Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sev]

Hi everyone, I've been hanging around here for about a month now, and taking in all the advice, and looking through the forum and how to's. - For which I thank you all!

So finally with my sound finacial controller out of the way, and having a spare minute to myself, I finally get to start looking at the Miggy i've bought.

Now I knew this was going to be more of a restoration project, which is fine as I don't mind tinkering with old cars, and in fact that's all I've owned!

I've got a strategy which goes like this - get all the mechanicals sorted, and then start on the bodywork followed lastly by the interior tarting.

So, first I got to grips with the simple stuff -

Filters;
The fuel, air oil and pollen filters all looked like they had not been changed in quite some time! Both air and pollen were black!


I have images to up-load but the insert image tag won't let me browse!

So I changed these, and in the process hoovered and sluiced out the scuttle drain in the pollen filter tray.  I found two slugs had taken up residence in there!

After several attempts I got it clean.  IN the process, I took a puch and carefully opened the hole out to around 5mm diameter, which has helped draining no end, and the scuttle drain is now clean.

Moving underneath the car, I drained the oil, and removed the oil filter (a crappy halfords one which did not fit my opel spin wrench, thus making the job five times more difficult than it should have been  

I cleaned all the exposed areas I could get to with brake cleaner, and noticed that the whole of the sump pan was covered in greasy road tar.  - Cleaned off.

The area of the steering rod and the bell housing were covered in oil and grease.  I degreased these, and noted that there was oil droplets on the two prominent little bolts than sit facing down on the underside of the engine on the billet face by the bell housing.

I know my engine has rocker cover gasket failure, and am hoping that this is oil which is pissing out of the rocker covers and running down the back of the engine  :-/

So, some Castrol Magnatec later, and I realise that the sump plug is leaking, whereas it didn't before.  Inspecting the previous crush washer I suspect that firstly it was an outfactor part not VMD, and secondly it had been self-abusered on, as there were three visible 'scorch' areas which I think is where oil iis seeping now.  I think i'll probably buy on OEM sump plug and washer, and bolster the seal with some gasket sealant.

I took the road wheels off, and now I know why the brake pad wear sensor warning was lit;

FRONTS
N/S - cable tied to the strut and broken!
O/S - rattling around in the retaining clip - and broken!

Pads reasonable, thickness on the piston side, but worn on the outboard side.

I've been offered a new set of Mintex front and rear discs and pads inc handbrake shoes for £130

Droplinks fine, but lower wishbones front bush shot away - both sides!

REARS
The previous owner, who found pleasure in taking tupperware boxes into fields and spendin the weekend dumping in chemical toilets in his infinite wisdom fitted some Monroe!?! air inflatable shocks.

All four shocks are obviously dead, given the lovely shiny oily mess that is on the base.

However, I'm not that concerned as it's all so very cheap to replace!
Also the cosmetics are easy as I know a lot of sprayers! as long as it doesn't have a fred flintstone floorpan i'll be ok!

So the cost so far?

Car 2.5 V6 CDX Auto 1995 with 1 years MOT and TAX and 1/2 tank of fuel = £250

Out of my own Pocket:
Oil 10W-40 Magnatec 6L  on TC = £29
Gates Poly V belt, 30mm spanner and Torx Sockets = £35

VM Dealer
Seals for Plenum to Manifold
Plenum to throttle body
Water transfer pipe to Thermostat = £40

OOC Shop - V6 Cam Cover Gasket Kit  and DVD - £67

Aircon van guy telling me the condensor is shot away (quel surprise!) = £25 refundable if I get him to fit a condensor and refill the system (£225)

Thanks to a stonking ebay Auction:

Vauxhall Parts Warehouse:
Spark plugs (GM)
Thermostat (Whaller)
Aux Belt tensioner (GM)
HT Leads (made to OEM Spec) - I opted for these instead of the autofactors bosch 36 quid options.
Waterpump (GM)
OIL, AIR, Pollen and fuel filters (OEM SPEC)  = £195

FAI/FALCON droplinks and tront wishbones (from Veil89) = £60
(I still find the 110NM torque on these ridiculous since the SLR is only 70 on the same M14 bolts, and thats got 19" rims and 600bhp!)

