Dollywobbler's Consolidated Tat Thread

[dollywobbler]

I could still do with changing the fan, given it doesn't work. I can see we might well end up dismantling the front end.

[dozeydustman]

What’s access like from underneath? Might save dismantling the whole front end

[wuvvum]

Access to the alternator and other ancilliaries is shite from any angle.  Removing the front end doesn't really help all that much either - the only way to get easy access to the belt tensioner is to chop off the chassis leg.  Which is less than ideal.

[N Dentressangle]

On 1/1/2021 at 5:20 PM, Remspoor said:

I did give a link to a video on just how fucked up access is for the alternator, earlier in this thread.

Just watched that - makes sense to me.

And now I know what Billy Casper did when he got bored wi' kestrels

[Remspoor]

7 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

Just watched that - makes sense to me.

And now I know what Billy Casper did when he got bored wi' kestrels

I  just watched how to change a rad in a Skoda Fabia. The whole front end was removed.

[louiepj]

I  just watched how to change a rad in a Skoda Fabia. The whole front end was removed.

Was it the young lad on 'The Savage Garage'?
Been watching his channel for a while and enjoying the content.
Always thought removing the whole front end was just the service position for all vag.....

[Talbot]

I think removing really quite large sections of "modern" (read<25 years old) cars has become the norm.  What caught me unawares is how much easier it is with the right equipment.  Clearly cars are designed to be worked on with access to things like 2-post lifts, air tools etc.etc.  This was brought home to me with a garage working on a Vauxhall Combo 1.7D recently.  It needs a clutch.  Comment was that the front subframe has to come off to do the clutch.  My immediate thought was "what a complete and utter ballache".  The van went from driving in to the subframe being lowered off in about 15 minutes.   For the average home mechanic that could be 2hrs work.

 

[dollywobbler]

Actual nice weather!

Inspired me to get tinkering. 2CV came out ready for a bit of use while it's dry. Rover is awaiting an alternator so in the meantime, I decided to try and sort the Invacar's engine out.

You may recall it spat a spark plug out. Access is not great, so I didn't fancy my chances trying to fit an insert, so decided to try and swap cylinder heads. I was worried that the head can't actually be removed in-situ due to a lack of room. After a fair session of tinkering, I think I've only proved my conclusion. Thinking I may now just pull the engine out entirely as even if I tilt the engine, I still think it'll struggle to have space for head removal.

[St.Jude]

21 hours ago, Talbot said:

I think removing really quite large sections of "modern" (read<25 years old) cars has become the norm.  What caught me unawares is how much easier it is with the right equipment.  Clearly cars are designed to be worked on with access to things like 2-post lifts, air tools etc.etc.  This was brought home to me with a garage working on a Vauxhall Combo 1.7D recently.  It needs a clutch.  Comment was that the front subframe has to come off to do the clutch.  My immediate thought was "what a complete and utter ballache".  The van went from driving in to the subframe being lowered off in about 15 minutes.   For the average home mechanic that could be 2hrs work.

I had to remove the alternator on my Corolla, as the top bolt had broke off. Took a full week of trying to hammer the pivot bolt out. Wouldn't have took as long if it wasn't rusted, and I had proper access.

The water pump is also a pig to remove. I think you need to drop the engine for it. 

[Remspoor]

21 hours ago, louiepj said:

Was it the young lad on 'The Savage Garage'?
Been watching his channel for a while and enjoying the content.
Always thought removing the whole front end was just the service position for all vag.....

That is the one. I have no interest in owning one of these but I still watched the series.

[MikeR]

On 1/2/2021 at 11:36 AM, Six-cylinder said:

When I had my 75 it looks like I crashed it, but this was just the dismantling required to change the engine cooling electric fan!

hope you changed the light bulbs at the same time ?

[wuvvum]

Headlight bulbs aren't actually that bad of a job on a pre-Project Drive 75 with the access hatch in the arch liner.

[Split_Pin]

My 04 Facelift has hatches in both arch liners. Either it's because it has Xenons or the previous owner fitted them from an earlier car. He fitted a nice PPD carpet so perhaps he went further with that.

[Skizzer]

10 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Headlight bulbs aren't actually that bad of a job on a pre-Project Drive 75 with the access hatch in the arch liner.

