kev's Fleet, TR7V8,Lotus Elan, Morris Minor, Range Rover, MX5, StreetKA and Fiesta

January 25, 2024

The Shitroen made it there and back, did try to gas us though, needs the HVAC on recirc all the time to stop the car filling with diesel fumes, no obvious sooty marks and he's had the injector seals done, must be a leak somewhere hidden. I'm leaving it well alone.

Got some time to play with the minor carbs again.

Studding and domed nuts arrived so I could finish the trial build

I then took it apart and started on finishing the heatshield off by welding a depressed area into the centre.

weldings a bit messy because it was zinc plated, plenty strong enough though.

cleaned the welds up a bit and checked it still fits. Return springs seem a bit high on the rate though, wonder if its the pattern parts not up to original spec.

Waiting for some high temp paint to turn up now.

Sspnt a couple of lunch hours fiddling with the twin carbs, threaded rod and domed

thIen took it all appart and started on the heatsheild, zinc plated so a bit me

cleaned the welds and splatter up then fi the return springs, fit OK but the rate seems a bit high.

Ordered some silver high temp paint to finink I've worked out how to brace it so that will be next.

10,701 · January 25, 2024

Very interesting this, some good ideas. Teaching me a bit at the same time! keep the updates coming 👍

3,270 · January 26, 2024

Only just saw your thread here today Kevin.

I forget how many great cars you have, so excuse the multiple likes hit.

11,838 · January 26, 2024

On 17/12/2023 at 23:08, kevins said:

Next was the Mx5 (more accurately a Eunos Roadster) as it is a grey import.

we got this in 2015 when my daughter passed her driving test, she drove my company car which was insured for her anyway and my wife bought this with what would have been the insurance cost for a car for my daughter. Aside from service items a clutch, a new soft, top and some accident damage when a gate post stepped out into the car it's needed nothing else, it's a great little car that my wife used every day and we have been all over the UK in it, a couple of months ago we retired it from daily winter use when we got the fiesta but it will continue yo be used all summer.

plans for the future are to change the cam belt, repair the air con, and fit new seat covers, There are also a few bits of bodywork which could be improved.

That looks like a V Spec car, very desirable if you keep it as standard.

Loving your fleet 👍🏼

January 26, 2024

Yes it is a V spec, we plan to keep it pretty much standard, it does have a mk2 hood with the glass rear window and some black bits of trim to break up the original tan (somewhat orange in places) everywhere colour.

It gets well used so is far from perfect but I do seem to be managing to keep the rust at bay.

On the minor , over the last couple of days I have knocked these up to go behind the carbs

The countersunk holes will have countersunk 5/16 unf bolts welded in them then we will forge a couple of bars to go down to this boss (the one just below the fuel pump blank).

Also continued striping the cream paint off the mazda, it was never supposed to be this colour, and we are going back to tan and black, later this year I'm going to blow some of my redundancy on new tan leather seat covers too.

before.

During

After

January 26, 2024

That looks like a great fleet. Those Minors are great cars to tinker with. Nothing too complicated.

January 28, 2024

Not much free time over the weekend but I did get round to milling the carb spacers down to accomodate the support brackets and gaskets.

I've had a cheap chinese 2 axis table for a couple of years and decided to turn my pillar drill into a mill for little jobs like this, drilled and tapped the taper to lock the chuck in and tightened all the other adjustments up FT. At first it chattered badly but that was the milling table leadscrew nuts loose on the frame, tightened and loctited these and it worked a treat, only taking about 1/2 a mm at a time. I'll experiment different speeds and depths on scrap once these are done. It needs something to keep the table in the same orientation as you raise it if I want to cut a slot and the bearings may need re-engineering at some point but for the moment It does the job all be it slowly.

10,701 · January 28, 2024

Metro/montego/maestro block on the minor? Looks like the Austin Rover emblem cast into the block.

