Ex Lesbian & Ex Nan Corsa Life - Tyred 17/09

[GMcD]

7 hours ago, Nyphur said:

Got the aux belt tensioner off and the aux belt (can't come fully off until the engine mount is off - seems insane.....).

GM foible? The C18NZ in the Cav I had was the same. You had to take split the engine mount bracket apart to get the belt out.

[yes oui si]

On 01/08/2023 at 23:11, Nyphur said:

The vid I was watching had a handy tip - the recess in the coil pack which the bolts holding it down pass through is threaded larger than the bolts themselves - so you can thread in larger bolts and use them as a handle to work the coil pack free rather than prying on it with a bar/screwdriver and potentially damaging it. As seen below.

 

 

I wish I knew that before I rage quit on Mrs_oui_si's old one and smashed the fucker until I could get vice grips on it. 

Photo taken as dog was concerned at the quantity and volume of language being used. 

[flat4alfa]

On 8/6/2023 at 4:29 PM, Nyphur said:

The FAI kit for my engine # is £60 currently on ECP so I'm happy with that

Was told same thing that the rattle starts all over again after 10k and 'they are all like that', so big spend not worth it as it might not be still around for much more than another 10k. 

But then, remembering it is now U-Lez compliant, it's now got £2k retail slapped on it after all, so its future is assured

[Nyphur]

Had a couple more hours on this yesterday and today.

Seen here with the engine mount, aux belt and waterpump / crank pulleys removed. Engine mount frame, for which the bolts pass through the timing chain cover, was a bit of a pain to remove - the bolts are too long to come out without jacking the engine up/letting it down quite a bit - but overall it wasn't too bad.

Removed the waterpump (after wrestling with it for 5 minutes then removing the bolt I'd missed) and all the bolts holding the timing chain cover to the cylinder block, cylinder head and sump. I was 50/50 as to whether I would buy a new waterpump and gasket or just the gasket and decided to wait and see how the pump looked when I removed it. It seems in decent order and with a metal impeller, no wobble detected, so I just ordered a new gasket. No doubt this will turn out to be the wrong move, but oh well!

The timing chain cover sits on a couple of locating dowels so the cover can't just be pulled up, it must be moved horizontally off the dowels first before being removed. I struggled a bit with this, but eventually felt the cover pop off the dowels. Whoever had replaced the cover last time had used shit loads of gasket goop so I ended up destroying the old gasket ripping the cover off as the gasket was trying to come off with the cover too, which it couldn't owing to the chain and guide/tensioner rails being between the two. It's all being replaced as part of the kit so no loss.

It was at this point I noticed that the crank locking tool had come out of position and was now lying on the floor. Oh how I laughed  It must have shook free with all the mallet action on the timing chain cover. It slots into the block at a slight upwards incline, so any vibration is at risk of wobbling it free. Fortunately it went straight back in, and I knew I hadn't rotated the engine at all so all good.

I prodded the chain tensioner suspiciously and it didn't seem to have much resistance, but I hadn't any experience with what a good one was like to benchmark against.

Removed the tensioner, cam sprockets, chain, crank sprocket, tensioner rail, guide rail, and top guide. Cleaned everything up ready for the new gasket and replacement bits to go on.

Also cleaned up the timing chain cover and replaced the crank seal. You can see I mullered the tensioner plug thinking I needed to remove it, but I needn't have bothered in the end.

I also chopped off what I could see of the sump gasket. I want to drop the sump when the engine mount is back on anyway (so will replace the gasket then), and it should make it easier to get the timing chain cover back on and lined up with the old one out the way.

Fitted all the new bits and did the bolts up finger tight, then went round and torqued them all to spec (excluding the cam sprockets which need to stay slightly loose for now).

The new tensioner comes pre-squeezed and held in with a pin which you yank to apply tension to the chain again.

I gave everything a final once over to make sure the chain was inside the plastic guide rails etc, gave a "fire in the hole!" and pulled the pin.

Prodding this tensioner found that I could barely compress it at all now, so the one which was removed was definitely well past it.

Now ready to put the cover back on over the shiny new bits.

It wasn't as difficult as I'd been lead to believe it would be to get the cover back on. 

Put all the bolts back in and torqued them up. I put the water pump back on just so everything was torqued evenly - but I'm now waiting for the gasket to arrive before I can remove/refit and continue.

Probably be next Saturday now before I pick this back up.

[beko1987]

Some nice room to work there! I had to bend the air con pipes out the way to get my ratchet on a few bits doing the belt on my car! 

Luckily the pipes bent back and the aircon does nothing anyway. 

