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

[Rust Collector]

Hi folks,

As I threatened in my first post in the 'introduce yourself' thread, I will slowly be getting the fleet posted up on here for everyone to admire/ridicule. I will be the first to admit I have a hoarding problem, and at one point I had around 18 cars in addition to the stock that I was trading at the time... I eventually listened to those close to me who had been constantly nagging over the years, weaned myself back to one car for a year or so, realised that without projects to play with I was constantly bored and miserable and so decided that having one car was a crock of shit and I should buy more again. Always just one more, never more than that 😆 At the moment we have the following, some running and on the road, some not so much... Nothing irreparable though, and I will try my best to document the work I do as I pick away it on them all.

So, on to the cars that we've got currently:

• 2007 mk3 Renault Clio 1.2 - mentioned for completeness, and because I put a new engine in it recently and effectively got the car for £150 I'm still feeling sort of smug. I got given it for free with a snapped cam belt after helping someone out, I bought the cheapest engine I could find, put a new cam belt on it and hoped for the best. It's now my partner's daily, and she's happy enough with it. I'm wary of it, as it contains computers, but whilst it runs it means I can delay welding my partner's Subaru! After driving it for a bit myself, I actually don't mind it and I've come to think it's an alright car for what it is despite being incredibly dull 😯
• 2000 Mk1 Honda Insight - I bought this around 2015/2016 when I was importing cars from Japan and put it in storage. It was tipped to go up in value... It didn't really. Before the world fell apart we used to drive on the continent a lot (my partner is Slovakian, we try to drive to see family rather than fly) so I recently took it out of storage and put it on the road in anticipation of getting some road trips in once the borders open. This is currently my daily driver.
• 2001 Mitsubishi Shogun Sport 3.0 V6 - This is our thunderbird, useful for rescuing the other cars when they shit themselves. So thirsty on fuel that you barely notice the change in economy when driving it unladen or with 1.5t dragged behind it 😆 Typical Japanese reliability, the engine and box are always well behaved but I'm forever welding bits into the holes in the body. I keep thinking of selling it, but it saved our arse when another car died just before a road trip to Zurich so I like to keep it around. It's quite good fun to take to pay and play days too, when I'm not busy throwing money at other stuff.
• 1994 Skoda Favorit Silverline Estate - I swapped another car I wanted to get out of for this one. The main attraction is that it horrifies my partner, as she had one as her first car and hated it. I've replaced quite a lot on this to get it running right, as it had some issues when I picked it up, I've also spent a good few days welding the underneath up. It still needs some bodywork and a tidy but it was a perfectly good daily up until the head gasket let go. It's still taxed and tested, the cylinder head is sat in the boot of the Mitsubishi ready to take for a skim, so hopefully I'll have her up and running again soon. I don't know why, but I've grown pretty fond of it over the time I've had it, despite the fact that it is fairly crap to drive by modern standards!
• 2001 Subaru Legacy Outback 3.0 H6 - Bought cheap with a short MOT, it was all going so well until I started picking at the inner arches. This was my partner's daily up until the MOT ran out, and ever since it's been on the 'I'll get round to it' list. Other than some crustiness, it's a pretty decent car. The flat 6 engine sounds beautiful through the stainless exhaust. It's rapid for a wagon, and has all the creature comforts you could want. It's fairly straightforward to work on. I think this is about our 6th or 7th Legacy, I keep getting rid of them and then regretting it. I'm told we are selling this one once I fix it... I may just buy my partner out of it, save us buying another one in a few months time 😆
• 2001 Mercedes E430 V8 Estate - £250 facebook marketplace special. Ran great for 6 months, providing loads of V8 fun. Bloody quick in a straight line, and huge inside. Easily one of my favourite shit heaps I've ever owned. Then the gearbox took a dump before we left for Zurich in 2019 (yes, I am stupid enough to plan a 3,000 mile foreign trip in a £250 German car...). I've since bought a replacement gearbox, which conveniently came attached to a 5.4l AMG lump from a CLK55 AMG that a mate was breaking, plus all the other bits I wanted to grab off of it. It's currently sat up at my parent's farm, firmly on the 'I'll get round to it' list.
• 2001 Mercedes SLK 320 - Bought off the mate who sold me the AMG lump, I got this as something to work on with my younger brother. It had a snapped control arm, and subsequently a knackered engine and gearbox. My mate chucked in a spare engine and gearbox, and we are most of the way through the repair work. The hardest part of this project has been both mine and my brother's working hours changing, making it hard to find the time to work together.
• 1992 Honda Prelude 2.2 Si VTEC - Another Japanese import, I bought it when I was 21, ran it for years and then took it off the road and left it up the farm until I was ready to do the restoration work it needed (I couldn't weld back then... Some people might say I still can't 😅 ) as the rear quarters and sills were going to crap. I started her up the other day and noticed she wasn't charging, so I'll probably strip the alternator and repair it over the next few days. As for the welding, you guessed it, I'll get round to it!
• 1992 Citroen BX Break 1.7 TZD - Well, it was free to a good home, and I had just dropped a car off and had an empty car transporter... What would anyone else do?! She's done nearly 300k miles, and has lots of holes for me to weld up. Otherwise runs fine, no trouble starting, suspension goes up and down as needed, doesn't spray green fluid all over the shop. I've had all the interior out and cleaned it thoroughly, removed most of the spiders, fitted the missing trim - basically done anything I can to avoid the harder jobs. It's due to become our holiday bus though, so I've scheduled some time over the next few months to get stuck in to the welding. This is probably one of the cars I'm most excited about running, as I reckon it will be a pretty decent estate to run around in.
• 1988 Zastava 311 - A bit of a random one, but I've always wanted a Zastava just for the obscurity. This one came up in January, and had been sat in barns since 1996 apparently.  It didn't run when I got it, but I've slowly replaced pretty much everything in the engine bay, along with all the brake components and lines, and she runs now. Just the welding left to do, and she's ready for MOT. I have been fairly productive with this project, up until several cars within my family broke at the same time and I ended up working on those in my spare time instead of my toys. Only one family car left to fix and I'll be back on my projects again hopefully.

