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

[chodweaver]

@Rust Collector Got anything that'll chill the stud? Blast of gas? Plumber's freeze it spray? If all the welding is expanding both the stud and the casting, perhaps a blast of something very cold and very localised on the stud to contract it would help break the seal...

[Rust Collector]

First job of 2024:

Weld this abortion up

Add these into the equation

Would you believe it?

First go and it came out.

Unfuckingbelievable.

We are now free of all snapped bolts.

Im not sure if the first job of 2024 going right first time is a sign of a good year to come or if it means I’ve used all of this year’s luck up in one go.

Now to order some imperial taps, dies, bolts and sockets. It’s going back together with original size fittings. I’m not drilling and tapping that to metric - quit whilst you’re behind and all that.

[juular]

Excellent save!

[grogee]

36 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

First job of 2024:

Weld this abortion up

Add these into the equation

Would you believe it?

First go and it came out.

Unfuckingbelievable.

We are now free of all snapped bolts.

Im not sure if the first job of 2024 going right first time is a sign of a good year to come or if it means I’ve used all of this year’s luck up in one go.

Now to order some imperial taps, dies, bolts and sockets. It’s going back together with original size fittings. I’m not drilling and tapping that to metric - quit whilst you’re behind and all that.

Any local shiters with olde worlde taps? Save you splashing out? I've only got metrique but you'd be welcome to borrow. 

[chodweaver]

I'll check my set this afternoon - i honestly can't remember if they're half and half metric/imperial. I know:
1 it's cheap tat
2 I've only used half the set at most

@Rust Collector What part of the country are you in?

[Rust Collector]

15 minutes ago, grogee said:

Any local shiters with olde worlde taps? Save you splashing out? I've only got metrique but you'd be welcome to borrow. 

 

6 minutes ago, chodweaver said:

I'll check my set this afternoon - i honestly can't remember if they're half and half metric/imperial. I know:
1 it's cheap tat
2 I've only used half the set at most

@Rust Collector What part of the country are you in?
 

I'm down in Seaford, East Sussex so a little bit of a trek from Cheshire - I'm thinking that an imperial tap and die set isn't a bad purchase seeing as the Pontiac is intended as a long term fleet member and every nut and bolt on it looks like it's been in the sea since the 90's.

[jonathan_dyane]

Nice save!

Are they definitely imperial threads? American automotive fixings started to switch to metric in the 1980s.

[Rust Collector]

2 minutes ago, jonathan_dyane said:

Nice save!

Are they definitely imperial threads? American automotive fixings started to switch to metric in the 1980s.

Definitely imperial in my case, sadly.

The smaller one is 1/4-20 and the larger is 5/16-18. The larger ones all came out ok but I need to replace two of the smaller ones.

You’re right though, as whilst I was browsing the parts catalogues online I saw that some of the other GM engines in this platform use metric fasteners on the water pump. What a mess.

[Fumbler]

8 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

Definitely imperial in my case, sadly.

The smaller one is 1/4-20 and the larger is 5/16-18. The larger ones all came out ok but I need to replace two of the smaller ones.

You’re right though, as whilst I was browsing the parts catalogues online I saw that some of the other GM engines in this platform use metric fasteners on the water pump. What a mess.

The US car industry from that time had a really nasty habit of making all manner of weird things metric on a whim (usually important bits too!), while leaving everything else as Standard. It was almost like if they updated or changed a part or assembly, they'd have that as metric, whereas everything else around it was 5/16" or 1/4" etc. Happily though, they never used Whitworth.

Another happy thing was that, with time and lots of salt, the fasteners usually re-sized themselves

[Rust Collector]

Bolts, taps, dies and other fun things now on order. Car Builder Solutions actually came up trumps for the tap and die set which is great as it meant I could use a local business rather than the usual online suspects.

Speaking of spending money: the rest of the fleet is obviously feeling left out with the XM and Pontiac receiving so much attention lately, and so the Discovery decided to blow a headlight bulb whilst we went to visit family at the weekend. We were out in the dark and so it really needed sorting immediately, and there was a Halfords nearby... The hanging tag on the shelf for the bulb I needed said 'head to the counter and drop your pants' and so I did, to the tune of £31 fucking pounds! Not a huge amount in the grander scheme of things, but not as palatable as the couple of quid for a 'normal' bulb.

