Imhotep's ever changing fleet - MG ZS180, Toyota GT86, BMW 525d E39 - Playing with bushes

[Imhotep]

Had a lovely moan about the GT86 and the threat of a disposal notice being placed on it. This means I now need to prioritise repairing it and getting it moving. It also means I’ve had to boot @Lord Sterling’s Vectra out of my garage which is really annoying, because secure storage was what that car needed. Well, we can only do what we can do. 
 

To summarise, I need to mend the GT86. So I went out to it today. One side has a seized on brake and the other side has a knackered CV joint. Aim for this is to remove the driveshaft and hub as one and replace with the new driveshaft and hub I have in the boot. Saves pissing about with the 13 year old hub fitted to it. Hopefully then it -should- drive so it can be moved into the garage. It’ll be a very hasty repair/bodge to move it, watch this space…

[Imhotep]

Today an improvement happened:

 

They were £50 (more on that later), and crucially not bent, which the Style 49s were. Drives so much better now, a lot of the wheel wobble has gone away, and it’s comfier on poor roads. 
 

Now why were they £50?

 

38/01. I was 7 when this tyre was new. I’m 32 now. Significant events that happened 3 days before this tyre was made were the September 11th attacks. No way was I trusting that tyre. So many pounds later and we have fresh rubber all round. 

Along with the full tank of derv I think I’ve doubled the value of the car!

[Pat Earrings]

16 hours ago, Imhotep said:

Today an improvement happened:

 

They were £50 (more on that later), and crucially not bent, which the Style 49s were. Drives so much better now, a lot of the wheel wobble has gone away, and it’s comfier on poor roads. 
 

Now why were they £50?

 

38/01. I was 7 when this tyre was new. I’m 32 now. Significant events that happened 3 days before this tyre was made were the September 11th attacks. No way was I trusting that tyre. So many pounds later and we have fresh rubber all round. 

Along with the full tank of derv I think I’ve doubled the value of the car!

Genuinely burst out laughing at how old this tyre was!

[Imhotep]

3 hours ago, Pat Earrings said:

Genuinely burst out laughing at how old this tyre was!

I seem to end up with old tyres constantly somehow, but admittedly this one did make me laugh too, then I was horrified because I remembered my daughter is older than I was when this tyre was new!

[Brigsy]

Part worn tyre place would resell that no bother😄

[mk2_craig]

Were the tyres actually older than the car? 

[Imhotep]

5 hours ago, Brigsy said:

Part worn tyre place would resell that no bother😄

That’s what scares me about buying part worns! 

2 minutes ago, mk2_craig said:

Were the tyres actually older than the car? 

They were, my car is registered September or October 2003! I didn’t drive anywhere on them I should add. Straight to the tyre place with them in the boot. 

[Imhotep]

In other news, the ZS sale sadly fell through. So I still have it.

I say sadly, but I drove it to work today and put some E5 in it as it’s been sat since July, and honestly I forgot how good they were. Paired with the fact DMGRS announced today their clutch kits will be available in October, I’ve decided to just keep it and tidy it up. However I did get an interesting casualty on the way to work today:

 

So, new high level brake light required. I know they’re not necessary for MOT, but it looks odd without one. I’ll be buying a clutch, a Sheddist clutch kit and a polybush kit for the gear selector. That’s about 75% of the issues I have with this car resolved. Based on how long I’ve owned it and how many times I’ve tried to sell it, I think this car will remain in my possession for the foreseeable now…

[Imhotep]

And I’m back after a minor bout of poor health (both physical and mental in fairness) and a bit of burnout from work. 
 

So I got cracking on ZS stuff as always. So I spent a fair bit on it the other day:

Since I’ve paid for a clutch now (well, the pre order price) I’m just keeping it. It thanked me for the above by having the rear brake seize on again. Now I did notice when I did the disks and pads that even after cleaning the sliders the rubber around the piston didn’t look too good. New rear calipers are cheaper from Honda as I know someone in the trade who can get them for me and the P/N for these comes back as a Honda S2000 rear caliper. As I can get them cheaper than a rebuild kit, it makes no sense whatsoever so rebuild the old ones, I’ll just get two new ones. 
 

What else has happened? Well, I have those old door cards that had pre Project Drive trims literally glued to them, so off comes the glue with a very liberal amount of rubbing alcohol:

 

No photos but I now have the PPD trims. I’ll get rid of those ruined door cards now and my aim is to get some decent electric rear window Rover 45 rear door cards and swap the wood for the silver ZS trim and have them reupholstered. I know there’s someone on FB that flocks them but I never liked the feel of flock much. I’d be happier retrimming them. 
 

After that I took it for a quick wash at the scratch and shine and it’s looking a lot less abandoned now:

 

I really do love the colour of this thing.

What of the other cars?

BMW still plodding along. No news to report. Has started telling me to check the coolant level. So I do need to get a new coolant level sensor, the box fluid is really in need of replacement now, I will sort soon. 
 

GT86 relegated to garage for now. I need to look at the cars I have that are actually road legal as they take precedence. I will come back to this in the next year or so.

[Imhotep]

In other news, turns out the ‘clutch pre order’ actually was the clutch! So that’s good news. 
 

Garage want about £150 to do it. I’ll be getting it done next month as I’ve got a couple of social (ugh) events coming up and I need all the money I can until next payday. Pleasantly surprised to say the least!

[Imhotep]

Never rains but it pours. 
 

The ZS had a fairly bad oil leak, I traced this to a camshaft oil seal being missing. Very common if fitted incorrectly apparently. Went to fit it today and I’ve noticed this:

 

Yep, the cam has snapped. So now I need to add new camshafts and new timing belts to the seemingly endless list.

It’s a good job I like this car, I swear. 

[Imhotep]

Ignoring the snapped cam, I decided to do some mending.

I’ve had to return the clutch to DMGRS as it was damaged in transit, so that’s on hold until a new one has been sorted. I did also order a short shift kit as the bush in the gear lever was very ruined and the gear changes felt sloppy. As I was helping* @Heidel_Kakao do stuff with his ZTT I decided to make use of his tools. First thing I’ll say is it might be easier to drop the exhaust if anyone wanted to take this on themselves but very doable with everything in situ. 
 

First was inspect and then remove the linkage arm and bush:

Not sure why they’re upside down but you get the idea. I have noticed the mount bush has also split and failed. I’ll replace that at a later date as I didn’t have one today. 
 

And this is the new kit:

 

Essentially what this does is shorten the throw massively. The ZS gear change ordinarily is vaguely similar to stirring a chocolate pudding. So I got that on, bit awkward with the exhaust in the way and when I jacked up the car I put it in reverse forgetting I was working on the gear linkages, so I had to put it back into neutral to actually get everything to fit together. Anyway, onto the car it went:

 

Huge, huge improvement. Has really transformed the gear changes and the general feel of changing gear. Now I just need to replace all the bushes and get the clutch sorted when it arrives.