Schaefft's Bargain Barge Extravaganza - Renault VelSatis 3.5 V6

[Schaefft]

On 07/08/2024 at 08:20, Spottedlaurel said:

The Volvo 240 is something of a surprise to see, and thumbs up for the Carina E too - you've found things there that I haven't seen down here in the countryside.

There's not much left, certainly not in central Paris, but you'd definitely find the odd spot if you look hard enough, especially mid-2000s Renaults (but no Vel Satis unfortunately). Plenty of Xantias in the suburbs still!

Anyway, Cadillac Sedan Deville vs. French multistory yesterday. It's a tight squeeze, especially when people can't park in their bay.

Was also the first time the Caddy was occupied at max capacity with 6 adults in the car! It actually didn't feel all that different...

 

[Schaefft]

First day of the return trip from Paris today, another 350km, now totalling over 1800km of trouble free wafting since I left Newcastle.

I decided to stay in Gravelines between Calais and Dunkirk tonight and will take the ferry tomorrow morning. Pretty beach with its own nuclear power station in the background.

I was hoping to see the local "Operation Dynamo" museum but unfortunately didn't have the time with it closing at 6pm.

Two stops once in Dover planned for tomorrow. First a visit to @Rust Collector who generously picked up a few E39 parts for me several months ago and @J-T to have a closer look at a very interesting but somewhat broken automobile that could easily top the low cost, big liability charts.

[Schaefft]

Well, and here we are. The Cadillac and myself made it home safely Sunday night, the ferry crossing from Dunkirk to Dover went smoothly and the last few hundred miles were added on British soil, now totalling 1600mi or 2600km of completely trouble free motoring.

It just proves once again that old cars often still have a lot of life left in them and can be a fantastic way of crossing half a continent with a little bit of time and effort put into them. There really isn't much to fault with this one now, aside from the front tracking and aging tires (desperately trying to source a set of 16 inch whitewalls) it was problem free. The A/C still blows cold as well and it even got a new windshield now. To think that this car was semi abandoned in a random storage yard before I bought it not that long ago is quite astonishing to me. I can't even count the number of times people approached me wanting to know more about the car or showing their appreciation for it, whether it was in Germany, France or the UK. I wouldn't hestitate to do it all again, so well done Cadillac!

Fuel economy numbers are now in: With mostly motorway + some inner city/slow moving traffic driving we achieved about 27MPG UK/22MPG US, not that bad at all considering the size of the car.

As mentioned before, I used the chance to pick up some parts in Germany as well as the UK, among them a few bits for the Senator. Having the right, period correct keyring is essential so I got one as well.

The car needed a set of floor mats badly. With this being a LHD model getting anything in the UK wasn't an option, finding a decent original set is impossible anyway. A Polish company offered customizable mats for the Omega A though (which are identical), so the Senator now has a fresh set with appropriate branding:

They actually look a little darker in the photo than they are. The center armrest wasn't in the best shape either:

Now it is:

I was hoping to replace the Carlton steering column covers as well. Turns out the ones I bought were for a Senator without tilt-steering so that didn't fit either. The search goes on...

[Schaefft]

Stripping of the donor Jag has started. I haven't gotten all that much serious interest from people but I'm hoping to sell a good chunk of the useful parts before it gets collected. One of the reasons I bought it was the cruise control setup that my 3.2 is missing, which isn't all that uncommon on X300s where even XJRs didn't come with it standard. Luckily retrofitting various options on these cars is very easy, most things seem to be pre-wired which means a lot of things are simply plug&play.

Here's what needs to come out of the engine bay, the vacuum pump, dump valve and throttle actuator including mounting hardware:

And what it looks like when installed underneath the airfilter housing:

You'll also need the circuit board and switches for the cruise control ...controls, seen here from below. As mentioned, the wiring is already all there, same connector.

Jaguar for some reason would have sold you the entire dash fascia for the drivers side which needs to be color coordinated to the interior of your car, I believe this is only because the labels for the controls are printed on a little plastic screen thats glued onto the fascia, yet there's nothing stopping you from just pressing the blank screen out of its hole and glueing the new screen back on when installing it...

