Engineered like no other car. Not a single one like it. Thankfully.

[Talbot]

1 minute ago, Mrs6C said:

This car has always sounded great, like a 1950s V8 petrol both at idle and when in progress. Hope the most recent 'modgifications' haven't changed that!

It still has a slight burble at the exhaust pipe when on idle, just nowhere near as headache-inducing now!

[Zelandeth]

13 minutes ago, Talbot said:

No, but the one behind the injection pump on a Bosch-equipped TD is a complete bastard.  Removing the manifold on this engine is simplicity in comparison.

Thanks...I'd just about managed to forget about that job on my first Xantia...

First three, done in 20 minutes.  Cue well over an hour swearing at the last one!

[Talbot]

3 hours ago, juular said:

I am having dirty thoughts about making up a cutoff valve with a stepper motor controlled by an Arduino. RPM dependent cutoffs 🎼

All it would need is a divert valve with a weak-ish spring behind it.  As the flow increases through the exhaust, the valve closes and diverts exhaust through the silencer.  When it's at idle, there's insufficient pressure/flow to keep the valve closed and it springs open again, bypassing the silencer.

I may* have had the same thoughts while driving it last week...

[mat_the_cat]

Unsurprisingly, this sounds not dissimilar to the LT without a silencer.

I didn't try driving it like that, but the actual volume didn't seem *that* bad...

 

[PicantoJon]

On 12/19/2022 at 1:33 PM, juular said:

I am having dirty thoughts about making up a cutoff valve with a stepper motor controlled by an Arduino. RPM dependent cutoffs 🎼

I don't want to encourage such actions but... DO IT! 😈

[Jim Bell]

What happened to the blue one @Talbot man? Is it still soldiering on?

[Talbot]

The blue car... was marginally* fucked.  It needed a lot of welding, a set of boots, had engine issues, the interior was broken in several ways and for those and several other reasons, I broke it for parts.  The gearbox (which was one of the few components that was in fine fettle) was the one donated to the silver car.  Flogged the engine, stripped out any useful bits and weighed in the rest.  I recovered a lot of useful parts from it though, including the passenger seat, which is now on an office seat base and I'm currently sat on it to type this post.  So it kinda* lives on.

This was, of course, just before the used car market went bananas, and so it netted me about £300, whereas in current market it would have broken for £1000 with reasonable ease.  Typical.

[Jim Bell]

That's typical. People seem to be asking up to £800 - £900 just for engines at the moment. The world's waking up to the wonders of OMs seemingly. 

I'm keeping my eyes open for a cheap pump to upgrade the Ssangyong.  In these uncertain times, more power is the most sensible upgrade. 

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 19/12/2022 at 13:33, juular said:

I am having dirty thoughts about making up a cutoff valve controlled by a metro choke cable.  childish glee dependent cutoffs 🎼

edited to be moar AS compliant

[Talbot]

Oh Balls.

As mentioned on the grumpy thread, I managed to poke a hole in the sill of the Merc.  It's MOT is now out, so I need to get going with the welder to get it sorted.  This was what I did:

Which doesn't look *that* bad.  But, as anyone who has done repair work knows, the rust is going to be worse than that.  I also knew that on the last time I jacked the car up on the jacking point, the sill crunched and compressed in quite a bit, so I was expecting rot.   Removal of the wing liner and the sill liner was needed, as the liner wraps around under the sill.  Theoretically that should give protection to the sill, but I have a feeling that actually it holds a fair bit of mud behind it:

Arch liner off,  wing trim piece off, door outer seal off too.

This is not looking good.  I can *feel* the crunchiness.

Sill guard off now too.. and surprise surprise, there's a fairly large hole under it:

And to be honest, that welded repair around the jacking point does not give me confidence.  This car has had a repair on this side floorpan before now, and I'm not hopeful for how well it was done..  The welding quality is good, but the fabrication and general quality of the repair isn't so clever.  There's going to be galloping rot in here...

Yep, there it is.   That is not good at all.  It extends further up the sill too.

Several hours later, 2 cutting discs later and half a Henry vacuum cleaner full of jacking corrosion later, I have this:

I also found that I had a completely and utterly saturated foam sound deadening under the carpet, and had to remove the passenger seat to get access to everything.  I did wonder why I've been getting damp on the inside of windows that takes forever to get rid of.. that might be the explanation why!  The inner sill has been rotting away merrily for a few years now, and is in desperate need of actual repair.  It's quite a mess.

