Ruffgeezer's driveway journal - 04/12/2024 Sheered bad luck

[jim89]

1 hour ago, ruffgeezer said:

Yeah, so that little soft patch on the drivers floor that couldn't bee seen due to the fuel cooler from underneath?

I have one photo, entitled simply, 'Fuck'

Once again Citroën's super rubbery under seal has hidden a multitude of sins.

As  result I've cut a floor from a van at the scrapyard. 

"Fuel cooler"? is this the ex BNFL mobile? Whassit run on mister? ⚛️

[ruffgeezer]

Yeah these have a cooler loop in a tray on the floor under the drivers floor.

I think it cools the fuel on the return to tank from memory. 

I'm guessing whatever these folk used to clean their boots has eaten the paint and accelerated the corrosion to the floor, it's just really thin in places, so the intention is to drill out the spot welds, retain the strengthening beams beneath and weld the replacement floor in around it.

I also got a better carpet for that side from the scrap yard and a handful of towing eye covers to help fund it.

[ruffgeezer]

Well, it's certainly escalated somewhat. 

Here's the floor I cut out from the scrapper...

It's got a small bit of localised grot, but is solid. I spent a few hours drilling out various spot welds and knocking off the chassis rails, we'll spot it to the van's original rails, which I've left in here...

Here's the replacement bit of carpet:

[Rustybullethole]

On 26/09/2024 at 21:21, ruffgeezer said:

Well, it's certainly escalated somewhat. 

Here's the floor I cut out from the scrapper...

It's got a small bit of localised grot, but is solid. I spent a few hours drilling out various spot welds and knocking off the chassis rails, we'll spot it to the van's original rails, which I've left in here...

Here's the replacement bit of carpet:

The 1.4 could do with this mod whilst pulling weight up hill. Actually even empty it would help whilst ascending. 

[dean36014]

I'm currently stripping all the Citroen structural underseal off the bottom and inner arches of my CX. It's amazing how well it hides stuff. One perfect looking inner arch ended up with a days welding for me once the underseal was removed. Still got 3 more inner arches to go and only a quarter bottle of welding gas left😅

[Boycie]

On 04/08/2024 at 15:59, ruffgeezer said:

Far from perfect, bit not bad for one aerosol on a windy day.

Shame my hand isn't steady enough to have cut the vinyl straight.

 

Old and new side by side:

What happens when you but 88mph .... If I was you I'd keep my eye of Combis full of Iranians 

[ruffgeezer]

Well I had a visit from my friend and neighbour Will (he also helped me drag the Hyundai Getz home a year back).  He is far better with the sparkly gluestick than I am and so he set about improving the Berlingo for me...

He tells me it's much easier welding proper metal but he managed with the sections I got from the scrapper just fine.

My welder runs on strong tea:

A marked improvement,  just a bit more needed on the heelboard before I dress it back and seal it up.

[ruffgeezer]

So 'Berkley'the Berlingo departed a few days ago. I'd sealed and painted the floor, and give  the underside a good dose of raptor underseal.

Before installing the replacement front carpet and the rest of the interior. 

By this point it stunk of various grinding, painting and welding activities so it got a quick once over and had a gel freshener and the dehumidifier fitted for a few days.

I took it in to work for a few days to.make sure all was well for the new owner.

 

As an aside, Will, who did the welding on the van has been complaining recently that his N47 Mini one 1.4d has been a bit smelly and has been dropping on his drive.

I'd had all the tin shields off of the turbo and found both inlet and outlet oil ways to be dry, with a bit of residue around the cam cover.

These engines, I've read, are prone to splitting the plastic cam cover which can cause an oil leak, to replace the cam cover requires the injectors and the high pressure fuel pipes to be lifted, so I decided I wanted to be certain it was the cause before I committed to replacing it.

To do this I used a smoke generator, more often used to find boost leaks on turbo engines. Basically it comprises a heating element that creates a smokey vapour and a pressure regulator that uses compressed air to fill, well whatever you like really, with the resultant smoke.

Happily in this case, a bodged up breather pipe was the cause, and £20 and 15 minutes later, we'd got rid of the smell and, I'm told have stopped the oil too. Result!

Lastly, as alluded to in the Mews24 thread, I had a rather scruffy Panda join the fold, it had a bit of MOT and drive pretty well for something that looks as rough as a badger's bum.

