project Blackboilersuits Bodging Blog - Morris Masochism

[2flags]

That is the joy of working on older cars, at least you can get to things. I lift the bonnet up on moderns, take one look and say "Yes that's going down the garage." With the Landrover I can see what I need to get to and actually work on it. 

[Flat4]

2 hours ago, blackboilersuit said:

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.

Who are you using for the re-core? Have you used them before? I may need to get the rad on the Granvia re-cored as it's had a stone through it and currently held together with Rad Weld, or whatever similar stuff the AA threw in it to get me home. A new one is £175 so thinking a re-core might be cheaper and last just as long, because they don't tend to go wrong. I was just incredibly unlucky.

[blackboilersuit]

3 minutes ago, Flat4 said:

Who are you using for the re-core? Have you used them before? I may need to get the rad on the Granvia re-cored as it's had a stone through it and currently held together with Rad Weld, or whatever similar stuff the AA threw in it to get me home. A new one is £175 so thinking a re-core might be cheaper and last just as long, because they don't tend to go wrong. I was just incredibly unlucky.

It's in at East End Radiators in Glasgow. I'm fully expecting it to cost more than £175 to be honest as their website gives a rough estimate of £200 for a classic car radiator. Re-cores are really only applicable to all metal radiators (AFAIK) as they dis-assemble the original rad then solder the top/bottom brass tanks onto a new core. It's a fairly labour intensive process hence why it's not very cheap. A quick check of ebay reveals that the Granvia has the modern construction of plastic tanks crimped onto a core with a rubber seal to keep the water in so wouldn't be suitable for a re-core.

East End Radiators sell new rad's as well as doing repairs so might be worth giving them a call 0141-554-5281. I've never used them before but they've been there for decades AFAIK and shops doing radiator re-cores are few and far between because every car in the last 30 years has been fitted with a plastic/aluminium radiator. 

From ebay it looks like the Granvia has an integrated oil cooler. This added complexity will be why it's a relatively expensive unit.

[blackboilersuit]

Smoll update. 

With the rad out for recore I set to and cleaned up and painted all the associated brackets. Nothing fancy just a quick go with a wire wheel, some kurust then a coat of Lidl spray paint. The fan got a scrub and I flushed all the sediment out the header tank.

Rad was turned around in an impressive 6 days considering 2 of them were a weekend and the core wasn't in stock. Really happy with it looks like a new unit rather than just a recore.

Still not had a chance to fit it all back on because of work/christmas/covid related issues, an ongoing motorbike rebuild and organising the buying and selling of other cars! Hoping to get some order back in my life in the new year and get the car back together soon.

Cost was £168 inc Vat for anyone interested. Very reasonable IMHO.

Cars incoming and outgoing will be happening before the end of the year so I expect to be updating my end of year tat accounts on Hogmany!

[blackboilersuit]

So yesterday Boilersuit Motorz (retail division) PDI'd the Mighty Astra and carried out a complimentary mini-valet in preparation to hand it over to it's lucky* new owner. I shant name names but let the lucky recipient expose himself to you all in due course as it's staying within the fold.

In a socially distanced scotoshite merry-go-round, end of year collection/delivery caper I'll be picking up my new car today too.

More news later......

[jaypee]

EXCITES 🎉🎉

[blackboilersuit]

And here's the money shot.... A massive huge thank you to @dome for such a fantastic car. The bumpers might have had more hits than the Beetles but with a mere 50k on the clock it drives like new. To say I'm absolutely chuffed to bits is an understatement. It's goint to take a bit of getting used to being this posh but I'll try my best!

[jaypee]

Winning, that's a great motor. 

[dome]

Glad you like it! If it had been short enough to fit in the lockup I'd have kept it for when the Rangey explodes but it's too big. 

It is a great car and it's gone to a good home, a wee bit of TLC and it'll be a belter 👍

Good to see you today too, mystery shiter🤔

[blackboilersuit]

33 minutes ago, dome said:

Good to see you today too, mystery shiter🤔

Roll the credits to Hong Kong Phooey............"Who is this super shitter.......Sarge??" 

Great to see you both today, and for anyone guessing all I'll say is that Rosemary the telephone operator hasn't just bought a MK4 Astra!

[Tickman]

Don't let Sonic get jealous of the new toy

 

[cms206]

Thanks, I will.

