CaptainBoom's Home for the Reality Challenged Hopeless Cases - Now with 100% extra Renner

[CaptainBoom]

I've been a long time lurker on here, living vicariously through reading many project threads.  I thought I ought to bore you with a thread on my collection of shite.

In the past I've owned:
Steed #1 1991 Type 86C VW Polo 'Breadvan' which as with all first cars, was brilliant.  Developed OMGHGF and went to live with a postman in the town who had an identical one with a wrecked body, I presume that he made one good one out of two crap ones...

Steed #2 A 2001 VW Bora with a slushbox that made it feel very lumpen and required a fuel tanker to follow it everywhere.  Sold when I had to chose between my mortage and fuel bills.

Things took a turn for the worse, same old story; made redundant, needed cash and something cheaper to run, etc.

Steed #3 I bought a 1999 6N which I had for nine months, then crashed.  Broke it for parts on my driveway, a shame really as I had just got it sorted out.

Steed #4 Next was a 1995 Renault Clio 1.2 RL, proper BASE spec, enjoyable ride but irritating as my daughter's child seat wouldn't fit in the back, so she sat up front with me, while Mrs CaptainBoom sat in the rear, she hated that!  I got it from a random garage in North London, owners were really nice, drank Turkish coffee and talked cars for about an hour before they drove me to the Post Office, so that I could tax it (before the internet thingy).  

After that was Steed #5 a 2003 Mk4 Golf Match, which did a job of being 'an car', it wasn't comfortable, felt buzzy at motorway speeds (70mph was at 3500rpm).  It needed continuous fettling, which I did, but in the end on the way back from Belgium developed an intermittent misfire which two garages and I couldn't get to the bottom of.  I broke it for parts on the driveway.

Backup Steed #1 During my ownership of the Golf, something odd happened to me, I developed a burgeoning waistline, liked eating soup and involuntarily saying 'Ahhhh', when I sat down.  I lost what little dress sense that I had, I realised that I had become middle-aged.  I had to do something to show that I wasn't over the hill, and do something exciting.  After a flurry of selling crap from my house, I had the sum of £350 in my Paypal account.  My thoughts turned to eBay.  There was a sad-looking, neglected SAAB 900i for sale in Barnstaple (250 miles from home)  I had hankered after one of these for a while after getting a lift home from my maths teacher in 1995 who had one.  I bunged a bid of £350 in expecting to not get it.  I really just wanted to say that I had tried to get one (i.e. be a part of it) and I only bloody won at £320! 

I really enjoyed the collection adventure, five hours on various trains.  The SAAB had sat for a few months, but fired straight up and drove back 250 miles without missing a beat.  When the Golf was poorly (quite often) it was our family runaround and got me to work and did the school run.  It managed a few MOT's before getting the thumbs down on some rust.  It's been a driveway ornament for the last two years.  I need to get myself sorted out and weld up the frilly bits.  I own a sparkly spanner, and am teaching myself to stick bits of metal together.  I need to do this outside on my driveway, which doesn't fill me with enthusiasm.

Steed #6 I became fairly sure that I couldn't keep dailying the SAAB, so I plundered eBay once again and found a 2002 Volvo V40 which was tatty looking, and had been left standing for 18 months in a garage.  The owners had slung it through an MOT which it passed.  £600 won that and five years later, it's still running.  It's had a few things fixed (all by me); rear silencer, brakes front and rear (fronts twice) strut top mounts, anti roll bar linkages, 1 x seatbelt, and many many tyres as I seem to find just about every nail on the road and drive over it.  I think my prediliction for part worns also has something to do with it.  The S/V40 was a joint development with Mitsubishi and the V40 is a twin to the Carisma.  It makes finding parts a bit of a fun operation as I have a 1834cc GDI engine that is Mitsi sourced, there is a 1796cc Volvo engine in the range as well, so a search for things (especially at Euro Crap Parts) for a '1.8' is a lottery.  Track rods ends are a source of misery for some reason.  I've found online parts catalogues, and then eBay the only way I can find things.  I don't have any photos of the Volvo for some reason and it's dark outside.

Both the SAAB and the Volvo are about as desirable as a handjob from Edward Scissorhands, so much so that I found out yesterday that the SAAB had been unlocked for the last few weeks and no-one has lifted anything from it!  I'm not great at remembering to lock to Volvo either, and that sits on the road outside my house. 
 