I've had it looked at for an early MOT with a view to rehoming it with someone who can make better use of it. The only sticking point being a buggered bottom balljoint.

Ember, our new cat was on hand to oversee the removal of the old arm, the new one being due in the next day or so.

[ruffgeezer]

New arm on and clean ticket achieved. 

I have a check of all the levels and pulled the air filter - dated 2020 but still pretty clean. I've found out form the garage that mot'd it that year that they also did a full service at that time.

 

[ruffgeezer]

Well the little red Panda went off to @comfysofa and produced a blue one, with only a few days of MOT remaining.

 

Interior is a little tired, but no worries as I have cheap labour... 

Under the bonnet is pretty tidy, but there are a few areas that want tidying...

This bundle was evicted from the airbox mount:

I drilled out the mount and glued an M6 insert back into it, then gently reassembled.

I've ordered the parts for last year's advisories and I shall strip out the back brakes as the handbrake travel is almost to the limit. 

[ruffgeezer]

Well the pointy end went OK, with just a worn antiroll bar linkage to deal with.   a dose of lubricant and working rhe nut back and forward with the windy gun soon had it free.

The story at the rear however, is less than good. At first, the slack brakes looked likely to be caused by a slightly mangled adjuster.

Did in fact turn out to have been fixed by welding the adjust bolt in place.  Fine whilst the shoes were in reasonable condition, but now they are a bit worn they leave the handbrake rather slack.

I've enquired as to a new set from ECP which came out at £fukinhowmuch plus vat, so I've got a set of cheap nasties from Amazon on order in the event that I can't procure a set at the scrappy in the morning.   The other side is missing it's adjuster plate too, so both sides are just sat slack.  Annoying but nothing that can't be made right for the next owner.

 

[ruffgeezer]

So in another thread, I detailed my trip out to the local scrappy in order to procure a pair of rear brake shoe adjusters.

I should point out that the repair in the post above is perfectly adequate to get you out of trouble, but not a long term solution.

It is almost certainly the sort of repair you reluctantly do for a customer after they beg you and promise to have it repaired properly after their holidays. This of course guarantees that they turn up in a new car 2 weeks later having sold the previous one.

Anyhow,..

N/S old vs new:-

2 vital components missing on the welded part, the L shaped piece that flicks the adjuster arm, and secondly the plate that turns the knurled wheel, without these, the shoes can never self adjust.

NS shoes rebuilt with the plate correctly with the knurled wheel.

The OS was still missing parts, so it too was rebuilt 

OS complete and set up, a quick tweak on the cable adjuster and the back brakes are sorted for the MOT.

[ruffgeezer]

Well with the departure of Portaloo Panda,  my attention turned to replacing the front subframe on the Getz.

A new subframe was a little over £100 so I didn't seem worth trying to snot the old one back together.

It was a bit of a sod to fit up, mostly as one of the most awkward bolt holes for the steering rack had a duff thread, so a lot of time was lost trying to sort that.

As the Getz will be my eldest daughters car, it felt only right to get her involved in fixing it.

 

[ruffgeezer]

Oh and yesterday I bought this, which was delivered today, under cover of darkness.

It might be that I sell the plate off of it, depending on what it is that is preventing it from starting.

[ruffgeezer]

It lives!

Initial inspection suggested that rhe battery positive had been mucked about with, so I removed it for a better look.

The starter motor cable should have been attached here.

The alternator wiring looks new too:

This is the manky ring terminal responsible for supplying the voltage to both the alternator and starter.

I did get a tiny bit of life from the starter but as I was able to get a good price on a refurbished unit, I replaced that too.

The positive cable came off easily,  and I replaced it with a new cable, ideally it would benefit from having an original lead fitted.

The old cable, very stiff feeling so it's possible that it's been cooked at some point.

On driving, well it stops and it starts. The clutch bite is low and incredibly sharp, and the engine sounds a little harsh.

 

[ruffgeezer]

I've been really shit at taking pictures,  but I visited Windley's (twice as it goes - I left a deposit on a rather fucked Ax forte with a Vts engine in it) for the parts I needed for the Partner.

Complete battery cable and a grille in the correct colour for visit 1, throttle cable and quadrant and maf sensor on visit 2.

I have got the grille and +ve cable fitted, which is when I discovered the accelerator cable had been excessively fucked about with.