I will try to put an individual post to follow for each car, as and when I can be bothered to do a write up of what I've done with each of them to bring them up to date, and then after that I'll try and get posts and pics up as I do jobs on them. I suspect the first thing to get up will be the Skoda, as that's what I'm actively working on currently. And seeing as you made it this far through my rambling, here's a picture of the Favorit:

[Fumbler]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

1994 Skoda Favorit Silverline Estate

 

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

1992 Citroen BX Break 1.7 TZD

 

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

1988 Zastava 311

You've found the right place and are a man of impeccable class.

[wesacosa]

great collection

was the Zastava one of the ones offered from a collection stored in a barn via the Facebook page (in Kent somewhere)

[Rust Collector]

1 hour ago, Fumbler said:

 

 

You've found the right place and are a man of impeccable class.

Thank you, from the other threads I've read do far I did suspect I was in good company!

1 hour ago, wesacosa said:

great collection

was the Zastava one of the ones offered from a collection stored in a barn via the Facebook page (in Kent somewhere)

I did see those, but I think they came up slightly after my one - mine came from Salisbury, but I did find it through the Facebook page. I keep meaning to update my post keeping track of the work, but Facebook is a bit crap for chronicling projects so I keep putting it off...

[wesacosa]

great stuff looking forward to hearing about your work on them. I have a 94 Favorit myself, I bought it for a banger rally to Monaco in 2019 but ended up bringing it back and keeping it

 

[stuboy]

14 hours ago, wesacosa said:

was the Zastava one of the ones offered from a collection stored in a barn via the Facebook page (in Kent somewhere)

what happened to that lot?

[stuboy]

16 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

1988 Zastava 311 - A bit of a random one, but I've always wanted a Zastava just for the obscurity. This one came up in January, and had been sat in barns since 1996 apparently.  It didn't run when I got it, but I've slowly replaced pretty much everything in the engine bay, along with all the brake components and lines, and she runs now. Just the welding left to do, and she's ready for MOT. I have been fairly productive with this project, up until several cars within my family broke at the same time and I ended up working on those in my spare time instead of my toys. Only one family car left to fix and I'll be back on my projects again hopefully.

picture?

[wesacosa]

2 minutes ago, stuboy said:

what happened to that lot?

I don't know. the bloke who runs the Yugo Facebook group was looking to find people to take them on but I never heard what happened to them all

[Rust Collector]

So to start with the car I'm currently doing the most on, I should probably give you all an intro to my Skoda Favorit. I picked it up fairly locally from a driveway trader, I ended up negotiating a straight swap for a Honda CRX Del Sol which I had somewhat fallen out of love with as the paint was so rough and I didn't want to spend any more money on the car. The Favorit was a shed inside, but the paint was better, it had plenty of MOT and enough space for me, my partner, our labrador and all the tools and car parts I can never be arsed to take out the boot and put in the garage neatly. I dropped my Del Sol off with the trader, and began my drive home in the Favorit. I made it about 5 miles before I got stranded!

