Harrison's Garage - The garage 2.0

[rob88h]

I was out and about in the Volvo this morning. An inspired moment of naturistic bliss led to this shameless attempt at a 2022 AS calendar nomination. 

[rob88h]

  On 23/10/2020 at 10:01, rob88h said:

 

-->NEW CAR INCOMING<--

It wasn’t intentional, I’m trying to reduce my car count, but I had to save this next purchase from being scrapped. There are only 5 left on UK roads!

 

 

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Exactly the same is happening. Exactly. The. Same. Same car and everything, although you could say there are only 4 left on UK roads now, this not being one of them...

[wesacosa]

  On 20/02/2021 at 19:04, rob88h said:

Exactly the same is happening. Exactly. The. Same. Same car and everything, although you could say there are only 4 left on UK roads now, this not being one of them...

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I wondered if you would end up with this back again ! you should never have watched Better Call Saul !

Glad it's going to live on

[rob88h]

Not sure what I’m going to do with it at the minute, other than try to get it MOT’d! A road trip to New Mexico is a bit much... I can’t think of any decent Saul Goodman tributes. In the end I’ll just try and sell it again with hopefully minimised losses. 
After all this lockdown malarkey is done  maybe I’ll do a surprise reveal to my mate that I got it from in the first place when I go biking with him . He loved this Baleno and had it many many years in the family.  It’d be like a shite version Car S.O.S. Instead of a full resto of the car he loves and gets to keep, he gets to see that it scraped another MOT and that I’m struggling to sell the bastard. 

[Tickman]

Just caught up on this thread, quite a diverse range of stuff you go through.

If for any reason the Baleno's future is bleak then I could possibly do with a few bits for mine but they are very much a surprise to drive.

 

[rob88h]

Suzuki Baleno - S-ERR - Down but not out.

The Baleno came back earlier this week, thanks to @MrDuke.

This poor thing has suffered a few existential crises lately (just look at it!) and I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but a new screen has gone in! It had no chance of an MOT with the old cracked screen, so, head meet bucket of sand and engage sunk cost fallacy mode to keep this thing alive beyond what it really wants. They made a nice job of the screen, so now it has great tyres and great glass. So that's something.

Next intentions: Bleed the Clutch/brake system to try and improve the pedal feel a bit, ignore the slow starter motor, see what damage an MOT entails and then move it on again hoping to never see it again. 

[rob88h]

  On 21/02/2021 at 09:54, Tickman said:

Just caught up on this thread, quite a diverse range of stuff you go through.

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I suffer strongly from the routine of: Sell a car -> Money from said sale burning a hole in my pocket -> eBay access being too readily available -> chronic optimism of For Sale Ad's with limited information -> Buy a car -> Repeat.

  On 21/02/2021 at 09:54, Tickman said:

If for any reason the Baleno's future is bleak then I could possibly do with a few bits for mine but they are very much a surprise to drive.

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Trying to keep it going, but you never know... Likewise on the parts share if yours implodes for some reason. Is yours a saloon too? I don't think I've ever seen another one! I was so surprised how it drove when I first owned it. This one had a long standing relationship to a close friend of mine as well, which is probably why I'm giving it more attention than it deserves. At least that's my rationalisation 🤣

[Tickman]

Mine is a three door GSR.

There is just something about it, it isn't fast but it is sprightly.

The 1.8 doesn't set the world on fire but the whole car is rather engaging. If mine was owned by normal people it would have been a washing machine a long time ago.

 

[wesacosa]

great work @rob88h , keeping an obscure car alive without really knowing why. Very AS.  I hope it gets though an MOT without denting the wallet too much

[rob88h]

ERR... That didn't go well.

[8.2.1.2(b)] Exhaust carbon monoxide content after 2nd fast idle exceeds default limits.

With replacement Catalysts selling for a mere £41.97, this battle is far from over. Then once I've replaced that I'll just have to address the other fail items to have made this all worth while!

 

[wesacosa]

oh dear. Hopefully that's the worst of it and nothing too expensive

[rob88h]

One ball joint and one cv boot are the only other two fail points. I had a quick look online and the ball joint may be integrated into the wishbone assembly 😬. Some results were for separate ball joints, so it might be easy... Having said that the wishbone assemblies weren’t too expensive. 

