project Maestro, please. - And Again

[vulgalour]

I may be accused of being lazy with this next instalment on the Maestro because I paid someone else to do the work.  Three things I really dislike doing are wiring, exhausts, and tie rod ends.  This next write up includes two of those things.

 

When I got the car it would pull quite badly and the tyres showed uneven wear.  I assumed it was the tracking, all the usual hallmarks for it were there.  There was also a visual identifier that the tracking might be a little off.  Compared to others I've tried and often failed to do, these didn't look too bad.  Trouble was I didn't have any way of getting a lot of heat in here and while I could have gone and bought myself a torch I just really didn't want to do it at all so not having one was a good excuse to farm it out to someone else.

While I was under there I saw this rot.  Remember this for a future update, because I totally forgot about it and it came back to bite me later.

TREs are widely available and cheap for the Maestro from a host of different suppliers.  I used these.

Took it to the garage who were supposed to be doing the tracking as well but it turned out they didn't actually do tracking.  Never mind, they fitted them for me and I was happy enough with that.

Here's how the tracking looked before with the old TREs.  You can see just how far out the passenger side wheel is sticking which means it is out a lot.

The second garage adjusted it for me and confirmed that yes, it was out by A Lot.  The weirdest part of the drive home was realising I'd been steering into the pull the car had been making and had got used to it, even down to holding the steering wheel off centre going down a straight road.  It was now way more predictable coming off roundabouts and the twitchiness had, unsurprisingly, gone.  Well worth doing.  Or rather, well worth paying someone else to do it for me.

The other issue that plagued the car was an exhaust blow, it sounded really quite bad.  The flexi joint was the culprit here.  Then came the challenge of finding a replacement exhaust part.  Some of my exhaust is stainless steel, some of it isn't, and this bit isn't an off-the-shelf item so far as I could find out.

I couldn't find a 1.3 manual downpipe anywhere.  I could find lots of 1.6 automatic downpipes that looked very similar.  So I got one and chanced it and then got in touch with Bower Lane Exhaust and Tyre who did a sterling job of fitting it for me.  I'm actually really happy I didn't do this one myself, the studs that joined the manifold to the downpipe snapped, it bit one of the mechanics working on it, and required a couple of hours of labour to sort out.  The only difference between this and the manual pipe is that the tailpipe end is flanged in the opposite way so they just had to modify the new pipe I'd got to fit the pipe on the car, something I probably wouldn't have figured out quickly on my own.  The drive home after getting this done was a revelation, at times I thought I'd stalled because it was so much quieter.

Well, that was easy.

[grogee]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

that joined the manifold to the downpipe snapped

Oh, hai

[Matty]

Love that you're not only keeping this going but improving it too. Qudos 

[vulgalour]

It's simultaneously the best and the worst car I've ever owned.  When things are fixed/improved, they stay that way, it's very unusual.

[2flags]

It's great to see one of these get some love. They were a good car in their day, never great, but not bad. Family motoring for the masses. 

[egg]

On 16/02/2023 at 13:30, vulgalour said:

Bower Lane Exhaust and Tyre

Nice update. I think that's where Furious Driving got his Alfa exhaust done?

[vulgalour]

I couldn't say, but I wouldn't be surprised since we're in one another's general vicinity and do occasionally see one another driving about.

EDIT: Actually, a quick scan through the vid and it is indeed the same place.  They like their weird and wonderful stuff there.  Did my tyres for the Princess too and they'll be doing the exhaust on the Lanchester eventually.

[vulgalour]

Those that saw the Maestro at the Flower Farm meet recently already know the result, but here's the passenger arch being tackled which should have been the easier side to do.