Night of the living Dedra: Jan 2014 update p5

[dieselnutjob]

i guess if you make the ground wet under the tyres with soapy water or something it might help it slide?

[dieselnutjob]

i guess if you make the ground wet under the tyres with soapy water or something it might help it slide?

[dollywobbler]

Are the rear brakes drums? A good wallop might free them off - though that doesn't help with your tricky access. However, just freeing one might help get it out. Just hit the rear of the hub - not too hard as you'll do a damage. I've had excellent results with this technique in the past. Otherwise, as Nigel says, get the tyres over-inflated. My BX Mk1 was in a similar location and I had to stick an arm out of the rear door to try and get some air into the rearmost, wall-side tyre! Just be glad that Dedras don't have semi-covered rear wheels...

[dollywobbler]

Are the rear brakes drums? A good wallop might free them off - though that doesn't help with your tricky access. However, just freeing one might help get it out. Just hit the rear of the hub - not too hard as you'll do a damage. I've had excellent results with this technique in the past. Otherwise, as Nigel says, get the tyres over-inflated. My BX Mk1 was in a similar location and I had to stick an arm out of the rear door to try and get some air into the rearmost, wall-side tyre! Just be glad that Dedras don't have semi-covered rear wheels...

[nigel bickle]

Paying 'wages' will turn this into a money pit (-prob around the festive season), and you'll come to resent the expenditure/ the car.

 

Although slower -its best to do this yourself if poss- otherwise its an uneconomic repair on a 'mildly' interesting saloon.

 

Just hoik it out brutally. Slide something slippery (- like an old sheet of steel, or a gallon of soapy water) in front of the dead rim. Bung some legal slaves on it -A frame it home. Then you can sort at your leisure -prob Xmas!

 

Much cheaper, much more satisfying and you'll get to erxperience its rebirth! Happy days

[nigel bickle]

Paying 'wages' will turn this into a money pit (-prob around the festive season), and you'll come to resent the expenditure/ the car.

 

Although slower -its best to do this yourself if poss- otherwise its an uneconomic repair on a 'mildly' interesting saloon.

 

Just hoik it out brutally. Slide something slippery (- like an old sheet of steel, or a gallon of soapy water) in front of the dead rim. Bung some legal slaves on it -A frame it home. Then you can sort at your leisure -prob Xmas!

 

Much cheaper, much more satisfying and you'll get to erxperience its rebirth! Happy days

[Skizzer]

Some news on the Dedra front.

 

The friend who rents the barn I found this in is moving his business to a new unit, so I'm losing my storage next month.  This means I've finally had to get off my arse and move the Lancia out of its resting place and into the daylight, for the first time since about 2006.

 

I made a little film about shifting it - it's on YouTube here.  It's not exactly The Bourne Identity, but then this is Autoshite.

 

 

Imagine my surprise at what was revealed when I'd moved the car away from the wall.  Anything you want to tell us, Mr B?

 

Bollox woz ere by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

 

Also, here's a couple of pics of it looking suitably miserable:

 

Lancia Dedra Turbo - free at last by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

A broken down old shed.  And a farm building. by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

 

This is definitely the world's slowest resto thread, but it should* speed up a bit now.  

[Partridge]

Don't know why, but that has so much appeal.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Theres some guy round the corner from me with one of these being worked on under a gazebo. I say 'worked on', now the engine is in front of it lying all cock-eyed and the bonnet is held open with a car seat. So i think he's breaking it for spares.

[phil_lihp]

What a superb video!  And it doesn't look too shabby underneath the grime.

[Skizzer]

^ Thank you, you're very kind 

 

Theres some guy round the corner from me with one of these being worked on under a gazebo. I say 'worked on', now the engine is in front of it lying all cock-eyed and the bonnet is held open with a car seat. So i think he's breaking it for spares.

 

Do you know the fella?  If he is breaking it, I'd love an offset headlamp, massively so if it's one with the corner cut off for the headlamp wiper.  A front passenger ceiling grab handle would be a bonus too. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Whats an offset headlamp?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

LOL of course! I will try and ask the guy what the crack is. Offside = RHS right?

[RedSparrow]

Handsome looking car.

[Sigmund Fraud]

I made a little film about shifting it - it's on YouTube here.  It's not exactly The Bourne Identity, but then this is Autoshite.

 

That video is brilliant ! Extra points for working on old Italian rammel in fairly smart clothes ! My usual workshop apparel consists of a decade old, torn pair of jeans, a decade old, torn jumper and a jacket with a couple of sumpfuls worth of oil on it...

[brickwall]

Nice vid. Contains shite with a professional edge   

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I'm loving the video, really excellent. How did you make it?

[dollywobbler]

Yesh, offside is RHS. No idea why I turned all Sean Connery there. 