This rear tyre let go at about 60mph on a dual carriageway. Luckily it was quiet, and although the back end briefly tried to snatch out I kept her steady and pulled over. No jack or wheel brace in the boot! A quick call to a mate, and 40 minutes later I had a jack and some tools, and I was back on my way. I can't remember off the top of my head now, but I did check the date code on the tyre and I seem to recall it being ancient, perhaps even the original spare...

I was pleased anyway, I was quite taken with her

It had a few niggles right from the start - the idle was rough, there was a brake fluid leak somewhere, and I started getting white smoke out the exhaust. The white smoke got worse and worse, especially on long left corners. The car would actually sputter and cut out on some of the left hand corners on the way home from work, and the smoke would completely block out rear visibility. Despite this, it wasn't losing coolant or significant amounts of oil. Compression was measured and found to be 14-15psi on all 4 cylinders which was well within spec. I decided to start with the easy stuff, and sort the bad idle. I checked for vacuum leaks first, and when I took off the servo hose to blank it I found out 2 things - my brake servo was leaking vacuum, and it was also filled with brake fluid!! The outlet for the servo hose was on the right, which meant that on long left corners the fluid was getting drawn into the engine, resulting in the plumes of white smoke and stalling. New parts ordered from the Czech Republic, and submitted for lab testing prior to fitting:

That sorted my problems! She idled spot on, the brakes were better and she didn't leave a trail of smoke behind her anymore. From then on I just ran her as my daily, and enjoyed some very cheap motoring. I didn't get stranded, we had no breakdowns, and she was even somewhat practical!

Then MOT day came...

I ended up removing the whole rear beam to get access for welding the sill. I spent about 3 days in total working on the car to get it ready, about 2 days of welding and then the rest was fighting with bushes and ball joints. Despite being of fairly simple design and construction, some of the parts were bloody awkward to work with.

The more you scraped, the worse it got! 😅

Now raise your hand and repeat the shit welder's mantra; It looks shit, but it's strong! 😉 Joking aside, I did keep grinding it back and checking it was continuous. The safety hammer couldn't shift anything once I was finished.

Asked, my tester if he wanted to see the welds bare or if I could underseal it whilst I had the access, he said 'no problem, it'll be fine with the underseal!' (see later certificate😆)

That just left brake lines, and the front suspension bits

The eagle eyed Skoda owners out there may notice both the brackets are missing the tiny aligning bolt from the end. This is because it's a bastard, and needs three hands, a spanner and a crowbar to fit them. And I snapped one.

Post MOT celebratory photo!

After that I used my Bissell to remove the last owner from the seats

And put a set of lowering springs on that I obtained from the Favorit owner's group on Facebook.

And that pretty much brings me up to date, since then I had been solidly plugging away and putting miles on her without complaint, until about a month or so ago when the head gasket let go. I think I will write that up in a separate post, as this one has already ended up way longer than I had originally expected!!

Future jobs on the Favorit:

• Finish the head gasket replacement
• Replace the suspension topmounts
• Fix the hole in the roof around the antenna
• General tidy up of the bodywork
• replace the missing brackets underneath
• Fit the steering rack boot that I didn't have time to do on the MOT

[Rust Collector]

18 minutes ago, stuboy said:

picture?

Go on then, just a sneak peak... I'll try to get a writeup on her soon

This was when I picked her up, barn fresh! 😀

[Fumbler]

12 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

Go on then, just a sneak peak... I'll try to get a writeup on her soon

This was when I picked her up, barn fresh! 😀

That's excellent. I'd love to have a 511 one day. I love the rear hatches on these.

[Rust Collector]

2 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

That's excellent. I'd love to have a 511 one day. I love the rear hatches on these.

Thanks mate! Yeah, the rear hatch was a pretty good idea on Zastava's part when you look at what was on the market when they first brought out the 101. I just think they're quite pretty cars, due to the FIAT roots they've got that nice 60/s70's Italian car vibe to them. I've really been enjoying working on it, and I can't wait to be able to use it. I only commute 3 miles, so it'll probably do a stint as my daily provided I get it finished whilst the weather is still warm!

[Skizzer]

Woah, a Zastava! Now that’s a rare beast.

Cracking stuff, welcome along.

[Rust Collector]

Well, I looked at the amount of photos I've got detailing the progress of the Zastava, and I have realised that I need to break it down into a multi-post affair to bring it up to date without everyone losing the will to live.

So without further adieu, let's talk about my BX instead as it involves much less writing 😅

Back at the tail end of 2020 (my camera roll suggests October) a friend of mine who had a BX learned of a BX estate going for free. Knowing that I am a car hoarder, plus a lover of angles and long roofs, he put me in touch with the chap who was getting rid of it. The story was that he had owned many BX's, using them for his work as a welder. This particular one let him down one winter when the heater matrix let go, and combined with some of the holes opening up in the arches it was put to one side and left to come back to. This didn't happen, and after a couple of years of sitting he decided to let her go. The stars lined up, as I actually already had a truck booked to drop a car 10 miles down the road from the BX, and so I went down laden with a Legacy wagon and came back with the BX Break. Here she is being loaded onto the transporter, complete with action shot of my partner begrudgingly helping out with loading.

