Andy's awful autos: Trailers and tribulations

[Andyrew]

(No pics update)

Forrester fun

A few weeks back a good friends scooby went in for a timing belt change at subaru. A short while after they rang with concerns and did she want to proceed with the belt. 

The exhaust was shagged (known) but a caliper was binding, eml light on , and rotted out lower arm.  Quote of parts plus repairs came in around 5k plus. Mot was due in a few weeks. 

Deflated and unsure what to do she told me about it and i asked her to leave the car with me while she borrowed a car. 

Taken to the workshop, stuck brakes was just wedged pads from build up behind the shims, eml light was a pesky emmisions thing that will return but light out for the test. Exhaust was removed and many manny tweaks welds later was sorted. A new lower arm was ordered from ebay. 

As a surprise I nipped the car round to my MOT guy and a clean passed sees one very deserving lady happy. 

Much work van tinkering had occured, services and parking sensors, MOT repairs. 3 more to do this week!

Tyres on peugeot partner and new rear brakes after a burst wheel cyclinder. What an absolute ball ache to bleed they are! 

Have a v70 volvo with a shitty heater  blower to investigate tonight for a friend. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andyrew]

Time out

Seems its that time again, the ever dependable Astra has been the tool to get me away and feel a bit happier in life. Oil quickly checked and thats it, out to wales for a couple of nights, a bittersweet trip but lets keep it to shite cars. 

Driving home i was lucky enough for it to snow while i was away. As a lover of the cold, its Just perfection.

 

[Andyrew]

All about the timing

With a few days empty, now seemed a good time to button up the patchy punto.

Last thing on the list was a timing belt and water pump. I Had a kit in stock at the workshop for the panda and figured id lob this on. Computer at work suggests correct for cars engine number. . .  wrong. This should have a wider belt according to the catalogue but has an earlier narrow belt.  The aux belt and old timing belt have lacia logos on them so are original. While it was stripped down i couldnt find anything timing mark wise. Nothing seemed to match mine on google. 

Figured id just paint some marks and do it that way when i got a kit. Speaking with a customer at work , he strongly advised using the locking kit and lent me his for a day.  Life happened and the day i planned to do it went south, i gave the tool back and decided i just buy my own at 14 quid and can use it on the panda too.  Went to buy it and it was out of stock! All the others on ebay were china only that i could find. 

With lack of staff at work i worked extra days and time to dick around with the punto became a low priority so i left it for some time untill the other day when the locking kit came back in stock and i hit the buy now. 

Remove this

Looks about due!

 

[Wibble]

5 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

All about the timing

With a few days empty, now seemed a good time to button up the patchy punto.

Last thing on the list was a timing belt and water pump. I Had a kit in stock at the workshop for the panda and figured id lob this on. Computer at work suggests correct for cars engine number. . .  wrong. This should have a wider belt according to the catalogue but has an earlier narrow belt.  The aux belt and old timing belt have lacia logos on them so are original. While it was stripped down i couldnt find anything timing mark wise. Nothing seemed to match mine on google. 

Figured id just paint some marks and do it that way when i got a kit. Speaking with a customer at work , he strongly advised using the locking kit and lent me his for a day.  Life happened and the day i planned to do it went south, i gave the tool back and decided i just buy my own at 14 quid and can use it on the panda too.  Went to buy it and it was out of stock! All the others on ebay were china only that i could find. 

With lack of staff at work i worked extra days and time to dick around with the punto became a low priority so i left it for some time untill the other day when the locking kit came back in stock and i hit the buy now. 

Remove this

Looks about due!

 

Looks like that was on borrowed time, good save!

[Andyrew]

With access gained, i get the locking tools out and unless im being thick, dont suit this engine. So sod it, i just marked it up. I used the locking part for the crank so that couldnt move. And upto i scribed a mark ln the top pulley. I painted a mark on both pulleys and the belt. Belt off

New tensioner bearing

Waterpump fitted and belt tensioned up to what felt right.  Couple of rotations all seems well (its non interferance anyway).

Left for the night while the sealant on the pump dries. 

 

[artdjones]

3 hours ago, Andyrew said:

With access gained, i get the locking tools out and unless im being thick, dont suit this engine. So sod it, i just marked it up. I used the locking part for the crank so that couldnt move. And upto i scribed a mark ln the top pulley. I painted a mark on both pulleys and the belt. Belt off

New tensioner bearing

Waterpump fitted and belt tensioned up to what felt right.  Couple of rotations all seems well (its non interferance anyway).

Left for the night while the sealant on the pump dries. 

 

I think the narrow belted engine has the flexible square oil filler cap, the other has a circular cap.