 

 

[wuvvum]

I really need to get myself another 900 before they're completely out of my price range.

[CaptainBoom]

Today's battle was to clean up the underside and fit a new thermostat, the MOT is due soon, the previous year it scraped through with a list of 11 advisories, I have bashed my way through all of them bit by bit, but the 'corroded springs' was a load of pony, it was all mud, so I opted the get the wheels off and brush down the springs and brake lines.  The engine struggles to get up to temperature and that made me wonder about the emissions test, as it scraped through despite being very good in previous years.  I figured I would change the thermostat to see what (if any) difference it makes.
So get at the thermostat, two bolts:

Helpfully once you get the radiator lower hose off, the coolant pisses all over the clutch slave cylinder and down the arm.  Thankfully there is a femidom over the bottom of the arm to stop water getting into the transmission.  

The car did a wee over the car park at work, that should help kill off the moss.

I then pulled the thermostat off and had a look at the new part, shit it's too small!  Not to worry, I thought, let's see if I can find somewhere open (on a Sunday!??) The nearest open one was Crayford, a 20 minute drive.  I pinched the van from work and collected it as well as a wiper blade for the van.  As with all pool vehicles, everyone who uses it is adamant that it's someone's responsibility to attend to upkeep, but when questioned, they aren't sure who is, therefore no-one maintains it.  Thus you can guarantee that when you need it, the fuel gauge will have it's needle bent round at the empty mark, the seat will be covered in the remains of some fuckers lunch and the back will have someone's domestic refuse in it.  Bastards.

As a veteran of Euro Crap Parts I dreaded what I was going to see when I offered up the thermostat, and I was right, that didn't fit either!  Still, I will return that to the branch that is 50 yards from work.  
Looking through the Borg and Beck catalogue, I have ordered another one, so that can wait another day, I had a go at replacing a rusty AF jubilee clip on the bottom hose, but that didn't want to go anywhere, I'll cut that off when I do the thermostat.  The bottom hose clip is a common gnarly point on V/S40's and it often fails making it car turn into a steam engine, and if you aren't quick (who would delay when seeing a cloud of steam I don't know) OMGHGF is a certainty gathering by the 18 pages on this topic on the Volvo forum.  

I did test the thermostat that came out of the car, photos (in excrutiating detail) below.
I was at work, there is no hob that I could use with a saucepan, also there isn't a kettle, just some poncey water heater thing.  I summoned my inner Macguyver and used some poor bastards mug to put my mucky thermostat in.  

Disheartened, I had a go at the wiper bush, another common crap point on these cars, the plastic bush that accepts the wiper spindle wears oval and the wiper arms rock and screech even with new blades on.  I had swiped a set of decentish bushes from a scrapper about four years ago, and they had been sitting in the shed, then in the glovebox since.  Today was their day.
My long-suffering nine year old daughter helped as she has the hands of, well a nine year old and we soon had the old bits off and the newish ones on.  Thusly, I filled it up with coolant, squeezed the hoses to burp the air out, completely failed to find a bleed point, apparently these self-bleed, Okay then.  I then took it for a blat along some clean roads (so I don't get mud on the springs and hoses again) with one eye on the coolant temperature gauge.  It still struggled to get to the mid point, but when lefting ticking over, it did.  As soon as I drove it, the coolant temperature dropped.  Bollocks, that can wait for another day.  For now I will just hope for the MOT, if that doesn't work, I'll stuff a few £20 notes behind the sun visor...

So in all, I achieved the square root of bugger all, but I didn't have to watch mind-numbing crap on the TV or get nagged at by my wife, so I'd call that a draw.

 

 

[CaptainBoom]

Just now, wuvvum said:

I really need to get myself another 900 before they're completely out of my price range.

To be honest, I never thought I'd get one, but mine is the least desirable, saloon, 8V NA engine, fairly base spec.  I get griped at by a car-mad friend to fit a 16v full pressure turbo engine, and all that jazz.  I like it just the way it is, very scabby, honest, and quirky.  The engine layout, bonkers!  The front wheel handbrake, actually sensible but weird.

Prices are on the rise, but a good, ordinary 900 can be had for sensible money still.  It's not got a blue oval on the front, so they get passed up by people in their 40's with cash on the hip re-living their youth.

Seinfeld had one, and there was one in Cold Feet, but they went unnoticed a lot of the time.

[Lacquer Peel]

Aftermarket thermostats are almost universally bad, I would recommend an OEM one. 

