I'll get round to it at some point - Bratislava and Back: Things not to do in a mk2 Clio

[Schaefft]

One of Audis finest hours I would say, these could run forever without rotting away like most stuff from the era would so I can understand why the previous owner thought it's too nice to break. Great to see it ending up in the right hands despite the odds.

[Rust Collector]

3 hours ago, Schaefft said:

...ending up in the right hands...

That's a bold claim 😅 I'll be doing my best with her though, she won't be getting pulled apart for spares. The galvanized body was a big selling point to me, as it really appears to have held up well.

[Rust Collector]

Time for a catch up then I think!

It's hard to remember things chronologically as I'm nearly 2 months behind, so I think I'm going to resume posting on a car by car basis temporarily...

Audi 100 first then.

The interior is a bit grim, and will need some attention from the Bissell.

High mileage club

Doubled up with a rubber for extra protection:

At this point the car was still lodged firmly on the trailer. This was not ideal, as I do not like drawing attention to my shite collection at the house, lest the other locals pick up their pitchforks and torches. You can see the haul in the boot here, and the problem I was having trying to go backwards off the trailer.

Ah yes. Exhaust fell off in transit. That will give you a bad time that. For full fuckery mode, it was caught on both sides of the trailer chassis. No choice but to remove the ramps and climb in, against my better judgement.

In the absence of exhaust hangers, a ratchet strap was run through the cabin and under the car. It worked, which was a result.

I then ordered some high quality* older VW style rubber hangers from Amazon. Once they landed I set about reattaching the back box to the mid section. The back box was pretty fucked so I had to improvise on that too...

At this point it was together enough to survive cranking it off the trailer on the starter.

There was a casualty in the process of unloading.

When I drove the BX up the lawn I raised the suspension to the second highest setting to clear a drain cover in the middle of the front garden. As I got to the top of the lawn, there was a loud bang and a cloud of something spraying out the side of the car. Then the arse end hit the deck. Oh dear...

RIP HIGH PRESSURE PIPE U IZ WIV DA ANGLES NOW

Next up, best try to start the Audi then.

Fuel:

Fuel:

She would crank and would very occasionally fire. No real signs of life though. The cooling fan was running constantly also, even when the ignition was off. This was a problem as it was killing the battery and making the battery leads bloody hot. I dicked around with wiring on it, following the Haynes book of lies which of course was wrong, and coming to the conclusion that the cool down timing relay was bad. A visual inspection revealed nothing to my untrained eye, and deft poking with my multimeter provided no answers either

Having wasted a lot of time by now, I did what I should have done before and ordered a new* relay from ebay, Success!

That there is a stationary cooling fan with the battery connected. Splendid.

On thing that I noticed when trying to start the car previously was that the throttle pedal would stick. Best check the throttle then...

Lovely stuff. I removed the throttle body, and five pounds worth of carb cleaner later it was back on looking like this:

It was still pretty sticky though. I'd love to get it back off the car and put it through the parts cleaner/dishwasher. Whilst staring at it in frustration, I had a memory of something I had been given years ago.

Why, hello there! I had a spare throttle body from an early Golf GTi that I was storing at work 'just in case'. I was convinced it would work...

They're the same, but different... Oh well. I looked at swapping bits around but it looked like a good way to destroy two hard to replace components. The original TB went back on.

Further investigations revealed that there was no sound of the fuel pump running. This meant emptying the boot:

Errrrrrrrrrrr...

The last owner really liked ropes it seems. Probably best not to ask what a man who lives in the woods does with a cavernous estate car and about 30 lengths of rope.

Beneath the rope there was some kind of car interior and rodent soup

Delicious. I wasn't fucking around with that, and the boot well is a plastic tub bonded in to the metal chassis, so I just drilled a hole in the lowest point to drain it. We will never be able to get to concourse standard now...

In to the tank we go then

I did try directly powering the pump, but it was totally fucking fucked, big time.

Haynes says to use 'the special Audi tool' to release the locking ring.

Ah, yes, the special Audi tool!

And we are there!

