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14 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Wow...I think I have just uncovered the worst case of camshaft wear that I have ever seen...much less on a running engine.

I give you the number 3 exhaust valve cam lobe in the engine of my Merc S123.

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That's a good 5mm of the camshaft lobe tip just outright missing.

Wow! Oil starvation? Or very tight valve?

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29 minutes ago, juular said:

Wow! Oil starvation? Or very tight valve?

Reckon there's been a serious oil starvation issue at the top end and the engine being badly neglected.  There's so much carbon buildup I can't pull the bolts out of the rocker assemblies in several cases.

I'm hoping (read: praying) the bottom end of the engine is in better shape.  Camshaft is "last in the circuit" as far as lubrication is concerned and I've never had an actual loss of oil pressure so there is some hope.

I do have a good (as far as I know!) spare head at least...so that being scrap isn't a huge disaster.  Pain yes, disaster, no.

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1 hour ago, juular said:

May have been a pickup seal or something similar. Enough pressure to lube the bottom end but not quite reach the valvetrain.

This picture tells the story of this engine really.

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It's caked on about 1/8" thick everywhere under the rocker cover.

We've always had acceptable oil pressure in the time I've had the car - I've started this investigation as I'd noticed a slight drop in the pressure at a hot idle - but it's worth noting that the spray bar that sits above the camshaft was about 70% clogged when I got the car.  We've definitely got good flow there now but I think it was already mortally wounded years, if not decades ago.

Oil is absolutely pouring out of the front and rearmost bearings on the camshaft.

Not surprised...you generally shouldn't be able to stick a finger nail down between the shell it sits in and the bearing surface.  There's at least 0.5mm of clearance there.

The fact that there's enough clearance that significant varnish has built up on several of the bearing surfaces says a lot about how much clearance there is.

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  Depending what I find when I pull a couple of caps off the bottom end we *might* get away with a head swap.

Maybe.

If we're really, really, really lucky.

 

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Back from the garage and almost all done.  Bit weird that it was booked in for tracking when they don't actually do tracking (doubly so for an MoT garage) but there's another garage around the corner that does tracking and I'm booked in there for tomorrow afternoon.  Headlights aren't cross-eyed now, and the slight wooliness in the steering has gone so that says the old track rod ends were probably shot, as suspected.  The mystery clonk seems to have gone away too, so I wonder if that was actually track rod ends rather than brake related now.

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"Just drop the sump" I said.

Ah.

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It goes back to here... possibly further.

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Several bolts completely obscured by that cross member plus an engine mount attached to it.

Yep... consulting a manual and may come back to it tomorrow... though unless I've missed something really obvious I can't see how this would come out without lifting the engine quite a ways.

First job I've come up against on this car which has made me swear at it, so it was overdue I guess!

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On 9/15/2021 at 9:07 PM, puddlethumper said:

I had a slight accident earlier this evening. Urban dual carriageway, Dudley by pass, where they are doing some resurfacing. Right lane coned off coming up to a round about. I was in the left lane behind a line of cars waiting to get to the round about and numpty comes up the right lane and decides there is enough room between the cones and me to barge in. Unfortunately there wasn't enough room and my offside corner met his rear arch. Big shaven headed guy jumps out and starts shouting and generally being aggressive. I thought, look out road rage. He tried to open the passenger door, mines lhd, which was locked, coz I don't have any friends and therefore don't carry passengers. Starts to come round the other side so I locked the door. I thought he was going to attack me. After a bit he calmed down enough that I got out, keeping my distance just in case. He had a minor scrape on his rear arch area and I had no damage. Can't beat a 305 steel bumper. I took photos and exchanged details. I have never made a claim or had one against me in 50 years of driving so I was well pissed off. 

I'll give everyone one guess what make of car he was driving.

Further developments to this incident. My insurance has put it down as knock for knock. Serves him right for being a nobhead.

Had a phone call today from, I presume, his garage guy who said it would cost me £250 and that I hadn't informed my insurance company. Load of bollox. Then he tried to tell me having a Ford badge on the front was illegal. Not as far as I know. I did tell him that his mates number plate was definitely illegal whereupon he went a bit quiet and I rang off. Insurance has a very good pic of his number plate. What they do about it I don't know. I may take a hit on this next time I renew although I might have paid for NCD protection. Will have to check.

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2 hours ago, puddlethumper said:

Further developments to this incident. My insurance has put it down as knock for knock. Serves him right for being a nobhead.