[cms206]

3 hours ago, dome said:

Good to see you today too, mystery shiter🤔

Good to see you also Mr Dome, and many thanks to Mr Boiler-Suit for the Astra which shall be pressed into service from tomorrow morning on the daily commute.

The whole lockdown thing has been a pisser this year and even meeting up for dinner once a month is something I've really missed. Stay safe people.

[blackboilersuit]

Bit of Toledo tinkering to round out the year. Dragged myself down to the lockup yesterday to fit the freshly recored radiator and replenish the anti-freeze.

 

I'd chucked a sample of the old coolant in the freezer at home to test it and the result was so so. It had turned to slush but not ice so not great but not about to push the frost plugs out either. With the rad refitted  I filled up with a 50:50 mix of old coolant and new anti-freeze. Plenty good enough to see out the winter. In the spring when I can bring the car back to the house I'll be flushing the heater core and replacing a couple of heater hoses that are starting to perish so this fill of coolant only needs to be good enough to survive the winter. 

With a freshly charged battery and new spark plugs though we had a failure to start. One cough and that was it. Diagnosis was lost spark due to dropping coil voltage. The car no longer has a ballast coil setup so the effort of turning a sump full of 20/50 over in sub zero conditions with an old battery was robbing the coil of vital volts.

Turned up today with a spare battery and jump leads and diagnosis confirmed. Purring like a kitten once warmed up and no leaks from the plumbing. Choke cable that once was stiff is now seized so I've ordered a replacement. 

Might replace the battery and revert back to a ballast coil to improve cold starting but fundimentally we're all good to go once more.

[PhilA]

Nice. BL engineered that sound into their stuff, didn't they?

The whoosh of that particular fan, the rattle of the rockers and the whine of the alternator in particular let you know with your eyes shut you've opened up the plug hole.

 

Excellent.

[Tickman]

Try and find an alternative supply of heater hoses, the ones on it didn't last very long unfortunately and weren't cheap either.

[blackboilersuit]

11 minutes ago, Tickman said:

Try and find an alternative supply of heater hoses, the ones on it didn't last very long unfortunately and weren't cheap either.

I've got a length (of hopefully quality) heater hose from a reputable hydraulic supplier and a pair of silicone hose elbows to replace what's on the car. Hoping they'll be a more long lasting solution than the quality* repo parts. Thankfully the top/bottom rad hoses were both NOS so are still perfect even though they sat on a shelf for 40 years before being fitted.

[blackboilersuit]

Got a call from an elderly neighbour on Saturday asking if I could have a look at his car. Said it was making a terrible noise from the front and so he'd just come straight home and parked up. 

First glance showed what the issue was.

Stanced, yo! Snapped front spring which was rubbing the rim but thankfully hadn't touched the tyre. Jumped in to check the handbrake was on before jacking it up and promptly snapped the handbrake cable! Chocked the wheels, jacked up the front and cut the old spring off with the grinder so I could drive it the 20 yards to my house and have access to air tools. 

Air tools, heat and much swearing was needed but I got the strut out in the end. It might only be an 07 with less than 80k but a decade of giffer ownership and being parked up outside means lots of corrosion and many original parts that have never been touched and now don't want to move.

Lovely corrosion on the top mount. Even after cleaning as much rust out as possible with a dremel I still had to split the top bearing to clamp the damper rod in the vice (where the bump stop sits in case damage was caused) and use the impact to get the nut off.

New spring fitted easy enough with ye olde spring compressors that always give me the fears!

That's better, now just* the handbrake to sort out.

No under car photo's taken due to restricted access and the low morale that comes from lying under a car in the road in January! Main cable had snapped and getting to it involved removing the exhaust heat sheilds. Joy*.

Old cable totally fucked and the ones going into the drums were not much better so those were ordered too.

Drums need a puller to get them off and a needle scaler was needed to clean up the mess....... check this out.

Everything was scrubbed and cleaned and the drums had the wear lips ground off. One self adjuster and one handbrake arm were seized and needed freeing off.

One shoe had a small chunk of material come off and both cylinders while not leaking are "sweating" a bit so once the wrather improves I'll go back in and sort all those things out. That's after I replace the squealing aux belts and strip and clean one of the front calipers as one disk is looking very ridged. I've had it a test drive though and the brakes are all working for now so it's back to it's owner for now for his once a fortnight 20mph trip to the shops.

