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

[Back_For_More]

I'm leaving for Brussels in 3hrs and need to get my red devil back up amd running whilst there.......  I can guarantee it won't fire up as easily as yours did, that's for certain. 

Once I have it in the UK I'll head down again for a 'coupling'. 

If you need a hand with the clutch etc..... Just holler fella. 

[Rust Collector]

3 hours ago, Back_For_More said:

I'm leaving for Brussels in 3hrs and need to get my red devil back up amd running whilst there.......  I can guarantee it won't fire up as easily as yours did, that's for certain. 

Once I have it in the UK I'll head down again for a 'coupling'. 

If you need a hand with the clutch etc..... Just holler fella. 

Thanks mate - if I’m still procrastinating once you’re back then the company would be welcome. Current plan is to sort it over the next few evenings if the weather isn’t too awful.

Hopefully your one comes to life with a jump pack and a bit of easy start! The only real battle I have with mine is drawing fuel from the tank to the carb once it’s been standing. I keep meaning to look and see if I can get a suitable priming bulb.

Safe travel to Brussels!

[Rust Collector]

It's update time again. I've been picking away at things since last weekend. Not all of these have gone as planned.

Car Tetris

The Lada needed to be in the courtyard. This space was 3 cars deep in shite with flat batteries, which is actually a better situation than normal. Everything moved out the way ok, although I realised that I left the window open on the Trans Sport last time I was in it 😢

 

The marks on the headliner were already there, as the roof gets really damp from condensation when not used - incredibly, the interior below the window was fairly dry. I think the fence saved me a bit there.

I've also found out exactly where the gauge reads before the Pontiac cuts out:

Luckily that happened just as I got it to where I was parking it.

Bonus content for @Zelandeth 

Lucky I've got the socks...

Bastard. The Landy had to pull it out in the end.

Car Tetris complete, it was time to actually do something. But first, storm preparation:

The Lada

As you can see form the last photo, it was now suspended up in the air ready for some TLC.

Then it was time to procrastinate by replacing the fuel filter

I ran it for a bit, and it would appear that there's loads of shite in the tank.

That's a job for another day though.

Knob out off.

Gearbag oil removed

Not much shite on the plug

And after a good clean I feel it looks worse, not helped by my appalling focus.

Golden retriever attack

Downpipe loosened off (I was worried it would just fall out if undone fully. I was wrong to worry). Free escargot.

Exhaust clamps removed. The first one came off with the spanner from the toolkit without fuss. The rear had* to be snapped off with a breaker bar.

Eastern European beer can repair discovered

And a ghost from the past was discovered by rolling onto it, I must have been having a bad day when I made this

Clutch slave removed

Starter motor removed

It's an enormous bastard of a thing.

I'm going to sort this spaghetti out as it makes my teeth itch. For good measure, earth coloured wire is used on both the +ive and -ive leads which could absolutely definitely not end in disaster.

Exhaust out. What a bastard. I couldn't split it underneath the car, and it's an absolute wanker to get out whole.

Split up, to make refitting easier. Possibly.

Forbidden Donut bolts removed.

More propshaft shittery. I had to spend ages cleaning up the threads of the studs as they were coated in underseal. They came off ok though.

It nearly twatted me in the head despite me being careful as I absolutely knew it would twat me in the head. It came out though.

The UJ's are all in good condition, as it the centre bearing. All the grease points will get a good pumping.

Getting there...

Now for a brief interlude. The bonnet stay was missing on this car from when I got it. The meant that the bonnet was instead stayed by the grille and headlights, which always made me feel incredibly uneasy.

A replacement was as much as £10, but comes from abroad which means waiting.

Whilst wandering around the garage looking for a bucket handle, I found something easier to work with...

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?!

Glorious.

I will get a proper one. At some point. Probably.

Back to work then.

Every 1/2" extension in a 5 mile radius was used to get the top two gearbox bolts.

The bottom two are easily accessed.

For a while I've quite fancied getting one of these gearbox trolley jack stand things.

However, I've continued to procrastinate and for now we have a piece of gravel board and two 'danger orange' ratchet straps on a pressed pallet block of dubious vintage.

