project Maestro, please.

[vulgalour]

Have had a proper look at things, and a look through the spares.  The only thing I was missing to fix all of this was the rear brake hose and I found a pair of those for less than £15 delivered so it seemed silly not to order that.  They do look much more the length they should be too and suspiciously similar to the ones on the Princess.  It might turn out I didn't need to order the rear hoses and could have just used the Princess ones I've got.

Order of repairs will be the handbrake cable first, mainly because that's snapped in such a way that I don't actually have to open the drums to replace that bit of the cable, I just have to replace the bit that joins them to the front of the car which I already have a good one of.

Then I'll probably do the welding on the sills.  If that goes well, I might even do the door bottoms before putting the welder away even though their not an MoT item, it'd just be nice to draw a line under all the welding that's immediately needed.

Front brakes after that.  I found a caliper rebuild kit to do both front calipers that I totally forgot I bought so I'm even covered if it turns out I've got dodgy calipers.  I've got a spare pair of calipers too in case the calipers need spare parts or replacing.  I've even got brake fluid.  I literally have no good excuse not to do this job.

Then it'll be retest I guess.  Emissions I can probably deal with the Italian way and if I can't find anyone to lightly bribe then I'll just thrash the nads off it for a bit before the test.

[grogee]

3 minutes ago, vulgalour said:

Have had a proper look at things, and a look through the spares.  The only thing I was missing to fix all of this was the rear brake hose and I found a pair of those for less than £15 delivered so it seemed silly not to order that.  They do look much more the length they should be too and suspiciously similar to the ones on the Princess.  It might turn out I didn't need to order the rear hoses and could have just used the Princess ones I've got.

Order of repairs will be the handbrake cable first, mainly because that's snapped in such a way that I don't actually have to open the drums to replace that bit of the cable, I just have to replace the bit that joins them to the front of the car which I already have a good one of.

Then I'll probably do the welding on the sills.  If that goes well, I might even do the door bottoms before putting the welder away even though their not an MoT item, it'd just be nice to draw a line under all the welding that's immediately needed.

Front brakes after that.  I found a caliper rebuild kit to do both front calipers that I totally forgot I bought so I'm even covered if it turns out I've got dodgy calipers.  I've got a spare pair of calipers too in case the calipers need spare parts or replacing.  I've even got brake fluid.  I literally have no good excuse not to do this job.

Then it'll be retest I guess.  Emissions I can probably deal with the Italian way and if I can't find anyone to lightly bribe then I'll just thrash the nads off it for a bit before the test.

Is it ten days for a retest now? 

Doable but if your forecast is anything like ours it'll be a bit in and out dodging the rain. 

[vulgalour]

10 working days so I timed it about as well as I could for those extra free days.

[Dan302]

I look forward to more fettling videos! (Trying to look on the bright side of the MOT fails)

[Noel Tidybeard]

i think you may have a rover 200 mirror which is why the mounting holes were out cos there aint no way base doors were different

[vulgalour]

It's definitely a Maestro mirror, the 200 mirrors are much curvier.  What I reckon I'm missing is the plastic insert that the driver's side has.

[Noel Tidybeard]

oh, no, no, no the hyacinth bucket rover has same mirror but a different door mounting bracket cos honda doors

[vulgalour]

Ah yes, I should have thought about that.  I'm still pretty sure they're Maestro mirrors, all the casings etc. were identical to the mirror on the car.  As I mentioned in the video, I'm pretty sure it's just the plastic insert that's missing.  It wouldn't surprise me if Maestro and 213 mirrors are actually the same you know, they're such a similar design and it's not like BLARG were going to spend more money if they didn't have to.

[Noel Tidybeard]

iirc they do sit at a slightly different angle on the rover prolly due to the mounting but the main bodies are all the same  EXCEPT the colour coded or alloy backed posh ones have a changed moulding to allow forr clip on caps

the glass for electric mirrors are a different fitting to clip on the motor unit and are normally heated

[High Jetter]

IIRC the mounts are different. Will try to check in Unipart catalogue.

