The new news 24 thread

[Vince70]

This morning I decided to fill the cills with waxoyl on the survivor poverty spec Punto.

I couldn’t find my can of waxoyl and I only had a timeframe of half hour to do the job so I used some old engine oil I had knocking about lol.

A big mistake as now the driveway resembles an environmental disaster and it’s taken me another half hour to clean up the mess lol.

I’ve driven around in it since so hopefully the road won’t be covered.

 

 

 

[Vince70]

23 hours ago, JakeT said:

New brake hoses on ‘the old bus’ as it’s know today. It’s 30 years old in a few weeks, and the hoses weren’t looking too great. I dropped a caliper and a hose caught it last year, which damaged one. Having been laid up over winter I thought I should do them, and have got a weekend without distraction. The boss has gone skiing for a week, and due to work commitments I couldn’t make it. I’d been putting this job off for a while as usually for me brake hose replacements end in tears (and snapped hard line).

Weirdly there’s six hoses on these. The rear have two each. Unless it’s a late car then it has one long hose. Anywho:

Up on stands at the rear and a quick look over the undercarriage. I’m still very pleased with how rot-free this car is. Garaged and not been a daily driver all it’s life. This jacking point is the nearside rear. Usually they get grotty easily now due to salt and rubbish in the gutter.

Trailing arm pockets are good too, which cause issues on these cars (and E46s).

Rear short line done, usually these can be a real pig but everything came apart brilliantly.

… And the line to the caliper from a funny S-piece of hard line.

Bled up with a cheap pressure bleeder from eBay. I have an Eezibleed but messing around with a spare tyre can be a pain. Pumping this up is nice and easy, and means I can do this job without a helper. 

Being in such a good mood as the job had gone so easily, I also remembered I have a steam cleaner. So I cleaned the rear Inner arches. The steam loosened the dirt nice and easily without putting any muddy water on the garage floor. I’m sure a few pounds of Berkshire has been liberated from the arches. Unsurprisingly what was left in my bucket can only be described as…

Before

After

Then I had lunch. And did the fronts. But I forgot to take any pictures. The fronts were easy though, and bled up nicely too.

 

Finally, the test drive. We’ve had some good rains this week, which have taken the salt off of the roads. They also dried up nicely in time for a drive. Didn’t roll into anything, so good news.

Pedal feels less  ‘wooden’ now, too which is nice. Next job will be fuel hoses, but they looked in a better state than the brake hoses.

 

Final pic, to prove I did drive it, and didn’t restyle the front bodywork.

 

I love an E36 and I’ve had most of the models over the years and I’ve been extremely lucky, as I’ve only had nice rust free examples before the current price hike.

I still have an immaculate low mileage Ti, which luckily for me, I bought  about 9 years ago.

I normally put a smear of grease around the jacking point covers and it seems to keep  the jacking points nice a new.

 

 

[BeEP]

Took the trailer for a Sunday morning jaunt to Lincolnshire  and somewhere along the way this leapt on.  Anyone want a mechanically sorted (other than wheel bearing which is included) 1.6 Puma which needs sills & cosmetics?

[Fumbler]

Fiesta needed topping up with 1L of oil, weirdly enough. It's a financial crisis car so I'm wondering if it was subjected to the low tension piston rings other companies were fitting back then. Either that or there's a seal leaking.

[brummiejon]

19 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

Oh playing a tyre age game are we? I think @brummiejon can get most of us beat LOL

by the wording of "front tyre is next" that implies the front tyre is still whatever was fitted to the Argson when it was laid up gawd knows how many years ago  (easily 50+ years ago)

I’ve changed it already…. The rubber just brushed off the sidewall it was so dry

[JakeT]

7 hours ago, Vince70 said:

I love an E36 and I’ve had most of the models over the years and I’ve been extremely lucky, as I’ve only had nice rust free examples before the current price hike.

I still have an immaculate low mileage Ti, which luckily for me, I bought  about 9 years ago.

I normally put a smear of grease around the jacking point covers and it seems to keep  the jacking points nice a new.

 

 

I agree. Fortunately this wasn’t subject to some of the truly insane pricing that’s happened recently.

 

Love a ti, too. Fun little cars and were very cheap for a long time. Bought a high mileage one from a colleague a few years ago for £100. It was quite tidy, and with a new rear exhaust section and handbrake adjusted went through the test nicely and sold for £850.

[wuvvum]

Last time I drove the Volvo the viscous fan was making a dreadful racket.  New viscous clutches are available but they're a bit spendy, and I had a spare electric fan fitted to the Mazda which wasn't needed (the Mazda temp gauge has never been over 1/3 in my ownership, even in the heat wave last summer) so yesterday between showers I removed the viscous fan assembly and fitted the electric fan in its place (well sort of, over to one side a bit as there isn't enough clearance in front of the water pump to fit it in the middle of the rad).  There was quite a bit of play in the viscous coupling so I don't think it would have lasted much longer.

