project Maestro, please.

[vulgalour]

Ordered myself a new welder.  The welder cost more than the Maestro.  I am very smart.

[stuboy]

14 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Ordered myself a new welder.  The welder cost more than the Maestro.  I am very smart.

i did exactly the same and went controversially gone gasless and had no problems

[vulgalour]

A proper car review this is not.  Rather, it's a look at my Maestro and how it compares to an almost identical Maestro that's eight years younger and has a third of the miles on it.  I won't be doing a words-and-pictures update for this one as it doesn't really translate.

 

[captain_70s]

Your bootlid may howl but at least the gas struts still hold it up...

An impressive array of dandy clothing. Were you headed to 1968 Carnaby Street?

[vulgalour]

Sweety.

Darling.

Lovey.

 

 

I am 1968 Carnaby Street.

[High Jetter]

I still haz the t-shirt. Smoll, obs.

[Lankytim]

This has just been “car take backed” at Chase metal recycling in Hednesford, Staffs. It’s likely to just have its engine pulled and get baled but some parts might be available. 
https://www.wewantanyscrap.com anybody phoning should ask for “Deadly Daz”

[High Jetter]

Nooooooo ,.,.....

[vulgalour]

@Lankytim Thanks for the heads up, I'll pass the info on, see if we can get some Maestro folks in need of parts to make use of it.

[Tenmil Socket]

Would you like this for the cost of postage?

 

[vulgalour]

6 hours ago, Tenmil Socket said:

Would you like this for the cost of postage?

Yes.  Yes I would.

[Tenmil Socket]

On 12/10/2021 at 1:34 AM, vulgalour said:

Yes.  Yes I would.

I'm unable to PM you?

[vulgalour]

That's very weird.  I've got plenty of space on the PMs, and you're not blocked or anything so I'm not sure what's going on there. Sent you a test PM to see if that goes through, maybe it'll let you reply to it?

[vulgalour]

Time for a new Maestro video.  Tyres this time.

 

[Dan302]

1 hour ago, vulgalour said:

Time for a new Maestro video.  Tyres this time.

 

Looking forward to watching this with a nice brew 😀

[vulgalour]

Tyres are important.  When I got the car it came to me on some tyres that I mostly chose not to look at because I knew I was going to be putting new ones on as soon as I had everything sorted out. I held off until I had a full set of spare steels and could find the tyres I wanted in the size I wanted at a price I could afford.  That meant it wasn't until June that I got them, six months after buying the car.  Part of this wait was job prioritising, there were so many other things I needed to sort out on the car to make it tolerable to drive and the tyres that were on weren't giving me any scary moments so I knew I had time.  There were no obvious defects, the tread looked good, etc. so I just let sleeping dogs lie.

Eventually I found the Uniroyal Rain Experts I wanted in the size I needed and Peter had provided a full set of steels in the big parts haul which meant I wouldn't have to worry about the tyre place jacking the car up in the wrong place, or putting the wheel nuts on at a million torques.

So, what do all those markings on the side of the tyre mean?  Here's a handy infographic.

Now you know.  One important detail you should know on your tyres is the age.  The recommendation is to not drive on tyres that are over ten years old because they start to fail about this age, something the Maestro did bear out as I'll come to in a bit.  If your tyres are so old there is no date code, they are now museum pieces.  If you have a date code that's only three digits long they were made in the last century and are really only for show.  You want tyres with a four digit code, like this.

So let's assume you have tyres that are at least on a four digit date code, the next thing to check is the quantity and condition of the tread.  The tread on this tyre which is on one of the spare steels is actually pretty substantial and in reasonable looking condition for a used tyre.

The sidewall, however, not so much.  Those cracks are probably caused by the tyre being flat while it was on the car, uv damage and deformity of the rubber over a long period of time has made the rubber degrade.  Damage like this can lead to blowouts, so a tyre like this is only fit for rolling a car around while it's being worked on and should never be used on the road.

