parked up in certain positions you really have to slam the door to shut it, I might have to adjust the striker a little or see if the door really has sagged too much in the last 28 years on this planet. That might also explain why the door card is partially loose. The alarm going off whenever you open the door and not turn the ignition on after a few seconds is another very annoying issue. I cleaned both fobs I have (one from the XJR) and neither seem to be recognized, if it's not the module antenna I might send them off to be rebuilt.

Overall I have to remember how little I'm into this though. A sweet sounding V8 luxury convertible with fresh test, service and cold A/C ready for summer for less than a price of a sofa, what more could you ask for?

[2flags]

That looks lovely. I am particularly partial to a floppy top. 😁

[Schaefft]

Some very minor progress. I've spent some time to figure out why the key fobs aren't working. The security module is located under the fusebox in the boot, fortunately pretty easy to reach:

From there there's a simple coaxial cable running towards the front of the vehicle which is basically the antenna. Removing the driverside bolster reveals it the other end of it:

Unfortunately everything seems to be in order, the connector was a little loose but everything else was untouched. I can tell someone was in there to figure things out before, its probably coming down to the fobs needing refurbishing (service available on ebay for sensible money) or the module itself needs replacing.

I used the chance to look underneath the spare, which revealed a complete jack kit plus a few extra bits. The spanner is a BMW branded one which means I clearly must have owned this car in the past. I cleaned it all up, no bad rusty surprises there. I've also thoroughly cleaned the interior which always makes a big positive difference. The driver doorcard needs a few clips, Im reluctant to spend 2 quid each for them so that'll have to wait for when I decide to pick up a few parts from a breaker (clips are usually freebies). I glued a mount and put some peeling leather trim back in place though, it all makes a difference.

Some not so great news is that I can hear some rattling coming from the torque converter whenever the engine is warm and rpms are dropping. I'll see if the garage doing an alignment can confirm my suspicion tomorrow, it doesn't seem a particularly uncommon problem on these and it shouldn't be a huge problem but it is of course annoying. If someone has experienced the problem in their XK8/XJ8 before and managed to sort it without taking the gearbox out please let me know!

[Schaefft]

Dropped the car off at the local garage to get the front wheel tracking done today. I originally had the C6 booked in but that obviously didn't get through the retest so the Jag went instead. This was also a first test to see how they generally do, especially with older chod like this.

45 quid later and we got a perfectly well tracking car, feels so much better unsurprisingly. No awkward pulling to one side under hard braking anymore either. They didn't have a chance to look at the rattle from the gearbox area so I will have to have a closer look eventually. I've also replace the disintegrating wiper blades, another small but important thing ticked off the list. I've had a quick chat with the mechanic there, he seemed to like the Jag, after a proper clean inside and out it still looks like an expensive car. This was an straight-forward job for them but plenty of garages around Newcastle would've already managed to mess things up somehow.

Our neighbor is expecting a truckload of sand tomorrow so I had to move a few cars off the drive. Who needs FOTU, I can do my own car shows now😂 Another long-term ownership car will make its way over on Saturday, it'll probably the most out-of-place vehicle around here by far, and also complete the international line-up of barges above fairly nicely.

[DirtyDaily]

That jag looking like that for the money spent is almost unbelievable. We forget how lucky we are with UK car prices.

[Schaefft]

  On 17/04/2025 at 19:55, DirtyDaily said:

That jag looking like that for the money spent is almost unbelievable. We forget how lucky we are with UK car prices.

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This, I'm about 1300 quid into it, which includes the car, both oil cooler lines which were a bit of bad luck, an mot, service, A/C recharge and a few bits and bobs. Even with the noise and bit of crustiness it's an unbeatable price. Unfortunately that also means that nobody really bothered investing into it before. Even a replacement gearbox and torque converter would cost very little, there are dozens of them getting ripped out of rusty XJs every month. You could have them for free if you buy a whole car and break it. It's the labor that's the expensive bit.

[CGSB]

  On 17/04/2025 at 19:50, Schaefft said:

Another long-term ownership car will make its way over on Saturday, it'll probably the most out-of-place vehicle around here by far, and also complete the international line-up of barges above fairly nicely.

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Joni Mitchell special?

[High Jetter]

Big yellow taxi, you mean?

[Schaefft]

  On 17/04/2025 at 22:31, High Jetter said:

Big yellow taxi, you mean?

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Maybe...😂

[Schaefft]

After about 3 years in my possession (and another 4 years of just standing idle with the previous owner before then) the Caprice has finally been collected today. One of the landmarks of Morrison Industrial Estate is no more.

