Hydrated Iron Oxide

Hydrated Iron oxide, chemical name for our beloved rust. Can you guess what this post is about? Well the X-Pack had some known about rust when it was bought, although didn’t know the full scale of it, assumed it was a small hole in the footwell. It wasn’t just that. Out came the knot wheel on the grinder:

Which extends up to the inner wing:

Cut that top section out:

Not forgetting the builder’s expanding foam in the sills:

Template is made up for that hole, some welding tidying and more cutting welding and tidying, then a wee bit more of the same, we get to start the other side. Then get onto the gearbox, then get onto the brakes and then wiper motor. Put interior back in and drive B-)

I got my Skoda too, 1987 Rapid:

Well that’s it for now, except to summarise between myself and Mr. BM we have 4 80′s sports coupes, none of which work. Impressed much?

November 2009 update

X-Pack

The clutch issue with the X-pack turned out to be a poorly adjusted clutch. I got underneath the car and fiddled with the clutch adjustment to see if that was what was causing it, and took it out for a spin confirming the clutch was working fine. We need to get a bracket or two to hold together the two parts of the gear linkage on the x-pack before the gearbox is working again. I was able to hold it together with some wire just to test it out on the road.

Skoda

Looks like the Skoda’s going to go to the great scrapyard in the sky. We removed the wings from it (barely had to use tools, just pulled them) and the rust on the inner wings and A-posts is pretty terminal looking. Niall’s stripped the car to a point where there’s not much left on it, and may be able to source a rapid in much better condition from the fella that sold him the estelle as a consolation because the estelle is so bad, which is nice.

Scirocco

The scirocco went in for its MOT with seven fails this week, so the weekend is going to be spent repairing that and then we’ll put it back through. A couple of brake pipe issues, bulb issues, and one of the rear shocks is gone. My friend is going to buy it from me once it goes through the MOT, but it’s had a couple of fueling issues recently too! So we’ll need to sort that out.

Mk3 2.1 X-Pack Capri an unloved Scirocco, a Czech masterpiece and a Mutant bike

Well it’s a while since this was updated, the tailgate was finished (not very well) and it was put through an MOT in the hope of driving it to Retro Rides Gathering (http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=rrg09). It failed the MOT on a few things so we ended up going in a Mk2 Golf of a friends, but thats a whole other story.

In July or so of this year we went to see a Mk3 X-pack Capri, this one to be precise:

The beast

Now the perceptive of you might guess from the title that this car now belongs to Mr basicmotoring :evil laugh:. Bought for not a huge amount of money. The car was recently resprayed but not to an overly high standard, still finding masking tape on it sometimes. A binding rear brake and a fairly small patch of rust under the car.

The rear brake was fixed using my two favourite tools (WD-40 and a hammer). We, this weekend, finished the brakes and could now drive it. 2 months ago Mr bm broke his hand and with the seizing brake couldn’t actually drive it. However whilst bleeding the brake we found some more masking tape. This time on the gear linkages, I thought “must have been left over from the painting” and pulled it off. immediatly the linkage fell apart. I put it back on and didn’t think anymore about it. We took it out for a test drive and have found that the clutch seems to be slipping or at least not working as it should be and that the gear linkages were held on with the tape.

It’s a good job that BM is contemplating a 302cu (5L) V8 conversion

Have some more pictures of the two beastly Capris

Now then, the Scirocco. We put a Weber carbuettor on instead of the standard Pierburg, and put it up for sale last month/2 months ago. No takers. If you’re in the market for one, a mighty fine/ cheap one, leave a comment with an email address/contact number. (we’re in Ireland btw)

I’ve bought myself a car too! Skoda Estelle 105Lux, have one picture, not much progress yet but don’t worry, there will be soon!

And finally, last weekend, with a shed full of broken bikes, a brand new welder and an angle grinder we thought, “what the feck”, need a cutting disc or 2 this weekend and by the next update, lets hope that there’s a mutant on the go!

Boot lid rust repair

The boot lid wasn’t in great nick, it had some rusty water running down it, so we took it into a bodywork class we go to to fix it. After taking out the screen (tricky because it’s bonded) it turned out the bit of rust that the water was coming of wasn’t too rusty but some bits were worse. We sanded off all of the glue and sanded down the paint. Filled a few holes and that brings us up to date.

The Capri runs once again, Scirocco needs a tune

Capri

Over Easter weekend, we took another look at the Capri. We found one stupid mistake in particular – the book I had been copying my timing positions off, there was a dark photo in it of the crank pulley which I thought was facing the other direction, so I had marked on the final timing of 36(ish) degrees btdc as around 22 atdc, because I was marking it relevant to the last timing mark on the pulley, and it was going in the wrong direction.