What's the date code on this one then?  Ah, 2001.  That's a 20 year old tyre (at the time of recording) so very much past its use by date.

By the time I'd got everything together for the new tyres, the ones on the car were starting to worry me a bit in the wet, especially on adverse camber where the car would feel a bit squirrely if the conditions were just so.  Now I had new tyres, I could look at the old ones properly. For some reason, the ones on the front have the sidewalls scrubbed almost smooth.

I can only assume the first owner was parking by feel with the front tyres to manage to do this.  I'd also noticed after a short run on the motorway that tiny cracks had started to appear all over the tyres, especially in the treads.  Definitely time for these to go.

One trek to the local tyre place and they had the new tyres on the spare steels, and the ancient tyres pulled off them and disposed of. Balanced with significantly less weights than either set of steels I have, and ready to go back on the car.  I like that you can get a full set of wheels in the boot of the Maestro and still keep the seat up and the parcel shelf in.

New tyres always make a car look better, nice fresh black rubber draws the eye away from the less than perfect bits.

Let's have a look at what came off then.  Those front tyres are both scrubbed smooth so I didn't know what brand they were until I got them off the car.

Flipping them over I find the brand on the back.  Good old Runway Enduros, not the best tyre in the world, not the worst.

Date on these is 2010, so 11 year old tyres at the time of recording.  Remember how I said tyres are good until about ten years old and then they start to go bad?

Look at what's happening to the tread on these.  The tread is cracking and breaking up and tiny cracks are appearing in the tread itself.  Funnily enough, these tyres are perfectly legal and would probably soldier on like this for quite a while.  These will be fine as yard rollers, which is exactly what I'll use them for should I ever need to for any reason, but they shouldn't see the road again.

The tyres on the back are a bit newer, and a different make.  It looks like the car had tyres replaced in pairs only when it absolutely needed them and not a moment sooner which is pretty normal for this sort of car.  One thing I did notice is that the rear tyres and the spare are the same make and from 2012/13 and while one looks almost new (and has become the spare since at 9 years old and being kept out of sunlight it should be fine for a couple more years yet), the other two are badly worn.

When I took the spare out of the boot to check the condition, just to be sure I had a reasonable spare tyre, I was pretty surprised someone had even bothered to put it in the car.  It was well on its way to being bald.

Happily, none of these problem tyres are a problem any longer.  The abnormal wear is caused by a tracking issue, one that I've since had resolved but haven't released the video for yet, so I'm not getting that abnormal wear on the new tyres.

As in the video, I would urge you to check the condition of your tyres if it's not something you do regularly anyway.  Problems with tyres can develop pretty quickly, especially when they're getting to or past the ten year mark.  Fitting new tyres, or good quality part worns, is well worth it, especially in the colder and wetter months when grip isn't so readily available.  Remember, tyres are the only thing keeping your car on the road so they're pretty important for your safety and your driving enjoyment.

[Dan302]

I really enjoyed the tyre video, really informative too.

[MJK 24]

80 profile - you’ll be super comfortable over the worst pot holes!

[Noel Tidybeard]

i actually think the "spare" was the spare and was put on cos the 4213 was boloxd

[vulgalour]

Entirely likely.  The one thing I think we can all agree on is they got their money's worth out of those tyres.

[vulgalour]

Just a short one this time.

 

[vulgalour]

New radiator for the Maestro and playing the parts lottery with fan switches.

 

[vulgalour]

I took a couple of weeks off the Youtube updates and Things in general.  I needed to get recharged and catch up.  The war in Ukraine has been hitting the part of the art community I'm in pretty badly with various Russian artists having totally vanished, and fellow artists in Poland understandably distracted and worried about their neighbours.  I don't personally know anyone in Ukraine (as far as I'm aware), but I do know some folks in neighbouring countries so there's a lot of fear and anger being shared right now.  That and the issues in our own country, of course, and how that's affecting friends and loved ones much nearer our own front door.  I feel a lot of guilt for the good fortune I'm experiencing in my life at the moment, even though I know it's not always been that way for me.  I could push myself into hardship to help others and I feel selfish for not doing so, even though I realistically have nothing to feel guilty about.