Cambelt (gates powergrip kit) = £69

Cambelt locking Kit (Laser) = £35

Sunroof Motor = £10

Rear Highlevel brakelight (thanks marky mark) = £12

So really not including the cost of the car i've actually really spent £200 on it so far - all the rest is virtual money as fate smiled on me for once.

As I say, I've got some photo's but couldn't understand how to upload.

If anyone has any comments all gratefully received, and I'll keep you posted on the restoration!  Oh and given the people I work for I qualify for a VMD Tradeclub card... which is nice  

[JezInBrum]

Well done mate, proves being patient & shopping about can reduce costs. I have has some real ebay bargains myself as well. Regarding the pics, upload them onto a host site like photobucket. Then insert the links onto your posts.

Atb Jez  

[FRE07962128]

Sounds like the project has got off to a flying start Sev!  Well done!  

Onwards to the next jobs eh?

[feeutfo]

top work,patient and methodical, well advised. This is what the forum is all about for me.
Re uneven pad ware. Check the caliper sliders are moving nicely and are well greased, its fairly common after fitting new pads and discs to have overheating and warping problems with a wooden pedal because the sliders are not centering on the disc.
First time i did my wishbones on my old car, i did not see the guide, you clearly have, and just threw them on the car did the bolts up bft and away i went. Then the bolts started creaking, i did them up even more, stil creaking, i could not beleive how tight they where in the end, but probably nowhere near the correct setting. And i did not do them up with suspension loaded, you live and learn.

Posting pics, you have to post them on a third party site like photo bucket, then you can just paste the  link  into the post or click on the image icon and paste it between the 2 [img] symbols [img]
Like so. Top work, interested to see the pics. Cheers.

[sev]

Right, I've left this overnight with a bit of blotting card under the engine in order to see where and what drips.

I think that the majority of Thursday's drips were from the dislodged crap after I cleaned the lower part of the engine.

I'm convinced that the oil on the back of the engine is all from the dead half moons on the cam covers just pissing oil at leisure.

However, the sump plug is definitely leaking.  Now I do remember that the threads on the sump were none too clever, and the sealing washer was a factor rather than OEM.  So, I've gone and ordered a new sump plug and washer from the VMD, and i'll regretabbly do an oil change again after i've done the rocker cover gaskets.

I also took the opportunity to do a paperclip test. The only fault that came up was  : 145   Immobiliser Wrong Signal.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Dont forget the wishbone bolts have an angle torque after the 120Nm......there as tight as that because you are actaully bending the subframe to make contact with the metal centres on the bushes.

[sev]

Mark, just to be clear, so I've got this clear in my mind...

the bolts at the rear and front of the wishbones are torqued to 120Nm, the balljoint and steering knuckles are torqued to their correct values.

then the car is lowered onto it's roadwheels, and then the two angle torque take place with the assembly fully loaded.

Am I right?

[TheBoy]

Mark, just to be clear, so I've got this clear in my mind...

the bolts at the rear and front of the wishbones are torqued to 120Nm, the balljoint and steering knuckles are torqued to their correct values.

then the car is lowered onto it's roadwheels, and then the two angle torque take place with the assembly fully loaded.

Am I right?

No.

The bolts (particularly front ones) need to be done up loosely when jacked up. Then lower car and tighten as much as possible with a wrench (so as to set bush position), then jack up and do final torque, then the angle tightening.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Mark, just to be clear, so I've got this clear in my mind...

the bolts at the rear and front of the wishbones are torqued to 120Nm, the balljoint and steering knuckles are torqued to their correct values.

then the car is lowered onto it's roadwheels, and then the two angle torque take place with the assembly fully loaded.

Am I right?

Nope, fit the wishbones and tightne the bolts on the rear vertical bush and leve the ront horizontal bush loose.

now drop the car off the jack

Now reach under the front and tighten the front wishbone bolt as tight as you can get it.

Jack the car up again and now tighten the front bolt to the correct torque plus the angle setting.

Its important to do this so the front bush is tightened with the wheels on the deck so as not to apply a permanent twist to the front bush whcih will cuase very early failure.

[sev]

Thanks Mark.

So I can tighten the rear bush  and all other bolts and fully torque before doing the front ?

sorry to be so vague!

[Marks DTM Calib]

Thanks Mark.

So I can tighten the rear bush  and all other bolts and fully torque before doing the front ?

sorry to be so vague!

Yes but, only tighten the front one once the car is back on the deck!