You'll notice the rusty outriggers. More on that later, sadly.

Rear mount undone, and the box slowly comes away

Obviously I checked the manual and made sure that I'd removed everything, and I definitely meant to leave the speedo cable connected like an umbilical.

Error rectified, and she's out.

I'll be back for this tomorrow:

Back round to the rust then.

Whilst underneath the car I couldn't help poking at the scabby bits, as I wanted to weld up anything that wasn't right whilst I'm here - I don't want the car going back out with any serious rot on it. Sadly, the scabby bits spread further and further as I poke. I've gone through the driver's footwell, both outriggers, and the floor pan in the driver's side is a state. The underseal means that the underneath looks alright bar the odd blister, but the rubbery coating on the interior of the floor has trapped moisture and the rot appears to be coming from the inside rather than the outside.

I'll be cutting that out then. To save time I will probably buy premade outriggers, and to save money I will probably make up the floor from the sheet steel I have here.

There's also some other bits that need sorting before she sees the road again. The indicators are in a bit of a shite state, it needs new mirrors, there's a hole in the rear floor pan to patch, the spare wheel well is knackered, the rear valence is also shot. I want to carpet the interior as I think the rubber it had in there is worse for trapping moisture/condensation than if there was carpet fitted properly. I want to look at the weather seals to try and seal any routes for water ingress as I think this has been the biggest contributor to the car rotting - most of the rust is in places that water has pooled on the interior. The front alignment needs adjusting. There's general scabbiness and surface rust on most panels, I want to sand all that back and get paint over it before that in turn becomes worse. I don't like the underseal / stone chip tide line so I will be sanding that where flakey  and painting with more stone chip to seal the bits that have blistered off and then painting it all white. There's probably other stuff I've forgotten.

I think the car is very much at a turning point in its life - it needs a lot of work now to ensure it remains safe and usable going forwards. It would be irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the issues and put it back on the road, I'm also certain that doing so would also probably seal its fate in terms of rot.

So, that's going to be a long term project then... that will mean a reshuffle of cars here to make space for it whilst leaving room to work on other cars, it will also mean I need to fix something else to use to get to work.

Cue:

The Mercedes

If you recall, this thing was making awful noises from underneath when coasting, and lots of vibration and clunking at other times. I may or may not have mentioned that after my initial panic, I decided that it was possibly the driveshaft hitting a heatshield. Best have a look then.

I bloody hate lowered suspension. I had to jack it from the sides on to spare steelies in order to then jack it from the subframe onto stands.

I would much prefer this ride height:

I finally found a use for the stack of about 10 trailer wheels that I have laying around

The photo may or may not show it clearly, but turning the back wheel revealed that the weight thingies on the prop shaft are just rubbing the heatshield.

A bit of adjustment with the heatshield calibration tool did the job.

This is of course a temporary measure - the centre bearing appears to be gubbed, so needs replacing. That's next weekend's job then!

For now the car no longer makes awful noises, and will be able to make the short journey to work and back for the next few days.

Once the prop shaft is behaving itself, I'll be going after the thermostat (again), t suspension clonk and the rather violent unlocking of the torque convertor. Then it's service time, and afterwards I want to tidy up the shabby bodywork. This will probably be the car I use for business travel going forwards, as I can't see the Insight getting sorted anytime soon and I need some MPG's.

Bonus content:

The Land Rover

Incredibly, it's still working*.

However, one of the side repeater bulbs blew.

Apparently the units have a small spring clip on, push them against the spring and they release out the hole.

Mine eventually pushed in and came out, and just as I could see the spring clip it went 'sprong!' and fucked off into the void in the door.

Wanker.

Best put a sticky pad on that for now then, and order some new side repeaters. It currently has clear ones, so I'll probably go back to orange for full tango effect.

Phew! I think that brings us up to date.

[Minimad5]

I might have a hose in the Lada parts stash, so if you get stuck, pop me a picture and some measurements for reference.

Brilliant fleet

[Rust Collector]

16 minutes ago, Minimad5 said:

I might have a hose in the Lada parts stash, so if you get stuck, pop me a picture and some measurements for reference.