This thing was fun*

Those rubber tubes are all that hold it together, it is very flimsy. I managed to make it fall apart in the tank and got to enjoy* fishing it all out.

Seeing as this post is getting fairly lengthy, and it is well past my bedtime, I think I will put the reassembly in a part 2 post later this weekend... All I'll say is fuck that plastic cradle thing, and I hope I never have to go in the bastard fuel tank again!

[ProgRocker]

Wow, an Audi Avant. I remember when I first saw one of these as a youngster in the mid 1980s and thinking how flipping cool they looked.

[Rust Collector]

Part 2 on the recent Aldi tinkering then:

Getting the pump out was the last thing I did before going on holiday. Once I back I looked around for a replacement pump. Secondhand ones were silly money and a new Pierburg one was about £250-300! I elected to go for a high quality* Ridex pump through Autodoc instead, to the tune of about £60.

The cradle was different, but it was removable and the pump itself fitted fine in the original cradle. Top tip, don’t fit it in the cradle before putting it in the tank, you’ll fight it for ages with everything falling apart constantly.

After a long time fighting, it was finally all in place. It’s definitely one of the most frustrating jobs I’ve done in recent memory. With your arm in the tank you can’t see what you’re doing, trying to assemble the cradle by feel and then insert the pump was just an absolute shit show.

Turning the car on produced reassuring fuel pump noises. I cranked her over, and she spluttered to life. The reva then ran away, then she nearly stalled, then ran away, then nearly stalled…

What fucking idiot left those off then 😅

Thats better!

I fired her up again, and now she ran steady but idled at 2500rpm and the alternator belt was squealing like mad.

Adjusting the alternator was quite easy once I got my head around where the adjuster was, access is from underneath and it has one of those toothed nuts for tensioning. Thankfully* I’d removed everything above the alternator before I realised this. 2 spanners on it and we were sorted.

Starting her up, she now ran up and then immediately stalled… turns out the idiot who left the vacuum hoses off also disconnected the idle control valve plug when examining the alternator, and didn’t reconnect it.

With the plug reconnected, I was back to starting and idling at 2500rpm. I removed the ICV and cleaned it but it still idled at 2500rpm. I removed it and on inspection I could see that the valve didn’t close fully and had some play in it too.

To test if air flowing through this circuit was causing the high idle, I 3d printed some plugs to blank the hoses. I thought this was very clever, however my mate pointed out that I could have just cable tied glove fingers over the hoses 😅

Success:

It starts and briefly idled at about 1250rpm. It then stalls shortly after, as I’m assuming that the ICV should take over. I’ll get a new valve ordered, and go from there.

Anyway, that largely brings me up to date on this car. The only other things I’ve done have been to fit the boot trim and rear seat squab, but that’s possibly too mundane to photograph even for one of my posts!

Things I still need to update on are the Insight, Shogun Sport, Favorit and the chod that was spotted on holiday. I’ll get round to it at some point…

[Rust Collector]

Right, I think we need some updates.

First off, let's go back to July. Our last adventure prior to the baby arriving was planned, so servicing the Insight was order of the day. From memory, this was the day before we left - nothing like leaving things to the last minute!

Cleanliness is next to godliness:

Oh well. Take your top off.

Air filter first:

Aux belt:

The tensioner on this was a ball ache to access from above, but we got there slowly.

Dress up plastic back on:

Best go underneath now for the oil and filer. 0W20 for this motor apparently!

Be sure to write the date and mileage upside down in a place that you'll never see it again.

The air con would be taking a pounding over the next couple of weeks, so I thought I'd do the cabin filter too. Incredibly, someone has been in here before and bothered to do it at some point prior.

This left me with aircon that was a bit colder and smelling a lot better.

Last up was to finally take off the winter tyres and put the summer tyres on for maximum em pee gees. Conti Eco something or others:

And with that, we were ready to load up and depart:

Continental chod spotting to follow...

[Rust Collector]

First stop on our way down was Champagnole.