[vulgalour]

Today first item on the MoT fail was almost completed, that being fitting the new handbrake cable.  Rain did stop play just after I'd tidied up for a food break so that was well timed.  Once I've been able to finish connecting and adjusting the cable, I can do the inner sill repair, underseal anything that needs it at the back, and then probably do the outer sill repairs.  Saving the front brakes until last.

[GingerNuttz]

You'd be better just doing a set of outer sills and be done with it.

If the inners are bad just do them too or you'll be patching it every year for mots.

[grogee]

51 minutes ago, GingerNuttz said:

outer sills

NLA. Unless you spend £150 and wait 20 weeks like I did

[vulgalour]

1 hour ago, GingerNuttz said:

You'd be better just doing a set of outer sills and be done with it.

If the inners are bad just do them too or you'll be patching it every year for mots.

If I were keeping it absolutely I'd replace the outer sills (if I could find any).  I'm not, so patches will do just fine.

In good news, I got one thing off the list which is the handbrake cable.  Bit of a faff figuring out how to get enough slack to get everything fitted, but once I did I got a working handbrake again.  Whether or not it's actually balanced is another matter, I can't really do anything about that but I can get the garage to have a look when it goes for the retest.

]

That was the hardest/least desirable job of the fail list so I'm glad I got that done today.  The weather is a bit too changable to get the welder out so that can wait until another day.

[vulgalour]

Pictures later when I get the off the device.  I've just finished tidying up here and have had another productive day.  All the MoT welding is now done, it wasn't actually too horrible a job.  I will say that new outer sills both sides would be sensible for a future owner, it'll do for another year as is I reckon.  The rear brake hose was very easy to replace because the unions just came undone without any drama which was shocking.  Just the front brakes to do now which is a straightforward pads and discs replacement and then it's ready for retest.

Bizarrely, when I went to start it up to move it to a better spot for doing the front brakes I found that the battery was flat.  That's a new thing it's not done before and it's not because of the welding, I remembered to disconnect it before doing any of that.  Hopefully it's just a glitch and isn't going to make me pay for a new battery before I put it up for sale, we shall see.

[grogee]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Pictures later when I get the off the device.  I've just finished tidying up here and have had another productive day.  All the MoT welding is now done, it wasn't actually too horrible a job.  I will say that new outer sills both sides would be sensible for a future owner, it'll do for another year as is I reckon.  The rear brake hose was very easy to replace because the unions just came undone without any drama which was shocking.  Just the front brakes to do now which is a straightforward pads and discs replacement and then it's ready for retest.

Bizarrely, when I went to start it up to move it to a better spot for doing the front brakes I found that the battery was flat.  That's a new thing it's not done before and it's not because of the welding, I remembered to disconnect it before doing any of that.  Hopefully it's just a glitch and isn't going to make me pay for a new battery before I put it up for sale, we shall see.

Good work. I have a spare (096? not sure but it's whatever is in my MG) battery that I'll swap you for the glassless tailgate... But I'm not remotely close. 

[vulgalour]

30 minutes ago, grogee said:

Good work. I have a spare (096? not sure but it's whatever is in my MG) battery that I'll swap you for the glassless tailgate... But I'm not remotely close. 

As soon as I get that other tailgate down here there'll be a tailgate solution free for you to grab however works best.  There is a friend heading to where the tailgate is in the near future who has a car big enough to bring it back to me so we're hoping that pans out.  Either way, when we eventually sort it there is definitely a tailgate available for you regardless.  You're getting said tailgate free because you need it and I'm paying forward Peter's generosity with the literal van load of spares he dumped on me gratis.  Shame I've not got any MG specific bits to chuck your way, if I did I would.

I do have a spare battery, it's a bit big as it's the old one out of the Princess, but it will hold a charge well enough so no worries about chucking me yours, though I do appreciate the offer.

[vulgalour]

Some pictures of today's proceedings then.  There were lots of very tiny bits of welding to do, namely two on the inner sill right at the back.  Access was reasonable, had I got a lift I could have even done a good job.  As it was I did some shameful looking welds and hid them with seam sealer and underseal.