Theres also a silver control module under the dash and a different type brake switch that needs to be installed (no photos). Something that nobody, including Jaguar's official instructions, are mentioning is that your manual gearbox car probably doesn't have a clutch switch. Mine certainly doesn't so I just bridged the connector thats already there. On automatic cars that step is actually part of the install proceedure to make the car think the clutch is never pressed. I'll have to install the switch eventually as the car will just continue to use the throttle when in neutral right now.

And thats it really. However, not so on my car. Remember me wondering why my throttle valve wouldn't open as far as I would have expected at WOT? While installing the throttle actuator linkage I noticed a suspicious amount of play in it:

Here's what things look like on the donor. Spot the difference:

The throttle valve assembly is clocked differently. Why? Because someone somehow managed to bend this throttle valve arm:

Which should look like this:

Which means even at WOT it never was all that wide open at all, which means it never developed full power. That's the lovely thing about having a donor car and where much of its value lies. You can immediately compare things and diagnose issues that might have gotten missed, in this case thats probably been the case for years. I switched over the valve arm assembly thingy and things are immediately looking much better:

No slack in the actuator linkage, no slack in the throttle cable either. I took the car for a drive and the difference is noticeable, the throttle response is instant and it feels a lot more agile, especially in 2nd gear. I call that a result. And now have fully functional cruise control, which will be much appreciated in a motorway cruiser like this XJ.

It also has this now. You'd expect CD changers to be dealer installed extras but even for this the wiring was all there already. My radio seems to have died though so no idea whether it works yet.

[Split_Pin]

Good work on that Cadillac gearbox! 

[Schaefft]

The part out of the turquoise XJ has properly started now. I'm not sure how much will be left of it in the end but should anyone of our resident XJ owners need anything, let me know asap before it's going.

Most of the sport interior will get saved, unfortunately the center console trim is different on autos and with this being an early X300 there's no glovebox so the dark wood trim won't fit the manual 3.2, I will probably swap the sports seats into mine though. Aside from one the wheels are all corroded but I managed to salvage the one good brake disc and pads and even extracted 3 out of 4 ABS sensors successfully. Being down there just highlighted again the reason it's getting broken far parts though:

It's been welded more than once on both ends of both sills and is going in the same places again. Together with the blown exhaust, shot paint, old tyres and general wear and tear it's unlikely anyone would have ever considered this one a viable project. With a bit of luck it'll see one last hurrah on the oval.

[hairnet]

Quick @eddyramrod a69 ftw

[eddyramrod]

Thanks Mark, but it's a completely different car.

[straightSix]

There is probably a few things I could do with for my xjr! Will pm you later 

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, straightSix said:

There is probably a few things I could do with for my xjr! Will pm you later 

Sounds good, I got most of what I needed from it out of it now, a banger racer has left a deposit so this will have its glorious last moments on the oval eventually. Probably getting collected sometime next week.

[Steve79]

I've had an x300 and x308 both in 3.2 flavours and whilst they were lovely cars, they always felt like something expensive was about to break. 

Suspension wears out fast as they're heavy and loads of electrical issues if not driven regularly as they're sensitive to correct battery voltages and don't like low/flat batteries.

Both of mine rusted horribly at the drivers floorpan and sill despite being immaculate everywhere else.

Despite all of that, I'd still have an xj40, preferably 3.6 Daimler with the digital dash because I'm a masochist 🤣

[Schaefft]

7 hours ago, Steve79 said:

I've had an x300 and x308 both in 3.2 flavours and whilst they were lovely cars, they always felt like something expensive was about to break. 

Suspension wears out fast as they're heavy and loads of electrical issues if not driven regularly as they're sensitive to correct battery voltages and don't like low/flat batteries.

Both of mine rusted horribly at the drivers floorpan and sill despite being immaculate everywhere else.