No chod spotted from the hotel window, just the trusty Insight resting in the shade:

An evening wander reveals the first spot, at the end of the high street:

Champagnole was an overnight stop only, the next leg was a run to Nice with a lunchtime stop in Geneva. Whilst descending the mountains towards lake Geneva, my brake fluid (that I should have swapped out) was obviously struggling as whilst trying to keep up with the locals on the twisties I started to experience some brake fade that made me nearly shit my pants. Mountain respite for the Insight:

There was an amazing view here, and a handy bench to sit on whilst your brakes cooled down:

Brakes rested, I gingerly drove down to the lake and on to Geneva.

From here we head South...

 and arrive at the hut we were renting in the mountains near Contes.

I found a channel that was showing near constant re-runs of a show about car restorations, so that was me sorted for downtime:

Our first day out was a trip to Villefranche-sur-Mer as my partner reckoned the beach there would be calmer than the main strip at Nice. She was right:

No real chod spots, but I did enjoy seeing the busses that had been chosen for the hairpin streets of the town:

The next day we went for a mooch around Cannes. There was more chod here:

What happens if you combine car design, drugs, and wicker I hear you ask:

Nice next then, time to leave the Insight in a safe corner and spot some more chod, starting with the space in front of us:

I was excited about the 323 coupe, and as it pulled forward I was treated to the additional excitement of a Laguna:

My Shogun Sport's French cousin:

Not too shabby this Nice place:

And with that, it was time to pack up and head off on the next leg of the journey:

The Insight is great on fuel, but it can feel a bit* cramped with all your holiday shit in tow.

Due to the number of photos, I think this is going to be a 2 part special. Stay tuned!

[Rust Collector]

Time to leave the mountains then, and we follow an old Merc through the hairpins.

A quick stop in Monaco as we leave the Riviera. My take away from Monaco is it's busy, crowded and expensive. It wasn't for me. Obligatory photos:

And obligatory photo of the Insight as we get on to Italian soil.

From here we drive diagonally across North Italy on our way to Venice. By this point my partner was sick of me asking her to photograph every shit car we see, so I just about managed a Panda and a 500 that was opposite the apartment we rented for a night.

A little bit of Venice:

From Venice we head to Croatia, and I'm fairly sure this spot was in an Italian McDonald's carpark.

You can get bacon and cheese on your fries in Italian McDonalds, and beach towels for some reason.

Croatia was a bit nice:

It was a nice quiet spot so I proposed to my partner here, happily enough she said yes:

Croatian Skoda:

Possibly the smartest thing I've seen in my life - the supermarket we went to in Croatia has a walk in fridge where the beer and soft drinks are kept (unkown tourists included for scale):

From here there wasn't too much excitement, mainly motorways through Croatia and Hungary as we travel towards Slovakia:

Hungarian McDonald's stop:

Hungarian McDonald's spot:

Hello Slovakia, I see you are looking after your border with Hungary:

Safely at mother-in-law's house in Svaty Jur:

And the main mission objective now in sight - collect puppy!!

I think my Slovak spots will have to be in part 3!

[Rust Collector]

Slovak spots then. First trip out was to a spa town that mother-in-law wanted to show us:

Lovely stuff.

Barge shite:

Back to Bratislava:

Quality welding, invisible repair to the boot:

Tram shite:

Mirror spot Daewoo:

Back to Svaty Jur, and here we see 2 villagers out for a drive on their *checks notes* lawn tractor:

'Fuck you lookin at M9?'

Something something now we are out of the EU we are free to have green identifiers on our EV number plates something something:

Mother-in-law asked me to start up her spare car and check it over. Start by trying to get in the wrong side:

Check for TK and EK, presumably ANPR is not a thing here:

Full service mystery:

The fluids are where they should be, and it started first time. 

Whilst sitting on the porch one morning I spotted what I have dubbed the 'DPD Beluga'

The scrap man drove by in his yellow Sprinter as well with a recording that sounds like the call to prayer:

Crap photo of Pezinok fire station, photographed for the architecture thread but I feel it's too shit for there so it can live here. Bonus Skoda content:

With Europe completed, we load up all the beer that will fit in the Insight:

And say goodbye to Bratislava:

Time for a 2 day drive home with a puppy. Amazingly, the car remained a vomit/urine/faeces free zone. Puppy learnt quickly how to ask for a rest stop which was a result.