That's the 'seatbelt mounting prescribed area' one sorted.  Generally speaking, the underside of the car is in very good condition, a bit of time with a couple of outer sills and some reworking of old repairs and this would be perfectly fine for a very long time I reckon.  As it is, I did what I could and topped up any damaged or missing bits of underseal I could see and get to.

The 'a pillar hole' at the front was more difficult to do than I'd hoped.  Someone has been here before, when I cleaned it back there was some filler (not a lot) and a line of weld, the rust had gone through outside of that.  The bolt that holds the bottom of the wing on is rusted to a size of socket I don't have and because of the mud flap and plastic arch liner, I couldn't get much heat in there.  I didn't want to end up dismantling large portions of the car to do this so I did a little bodge.  One small hole could be filled with weld because it was smaller than the tip of a pencil, the other required an over patch the size of a thumbnail.  I then flattened it back and tried to put just a bit of seam sealer on which ended up being one of those comedic situations where the more I tried to control the seam sealer, the worse it looked so just sort of... gave up on making it look nice.  This is shameful work really, but it's fine for the MoT and I'm not hiding anything here, it's warts and all.

The driver's side outer sill was a handful of very small patches needed that weren't particularly difficult to do.  They didn't get much larger than they looked so that was good.  I will say that prospective new owner will definitely need to put an outer sill on here in a year or two, the repairs I've done are good enough to see it through an MoT and tidy, but I doubt they'll last until the next MoT without needing some attention.  After this image, I did trim off the excess material, flatten the welds, use considerably less seam sealer, then painted and underseal it all so it looks tidy.

The most shocking part of all this work was the rear brake hose I had to replace.  I couldn't see the damage until it was removed and sure enough there was a chafed groove in the rubber from the cable tie holding the old pipe away from the exhaust.  That wasn't the shocking bit, rather that was the fact that both unions just came undone with a spanner without complaint.  I didn't even use a mild swear.  The old hose alongside the replacement really does highlight how much too long it is and I'm not sure what it was off.  New hose went back on no bother and I didn't even lose that much brake fluid in the process.

Next up will be replacing the discs and pads at the front of the car, bleeding everything, and booking the retest.  If I'm really lucky we'll have decent weather this weekend when I've got some free time and I'll have it done then.  My only concerns are going to be rear brake imbalance which is something I can't actually DIY since I don't know what I'm doing and don't have the tools to test it, and the emissions which I'm hoping I can sort with just going on the longer route to the garage so it's nice and warm.

[Asimo]

11 hours ago, vulgalour said:

rear brake imbalance which is something I can't actually DIY since I don't know what I'm doing and don't have the tools to test it,

To test handbrake balance, drive on gravel or grass, pull on handbrake. If both wheels lock it will pass. (The passenger side may lock first, leaving a longer skid mark, because of less weight on that side)

[vulgalour]

Bit tricky to test it now the MoT has expired, I've got no gravel or grass at home to do that on.  What I do know is if I spin both back wheels while it's on stands and pull on the handbrake, both rear wheels stop spinning.  So it's probably okay I hope.

[grogee]

2 hours ago, vulgalour said:

Bit tricky to test it now the MoT has expired, I've got no gravel or grass at home to do that on.  What I do know is if I spin both back wheels while it's on stands and pull on the handbrake, both rear wheels stop spinning.  So it's probably okay I hope.

Presumably the MoT fail for 'imbalance' was the fact that a cable had failed, so replacing the cable ought to reinstate the function to the handbrake.

If not, you can remove the drums and wind in the adjuster a bit, assuming it's not seized. You have to sort of prod it and lever it with a big screwdriver, it's very scientific. You get it so it's just about rubbing on the drums but not quite, which again isn't easy to do because it's remove, fiddle, replace, test, remove, fiddle again, replace again etc.

Left side drum hub nut is LH thread.

[vulgalour]

Gorgeous weather today and some free time so I made use of it and ticked off the last repair job required on the MoT fail list, the front brakes.

