Be brave Lois, Mr. Chairman will succeed.
Be brave Lois, Mr. Chairman will succeed.
Today I did a couple of small jobs on the Mk1.5.
I took a work colleague out for a quick blast the other night and after a bit of hard boosting, it became quite jerky and was stalling when off throttle and out of gear. I limped it back to my colleagues house, simply expecting it to be a boost pipe that had come off somewhere, but when I went to pop the engine lid, the handle didn't do anything. Great! So, I just drove it home and decided to tackle it this weekend.
Firstly, I had to get the engine lid open. Normally this would be a jack the car up and poke a screwdriver up the back of the intake manifold from underneath job, but thankfully on 1.5's, there is an access panel cut out of the boot to fit/remove the intake manifold. Therefore, it was just a simple case of un-doing the panel, locating the cable and giving it a pull; bingo! After a bit of investigation, the plastic grommet bonded onto the cable that holds it in it's bracket had come away. I fixed it by simply cable tying the cable in place, which held up to 30 or so test pulls. Good enough for me!
The boost leak was due to the pipe from the dump valve that goes back into the air intake being popped off. This was resolved for good by jubilee clipping it back in place.
It was typical that after 6 months of no problems, when I go to give someone a demo lift out, 2 things go wrong!
It's amazing how a cable tie and jubilee clip can fix what felt like a knackered car!
Whilst I was doing those two jobs, I treated my door seals with the below stuff:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-x-Einsze...-/161156199749
I gave them two coats allowing it to dry in between and it really seems to have rejuvenated the seals. I'll give it another couple of treatments over the week and that should improve the seals by a good margin! I'll be repeating the process on all seals around the car with the same product after seeing its performance.
It'll be getting an oil change and ignition component check over next weekend as it's being used daily throughout all this crazy weather!
Cheers,
Tom
So, after doing this trip 9 years ago:
http://spa2013.co.uk/
and then subsequently taking my Mk1.5 off the road that winter, it went straight through MOT last week!
Yes, some advisories, and it's a bit crusty, but I'm still one happy man, especially as I'd not really done anything to it to prepare for the MOT after nearly 9 years in hibernation!
This week or next week it'll be coming back over to Sheffield with me, as with clearing mum's houses, it also has meant that I'm having to move two MR2s.
I really can't wait to put some miles back under it's belt.
That's pretty damn good, after that length of time, a testament to your maintenance before it went off the roadget some pics when your putting some miles on it
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
Cheers Jimi! Yeh, I was in shock more than anything when they said it had passed, hehe. Even though it'd had a full overhaul just before our big euro trip, it had still been 9 years no matter which way you look at it.
Replacement log book arrived this morning, so it's now taxed, and I've booked a train over from Sheffield to Beverley to bring it back to Sheffield tomorrow.
Once I'm back from holiday, I should be able to get some cool content by combining my other hobby of drone flying.
Will be doing some tinkering on it too, to deal with some of the advisories.
Watch this space.
So, after a little hissy fit a month or so ago, which I think I tracked down to a faulty main coolant hose, and after waiting nearly a month for the stupidly folded hose bought from Halfords to straighten itself out and my diary align itself, I reminded myself of the fun and games of bleeding the Mk1 coolant system.
Here's the raggedy old hose; yikes! It wasn't so much leaking, as seaping, but just glad it didn't cause anymore damage thanks partially to luck and my quick reactions when it overheated.
For what should have been a quick job, turned into a medly of swear words and running back and forth for the different tools. The reason being that the jubilee clip on the top joint of the hose was pointing up... directly underneath the main inlet pipe to the turbo, which itself is below an intertwining mixture of 5 or 6 other coolant and air pipes. Where's a 6mm spanner when you need it!?
Anyway, the job was finally done, and the new hose fitted. Then we went onto the bleed process, and again the battle with a modified car where the charge cooler hoses run up the right hand side of the radiator right where the bleed nipple is. This turned what should have been a 30 second job of attaching a plastic hose onto a nipple into a 15 minute huff fest, haha. The heater matrix hose went on easily enough, so we were off to the races with the bleed routine.
With that done as per the manual, I packed away the tools and tentatively went for a test drive. The standard mk1 coolant system is totally overkill for the standard 4AGE, and usually sufficient for the 3SGTE engine in mine, but it's still that double edged sword of going on boost to build the temperature and check for air pockets, and see that the thermostat is doing its job vs going into a compelte meltdown.
Thankfully the shake down went well, with a few stop offs in laybys to check the thermostat had opened and the radiator pipes were getting warm as they should. After that, a bit of boost as a treat on the way home. After 9 years off the road, I still need a lot of time with the Mk1.5 to get used to the power. 4th gear is an absolute monster, and anything below that is a wild blink of an eye.
It may be a bit crusty around the corners, but I'm not letting this one go without a fight after having it for 13+ years.
Loads more jobs on the cards, so watch this space.
Bit of an update on my car!
It failed it's MOT last August on various bits of rust, brakes, droplinks etc. It took a few months for the welder to get onto my car, but I got it back home around November time. However, we were then in the midst of buying our new house, so the car stayed on a friends driveway.
We moved into our new house 2 months ago, and, roll on last night and I got the car moved over. I'd sort of forgotten what cool looking cars these are as I followed it on the transporter, and have safely tucked it away in a corner ready for me to undertake all of the other work required to hopefully then get it back through MOT!
I'm hoping to get a garage built in this corner, but still have a few other house jobs to tackle first, but watch this space! The house itself is Grade 2 Listed, so the garage will have to be in keeping, but I'm hopeful we'll get something granted. It'll either be stone built or oak, dependant on quotes and planning.
Quick selfie of me and Lois in front of our new house.
It's been a long road to get here, and there's still the remnants of my mum's estate to wrap up, but we're super lucky, huge mortgage not-withstanding, to be custodians of the new (400 years old!) house. I've already become a bit green-fingered with fruit and vegetable planting, as there's a 30ft long poly tunnel, which we thought we'd need to rent out to other people, but we're probably going to fill it this first season.
Hope everyone else out there is doing well.
Oh nice house.
I've been doing jobs around our house... For over 20 years... I've nearly been round it once. Just time to start again.
James
There's no rust on my car. But there are some sizable holes where the rust fell out.
Congratulations Tom and Lois, nice house
Ahhhhhh your in that club as well James, I'm nearing the end of the 2nd time round ..... in just over 30 yearsOriginally Posted by Sweetpea
Black is not a colour ! .... Its the absence of colour
Cheers both! I'm still firmly in the pinch myself stage of believing it's our house.
Haha, yeh, I'm sure there'll always be things to do, but it'll be worth it.
What's funny is I don't think we'll have too many issues with the stuff done several hundred years ago, but more likely the bodges done in the last 20-30 years.
Case in point was this step that had broken, which turned out to just be chipboard that wasn't even fixed down, and was just resting on top of a lump of wood, haha!
All sorted now.
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