[wesacosa]

cool looks like it should live to fight another day!

[rob88h]

Suzuki Baleno

Want to see inside my cat?

That'll be the emissions problem then! Being a puny 90's petrol engine there's not much in the way of catalytic converter to start with, but it'd completely broken down. The earlier mentioned replacement was cheap and was a decent fit and it'll hopefully get the carbon-monoxide-evils back in the box for another go at an MOT.

AND because I'm saving a car that's questionably worth the effort - I was blessed by the car-karma Gods with all the crusty fasteners coming off with no incident/rounding/shearing/general mullering.

All that remains now is a ball-joint and a CV boot. Ballache-joint seems to be integrated into the wishbone, but can be had as an assembly for £30, result. Parts on order from Lithuania, where maybe the Baleno is hot popularity?

[rob88h]

From one exhaust to another. No more leakage from where the old meets the new off the back of the cat! This catalytic converter is on borrowed time though by the looks of it. But, due to the unique way I organise my life, I have a nice shiny new on on the car I don’t use and intend to sell as soon as possible, yet something that would be at home on the Titanic on my beloved Volvo.

[rob88h]

Baleno update: A replacement anti roll bar drop link can be added to the suspension job ... 🙄 Unsurprisingly, a weedy 12mm nut with a mile of exposed thread on a 25 year old car has not relinquished its grip (despite a week of repeated penetration with fluids) and has instead rounded off. 
Also one of the wishbone mounts has succumbed a similar fate. I’ll try fire, brimstone and an impact tool next, but if this doesn’t come off it’s probably close to curtains for this car. 
On the bright side, it has been a more than 90% success rate on undoing the crusty jugglers holding things together, so it’s worth fighting for! One day it might be the envy of everyone at the Golf Club. 


photo credit: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/car-reviews/suzuki/baleno/baleno-1995-2002/

[wesacosa]

I assume you have an impact gun, but can lend you mine if needed.  Depending on the size of the rounded off fixings I have some Irwin sockets too (Which I think can work with an impact gun)

[rob88h]

Baleno update:

I’ve been on a journey of many new tools with the Baleno recently. Thanks to @wesacosa, new tool number one was my first go with an impact gun. No luck on my already rounding stuck nuts. New tool number two was his magical Irwin sockets (which I have now promptly ordered some for myself!) with a breaker bar and instantly the two remaining fixings were removed! There was a great deal of rejoicing. Irwin sockets are a life saver if you’ve got round nuts – I wish I’d heard of them 10 years ago! Now the wishbone is out the next question to address was the CV boot.

New tool number three, the slide hammer, made this job super easy. The jury was out on the internet as to whether I’d simply tap the CV apart or whether it was a hopeless case and I was better off replacing the whole driveshaft. A few taps and I started to see the base of the splines on the wheel-end which was great news, but then a few taps more and the whole bloody driveshaft came out. Luckily it separated from the intermediary shaft?/link shaft? and not out of the gearbox, so no oil spillage. With it of the car it was easy to separate the CV joint from the driveshaft with the slide hammer on the hubut.

The new boot was installed without incident, where I got to use new tool number four, the band clamp clamper thingy. Pretty sure that’s its name. (Note to self: avoid doing this job again, the grease used in re-greasing the CV joint is horrible stuff). It was quite pleasing this went well however, as while discovering on the internet these may not come apart so easily I started to look for replacement driveshafts as a back-up. They seem hard to come by for this car… I found one and that was over £100, so just £4 for the boot was bargainous. There was continued rejoicing.

Then the rejoicing ended.

The driveshaft went back in ok and it was time to fit the new wishbone, which it didn’t. The rear bush was significantly out of place when compared with the old one and because of the way this fits to the car, it mattered.

New tool number five is being arranged, a press, to move this bushing into place. Until then, as not to waste the nice Sunday I removed the drooping sill trim so I can reinforce it and re fit it more securely. This exposes the crustiness… but it looks worse than it feels, seems solid enough. Add wire brush and painting the sill to the to do list.

Net progress, whoop.