Once the Pontiac is sorted I should probably crack on with sorting the Lexus too, which is currently enjoying ornament status a few yards down the road from my house.

[EyesWeldedShut]

1 hour ago, Rust Collector said:

 £31 fucking pounds!

What's it got in there - a 100,000 candlepower searchlight? Jings

[Zelandeth]

12 hours ago, Fumbler said:

The US car industry from that time had a really nasty habit of making all manner of weird things metric on a whim (usually important bits too!), while leaving everything else as Standard. It was almost like if they updated or changed a part or assembly, they'd have that as metric, whereas everything else around it was 5/16" or 1/4" etc. Happily though, they never used Whitworth.

Another happy thing was that, with time and lots of salt, the fasteners usually re-sized themselves

Wasn't just the Americans!  A mid 80s Jag can lead to similar games.

On my XJ-S, any component actually attached to the heads would be metric.  Everything else - except the random bits that weren't were imperial.

Which given that you couldn't get to anything on that car to start with just made working on it all the more irksome.

[Rust Collector]

1 hour ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

What's it got in there - a 100,000 candlepower searchlight? Jings

Luxury car innit M9; it’s got HID bulbs to blind the peasantry.

[MorrisItalSLX]

From memory the 3800 V6s made in Australia by Holden for the Commodore were metric.

[Rust Collector]

Update time: yesterday and today I’ve been tinkering with the Pontiac.

My UNC/UNF tap and die set finally arrived, and by arrived I mean wasn’t left in my safe place two days in a row and then I had to wait until Saturday morning to collect as the office is only open 2 hours a day… Cheers Royal Mail. It meant I could at least clean up the shitey threads.

I also bought some long bolts as the 5/16 threads were deep in the block - this was a good shout as the taps were too short so I made this beauty* using the angry grinder.

You can’t see the threads so this pic is pointless, you’ll have to take my word for it that they’re all sorted:

Next up, it all went back together:

I did as the shop manual instructed and used a smear of RTV on the mating surfaces, and torqued everything up.

The coolant system was pretty grim:

So I treated it to a delicious dishwasher tablet.

Then I left it running on the driveway with the funnel attached. It’s getting tap water for now, as I’ll dump the coolant and put fresh stuff in after it’s been run for a bit.

It got up to temp, the thermostat opened, the bubbles slowed to a stop, no leaks were observed. It still doesn’t show as very warm on the dash, but with a new pump and thermostat I can only assume that either this is how it is normally or the sender is crap.

Either way, I chucked the coolant left in the funnel into the header tank and I’m calling it done for now, hopefully closing the lid on this for a while:

It’ll be interesting to see how it performs in service now that it actually has coolant in it.

[Rust Collector]

And to prove that as one hand gives, the other takes away; I’ve just driven the mrs’ merc to the tip aaaaand… It’s suddenly shit itself - don’t know if it is the rear diff, the driveshaft or a bearing at the back end but as you slow down on the brakes or by letting off the throttle there is a loud, cyclical knocking. Sounds like it’s in time with the drivetrain and not the engine.

Either way it’s not usable now, and my mrs is understandably fucked off that out of everything we own there isn’t anything that isn’t so broken that she can’t drive it currently.

This seems to happen every winter, so I’m fairly sure that the way to prevent this next year will be to procure a few WBOD’s to hedge my bets.

[Dyslexic Viking]

A Jogger on finance/lease to make your mrs happy and less stress/problems on you?

[Rust Collector]

42 minutes ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

A Jogger on finance/lease to make your mrs happy and less stress/problems on you?

It would be practical but with only one of us working and the second baby due next month the idea of finance isn’t very palatable at the moment.

I could do with a little Honda or Toyota hatchback to replace the Insight temporarily - we’ve ended up with too many cars that have a high liability factor to them. However with current prices it’ll most likely be cheaper to repair what I’ve got rather than buy something new.