Today I had the enjoyable task of wiring the fan in, using a spare relay I found in the glovebox of the Mazda.  When the fan was in the Mazda it was just wired in to the original thermostatic switch, but there isn't one of those on the Volvo so I've had to fit a switch under the dash.  It's all working now though, although I haven't yet had the chance to get the car hot enough to need the fan but I assume it'll be sufficient - if not there's room over the other side of the rad to fit a smaller second fan.

I've also got the headlights working more or less reliably after much fiddling with the wiring to the relay, and I've re-earthed the driver's side headlight - that was earthing through the voltage regulator and the connection wasn't great so the light was a bit dim.  I've also got the foglights working again - that turned out to just be blown bulbs, so a pair of shiny new H1s sorted that, although they took some fitting as they evidently hadn't been out in a very long time (certainly since before I owned the car).  So now that I can see where I'm going at night (even if the headlights play up again I can always use the fogs) and the fan doesn't sound like it's about to take off, the car's taken another step towards being fully usable again.

This afternoon I decided to put the Visa up on the ramps and drain out a bit of oil, as the level was over the max mark on the dipstick and as mentioned before it seemed to be chucking some out of the breather.  It's a good job I did - the oil that came out was about as viscous as mineral water.  I can only assume that while it was overfuelling, not all of the fuel was escaping through the hole in the inlet manifold - some of it was evidently getting into the cylinders and then down past the rings into the sump.  I've drained off about a litre and a half and topped it off with some nice gloopy 20W50 to try and restore some semblance of viscosity, but it's going to need a full oil change - I wasn't able to do that this weekend as my oil container is full, so a visit to the tip will be required before I can do anything (the Rover is due an oil and filter change as well).

I made a small amount of progress on the MG - I was able to get the brake disc off the nearside hub, and I've also managed to get the bottom ball joint to move - I've hammered it back into place for now so at least the car can be driven if need be, I'm going to have another go at removing it but I'd reached the limit of how much banging I was prepared to inflict on the neighbours on a Sunday afternoon.

I took the Rover 75 in to Norwich this evening and on the way back I took it for a quick blat down the bypass to check that unplugging the MAF sensor has sorted the lack of power at high revs.  I can confirm that it has - I put my toe down coming off the roundabout and it got from 30 to *ahem* mph in short order.  I was going to leave the MAF unplugged but I think I will fork out for a new one as there's a bit of diesel knock at certain engine speeds which wasn't there before.  I'm also going to whip the EGR valve off and give that a good clean - I popped the hose off for a look and it's a bit* manky in there...

[goosey]

Pulled up on the road to get into character outside a customer and noticed this might have to check it out when I’ve finished 

[Vince70]

4 hours ago, goosey said:

Pulled up on the road to get into character outside a customer and noticed this might have to check it out when I’ve finished 

I love a dig around old world war 2 structures,

When we were kids, we had a massive governmental H bomb shelter that gave us hours of fun exploring.

An old pillbox was dug out recently just up the road from me.

 

[barefoot]

I nipped up to check the fleet of mini-buses as I do every week & began with the Renault Master. I pulled the dip stick, gave it a quick wipe & stuck it back in. When I removed it to read the oil level the final inch, the bit I wanted to look at was missing. The fucker had snapped off & stopped in the engine. I waited until my boss turned up and he fired up the engine with a cheery, 'I'm sure it'll be all right'.  And all right it appears to be.

A new dip stick is on order, is the old one likely to cause any damage?

[EyesWeldedShut]

1 minute ago, barefoot said:

I nipped up to check the fleet of mini-buses as I do every week & began with the Renault Master. I pulled the dip stick, gave it a quick wipe & stuck it back in. When I removed it to read the oil level the final inch, the bit I wanted to look at was missing. The fucker had snapped off & stopped in the engine. I waited until my boss turned up and he fired up the engine with a cheery, 'I'm sure it'll be all right'.  And all right it appears to be.

A new dip stick is on order, is the old one likely to cause any damage?

Plastic or steel dipstick? (The Renault, not the Boss)

[EyesWeldedShut]

Just now, EyesWeldedShut said:

Plastic or steel dipstick? (The Renault, not the Boss)

and how long is it ? (the missing bit)

[barefoot]

Sorry, it's plastic &  about an inch long.

[wuvvum]

Renner of that age will probably be plastic (and fairly soft plastic at that) so unlikely to cause too much damage.

Edit: beaten to it...