We got the timing belt on nicely – previously it had a lot of slack in it, we timed it with the strobe gun and checked the mixture with a colortune and everything seemed to be running nicely. The fueling was already pretty good, so we didn’t change it. We moved it down to a family farm to keep it out of the rain, unfortunately one of the coolant hoses wasn’t on tight enough and it pished a bit of coolant when it got very hot, but nothing major. When I first got the Capri the fueling must have been a bit lean or something, because it hesitated when you tried to give it the beans from low revs, but now it’s running better than I’ve ever had it. The engine is a bit rattely. I think that could be the valve clearances, but I’m not sure, I might take a look at them soon. I’ll take in the boot lid to the bodyshop class next week to try to get the rust on the back sorted out. I’ll try to get it MOT’d in May, and maybe put 6 months tax on it after that, and see if I can get some classic insurance.

Jobs to do:

1. Tighten up the coolant system
2. Stop the engine rattling
3. Get the rust sorted out
4. Get tax, MOT and insurance
5. Fit the twin 45 weber carbs
6. Clean up, and fit the compomotive wheels

Scirocco

The Scirocco is running okay, though it does need to fettled before it’s just right. I haven’t got the choke cable on it yet, and I think that’s probably the major cause of it running poorly. I can’t seem to find the timing marker on it either to check the timing on it. Can’t seem to find the fuel adjustment screw either mind you. 

Jobs to do:

1. Get the choke cable on
2. Make sure the fueling is okay
3. Make sure the timing is okay
4. Possibly swap out the dizzy for a different one, to eliminate the misfire

New carb for the VW and timing on the Ford

When inspecting the choke on the original Pierburg carb on the Scirocco, I noticed an awful lot of play. So much in fact, that I was able to lift the full carb off. The carb seemed to have parted from it’s base plate, or had just been set on top of the base plate or something. So this weekend me and the brother (and a friend on saturday) took to taking off the pierburg to replace it with a 32/34 weber that I had sitting about and hadn’t bothered putting in the scirocco yet. As of writing this, we aren’t finished just yet. We have yet to find a way to fix the choke cable to the carb, and we haven’t got all the loose pipes sorted out yet.

Since the last update on the Ford, the engine has went back together, and been taken for a run. The timing belt however, came off again this weekend because I don’t think it had ever been on properly. I didn’t get it back on yet though, so it’s still sitting on the drive for another couple of weeks.

Putting the pinto back together, pt. 1

Today we torqued all the headbolts back up, after getting a lend of the correctly sized torque wrench (3/8″ drive). Put on a new head gasket, put back on the rocker cover, put new gaskets on both of the manifolds, and put them back on. The manifolds were a pain in the arse, there were a few nuts that are always a real handling to get at. A ratcheting spanner might be a good job to get at those. Before, when I was taking plug leads off, one of them broke, so we called up to the local parts shop and got new oil and a HT lead. The vacuum hose for the carb split too, so we’re going to have to cut it back tomorrow. I was going to fill it up with oil, and I broke the lid that would go on top of the rocker cover, so I might have to call around to some scrap yards tomorrow or something if I can find any and see if I can get a spare oil lid.

taking the pinto apart, pt.3

Took the cylinder head off today, and found a small bit of metal in cylinder #3. We didn’t have a 1/4″ breaker bar to undo the cylinder head bolts, so we went a bit hillbilly with a 1m long or so iron bar, wrapped around a cheap socket wrench. For a couple, they were at an awkward angle to get the wrench in, so we used a bit of an extension bar, which of course, broke under the pressure. There’s also a bit of rust on the tailgate which is getting pretty bad, so I got some rust killer the other day for it.

Some pix for your relief.

What a sex machine boss!

 

 

Rust.

 

The engine with the rocker cover off

Inside cylinder #3, the offending piston

The piece of metal in the cylinder

Taking the pinto apart, Pt. 2

Today in Beal Feirste I bought a set of spline sockets to take off the cylinder head bolts on the Capri’s engine. So we took the breaker bar, and went to put the socket on it, but the breaker bar was 1/2″, and the socket was… I dunno… 1/4″ I suppose. Luckily I have an adapter for just such a scenario. Or so I thought, it would be lucky anyway. The adapter bent to frig, so now we’re back to square one. It was also snowing like crazy (for here anyway) so we decided to stop at that point, and went for a spin out some private roads in my friends Capri. That was some craic.

Taking the pinto apart

Well, tonight myself, the brother and a friend took bits and pieces of the 2L pinto engine in the Capri apart, or at least made a start. A while ago, we must have dropped a washer into the inlet manifold, causing the engine to eat it’s self, so we’re hoping to take it apart, and inspect the damage.

• Removed the inlet manifold (after lots of pushing, pulling and grunting getting the pipes off it)
• Removed the exhaust manifold
• Drained the oil
• Drained the water
• Marked up the top pully at cylinder #1 TDC (probably need to mark it up a bit more)
• Removed the rocker cover

We planned to take the head off and get a look to see if any of the valves were damaged or if the pistons or bored were scored, but progress ground to a halt when it turned out we needed a spline piece to undo the head bolts. Going to look for some sockets then tomorrow in Beal Feirste to undo it. Might need to get new bolts too. It was very cold too, they said it was to get to -5c tonight, but I don’t think it got that cold when we were out.