I like the Saab, I had a 900i 8v years ago and enjoyed it (bar the thirst)

[wuvvum]

7 hours ago, CaptainBoom said:

The front wheel handbrake, actually sensible but weird.

Must be one of the last with the handbrake on the front - they went to the back shortly after the facelift if memory serves.

[Supernaut]

I have a slightly less quirky 9000 myself, which I got cheap partly because it hadn't had an MOT for 3 years and partly because it's the lowly CS model with a 2.0 NA 16v.

It's not particularly fast, but still faster than my other car (a BMW 316i) and honestly isn't that bad on fuel. Slightly worse than the BMW but it's not like it's drinking at an alarming rate. Probably averaging somewhere in the ballpark of 30mpg.

Either way, it's definitely made me a fan of old Saabs. I bought it on a whim because it was cheap and nearby and I fell for the sea of blue velour inside it, now that I've spent a few months (and probably far too much money) fettling it, I really rate it.

 

I'd definitely like to try a 900 at some point.

 

 

Hmm, seeing all your work on cooling systems has reminded me. I have no idea how old the coolant in my 9000 is. I even bought a bottle of anti freeze concentrate a couple of months ago and it's just sat in the boot along with a few other things I intend to do at some point...

[motorpunk]

8 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I really need to get myself another 900 before they're completely out of my price range.

I watched Hot Fuzz the other night and there’s a yellow 900 in it. I missed the rest of the film looking at old Saabs on eBay.

[CaptainBoom]

1 hour ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Aftermarket thermostats are almost universally bad, I would recommend an OEM one. 

I like the Saab, I had a 900i 8v years ago and enjoyed it (bar the thirst)

Yeah, after this latest brush with aftermarket parts nonsense, I'm thinking I'll ring up the local Volvo dealership and ask nicely.  They wanted £9 for an instrument panel bulb last time I spoke to them, that would be OK, but I needed six as the backlighting was in darkness.  So identical bulbs from RS via work fixed that for pennies.

I love the 900, it's not quick by any means, but I enjoy it's lazy torquey engine.  Cosmetically it's rough as a badger's arse, the lacquer peel is hilarious.  The yellow lights in the warehouse where that photo was taken cover up the shitty bits.  I really enjoyed taking my eldest to school in it, she used to sit up front and change gear for me (although I did have the tell her which number, so it was a bit like a pre-select).

It is thirsty though especially at the moment as it gets started every month, but can't go anywhere! 

1 hour ago, Supernaut said:

I bought it on a whim because it was cheap and nearby and I fell for the sea of blue velour inside it

I got to admit, it's comfortable to drive, I used to take it for long night time drives, and I always felt better for being immersed in beige velour.  I like it more than leather to be honest.  Coupled with the fact that Mrs CaptainBoom can't stand it, she hates the fact that it looks in at the bedroom window (we live in a bungalow) made it a keeper straight away.  I do hanker after a 9000, but I would be skinned alive if I bought one, (and bankrupted soon after).

1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

Must be one of the last with the handbrake on the front - they went to the back shortly after the facelift if memory serves.

You're dead right, mine's a 1987 which has the 'old-style front handbrake and wheel nuts, but the facelift to a slope front.  Makes getting parts really fun!  I've worked out I would need one 900 of each 'flavour' to break to make one 1987 model.  

When I get it working, I do intend on bringing it to the FoD for people to play with/laugh at/point out the quirky bits.  I might have retired by then though!

[CaptainBoom]

1 hour ago, motorpunk said:

I watched Hot Fuzz the other night and there’s a yellow 900 in it. I missed the rest of the film looking at old Saabs on eBay.

I need to watch Hot Fuzz through all the way, the bits I have seen are hilarious.  Knowing there's a 900 in there should add to the momentum I think!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

2 hours ago, motorpunk said:

I watched Hot Fuzz the other night and there’s a yellow 900 in it. ...

That's the one those two get decapitated in.

"Just because people have an accident doesn't mean it's murrdurrr...."

[CaptainBoom]

Big gap, not very much happened to fill it.  The Volvo soldiered on, needing new brakes lines and a spring to get it through last years MOT (which I did myself).  The Saab is still in a bajillion pieces awaiting some good weather for welding.

I am getting fucked off with being woken up at silly hours of the morning.  It's happened twice in the last week.