I'll fit that and the new front brakes and it'll be ready to sell... Well it would have been except toddy the XC70 did this :

I parked up outside Halfords and soon spotted the auxiliary belt was off, as was the tensioner.  The bolt for the tensioner has sheared off in the mount so that's going to be an utter bastard to sort.

[ruffgeezer]

Yesterday I got some time to set about the XC70 and it's broken belt tensioner bolt.

Seen above roughly central is all that remains of the tensioner bolt.  There's a bit of a gap here, but we'll below the alternator. 

The alternator was easy enough to remove but did require the oil filter housing to be taken off.  It's here that I discovered the alternator was not the original and also the incorrect spec for the car. The lack of a clutch pulley on the alternator may have caused degradation of the tensioner bolt.

To remove the broken bolt, I was lucky enough to be able to wind a nut onto the protruding bit of bolt. Because of how close it is to the chassis rail, I had to cut down some welding rods to allow access.

On only the second attempt...

It didn't feel tight, so I thought I'd failed to get it to stick again, however...

Thank fuck for that. The tensioner bolt was into the engine block. I am not sure what I would have done had it not come out clearly. 

Mission creep:- The alternator must be replaced,  there is oil all over it and down the engine. 

Where the filter housing had been removed, the seal had been nicked, ive ordered a replacement for that too, and an OEM tensioner bolt. I may as well service it whilst I'm here 

[ruffgeezer]

Well, no prizes for guessing which dickhead ordered the wrong brakes for the Peugeot?

Still, I managed to knock up an EGR blank which has improved the stutter in high gear/low revs.

I've got a full cambelt kit for the car, but will probably look to move it along as soon as I've the brakes replaced, if anyone wants a winter beater?

[Angrydicky]

Well done on extracting the broken bolt. I always weld a nut on, a good tip if it’s broken off fairly flush is to sit a washer over it first which will prevent accidental weld onto the surrounding area.

I really, really don’t understand why some people with access to a welder still persist in drilling out and tapping, it makes no sense to me at all. Much riskier and more time consuming.

[ruffgeezer]

Well the Volvo is still awaiting an oil seal that has to come from Ukraine as Volvo only supply it as part of the full oil filter housing.

So I replaced the front brakes on the Partner and made a start on  the cambelt.

It's pretty grubby down there. I can see that it has had a crankshaft oil seal and the sump has been replaced as there is a lot of silicone spooged about the place.  The noise that I had thought was the crank pulley turned out to be an incorrectly tensioned aux belt.  Removing the manual tensioner proved fun* as the bolt was seized into the tensioner and was already partially rounded out.

So the technique employed here was one that has yet to fail me.

Firstly find the next torx/spline/allen socket that will fit tightly into the bolt head.  In this case it was an 8mm allen bolt so an M10 spline was the next nearest fit.  This is knocked in as far as it can be before attaching various extensions and propping the end up on an axle stand.

From here I used a 3/4 to half inch step down and hung my old faithfull 3/4 drive breaker bar on the end. At this point I have my weight on the bar, but I am not really pushing against the bolt.  I use a lump hammer to clump the head of the breaker bar and this alone is enough shock the bolt and tensioner free.

Ideally it'd have a new tensioner as rhe bearing in it does sound a little rough. For now I found a replacement bolt and fitted the manual tensioner in the flat out position to allow the automatic one a bit more slack.

Annoyingly the cambelt tension is too tight - something I have always struggled to get right as it isn't an absolute. I'll pull the rear cover off later and let the tension off a bit.

The coolant has been replaced and the bleed points bled, I've cut the egr plate down a bit more and refitted it, time will tell if it works.

All this by torchlight. 

[ruffgeezer]

No pictures, but the Volvo XC70 is now back together as of 23/12/2024;

• New Alternator with freewheel clutch pulley
• New Alternator stretch belt
• New Aux belt tensioner & bolt
• Oil filter housing middle seal (via Klifex in the Ukraine)
• Oil & Filter changed
• New Battery

Seems to run happily enough for now.

[ruffgeezer]

Peugeot now has a new aux tensioner and rad fan mount fitted, heaters are toasty warm oh - and a new vacuum solenoid. 

At some point I ought to thaw it out and take it for a road test, but the XC60 of misery still needs putting back together.