Brilliant fleet

Thanks mate, I did end up ordering one in though! It was about a tenner or so from Parts In Motion. It has since turned out to be one of the smaller jobs that needs attending to, however 😅

[Tickman]

It felt a bit wrong liking that last post of yours with the discovery that the Lads isn't going to be the replacement transport for a while but good effort on getting on and doing stuff.

One day you may learn to listen to the 'do not poke rust scabs' 

[Rust Collector]

2 hours ago, Tickman said:

It felt a bit wrong liking that last post of yours with the discovery that the Lads isn't going to be the replacement transport for a while but good effort on getting on and doing stuff.

One day you may learn to listen to the 'do not poke rust scabs' 

It’s all good - I’m hopeful that this is the start of the car becoming a better example than it currently is.

I could have left it, but a) I bought it knowing it would need some welding to the outrigger in the near future so this was always on the cards and b) that article recently about the crusty Allegro getting impounded after being spotted in Tesco car park was a bit of a wake up call regards driving tatty MOT exempt stuff.

[Rust Collector]

Nothing too exciting to report tonight, I didn’t have much time.

However, I have removed the old clutch.

Official flywheel holding tool:

Flywheel:

hopefully that cleans up alright.

I found these inside it:

fuck knows what they are/were.

The old clutch disc wasn’t as fucked as I expected:

But the new one does have more meat on it:

What was apparent was that the old pressure plate had a lot of fingers on it that weren’t under much tension anymore. The design is different to the new one but the fitment is the same. I reckon that I actually was suffering from a bad pressure plate rather than a worn clutch.

And last but not least, the release bearing:

The old one has gone dry and the grease appears to have escaped/been vomited out. This potentially wasn’t helping the clutch friction.

The gearbox appears to leak from all the seals, and the rubber boot on the release fork is fucked so that needs replacing too. I’ll sort these bits whilst I’ve got the box out and then stow it in the garage until I need it.

Part of me wonders if I should just look for a replacement 5 speed box, but I’m unsure if it will spoil the character of the car by upgrading from the 4 speed.

[Rust Collector]

Time for a roundup of recent work completed!

The Lada needs the floor welded up before I put the gearbox back in. So naturally, I have sourced a gear knob from our very own @jakebullet and fitted that instead.

I’ve also bought a few cans of paint, before deciding Fiat Bossa Nova White is the closest match without putting much effort into looking.

Ignore the tide line, it was some rust on the swage line that I mainly sprayed. I’ll sand all the shitey stuff back once the weather clears and paint the car a more uniform colour. The aim is not to get anything particularly presentable, I just want it to not look like a completely fucked rust bucket.

I also definitely wasn’t running it without a working windscreen washer system. However, here is a plastic bladder that I installed to contain washer fluid.

Moving on, the E class clicked over 180k. And I missed it.

It was rewarded with a carpark special headlight alignment

Theres always time to do it right the second time.

Next up on the Mercedes I will be replacing the prop shaft centre bearing, as currently the prop shaft convulses like it is possessed by satan. That’s a job for another day though.

Next we have the XM, which I drove to the farm in anticipation of putting in for a ticket. On the way there, I discovered that the ABS would kick in just before you came to a halt, causing the car to creep and me to shit my pants.

This was caused by the air gap on the ABS sensor.

I solved this by attacking the sensor bracket bushing with a hacksaw

I then liberated the front wheels

And had them shod with the finest pair of part worns that £45 could buy

These were then thrown on the car

And after a short test drive, it was confirmed that a) the ABS was behaving now, b) I need to fit the rear ABS sensor (balls) and c) XM’s are handsome bastards even if they are constantly broken

Last but not least, all ‘harr harr the neighbours hate me’ joking aside, I did leave the LS430 dumped halfway down my road since Christmas and I was losing sleep worrying about how fucked off the people living near it may or may not be.

So on Thursday I went nuclear and called my dad to give me a hand, and we towed it to outside my house where he saw the Pontiac. Luckily, the part of him that cares about what cars I buy has finally died, and he wasn’t fussed at all. Part of me feels bad about that.