The nature of my work as entertainer and artist felt somehow frivolous given the larger issues that were filling everyone's mind.  I couldn't maintain a facade of being unaffected and producing the happy little distractions for people and so I decided not to for a bit.  However, it became clear that people missed the content as it was a much needed diversion and I realised that there was very little I could do about the world around me except to speak up about it, to condemn the actions of Putin, Johnson, and their ilk, and so that's what I shall continue to do.

All this is to say there's a new Maestro video coming out tomorrow at 3pm as per the usual schedule and there will be a write up for the last one arriving as soon as I have the head space to sit down and compose it.

[Rocket88]

Boris is a buffoon, Putin is a cold eyed killer……

[Zelandeth]

39 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

I took a couple of weeks off the Youtube updates and Things in general.  I needed to get recharged and catch up.  The war in Ukraine has been hitting the part of the art community I'm in pretty badly with various Russian artists having totally vanished, and fellow artists in Poland understandably distracted and worried about their neighbours.  I don't personally know anyone in Ukraine (as far as I'm aware), but I do know some folks in neighbouring countries so there's a lot of fear and anger being shared right now.  That and the issues in our own country, of course, and how that's affecting friends and loved ones much nearer our own front door.  I feel a lot of guilt for the good fortune I'm experiencing in my life at the moment, even though I know it's not always been that way for me.  I could push myself into hardship to help others and I feel selfish for not doing so, even though I realistically have nothing to feel guilty about.

The nature of my work as entertainer and artist felt somehow frivolous given the larger issues that were filling everyone's mind.  I couldn't maintain a facade of being unaffected and producing the happy little distractions for people and so I decided not to for a bit.  However, it became clear that people missed the content as it was a much needed diversion and I realised that there was very little I could do about the world around me except to speak up about it, to condemn the actions of Putin, Johnson, and their ilk, and so that's what I shall continue to do.

All this is to say there's a new Maestro video coming out tomorrow at 3pm as per the usual schedule and there will be a write up for the last one arriving as soon as I have the head space to sit down and compose it.

I know what you mean, the number of artists on my watch list who have just gone dark is terrifying.  I never realised how many people over there I either knew or at least knew of until this all kicked off.

Both between the art side of things and through some contacts forged back when I was way more active with the Lada scene I've quite a few friends in Russia too.  Seeing what they're going through makes me want to cry as well as they're getting tarred with the same brush as Putin in many folk's eyes and have had to watch powerlessly as their country's economy has basically imploded.

All we can really do is cross our fingers and pray at this point.  

I really need to do a proper catch up on your videos, have fallen massively behind.  Likewise I really do need to commission something from you artistically but I keep forgetting!

Not to mention maybe pick up a pencil or stylus myself again...not sure if I've actually drawn or attempted to draw anything in the last decade...

Seems you've been having better luck with tyres than I have.  Since probably 2010 or so I've nearly always been noticing significant perishing on them as soon as they get past the five year mark or so, never mind ten.  The ones on the 107 (Continentals) were scrap fodder by the car's first MOT.

[vulgalour]

It's time.

 

[vulgalour]

Finally finished this A3 portrait of the Maestro.  It's not in the shop yet, when it is I'll pop a link in the art thread.

[vulgalour]

https://youtu.be/FAlN34yT4LY

Write up time for the above video (linked for your convenience). I'm several videos behind on write-ups again, there's just too much for me to do in the time I have spare lately so I've been slacking a bit on some stuff.

The radiator on the car is likely the original. It's not in great shape. Visible exterior corrosion, missing fins, and while it doesn't leak badly enough that regular top ups are required, and doesn't seem to be blocked, it's definitely due a replacement.