[sev]

Thats what I thought. Thanks for clarifying that for me.

I've got a friend bringing round his lovely 1m breaker bar at the end of the month, so I'll keep you informed!

[sev]

So I finally got to doing the rest of the engine bay initial work.

Suffice to say the the person who 'looked after' this car in its previous life didn't!

Right here goes:

Air Plenum
The throttle bodies were black with thick oil deposits.

Breathers
Solid, to the point where I needed a drill bit to bore the top of the deposits to break the skin. -- now fully cleaned and flushed through.

Cam Covers
Rubbers rotted away, no sealant of which to speak of, explains why my oil was pouring out...

Into the V of the engine!

HT Leads and spark Plugs
THe leads were rotting at the tips and the plug holes were totally submerged in oil!

I took the DIS pack off, noted the number, cleaned it up and replaced the leads.  The only mod I did was to change the uppermost nearside bolt for an allen cap head as it made it easier to get the removal tool into the tight space.  (I had to lay across the engine with my legs hanging off the wing for this!)

Power steering fluid pipes
jubilee clips not done up, and explains all the thick tar over the ABS/TC unit and all that side of the engine. No visible leaks - so i'll keep monitoring.

Thermostat changed - and some f**k*r had siliconed the pipe and o rings into the old thermostat, naturally as you can imagine there was a hell of a lot of swaering involved after 1 hour trying to get the rather thing free! - I took the old stat out of the old housing and it made a convenient engine flush device!

Aux belt tensioner
15mm nut stripped - belt had to be cut off!  Luckily I was replacing with a new unit, belt and tensioner.

Cambelt
Markdtm - thanks so much for your video!  It was a life saver, I thought I was going mad at first, as I couldn't get the thing to time!

bank 3+4 were really well behaved, but 1+2 just weren't having it. As soon as I did the tensioner up, the whole lot rolled back 1 and a half teeth!

It took 8 goes to gert the marks to align.  Banks 1+2 ended up being just a gnats out of the checking tool, but I needed to get it together by then, so perhaps i'll come to the next cambelt party and get it checked over, just to be sure - unless someone local's feeling generous!  In one instance the cams on 1+2 jumped and sprung down, it was fun getting those buggers back to time!  luckily I knew that they were only going to go 90 degrees either way and lock out, but still!

The result of it all is that the MIG is more responsive, and I know everything now works and is new.  I think I've got an air pocket in the hydraulic lifters on 1+2, judging by the noise it made on startup, but after driving this morning to work, its already starting to quieten down.

The tube that Mark sucks in the video is shot away, so will need replacing, and I replaced all the corroded fastenings that I could get to.

The only thing now is that I have a floppy accelerator pedal, so perhaps I fitted the clip wrong (I fitted it bulkhead side as opposed to timing belt side).

I'm going to do a paperclip test now that it's all cleaned up and see what's amiss, and I really hope that I've connected all the vacuum pipes correctly.

I reset the windows one touch function, and I've noticed that one of my front parking lights is out, so I do suspect something amiss with the lighting circuit.

The old girl like most of our elderly has had a lot of neglect.

The next step is to get the wishbones done, the guys in the garage round the corner will quite happilly remove the old ones, and refit the new on their ramp, and let me do the torqueing up.  Whilst I'm at it they'll  do the rear springs for me as their ramp has got inbuilt jacks also. all for an hours labour as I'm going to do the work once they've done the donkey work of getting it all free and dismantled (£45)

I have to say that if it wasn't for this forum so far, I'd be feccked!  I really wouldn't know where to start!

If the underbody is ok after wishbones... brakes and suspension, if not, it'll do me a year of the MOT.  I hope it's not the case, as I really do like this car despite it having turned into a restoration project!

I've taken photo's all the way, so as soon as I get a spare five, i'll upload via photobucket.

anyway... onto the throttle cable!

[dbug]

Do not use the Mintex front discs and pads use only genuine Vx front disks and pads.  Many people advise that on here - I can confirm this from my own experience.

[sev]

I was thinking in that direction anyway.  Failing that, I was looking to use something like ferrodo or brembo / lockheed as they are all known OEM suppliers.

I was looking at suspension, and again i'd only really look at sachs/boge or billstein as they are all OEM.

I was offered firstline but I've never heard of them, so staying well clear.