I’ll probably stick a new brake switch in the Land Rover so that my mrs can drive that for now, and I’ll use one of the less civilised vehicles such as the Lada. My neighbours are probably* missing seeing it outside my house anyway.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

And to prove that as one hand gives, the other takes away; I’ve just driven the mrs’ merc to the tip aaaaand… It’s suddenly shit itself - don’t know if it is the rear diff, the driveshaft or a bearing at the back end but as you slow down on the brakes or by letting off the throttle there is a loud, cyclical knocking. Sounds like it’s in time with the drivetrain and not the engine.

Either way it’s not usable now, and my mrs is understandably fucked off that out of everything we own there isn’t anything that isn’t so broken that she can’t drive it currently.

This seems to happen every winter, so I’m fairly sure that the way to prevent this next year will be to procure a few WBOD’s to hedge my bets.

Seized up UJ on the prop shaft?

[grogee]

2 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

And to prove that as one hand gives, the other takes away; I’ve just driven the mrs’ merc to the tip aaaaand… It’s suddenly shit itself - don’t know if it is the rear diff, the driveshaft or a bearing at the back end but as you slow down on the brakes or by letting off the throttle there is a loud, cyclical knocking. Sounds like it’s in time with the drivetrain and not the engine.

Either way it’s not usable now, and my mrs is understandably fucked off that out of everything we own there isn’t anything that isn’t so broken that she can’t drive it currently.

This seems to happen every winter, so I’m fairly sure that the way to prevent this next year will be to procure a few WBOD’s to hedge my bets.

Interestingly the same issue occurred on my BMW after I'd done the gearbox but I investigated and discovered my exhaust heat shield was too close to the prop/diff so when slowing down it just rubbed on the shield and made a scary noise. 

Hopefully yours is equally trivial - maybe aged shield has rusted through and fallen into path of prop? 

[Rust Collector]

Update time I guess.

The Mercedes is still fucked and I’ve not had time to look at it properly. I did find a small pool of something that smelt and tasted like automatic transmission gravy underneath so that’s not a positive sign. It’s currently parked down the street where it can have a think about what it’s done/upset the neighbours. If I’ve got another S210 with a fucked gearbox then that’s 2 for 2.

A couple of spaces down is the Lexus. I have no idea if it will start again, I’m certain the battery will be flat, and I’m pretty sure the people who live opposite where I parked it will put my head on a spike if they see me near it. Next weekend I may attempt a daring nighttime recovery so that I can get it home and fix it.

The only working car at the house is the Discovery 3, which kind of sums up how badly things are going. My mrs needs a car so as not to be stuck at home all day, so I’ve fitted a new brake switch to this (previously I taught her to drive around the fault like a true shiter) and it now doesn’t do dashboard bingo when the brakes are applied lightly. She’s having the disco as her daily then, and will be going full JLR yummy mummy mode.

The Pontiac is the logical thing to use, but I work at the same place as my mum and she doesn’t know I own it - I’m not sure I can take more parental disappointment so that is currently on SORN at the back of the driveway until we get into the new month.

Lada it is then. For the next couple of days I’ll be getting dropped to work by my mrs like I’m an overgrown school boy, and then at the weekend I’ll liberate the Lada from its slumber in the field and it will be going back into daily duties. I’m still shit scared of driving it after my crash, but I’m going to have to deal with it.

Im very much sick of the slipping clutch though, and I’ve got a clutch kit on the shelf. That’s this weekend’s job sorted then!

[Tickman]

16 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

The Pontiac is the logical thing to use, but I work at the same place as my mum and she doesn’t know I own it - I’m not sure I can take more parental disappointment

Pissed myself laughing at this.

[brownnova]

20 hours ago, Rust Collector said:

The Pontiac is the logical thing to use, but I work at the same place as my mum and she doesn’t know I own it - I’m not sure I can take more parental disappointment extreme pride so that is currently on SORN at the back of the driveway until we get into the new month.

Even my very disapproving parents quite liked the Pontiac. We all went to the zoo in it once! 

[beko1987]

26 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Even my very disapproving parents quite liked the Pontiac. We all went to the zoo in it once! 

Have they spoken to you since though 🤔

[Rust Collector]

1 hour ago, brownnova said:

Even my very disapproving parents quite liked the Pontiac. We all went to the zoo in it once! 