From the inside of the car... this is the passenger footwell/inner sill, and quite a hole:

Fuckitty fuck fuck fuck.

Still, I now have a new welding torch, a fresh reel of 0.6mm welding wire and a complete sill pressing, so it's getting repaired.  See what tomorrow brings.

For amusement value.. there is so much shite in my garage at the moment, I can't get the car in fully, so it looks like this:

Single garages are crap.  I dream of a decent workshop.

[320touring]

@Talbot good work uncovering that and getting it sorted properly. Those S210 are great cars, but they do need some love and attention at times. Plus it's an old car now.

[Crackers]

Long live das E-Klasse. 

New sills should have it on the road to 300k?

[Talbot]

4 hours ago, Crackers said:

 300k?

Only 45k away, so quite probably, yes.

5 years ago I wouldn't have even contemplated this level of repair, it just wouldn't be worth the time and effort, but to replace this with anything even vaguely worthwhile will cost a minimum of £1500, so my hands are somewhat tied.

Just glad I don't need a car to get to work at the moment.

[Talbot]

Today's updatification:

Didn't get a specific photo of it before doing other work, but I ended up cutting even more out of the floor of the car today.  The repair that had been done previously had rubberised seam sealer slathered all over it, which of course did nothing to actually protect the steel from rotting, if anything it served to hold onto the wet and rot it out faster, so having peeled back more of that ghastly "sealant" there was more steel to remove!

Getting bored of cutting bits out, and beginning to have some real risk of the floor moving so much I can't line it all back up again, it was time to start glueing bits together again, so the inner sill was cut back to a sensible shape:

and a repair section welded in:

I was still getting to grips with the 0.6mm wire and getting the welding settings right on this.. 0.6 mm wire is definitely a game changer on thin steel.  I've always used 0.8 in the past as I had a massive free supply of it, but as I've now finished all that, I thought it time to get some 0.6mm wire, and treat myself to a new longer euro torch.  This one has a rotatable head and is superb.. I now just need a longer earth clamp cable, as the lovely long torch is twice the length of the earth cable now!

Here's the section I discovered and cut out, mentioned above:

Got a bit cut ready to go in, but it was getting late, so I've opted to do that tomorrow.  The other square patch is another area of rot that was found.  Had to peel back the outer sill to get to it, and then let in a repair section.  Did that one from inside the car as it was easier access:

I'd not cleaned the steel up very well on that one, so the weld was a bit shit.  Kept blowing through too as I failed to reduce my welding current for working "normally" as opposed to overhead as I had been with the last weld.  Still, it's solid, and will be completely hidden with carpet on one side and zinc/bitumen paint on the other.  Best kind of repair.

Still need to re-manufacture the jacking point, as there's some larger sections of steel missing from there, do the other little bits and pieces and then weld on the outer sill.  Then paint, and rustproof.  Urgh!

[Shedking]

I had a W210 E320 Cdi for 4 years and loved it but the W211 E280 cdi that I have now is better in pretty much every way to drive. I'd not had a diesel for 8 years but for seamless progression the W211 is lovely.  I hardly notice the gear changes and it pulls like sh#t off a shovel. 

Doing a steady 70mph on the motorway gets 1600 rpm so it's just ticking over and the ride quality is wonderful, it's like floating on air.

[Talbot]

I can neither afford a W211 nor repair one as and when it breaks (in a far more complicated way than a W210 would) so as much as I've no doubt they drive a lot better, I'll be sticking with this one for the forseeable.   As much as I considered binning it off when I found this much rot in it.  However, the rot appears to be primarily from a poorly-executed previous repair, so it's just one of those things.

Plus, nothing newer is going to be good on SVO, WVO, WMO or just about anything else burnable that gets lobbed in...

 

[Shedking]

At the sign of the first ruinous bill it will be weighed in seeing as I paid next to nothing for it, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

[Talbot]

The problem is you then have to replace it with something, and at the moment it's really not possible to buy a car for next-to-nothing.  Hence this one is getting repaired.