[Andyrew]

1 hour ago, artdjones said:

I think the narrow belted engine has the flexible square oil filler cap, the other has a circular cap.

Sounds right, this does have the square rubber bung style cap.

[Andyrew]

Annnnd it runs like shit. Sounds like a saturday problem to me. 

 

 

[Andyrew]

Triple checked. 

The little fiat was stripped down. I re checked everthing all looking good. Put it all back together and upon fitting the pipe between the airbox and rocker cover i noted a split on the pipe that spurs off to the inlet, so a vac leak on the inlet. Repaired the pipe, battery back on and it fired up and ran okay. So guess that was it. Coolant topped up, pipes squeeze. Found a bleed screw at the back on the heater core hoses but someones glued in a bolt so im not touching that! 

Parked it on the steepest incline in the yard so the rad car was the highest point (a real handbrake to the max kinda incline) and topped it up each time it burped anything out. 

So all sorted and ready for an MOT really, not happening anytime soon tho. 

 

[Andyrew]

Crusty ring

This week the SLK that belongs to a mates partner came over for me to have a look at the rear ABS rings. A few weeks back it kept throwing a hissy fit, kicking into limp mode and the gearbox going into a bad mood. 

Plugged a reader in and it flagged the EML as a wheel speed fault. 

Up on the lift i suggested we check the rings having had faults like this on the freeland and combo previously on this thread. 

Sure enough the rings had expanded and caught the housing and making the air gap too small im assuming. 

Hmmmmm mercedes crust. 

Unbolted from the diff and the crown nut being ugga dugga like an absolute bastrd. The shafts came out

And back in. 

The n.s required the exhuast to be lowered down and the randome brace to be unbolt one end too. 

50 ish mile test drive and all is well. 

 

 

[Andyrew]

Loose rear end

The shonky VP has had a bounce/clonk at the rear since i got it, smooth roads its okay but bumpy lanes its very loud sometimes. Id guessed rear subframe mount and this week has been the week to tackle it.

With the car on the lift i could see this has been an issue for a while. Thats a small cut of spongey floor tile. 

 

 

[Andyrew]

Remove all of this, to make it as light as possible and chuck bits in the boot to add some weight back in as the cars on the lift. 

[Andyrew]

Trusty black n decker to the rescue. Lowered car down onto it and lifted up once the attached 3 mounts were undone. 

Yeah thats shagged

Im going to ignore the very crude MOT style welding repairs. 

[SiC]

What you are looking at in that last picture is the very reason so many ADO16 were scrapped. Rot trap that was both awkward to fix for an MOT (back in the day pre-MIG) and caused the back end to crab/fall off. 

[Andyrew]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

What you are looking at in that last picture is the very reason so many ADO16 were scrapped. Rot trap that was both awkward to fix for an MOT (back in the day pre-MIG) and caused the back end to crab/fall off. 

Indeed, 

This thing has had alot of welding, and the front end panels have so many patches and filler its funny.  The subframe mounts have all been welded to a very crude standard but im not concerned about opening the can of worms that is making it nice.  

Im going to give the rear subframe/suspension and tank a bit of a quick/cheap refresh then if it i (or someone else probably) did decide to redo the welding it could be dropped out as a whole. 

[SiC]

28 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

Indeed, 

This thing has had alot of welding, and the front end panels have so many patches and filler its funny.  The subframe mounts have all been welded to a very crude standard but im not concerned about opening the can of worms that is making it nice.  

Im going to give the rear subframe/suspension and tank a bit of a quick/cheap refresh then if it i (or someone else probably) did decide to redo the welding it could be dropped out as a whole. 

I think I've said before but it was last jobs I did on my purple 1100 before throwing in the towel (for various reasons) and selling it to sharley on here! Definitely not a job I'd want to do again. Admittedly a lift like yours would make it much nicer than being under here.

(Man I miss not owning an 1100. I definitely need to get another soon.)

[Andyrew]

I was was happy to let the scabby shell of this thing slide as the subframes look decent . . . .

Theres more but i didnt get pics as i was outside making the most of the sun. Major surgery required on this. Tits. 

This explains the helper spring hights being adjusted differently to each other

 

[Andyrew]

All brutal tools to the workmate please.

 

[Andyrew]

Having to fight with the old part gave a questionable template. Will carboard template the next part. 

Good enough

Snapped bolts to remove, and chunk of this area had rotted so a slither was welded in after and the two bolts had the washer/nut combo welded to the and with some heat came out nicely.

After maybe 40 odd plug weld holes drilled and a little tweaking later i zapped it on. 

Good enough for me. That was the easy part! Downhill from here.