We enjoyed a short stop in Poole afterwards in order to appease my partner, and then barreled back to East Sussex in order to unload the BX and get the rental truck back. Having driven a few pikey Transit recovery trucks in the past, despite my disdain for modern vehicles I have to admit the new Transits are fantastic to drive.

'But wait!' you cry, 'did the car not settle on the bed as you drove?!'. Erm, well...

Luckily it doesn't seem to have damaged anything underneath significantly, but yeah I did notice later in the journey that the load on the back started to feel a bit weird. Probably should have stopped and raised it, but we were down to the wire on time and well, once it's done it's done anyway 😅

Back home and on the driveway, it was time to inspect what 2 years spent hiding in a hedge had resulted in;

It even came with free food!

Obligatory Lab inspection:

So there we have it, one very crusty BX sat on the driveway.

Straight off the bat, it wasted no time in exploding the thick wire on the starter motor, rendering it immobile in front of things further down the driveway that I needed. Luckily I picked a cheap starter up from some other XUD engined machine and it worked fine

Whilst in there I noticed that the oil cooler was knackered and looped out the cooling circuit, so best get one of those at some point

For those of you interested in what a 280k mile tractor sounds like on a cold start with the new starter, here's a video of the moment of truth:

The way this thing starts invokes quite a lot of confidence in me, there's something reassuring about a very agricultural diesel motor with mechanical injection.

This doesn't quite bring me up to date, but I'm worried that the volume of photos I'm attaching is going to break something 😅 I'll try and get a follow up post this afternoon of the bits I've been dicking around with on the BX since, which has mainly just been tidying it up in an attempt to make it a more pleasant place to work whilst avoiding doing the welding which is bound to suck.

 

[Fumbler]

Ooh, that's a lovely BX. Loving the look of the rear gingercator clusters as well.

51 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

 barreled back to East Sussex

 

0_0 blimey you're quite close to me. I have some BX diesel spares I need to shift on at some point as well. I'll need to refresh myself on what I have, but I know I have a few intake bits and stuff like that.

[Eyersey1234]

On 6/4/2021 at 5:53 PM, Fumbler said:

 

 

You've found the right place and are a man of impeccable class.

Agreed. @dollywobbler will be jealous 

[sdkrc]

Hell of a thread already. Following this with interest

[Rust Collector]

Right, subsequent work on the BX that has been done to avoid the more horrible jobs...

Bonnet liner clips flipped round to hold the parts of the liner that aren't ripped, and liner replaced

The chap who gave the car to me also left me a set of alloys in the boot, so of course the first thing I did was try to fit tyres on them to see what they looked like. They came off the steelies fine...

No photos of me fighting the alloys with my manual changer, but after much cursing and breaking things I realised they were metric and I didn't stand a hope on hell of stretching the 14's on with a manual machine. I've put that idea on the back burner now until I modify the machine a bit.

Next up was washing the car to get all the greenery off, it also drove the spiders out of the bodywork which for an arachnophobe such as myself was an absolutely horrifying experience. One bastard actually dropped down the front of my fleece when I opened the tailgate, which resulted in me doing the spider dance on the driveway whilst swearing at the top of my voice... Not much fun, but the neighbours don't seem to talk to me much anymore which is great. Skip ahead if you don't like spiders!

 

I blasted as much grease out of the engine bay as possible, as it normally makes life better later down the line when you're getting stuck in. I'm sure there's a good bit left in there mind...

And then the view from the utility room, doesn't she look great with a bit of water over the top of her. Best only drive it in the rain 😅

Next the interior came out for a bit to do some cleaning and hoover up more spiders

The bolts holding the back rests of the rear bench in are crap... they're made of cheese with an allen socket head, and the hole they're threaded into is exposed to the elements from underneath. I snapped a few of these in frustration, drilled some others, and had to come back a few weeks later with a fresh head to weld nuts on the studs and remove them.

 

I threw some new bolts in and it was much better. Shampooed the carpet and seats next, before throwing the back in;

The boot cards were feeling a bit sad so I glued them back together before more hoover and shampoo action

This needs welding a plate over and a rivnut to be fitted before I can put the boot back together, I need to clean the carpet too as it's still rolled into a tube in the garage, ensuring it will never lay flat again...