January 28, 2024

Thats a Maestro 1275 that one day we plan to build up with a mx5 gearbox to go in the minor, I'm using it as a stand to build the carbs up on as it's been sitting on the engine stand in the corner for a year or more.

The carbs at least initialy are going on the tweaked 1098 that is currently in the car.

January 29, 2024

Finished milling the spacers today then used the belt sander to round the corners off.

before that I finished the support brackets.

cut the head of a countersunk screw down and secured it to the bracket with some washers and a nut.

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then welded it in and ground flush

test fitted.

Also realised the engine block in the car doesen't have the boss tapped I plan to use, I will use the stud on the fuel pump mount instead.

18,602 · January 30, 2024

On 26/01/2024 at 19:40, kevins said:

Yes it is a V spec, we plan to keep it pretty much standard, it does have a mk2 hood with the glass rear window and some black bits of trim to break up the original tan (somewhat orange in places) everywhere colour.

very similar to how my green v-spec looks

the black one was also a v-spec

but i did this to it

great little cars

January 30, 2024

Ours is basically the same but it doesen't have a wooden steering wheel it has the leather momo one. Got quite a few things to do to it this year, Cam belt, Fix A/C (fit aftermarket condenser, drier and make suitable pipes), re-cover seats, attend to some surface rust in rear arches (done one already), rust proof it again, re-cover seats and possibly change or repair the front wings (they have rusted behind where the mudflaps were). Probably will end up only doing half of the above and just driving it though!

February 4, 2024

Got round to doing a few jobs on the fiesta today, first task was to secure the naff but functional centre armrest, the Instructions say screw it through the bottom into the original centre console, given the airbag wiring lives under there I felt it was safer to screw it from the sides, with seats slid right forward it was easy enough to drill 4 holes and add the screws.

Next up was the cruise control switch for which the speed up button didn't work and the others were a bit hit and miss. Suprisingly the new switch was only £30 from Ford, to fit it you need to remove the steering wheel airbag. After some fiddling I got it out but when I disconnected the horn the spade terminal snapped, fitting a new one wasn't too bad though, otherwise it was just half a dozen screws to undo and swap the switch then put it all back together, all working perfectly now.

On the others the Range Rover wouldn't start, Battery was flat, It's been standing for 3 weeks, not the end of the world and might just be the 80's Immoboliser, the radio and the fact it had only been started and moved 100yds a few times before. It's charging at just over 14V and the battery was at 11.8V I'll check the voltage after it's finished charging and if that's OK I'll check the drain.

February 14, 2024

there was the problem with the TR window regulator failing to rise to the occasion, pulled it out and the issue was fairly obvious.

so cleaned it up clamped a piece of flattened copper pipe under it, then built it up with weld.

using a combination of the grinder and file got the arc and thickness OK.

then just a matter of re-cutting the teeth using a slitting disc and files.

seems to work OK, just need to shuffle the cars around so I can re-fit it.7

March 13, 2024

Still not got round to finishing the TR, 2 building projects on the go have taken all my time and the weather hasn't encouraged me to get a convertible on the road, did today spend some time on the fiesta, 2 issues, a clonk and play in the steering, most of which was in the nearside track rod end and it's still getting water in the boot.

Track rod was pretty straight forward, did have to use heat to get it appart though.

For the leak I pulled rear arch liner and the rear light, there was some surface corrosion in the wheelarch so that got cleaned up with a wire wheel, treated and then painted with cold galvnising paint, no holes or obvious routes for water ingress though, there were some areas of cracked and loose sealer behind the light, no rust fortunately so I cleaned it all out and re-sealed with some polyeurathane sealer, hopefully this is it, If not I think I will need to look behind the back bumper next.

Also Daughter hit a pot hole on the A130 last night in the Street KA.

We had the last of the 4 spares I bought 3 years ago so that is fitted for now.

March 14, 2024

Tie rod end has got rid of the play in thd fiesta, so I had a look at the other sill, after a quick going over with a wire wheel on the drill.

uploader has turned it upside down for some reason, flange has jacking damage so I straightened that out and cleaned it up then gave it a coat of cold galvanising paint.