The first one was this:

I live on a hill.  I parked up after coming home from work and went to bed (this being 9:30 AM).  I put the handbrake on (obvs) but crucially didn't leave it in gear or the wheels pointing at the kerb.  I guess that the rear discs cooled and contracted and the Volvo ran away.  It managed to get itself round a slight bend and embed itself in the concrete block gatepost down the road.  Owners not chuffed as you can imagine, but their fleet of PCP cars were behind the gatepost so it could have been much worse.  Owner insisted on going through insurance, so they wrote off my V40 , I was given some money to keep and repair it, which I got on Friday.  12 hours after getting the paltry sum that my insurers deemed to give me.  This happened...

The second time I got woken up at 2:30 this morning by my concerned neighbours, owing to insomnia and sleeping tablets I sleep like the dead, so I took some rowsing.  Apparently a Mercedes had been driving up and down the estate road several times at high speed and had hit my car.  I only know it's a merc, because I have the front grill, which I shall keep as a trophy in the shed.  It had stoved in the rear nearside corner of my once beautiful* Volvo

The plan was to get a replacement bumper, headlight and wing from the first accident and drive it with the Cat S marker until major borkage ocurred.  But after last night's shenanigans, the rear damage is way too much, so it's off to be turned into a Zanussi or three.  Pity as I liked the old beast, it cost me £650 six years ago, and hasn't needed much, other than a rear box, two springs, two batteries, rear droplinks, front droplinks x3, handbrake cable, two brake calipers, countless part-worn tyres, brake discs and pads.  It sounds a lot as a list, but really it's nothing in comparison to the life I got out of it.  I did all the work myself, and I could have gone through two or three shitters in that time.

Such is life. 

For the short term, I'm not going to rush back to being a motorist.  I can get the kids to school on the bus and I can juggle things with work and borrow their van where possible.  Of course if something interesting/dull catches my eye in the meantime...

 

[High Jetter]

That's really bad luck. I bet you said more then 'OWW' when you saw it!

[CaptainBoom]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

That's really bad luck. I bet you said more then 'OWW' when you saw it!

I didn't, but my wallet did!

[High Jetter]

(for those who didn't get it, OWW is in the reg)

[CaptainBoom]

Life has got in the way a bit, I've been working pretty much continuously since the accident, so updates haven't occurred.

We pick up the *action the morning after the second accident.  I woke up, hoping that it was all like the 9th series of Dallas, where it was just a bad dream.  https://dallas.fandom.com/wiki/The_Dream_Season

Ah bollocks, it was real.  I kept getting hassled on the Saturday morning by our metal collecting friends who wanted to haul my Volvo away.  The fourth bloke was a bit cheeky, he had driven past in a beavertail had parked in front and attached his winch to the front towing eye, then knocked on my door and started offering cash.  My work tools were still in the car, as were the kids seats.  He got told to do one.  The kids were getting a bit antsy with all this going on and strangers coming to the door.  I pulled the rear wing away from the wheel and drove it gently to work.  There are three convents and two kitten homes on the way there, I made sure that I sounded my horn to warn them of my approach.  Once at work, the de-CaptainBooming process began.  Six years is a long time for me to own a car, there were stones from seaside trips, little *improvements I had made and lots of things I had lost over the years that ended up being found.

Monday morning, the grim reaper paid a call.  10 minutes later, i had a small wodge of pieces of paper with her Maje's face on:

Farewell old friend (hums 'The Last Post' under his breath) and salutes the departing Dutch-built Swede with a Japanese engine.

Not a lot happened for a while, I settled down into Bus Wanker status, but it was difficult to get the kids to school and be at work for 9:00.  A few close calls with management told me I still ought to have some wheels, I also look after my grandmother, and getting to her house at all hours wasn't fun.  To be fair, she's 96 and leaving the house is a big thing for her.

This came along, dirt cheap via a friend of a friend of a work colleague's hairdresser's butcher, (or something like that). 

It had a few running faults, these are things I expect.  The first was that the alternator was kaput.  The seller very kindly put it on charge before I picked it up at 10:30 on a windy, rainy Sunday night.  It was only six miles to get home but even then, the headlights were getting dimmer and the wipers slower.  The alternator is *well sited on the 1.5 dci engine, under the slam panel with the engine in the way to get at it from above, the chassis leg on one side, the rad on the other and all manner of shit in the way below.  I suspect that there is a better way to do this, but I set about it in a logical manner.  It all came apart quite easily, just it was very slow!