[Shedking]

Yep never known a time like it for those of us who choose to run a shed, pickings are slim and prices through the roof, anything within reason I'll repair but I know with these cars that they can on occasion really empty your pockets. 

[Talbot]

Well, Fuck.

I thought things were going rather too well.  The last welding to get the sill on was being done this afternoon.  The weld was a really good one.. continuous, smooth, working really well.  Until I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.

Flames.

Given that I already had the interior removed from where I am welding, I assumed I'd set fire to paint on the other side of the panel I was welding.  Nothing serious, just put it out and re-paint it.  How silly of me to paint an area that was going to be welded thinks I.  So I have a look.

Nope.  The fucking wiring loom.

Wasn't even in contact with the area I was welding... Radiant heat from the steelwork melted the plastic trunking and some of the insulation, which then shorted and caught fire.  Got it put out, but I now have 6" of loom with no insulation on it anywhere, lots of melted insulation and plastic trunking, and a car interior that will smell of burning plastic for the next forever.

Cuntyshitfuckbollocksarsewank.

Could have been worse I guess...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8BNf6vMJg

I need a beer.

[Sunny Jim]

What bastard rotten luck when you're trying to prolong its life - ungrateful fecker. 

[mat_the_cat]

3 hours ago, Talbot said:

Got it put out, but I now have 6" of loom with no insulation on it anywhere

Are you going to 'do a Citroen' and make up the replacement loom with the absolute minimum of different coloured wires? Why colour-code when you can have all the loom in a matching shade of green?

[Zelandeth]

Oh that's not good...major shorts on any car are bad news, but on anything modern enough to have computerised anything can really spell disaster.

Will be keeping many digits crossed that the loom itself and maybe a couple of fuses are the only casualties here.

[LightBulbFun]

4 hours ago, Talbot said:

Well, Fuck.

I thought things were going rather too well.  The last welding to get the sill on was being done this afternoon.  The weld was a really good one.. continuous, smooth, working really well.  Until I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.

Flames.

Given that I already had the interior removed from where I am welding, I assumed I'd set fire to paint on the other side of the panel I was welding.  Nothing serious, just put it out and re-paint it.  How silly of me to paint an area that was going to be welded thinks I.  So I have a look.

Nope.  The fucking wiring loom.

Wasn't even in contact with the area I was welding... Radiant heat from the steelwork melted the plastic trunking and some of the insulation, which then shorted and caught fire.  Got it put out, but I now have 6" of loom with no insulation on it anywhere, lots of melted insulation and plastic trunking, and a car interior that will smell of burning plastic for the next forever.

Cuntyshitfuckbollocksarsewank.

Could have been worse I guess...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud8BNf6vMJg

I need a beer.

thats properly shit! sorry to hear that!

 

given it caught fire due to shorting out you would of hoped one of the million and one fuses a modern a car has, to have actually done something... 

but sadly clearly not!

I just hope at least its a section of loom that is easily removable and replaceable!

[Talbot]

9 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

on anything modern enough to have computerised anything can really spell disaster.

This is indeed a worry.  I am hoping that nothing untoward has happened, and I can just splice in a new section of loom, but I really don't know for sure.

One saving grace is that the Merc specialist near me has another E300 in for breaking, which is both complete and a runner, so if I need a new computer or 6, there may be a supply of them available.

🤞

[Rust Collector]

I'm really sorry to hear about the wiring loom woes, but kudos for tackling the repair and going the extra distance to take all the rot out.

If you get stuck for a loom or other bits then I know a bloke in Newhaven who breaks W210's to export the engines and race the shells, he's been handy for spares when I needed them on my mercs. Your local chap with an E300 is probably the best option in the meantime though by the sounds of it.

[Talbot]

4 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I know a bloke in Newhaven who breaks W210's to export the engines and race the shells

That is very interesting to know.  I have a list of interior/trim bits that I could really do with to keep mine in not-falling-apart condition.

Would you be willing to PM me his details?  Newhaven isn't even that far from me..

[Rust Collector]

5 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Would you be willing to PM me his details?  Newhaven isn't even that far from me..

No problem mate, I'll ping them over.

[Talbot]

[LightBulbFun]

16 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Oh for fucks sake! LOL where do you get these from LOL (and all the other ones you have posted/ said, that are just as terrible/hilarious as that LOL)

that genuinely made me laugh out loud