The back end of the sill has "To MOT standard "piece of shit on it.

that will be coming off and be done properly later in the year though.

At the same time I'll go over both sills with some sort of stone chip.

Also touched up a number of paint chips and damage (who thought it was a good idea to use white primer on a black car).

before

after

Other thing is the A/C has packed up after about 3 months, It has some gas in it but I suspect its not enough, I'll get the gauges out when I get some time and check, in my experience slow leaks like this are often fixed with new O rings so that will be my first thing to do, they all look easy enough to get at.

March 26, 2024

Rather than working on my hobby cars, what little time I have has been on the fiesta, there is still an occasional knock over really rough roads, I've had this before on the KA and it was the collars on the anti roll bar knocking on the subframe due to worn bushes, at less than £20 a pair from Ford, I'll change them regardless of what they look like but that can wait til it's warmer/drier. The main thing I have been looking at is the AC, it doesen't work. I assumed the refridgerant had leaked out so I fitted the gauges only to find it was around 50psi which should be fine. looked a bit deeper, when you switch the AC on the fans come on and engine speed lifts indicating the pressure switch is OK. I then confirmed the compressor relay is also clicking. The live side of the relay has 12V so it's either the relay, wiring or compressor, I'll get under it tomorrow with the mutlimeter if it's dry, but after a quick look my money is on the chock block someone has used to "repair " the compressor live wire! hopefully a cheap fix worse case is a new compressor clutch at around £70 so not to bad whatever.

March 29, 2024

Finaly got a few hours this afternoon, first task was to finish the window on the TR, as I left it I had repaired the quadrant on the regulator and glued the rail to the bottom then left it to cure overnight, that was about a month ago...

It's on my 4 poster with the Lotus underneath, the battery on that was flat but a jump from the Range Rover got it going easily enough, thankfully the window winds up and down smoothly so it was just matter of re-fitting the door trim.

did have to replace the earth terminal on the courtesy light.

all done with the glass cleaned up.

also got dome PU out to stick the rubber bumper at the top of the quarterlight on, will leave it with some tape on to cure.

.

While the PU was out I stuck a new end piece on the Range Rover rear door waist strip, I'd moulded this out of PU a few weeks ago.

Finaly Jacked up the fiesta and had a look at the AC wiring, with the tape off this is what I had. I checked the connections and the issue is the earth wire ( green and black) isn't connected to earth, the connection to the body is fine so there is a break somewhere in the engine wiring harness, no way I m stripping that all out so it will need a new earth.

I replaced the chock block with a proper heat shrink splice then cut what should be the earth and terminated the loom end earth with a splice.

found some new convolute and wrapped and taped in back up, the other end of the earth wire from the compressor was then fitted with an eye and bolted to a bracket on the compressor.

I will do something better than the yellow crimp eye and replace the bolt with a brass one at some point but the good news is the AC now works, cycles off and on a bit to quickly so I will need to get the gauges out to check the pressures, It's usually a gas fill issue which case I might need to get some gas taken out or topped up.

Just noticed in the pic the earth wire seems to be rubbing on the splash sheild will need to take a look at that to.

May 23, 2024

I took a early retirement seperation package on the 1st May, thought I'd get plenty of timeon the cars, fate has taken hold though, father in law was taken ill with a sodium defiiency which has symptoms like dementure, he's on the mend but I spend half the week ferrying him around various medical appointments. This means the bathroom re- fit is taking forever, the Range Rover is doing sterling service moving building materials, The fiesta needs a new RH engine mount which is knocking and seems to have a buckled wheel, the street ka seems to have develped excessive torque steer (probably a arm bush) and I've barely looked at the mazda, TR or Elan.

at least the bathroom is getting there..

gutted and plumbing in.

fitted jackoboards and plastered today.

just floor tiling and fit out now.

