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Andy's awful autos: PLAS!


Andyrew

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The inspection cover then, the block was given a quick clean to get as much grime off as possible. The oil filter was then removed. 

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The nuts were almost finger tight. The gasket was crusty and rock solid. Cover took some persuasion to pull off. 

Grim

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Grimmer 

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I'd previously picked up a Ajusa bottom end gasket set so a new gasket went on after a clean up. 

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Block and filter mounting face was cleaned , cover chucked back on then a new bosch oil filter went on. Strangely shorter than the mahle one id previously fitted but it's what bosch said was right on the system, This benefited me later on.

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With the cover now back in place, I lobbed the rad back in before I tripped over it.

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The previously expanded and very murky coolant tank was replaced with a new OEM one which came with a matching cap for A bargain £16 delivered. 

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The thermostat was replaced when the previous rad had been fitted, the original housings breakdown and the thermostat comes loose inside , back then i bought an upgraded one that has a big circlip. The supplier (that no longer exists) I bought it from years ago sent out a replacement after one went missing in the post. The missing one turned up some few days after the replacement and the supplier had dissapeared with aload of peoples money IIRC by that point , So I've had a spare kicking around since then, having been k sealed and being a pattern part thermostat I decided to chuck the new one in aswell. 

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This required the housing to the head side to be cleaned out of k seal aftermath. Urgh. Never again.

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A bit of brake cleaner on a rag later shifts it. I

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The O ring on the other side that bolts to the head was a bit tired so a splodge of sealant was used. I use this stuff as it's very good, its designed more for rocker covers and sumps but bonds very well on crappy surfaces.

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Stat bolted on,top hose cleaned out and fitted, expansion return feed pipe on and a  couple new jubilee clips, why the hell not eh?

Temp sender switch removed so I could order a new one through work at the same time as the tensioner and an aux belt.

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46 minutes ago, rainagain said:

Great thread, same question for me please.  

The stuff I'm currently using is espuma g202.  I was using autosmarts g101 before both very good products.

Most "All purpose cleaners" can be bought in 5ltrs and it dilutes down massively. Really weak mix  with water for interior fabrics, a bit stronger for the plastics and all the touched areas like steering wheel etc etc and strong for engine bays/wheel arches. I used it neat to flush the shite out of a clogged up heater matrix. 5 ltrs will last you forever.  I Had a bottle of g101 before and that was well over a year and id given a litre out of it to a mate! 

I wouldn't be to fussed on the brand, just see what's avalible with a known name and Google reviews on it. 

I'd like to try bilt hamber surfex hd as it's ment to be very good but it costs more that the g202 which I get through work.  Any motor factors that uses FPS as a supplier (mint green vans ) should be able to get it for you Or you can get it online. 

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With many gaskets being changed I opted to stuff a new rocker cover gasket in. there was a minor weep, the cover had a build up of shite inside it. The oil is very black. It was only changed about a year ago but it does about 3k a year and changes hadnt been regular early in its life so alot of sludge build up. Ive wiped out what i can and Will do some more regular changes like every 1k or something. See if it cleans up a bit. Dont really want to put a flush in it. 

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sumptuousness

Oil drained, time to get the sump off, with no gasket the sump pan is sealed on so a bit of a fight to get off. Happily most of the sealant had stuck to the pan which makes clean up loads easier. 

With the pan off then it wasn't looking too bad Up there.

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Next up was the crank pulley, thankfully it budged with some chrome socket abuse on the gun. 

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This exposed the failed seal and means the chain cover can come off.  I love the skoda badge on the cover a nice detail, When this engine was used in the skoda Rapid the logo would have been straight as the engine was clocked over a fair amount. 

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All of the cap head bolts undone the cover can come off. I left the pick up pipe on loosely so the oil pump gears stayed in place as one kept falling out and the other didnt really want to come out. With the cover Off the car and on the floor, its pretty grim in here aswell.  That bar in the middle is the oil pump drive, it picks up on a dummy distributor shaft that has the gear on it to take drive from the cam gear. Pump gear drive cleaned of built up shite and it slid straight out. 

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This is the dummy distributor drive. 

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With the sun slowly cooking my head I opted to do some cleaning up of the parts with a bucket, some thinners and an old cut down paint brush and an old t shirt Whilst sat in the shade. Cover received a new seal aswell.

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Pick up pipe cleaned up alright. There was some shit in the mesh, rubbery red crap. Think it was debris that had been cleaned off the block with the head gasket change many moons ago. 

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Removal

The retaining bolt on the camshaft is undone, the dizzy drive gear pulled off eventually after some careful levering, the sprockets and chain have to slide off together. I read up that these can put up a bit of a fight and whilst there was the need for some leverage they came of nicely. 