Today he came back and we pushed it on to the drive, and if I needed proof that my direct neighbours don’t hate me then I had that in the form of the nice chap two doors down coming out to lend a hand pushing. My Dad stuck around, and despite him having no interest in cars whatsoever he pitched in and we tackled this together

To remove this

And be left with this

Me and my Dad don’t really share any common interests at all, and so we have never really spent much time together. I really enjoyed working together and chatting the last couple of days, and so to be honest I couldn’t be happier that my incredibly hard to access starter motor shat itself.

That pretty much brings everything up to date. Tomorrow I plan to pull the old starter and bench test it, and assuming it is as fucked as I think it is then I’ll replace it with the new* one. I need to order intake and throttle gaskets and then I’ll be ready to put it all back together and hopefully use the LS again before the ticket expires.

*edit*

Fuck me, has it really been that long?! I feel like I’m getting less and less productive by the day.

[Zelandeth]

I've got a bunch of Trabant washer bottles here (seriously, I think I must have half a dozen of them) which wouldn't look out of place there if you want one. 

Happy to punt one your direction gratis if you let me know where to send it.

[wesacosa]

XM looking good mate.  I'd try not to go near the sill jacking point with an axle stand too much though as they are not the best.  Subframe is much better 

[Rust Collector]

48 minutes ago, wesacosa said:

XM looking good mate.  I'd try not to go near the sill jacking point with an axle stand too much though as they are not the best.  Subframe is much better 

They were already bent so I didn’t feel too guilty about chucking the stands under there and I wasn’t going under it so wasn’t too stressed about it falling. I’d normally find somewhere solid underneath like you say, but it was dark and pissing down so fuck rolling around on the floor to have a look 😅

[Rust Collector]

Catch up time then.

Since my last post, child number 2 has arrived. This means that I theoretically have less time, but also I’m on paternity leave so I sort of have more time. This is possibly man maths in action.

However, it does mean that today I had some time to look at the Lexus.

Between now and my last post I removed the old starter and tested both.

So it turns out the solenoid on the old one was bad, it only throws a couple of mm. I’ll take it apart at some point and have a look at its guts to see if it can be brought back to life.

The new* starter then went in.

In hindsight, life would’ve been much easier if I had of taken the coolant cross pipe off. I didn’t though, and I endured misery for the sake of saving draining a bit of coolant and buying two gaskets. Possibly a poor life choice, but here we are.

Whilst I was in here I decided to take a look at the non functioning inlet butterfly thingies. The car was showing the check engine light due to a fault on these. The vacuum gubbins below control them.

Some testing with a pump and a power probe showed that this solenoid was fuckulated.

I ordered China’s finest* £20 replacement and waited, then fitted it once it landed. It verks!

I then spent about 50 million pounds on a pair of inlet gaskets.

This brings us up to today, where I put everything back together. In true Haynes spirit, refitting was the reverse of removal. Luckily* I took no photos as I took it apart, and removal happened weeks ago and my memory is shit. Fortunately, Japanese cars seem to be put together fairly logically, and I managed to put it back together by basically playing Lego. At the end I had no fasteners left over, and I didn’t put anything together in the wrong order which was a bit of a shock.

Ive left the dress up plastic cover off until it proves to me that I don’t have to go back in there.

The moment of truth then:

She fired up first go, sans check engine light. That’s the result we wanted!

Remove the towing eye of shame!

You can barely* tell I’ve been in there.

I took it for a test drive, and I was a bit deflated.

The car was hesitating badly, and the gear shift was incredibly delayed. The brakes were awful, pulsing and grabbing. The car felt shit to drive.

Ive taken it out again now it’s quiet and thrown it around the country lanes driven it under a range of conditions. The Italian tune up seems to have cured the hesitation and delayed shifts, it’s nice and responsive now. I also visited the stretch of road that I bed brakes in on, and I’ve given the brakes some abuse to get the shite off them and they’re now applying smoothly. The car feels nice to drive again.

To wrap up, this job was a bit of a slog but definitely worthwhile. I’m glad to have the car back in operation again, as despite being a V8 barge it’s actually very practical and more importantly it’s really enjoyable to drive. I’m looking forward to being able to use it again!