Nice clean job by the looks of it too! Or is that all out of shot 😂

[Nyphur]

3 minutes ago, beko1987 said:

Nice clean job by the looks of it too! Or is that all out of shot 😂

The boot is full of removed parts and the workmate in the garage is covered in bolts and new parts

There have been quite a few bolts I couldn't get the ratchet on, hence buying the "e" spanner set. Looks like there's lots of room once you have spent 3 hours removing everything in the way  Way, way more room than some cars I've worked on though

[beko1987]

Yes I own a male and female £14.99 set of e-torx after the ex's Vauxhalls and their bloody handy tbh. 

Bar the case fell apart so they roll around in my toolbox and the t40 handy one is in the shed somewhere... Not had to use them for a while 😂

[bezzabsa]

the Bini cams were the same, gnats nut of movement to get them into place with old chain on

[RoverFolkUs]

4 hours ago, Nyphur said:

Way, way more room than some cars I've worked on though

The engines shoehorned into Saab's though 😭 .. I'm talking about the B204 in a Saab 900, that's a different story! Sort of Vauxhall related - ish, if you consider them being torn out and put in a Corsa B!

[Nyphur]

Went to battle with this again today. Didn't take many photos as I was determined to get it finished today, and was sweating my tits off so couldn't be bothered faffing about too much.

Waterpump and fresh gasket on, waterpump pulley on, aux belt, engine mount bracket, engine mount, alternator, aux belt tensioner all went back on.

Tightened up the cam sprockets and made sure the cam sensor ring thing was in the right position.

Timing locking tools were removed and I razzed the crank pulley up as tight as my Clarke impact would get it, then borrowed my neighbours big boy DeWalt impact which got it another little bit of turn on it. Then I used the tried and tested technique of putting a spanner on the bolt and smashing fuck out of it with a dead blow mallet. Hopefully that does the job - the Haynes called for 150nm and a further 60 degrees or something mad - its nowhere near that, that much I do know. I will probably call into my local garage in the week and ask if they can torque it up for me, but I'm not too concerned. I've done a few others like that and driven them thousands of miles with no ill effect so fingers crossed....

Rotated the engine through a few turns and no bits of engine mashed into each other so I cracked on.

Themostat and fresh gasket went on, various bits of plumbing followed. 

I wanted to drop the sump to check the oil pickup (and in the end I would have had to anyway as I obliterated the sump gasket getting the timing chain cover off) so that was next.

Popped the exhaust off its front hangers and sat it on an axle stand out the way. Noticed the top of the flexi was covered in oil - not sure where/when from but it was clean when I started this endeavour. Removed all the sump bolts (including 3 which went into the bellhousing which I initially missed) and a bit of persuasion with a mallet had the sump off.

Checked the pickup and thankfully it was clear. Cleaned up the mating faces and banged the new gasket on and the sump back onto the car.

New exhaust gasket went in and the exhaust back on. I felt I was getting tantalisingly close now.

The car has been sat without oil for the best part of a month, so I decanted some of the fresh oil into a jar and gave the top end a good coating. I'm not sure if that's really necessary or not but I thought it couldn't hurt?

Cleaned up the cylinder head and the rocker cover, wanged on the new gasket and torqued it all down. 

Various sensors and wires were plugged back in, the coil pack went back on, and the various air pipes. New air filter was fitted, followed by a fresh oil filter - @flat4alfa had not long replaced the oil filter so it was in pretty good nick but I thought I may as well.

Fresh oil went in, the bleed valve for the coolant was opened and (recycled) coolant went back in, and the battery negative was attached. The drivers side wheel arch liner and wheel went back on, and the car was lowered back onto the ground for the first time in a month.

Fired it up and it purred like a kitten - no more skeleton wanking in a cement mixer on start up, and no rattle on warm idle!

I ran it on fast idle per the Haynes to bleed the coolant system. I was slightly alarmed at the amount of smoke emanating from somewhere in the engine bay but a once over revealed it to be the aforementioned oil burning off the flexi.

I've not actually driven it yet but it sat and idled cycling the cooling fan for ~30 mins and nothing fell off or went tits up so I'm calling it sorted

I reckon I spent probably 13 hours on it all in - from getting it in the air to starting it back up. I was told the book time is ~8 hours, I reckon I could probably do it in maybe 9.5-10 if I had to do another (I enjoyed it in a perverse way, but I don't really want to do another....) now I have sussed out how to get various bits on/off. The most time consuming part of reassembly was constantly looking up torque settings for bolts and fannying around with my 2 torque wrenches to sort one that would so what I needed.

Final word is to tot up the spend on parts, consumables and any tools I needed (I had nearly everything I needed already thankfully).

£183.11 all in, pretty pleased with that. Hopefully the ex @BorniteIdentity lesbionic neighbour Corsa can live on for a few more years at least now.