The new chain and sprockets combo has almost zero play in it, with the engine at TDC, and 12 links between the dots on the sprockets the keys lines up perfectly. It's snug to get on and required very light taps to each to kind of "walk" them on.

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Dizzy drive gear and retaining bolt back in and locking washer tapped over. The cover/oil pump assembly was put back on with a new gasket.  The oil pick up pipe was stuck back on aswell. 

Sump sludge scrapped out and cleaned Up with more thinners. Then a whip over with a wire brush on the drill to get the old sealant off then a final clean out .

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A cork gasket came in the kit, I decided to use this as I'd possibly like to take the sump off again at some point. So a light smear was applied between the pan and gasket to keep it in place and on it went.

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The dummy dizzy drive unit needs to go back in as it drives the oil pump, the gasket didn't survive the removal so a ryvita box came to the rescue with a light smear of sealant on either side. 

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New tensioner collected from work

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That was lobbed on, the shite bracket and power steering pump then went back on. No pics as it is a tedious thing to fit. 

With this all back in the lower metal coolant pipe was put back on, the previous oil leak from the crank seal would run down the metal pipe and cover the bottom rad hose, the oil unfortunately caused the end of the rubber hose to swell and go soft.  You can see in the pic below its a bit swollen on the slight bend at the bottom.

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It would probably be fine but I decided I would rather the bad bit was gone if it could so with a bit of rotation At the rad end and a bit of a trim we end up with this. 

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Flows nicely and clears the  new conveniently shorter oil filter 

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New aux belt on, another job that is more fiddly than it should be  

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Some 10w40 poured in , cooling system filled with just plain water for now incase any leaks appeared and i may shove a flush in to try and get a bit more k seal remains out. 

Cranked over with the coil pack unplugged at first to get some oil pumped about, the  coil pack was then connected and the car fired up sounding better than it has in a very long time. Tappets could probably do with a tweek but i don't have any feelers with me so that's for another day.

Ran the car for a while to get some air out and warmed up. The temp gauge has pretty much always sat at 70 or Lower when the cars blatantly hotter than that  and reads about 90 when it's actually bloody hot. I had initially ran the car with the old sender in so I could see the gauge difference with the new sender fitted.

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New sender in and reading correctly it seems. Test drive up the street and all seems well.  

Job jobbed. 

For now, there's alot of oil on the gearbox , that's for another time tho.

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2 hours ago, Dan302 said:

I wish I had your skills

Thankfully I tend to work on mechanically simple old shitters so the skills needed are fairly basic. 

Don't really enjoy doing timing related stuff. 

In fact I don't really like working on cars! simple old 4x4s are much nicer to work on mechanically I find as the engine is at the correct angle, in the middle facing forward.

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  • 1 month later...

Well, long time no update.  Progress has been made, the plan was that June would be spent only working on the dyane but whilst I was trying to have a cull in the workshop I started to fit parts to the lwb instead of moving them around like I have done for years so i decided to just spend 1 week smashing out the jobs I'd been procrastinating over.  I set deadline to each job and it had to be done in that time before heading home. "Good enough" was the aim

 Let's start from the LWB's interesting beginnings with me for a bit of backstory. Think Triggers broom.

The day I made it home too many years ago.

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In the pic above then. A lwb with few issues like a slightly pressurising coolant system but overall solid. A rare thing for the high ay the time price of 800 quid some 7 years ago now! only issue was, it was 250 miles away in Newcastle. 

It looks alright. Bought via a suzuki club the guy who owned it said it was the cleanest he had ever seen his pride and joy. 

Anyway, an early train was booked. Plan was, park daily sj at station local to work, collect lwb from Newcastle. Get home late then collect daily sj after work the following day after nabbing a lift with a work Mate. Wcpgw?

 The night before the daily sj ran out of electricity whilst driving down the a5 in the dark. Many hours and a recovery truck later, a few hours sleep and a lift in the morning to the station. Not the best start then. 

Slept on the train with only minor dribbling and 2 smacks of head onto the window. 

Arrive in Newcastle, meet the seller who was with the seller of the car he was buying. Hand cash straight to his seller, sign paperwork and off they fuck. 

My first real look at This vehicle. 

FUCK.

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The journey home.

After staring at the sorry heap in the car park and thinking that putting the cash straight down the bog would have been easier. 

I hopped in, the lwb had been used as a pick up with the hard top removed. So a rear bulkhead had been installed along with some xr3i front seats, I'd  been told the passengers one needed finishing? Not a problem, well that is if you are under 5ft 4 like the previous owner. That's comfort out the window then. 