[wesacosa]

Looking good, glad its going to live on. Only on AS would such work go into an otherwise unloved car.  Those sills dont look like anything a rundown and paint wont sort

[rob88h]

Yeah, they’re not bad. A fairly sizeable repair at the front and the back, but they’re done well (in my opinion) and feel completely solid to the tap. 

[rob88h]

My Baleno will be for sale when it’s MOT’d, save for a few celebratory journeys if I can get it through, as I’d never intended on keeping it. But if anyone can’t wait that long for such a fine motor car, then there is one on eBay that’s in pretty good shape:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254897136883 

Although now I’m thinking, can I find the rest of these saloons and have a monopoly on 90’s Baleno sedans 🤔. That’s an AutoShite thought process right?

[rob88h]

Superzuki Baleno

The Suzuki has finally been issued with a new MOT. It’s probably time this car wore a Do Not Resuscitate tag, but at least it should now see the road until March of 2022.

Since the last update, a friend helped me push the shaft deeper into the bush, then the wishbone all reassembled nicely. New bits photo!

As the devil finds work for idle hands, I’d also started working on the sagging sill trim last weekend for no real reason other than I wanted to make progress… So, while waiting to use the press I rust-converted, Hammerite’d and Waxoyled along the sill. Probably needs more attention next year from the next lucky* owner, but this should hopefully slow things down under there. I re-enforced the sill trim with bolt through brackets and some grab adhesive. Bodge you say? At least it’s better than the prior method of self tapper straight into the sill and I now don’t feel like it’s going to make a bid for freedom on the motorway.

My neighbours are "pleased" to see that it’s back and up on axle stands again already. I’ve got the exhaust off again as the new pattern part is plain a tube (pretty normal…) but the OEM one is flattened by design where it threads the needle over the front subframe. My intention is to use my newfound epic press skills to shape the new exhaust section to match the old and give it better clearance to the sub frame. Right now it sits on the subframe and makes a hell of a racket - It’s like having the exhaust in the car!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Heartwarming read. I hadn't realised you'd taken back your old Baleno after it had been offered on here. It certainly looks like it's been through the wars over the last few months - I get the feeling it wouldn't have survived otherwise if you'd not taken it on. 

Have you shown your mate you used to own it that his old motor continues to live?!

[BorniteIdentity]

  On 29/03/2021 at 18:49, rob88h said:

a friend helped me push the shaft deeper into the bush

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Oooh aye? 

[rob88h]

  On 29/03/2021 at 19:13, Dick Longbridge said:

Have you shown your mate you used to own it that his old motor continues to live?!

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Yeah, he responded with "I'm beaming" and a three emoticon response. Three! Even so, I'm still not sure if it was worth all the effort... It's pleasing it got through the MOT in a "not on my watch" kinda way, but I've got so much of my own tat that needs attention, yet I procrastinated in boss-mode working on the Suzuki. I tell my wife I'm building up momentum to be able to get on with my other cars to the point where I almost believe it myself now.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

  On 30/03/2021 at 17:30, rob88h said:

Yeah, he responded with "I'm beaming" and a three emoticon response. Three! Even so, I'm still not sure if it was worth all the effort... It's pleasing it got through the MOT in a "not on my watch" kinda way, but I've got so much of my own tat that needs attention, yet I procrastinated in boss-mode working on the Suzuki. I tell my wife I'm building up momentum to be able to get on with my other cars to the point where I almost believe it myself now.

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At the end of the day, you've saved it from a likely imminent death. That's worth many pats on the back. As for procrastinating with jobs which essentially aren't important, whilst putting off the others- that sounds very familiar! 😂

[rob88h]

I took advantage of the recent extra freedoms and exercised the 440. 

Happiness is 440-ing about in the Peak District on a sunny day.

[cort1977]

Good effort with the suzuki.

Also appreciate the hot fuzz reference.

 

[rob88h]

The Baleno has gone (for a second time!) and as such is ceremoniously struck from my signature strip... again.

Before I move on, here are some photos of prosperity. 

*some camera enhancements may have been used to make this look better than it does in real life.

[wesacosa]

glad its been saved, and even more glad not by me