Coolant didn't look too bad when I started draining it, a bit too clear perhaps suggesting that there wasn't much in the way of actual antifreeze in the system, and when it got nearer the bottom the contents became a much more muddy hue. I have no idea when the coolant was last done and this is the first time I've done it on this car.

 

Once drained, it was time to remove the radiator. Sensibly, the Maestro has a removable section of the slam panel which you can take out by simply undoing two bolts on each end on the top, one bolt each end on the back, and two screws that hold the cold air feed pipe in place.

 

You can also unfasten the bonnet release cable if you wish, but it's not necessary. I left mine attached so that I could just swing the panel out of the way since it made no sense to make more work for myself.

 

You then undo the clamps on the radiator hoses - still the original wire style ones here - and unplug the two connectors to the fan switch. Don't forget to unplug the fan too.

 

 

With all that done, the radiator simply lifts up and out of the car. It has two little legs on the bottom that slot into the crossmember to hold the bottom in place, and the everything else that was undone holds the top in place. It's one of the most pleasant radiator removal jobs I've ever done.

 

The radiator design for the 1.3 Maestro was revised during production and later ones are a little bit wider. The NOS one I'd been given was the later type. This would mean I'd need a narrower blind/deflector on one side than my original one and a different fan switch if the one in the new radiator needed replacing, other than that it's a straight swap and it plumbs straight in.

 

Next step is to swap the fan onto the new radiator. The fan works fine so there's no sense replacing it. Typically, the nuts all sheared off the bolts on the original radiator and couldn't be freed due to rust so I didn't reuse those. The new radiator has the studs for the fan installed already so all I had to do was find some suitable nuts and washers to fit them, which I had in my fastenings stash.

 

Here's a look at just how bad the old radiator had become. There were areas that had so little fins left you could see very clearly through the radiator (I know you can see through a radiator normally anyway, but you know what I mean).

 

 

Since I had the system drained it made sense to correct the thermostat location since it turned out I'd done that incorrectly. It wasn't causing me any problems but it's always nice to make a job right when you find out you've done it wrong. Bit of a faff dealing with the multi-part thermostat housing on this engine and having to line all the bits and pieces up. The gasket I'd made had barely any miles on it so I just reused it since it was still in perfect shape, again it made no sense to make more work for myself by throwing away a perfectly good gasket and making a new one.

 

 

I probably should have left the thermostat out to flush the system. I didn't. It was a sensible thing to flush the system out before fitting the new radiator, a lot of orangey gunge was dislodged.

Happily there were no sparkles in the coolant so I don't think it's had potions put in it. I think it had just been overdue a coolant change. I cleaned up the solid coolant pipe that seems to be stainless steel and had paint flaking off it. Not sure what's caused that big gouge in it, it's been that way for a very long time and the tube is thick enough wall that it doesn't affect anything negatively. Replaced the old wire hose clamps with Jubilee style ones, in part because I didn't trust the old wire ones and in part because some of the old wire ones broke on removal.

The old blind/deflector was now too wide for my car. Fortunately, my friend Peter had need of a short one and had a long one going spare so we just did a swap.

Radiator was now in its home, plumbed in, and ready to go (short blind/deflector not shown here)

Refitting the slam panel section was very easy and the shorter blind/deflector was installed. Aside from the grille, this was all back together now.

Refilled, checked for leaks, waited for things to get up to temperature and for the fan to come on. Kept waiting. The fan refused to come to life. First stop was to check the fuses, which were fine.

Tried some percussive maintenance on the fan, just in case, and that didn't make a difference. Then checked the fan switch and I was getting no continuity from it, suggesting it was stuck open and thus not turning the fan on. To test the theory further, I rigged up a crude little jumper wire and the fan sprang to life straight away.

That means that the fan switch in the old radiator was dead and the fan switch in the new radiator was also dead. I had been warned that the fan switches are different designs for these radiators, so I could double check with the old switch out of the old radiator against a new switch to see which one I needed. The one I needed is the new switch on the right here.