I got a cheap replacement 16v steering wheel off of eBay, so put that in to replace the somewhat chewed one that was in there. Cleaned up the console and some of the other plastics too.

Jobs left to do on the interior then:

• Find out why the front electric windows don't work and resolve
• Source and fit the missing door open indicator
• Dye the parcel shelf I've bought black
• Weld up the hole in the side of the boot and put the lining back in
• remove the electric heater screwed to the dash
• Become a contortionist and fit a new heater matrix
• Wire in the cheapo ebay central locking remotes I've got
• sort out some better speakers
• Presumably find lots of other small niggles and solve them as I go once the car starts getting used

So that just leaves the exterior - I've done a small amount of work on the paint, and I had a nose underneath and saw some upsetting holes that I'll need to tackle. Lots more pictures in relation to those points, but I think I'll get those up this eve if I have time after stopping off to do some bits on the Favorit. Right now I should probably do some actual work that pays the bills 😅

[Rust Collector]

22 minutes ago, Eyersey1234 said:

Agreed. @dollywobbler will be jealous 

 

10 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

Hell of a thread already. Following this with interest

Thanks guys 🙂 Things will be a little slower once I'm up to date and you get to see how much time I spend procrastinating rather than working 😅

 

34 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Ooh, that's a lovely BX. Loving the look of the rear gingercator clusters as well.

0_0 blimey you're quite close to me. I have some BX diesel spares I need to shift on at some point as well. I'll need to refresh myself on what I have, but I know I have a few intake bits and stuff like that.

I love it, but it has a lot of holes in it, so it will definitely test my welding ability lol. I was really hoping to replace the tail lights with smoked ones, but I can't see that you can get them for an estate sadly! It's going to be tango lights forever it would seem.

I'm over in Seaford, but East Sussex isn't the biggest place so I'm sure I'm not that far out from you if you're on the Eastern end. If you do have a sort out I'd be up for having a nose through any BX bits, I reckon you can never have too many car parts decorating the garage!

[Fumbler]

15 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

I'm over in Seaford, but East Sussex isn't the biggest place so I'm sure I'm not that far out from you if you're on the Eastern end. If you do have a sort out I'd be up for having a nose through any BX bits, I reckon you can never have too many car parts decorating the garage!

The stash is in Uckfield, so not all that far away as roads go. All A-roads too.

[TheOtherStu]

Following. I'm guessing here that by saying your folks live on a farm, you find yourself with similar acreage?

I'd really like to start getting more cars (currently have 4) but space is now at a serious premium and the wife is getting antsy.

[Rust Collector]

Ah ok, no distance at all then really. Funnily enough I used to have a barn out at Rose Hill back when my collecting was really out of hand!

[Rust Collector]

So the last instalment on the BX to pretty much bring us up to date bar anything I've forgotten is the bit of poking around looking for rust I've done, followed by the bit of mopping I did on the paint (I'm no expert, and the paint is really shit anyway, so please don't expect miracles or correct techniques) in anticipation of moving the car to the front section of my driveway where the neighbours can see it.

So, rust it is then;

I should think there's a very good chance I will be removing the rear beam and doing a fair amount of work at the back here.  The above pic is the chassis rail running under the boot, the right side of the photo is the front of the o/s/r wheel well. Below is a photo looking back from the rear axle towards the o/s/r corner of the boot floor. Sorry for the crap photo, but my phone is rubbish in the dark. Both sides are like this, along with the outer edges of the rear bumper beam. 

When I had all the carpets out I didn't find anything bad in the actual floor pan, and the boot floor seems good too. Most of the stuff that has rotted out is flat and square in shape which is handy, so I'm not too concerned about the fabrication of replacement sections, but I can't say I'm looking forward to removing the rear beam... I can imagine the hydropneumatic kit makes that a ball ache of a job.

Up front, both strut mounts need attention, along with the seam along the inner wing. There's a gaping hole at the back of the n/s/f wheel well also, and seeing as the plates where the check straps mount to the A pillars is flexing and crunching like mad as you move the doors I suspect I will be removing the dashboard to rectify the holes in the front properly. My o/s B pillar has a hole too, but I'll just patch that - she's not destined to be concourse, I just want functional and clean enough that the neighbours don't get scared. A recap of the shitty parts up front

There's more holes, but I gave up photographing them in the end 😅

As a distraction I busted out the rotary paint fucker and took lots of 'in progress' photos as I cut back the oxidation.

I took the roof rails off, amazingly they came free without issue so I ran a tap and die over everything before reassembly

She's nowhere near perfect, the paint is split and chipped all over the place, plenty of crazing in the bonnet as well. But considering my lack of skill and technique, and the turd I started with, I was quite pleased with how she came up. I didn't like looking out the window and seeing it sat there looking faded and sad lol.