Went okay as it happens. Didn't disturb any brake fluid lines so didn't need to bleed the system which is just as well because the bleed nipples do not want to move at all and I didn't want to push my luck. I took the cap off the brake fluid reservoir when I wound back the calipers instead of cracking the bleed nipples, and then sucked out the excess fluid with the primer bulb I bought recently to diagnose the fuelling issue on the Princess.

The only other item on the list is emissions which definitely were high.  CO is 8.0% (allowed is 3.5%) and HC is 645ppm (allowed is 1200ppm). Last year those figures were CO 3.0% and HC 442ppm. I don't recall adjusting the carb since last year's MoT and I can't see any of the usual head gasket symptoms, oil and water are keeping separate, no loss of power (there's not much to begin with), nothing untoward out the exhaust... a sniff and compression test would tell for certain but I'll only bother with that if we fail the retest on emissions since it means buying a sniff kit and I'd quite like to not spend any more money on this car now if I can help it.

I have quickly tested the brakes on my private test track that I definitely have and can lock up the brakes without having the car veer left or right so they're probably okay. Certainly stops better than it did, unsurprisingly.

[vulgalour]

Good-ish news!  The retest was passed today so we have another 12 months MoT on the Maestro and now it can go up for sale.

I didn't realise they could put extra advisories on a pass sheet for a retest but maybe they can since they relate to the work done to sort out the previous fail sheet.

For the inner sill at the back of the passenger side I got:

• Suspension component mounting area covered in underseal - yes, because I welded up the hole and it's underneath the car, it's not excessive quantities, that's just how you do it.
• Subframe mounting repair covered in underseal - yes, because I welded up the hole and it's underneath the car, it's not excessive quantities, that's just how you do it.

And for the replacement brake hose I got:

• Nearside Rear brake hose loose in mount - which it might be but I did my best with what I had, there's no special clip present and one didn't come with the hose so I re-used the clamp holding the previous pipe in.

Anyway, other than that the sill repairs passed muster and emissions eventually came down to CO of 3.3% and HC of 386ppm.  That CO reading is still quite high.

 

To celebrate, the car decided to behave like it's running on three cylinders on the way home.  As far as I'm aware the garage didn't make any adjustments to the carb but I think I know the culprit with this.  I put my spark plug testers on which show all four cylinders are getting spark *but* I also got a little zap from one plug lead so I suspect a plug lead has just decided to start breaking down.  I'll throw some new leads and plugs on and see if that sorts it out when I also do the coolant and oil change pre-sale.

What this means is the Maestro is available to purchase RIGHT NOW, along with some spare parts.  I'd like £950 for it as it stands, and for the new owner to be aware that putting a pair of outer sills on it would be sensible, repainting the whole car wouldn't, and that it really should just be enjoyed as a bit of a survivor representative of the sort of down-at-heel stuff you'd see plying their trade in the 90s.

[vulgalour]

Running issue confirmed today.  I've ordered new plugs and leads, they haven't arrived yet, so I nabbed one of the known good leads off the Princess and the Maestro ran significantly better.  I don't know how old the plugs and leads actually are, because everything was running fine I just left everything alone and concentrated on other things.  Being that the plugs are Champions I don't imagine they're particularly new.

[vulgalour]

Another Maestro video for you all, a little bit of all sorts in this one.

 

I've also been walloped with flu this week so that's been great.  Service items have arrived but I can't do anything about it just yet.

[tooSavvy]

@vulgalour.. "I took the cap off the brake fluid reservoir when I wound back the calipers instead of cracking the bleed nipples, and then sucked out the excess fluid with the primer bulb I bought recently to diagnose the fuelling issue on the Princess".

 

..... as needs must 🤣🤣

GLWS

[vulgalour]

This flu is still kicking my arse so Maestro prep continues to be sluggish here.  I had hoped to do rather more than I've managed today but hey ho, progress is progress.

Removed the Halfords spark leads - they are printed 12-20 which I assume is a date code and would suggest these were replaced by @Six-cylinder before I bought the car - and the Champions of unknown age.  The plugs I removed were all pretty black and one (cam-belt end) was a little oily.  The oily plug is also the one that had a previously weak spark and a plug lead that zapped you if you got near it.  Actually surprised the Halfords leads had failed after so short a time.