Despite all of that, I'd still have an xj40, preferably 3.6 Daimler with the digital dash because I'm a masochist 🤣

I'm not sure how they are regarding suspension wear and tear but compared to anything remotely modern the X300 is quite a simple car. Just tearing into this one everything is coming apart very easily/quickly, things are generally easily accessible (might be different on the V8 ones) and parts are everywhere since so many are somewhat well maintained but rotten. I think if it wasn't for rust these could be quite durable cars.

Since I finished stripping the 4.0 Sport sooner than expected I got bored and drove the ULEZ refugee 728i to the carwash. What a great looking car this is...

[Steve79]

What the lower n/s arm looked like on my 2000 xj308 sport

[Schaefft]

On 19/08/2024 at 17:29, Steve79 said:

What the lower n/s arm looked like on my 2000 xj308 sport

It's mental that they can rot this badly in the first place, real shame as many good cars get scrapped because of that. No different to the 4.0 Sport which continues to donate all of its valuable parts:

The seats, ECU and a bunch of other items are the last bits I'll remove before its sent off to the oval. Now's the time to request anything you might need for your X300 or X308.

As already mentioned further up, some of these parts made it into the manual 3.2. I've ordered the last component I needed to finish the cruise control retrofit on Sunday, it's the clutch switch that obviously wasn't used in automatic cars. Should anyone ever find this thread trying to do the same thing, the part number is LNA 6430AA. Rare part but I found two on ebay, NOS even:

The switch bolts to the top of the pedal assembly, hard to see in the photo but on the right of the column. In fact its so close to the column that installing the two bolts that mount the switch was a right faff, I had to reach around/above the column and half blindly find the holes all while upside down in the footwell.

It all worked out though, like for everything else the connector for the switch was pre-wired so I just had to plug it in and we've got 100% functional cruise control now, all at a cost of 40 quid. And with a few should've-worked-harder blanking plates less:

I've used the opportunity and replaced the blown-out space saver with a proper (extra cost) spare alloy, the only one that was worth saving unfortunately. Turns out the bolt that mounts the wheel to the floor had to be replaced as well:

And another little extra I almost missed went in the car, a leather grip for the handbrake where my poverty spec XJ6 only had rubber before:

Exiting stuff, isn't it? I even replaced the glasses holder since the leather in mine came loose:

The rubber floormats (original Jaguar no less) were replaced with equally original wool(?) mats:

Which unfortunately are still pretty filthy after going over them with the extractor a few times, might come around still.

I've also replaced a torn door rubber and found some unexpected rust which I cleaned up and later covered in Rust-Anode, which should hopefully stop it from progressing further. Odd place for it to corrode like that, its completely covered up by the door seals:

Quite a few simple but satisfying improvements and upgrades for the Jag that make it a better as well as better-equipped car then. The perforated leather sports seats will be next although I won't get rid of the standard leather/cloth seats should I change my mind about them. I'm hoping that whatever XJR6 donor I will end up with eventually will come with fully electric and maybe even heated seats so I can tick another two extras off the options list. I am still looking for the center armrest with fold-out cupholders and a wood/leather steering wheel as well. If its straight forward I might even retrofit an electric steering column, the lack of which seems quite bewildering to some American XJ owners in the past. Nothing essential really but its more or less subtle changes like that which make a car feel a little more special.

[Steve79]

One thing you need to do regularly with these as well is the unblock/loosen the windscreen scuttle drain as I'll guarantee it'll be full of dirt/leaves/mulch.

Mine was blocked which resulted in wet feet and carpet when I went through one of the IMO car washes

[Schaefft]

On 22/08/2024 at 14:32, Steve79 said:

One thing you need to do regularly with these as well is the unblock/loosen the windscreen scuttle drain as I'll guarantee it'll be full of dirt/leaves/mulch.

Mine was blocked which resulted in wet feet and carpet when I went through one of the IMO car washes

I've had a look underneath the scuttle cover before and cleaned everything there, good shout on the drains though, I didn't even notice them being there.

Replaced a few more trim bits I didn't notice being torn up before, the car continues to surprise me by coming apart so easily. The lower B-pillar covers on these are quick release for god knows what reason.