[Andyrew]

Next up is this panel. By far the worst and getting the very thick underseal off showed previous repairs hidden from the MOT man. 

[Andyrew]

Tackled a smaller bit 

I cut away to gain access then made a new piece for the side structure and base plate. I have another two smaller repairs like this but will approach them differently.

While i had the welder out i zapped a little section in where there was a rusted crack..

[Andyrew]

The flip side of the repair above was done today.

While tidying the workshop i found some belts for the finger sander which made dressing it back easier. 

And that completes the easy side. 

Time to get a bit serious

[Andyrew]

Finally we address the worst area. With the previously patched up panel removed the grot is pretty substantial. 

All the corrosion problems on this frame have been from moisture in between the layers. Near the axle mount all three parts come together and have swollen between spotwelds. The First small outter skin layer was removed. Then the larger section below it could be chopped out. 

 

Tomorrow ill will make the outter skin and the little part and zap that in. its a case of repeating with the other skin seen in this pic, The sides of the centre section the join to also need repair , Then produce a new out panel to cap the lot off. 

 

[2flags]

That is certainly a lot of work! When these rot, they don't do it by half do they? Good on you for persevering with it. At least now, once it's done you can smother it in underseal and stop it from rusting quite so quickly again.

[Andyrew]

Today i made two new parts and zapped them in. Folding the return for the displacer area took some time but came out okay in the end

[Andyrew]

Procrastination painting

With the subframe now at the point of doing the largest repair, i was feeling a bit stumped as to how i want to approach it, with a couple of days away in wales camping in all of the wind.  I decided id tackle the smaller jobs that need doing regardless while i ponder how to cut into the subframe. 

Everything associated with the rear assembly has been cleaned up and given a quick no expense spruce with whatever is in the workshop.  

First up, the hand brake pivot on one arm was flopping all over the shop. Turns out theres a small sleeve missing. An old 1/4 drive 7mm socket was drilled out, then filed in a drill then finally chopped down. Good enough. 

When stripping down the helper spring on the offside was found to be snapped. The snap didnt have much corrosion to it so id guess it snapped when the car popped a line and dropped on its arse? It snaps within the sleeve oddly. 

Seems this is common, after missing out on a cheap one on ebay and the going rate being 100 quid a pair i just welded the bugger back together. Will it break again? Probably. Was it already broken? yeah. File it under meh. 

 

[Andyrew]

Everything was given a severe degrease and quick wire brushing , a splash of rust coverter or zinc primer. Then sprayed with whatever dregs i had around. 

Bearings cleaned out and repacked with marine grease. Theres ment to be some additional rubber or possibly felt seals behind them i think but the ones on here just fell to bits. The main seals are built into the back of the bearings so im sure it will be fine packed with water proof grease. The bearings are pretty worn but again im not spending out on new old stock rear arm kits at 100 plus quid. This car just isnt worth the expense and it drove okay enough before. 

There is a seal or bush between the casting and the large washer at the end of the displacer rods. Mine looks like this. Given the wash is wafer thin id say its to be more of an additional seal to prevent water getting to the ball join in the casting which is already behind rubber. Ill see if i can make something out of any junk in the workshop. I was thinking of putting a balljoint boot in its place

Anyways, all back together and put to one side while the subframe is finished.

The fuel tank and both displacers were given the same treatment. 

[Andyrew]

Flip side. 

A late start on this today but tackled the panel that will be the last piece of the puzzle as that felt like something that could be done within the time allowed. 

Basically a reversed copy of this. 

Not as simple as it looks, the return on the radius is easy but with a fold merging into it a little heat and some shrinking/stretching got us there in the end.

The swaged hole was drilled with a large hole cutter then put in the press using an old timing belt pulley as the female side.  Slight fold added along the base and a 90° return for the joint at the end of the panel.  All thats left if plug weld holes and holes for the bolts. 

[SiC]

Looking good! Being the type of person I am, I think I would have chosen violence and bashed it to be roughly the right shape. Your work is far nearer.

[Andyrew]

Just now, SiC said:

Looking good! Being the type of person I am, I think I would have chosen violence and bashed it to be roughly the right shape. 

Thanks!

Im lucky to have been able to rescue  two monster size fly press from being skipped. And since having found the break and v block for it in all the stuff that came with it its been very handy. Even if it and its table does weigh in at a  possible half ton!  I May sell my garbo sheet folder sometime if i dont use it.

The other press went to a friend whos hopefully made some cool stuff with it. 

Thinner sheet i use the slotted bolt technique to fold a return on a radius. This is fairly thick and requires the use of a long handle adjustable spanner.