One other issue with the radiators is that the locking ring for the fan switches isn't interchangable. You need the correct locking ring for the correct switch and the correct radiator. Fortunately I had that. Earlier radiator locking rings are much thinner, as shown here.

Before fitting the new switch, I did my usual test of dunking it in boiling water while attached to the fan. This should have been hot enough to open the switch. I later tested it off the car to confirm my findings that the switch was definitely dead by using a pan of actively boiling water with the fan switch sat in the water and my multimeter on the tines. It was absolutely one hundred per cent dead, and brand new. Here, I'm testing it in freshly boiled water in a teacup while it's plugged into the car.

While I waited for another switch to arrive I refined my jumper cable and just ran the car for a bit with the fan on permanently. It was summer, it wasn't going to cause any cold running issues.

Finally in this update, I checked out the expansion bottle cap which I could hear was hissing a little bit when things got really hot. Turned out it wasn't actually sealing properly and there was some sort of blue home made plastic thing that was presumably supposed to seal. So we replaced this cap too.

[vulgalour]

https://youtu.be/7RBbV12Mn9k

The next thing to deal with was the fan switch situation. I was having something of an issue with parts on this one.

• Original fan switch - dead
• Fan switch in NOS radiator - dead
• Brand new fan switch - dead
• Replacement NOS fan switch - working

I don't know what it is with new parts, perhaps quality control isn't what it should be. Perhaps I'm just unlucky. I always seem to have better luck with reliability hunting out NOS items than I do anything new. All of the above switches were bench tested in the same way using a pan of boiling water on the stove and my multimeter. Given the temperature these are supposed to operate at, this should be hot enough to get a reading. Also, bearing in mind that they all were fitted to the car when the car got into overheating temperatures and only the one that tested good on the bench actually worked reinforces my testing method being perfectly adequate even though a couple of people questioned my methods on this one. Anyway, one issue was that I accidentally melted my multimeter a little bit when it caught the hot stove top, which is why I don't really like electric hobs.

Now I had a known working switch, the next task was to install it. For that, I waited for the coolant to be cool again and rather than draining the system opted to do the speedy swap to loose as little of the fresh coolant as I could. This involves unlocking the previous fan switch, pulling it out, and pushing the new fan switch in as quickly as possible.

That went quite smoothly. What didn't go as smoothly is one of the fan switch changes I did (I forget which) on of the tangs on the locking ring snapped off. Fortunately, I had cable ties to employ until Peter could post me a replacement ring he had spare (Peter is practically this car's guardian angel when it comes to odd parts needs). I then found that the new switch worked most of the time. Now, since the switch had been totally reliable when bench testing and I'd recently had an issue with the BX that the Maestro replaced with a dodgy connection at the fan switch that mean the STOP light would come on randomly, I had a hunch it was a wiring/connection issue. Before investigating that I popped the replacement expansion cap on that Peter provided and that sorted the hissing problem out and has been trouble free ever since. It's not a new cap, but it's a working cap, and that's what matters.

To try and track down the problem I had to have the car running again because I needed everything connected to simulate the problem. I knew there probably wasn't an issue with the fan switch itself or the temperature gauge since both were new and had been tested and proven working repeatedly. The issue had to be somewhere between the two and that really only left the wiring and the connection plugs. It was unlikely to be an issue at the instrument cluster end since that was a multi-plug and the temperature gauge always worked, so it was more likely to just be the spur of the harness that dealt with the fan switch.

I ran the car at idle waiting for the temperature to come up and waiting for the fan to come on, which it eventually did, though a lot later than it should. This didn't seem to be an issue with the switch, but rather the power getting to the switch.