The only downside to finishing this is that now I have no excuse not to crack on with finishing the XM and the Lada…

[Schaefft]

Excellent work on that starter, I know how intimidating that job feels at first but going through all of it step by step it it really isn't too bad in the end, plenty of opportunities to fix other stuff you'd never bother with otherwise as well. Fingers crossed the Chinese solenoid will last a while.

[rob88h]

Glad you got the inlet butterfly thingies sorted too. The guy I bought this from at the Yoda/Lex garage said TADTS and it’s why the warning light was on… My philosophy was to just say “ok, Bob” and have no intention of doing anything about it, so it’s nice that a) it was all truths and 2) you got it fixed ok.

[Rust Collector]

10 hours ago, Schaefft said:

Excellent work on that starter, I know how intimidating that job feels at first but going through all of it step by step it it really isn't too bad in the end, plenty of opportunities to fix other stuff you'd never bother with otherwise as well. Fingers crossed the Chinese solenoid will last a while.

I’m quite lazy, so as you say it’s the amount of time it takes to undo everything that is the bulk of the job and what was putting me off 🤣 there’s nothing very technically challenging to do. Probably the worst bit was how fiddly the starter bolts were due to me leaving the cross pipe in place, but it still wasn’t that miserable.

Yeah I’m hoping the cheaper solenoid has some sort of lifespan to it. I couldn’t get the proper Toyota part in a reasonable timescale so compromised for the sake of getting the job done.

9 hours ago, rob88h said:

Glad you got the inlet butterfly thingies sorted too. The guy I bought this from at the Yoda/Lex garage said TADTS and it’s why the warning light was on… My philosophy was to just say “ok, Bob” and have no intention of doing anything about is so it’s nice that a) it was all truths and 2) you got it fixed ok.

I dimly remember scanning the code when I got the car and the code that came up supported his diagnosis, and as you say it’s a really common fault on them. The old solenoid had gone open circuit which the ECU must have been able to detect. So the job was on the cards before MOT, so I guess the starter failure was serendipitous.

[Back_For_More]

Great meccano-ing..... Glad it's all back in one piece - lovely barges these. 

I had the Celsior version of this.... Electric massage rear seats and seperated rear sound system - ex Japanese Toyota bigwig apparently. 

Dibs on this if you are ever looking to sell or loan out 😁

[Schaefft]

2 hours ago, Back_For_More said:

Great meccano-ing..... Glad it's all back in one piece - lovely barges these. 

I had the Celsior version of this.... Electric massage rear seats and seperated rear sound system - ex Japanese Toyota bigwig apparently. 

Dibs on this if you are ever looking to sell or loan out 😁

If you are interested in a '92 Celsior, I might put mine up for sale over the next few weeks!

[Rust Collector]

Sometime ago, I was showing the Lexus to a mate who's also into running old cars.

We came to the conclusion that as a big Toyota, it was probably a fairly sensible car to live with and that the ruinous cost of fuelling it should be offset by the fact that it should be a fairly easy thing to live with.

I fear we were wrong.

The car hesitates and bogs down badly at wide open throttle. I thought it was just me, but yesterday I used it at motorway speed for the first time since it got put back together, and it literally cannot accelerate with the throttle to the floor. If you back off the pedal to about 50% or less then it resumes accelerating. This is definitely not correct.

The check engine light has come back on, but helpfully it appears to be unrelated. Possibly/hopefully. Because the code is for poor efficiency of both cats. The exhaust blows and apparently cracked Y pipes are a common cause of these codes on the LS430. It would suck if it has collapsed cats though as that's probably a fair chunk of money to sort.

I have a few lines of enquiry to go through with it, but it feels like the issues are just one after the other on this car at present. It is not endearing itself to me much at the moment, and the only thing that keeps me motivated is the thought of how good it should be once the running problems are sorted, as it should absolutely fly along.

 

[Rust Collector]

At the weekend I was sent out in the Mercedes estate to pick up some storage units by my Mrs. Our lives seem to revolve around not sleeping and buying things to store toys in currently.

