Dick wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:18 pm
Mmmm crusty
Indeed, though being honest the car is by and large astonishingly solid. Virtually all of the rust save for that bit by the rear windscreen I've found in this car has been due to water ingress rather than the usual rot you'd expect from a car of this age.
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Time for an update, we've fallen behind a bit.
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Time for an update. Let's do this car by car as that's likely to be least confusing.
Partner: Continuing to do car things. The wheel bearing really hasn't got much worse, you can definitely hear it but it's not bad. Which kind of supports my theory that it's got a ding in the race or something from when the hub had the bolt extracted rather than being a wear issue.
I did however end up driving around in circles for a good ten minutes. Why? Because you only get to see this line up a couple of times in a vehicle's life.
Rover:
Having stolen the fuel pump from the Invacar again, I figured it was about time I tidied up the power supply. I was still using the piggy backed feed from the starter solenoid back from when I bodged things together when it broke down on a previous occasion and I shoved an electric pump on as a get-me-home fix. Not a long term solution.
A proper ignition switched feed was sourced from the heater blower fuse on the fuse box (which already had a spur running from it for the radio, so I nicked that), and routed it properly to the pump following the factory wiring loom. Even using all the factory wiring clips.
That's a bit tidier. I still need to add the inertia switch, but that's a ten minute job, and I want things working reliably before adding another potential point of failure.
Those of you who have followed all of my trials and tribulations with this car will remember me finding this thing randomly floating around down the back of the engine when I pulled the heads off.
This was pretty quickly figured out to be the transmission vent line. Evidently whoever last had things apart never reattached this. To whoever didn't take the opportunity to reattach it while things were substantially apart, I hate you.
It's just a bit awkward to get to. Can you see where the line attaches?
Zoom in.
Zoom in further...there it is!
Absolutely no way on earth the semi-rigid nylon line was going back on there working on the ground. With it on a proper lift it would merely be massively awkward. As it is I can get about 1.5 fingers onto the thing, never mind a whole hand...I spent half an hour fighting with it before giving in.
So it's had a bit of fuel line stuffed on there and looped up and back down vaguely like the original line.
You'll have to take my word for it that it's attached at the gearbox end. Getting that on there only took me about twenty minutes of swearing.
The fluid was also a *little* on the low side.
Not helped by the fluid level checking method in the handbook being wrong. It says to check it cold with the engine off (hence the whole..."check cold" text on the dipstick). This is wrong. It needs to be checked at operating temperature with the engine running apparently. Took this much to get it up to the right level.
Also worth noting that these gearboxes do NOT take normal Dex II/III fluid. They need type F fluid. Surprisingly, Mileham's had a few (admittedly rather dusty) bottles on the shelf. Don't imagine they'll be bothering to re-stock those! It looks, feels and smells the same as what's in the box so I'm reasonably confident this hasn't been filled with the wrong fluid at least.
Also apparently the heater box is missing a bunch of screws.
Don't think I have any others that are short enough in stock so will need to buy some.
So far the fuel system still seems to be cooperating. Though I do need to adjust things a little as the warm idle is way too high, at about 1000 rpm in neutral. Should be nearer 750 - or lower if you can get the engine to reliably idle slower, to reduce the "thump" when selecting drive/reverse.
Following day I had to run some errands and decided to take a brave pill regarding my choice of transport.
Proof it has actually moved!
Made it home again too. Without breaking down. In fact without adding anything else to the to do list.
Annoyingly, the oil leak hasn't miraculously fixed itself.
That's going to be a barrel of laughs to fix. It's the gasket behind the oil pump/filter housing that needs to be replaced. It's just *slightly* awkward to get to.
I took a quick video to show the progress to date. I literally just wedged my phone between the dash and the windscreen, so low production quality! The loud bang about halfway through was me closing the glove box which decided to fall open and scare me half to death completely randomly.
https://youtu.be/ofaokqz6skk
So...
Oil leak is the big priority for the sake of other road users. I'm not comfortable driving it further until that's sorted. Other high priority items will be getting the radiator recored, the remaining original coolant lines replaced and the tyres need to be changed as they are definitely flat spotted. Only really noticeable above 50, so not a huge issue for local use, but definitely want doing before any longer trips - they're absolutely ancient anyway so they want changing anyway.
I do actually feel like I'm making progress now at last rather than just chasing my tail, which is nice.
However, you remember the fuel leak which caused a small environmental disaster and caused our house to stink of fuel for a full week? Guess what reappeared this afternoon? From exactly the same spot...Yep, the same bloody leak.
I think the root cause of the issue was actually down to the fuel filter itself. This had no ridge on the end of the hose barb, and I think the hose was just sliding down from the 8mm to 6mm section. Said cheap and nasty tiny filter has now been consigned to the bin and a larger, better quality one has been fitted.
It was immediately apparent once the hose was connected that it was far more secure even before the hose clip was done up. Said hose clip has also been replaced to be safe. I've had that happen before on one of these but thought at the time it was a fluke. They're getting binned though now.
Will I be obsessively checking these connections every single time the car is used for about the next year? Yes. Absolutely.
Also really really need to get some black HT leads.
Trabant:
My box of several different sized pullers had turned up, so battle commenced with the Trabant wheel bearing replacement.