I hit the road,  all 1/4 of mile of it before it became apparent that I had zero indicators. 

I pulled over bought fuses and and beat six shades of shit out the fuse box and success.

Back on the road! 

Time to get some speed on,  come to a round about, brake fairly firm and the passengers seat shoots forward and rotates round on the 1 single bolt that was holding it in and hits the dash and my arm. 

Now im at a busy roundabout wrestling with a seat that's blocking the gearstick I throw the chair back and slam it into gear and off we go. 

Time to hit a main road, we've got 270miles to go and So far it's taken an hour to do about 3.

Before hitting a big busy road I found a quiet one to have a quick brake check on. Firm braking it pulls to the left. Great. 

 

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Let the journey begin! 

Picking up some speed, noticed a slight noise in 3rd Maybe it's not fully in 2wd, give the lever a little shove and it jumps up! Turns out the rear transfer box mount was shear so you could lift the box up from the mount.  Okay, so its in 2wd. The mount will be fine. 

3rd- wurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

4th- WUUURRRRRRRRRRRRR

And into 5th . .

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCHHHHHHHH

And back into 4th. 

265 miles to go. 

 

 

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The seller had mentioned a bit of pressure build up in the coolant system.  His commute was about 50 mile and said it had been fine for that. So I figured a stop every 50 miles for me and the car, let the pressure out and continue. 

5th unbearably loud. Decent and safe speed in 4th limited and revving it's knackers off.

So thankful to make the first 50 miles , spine straightened out, coolant topped up, and ear plugs purchased. Time for 5th gear. 

Another 50 miles down and doing alright

Temp gauge? Wrong

Fuel gauge? Broken. 

Pulled off into a little town for the car to cool off , got speaking to a chap and he gave me a 5 ltr bottle filled up with some tap water to take on my journey just in case, top bloke. 

Thankful for the water,  I went to chuck it in the back, BANG. 

That would be the rear tailgate falling off and hitting the floor. 

Yep, the bolt on hinges had been welded to rusted rear quarter panel and clagged in filler. 

Bashed back on. Away we go. 

Surprisingly. Stopping each 50 mile apart from the last 100 as I just wanted to get home. 7 and a half hours later. It only bloody made it. 

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Over the next week or so the lwb was used to get to work and popping to the workshop for a few repairs. In that time I'd purchased a Samurai that had been in a field with no roof for years as a  gearbox and other bits donor and already had a spare "low miles" engine that would go in. 

Id planned to limp it around for another few weeks whilst I strip the spares car down and get it scrapped, i could then sort the drivetrain out. 

One night After a friend noticed the rear wheel was buckled I nipped to the workshop and swapped on a set of some spare wheels with good tyres. 

Left the workshop to head home, trundling along at 50 ish 

CLANG 

SCREEEEEECCHHHHH

I'm thrown forward as the rear wheels had completely locked up momentarily then a sound of large metallic things being crunched and knocking around. 

Peeling my tonsils off the windscreen i Limped it to a safe place I get out and Have a nosey. I have a good look around then notice a damp patch on the rear diff pan. I pull off a rather large patch of black silicone under the dirt on the diff pan/cover . With the oily silicone removed it seems the axle had gone porrus and been gooped up, this had failed  and leaked pretty much all the diff oil out over time. 

With the rear diff now in many peices,  I jammed it into 4wd high, and decided to carry on. The roads were fairly quiet, limped it another  few miles down the road bucking around like an angry donkey, Handily a mate lived on the route I was going.  I Swung by his , left it on his drive and we went to the pub.  

I'll summarise the next few years and attempts to get this back on the road. 

 

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I had two sj shells to go to the scrap yard at the workshop and a load of other scrap, I didn't want any money for the shells but asked the scrappy if I could load my lwb onto their truck to get it back to the workshop as my mates house was only a 1/4 of a mile from the scrap yard. 

Limped and loaded up, 20quid handed over. I was given a lovely centre console to sit on between the driver and the passenger. 

Unloaded and shells gone it was time to poke other suspect parts

Front wing repair patch, whilst it had a tack on it the price was actually glued in with brown window caulk.

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Welded and fillered, rotten hinges.

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Front end of the sill. To this day I've no idea what this was ment to be. 

Guy loved some silicone

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I

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Pretty shagged then, I swapped over parts from other breakers. Swapped the back axle, the gearbox and put in the low miles engine, the car had already had an engine change with the p.o. 

Engine no3 In, filled the coolant up, water starts pissing out the sump gasket. Pull the plug and water pours out, great. Out that comes and  in the bin that goes. 

In goes engine no4. 