Looking good under the multi-story lights! The XJ sport meanwhile isn't looking so good at all:

Someone bought the entire frontend including the rotten passenger side wing to put it onto a wrecked 20k mile XJ they recently picked up in Scotland. Which puts me a little in a pickle as the banger racer who put a deposit down a week ago and still doesn't know when he's gonna collect it (while also being a pain to communicate with) wants the bonnet and wing for a complete shell. The deal is to get the wrecked bits from the 20k mile car and put them on this but I wouldn't be suprised at all if things suddenly become a lot more tedious than initially agreed. As before, if anyone needs anything off the car before its gone, let me know! I would like to get the space back as the next purchase has been lined up already.

[Schaefft]

The banger racers who were interested in the shell for the XJ went quiet, unfortunately the car will need to go soon as I need the space back so the scrapyard might be its final destination after all...

Not being able to work on anything more or less forced me to pull my finger out and get the W140 back off its axle stands. I bought everything to replace the front suspension ages ago, all I needed were some new bolts for the lower control arms. Since Mercedes wants how f*cking much?! for a set of eccentric W140 lower control arm bolts (and new ones can't be found anywhere else anymore) I decided to raid the S-Class coupe instead. They aren't in brilliant shape either but I was at least able to replace one of the bolts that somehow went missing... Where were we last time then?

The control arms were already in, so were the tie rods and stabilizer bar. With the replacement bolts now in place I could finally tackle the springs and knuckles. The driver side is missing its stone guard, I got it here but that'll only happen when I have to replace the wheel bearing one day...

Well, not too surprisingly I very quickly realized that conventional cheapo spring compressors won't do on the tank that is the W140. Not only do they need the force you'd expect required on a truck to compress them, the way they mount into the subframe prevents you from getting anything other than the spring in there anyway:

Well, China and Amazon Prime to the rescue. This spring compressor tool mounts inside the coil and is significantly more robust. Should work on most other Mercedes as well:

The scariest part of the whole endeavour, putting my life into the hands of China's world class Amazon-Special tool producers here.

And it's in, with the tool still in place. The droplink is mounted upside down btw, I quickly notice my mistake later.

As it turns out getting the tool out of there is a right faff, there is access from underneath the control arm but with the whole assembly awkwardly jammed in there don't expect it to come out easily, probably took me over 30 minutes on each side just to carefully retrieve the thing again.

The other side, now with shockabsorber and droplinks properly in place. I'll have to redo the brakeline on the driverside and will replace the brake hose and caliper while at it, the passenger side caliper still seemed fine the last time it was on the road. Other than that its just discs and pads before I can lower it on the ground again and torque it all to spec.

For anyone having worked on one of these before, I'm a little confused by setting the pre-tension on the upper control arms. It says the distance "A" in the image above needs to be 63mm before I torque the control arm mounting bolt (6e) to 120nm which is easy enough, only that this results in my mount getting crushed and it relatively mildy pressing against the rubber bushing now.

I cannot believe that this is the right way of doing it? Here's what it looks like without anything torqued, the control arm just flaps around, usually thats not how its supposed to be, they are properly angled and the bushings under tension when loaded from the factory. These are original Lemforder parts btw.

If anybody has any suggestions, let me know!

[Schaefft]

After 46 cars and 13 years of driving I can finally claim to have reached the pinnacle of low cost, big liability motoring...

Introducing the latest addition to the fleet...drumrolls.........

This lovely 2003 Maserati Coupe in "Grigio Touring" Silver! And not just any Maserati Coupe but the high mileage (for a Maserati Coupe) hero previously owned by our own @horriblemercedes.

Some here might remember it coming up for sale quite a while ago. Having seen the car before I felt like I just had to jump on the chance to own one of these, and what better way to get your butt into a 400bhp Ferrari-engined coupe than purchasing it straight from a fellow shiter. And how could you not when seeing this?

Granted, it needs a good clean and a few bits to pass its next test but finding one of these for remotely sensible money, especially in true manually shifted form, isn't all that easy.