May 27, 2024

Think the fiesta may also need new lower control arms, noticed today you can get the heavy knock when parking against a kerb, they have been replaced fairly recently (no rust) but that means nothing with the shit pattern parts out there, I've ordered a pair of heavy duty ones from. compbrake, don't want to spend ages messing around so will just do everything which looks vaguely worn. At the end of the day we bought it instead of a new car, I could replace every bush, dampers and springs for less than a couple of months payments on a new one. (Springs and dampers are fairly new though so no need to do them just yet). Also thimking about outing the 16" wheels for 15" ones in the hope they will be more compatible with the state of our roads.

May 29, 2024

Been away for a few days and thr mrs has picked up a nasty stomach bug, so with that and the need to get the bathroom done (even more so while she is spending half her waking hours in the other one), I haven't done much but I did order some new control arms, roll bar bushes and drop links for the fiesta, came to around £160 so not too bad. Also took a look at the Street Ka, excessive torque steer (and badly worn inner edge on tyre) is almost certainly down to there being no rubber left in the front control arm bush. The arm is only a couple of years old, shit pattern parts again. A new SKF one was £35 hopefully that will last a bit longer, new tyre will cost twice as much.

June 15, 2024

Between fitting a bathroom and my wife catching some awful bug I've not got anywhere the cars, but necesity is means some things must be done, the Street car had started pulling violently to the right on acceleration, a quick look and it was obvious the front control arm bush was knckered, so friday morning it was time to get the tools out.

As the arm was only 2 or 3 years old it all came appart easily enough, I managed to get a Borg and Beck one so hopefully it lasts a bit longer.

bush doesent look to bd in the pics but you can easily move it around.

Fiesta has also developed a heavy knock which I'm sure is the lower ball joints so I have 2 new arms from compsport hopefully they will last longer than the regular pattern parts. Hopefully I'll find some time this week, but the Bathroom isn't quite finished and I'm supposed to be fitting a new kitchen round the in-laws.............

10,701 · June 15, 2024

3 minutes ago, kevins said:

Hopefully I'll find some time this week, but the Bathroom isn't quite finished and I'm supposed to be fitting a new kitchen round the in-laws

All sounds familiar 🤔

June 22, 2024

The clonking from the front of the fiesta has gotbto a worrying level so we borrowed the father in-laws 2016 citroen C4, after 2 call outs for the AA when it decided mot to start we are never going anywhere in that piece of shit again, in the year he's had it it's had 4 AA call outs and multiple repairs, by contrast our higher mileage fiesta has never failed to proceed. So the fiesta needed a new drivers side control arm, in the end it took longer to move the other cars around and get the TR started (flat battery after 4 months), both arms were changed in under an hour. One of the front brake hose banjo joints started weeping afterwards though but nipping it up fixed that and the boot on the 2 month old suppossedly valeo track rod end is already falling to bits.

I've ordered a genuine Ford one, £40 but the original did last 14 years.

The 3 toys together.

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October 11, 2024

Car stuff has taken a back seat over the summer as I focus on various building projects but looming MOT's have meant I neded to get back to it.

firstly the Range Rover, here I've stripped all the injectors out, used my home made rig to find 8 good ones (3 had zero atomisation and one leaked) then re built it with new hoses.

this got it running better but still far from right especialy on cold start. So i bit the bullet and splashed out £800 on a Tornado ECU (basically a modern ecu in the original case) .expensive but what a transformation, it now drives like modern car, Otherwise its been in regular service moving building materials and tip runs, on a 400 mile holiday and performed very well.

10,701 · October 12, 2024

TR7s must be due a spot in the limelight at some point soon. Surely.

October 12, 2024

Next up was the street ka, corrossion wise its in great condition but the front sat very low and the rusty springs got an advisory every MOT, it also had a noisy wheel bearing and my son had rolled a trailer into the front bumper, so the list ended up as:

2 new front springs

2 new front dampers

1 new control arm

2 new front tyres

1 new wheel bearing

service including fead belt and plugs.

the suspension stuff was all straight forward.

used the 4 post lift to compress the springs

and a block of timber pushed up under the strut with a jack allowed me to hammer the knuckle down off of it.

that wasn't the end of it though because the brake hose brackets were on the wrong orientation on the strut (napa) which caused the brake hose to rub on the wheel (I and the MOT tester missed it).