Random stop somewhere in Germany or Austria, I forget which:

Not much spotting done on the way home, as my now fiancé was completely sick of chod spotting on my behalf.

Obligatory grainy pic from the chunnel that I normally send to my Mum so that she stops asking if we've died in a fiery explosion yet:

Obligatory 'it got us home' pic:

And the final score:

Life is never going to be quite the same again. But we're both happy, and the holiday was absolutely fantastic. I really hope that once we settle in to life with our baby we are still able to have adventures like this. We may need a bigger car though...

[DSdriver]

Congrats on the engagement... and completing the grand tour of European MacDonalds without ftp, just afts (almost fail to stop).

[sdkrc]

Villefranche-sur-mer!

My dad had a small 27ft Bennetteau first in the older part of the harbour there about 8yrs ago. When I went down to visit him he had to steal a half-deflated rib as a tender. When we reached his boat, we found out that someone had stolen a load of stuff from it and vandalised the toilet causing a terminal leak. There was about a foot of water inside the cabin. Really beautiful spot.

Great pics and great trip, thanks for sharing 

[Rust Collector]

Colekshun day then.

Poo count:

false alarm. Independently verified by one of the dogs:

Breakfast 1:

Let’s see if we can’t get that poo count up:

Method of transport:

ETA, 3 hours

[Rust Collector]

Co-pilot acquired:

Turns out siblings are useful for something!

[Rust Collector]

Breakfast 2:

[Rust Collector]

M25 services achieved. McDonalds breakfast and coffee has greased the wheels of my bowels: Poo count 1

halfway there!

[Rust Collector]

[Rust Collector]

Car collected, place to piss found after holding it for 2 hours:

I’ve not blown up yet, I’m now on a detour for a second less exciting collection…

[High Jetter]

Liked for the car, not the other content, but when you gotta go...

[Rust Collector]

Collection 2 is for my partner:

I’m supportive of her hobbies as well as my own.

 

[High Jetter]

Even Beko's need to sleep sometimes.

[Dyslexic Viking]

I thought you were going to buy a sensible family car. So this was not what I expected.

But I like it.

[AnnoyingPentium]

1 hour ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

I thought you were going to buy a sensible family car.

Seems sensible enough to me... or maybe what I expected from @Rust Collector 

[Dyslexic Viking]

4 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

Seems sensible enough to me... or maybe what I expected from @Rust Collector 

What I wonder about the most is her reaction. Since most blokes who were tasked to buy a sensible family car and come home with a 30 year old hydraulic Citroen instead, would be killed by their partner.

[Rust Collector]

Well, I made it home without issue. On the motorways leaving that there Lun-don I was a bit wary of the car (the seller couldn't stop saying sold as seen when I picked it up for some reason...), but once I got on to the back roads I started to enjoy it a lot more. It pulls well (if you ignore the clag screen at high revs) plus it handles and stops like it should. I briefly saw the 'STOP' light of doom when going round a corner a bit quickly* so I think I need to have a glance at the LHM level. It has a small leak from the steering rack return so I suspect this may be the cause of any level issues.

5 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Liked for the car, not the other content, but when you gotta go...

I didn't like to ask to use the toilet at the seller's house, and then traffic on the M25 meant we didn't pass a service station on the way to collect the dryer... After about 2 hours I just couldn't wait anymore and had to jump out the car on the first country lane I could find 😅

1 hour ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

What I wonder about the most is her reaction. Since most blokes who were tasked to buy a sensible family car and come home with a 30 year old hydraulic Citroen instead, would be killed by their partner.

It possibly* wasn't what she had in mind. I'm lucky that she's quite calm with the cars, but I'm not sure that she's sold on this one as a family wagon. I think I was colouring outside the lines a bit on this one... In its favour though; it's economical on diesel, the cabin is large enough that you can have a rear facing baby seat in the back without impeding the movement of the front seats, the boot is big enough for the dogs plus a pram and bags etc... if it was 1988 again then it probably wouldn't be a bad choice!