I'm now off for a sleep. Timing chain replacement? Completed it mate.

Cheers.

[Jazoli]

4 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

Went to battle with this again today. Didn't take many photos as I was determined to get it finished today, and was sweating my tits off so couldn't be bothered faffing about too much.

Waterpump and fresh gasket on, waterpump pulley on, aux belt, engine mount bracket, engine mount, alternator, aux belt tensioner all went back on.

Tightened up the cam sprockets and made sure the cam sensor ring thing was in the right position.

Timing locking tools were removed and I razzed the crank pulley up as tight as my Clarke impact would get it, then borrowed my neighbours big boy DeWalt impact which got it another little bit of turn on it. Then I used the tried and tested technique of putting a spanner on the bolt and smashing fuck out of it with a dead blow mallet. Hopefully that does the job - the Haynes called for 150nm and a further 60 degrees or something mad - its nowhere near that, that much I do know. I will probably call into my local garage in the week and ask if they can torque it up for me, but I'm not too concerned. I've done a few others like that and driven them thousands of miles with no ill effect so fingers crossed....

Rotated the engine through a few turns and no bits of engine mashed into each other so I cracked on.

Themostat and fresh gasket went on, various bits of plumbing followed. 

I wanted to drop the sump to check the oil pickup (and in the end I would have had to anyway as I obliterated the sump gasket getting the timing chain cover off) so that was next.

Popped the exhaust off its front hangers and sat it on an axle stand out the way. Noticed the top of the flexi was covered in oil - not sure where/when from but it was clean when I started this endeavour. Removed all the sump bolts (including 3 which went into the bellhousing which I initially missed) and a bit of persuasion with a mallet had the sump off.

Checked the pickup and thankfully it was clear. Cleaned up the mating faces and banged the new gasket on and the sump back onto the car.

New exhaust gasket went in and the exhaust back on. I felt I was getting tantalisingly close now.

The car has been sat without oil for the best part of a month, so I decanted some of the fresh oil into a jar and gave the top end a good coating. I'm not sure if that's really necessary or not but I thought it couldn't hurt?

Cleaned up the cylinder head and the rocker cover, wanged on the new gasket and torqued it all down. 

Various sensors and wires were plugged back in, the coil pack went back on, and the various air pipes. New air filter was fitted, followed by a fresh oil filter - @flat4alfa had not long replaced the oil filter so it was in pretty good nick but I thought I may as well.

Fresh oil went in, the bleed valve for the coolant was opened and (recycled) coolant went back in, and the battery negative was attached. The drivers side wheel arch liner and wheel went back on, and the car was lowered back onto the ground for the first time in a month.

Fired it up and it purred like a kitten - no more skeleton wanking in a cement mixer on start up, and no rattle on warm idle!

I ran it on fast idle per the Haynes to bleed the coolant system. I was slightly alarmed at the amount of smoke emanating from somewhere in the engine bay but a once over revealed it to be the aforementioned oil burning off the flexi.

I've not actually driven it yet but it sat and idled cycling the cooling fan for ~30 mins and nothing fell off or went tits up so I'm calling it sorted

I reckon I spent probably 13 hours on it all in - from getting it in the air to starting it back up. I was told the book time is ~8 hours, I reckon I could probably do it in maybe 9.5-10 if I had to do another (I enjoyed it in a perverse way, but I don't really want to do another....) now I have sussed out how to get various bits on/off. The most time consuming part of reassembly was constantly looking up torque settings for bolts and fannying around with my 2 torque wrenches to sort one that would so what I needed.

Final word is to tot up the spend on parts, consumables and any tools I needed (I had nearly everything I needed already thankfully).

£183.11 all in, pretty pleased with that. Hopefully the ex @BorniteIdentity lesbionic neighbour Corsa can live on for a few more years at least now.

I'm now off for a sleep. Timing chain replacement? Completed it mate.

Cheers.

Well done, its satisfying finishing an annoying job.

[mercedade]

Excellent LGB-friendly work.

Great effort all round.

[Nyphur]

Razzed it about tonight and it still didn't explode 👌

It's really red

[Nyphur]

Been for another run in this to Tesco this evening. Its quite sprightly and handles quite well for what it is, I can't see myself keeping it but I'll run it for a bit while I sort some bits on the Skoda.

The grumbling wheel bearing that @flat4alfa advised about is noticeable now that I'm not listening to the chain rattle so I'll look into getting that sorted.

Also noticed the reversing sensors don't work. Fuse looked fine but I replaced it anyway with no improvement. Checked the reverse light works (it does) so presumably not the reverse selector sensor. Need to have a look at the wiring at the weekend I suppose and see if I can see anything obvious.

[SiC]

If you listen carefully to the sensor you should hear them clicking if they're working. 