That pretty much brings me all the way up to date with the BX. Exterior points that need sorting are almost entirely made up of panel and chassis repair. I'm hoping to get started within the next month or so, when I'm able to take time off my day job and work in the warm weather.

[Fumbler]

Looks like removal of the rear subframe will be your best bet. While you're at it, you may as well re-run the pipework on the subframe and the pipes leading from the front to the back. Only reason why I say this is because it'll be a really opportune time to get it done, plus the state of the rear end doesn't bode well for the state of the plated hydraulic lines.

Looking forward to all this work on your cars. Still digging that little 311 you have. I'll have a drive in one someday.

[Rust Collector]

Replacement of the lines was definitely on the cards - I have a nice flare tool that is capable of making the flares that the Citroen hydropneumatic system requires, I just need to invest in more dies. I think I priced it up at about £60 to get the full set, which isn't outrageous really when you look at what some places charge for replacement lines. As it happens the last job I did on the 311 was actually replacing every single brake line on the car... It all started with a perished rubber hose at the back with a very rusted union, and from there each subsequent line was so knackered that I had no choice but to remove everything and start over. It's quite nice to know that they should never need replacing again in the likely lifetime of the car, and I think it cost me about £15 in copper line and £10 for the oddball unions the whole system uses. Loads of pics from the process, so will hopefully get that all up at some point soon!

[Rust Collector]

Whilst looking through my photos to write up the progress on the head gasket, I realised I forgot a small episode in the recent history of the Favorit...

I was on a short run seeing how the lowered suspension impacted the ride, and the car cut out on me. I could get it to start again, but if I pressed the throttle then the rev counter would drop to zero, and shortly after the engine would struggle and cut out. After a bit of a chat with a mate who had experienced and resolved similar issues on his Favorit, we decided that the crank sensor was probably suspect.

Lo and behold, my 'it'll be alright' application of RTV on the thermostat housing when I replaced the thermostat (and realised the thermostat didn't come with a gasket...) was not alright, and the sensor was having a bath. I wouldn't have thought a bit of liquid could cock it up that bad, so it may be coincidence and it's just at end of life anyway, but either way it's not right.

Part number for reference:

The original part isn't available, so you have to detach part of the wiring loom to reach the shorter Felica sensor that you can still source and use

All was well for a while after this repair. Then one morning when leaving for work, the car cut out on a junction. Luckily there was a bus stop beside the junction, so I coasted to the side and called my partner and requested thunderbird support. One ripped towing eye and an argument later (it was my fault 😅) we dumped the car close to home and went to work. After work I limped it home and put my diagnostician hat on

Oh dear.

This qualified the Skoda for a trip to my parents house, which being an old farm is a suitable place for dumping crapped out motors that you don't want to look at for a bit. It helps with motivation too, as if you leave things there long enough you get repeatedly asked when things are going to be fixed and moved until you actually have to do something.

Unfortunately, on the way to the farm the Favorit cut out at the beach. Happily, it was a free parking area so I could just dump it there for a bit. After a while of being sat there I finally felt guilty enough to go and move the car, this time with the world's smallest trailer and my brother in tow.

In to the corner of shame you go! Join the cursed Clio DCi that I just can't fucking get to run right.

I left it to marinade for a bit, then brought it down to the hard standing where surgery is normally performed. Photo for the benefit of letting you see my merc and my brother's Celica.

Better do some work then

Found my engine bay exhaust leak...

Push rods for dummies...

 

Head off, not too bad not too great... Was expecting a more drastic failure

Cleaned the block up

Then cleaned the tops of the wet liners, got the disappointer out and measured the liner heights. I reckon they're all ok, they seem to measure about 0.08-0.10mm each.

Gave the head a quick clean to inspect it, there's some very mild pitting in 2 places but it should skim out and still be within the service limit. It's with the machine shop now, should get it back in a week or so as they've just been forced out of their unit and their kit is spread over a few sites now. Other places further afield could do it further, but I'd rather use a local chap and also I like to work as slowly as possible anyway 😅

More on the Skoda once I get the head back and put her back together. Hopefully it all goes ok, but it's obviously playing on my mind as just this morning I was woken up by a dream where I was driving the Skoda home from work after repairing it and the temp gauge was fluctuating wildly 😆

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Rust Collector
I'm an idiot and I can't insert photos properly

[Rust Collector]

We should probably talk about the Zastava now. I've been putting it off, as I have a folder of photos for each project and I already have about 550 photos and videos of the 311... I'm really not enjoying sifting back through them and figuring out what the hell I was doing at the time I took each picture. There's probably going to be quite a few individual posts before I'm up to date on this car, hopefully some people manage to make it all the way through my ramblings and see the progress that has been made 😅

So loop back to January, and I was concerned that some of the money I put aside for a rainy day was at risk of being used on something sensible if not spunked away on a car quickly enough and so I started teasing myself with a bit of facebook market place, scumtree, the usual sorts of hiding places for the shite we like. Cue an advert in the UK Zastava Facebook group appearing for a non-runner barn find 311 that apparently had been in storage since 1996, all for a low low idiot attracting price... How could I say no!