After This, I fitted lifted suspension that was a bit long and caused the shackles to travel past comfort zone and lock up. It done this whilst I moved it round the yard and snagged one of the mud tyres.

I'd had enough at the Time, hot and bothered I got out, in anger i slammed the door. 

The window exploded.

Gave up, went home. 

 

 

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The following years it was left to one side and I pondered on what to do. I made a new rear floor , tucked sills,  bought mahoosive tyres for it. But everything always seemed to want a fight and with the complete underside of the car being smothered in underseal and old engine oil it was horrible to work on let alone weld. 

Then I purchased a bundle of parts in Wales from a club member. Rust free parts from a LHD Spanish car, upon collection, the body shell was hinted at being avalible,  hmmmm.  

A week or so later then, I booked a sprinter (id measure one to check a bodyshell would fit) with enterprise for 50 quid.  

Upon collection. I was 

Given a transit, and the price had almost doubled. 

Seeing I was now a bit pissed off the dude swapped with a rather pretty young lady ( clever tactic) to calm the situation. 

She came to inspect the van which was filthy. I didn't care but she asked if I'd mind waiting whilst it was washed so she could check for damage. 

She asks grunt to clean It, grunt then proceeds to attempt to put a 12ft hightop van into an 10ft wash bay smashing the tops of the rear doors in. 

Damage report binned, had half a tank and was told to bring it back with the fuel tank empty. 

One replacement body shell purchased 

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The replacement shell taking up space I removed the old shell chopped it up and decided to get the chassis stripped down blasted and painted. A local place had done one for me before for 150quid. 

Now I needed to get the chassis there, handily my employer at the time had just leased a Luton box van, when needed sometimes I'd be asked to go out on collection deliveries to get parts we needed for work sharpish.

Getting on well with one of the purchasers a woman with passion for offroading herself ,  Conveniently one day i was asked to go out and collect a part  that was needed from a supplier that just happened to be between my workshop and the blaster.   

When I dropped the chassis off id enquired about the paint, what options etc etc. You could have any colour you wanted about 150quid or it could be hot sprayed in a zinc type paint, but it's another 100 quid on top.

Just plain chassis black is fine, these things don't rust at all I said. 

One week later another part just happend to need collecting from that supplier, how convenient. 

I arrived at the blasters , 

"You got a bargain there Mate, I spent 2 days getting that rubberized coating stuff off etc etc etc.  We put alot of effort into that one for £150"

They did , I was speechless. 

because it was FECKING HOT ZINC SILVER!

In the van it went. 

 

Can you tell this car hates me?

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At the time I'd become the painter at my work, due to the piss poor organisation alot of parts were painted out of house by a friend who work all of the hours.  Some stuff happend and I happened to end up with some 2k direct to metal satin black paint and hardner. Which was nice. 

For simplicity at the time I used the painter (now mate) opposite the workshop. So another 150 quid later we have one very bloody protected chassis.  

Into a roller,  the new body went on, so I could address one slight issue. 

Turd Carlton photobomb aswell.

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You may notice behind the rear wheels the quarter panels a bit errmmm, short. 

Sadly between Spain and it's time in Wales the body was going to be used on a bobbed offroader and thus was missing about 10 inches. 

Time for some stretching

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Id chopped chunks out of the old shell in prep for this. This area was Ballsed on the old body so the front half of the rear quarters was used as panels and sections and switched over so the swage line ended neatly. 

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Welded in, but I couldnt work out how I wanted the bottom to be

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Leaving that bit I welded in some thick flat sheet into the boot floor and a bit of filler. I lost mojo for it again. The floor looked a bit shit. Functional but shit. This happens with me, if it doesn't come out as planned I loose motivation for it.  

After this I got stitched up whilst doing someone else's project for them for well over a year after I tried to do some thing nice for someone I thought could use some help for a month or so but ended up with me getting shafted, my other samurai was mildly vandalised, these keys lost and other parts damaged whilst it was parked in their "storage".

Few months later Suzuki Mojo creeping back I started work on this again, (see earlier in this thread) with the new £10 engine I chucked together. 

So where are we at now then? 

Hmmm

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The "just get stuff done" week

Driver side sill whilst rust free had been damaged at some point so opted to weld in new flat sheet.  Bit of warpage but not alot, Good enough.

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Drivers side rear quarter, all the old filler ground out, panel dollied a bit straighter, bottom section chopped off and a strip put in with a small return on  the bottom so it's a nice sort edge. Then filler re applied. 

This panel will never be perfect it's been cut and welded on far too much for flimsy suzuki metal.  Gud enuf m8.

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Drivers side took two days. Passenger side i wanted done in a day, didnt take many pics as i was being cooked in the sun and just wanted to smash it out.

