Andy's awful autos: Vanden-blah

[Andyrew]

Grime and oil removed from frame tonight. 

Strong mix of g101, and agitated with a detail brush. Will splosh a bit of vactan on and give it a blow over with some stone chip. 

[egg]

Looks a good replacement. I guess this is a good time to raid the scrappy for these, there must be loads of them meeting their maker.

[Andyrew]

Silly bollocks here  asked a mate if he fancied giving me a quick hand swapping the subframe over tonight.  I naively figured it would come apart just dandy like the one in the scrap yard. Did it bollocks. Started about 7, finished at about half past midnight. 

What a awkward ass job, laying on your back doesn't help when doing these jobs, also having a workshop with concrete floor but full of tat so doing it in the dusty gravel yard adds to the shiteness .

I'd have liked  to take more pictures but that didn't happen after the soul destroying  moment happened. A captive nut started spinning inside the floor pan .  Bugger,  Mr angry came out and chopped the bolt, I then hand to grind it as flat as possibly to allow the the insert to be fished out of a little slot in  the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andyrew]

The old frame was alot worse once removed

[Andyrew]

Now with solid subframe a Happy Astra jumps for joy at pile of new parts. 

[Andyrew]

Subframe in and fitted along with new lower arms , better bolts and brackets from the scrap car. 

[Andyrew]

New anti roll bar bushes fitted whilst the frame was out. 

[Andyrew]

Drop links had a bit of play and a split boot so a new pair of links have been fitted. 

When fitting the subframe The lower arms had been done up with the arms in roughly the right place so today with the wheels off I loosened the bolts and lowered the car onto my handy chunk on wood so the arm was in the normal ride height position and nipped them back up. 

All subframe mount bolts check and torqued up.  Then a little spritz of wax oil was sprayed into some cavitys and a light coating of the suspension components.

Crusty track rods and ends next.

[Matty]

Hi long time lurker first time poster (on this thread). First class effort on a unloved old car, best thread on here. Keep it up!!

[Dan302]

I'm glad this Astra is getting such love. I really like them.

[Andyrew]

200 mile trip out today to check out some art?/sculptures and a wander round bourton on the water, then home. Ecto4 seems to have got about 60mpg on this run.  I think A wheel bearing may be on the way out either that or its the tyre on the rear so I'll have a check next time the rear wheels are off. 

 

 

[twosmoke300]

You are a parts guy aren’t you ?

whenever I order Astra drop links I’m asked if they are plastic or steel and I see you have replaced one with the other . What’s the score there then ? 

Nice fuel economy . I’ve recently got a 1.7 Astra h and whilst dull it’s doing over 60mpg puttering round cornwall . Vauxhall’s have always been economical in my books but I’m dead chuffed with it 

[Andyrew]

23 hours ago, Dan302 said:

I'm glad this Astra is getting such love. I really like them.

I think if a non shitter had of bought this the subframe would have been its nail in the coffin come MOT time.  Although With the undertray fitted the corrosion was hidden so it's probably been like that for years. 

It's fantastic at being "a car" ,  The digestive biscuit of cars, plain and simple, 

 

[Lacquer Peel]

This is a great thread, I love the work you're putting into a fairly dull but worthy car.
What engine is in this? Common rail?

[Andyrew]

4 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

You are a parts guy aren’t you ?

whenever I order Astra drop links I’m asked if they are plastic or steel and I see you have replaced one with the other . What’s the score there then ? 

Guilty.

On the Astra h and vectra c aswell possibly , I think there's a choice of metal with a bend in the middle  to clear something or plastic, it's pretty much always the plastic one and the metal one is something to do with a special suspension set up that was very rarely used. 

I went with metal replacements as they was cheaper at about £5 each and I like the fact they are metal so can be easily recycled when they wear out in about 3 weeks time. 

[Andyrew]

29 minutes ago, Lacquer Peel said:

This is a great thread, I love the work you're putting into a fairly dull but worthy car.
What engine is in this? Common rail?

An isuzu/opel turbo powerhouse of 75hp. Its the 1.7dti, Y17DT, direct injection.

I'm sure it first came about in the later mk3 Astras, used in the mk4 astra and it was then modified to common rail and became the CDTI in the last of the mk4s and first of the mk5?

It's known for being a reliable engine and whilst the power is far from brutal it pulls well and gets a shift on no problem. 

[Dan302]

57 minutes ago, Andyrew said:

An isuzu/opel turbo powerhouse of 75hp. Its the 1.7dti, Y17DT, direct injection.

I'm sure it first came about in the later mk3 Astras, used in the mk4 astra and it was then modified to common rail and became the CDTI in the last of the mk4s and first of the mk5?