A trip in a recovery truck to Salisbury later, and here she was waiting for me - barn fresh!

Loading up was no drama, although all 4 brakes were in the boot so I did stop and check my straps a mile down the road just to make sure she wasn't going anywhere!

Once home I had a poke and a prod around to see what I was dealing with, lots of photos taken at this point

The brakes are in here apparently!

Luckily the vehicle has already been quality checked, so presumably I don't need to check anything...

Spiders and mouse food galore. As previously mentioned, I cannot stand spiders!

Original document pack, service book expertly redacted in MS paint to protect the identity of someone who actually thought buying one of these was a good idea 😅

All the tools you should ever need to repair a Zastava

I'm trawling through the next batch of photos, it's mainly the interior getting cleaned up and the outside being washed and having the paint cut back - not the most exciting stuff, but if you're like me it's satisfying to see the transformation.

From inspecting the car, from memory the basic priorities were get it cleaned up, get it started, install the brakes, service it and try for an MOT. This is a gross oversimplification of course 😆

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Rust Collector
I broke the photo upload thingy briefly

[Rust Collector]

First job on the Zastava was to clean the mould and spiders out so that I could work in there without constantly being worried about getting touched by a spider or mould.

Carpets weren't too bad (in relative terms, not accounting for style or good taste), if you ignore the mouse skeleton

RIP mouse. The car will be much cleaner now you're gone.

A shampoo of the fabrics on the seats and carpets should bring it all up nicely, however it was cold damp weather at the time of the first clean so it wasn't practical to bust out the Bissell back then. I keep meaning to dab some vinyl cleaner on the sides and rears too! I can't find any decent pictures taken during daylight, but I also went over all the hard surfaces with some APC and a microfiber clothe, before dressing it with 303 Aerospace - I bought some after watching a valeter on youtube rave about it, and it's actually pretty decent stuff. It's brought up the plastics in the 311 and BX brilliantly, without making them greasy or too shiny.

On to the outside, it was time to get the rotary paint fucker out again. Disclaimer, I have no idea what I'm doing with one of these, so view at your own discretion. I've got some in progress shots just because I personally find it satisfying seeing the oxidation getting cut back!

A little bit of glass cleaner on the clear bits (I love pop out windows, not sure why 😁)

All done to the best of my limited ability:

And then how about a grille for a final touch?

Much better!!

Next up I think there's some dickery involving stripping the carb and trying to get her started on the ancient fuel in the tank, or I may have decided to put brakes on so that I could remove the safety log from the rear wheel, I can't quite remember. I'll have a sort through and see if I can put together something intelligible.

[Rust Collector]

Well I've been busy procrastinating instead of posting progress. In an effort to avoid remembering/writing up Zastava work, here's a quick return back to the present.

I took a week off work so that I could crack on with a couple of bits, namely finishing the head gasket on the Favorit and finally putting the engine back in the SLK320. The cylinder head had returned from the machine shop and was still well within the service limit which was good. Here we see the mating face of the head whilst it's on the bench in the clean room 😅

Whilst the head was off I replaced the valve stem seals using the appropriate tools...

I don't have a parts washer, so I fixed that by purchasing a secondhand dishwasher for £20. I had to temporarily put it on the driveway by the hose/kitchen drain as there's no suitable points to hook it up elsewhere, it really adds to the decor along with the 2 spare engines, alloy wheels, unfinished project cars.... Luckily the section of driveway I work on is inside of a courtyard area between my front garden and rear garden and I have privacy gates and fence all the way around so that the neighbours aren't able to see anything that might upset them 😅 I did put the dishwasher away neatly in the garage afterwards in order to appease my other half though.

For anyone who needs to know, the thread for a garden tap hose adapter is the same as the thread for an appliance hose...

New head gasket offered up, not the best template used at manufacture imo but the holes were where they needed to be and although you may be surprised by this after seeing the clean room and all the specialist tools at our disposal, we aren't quite working to F1 engineering tolerances 😅 So I thought about trying to get a better gasket, imagined that it would be difficult to find one locally that I could inspect first, and pressed on with the one I had.