Honestly not sure if I had loosened it when I tried to remove it last time, as it just slid straight off with relatively little effort this time round.
Not maybe quite as bad as I was expecting given the noise this was making, but yeah this clearly isn't as clean as you would like to see.
Even more to my surprise, the lower shock absorber bolt unscrewed with any drama.
Couple of people had mentioned that removing the handbrake cable *before* starting to remove the trailing arm was a good way to save your sanity, so I wasted far too long trying to figure out the correct way to dismantle the brakes. Got there in the end though. Reassembling that won't be at all awkward I'm sure.
The self adjusters in this are really quite clever. A really simple sliding ratchet arrangement which is built into the shoe retaining pins. They can move outward away from the piston, but not inward - so the force of the shoe moving itself works the adjuster. It's really simple, but looks to me like this should be quite reliable.
The brake line itself was the next thing to be disconnected.
Of course because I am highly intelligent, I parked the car such that I had to lay in the Rover's oil puddle while doing this. Well done.
Then it was literally just a case of unscrewing the two trailing arm bolts. I did support the bottom of the hub with a jack to ensure any remaining tension on the spring was supported. There wasn't much, but there was definitely a bit of tension left. Just enough I'm sure to make getting everything back together an absolute pain.
Something definitely missing here!
Oh, here it is!
The shock absorber mounting bracket also then needs to be removed from the arm as it gets in the way.
I was really worried these bolts might snap, but they thankfully didn't. Did protest a bit, but they came out. The rubber cover the revealed the cause of our issue. The inner bearing had clearly suffered water contamination based on the amount of rust that fell out.
Pretty sure this was the cause of our issues as the outer bearing didn't seem to be noisy.
The stub axle could then be knocked through the back of the hub. This is seriously chunky looking for a 600kg car. Can of Plusgas for scale.
The inner bearing can just be pushed out the back of the housing with a suitable drift. The outer one comes out from the wheel side - after you've found and removed the circlip hiding in among the slimy old grease under the seal.
One set of knackered bearings. The thing on the left is the spacer which sits between the two.
This needs to be cleaned up, then I can set about (carefully) installing the new bearings.
Now I know how it comes apart hopefully should go back together a little quicker.
Having now seen how it comes apart, I reckon you *could* do this with the trailing arm still on the car, but it would be way, way more awkward - and the additional stress and swearing probably isn't worth the half hour or so it might save.
Would have been a bit silly not to get the surface rust on the suspension arm treated and a bit of protection applied while it's off the car. On goes a coat of Vactan.
Then some topcoat.
Another coat will go on tomorrow before stuff goes back together. Nothing special, realistically probably not going to make a bit of difference, but I feel better for having it done.
That was where we were on Sunday. Fast forward to today...
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Rain finally stopped today so I could move forward with this.
No. I definitely didn't give it the second coat of paint using the boot as a spray booth.
Also made a point of ensuring that the brake bleeder cracked loose while I had the arm still off the car as dealing with that as it stood would be far easier than in the car if needed.
The hub cavity, spacer, stub axle and rear cover were all cleaned up.
Not really many photos of putting the new bearings etc in as I was absolutely covered in grease for most of it. In fact I feel like I still am despite having washed my hands a dozen times and showered since I worked on the car.
Probably the single most awkward part was actually getting the snap ring back into the groove in front of the outer bearing as it really was a bit beefier than my circlip pliers were designed for. However I managed to not ping it into low earth orbit or embed it in one of my eyeballs so I considered that a win.
Getting the suspension arm back in place was moderately awkward, but honestly nowhere near as bad as I expected. I was able to lift the arm into position and get the inboard bolt started, then have a jack support the trailing arm while I started the forward one. Then was just a matter of evenly tightening them both up. Which takes takes a while as both of the bolts are really quite long. Definitely a job which made me wish I had an electric ratchet.
Then the brake line was hooked back up.
Not thrilled by the amount of tension on the flexible brake lines. Looks like when the camber correction hardware is fitted that an inch or two longer brake line should also be added. I'll look into dealing with that in the future.
I appreciate that the brake shoes can be fitted back onto the backing plate as a single assembly without the need to wrestle with a bunch of faffing about with the springs. You DO need to mind your fingers though as there will be a heap of tension on there.
Then the hub was reattached, the nut torqued up to Very Tight (TM) and the locking tab bent over to ensure it's not going anywhere. All that remained there was to bleed the brakes and put the wheel back on.
A helper would have been handy rather than relying on the Eazibleed (which as usual leaked all over the place). I know I do have one of those far simpler one man bleeders somewhere, but we all know what my garage looks like.
All back together. Glad to report that a test drive revealed no unpleasant noises or anything.
The next task on the pre-MOT was the steering rack gaiter. Seems simple enough. Remove the end nut from the rack, separate it, remove old boot, clean, re-grease, fit new boot and reassemble.
Yeah...the two parts aren't too interested in separating after 39 years. Ideas? I've left it soaking in Plusgas overnight. Guessing heat is probably the answer, albeit very carefully both due to not wanting to damage the rack itself and given the proximity of the fuel tank.
Once that's done and I've given the headlight beam alignment a tweak we should be ready to head to the MOT again. Hopefully!