She was pleased with the dryer though, so that's one good decision I made today.

 

[barrett]

I recognise this chain of events. You own a broken BX, so you buy another slightly less broken BX. Before too long you find yourself in this sort of position:

And I'm 100 per cent here for that. Great work!

[Rust Collector]

59 minutes ago, barrett said:

I recognise this chain of events. You own a broken BX, so you buy another slightly less broken BX. Before too long you find yourself in this sort of position:

And I'm 100 per cent here for that. Great work!

It’s posts like this that remind me that I’m in good company here 😅

The other two have been slow projects, so with the need for a diesel estate car and this coming up for not a lot of money I just couldn’t help myself! Hopefully I find I get on with it and that motivates me more with the other two…

[Rust Collector]

I used the ‘new’ BX a little more today. My Fiancé had her piano lesson in eastbourne and so I suggested we take the dogs and go to the woods on the way home.

I went up near Beachy Head to enjoy the view and listen to the radio whilst waiting for my partner.

The dogs started out in the boot, but slowly spread out… I need to get a dog guard.

With the dogs returned to the boot we collected my partner and went for a walk. Lowering the suspension fully is handy for encouraging the dogs into the car, they can very nearly just step in.

I had a better chance to look over the car once we were home. I knew the bodywork was fucked, but the previous owner kindly polished the car before I collected it and left most of the polish on:

A microfibre cloth took most of it off, but some needs more effort on it and also all the plastics have been polished too - any tips for getting polish residue out of black plastic greatly appreciated.

looks better* with the residue mostly removed at any rate

There’s an impressive level of random damage and bodged repairs to the bodywork:

I had a bash at setting the park position of the wiper, then realised that part of the mechanism is flapping in the breeze. I will probably borrow* a mechanism from another BX for now.

Other observations are that I need to adjust the clutch and check the boots on the steering rack as one seems to have slipped free at one end.

On a tangent, my partner sent me this picture and reminded me that in 2020 at about this time of year we were busy collecting BX number 1:

It came with a better condition bonnet and wings, I may swap those on during the week if I have time although it does feel a bit like pissing in the wind.

Plan for this car is to chuck it in for an MOT in the next couple of weeks and go from there, just doing the bits it needs to stay roadworthy. I may attack the paint if I get bored, and have a go at heat gunning the bumpers as I’ve never tried that before so interested to see what the results are like.

[High Jetter]

Nice looking dogs, too.

[Rust Collector]

I think it is time for a catch up! Allow me to consolidate my garbled memories for you.

As mentioned in the news 24 thread, I took BX 3 in for MOT:

BX 3 did not pass

Not to worry, I put it in early we are expecting our baby at the end of the month. Lots of time for MOT work…

The first job I tackled was the wiper. It turns out the reason it was having issues parking was because the part of the mechanism housing the spindle lives in was fucked.

The mechanism on BX 1 was also fucked sadly.

A trip to the farm revealed that BX 2 had a rebuilt mechanism that would do the job. And also some sort of carburettor nest.

That can go in the ‘worry about it later’ pile.

Gladly, the borrowed wiper mech worked perfectly

Next up was the suspension. By ‘modified suspension’ the tester meant bent brackets and torn boots.

Someone has jacked the car up from there by the looks of it, and bent that brace upwards. It’s been snagging the boot and torn a hole over time.

Best take the boot and rod out then. I was glad to find you can do this whilst leaving the hydraulic cylinder in place. You may wonder why I’ve included a picture of a clip, but the information I saw online without pictures made a fuss about the pins and I’d imagined something hideous…

Luckily the car is equipped with a work bench

I used the usual fine adjustment tools to open up the clearance between the brace and moving parts

I’m sure that’s back to original factory specs now, how could it not be! Putting everything back was fairly painless, and look at all that delicious clearance.