 

I then bolted everything back in. Couldn't find my angle gauge for the life of me, so the final 2 stages on the head bolts were done with a calibrated marker pen and laser guided eyeball. When I picked up the service manual for the valve clearances, I discovered that although I put them back in the order they came out the engine, somebody working on the car prior to me had muddled them up. Some of the Favorit engines have a mix of steel and ally push rods, and in these engines it's important that the right rods are put in the right place due to the thermal expansion characteristics of the different metals. Mine had the ally ones on the exhaust valves which was wrong, the exhaust valves should only ever use steel rods whereas the inlet valves can have either a steel rod or ally rod and there is a different tolerance depending on the material.

And finally all back together again. I had some new coolant hoses that I bought a while back so they went in as well. I gave the engine bay a quick wash as it was pretty dirty, excuse the monstrosity that is the remains of my bonnet liner...

She started and ran, so she was rewarded with a bath.

After a bit of gentle local testing, her first real challenge was to deliver us to the beach on Sunday. Despite living by the beach, we decided to go for a run to Camber. We left early to beat the traffic... which still ended up with us queuing for an hour and a half in sweltering heat!!

I think we can say the job was a success though, as this was the hottest it got!!

So we can file this one in the 'fixed' pile for now. In the near future I will need to do a bit of repair work to the roof (there is a hole where the antenna mounts, which the last owner filled with what feels like polyfilla) and I reckon some new top mounts and spring seats wouldn't be a bad idea as I've got some clunks here an there when turning the wheels at low speed.

[Fumbler]

6 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

Well I've been busy procrastinating instead of posting progress. In an effort to avoid remembering/writing up Zastava work, here's a quick return back to the present.

I took a week off work so that I could crack on with a couple of bits, namely finishing the head gasket on the Favorit and finally putting the engine back in the SLK320. The cylinder head had returned from the machine shop and was still well within the service limit which was good. Here we see the mating face of the head whilst it's on the bench in the clean room 😅

Whilst the head was off I replaced the valve stem seals using the appropriate tools...

I don't have a parts washer, so I fixed that by purchasing a secondhand dishwasher for £20. I had to temporarily put it on the driveway by the hose/kitchen drain as there's no suitable points to hook it up elsewhere, it really adds to the decor along with the 2 spare engines, alloy wheels, unfinished project cars.... Luckily the section of driveway I work on is inside of a courtyard area between my front garden and rear garden and I have privacy gates and fence all the way around so that the neighbours aren't able to see anything that might upset them 😅 I did put the dishwasher away neatly in the garage afterwards in order to appease my other half though.

For anyone who needs to know, the thread for a garden tap hose adapter is the same as the thread for an appliance hose...

New head gasket offered up, not the best template used at manufacture imo but the holes were where they needed to be and although you may be surprised by this after seeing the clean room and all the specialist tools at our disposal, we aren't quite working to F1 engineering tolerances 😅 So I thought about trying to get a better gasket, imagined that it would be difficult to find one locally that I could inspect first, and pressed on with the one I had.

 

I then bolted everything back in. Couldn't find my angle gauge for the life of me, so the final 2 stages on the head bolts were done with a calibrated marker pen and laser guided eyeball. When I picked up the service manual for the valve clearances, I discovered that although I put them back in the order they came out the engine, somebody working on the car prior to me had muddled them up. Some of the Favorit engines have a mix of steel and ally push rods, and in these engines it's important that the right rods are put in the right place due to the thermal expansion characteristics of the different metals. Mine had the ally ones on the exhaust valves which was wrong, the exhaust valves should only ever use steel rods whereas the inlet valves can have either a steel rod or ally rod and there is a different tolerance depending on the material.

And finally all back together again. I had some new coolant hoses that I bought a while back so they went in as well. I gave the engine bay a quick wash as it was pretty dirty, excuse the monstrosity that is the remains of my bonnet liner...

She started and ran, so she was rewarded with a bath.

After a bit of gentle local testing, her first real challenge was to deliver us to the beach on Sunday. Despite living by the beach, we decided to go for a run to Camber. We left early to beat the traffic... which still ended up with us queuing for an hour and a half in sweltering heat!!

I think we can say the job was a success though, as this was the hottest it got!!

So we can file this one in the 'fixed' pile for now. In the near future I will need to do a bit of repair work to the roof (there is a hole where the antenna mounts, which the last owner filled with what feels like polyfilla) and I reckon some new top mounts and spring seats wouldn't be a bad idea as I've got some clunks here an there when turning the wheels at low speed.

Hah, I passed a queue right in that spot nearly every day on the way home from work last week. The traffic in and around Camber has been mega as of late. Glad to see things are going well for once- I forgot that you live rather close too!