Whilst on this mission, I drove down a ramp into the car park of the flats I was visiting...

CRUNCH.

That'll be the radiator carriage torn off again. For fuck's sake.

One positive is that it's given me an excuse to insure the Pontiac again at massive expense, because I need* to use that as my daily now. The Mercedes is still technically driveable, but you can hear the radiator flapping about which doesn't instil confidence.

I'll take the radiator out the Mercedes at some point and do a proper job of welding the carriage back in this time. Fuck knows why it struggles with clearance so much though, the spring perches appear to be fine and my last S210 didn't used to ground out constantly. I should really get a longer pair of front springs.

No updates on the Lexus, it's still useable as long as you avoid full throttle so we've just been driving around the problem. I'm all ears to anyone's suggestions though - to recap, it's massively down on power when you open the throttle fully, and if you do it whilst rolling (for example to overtake, or speed up after someone else manoeuvres) then it bogs down completely, there's a massive backfire and then it springs to life again 😥

For now I'll resume trundling about in the Pontiac and trying not to think about the growing list of problems elsewhere...

[tooSavvy]

TPS.. 🤔

🚙💨

[Rust Collector]

13 minutes ago, tooSavvy said:

TPS.. 🤔

🚙💨

It's definitely on my hit list to check it as there's a possibility it was disturbed when I removed the throttle body recently. I've managed to dig out the relevant readings from the service manual which I can check with my diagnostic kit hopefully.

[rob88h]

On 02/03/2024 at 22:24, Rust Collector said:

Some testing with a pump and a power probe showed that this solenoid was fuckulated.

I ordered China’s finest* £20 replacement and waited, then fitted it once it landed. It verks!

Sticky butterflies or now stuck again but more closed? Previously it was broken open allowing it to gobble all the air, but now they’re a restriction?
(Legal disclaimer: I have no idea how this system works)

[Rust Collector]

4 minutes ago, rob88h said:

Sticky butterflies or now stuck again but more closed? Previously it was broken open allowing it to gobble all the air, but now they’re a restriction?
(Legal disclaimer: I have no idea how this system works)

I think I can check without removing the manifold - I should be able to get a power probe on to the plug for the solenoid with it all in situ. I tested it before I fitted it using a vac pump and power probe and it worked perfectly, it was down on power from the first start however.

For what it is worth I can find loads of forum threads online describing the exact same symptoms, so it must be something common to these cars - there's just not really any useful conclusions on line though... I definitely want to get to the bottom of it as I love the car (despite my despondent posts of late 😂) and I know it'll be brilliant once the niggles are sorted.

[Rust Collector]

So I dusted off the Pontiac and brought it back into daily* usage.

On Monday I charged the battery up overnight and then went to work in it on Tuesday.

This made me very happy.

It then wouldn't start when it was time to leave work - the battery had gone flat. This made me unhappy.

Luckily I brought the Noco shitey jump pack with me, and it brought the Pontiac back to life. I risked a run to the Co-op to get beer (mother-in-law was visiting and something has to numb the pain) and the Pontiac started without issue when I jumped back into it with my beers. This also made me happy.

I then went to the petrol station to check the tyre pressures. One was down at 17psi so I pumped that up plus the spare. I then went to start it up and leave, and... Flat battery. My Noco charger had taken a shit by this point and was refusing to jump the Pontiac. Luckily a taxi driver was at the pumps, so I ran over and asked if he'd give us a jump start with my set of leads, and to my relief he had a fuck off massive jump pack which sorted me out. Big shout out to the taxi driver for saving me from phoning my partner for rescue.

I then parked it up in the street whilst I sulked and thought about the best way forward.

The best way forward is to probably buy a new side post battery and figure out what's draining the battery/fit an isolator. A new side post battery is over £100 though, which is annoying when I've got a mountain of ok-ish batteries in the garage.

So I've ordered these instead:

They've arrived today, and when I get home from work I'm hoping they'll allow me to nick the battery out of something I'm not using and chuck it in the Pontiac.