Half an hour after I finished today it started pishing with rain which has now turned to snow so I don't think the car'll be going anywhere for the time being.

[GMcD]

Can you be my neighbour please?

Fair play to you for helping the old fella out,  even with the scope creep you persevered! 👍

[blackboilersuit]

Biggest pain has been getting parts because all click and collect is by appointment only now due to the new lockdown rules. I ordered handbrake cables on Sunday night that were in stock 3 miles away in ECP. Couldn't pick them up until my allocated collection slot at 2pm on Monday! 

[blackboilersuit]

First bit of work on the Accord I bought from @dome last month now complete. Both electric mirrors were completely non functioning. Diagnosis not helped by every manual available not having a wiring diagram for the powerfold option that this car has. Long story short, drivers mirror had been replaced with an incorrect non-powerfold unit which thanks to the different plug pinout and control wiring had burnt up the switch for the electric adjust. One used mirror unit and switch later and we have....

Once everything was attempting to work it was clear that the passenger mirror adjust wasn't happy and wouldn't move to it's extremities. That was solved by replacing the whole unit after attempts to clean and lube the mechanisim just made things worse! Everything now works just as it should. Really pleased to get the heated mirror glass going again, something I've missed since my last CRV was disposed of.

 

Thankfully these cars are still at the peak of used part supply with loads of parts on ebay at decent money.

 

[blackboilersuit]

Wee bit of Toledo tinkering today. Fitted a new choke cable as the old one had seized up. Toledo specific ones aren't available and dolomite ones are shorter but I thought I'd give one a go to retain the same look on the dash. None of the longer "universal" cables look the same unfortunately.The new cable is about 6" shorter and has a pretty tortured bend in it now but still seems content to work just fine so I'm calling it a win. You can see in the pic just how far away it is from  the clip on the rocker cover it's supposed to be connected to!

As well as this I also cleaned up all the ground points and all the connections on the starter solenoid. The end result was it firing up straight away in freezing conditions even though it had sat for several weeks. Very happy with that and have shelved plans to revert back to a ballasted coil to assist starting. 

Just a pity all the roads round here have been freshly salted or I'd be using it for the next lockdown approved shopping trip.

[captain_70s]

13 minutes ago, blackboilersuit said:

Wee bit of Toledo tinkering today. Fitted a new choke cable as the old one had seized up. Toledo specific ones aren't available and dolomite ones are shorter but I thought I'd give one a go to retain the same look on the dash.

My Dolly has the same stock choke layout as that, or did. I could never get the clip on the rocker cover to hold the cable securely so the choke would stick on, then the clip snapped from fatigue. So when last rigged up it looked a lot more like yours.

I think it's a Spitfire cable that's avaliable now?

Also, pro tip. Rotate the little alloy tab on the carb so it sits over the float bowl rather than sticking out. Avoids snapping it off by accident and having to buy a new carb because you don't know which variant yours is (personal experience)... 

[blackboilersuit]

1 hour ago, captain_70s said:

My Dolly has the same stock choke layout as that, or did. I could never get the clip on the rocker cover to hold the cable securely so the choke would stick on, then the clip snapped from fatigue. So when last rigged up it looked a lot more like yours.

I think it's a Spitfire cable that's avaliable now?

Also, pro tip. Rotate the little alloy tab on the carb so it sits over the float bowl rather than sticking out. Avoids snapping it off by accident and having to buy a new carb because you don't know which variant yours is (personal experience)... 

Yes, the cable is listed as Spitfire(IV)1500 or Dolly 1500HL. It's the only one available from a whole host of different suppliers. Top tip on the carb tag. I shall move it out the way and make a note or take a pic of the number should it be required for future reference.

[blackboilersuit]

So here we have a months worth of tinkering on the Accord condensed into one semi coherent post. 

TL;DR did loads of wiring and now have trailer wiring and a DAB wireless.

First up was no radio reception. The head unit is combined radio/CD/GPS/climate control so replacing it not an option. First rip apart to check aerial connections...

Everything connected but fiendishly complex. Aerial comprises 2 sets of window elements feeding two different amplifier boxes which in turn feed back via 2 coax cables to the back of the head unit. One of the coax cables was giving an odd resistance reading so I bought a replacement interior harness off ebay for £cheap.

Stripped the aerial cables out this but same odd readings and still no reception with new harness connected. 