⁷

so they had to be bent and new hoses fitted.

bumper was filled and repainted with a rattle can as well as some stone pecking on the sill.

⁰

the service was easy enough, the fead belt a pig of a job, I managed to get it done without and a lot of swearing but really the headlight and therefore bumper need to come off.

I sailed through the MOT and drives brilliantly, the ride is also a bit better.

finally gave it a wash and polish and my daughter has it back for another year of abuse

October 13, 2024

The other car I have worked on is the 2010 fiesta.

Firstly it was rust, I had typical "to MOT standard " repair on one sill

as always this had just encouraged further corrosion, net result of chopping it all back to solid metal and replacing bottom of inner arch was.

then a new outer was fabricated seam welded in and ground flat to give.

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no idea why its rotated the pics .

tht was then given a coat of epoxy and both sill stone chipped with gravitex.

I'll go over it with gloss black when I do the underbody/ cavity treatment.

Then it rewarded my efforts and failed the MOT on 3 of the 4 almost new tyres having cuts in them, so £200 later it had an MOT.

I then found a mint set of mk7.5 half leather seats for £150, as ours were getting a bit saggy , the passenger one had some dubious stains and the drivers a burn hole I bought and fitted them.

They bolt straight in but there are some electrical issues, basically its the heated seats and the airbag. the mk7 has a seat connector block with 6 individual connectors and the mk7.5 7 connectors.

the individual connectors can easily be swapped beween the seats but for the airbag the mk7 uses a orange connector and the mk7.5 a yellow one (I believe in some markets the mk7.5 used the orange for pyro seatbelts). Fortunately it's pretty easy to de-pin the connectors and fit the orange housing to the mk7.5 seat, with that all the airbags etc work fine.

the heated seats are another complication, basically they are completely different, the mk7 uses a switch in the seat which directly controls the heaters the mk7.5 a temperature control module on each seat and temperature selection switches on the dash, the mk 7 is also fused at 7.5A for both and the mk7.5 15A each.

The result of the above is I am going to have to make a new loom just for the seats which takes it's power directly from the battery via a relay switched by the original power supply, probably only a couple of hours work, just need to find the time.

Only other things are the climate control didn't work, easily fixed with a £30 interior temp sensor, and it's started throwing up faults on cold mornings with the throttle pedal (clears with a key cycle). I've bought a secondhand pedal 8to try but notice in Forscan it says the ECU voltage was only 11V(on key on before crank) when the fault was set so it could be the battery too.

October 13, 2024

As for the others, I've barely driven the TR (have bought 4 new tyres for it though) but did find out why the ride is so harsh, after I re-built the rear suspension a couple of years ago I managed to fit the spax adjustable rear dampers on their stiffest setting, its no limosine but it doesen't knock a disc out of my back over every pot hole now either also nowhere near as tail happy as it was.

The Lotus has been used a bit more but All I've done to it this year is wash it and pump the tyres up. The only thing it realy needs is the head pulling to cure it's Exon Valdiz like oil leaks around the front cover, hopefully one for over the winter.

The MX5 has been used regularly but again I've not touched it, plan to do the cam belt, water pump, fix the AC and re-trim the seats over the winter.

that leaves my Son's minor, he has moved to Scunthorpe and plans to take it up there at some point, before it goes we (probably me!) need to do a few things, replace the leaking rear dampers with the telescopic kit we have, do something about the sagging springs (We have traveller set whichI my use 6 of the leaves out of), and replace the klonking front suspension bushes with poly ones (modern pattern parts have only lasted a couple of thousand miles).

So with all those hobby things to get on with what am I about to Start?

Fitting a new Bathroom at my neices......

and a new roof on our Porch

and a new hall floor.