Had a phone call today from, I presume, his garage guy who said it would cost me £250 and that I hadn't informed my insurance company. Load of bollox. Then he tried to tell me having a Ford badge on the front was illegal. Not as far as I know. I did tell him that his mates number plate was definitely illegal whereupon he went a bit quiet and I rang off. Insurance has a very good pic of his number plate. What they do about it I don't know. I may take a hit on this next time I renew although I might have paid for NCD protection. Will have to check.

Sadly your premiums will go up as you have made a claim ( fault or not ), the NCD can stay in place but it’s still a discount on the full premium. Basically a no win scenario.

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18 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Sadly your premiums will go up as you have made a claim ( fault or not ), the NCD can stay in place but it’s still a discount on the full premium. Basically a no win scenario.

Yea, I realise that but I can take the hit. I wonder how much his insurance will be next year. I hope it's a lot. I doubt if he will learn from this though. Just an arrogant shit.

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On 21/09/2021 at 10:24, Dyslexic Viking said:

Bought a carburetor from Germany on ebay and got a battery gauge instead. Have contacted the seller and wonder how this goes.

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The seller has gone quiet so I'm starting to think this was done on purpose. So looks like I've been screwed over but this is a weird way to do it.

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9 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

eBay claim time?

Yes, I think so. But have to wait 3 days from when I first contacted the seller so it will be Friday. And then the problem becomes just how I do it. I'm struggling to find a simple explanation for how to do this. Seems like ebay will deliberately make it as difficult as possible.

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3 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

Yes, I think so. But have to wait 3 days from when I first contacted the seller so it will be Friday. And then the problem becomes just how I do it. I'm struggling to find a simple explanation for how to do this. Seems like ebay will deliberately make it as difficult as possible.

Item not as described?

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Had a nice day out in Ely today for my birthday.  I took the newly acquired Micra - it really does go like f*ck for a 1.2-litre shopping car.  It did the 150-mile round trip on £20 of pez, which isn't bad going considering I wasn't particularly sparing the horses.  The EML came on at one point but didn't seem to make any difference to anything.  The behaviour of other drivers was interesting though - it's almost as if nobody is used to seeing a metallic beige K12 Micra making decent progress...  There were a number of cars which I overtook and which then went blasting past me a few moments later, and a lad in a newish VW Caddy TDI who was getting seriously pissed off that he couldn't out-accelerate me away from the roundabouts on the A11.  I don't intend to keep the car long term, but I'm having a lot more fun with it than I had expected.

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12 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Had a nice day out in Ely today for my birthday.  I took the newly acquired Micra - it really does go like f*ck for a 1.2-litre shopping car.  It did the 150-mile round trip on £20 of pez, which isn't bad going considering I wasn't particularly sparing the horses.  The EML came on at one point but didn't seem to make any difference to anything.  The behaviour of other drivers was interesting though - it's almost as if nobody is used to seeing a metallic beige K12 Micra making decent progress...  There were a number of cars which I overtook and which then went blasting past me a few moments later, and a lad in a newish VW Caddy TDI who was getting seriously pissed off that he couldn't out-accelerate me away from the roundabouts on the A11.  I don't intend to keep the car long term, but I'm having a lot more fun with it than I had expected.

 

 Agree. Many years ago I had 2 cars, a Morris 1300 and a Daimler V8. it was quite noticeable how other drivers treated me. Push the Morris around, but don't mess with the Daimler was the best way to describe it.

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I’ve started to take the donor V70 I bought last week apart. It’s the same paint code as mine and the spoiler looked pretty nice so I looked at swapping it over. It’s straightforward enough but involves drilling the tailgate and cutting and resoldering the wiring for the brake light, it has to be fed though a small hole but won’t fit with the connector still fitted. 
 

In the end I decided to swap the entire tailgates over. Being fibreglass they don’t weigh much so with the assistance of Mrs LT they were soon exchanged. The wiring was all the same as simply plugged in. The donor was a slightly earlier model which meant the wiper parked on the opposite side but it was a doddle to exchange the motors, although it wasn’t really necessary. The D5 badge was removed, numberplate fitted and the various functions tested. I was never a fan of spoilers but I do think it looks nice. 
 

While working in the boot area I noticed the interior trim was much better than mine so that was exchanged too. My Volvo’s PO used it for carting rescue dogs about and although it had been shampooed multiple times it still whiffed and had some staining, I also took the opportunity to vacuum everything including the areas that were previously hidden by interior panels.

I’m pretty pleased with the progress although it was a pretty well sorted car already, it feels weird driving around in a tidy car for a change! This thing also passed it's MOT this week with only two advisories for corroded springs and exhaust which I think is a record for me. 

 

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