 

Also loving the video. The halogen lamp lights it all up beautifully, and it's very well constructed. Camera?

[Micrashed]

Brilliant video.

You sir, are a masochist!

[Skizzer]

Offside?

 

Er, yes, sorry - f***ing auto-correct in Safari doesn't like the word 'offside'. Driver's side (assuming RHD) is the one I meant.  Boll, it would be brilliant if you could ask him, much appreciated.  No stress if you can't get hold of him though, one will turn up somewhere.

 

Extra points for working on old Italian rammel in fairly smart clothes ! My usual workshop apparel consists of a decade old, torn pair of jeans, a decade old, torn jumper and a jacket with a couple of sumpfuls worth of oil on it...

 

Ha! The clothes don't look nearly so smart close up, I promise you.  I'm fond of the jumper, which is toasty warm but well over 20 years old and was full of moth holes until a friend's wife took pity on me in 2001 and darned it.  Proper jumpershite.  Also I was having lunch with a mate in Winchester straight after so couldn't look too shabby.

 

I'm guessing with a DSLR (450 or 500D) with a tripod plate and a slider \ dolly.

 

The last film I did sound on, we used a metal track from a large gauge model railway and a Manfrotto tripod base welded to a bogey so the camera could be dragged back and forth. 

 

I'm guessing that's why you only used on-board sound for the statics and overdubbed the rest with music - cos you'd hear the camera move on the slider track. 

 

Great video, loved it. 

 

Thanks, I appreciate all the kind comments - not least from you Wat, being in the business as it were.  It was, as you say, shot on a DSLR (a Nikon D800 in fact) with a Manfrotto video head and a Glidetrack HD slider.  Actually the Glidetrack is pretty silent - the music is more to stop you drifting off in the dull bits, and also to cover the sounds of me panting, sniffing and swearing  .

[skattrd]

Nice work skizzer.

A Dedra turbo is still very high on my want list, if you think about selling it  give me a shout.

[Pillock]

Can the video be made available to mobiles? It says it's blocked....

[trigger]

Can the video be made available to mobiles? It says it's blocked....

 

I had to fire up my PC especially so that I could see it, but it was well worth the effort, what a great video! I really enjoyed watching that, I did laugh as the trolley jack went along for the ride also!

[For Fiats Sake]

Did a proper LOL at the trolley jack moment.

 

I have those alloys too - on the secret y-10

[Jim Bergerac]

Always liked the Dedra.

 

A local landmark round these parts is a Dedra that has been rooted to a driveway for the best part of the past 10 years. No idea what is going on with it, but it seems to have stayed consistently on SORN throughout the period:

[wuvvum]

I'm impressed at how easily that alloy wheel came off after six years.  Or did you just edit out all the pulling / kicking / whacking with a lump hammer?

[Pete-M]

Kwality video that. 

We need more of those.

[Skizzer]

A mini-update on the Dedra.

 

It's now residing at a place called the Alfa Shed, where it's had a bit of attention to fix the electrics, which were unhappy at encountering sunlight and had the wipers and electric windows waving around at random. It still needs some more love: the cooling system pressurises immediately on starting up, which bodes ill for the head gasket, and the water pump sprays water up into the air like a lawn sprinkler. This is not going to be up and running any time soon; it will fit in between other jobs and Mike, Mr Alfa Shed, is not a man to be rushed. Maybe June. Could be July.

 

Mike is a bit of a star, though, and spent a couple of hours showing me round. Shed is a bit of a misnomer - it's mostly garden really, though the workshop bit is home to an Aston DB6, a Maserati 222E in two tone blue and cream, a 1972 Lotus Seven and whatever is being worked on at the moment. Sharing garden space with a variety of Maserati 3200 and 4200GTs, Alfa Spiders, GTVs and 156s were a couple of Porsche 914s (daily driver and spares car), a customer's Alfa 75 and a really tidy 1974-ish Kamm tailed Spider from California. This last comes complete with a brilliantly Heath Robinson mechanical fuel injection contraption with a tube of wax that softens with heat to control the mixture from cold start to normal running. Oh, and a fold-up caravan that he tows behind the 914 for going to shows in the summer.

 

Oh, and they'd just finished filming Wheeler Dealers there - he was rebuilding some complicated bits of a Maserati 3200GT, being about the only bloke who can. He's a former aerospace engineer: anyone who tells you that fixing Italian ABS systems isn't rocket science is, it turns out, sadly mistaken.

[Chelseatractor63]

I had a Dedra from 1994 for tŵo years, and I can honestly say it as the biggest pile of "auto shite" I ever owned. Was offa the road more than on, never again.......

[Twiggy]

Brilliant !

 

And the video is excellent, very professional.