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Blackboilersuits Bodging Blog


blackboilersuit

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51 minutes ago, Tickman said:

It was a pleasure and if he gets half of the attention that the Astra gets then it is certainly in safe hands.

Now to not spend the money on another car ;)

 

Want a nice Jag? there's probably still some of it on your workshop floor, the rest could join it...

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56 minutes ago, blackboilersuit said:

Ta Dah.............

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Massive thanks to @Tickman for such a great car and all his help and patience during the sale. The gravitational pull generated by @captain_70s is pulling another triumph from the NE down towards (just outside) Glasgow.

 

Sweet. You've got a good one there :) Look forward to updates and seeing this at Scotoshite. 

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Customery pez station shot, although it had tons left in it and plenty enough to get me home. Taking the scenic route home Perth-Crieff-Dunblane to avoid the dreary A9 and it's ANPR cameras just in case the computers weren't up to speed with the keeper/tax changes done only moments earlier. This really is an awesome little car that actually feels more modern than it's 48 years.

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They are lovely cars to drive considering they're mid 1960s tech. Countered by the monocoque being one huge rust trap and the drivetrain being subpar in terms of longevity.

Hopefully we can get this and the Doloshite together at some point and compare the Tolly to its nearly identical successor... 

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46 minutes ago, blackboilersuit said:

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Customery pez station shot, although it had tons left in it and plenty enough to get me home. Taking the scenic route home Perth-Crieff-Dunblane to avoid the dreary A9 and it's ANPR cameras just in case the computers weren't up to speed with the keeper/tax changes done only moments earlier. This really is an awesome little car that actually feels more modern than it's 48 years.

My favourite enroute-to- Scotoshite pez station stop. Glad you are enjoying it!

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1 hour ago, captain_70s said:

They are lovely cars to drive considering they're mid 1960s tech. Countered by the monocoque being one huge rust trap and the drivetrain being subpar in terms of longevity.

Hopefully we can get this and the Doloshite together at some point and compare the Tolly to its nearly identical successor... 

Absolutely to every point. You're more than welcome to borrow Sonic any time if you wants to make a road test video for that there youtubes channel before the doloshite needs re-christened after it's restoration. 

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4 hours ago, blackboilersuit said:

Now back home and seeking nomination for neighbour of the year! 

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Only temporary, sonic will be moved to the lockup later this evening before I get accused of dragging the neighbourhood too upmarket ???

The Fast, the Cool and The Astra!

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's been a busy few days at boilersuit towers automotive wise. Started on Saturday evening when a trip out in the Saab to fetch chips for tea and give it a run to charge the battery nearly resulted in disaster. About a mile from home there was an odd sound from the engine bay accompanied by the smell of burning rubber. 200 yards from home there was a battery light and a loss of power steering. Worry not though we made it back sans steering assist, parked up and I was back indoors while the chips were still piping hot! 

Investigations on Sunday revealed a rather mis-shapen aux belt not where it should have been and a completely siezed water pump. Thankfully though there was no rise in coolant temp the previous evening.

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Sunday afternoon was dry so two and a bit hours later the engine bay was stripped down to look like this

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Engine mount, turbo pipework and power steering pump are all in the way but eventually the pump was out and stripped on the bench. 

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Other than the tool carnage you'll notice the impeller did take a bite out the housing. This was deemed fit for re-use mainly because there were none on e-bay and I couldn't face the thought of spending 2 hours stripping one in a scrappy to possibly find out it's in no better condition!

Parts were ordered from ECP for collection the following day. A circoli pump and gates belt. Sure circoli pumps are shite but it was cheap and available. With the car approaching 200k and it being aux belt driven I figured it wasn't really a massive gamble to take.

Monday started not with a trip to ECP but a trip to take the trusty old Astra for it's MOT. It very, very nearly got it's first clean sheet in a long time but shat the nest when a brake flexi burst when the car was on the brake rollers. Nothing for it but to let the garage replace it as I didn't fancy driving home with just a handbrake to fix it in the pissing rain.

Taxi home and spent the afternoon cleaning up Saab parts in tbe garage and taking care of other minor repairs like helicoiling a burst thread in the turbo inlet pipe.

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Tuesday arrived and the astra was finally fixed by lunchtime (garage mega busy dealing with everyone wanting their car fixed now they're going back to work and the Boris MOT is running out). With the Astra now boasting nearly 13months MOT the ECP run was made. Bolted the pump back together just to make sure it was the right one but nothing else as thre was a monsoon going on in the street.

Today I rolled up the sleeves again and just put up with the constant cycle of rain/drizzle/sunshine and got the old bus back together. A brief test drive to burp the system didn't reveal any major issues so once cool it was topped up and a proper 45 mile test run undertaken. That showed the temp gauge is remaining rock solid under full and sustained boost conditions! 