True, provided your fingers are eight inches long with four joints in them.

[Has flashbacks. Shudders.]

[Remspoor]

Just watched the latest upload.

Sneaky announcement  that miss HB will be joining you. I did not see any comments  about that either. Must have slipped by the followers of the channel.

[St.Jude]

40 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

Just watched the latest upload.

Sneaky announcement  that miss HB will be joining you. I did not see any comments  about that either. Must have slipped by the followers of the channel.

Spoiler alert much!

[dollywobbler]

In some ways, it's good to be tinkering again. In others, it's a frustrating business! 

The light this afternoon was gorgeous though.

Swapping a cylinder head should be an easy job, but it's taken two days so far. The engine has even been out! I made an utter mess, even by my standards, of getting the old head off. Note to fellow Invacar folks - get the pushrods out before removing the head! You can slide the rocker out of the way to enable this. If you don't, you end up bending both the pushrods and the pushrod tubes...

Having sussed it all out, getting the head off the spare engine was much easier - and thank goodness it was the already-damaged head I further mullered!

I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job of capturing video of the process. It's taking far too long as it is, without grabbing cameras to try and explain detail work.

I'm hoping to get back, get it all together and up and running tomorrow, but I also need to be on hand while the kids home educate (Miss HubNut has a further eight days of full-time work) so I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to tinker again. We will see...

[beko1987]

The official citroen way to change a bulb in the front of my xsara is to remove the bumper. 

I just lost alot of blood and moved the abs pump... Fuck that! 

[dollywobbler]

As predicted, I've not got anywhere near the unit today. Home educating sucks donkey balls. 

[dollywobbler]

Did manage to sneak a couple of hours in, but got thwarted by what appears to be a dead Sparkrite unit. Bah. Did try bypassing it, but the condenser I have is not good so still no spark. Frustrating.

Still, the sky was nice.

[SiC]

Yeah they're pretty shit quality. I'd check/by-pass the switch as that's the biggest weak point on them. 

[High Jetter]

10 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

As predicted, I've not got anywhere near the unit today. Home educating sucks donkey balls. 

No, should be kids - not animals!

[LightBulbFun]

5 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

Did manage to sneak a couple of hours in, but got thwarted by what appears to be a dead Sparkrite unit. Bah. Did try bypassing it, but the condenser I have is not good so still no spark. Frustrating.

Still, the sky was nice.

time to return her back to her original ignition  system but with an @Zelandeth style polypropylene film capacitor, based condenser upgrade perhaps?  

[brownnova]

11 hours ago, dollywobbler said:

As predicted, I've not got anywhere near the unit today. Home educating sucks donkey balls. 

If sucking donkey balls is the work they’re being set you should complain to the school.... 

[Skut]

On 1/1/2021 at 8:31 PM, sgtberbatov said:

I don't think it is.

I remember whenever my Dad had his Rover 820 worked on, the mechanics would all say that access was poor and everything was always tightly packed together.

With the Rover 200/25 I have, this is what the engine bay looks like:

For the little bit of work I've done, which is nothing, access is again poor. And this would've been a design before BMW was a thorn in the arse of Rover.

So I think it's just Rover being Rover and making it as compact as possible. Or not bothering to reduce the size of engine bay components.

I wouldn't say access on a Kettle powered R3 is bad.  It's a very compact engine.   I can imagine the L series powered version is worse in that regard.

[wuvvum]

I found the Rover of Doom pretty easy to work on.  Never had to change the alternator as such but I did change the fanbelt and that was straightforward enough.  As was the starter motor - 30 minute job, even for an amateur like me.

[dollywobbler]

Oh FFS. Via comments, I have discovered what I did wrong. It wasn't the Sparkrite at all. It's perhaps the simplest explanation and I still managed to entirely miss it.

The rotor arm.

I can only blame tiredness and rushing because I had limited time at the unit, but that's still a stupid mistake.

 

[dave j]

I think we have all made silly mistakes in the past! If you hadn't have put it on YouTube I wonder how long it would have taken you to realise! 

[N19]

I think this calls for a thread, stupidest obvious things you've done! 

[2cvspecial]

On 1/7/2021 at 12:08 AM, brownnova said:

sucking donkey balls

if a school set that as work they would be in trouble with D f E