I could wiggle the wires and the connectors and sometimes get the fan to come on or go off. What I couldn't do was reliably replicate the issue. Driving the car similarly, most of the time the fan worked just fine and then sometimes, it wouldn't. You could sit in traffic and hear the fan coming on and going off at seemingly random intervals. This was going to be a difficult issue to track down. I suspect the female side of the spade connector is a bit loose and/or corroded and I suspect this bit of split insulation on on of the wires isn't helping.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to fix the problem. I think the solution is going to have to be new female spade connectors on the harness so that I can get a better fit on the male connectors of the fan switch. For now, the jumper wire is the solution and while not ideal, it's better than the car overheating while stuck in traffic.

[Longbridge Apologist]

14 hours ago, vulgalour said:

https://youtu.be/7RBbV12Mn9k

The next thing to deal with was the fan switch situation. I was having something of an issue with parts on this one.

• Original fan switch - dead
• Fan switch in NOS radiator - dead
• Brand new fan switch - dead
• Replacement NOS fan switch - working

I don't know what it is with new parts, perhaps quality control isn't what it should be. Perhaps I'm just unlucky. I always seem to have better luck with reliability hunting out NOS items than I do anything new. All of the above switches were bench tested in the same way using a pan of boiling water on the stove and my multimeter. Given the temperature these are supposed to operate at, this should be hot enough to get a reading. Also, bearing in mind that they all were fitted to the car when the car got into overheating temperatures and only the one that tested good on the bench actually worked reinforces my testing method being perfectly adequate even though a couple of people questioned my methods on this one. Anyway, one issue was that I accidentally melted my multimeter a little bit when it caught the hot stove top, which is why I don't really like electric hobs.

Now I had a known working switch, the next task was to install it. For that, I waited for the coolant to be cool again and rather than draining the system opted to do the speedy swap to loose as little of the fresh coolant as I could. This involves unlocking the previous fan switch, pulling it out, and pushing the new fan switch in as quickly as possible.

That went quite smoothly. What didn't go as smoothly is one of the fan switch changes I did (I forget which) on of the tangs on the locking ring snapped off. Fortunately, I had cable ties to employ until Peter could post me a replacement ring he had spare (Peter is practically this car's guardian angel when it comes to odd parts needs). I then found that the new switch worked most of the time. Now, since the switch had been totally reliable when bench testing and I'd recently had an issue with the BX that the Maestro replaced with a dodgy connection at the fan switch that mean the STOP light would come on randomly, I had a hunch it was a wiring/connection issue. Before investigating that I popped the replacement expansion cap on that Peter provided and that sorted the hissing problem out and has been trouble free ever since. It's not a new cap, but it's a working cap, and that's what matters.

To try and track down the problem I had to have the car running again because I needed everything connected to simulate the problem. I knew there probably wasn't an issue with the fan switch itself or the temperature gauge since both were new and had been tested and proven working repeatedly. The issue had to be somewhere between the two and that really only left the wiring and the connection plugs. It was unlikely to be an issue at the instrument cluster end since that was a multi-plug and the temperature gauge always worked, so it was more likely to just be the spur of the harness that dealt with the fan switch.

I ran the car at idle waiting for the temperature to come up and waiting for the fan to come on, which it eventually did, though a lot later than it should. This didn't seem to be an issue with the switch, but rather the power getting to the switch.

I could wiggle the wires and the connectors and sometimes get the fan to come on or go off. What I couldn't do was reliably replicate the issue. Driving the car similarly, most of the time the fan worked just fine and then sometimes, it wouldn't. You could sit in traffic and hear the fan coming on and going off at seemingly random intervals. This was going to be a difficult issue to track down. I suspect the female side of the spade connector is a bit loose and/or corroded and I suspect this bit of split insulation on on of the wires isn't helping.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to fix the problem. I think the solution is going to have to be new female spade connectors on the harness so that I can get a better fit on the male connectors of the fan switch. For now, the jumper wire is the solution and while not ideal, it's better than the car overheating while stuck in traffic.

Exceptional vertical needles effort here on the fuel and temp.