I took it to work on a Saturday afternoon, the kids helped for a while until they got tired.  They stacked up a prodigious pile of plastic:

That was just the big bits.  In the intervening time waiting for an eBay-special alternator to arrive in the post, some chump had smashed my drivers door mirror.  Impressive as I had parked that side up against the kerb, so would have been a pedestrian that had twatted it off.  Ah well, perhaps he/she didn't like French cars?

I didn't let the kids help with that one.

Eventually, afer some boss-level farting around, I had a *new alternator fitted.  The second job was a nearside front lower arm, that was tedious and involved removing the front half of the subframe as it obscured a through-bolt that holds the lower arm at the front, aren't modern cars so fun?

The ball joint was TFFMBT, it had more droop in it than Concorde's nose.  Finally I lowered the bastard to the ground at around 2AM, too knackered to do anything else and slumped into a chair in a meeting room. 

The third job was to give the seats a good seeing to, the previous owner was a messy sod, the interior had a lot of sticky coffee patches on all of the plastics and the upholstery.  The whole car had more funk in it than Sly and the Family Stone.  Behold the grot:

I wasn't fussy, so I brushed it hard with a nylon bristled brush and some water with detergent in it.  It's still not brilliant, but it's a lot nicer and probably only a Jamiroquai level of funk now.

That was enough for one weekend.  We still had:

• A groaning rear wheel bearing
• 3 x shagged tyres, the spare was in use on the front
• 2 x weirdly damaged wheels
• A strange wobble from the front wheel (which didn't go away after the lower arm change, nor swapping the wheels over)
• A smashed up wheel arch liner (I've never seen one of these get broken)
• A squeaky noise coming from the rear nearside (in the same corner as the duff bearing)
• A shagged cigarette lighter
• Excessive travel on the handbrake to get it to engage, left me feeling a bit twitchy as that had led to the demise of the Volvo

 

[CaptainBoom]

Next up were the wheels and tyres.  @UltraWomble had some wheels that were the same as the ones on the car, just in much better nick.  He kindly held onto them until I was in the area on work and a deal was done.  I had the centre caps on the original wheels.  The new wheels sat in my garden until I had the cash for some part worns.  (Yes, I know)

The tyre shop I use is only about 20 minutes walk from me, but I couldn't get all four wheels in the boot.  I did what any sensible person would do and put them in a wheelbarrow and strapped them together.  Suffice to say the wheels and tyres that came off the car were shagged:

The tyres reminded me of these two fellers:

And the damage to the rim was odd.  The kids wanted a tyre swing for the garden, I was happy to oblige, after all I had the tyres.  All I needed was something to pop one of them off the rim.

Ah-hah!

A bit of pushing with a forklift against a very sturdy brick wall at work had them popped off nicely.  Some work with a couple of crowbars and we had a tyre off, ready for swing action. 

Rear bearing next, they are pressed into the drum on these, after bashing the old one out for hours, I made brake drum pie in the oven...

and wheel bearing dessert in the freezer...

And the drone was gone!  The front was up next.  There was a weird oscillation which matched road speed coming from the front NS and I despite a bit of sleuthing and a new set of wheels and tyres, it remained.  I couldn't work out what it was.  A hub assembly from a scrapper was almost as cheap as a new bearing.  So I took the risk.

It's Copaslip on the glove, honest.  That solved the oscillating, notchy feeling so it was probably the bearings that were stuffed.  There was no rumbling noise before, odd.

Is it a Bird?  Is It a plane?  No, it's Gloveman, the most hygenic superhero ever.

 

[Boycie]

Shame about the Volvo , my old man has had a  diesel S40 which wont die despite only getting a oil change once every 5 years , sadly at the last mot the tester said to enjoy it's last year .......rust will finally kill it come August 

[CaptainBoom]

16 hours ago, Boycie said:

Shame about the Volvo , my old man has had a  diesel S40 which wont die despite only getting a oil change once every 5 years , sadly at the last mot the tester said to enjoy it's last year .......rust will finally kill it come August 

Yeah, that's what tends to kill them off.  I did look for another V40 as it was so damn handy.  Problem is they are getting a bit thin on the ground now.

[AnnoyingPentium]

2 minutes ago, CaptainBoom said:

Problem is they are getting a bit thin on the ground now.

I found they've disappeared very quickly over the past year or so too. I was fair taken on by one, but can't find one that's to my liking.