[wheel nut]

My mother's Volvo C30 was needing a pair of new tyres.  I swapped the wheels between front and rear so that the new ones were fitted on the rear.  The ones that were on the rear are starting to crack so I expect they'll need replaced in a year or two. The more I work on this car the more I like it - it feels really well engineered. It's a pity that Volvo have stopped making sensibly sized cars, in recent years they seem to have got obsessed with overpriced bloated SUVs.

.

[dozeydustman]

Finally got the tyres for the C2. The spare was so perished it wouldn’t hold air so the worst of the three ‘Iris’ brand it was running on was dispatched as the new spare. Never heard of Iris tyres, to be fair they were coping quite well with the wet & greasy roads and my responsible* driving of a small gutless hatchback, but they are very noisy. Steering response is much improved with the Uniroyals - it feels a lot sharper.

If we have a dry day tomorrow or Wednesday I’ll have a more in depth look at the Kia’s steering leak. A tested used pump is about £40, and a tested second hand rack is about £80 - I’m just hoping it’s a weeping pipe though.

[Vince70]

I went into my local ESK today and on the shelf for the first time in ages,  I found their cheap knockoff waxoyl aerosols.

It’s only £2.50  a can and works a treat and it normally sells for around £6/7 online with other retailers.

So I bought all 8 cans that were available.

I wish it was there last week though, as it would of saved the driveway looking like an environmental disaster, as I used old engine oil lol.

[wesacosa]

One of the issues of too many cars is keeping up with MOT, for the m3 I decided to be proactive and get it done with a couple of weeks to spare. checked online and it due 30 March so I took it in today, left work early so i could make the 4pm slot. After ten minutes the MOT tester came in the office and asked why on earth I had brought it in today as it runs until 30 May.  what a bloody chump 🤦🏼

I thought it didn't seem a year ago since I last MOTd it

[Split_Pin]

A fellow Saabist came out to the house today and plugged the 93 into his Tech 2. The scanner is fooking massive, really old school 🤣

Identified it as the front left wheel sensor so no risk of parts darts on this one. I'll get a reasonable scanner later in the week too.

Cleared a whole load of other historic codes too. It also identified that the replacement alternator is missing a grounding wire, probably an additional thing that a Saab needs that the alternator doesnt have, but doesn't stop it from charging, which it continues to do so perfectly.

[320touring]

I turned 42 on Sunday.

As such, I have matured sufficiently to give up my "Boy Racer" ways.

 

I've traded this

 

For this

 

and driven it straight in here...

 

only for 4 nights though🤣

[wesacosa]

27 minutes ago, MrGTI6 said:

I did the opposite with my 306 when it got the 6-month COVID extension. 6 months came and went and I still had the old expiry date in my head! 

Unknowingly put a few thousand miles on it without an MOT!

yeah that's what I normally end up doing!

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Vince70 said:

I went into my local ESK today...

For those of you frantically searching for your local branch to do the same, there are only 2, both in East Sussex.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, wheel nut said:

My mother's Volvo C30 was needing a pair of new tyres.  I swapped the wheels between front and rear so that the new ones were fitted on the rear.  The ones that were on the rear are starting to crack so I expect they'll need replaced in a year or two. The more I work on this car the more I like it - it feels really well engineered. It's a pity that Volvo have stopped making sensibly sized cars, in recent years they seem to have got obsessed with overpriced bloated SUVs.

.

Fair play M9, but I don't like the thought of raising one jack while a car's up on another, whichever you did first.

[gm]

12 minutes ago, 320touring said:

I turned 42 on Sunday.

Happy Birthday ! 

[wheel nut]

29 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Fair play M9, but I don't like the thought of raising one jack while a car's up on another, whichever you did first.

I did the trolley jack at the front first as I thought it was reasonably stable. There’s no way I would do it on 2 jacks if the scissor jack had been first, however in hindsight it would still have been more sensible to slide an axle stand under the first end before tackling the other.

[RoverFolkUs]

So the "family bike" Xsara Picasso that's been laid up for a year has been squeezed in for a last minute cancellation MOT slot in the morning (there was a nice logistical plan in place, then they cancelled so I thought I'd bung the Picasso in instead to stop the chain of events collapsing 😄)

Despite its low mileage, that MOT dread has set in! Watch this space. Result should be in at the crack of dawn or just after tomorrow... 

[brownnova]

Awoke the MG from its winter slumber yesterday. A boost from the jump park saw it start easily.

Gave it a wash, and headed out for a quick blat round the lanes to check all is in order… 

Turns out it is, and all appears well… 

So now to get it advertised for sale again so I can put some money into the Nova project/probably buy something equally unsuitable. 

[High Jetter]

Roffle?

[RoverFolkUs]

Picasso is waiting at the test station.... 

[AnnoyingPentium]

4 minutes ago, RoverFolkUs said:

Picasso is waiting at the test station.... 

May the God of Picassos that is Ronnie Pickering be looking in your favour on this day.