And it's already blending in perfectly with its new surroundings:

Or maybe not quite. Nobody would expect a bright yellow New York Taxi-lookalike in rural Northumberland but here we are. And its got the perfect 1992 Mid-town Manhattan patina, too:

The 25 mile drive was pretty uneventful considering it hasn't been driven for much further than a mile at a time for the better part of a decade, and over 300k km on the odometer. It received new brakes with the previous owner years back, since he never completed the registration process the car had just sat since. The tires are cracking now but the tread is still that of a brand new one. Even on the motorway it stayed fairly stable at the upper end of the speedo (Euro market Caprices go up to 200km/h compared to the malaise era 85mph on early US market Caprices).

The name has escaped me but someone here will know what these 2-piece wheels are. Whitewall tires on a Caprice are a must. If I ever find a set of original alloys these black aftermarket ones will need to go though, as much as they suit the taxi look.

It's not like nothing has happened in those 3 years though. Aside from replacing the original ignition cylinder that loved to jam up (which I ended up removing the column for in an attempt to replace the snapped ignition switch linkage) it also received a new distributor assembly. Unfortunately the trunk solenoid is only making a nasty grinding noise and I don't appear to have the key for the lock so that's another thing that will need sorting eventually. I did use the afternoon to start removing the karaoke system, that and all the other random clutter of the last 3 years left a mess in the car:

Even without access to the trunk we are left with a few interesting bits and pieces, that Britpop CD will be added to my increasingly diverse collection of random new car album finds:

Should anyone actuall want the karake stuff let me know. I can't remove one of the mics until I get into the back, the other mic unfortunately didnt survive.

I'll see if I can make some more progress on getting things cleaned up tomorrow. Being a GM B-body there isn't really much that needs immediate attention, yet just reverting a lot of the mods done to turn this into a rolling karaoke bar will take a bit of effort. I might get some new plugs and wires for it and see how feasible it is to remove the LPG system. The latter can be extremely useful for daily driving, considering the mileage I'm likely to put on this Chevy it's just adding unnecessary weight and complexity though.

I'm still in two minds about the wrap. It's taxi-yellow Caprices and Crown Vics that ignited my love for US cars of the time when I was 10 years old, so I'm a big fan of the look. But I doubt its going to surive for much longer if left alone. At the same time the chances of 35 year old GM clearcoat surviving the removal are slim. We'll find out sooner or later.

[Bren]

I still remember how futuristic these looked in when Tom Cruise drove one in days of thunder.

[Schaefft]

  On 19/04/2025 at 20:19, Bren said:

I still remember how futuristic these looked in when Tom Cruise drove one in days of thunder.

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I've said it many times before but a lot of these streamlined aero designs of the early 90s, plus the general improvements in quality and performance, must have seemed like a huge leap forward at the time, especially after 2 decades of underpowered boxes (although the Caprice only really got power with the LT1 in '94). For me it was Jumanji, the poor car got folded in half and eaten by a plant in the end.

[Schaefft]

So, the most important question to answer really is, can the taxi do a burnout?

If the roads are greasy enough it sure can, even with 150kg of leisure battery and lpg tank in the back! Euro-Market Caprices all came with an LSD standard, seems like it's still doing its job. It thanked me with a CEL and the speedo stopped working 😂

It looks completely out of place around here, I'm used to people noticing some of my cars but the yellow livery makes it impossible to ignore, especially now that it's a little cleaner.

[jonathan_dyane]

I like that a lot

[Schaefft]

I usually try to get something done around the fleet every day. I gave the Corona a long overdue clean the other day and wanted to sort out some of the chips and scrapes in the paint today. Unfortunately both of my spray cans of Toyota White seem to be utter garbage thats more propellant gas than actual paint (I shaked them for long enough yet still no coverage) so I gave it a polish instead. I don't remember whether I've ever polished the paint on it before, but it certain made a difference:

It really was that dull before. I used some random scratch remover I've found (which turned out to be excellent for removing all the scratches it had, minus two really deep ones) and polished the whole car minus the bumpers (they are so hopeless that they really need a respray realistically). It turned out well enough I'd say, fingers crossed it'll stay that way for a while:

With the Corona out of the garage its finally time to give the Z3 some attention again. The bimmer and the Corona are probably the only two cars that actually comfortably fit in here:

We've a few upgrades for the interior planned on this one in an attempt to remove the sea of black plastic and restore some originality, stay tuned...

[hairnet]

moar exiv

danke