One day I hope that the little part of them that believes ‘maybe Josh will sort out the cars and sell the ones he doesn’t need, have one sensible car for himself, one sensible car for his partner, and maybe one project car’ would finally just wither up and disappear.

There’s talk of a family holiday in France this year, which will make for 6 of us including the babies. The Discovery isn’t big enough, so I’m going to have to own up to the Pontiac at some point!

[Rust Collector]

Today was Retrieve Lada From Field Day.

I’d like that one please:

Not pictured: The chain harrow that my Dad left upside down in undergrowth. I drove onto it in the Land Rover (how it didn’t burst the tyre I don’t know), and then when I got out to find out ‘what the fuck was that noise that sounded like a tyre popping’ I went foot first onto one of the spikes. I had my boots on but I still fucking felt it. Cheers Dad.

Using the power of swearing, I dragged the chain harrow out the undergrowth and relocated it into the hedge.

With that sorted, I turned my attention to starting the Lada. Surprisingly, it was happy to crank over despite the tired battery.

Unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t crank long enough to draw fuel and start.

Luckily*, the jump pack in the Land Rover had gone flat. It was fully charged last weekend and has just been sat in the boot. Noco stuff is absolute shite.

I went back home and grabbed the battery that I had previously charged for the XM and brought that back to the stables.

I ‘forgot’ my tools (they’re blocked in the garage by the leaning tower of crap) so I had to make do with what I could find in the boot of the Lada.

2 spanners, a pair of pliers and the pry bar I’ve been missing for months. Ok then.

Success! (You’ll have to take my word for it as there’s no rev counter)

It was absolutely filthy from being sat under a tree, so I gave it a quick jet wash before driving it home.

Green:

White*:

Time to drive it home then. None of us were very excited at that prospect:

However, once I got off the main road and I was rolling around the local roads along the seafront I felt a lot better. I’m sure my confidence will come back with this car.

Home safe:

And then the last job for the day was to go and chuck the recently disgraced Mercedes into the discarded S210 pile.

I’m growing more confident that the noise is something simple like a fucked mount or a loose heat shield. I’ll have a poke around after I’ve done the Lada clutch and the starter on the Lexus…

Bonus Content:

I forgot to put this into the post, but handily it got tagged on at the end as I uploaded it… I should probably replace that hose.

[Zelandeth]

Given your history with that garden and with the weather forecast, would it maybe have been smart to park the Lada nose in?

I did just go have a rummage in the box of "misc crap from the Lada days that might be useful one day" as I remembered seeing a radiator hose in there, however it's plainly not a Lada one I'm afraid or I'd have sent it your way FOC.  Do get that changed or that could get really exciting really quickly!

[Rust Collector]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Given your history with that garden and with the weather forecast, would it maybe have been smart to park the Lada nose in?

I did just go have a rummage in the box of "misc crap from the Lada days that might be useful one day" as I remembered seeing a radiator hose in there, however it's plainly not a Lada one I'm afraid or I'd have sent it your way FOC.  Do get that changed or that could get really exciting really quickly!

I have since bought a set of socks and a set of chains for it, so I was feeling brave 🤣

I forgot to include this on my original post, but I had traction issues today when retrieving the Lada…

It had sunk into the ground and the handbrake shoes were stuck on. The clutch was stuck for good measure as well. Starting it in gear sorted the clutch, then holding the revs and bouncing it on the clutch freed the handbrake off and bounced it out the ruts. After that it reversed up the hill no bother!

Cheers for having a poke around for the hose - I’ll definitely be replacing it ASAP as the last thing I need is for it to dump the coolant out on my commute.

[RoverFolkUs]

Now if this isn't Autoshite logic I don't know what is.. 

"I can't disgrace myself by revealing this obscure, but relatively sensible, family transport wagon that I've bought, so I'll take this ancient shonky Lada to work instead" 😂😂

[Rust Collector]

A rad hose was less than a tenner online and will be here in a couple of days. I’ll check the others and replace the thermostat (I’ve got a new one on the shelf), but it’s mad how good the spares support for these cars is.