I reckon I might need to look at the earths on the Pontiac too, as it does some weird shit when the battery gets low and you try to crank it - warning lights, gauges becoming possessed, all sorts of stuff you don't want to see.

For now I will just be happy if I can get it to a point where it can be relied on to turn on when I put the key in it.

[Rust Collector]

Once again, we are long overdue an update.

On 21/03/2024 at 13:59, Rust Collector said:

For now I will just be happy if I can get it to a point where it can be relied on to turn on when I put the key in it.

The good news is, I'm happy. The Pontiac is on daily duties at present. I am duly embracing the American commuter spirit by using the mug holders correctly and coating everything in scalding hot coffee.

I've decided not to start work on the MOT welding before the ticket is due, because the work looks to be so extensive that I wouldn't get it done in time and I'd miss out on my last opportunities to enjoy driving it. The work will instead be done once the ticket expires as it is looking like it will require cutting a length of the bonded plastic bodywork away to access the sills properly.

The battery adapters worked, although the only battery I had with the terminals the correct way round was the one in the Proton, so I've nicked the battery from that for now.

Of course, this battery was too big for the factory tie down to work, and was also so tall that I was worried about shorting out the positive terminal on the cross brace.

Copper brake line and the dust boot from a Lexus air strut to the rescue:

I came up with a better/more secure routing for the copper pipe, and put everything back together.

I definitely* will put the right battery in at some point. There's no fix more permanent than a temporary one etc...

At any rate, it meant I now had a car that started each morning, which meant it was daily driver time! 

The first proper run in it was to the Flower Farm meet where it was mainly used to entertain my son.

It's also done a few family days out, where it easily copes with 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 large dogs, the pram and all the assorted crap which we drag around with us.

The dogs like it if the unused seats are removed, as they can then sit between the front seats or stretch out in the boot. I need to get some seatbelt extenders so that the kids can both ride in the middle row - I've never known a car with such short seatbelts!

Whilst procrastinating over the larger jobs, I started sorting the small ones. One thing that jarred me was my rusty nuts.

I could see them from the driver's seat, and so this had* to be sorted. I designed and printed these at work:

Sorted:

No idea how long the PLA will last, but I can just make more if needed. It looks much better from in the cab and outside.

The modular seats are a great feature, it's been handy to have a car with a flat load space which I can use as a van. My mum needed 400 kilos of wood pellets brought up to the stables, and the Pontiac pissed it.

Kind of...

Once I get it through a ticket, I'm definitely sorting the boot struts out. In the meantime, I just use the nearest pole to hold it up.

I then got my Mitsubishi stuck.

It's stuck in 2wd mode, I thought it would cope with the mud but it just slid into the fence post and wedged itself in place.

This meant I had to use the Pontiac to move the car trailer (this was what I was getting the Mitsubishi out for).

It looks cool, but even though it's not that heavy a trailer you do notice it behind you. I wouldn't be mad keen on pulling it on the road. The mirrors are absolutely wank for reversing also.

Speaking of which, this was winding me up something chronic:

It's possibly not very clear, but the mirror adjuster stalk was pushed in flush with the trim around it preventing it being used. In this pic I've discovered and wound out the retaining grub screw. I then prised out the trim, pushed the switch back into place and tightened up the grub screw.

Sorted, we now have working wing mirror adjustment.

Next up was the non-working wash/wipe function. It used to work, but now it wasn't spraying out any windscreen wash. Turns out some fucking idiot (me) had connected the front hose to the rear pump, and left the rear hose dangling into The Void. Plugging things back into the right pumps sorted that out nicely.

The last major niggle was the headlight aim. It was like the car was cross-eyed and constantly staring at its shoes.

The headlights are easy to remove, one of the adjusters had been moved too far and needed taking apart and winding back on manually:

I then roughly dialled them in on the side of a beach hut.

It's not perfect but it lights the road up much better now. At some point, I'll need to obscure the LHD kick up for reasons of MOT obtaining.

Bonus dashboard at night content:

That's pretty much all the Pontiac fun from the last few weeks.

Next up: Citroen fun*.

[Rust Collector]

The other car that has been receiving the benefit* of my on/off attention of late is the ex @Stinkwheel XM.