More of the same on the other side:

Happy days, that’s the frightening hydraulic bits done. Let’s have a look at the ‘insufficiently repaired’ welding shall we:

That’s a bit shit that… ideally needs cutting out and starting again but at the time I was still trying to rush it through a ticket so I just cracked on and put a seam in anywhere that I possible could, then chucked some paint over it. No pics as I did this in the rain after work on one of the nights we had a big thunder storm. If I remember tomorrow I’ll take some and add them back here.

I then started to look at the other side:

Mmm, crusty. But wait, there’s more!

This is what I planned to take out as an offering to the man from the ministry:

Again, you could go further up the sill but I was on a deadline. I’ll go back in later for the wheel arch and door pillar.

As a reward for rolling around on the floor in the cold I decided to go get some beers. Being lazy, I took BX 3 rather than move it and take the Clio.

As a reward for my laziness the clutch cable on BX 3 snapped as I pulled in to the petrol station to chuck some diesel in the car. Bollocks.

After a bit of flapping initially thinking something had properly broken, I realised I could just commit gearbox abuse and drive home without a clutch.

I then realised it wasn’t too hard to drive the BX without the clutch so I turned back to the shops and got my beers.

Sadly this did fuck my retest window, but what can you do.

I ordered a cable and set to work. I believe that whoever did the welding has also been in here, chewing up the bolts and fitting the wrong clutch cable…

Once the new cable was here, the fun* could begin

This would work, if I knew where the cable should go

I did not know where the cable should go, and where it went was not right. I got to take it all out and do it again which was lucky as I’d really enjoyed it the first time.

*scene missing*

After lots of swearing it was finally in…

for anyone wondering, this is the access from above:

Can’t see where the cable goes? How about now:

Maybe now?

At any rate, I put all the air intake gubbins back and I’m pleased to say that BX 3 now starts and drives again. The clutch biting point is now much better and you can select reverse without hearing the gearbox having the life ground out of it.

It’s never going to be a beautiful car, but I have quite enjoyed using it for estate stuff and for a shitter I think it looks ok* from a distance in the rain.

I will do all I can to ensure it continues to live to the next MOT

At any rate, now the boring stuff is out of the way, let’s get on to what we are all here for: buying more cars!

I’ve decided that BX 3 is not going to stay with me for the long term and so yesterday I put a deposit on something smaller and more sensible*. I’m genuinely quite excited about this one and if I can be bothered/remember then I’ll try and do a live collection.

I also saw a post on the BX Facebook group about a BX being sold off from an estate and asking if anyone could go take a look. I wasn’t really looking for a fourth BX however it turned out to be located in my town, four roads away from my house. Best have a look then!

In a shocking turn of events I actually owned up to my partner about this one BEFORE BUYING IT and asked if she’d come with me to stop any bad life choices being made. In an even more shocking turn of events she said something enthusiastic* like ‘alright then, we can go look at least’.

Allow me to introduce BX 4 then:

It’s a 1989 1.4E Leader. From chatting to the couple selling it, it was their father/father in law who owned it from new. He hung the keys up in 2019 as he decided he was too old to drive it - at 96!! Sadly he has since passed away, and so the car needed rehoming and recommissioning.

Partner approval was given, a deal was struck and a deposit has been placed. This one is going to be landing with me sometime in the next month or two as the couple selling it live up North, and they want to sort the plate retention before letting the car go. This works for me as it means I can have a driveway reshuffle in the meantime and do some fleet rationalisation too.

In the not too distant future, expect to see BX 3 being made available (I suspect most likely by roffle due to the incredibly scruffy condition) and the ZX diesel estate having the rear beam replaced and being made available too. Here’s the ZX in better days:

BX 4 will become available once recommissioned too, as in all honesty it’s not quite my thing and it’s too nice to sit up at the farm filling up with nests!

[Fumbler]

Leader looks Lush, much like the one I found at Chevronics

I wish the engien bay on mine was as clean as yours. Look at those fresh struts!

I've got some spare carb gaskets for the 1.9 and maybe some other detritus should you want them.