More tinkering will take place in the morning starting with checking all fluids when everything is cold again.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Time for some Saab updates....

MOT was looming(ish) and I didn't feel able to send grandma out for a last walk in the snow just yet so I thought I'd best do some prep and finish checking out last years advisories and any known issues then at least attempt to get an MOT.

Rear tyres were an advisory but 2000 miles on they're still legal so can remain for now. 

Bottom of rear arches were crispy and just starting to rust through. A bit of prodding revealed nothing worse than two small holes so filler was applied then brush on zinc primer and a touch up brush was used for top coat. Big scab from previous repair to tailgate also recieved the same treatment.

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Corrosion to rear of inner sills was certainly still there and after being prodded and scraped one side needed a small plate. Post welding both inner sills got a coat of stonechip to slow down the rust.

While lying on my side welding the inner sill with f**k all space to move under the car an errant cinder from the welding landed right inside my left ear. There's nothing like listening to your own earwax sizzling to make you question your life choices! Wear earplugs when welding under old cars folks....I should know better!

Following that I had a week off old cars and had a right old sulk about working on festy old shite! During that time I also refurb'd my old Clarke welder with a euro torch conversion. I'd still like to do a couple more upgrades but the new torch has made a night and day improvement on the way it welds. It's 15+ years old and has had a hard paper round though so was long overdue some Tlc.

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 Sulking and welding repairs over with it was time to crawl back under the car and address a blowing exhaust. Thankfully just a rotted out mild steel joiner. So £20 at ECP for joiner and gun gum turned this

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Into this

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Prep completed and it was thrown into my local budget MOT emporium for £25 worth of ministry approved testing which naturally it failed!

Play in bottom ball joint and a new one to me, headlamp pattern no good which was caused by the mega cloudy plastic headlights. Quote for repairs was £90+vat for balljoint and £20+vat each to polish the headlights. I politely declined the offer and brought the car home. £11.04 at ECP bought a quality* moog ball joint and 90mins of swearing had it fitted. I then sanded and polished both headlights. I sanded at 400, 800 and 1200 grit wet with some soap in the water. Then I broke out a polishing mop on the drill.

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I use the mop wet and polish with solvol autosol metal polish and then repeat with t-cut. Once complete I finished up with some MER polish by hand.

This shows the considerable difference before and after.

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All in it took just over an hour to do both lamps.

Trotted back down first thing this morning with my very best "please fit me in" face on. A couple of hours and a £10 re-test fee later and we were rewarded with

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It's still a festy old heap with a massive fault list but at least now it has almost 13 months ticket on it. I can haz happy ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Bit of a change to tinkering at boilersuit towers this weekend. After work on Friday I dropped in to see @captain_70s and picked up his awesome new* 740 to whisk it away for some much needed brake work. He'd already bought the front caliper repair kits so we were already halfway done.

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31 year old car that lived by the seaside and hadn't been used much in the last few years. You can imagine the carnage.

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One side popped its pistons out ok but the other was stuck solid so the seals had to be burned out with fire.

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This revealed perfect unblemished bores. The majority of the problems coming from lack of use. After LOTS of cleaning and a rebuild kit the calipers looked like this.

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This shows one of the fun* things about working on old Volvo brakes. Each piston has it's own flexi and these screw in instead of using a banjo so you need to take the flexis off the car to get the caliper off. I was extremely grateful to find the hard lines were already Kunifer replacements.

Anyway once assembled back on the car after cleaning up the hub/disc/caliper mount it all looked as good as new.

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Everything bled up as it should and after a bit of a test drive to bed everything back in the car was pulling up in a straight line again.

Rear brakes were given a once over to assess their needs. Discs and pads look to have been new for the last MOT but the poor calipers have had a hard paper round. They got a good descaling and general clean up but will be revisited at a later date once some more parts are ordered. 

This is a really great car that just needs a little love to bring it back to it's prime. Swedish estates FTW!

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  • 2 months later...

Had time for a wee bit of Triumph tinkering today. Pulled the rad from the Toledo and whisked it off to the rad shop for a re-core. It wasn't leaking but the fins were falling off and it was as bald as the back of my head in places. Quite reassuring that the guy I handed it to immediately recognised it as a Triumph rad. Got to wait until they've checked it to see what it needs before I get a price and timescale but that's not a problem as the car is now hiding from the salt for the next few months.DSC_9781.thumb.JPG.41850ec46b889a7f99ec2152c5f8e276.JPG

What a joy to work on. Enough ground clearance to slide a bucket underneath and 5 mins with one spanner and a screwdriver had the rad out.

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