New plugs and leads and instantly improved running, much more responsive, and a lot less lumpy.  Took it for a test drive and found it would seem to intermittently drop a cylinder and then be okay again.  Bit weird, my gut feeling on that was ignition related and when I got home to put the spark testers on I found that one lead was barely even connected.  The new spark lead boots are quite a tight fit and I hadn't quite clicked one home.  Everything connected up again which was a lot easier now the spark plug boots were warm, and we had a good spark across the board and even running again.

It does sound a bit throaty under throttle, a bit like it did when it arrived with the blowing exhaust a couple of years ago.  I haven't been able to find an exhaust blow and it's not like the car is down on what little power it has or anything, it just sounds a bit rorty for some reason.  Not going to worry about it until it actually becomes a problem.  Next job today was going to be oil filter but just doing the above has totally knackered me out and I'm going to respect my own physical limits while I get the last of this flu out of my system.

[vulgalour]

Had a bit of a rest, got my second wind, decided to do the oil change.  Access is really good on the Maestro for drain plug and oil filter and I've got a big box of oil filters someone gave me and a pack of crush washers so we're good to go.  Filter needed the old screwdriver trick because I can't find my oil filter strap (I actually think I might have broken it and that's why I can't find it, because I got rid of it) but that's okay, I've got a big box of oil filters.  Sump plug was a little tight but not overly so and came undone nicely.  Oil was warm enough that it drained well into the pan but didn't scald me and I didn't get any down my arm.  Amazing!

Let the oil drain, got an oil filter out the box and it was the wrong thread.  Not to worry, maybe it's just this one?  Pulled out another... same thing.  Umm... Tried a third, same again.  Now, these were all in different brand boxes, the rest are all AC delco filters and have the models suitable listed on them.  They do all fit a Maestro, just not a 1.3 Maestro.  The only filter I have that fits I put a screwdriver through.  The crush washers are the wrong size for the sump plug.

I guess that's why it was going so well then.  Ah well, car can wait for new filter and washers to arrive so I can fill it up.  At least I've got the correct oil for it and more than I need of that too.  I also found the exhaust blow is one of the joints so a clamp has probably just worked loose over the last year or so since it was done and just needs tightening up.

[Six-cylinder]

3 hours ago, vulgalour said:

This flu is still kicking my arse so Maestro prep continues to be sluggish here.  I had hoped to do rather more than I've managed today but hey ho, progress is progress.

Removed the Halfords spark leads - they are printed 12-20 which I assume is a date code and would suggest these were replaced by @Six-cylinder before I bought the car - and the Champions of unknown age.  The plugs I removed were all pretty black and one (cam-belt end) was a little oily.  The oily plug is also the one that had a previously weak spark and a plug lead that zapped you if you got near it.  Actually surprised the Halfords leads had failed after so short a time.

New plugs and leads and instantly improved running, much more responsive, and a lot less lumpy.  Took it for a test drive and found it would seem to intermittently drop a cylinder and then be okay again.  Bit weird, my gut feeling on that was ignition related and when I got home to put the spark testers on I found that one lead was barely even connected.  The new spark lead boots are quite a tight fit and I hadn't quite clicked one home.  Everything connected up again which was a lot easier now the spark plug boots were warm, and we had a good spark across the board and even running again.

It does sound a bit throaty under throttle, a bit like it did when it arrived with the blowing exhaust a couple of years ago.  I haven't been able to find an exhaust blow and it's not like the car is down on what little power it has or anything, it just sounds a bit rorty for some reason.  Not going to worry about it until it actually becomes a problem.  Next job today was going to be oil filter but just doing the above has totally knackered me out and I'm going to respect my own physical limits while I get the last of this flu out of my system.

I can't remember changing the HT leads. The photo is the day I collected it.

[vulgalour]

They must have been done just before you got it then I guess, if it is a date stamp on them.  I really must clean the engine bay, can't think why that's come to mind right now >.>