Revert to plan A which all along was to install a DAB unit connected via the aux in converter box that @dome fitted when he owned the car.

First up we'll need a new aerial so take brave pills and drill holes in the roof.....

To fit an audioleads shark fin DAB//FM/GPS antenna. Not a cheap unit but I figured if I had to drill holes in the roof and pull the interior apart then I wasn't going to buy some random chinesium one.

I salvaged the split cable covering from the old ebay loom to protect the coax cables and this made it a little easier to run them the length of the car. They're 5 metres long and I needed every last inch such was the tortured cable run! Power for the aerial was spliced into the power outlet socket in the boot as it's switched with the ignition.

The last part was to install the little Pioneer DAB box.

Space is limited behind the dash so running wires here was like shoving wet spaghetti up a cats arse but I got there in the end. The USB plug in supply was permanently wired to a trailing lead socket spliced into the cigarette lighter and then cable tied out the way under the centre console. A lot of aggro but has made for a really neat supply cable and I can still close the flap over the cigarette lighter socket.

I now have bangin choonz for the once a week 3 mile grocery run. Worth every penny 😂

While the interior was in bits I took the opportunity to wire up the towbar electrics.

This was a pain in the arse to say the least. All the light connectors are either outside the car or in the tailgate so it's impossible to splice in at the bulb holders like you would in a normal saloon or hatchback. I had to split open the loom in the middle of the boot and tie in there after first figuring out which wire is which because I couldn't get a wiring diagram for this specific model!

I ran these spliced connections into a towing relay and then a new power cable towards the front of the car to feed the relay power. Normally I'd take that cable through the bulkhead and onto a fused battery connection. This time though I found it impossible to find a way through the bulkhead at all so ran the power from the cigarette lighter. Thankfully it's on a 15a supply as it's a real cigarette lighter and not just for a USB outlet so has plenty of power available. It means the trailer lights won't work with the ignition off but that won't be an issue in normal circumstances. Just in case though i've got a strategically placed connector that can be fed from a length of cable onto the battery if the bonnet is opened. Just in case I ever need trailer hazard lights and I'm broken down.

Fully tested with no problems. Even the fog light is wired up.

Last but not least was to refit the interior back. Every panel was valeted indoors while it was out so the boot is now like new.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by blackboilersuit
remove spurious photo

[blackboilersuit]

Bit of Toledo tinkering again...

Started with a quick job. Chuck on a new starter solenoid and run the engine for a bit to charge the battery. So far so good, solenoid changed and started just fine and once warmed up I thought I'd adjust the tickover slightly........

Tickover screw shrared straight off, stuck fast in the housing. Oh well, carb off to clean and drain before daring to heat up with a blowtorch!

It was certainly in need of a clean.

All hail the gods of mapp gas. Getting this out took a LOT more heat than I was expecting, it's obviously been stuck for quite some time. 

Next up was this lot. Jet adjuster nut seized onto the jet bush and the jet bush retainer seized into the body. Again mapp gas came to the rescue.

Every linkage was then stripped and every part cleaned carefully on a wire wheel.

The wire wheel was then swapped out for a polishing mop to add a little bling.

The carb was then reassembled with everything suitably lubed to prevent future problems.

Waiting on a few small parts to arrive from Burlens before it goes back on the car.

I had intended to do this later in the year as it's always ran a little lumpy and was in need of a tune. Although the broken screw was a pain it's always good to get another job ticked off the list.

[rainagain]

Love the shiny carb!

[GeorgeB]

11 hours ago, rainagain said:

Love the shiny carb!

Great post. Added a lot to the thread. 

[blackboilersuit]

18 minutes ago, GeorgeB said:

Great post. Added a lot to the thread. 

Not as much as yours does though! If you want to have a bitch about other people, please do it elsewhere.

[SiC]

On 7/12/2020 at 5:07 PM, blackboilersuit said:

Just noticed the pic without any comment......

The last pic is one of my quality*  ebay ramp extensions. Now in the scrap pile after becoming a banana when used as instructed. Going back to using blocks of wood, much safer indeed!

If it's any consolation, I bought the extension from Machine Mart for my Machine Mart sourced ramps - probably for a fair bit more than you paid from eBay. They did exactly what those did on the first drive up on them. Funnily enough that was a Saab 9-5 2.3t too