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With the quarter finished it was about 6 o clock , the left side of me now rather roasted i cleared out all the junk in the back so i could address the boot floor the next day. I had planned to re do the floor. I don't like it. But then again, It's a bloody floor.  Its solid but dented, but its going to get battered anyway and have carpet over it. Sod it, anti rust primer, keyed up, degrease. Fuck a load of gravitex at it. 

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 NEXT!

 

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An Arse for every seat. 

I'd picked up these very tidy 90s ear swift gti seats years ago for 30 quid. They had been butchered into a rather lovely early and original mini and the guy had removed them quite rightly. 

Turns out I didn't save any seat runners. I had one set on a spare seat. So the passengers is solid mounted in a normal position.  This took 1 day per seat. Hurts the brain fitting these. 20200602_205541.thumb.jpg.e61939a77d365027c02e6e813b99daba.jpg

Sound deadner was removed for under the carpet. It had gone brittle in places and kept coming off easily. So it was removed. 

Door shuts given a quick slap of paint aswell

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Following day not much happened. I mostly watched paint dry and fitted the tailgate. 

The scummy white roof was keyed up, some large holes for the wanky lights the guy siliconed on were filled and the whole lot gravitexed. This may just turn grey in the sun over time. But that's another days problem. On it goes. 20200603_155312.thumb.jpg.a500b5157830856ffc4aecc4936cac7f.jpg

Crappy bumper beat into shape and corroless splashed on , number plate mount quickly made and comically crap Indian made rear lights chucked in

Tailgate and rear window wanged on and adjusted aswell. Jimny wheel cover found and flung on for size after a bit of trimming.  Think I like it. 

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Hip to be square

To get around the whole  "you can't sell it in Australia unless we have an equivalent to compete" thing suzukis where sold as holden drovers for a while down under. 

Often considered the most horrible front end. When I spotted one on an sj being broken on eBay I had to have it.  Of course the headlights being rectangular mount differently to normal, suzuki use spring loaded screws to retain the headlight with keyhole slots, push and twist to remove. 

Thinking ahead i had ordered Some set screws with nuts, lined up, holes drilled , nuts tacked on captive. Didn't have springs so used washer tubing. Seems to work. 

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Headlights were full of mud so they got washed out and the surrounds painted. Grille received a coat of black paint as well, front bumper was notched to clear the jimny steering box  and painted, nunber plate bolted on aswell. 

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And that was that. 

Onto the Dyane. 

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Ha ha, having only met you yesterday I then only found this thread this evening. Should have been paying more attention so I'm just dropping this in here so it appears in my Content I Posted In page so I don't lose it again. Shouldn't miss any Felicia action then but the other stuff is a good read too.

I'd love a workshop like yours but I also need to retire as I lack motivation when I get home from work. My garage is ten feet from the back door, so I can manage that after a bit of a nap but if I had to drive somewhere else I probably wouldn't bother. Just wish I had a bigger garage then. 

Anyway that was a good read, even if you told me most of it yesterday there's more detail here. 

Incidentally, my Felicia doesn't have a sump gasket either, just sealer but mine's the 1.6 VW lump, whereas the Favorit has a gasket. Seems like VW were imposing their shoddy practices on Skoda. Who says German quality is better?

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Yello?

With the dyane then we left off with me filling a knackered wing and a bit of grey primer slapped on, shoved back outside i Smoothed back the grey, filled a few shitty bits and it was time to bust out the rattle cans.  filler primer, flatted back the worst bits then basecoat and clear. 

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I ran a bit of wet and dry over to get a bit of shine in as it was rather flat but I didn't was to make it perfect as the whole fronts pretty rough. 

Front lobbed back together. The front has taken a bash at some point an lines up awfully. This is being addressed. 

A 10fter but Looking sharp

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Don't get excited, it's all coming off again.

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The dyane at some point had been mot style welded on the lower parts of the rear seat box and ends of the sill, more on the n.s. Another victim of SCHUTZ. 

I'd tried to repair the inner wings but the entire panel is rusted and welding it was a bastard. New inner wings became avalible so a pair was purchased.

I'd previously repaired the sill  but the floor pan still needed a section, the c post part of made I didn't like and the underside of the rear seat box was clagged in crap. 

Thankfully over the years the rear seat box is now made as a whole, floor pans being cheap I opted for one of them instead of repairing the old one and a new sill. 

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I splice the new sill into the front section of the old sill at the A post, the front of the dyane is almost perfect and I decided to leave it alone. So with staggered cuts and overlaps I joined the two. The replacement sill is narrower than the original which became a pain.  

 

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