One of the larger jobs left on the list was to replace the fuel pump on the car with one from the donor engine.

I owe a thankyou to @wesacosa on this one, as I'd been putting it off until he mentioned that the pump sprocket has holes in it to bolt it to the block and keep the timing belt in place when removing the pump. With the knowledge in hand, I attacked the spare engine.

It turns out there's nothing particularly miserable about the job, it's just a tediously long process of removing things one-by-one until the pump comes out:

My plan is to use this pump temporarily, rebuild the original, refit the original, then rebuild this one.

On to doing the job on the actual car then, rather than an engine laying on the driveway. Hmmm...

This is the prize we are after:

The clearance down the side of the block isn't great, especially for someone like me who is afflicted with Big Clumsy Moron Hand Syndrome.

As a result, this was the most annoying thing to remove:

After that it has bee fairly methodical progress.

Here's the sprocket with the bolts in to hold the timing, and the nut removed:

Having kids does limit tinkering time, so I'm getting about an hour in a night at present. I'm hoping to have this out and swapped by the weekend.

I did notice this, which is a bit of a nuisance:

It looks like a crank breather, and it has broken down and is leaking oil onto the block.

I tried to see if I could liberate the one from the spare engine, but it's even worse and cracked off:

This needs the pump off to replace, so I'll have to look if they're still available, or if not then I'll have to buy some hose and make something that works.

Once that's done then I just have the rear ABS sensor to replace, which is meant to be a bastard job, and then it's MOT time!

[Stinkwheel]

3 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

The other car that has been receiving the benefit* of my on/off attention of late is the ex @Stinkwheel XM.

One of the larger jobs left on the list was to replace the fuel pump on the car with one from the donor engine.

I owe a thankyou to @wesacosa on this one, as I'd been putting it off until he mentioned that the pump sprocket has holes in it to bolt it to the block and keep the timing belt in place when removing the pump. With the knowledge in hand, I attacked the spare engine.

It turns out there's nothing particularly miserable about the job, it's just a tediously long process of removing things one-by-one until the pump comes out:

My plan is to use this pump temporarily, rebuild the original, refit the original, then rebuild this one.

On to doing the job on the actual car then, rather than an engine laying on the driveway. Hmmm...

This is the prize we are after:

The clearance down the side of the block isn't great, especially for someone like me who is afflicted with Big Clumsy Moron Hand Syndrome.

As a result, this was the most annoying thing to remove:

After that it has bee fairly methodical progress.

Here's the sprocket with the bolts in to hold the timing, and the nut removed:

Having kids does limit tinkering time, so I'm getting about an hour in a night at present. I'm hoping to have this out and swapped by the weekend.

I did notice this, which is a bit of a nuisance:

It looks like a crank breather, and it has broken down and is leaking oil onto the block.

I tried to see if I could liberate the one from the spare engine, but it's even worse and cracked off:

This needs the pump off to replace, so I'll have to look if they're still available, or if not then I'll have to buy some hose and make something that works.

Once that's done then I just have the rear ABS sensor to replace, which is meant to be a bastard job, and then it's MOT time!

Nice, Im glad this is getting done. I just ignored the drip of diesel it left for about errr 6 months 🤣

[Rust Collector]

7 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

Nice, Im glad this is getting done. I just ignored the drip of diesel it left for about errr 6 months 🤣

I've never had too much grief from it dripping diesel out, but the excessive cranking and always wondering if it would start or if the battery would go flat was the motivation I needed to get it done 😅 I don't want the MOT tester to have to fight with it just to get it started!

[Stinkwheel]

1 minute ago, Rust Collector said:

I've never had too much grief from it dripping diesel out, but the excessive cranking and always wondering if it would start or if the battery would go flat was the motivation I needed to get it done 😅 I don't want the MOT tester to have to fight with it just to get it started!

Fair point, if i remember rightly last time it was in use it was only ever the first start of the day that was slow to get fuel thorugh, the rest were fine. You'd be OK with a good battery on it (probably)

Also, in the shot of the loaded up Pontiac above, why is there half an H van sticking out that building?