[Nyphur]

39 minutes ago, SiC said:

If you listen carefully to the sensor you should hear them clicking if they're working. 

That's how I found the faulty sensor on my Rover 75. In this case I don't think any of them are working but I'll give it a go.

[LoftyvRS]

Two randoms when the time comes!

Good work on the Corsa tbf, given it a chance at living on a good few years more now.

[busmansholiday]

On 8/2/2023 at 1:11 AM, Nyphur said:

Progressed to removing the coil pack, which was stuck like a motherfucker. The vid I was watching had a handy tip - the recess in the coil pack which the bolts holding it down pass through is threaded larger than the bolts themselves - so you can thread in larger bolts and use them as a handle to work the coil pack free rather than prying on it with a bar/screwdriver and potentially damaging it. As seen below.

Just catching up and excellent work. 

Shirley, the idea of the larger threaded recess is to tighten the larger bolts down, slowly and alternatively, so that they hit the bottom then they will lift the coil pack upwards for you.

[Nyphur]

6 minutes ago, busmansholiday said:

Just catching up and excellent work. 

Shirley, the idea of the larger threaded recess is to tighten the larger bolts down, slowly and alternatively, so that they hit the bottom then they will lift the coil pack upwards for you.

I would need to double check now, but I don't think they are threaded all the way through - so you can only thread the bolt in part way.

That's a good idea though, wonder if I missed that.....

[Nyphur]

A glutton for punishment, I spent a bit more time looking at this today in 32 degree heat and no shade.

I couldn't detect any play in any of the wheel bearings with my brief sweaty assessment. From the drivers seat it sounds like its the nearside front and from the passenger seat it sounds like the offside front. I'm increasingly thinking it might be road noise from the shit tyres its wearing. They're some Dai Yung things made in China, presumably from recycled Duplo.

My mate had a car a couple of years back that we were convinced had a knackered offside wheel bearing. However we noticed it was the only corner on a different tyre to the rest so swapped it to another corner and, shocker, the "wheel bearing" noise followed to the new corner. I'm thinking I'll just run it and see if the noise gets any worse, but I am now 67% sure its road noise rather than a bearing. Fingers crossed.

 

I also had a butchers at the reversing sensors not working. With the car in reverse I couldn't hear any of the sensors clicking away. I had a quick read up and found that if you press the button on the dash for the parking sensors it should sound a beep so that you know the speaker unit part hasn't failed. Errr.... except I haven't got the button for the parking sensors on the dash....

I thought "I bet it's had a replacement bumper after a rear ender and they fitted one with parking sensors from a scrappy - they sensors probably aren't even wired up". I reversed the car up onto ramps and found that the sensors were wired up and the cabled fed up into the boot area. I removed the trim panel that at one point housed the first aid kit and found there was a mystery box tucked in the void by the light cluster - so it must be an aftermarket kit that got fitted.

We fumbled about with it and found that the PWR cable wasn't quite clicked in - that'll the the problem no doubt! I clicked it in and tested again.... hmmm still no warning. But the sensors were now clicking away!

I traced the DISP cable to a little piezo buzzer double sided taped to the inner wing. That was fished out and Dad probed it with the multimeter.

His conclusion was that he sensors were "reporting" correctly and the piezo was receiving the signal to sound, but wasn't sounding. I found a replacement from Amazon for £6 which will be delivered tomorrow. I'll give it a go and if it doesn't work Bezos can have it back and I'll just unplug the power from the control box again and ignore.

[Nyphur]

Swapped the piezo on this and it sorted the issue. Sensors only start beeping when you're about 75cm from an object so you have to be on your toes - at least they work again anyway.

My cars are lucky if I wash them twice a year, but I do like to keep the interior clean. Both seats had what looked like mould around the seat base so I took them out and gave them a clean. Gave the carpet a good vac out too with the seats out the way. I tried to clean the mats up but they were paper thin and filthy. Sacked them off and bought this cheap set from ebay for £12. The item feedback sounded too good to be true for the price, but  I thought for £12 if they even vaguely looked like the photo I was laughing.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275419760766

I'm actually blown away by the quality and fit for the price. I don't want to oversell it too much but I'd probably have guessed at around £40 if someone asked me what I thought they cost. I'd definitely recommend the company if you need to give your interior a cheap refresh - seems their negative feedback only relates to people saying the rubber mats they sell stink of fish, so maybe avoid those.

The spare wheel in the boot is the original tyre which was flat and falling to bits. For double fun, someone had fitted a metal valve cap to the valve at some point too which has glued itself on - I couldn't get it off with a socket and molegrips on the valve. I found a replacement spare wheel with a tyre with a 2022 date code on ebay for £15 locally so that's sorted that.