I haven't had much of a chance to have a proper look around the car yet as it only arrived an hour ago, that'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm genuinely looking forward to giving it a bath though once I got a little space on the drive again, hopefully Sunday.

[bramz7]

Flipping awesome. And here is me making a big deal about a BCA 607. I am unworthy. 

[Schaefft]

5 minutes ago, bramz7 said:

Flipping awesome. And here is me making a big deal about a BCA 607. I am unworthy. 

Broken Mercedes, Alfas and BMWs have desensitized me to a level over the years where this really doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore😂 And horriblemercedes has proven that even something as bad as a clutch pedal failure can be fixed for extremely reasonable money if you know where to look for parts.

[Matty]

26 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

After 46 cars and 13 years of driving I can finally claim to have reached the pinnacle of low cost, big liability motoring...

Introducing the latest addition to the fleet...drumrolls.........

This lovely 2003 Maserati Coupe in "Grigio Touring" Silver! And not just any Maserati Coupe but the high mileage (for a Maserati Coupe) hero previously owned by our own @horriblemercedes.

Some here might remember it coming up for sale quite a while ago. Having seen the car before I felt like I just had to jump on the chance to own one of these, and what better way to get your butt into a 400bhp Ferrari-engined coupe than purchasing it straight from a fellow shiter. And how could you not when seeing this?

Granted, it needs a good clean and a few bits to pass its next test but finding one of these for remotely sensible money, especially in true manually shifted form, isn't all that easy.

I haven't had much of a chance to have a proper look around the car yet as it only arrived an hour ago, that'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'm genuinely looking forward to giving it a bath though once I got a little space on the drive again, hopefully Sunday.

Hero! What a thing this car is!

[DVee8]

I'll have to keep an eye out for this around here. If you get a blue Nissan flashing it's lights, it could be me.

[Surface Rust]

Glad that's still around, it's really quite special.

[horriblemercedes]

56 minutes ago, Schaefft said:

Broken Mercedes, Alfas and BMWs have desensitized me to a level over the years where this really doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore😂 And horriblemercedes has proven that even something as bad as a clutch pedal failure can be fixed for extremely reasonable money if you know where to look for parts.

That clutch master cylinder was cheap, but fitting it was not fun! 

 

I think from Maserati it was £370+VAT but the one I bought was the same Sachs part for £31. It was listed by Parts in Motion for a Seat Toledo, I think. Same part. It's from a mk4 Golf essentially 

 

I was following the US workshop manual instructions for fitting. Looked easy. Turns out that it's much more difficult on a right hand drive car! 

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, Surface Rust said:

Glad that's still around, it's really quite special.

It is, the manual gearbox makes the real difference to me. A V8 and manual is a special combination, I love it in my E39 Touring and I hope to feel the same about this one. The inside should be quite a nice place to be as well.

[horriblemercedes]

This car doesn't have issues with the surfaces peeling away. There is a bubble on the passenger side of the dashboard. 

Most are much worse than this. 

 

Honestly, I think it's because it was used regularly. The owner before me had it from 2009 to 2024 and it was his daily drive. A fascinating man, actually. 

 

One of my favourite things I found in the service manual is that leather conditioning is part of the service schedule. I've never seen that before. 

[somewhatfoolish]

"It rubs the lotion on the skin."

[Ohdearme]

Marvelous thing, many years ago my brother ran an even more liability prone 3200gt

Many a calamity ensued, windows down all by themselves and car found unlocked often, 

£50 Split turbo hose needing half an engine bay removing to fix…

and the piece de resistance, when had to stop on the m62 due to some minor* engine vibration, popped the bonnet to find the crankshaft and associated bolts were in the middle of a divorce.

£11,000 in bills over 18 months. Bargain* motoring although he didn’t hold the spanners so Schaefft rates will be cheaper.

[somewhatfoolish]

If I discover I have a fatal disease I plan on whazzing my net worth on a 3200GT, just because of the lights.

[Ohdearme]

9 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

If I discover I have a fatal disease I plan on whazzing my net worth on a 3200GT, just because of the lights.

I forgot about those…but now they’re coming back to me…

🪃