It's known for being a reliable engine and whilst the power is far from brutal it pulls well and gets a shift on no problem. 

I had the non intercooled 64bhp version in a Corsa C, the oil cooler let go and I never did manage to clear all the oil out of the coolant, never seemed to bother it, tough as old boots.

[paulplom]

A mate has an x reg one of these in light metallic green. He's had it since almost new and it has about 40k on it. He does 200-300 miles a year in it and it always costs him about £500ish come mot time. He just paid £400 for a head gasket and timing belt etc. It really is a run down wreck with wing mirrors screwed with self tappers etc. He never uses it and walks everywhere in case someone pinches his parking spot. I'll get some photos of it.

[Andyrew]

8 hours ago, Dan302 said:

I had the non intercooled 64bhp version in a Corsa C, the oil cooler let go and I never did manage to clear all the oil out of the coolant, never seemed to bother it, tough as old boots.

The first mk4 I drove was a ratty 1.7dti W reg van that we purchased at work.  That had the oil cooler problem aswell also the turbo was either on or off and boosted with a jolt. 170k on the clock, 50 shades of red, completely Rotten wheel arch. But it drove spot on. 

 Loved it, nearly bought it. Instead offered it to my friend who is a serial Vauxhall botherer who had always had an eye on it when he saw it,  he bought it. 

[Andyrew]

Quick astra fondle tonight. 

With the ecto4 quickly approaching 148k I decided to have a noisey at and change of the gearbox oil. On the Astra there's a little sump plate is removed to drain the old oil. 

Best way to do this is probably to remove all the bolts and put two back in , this would stop the pan pinging off super fast showering you and the floor and everything else in gearbox oil with only about 500ml actually going in the drain pain.  Maybe next time I'll put the bolts back in. 

So the oil looked pretty good to be fair. Possible  it's been changed at some point. The sump gasket was a GM part and the bolts didn't show any signs of having been removed before tho. 

Diff planet gears do show signs of some pretty deep wear but with no nasty noises to be heard and with no plans to do any one wheel peels anytime soon I'm sure it's got plenty of life left in it

Sump pan was cleaned as was all the bolts, the gasket was deemed good enough to go again so the pan went back on with a blob of loctite on the threads and all torqued up to what seemed about right.  

Some fresh oil was poured in through the reverse switch hole as it was more accessible than the filler plug. 

[Andyrew]

So, my disco. 

This lovely big dollop has been a great car and it's pro's always outweigh the cons. But with the Astra being so cheap to run in using the disco less and less and mentioned selling the old girl. A mate mentioned this to another friend and he was uber keen. Provided I can sort any welding out before it goes to its new home.

"Sure thing, it's only a little bit in the boot floor I can see and both rear door arches".

Obviously my ability to always underestimate land rover rot is still strong. 

 

 

 

[Andyrew]

Better bust out the grindser and some vactan as I have a load of it. 

This is the first bit of welding I've done on this car, in the past someone has committed and done a metric shit ton of not perfect but cut out and patched in welding repairs. With this in mind I wasn't going for a repair that was unnoticeable.  Just one that is good and strong and should last a while.

Ideally a new boot floor and associated bits would be best but the cars not perfect there's some life left in the floor. 

 

[Andyrew]

Seat belt mount, had a small bit of corrosion breaking through from between the belt mount plate and the wheel arch tub. 

 

[sutty2006]

Ahh typical disco 1. Rot between the number plates. 

[twosmoke300]

It’s funny cos it’s true 

[Andyrew]

Aye they sure do.

My other disco. Had 8 months MOT aswell. 

 

 

[Skut]

Did Landrover just not paint them. That looks like it's spent time in the Marianas trench. 

[Andyrew]

So the sale fell through on the disco, so as it's sticking around for another year i should really address the oil leak that's recently developed ( about 18months ago)

This thing loves to leak oil like most discos. But it's difficult to see where is coming from. When I put a new cam belt on I made the mistake of fitting a britpart seal. I feel this is the culprit as I'm certain  the oil comes out the wading hole. But it's could be coming from further up. 

I decided to isolate the crank seal as a test. 

With the wading plug being 1/4 bsp I decided to Wang an air line fitting in and run a pipe from there into a container. So a rummage round the work shop and shazam!

Morning fresh

 

 

[Andyrew]

Today two more uniroyals dded to the car, replacing the good but fooking old tyres on the rear. Wheels cleaned up and treated to some vactan and a splash of Matt black. 

Thanks to my friend John and his tat filled workshop and yard. 

 

[Dan302]

Is it weird that this Astra is probably my favourite car on autoshite?