What have you done to your car today?
- Thread starter mattyprice4004
- Start date
what you wear on a friday night is your own business, keep it to yourself.I have females that ride in my car
Soldato
- Joined
- 30 May 2007
- Posts
- 4,963
- Location
- Glasgow, Scotland
I filled the turret oil on the MX-5 since the weather was too poor to do the gearbox and diff oil.
Hopefully this weekend.
Hopefully this weekend.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 13 Nov 2009
- Posts
- 11,632
- Location
- Northampton
Collected the Jetta from VW...£1750 lighter but the gearbox shifts smoothly again
Sorry to hear you're selling up @Frozennova. IIRC it was kept at your grandparents house?
Booked this week off work with the intention of getting a few jobs done to the ZT and finshing porting the Impreza's exhaust manifolds.
Yesterday was spent tackling the ZTs rusty rear suspension arms...
A couple of seized bushes and a spinning captive nut later meant this job got a whole lot more time consuming. I ended up removing the subframe so that I could take it to have the nut welded back on this morning.
Used a wire wheel to get rid of any loose rust and gave it a coat of Hydrate 80. Probably give it 2 coats and then maybe a coat of Hammerite to further protect it. Hydrate 80 is cracking stuff though, my favourite anti-rust coating.
Booked this week off work with the intention of getting a few jobs done to the ZT and finshing porting the Impreza's exhaust manifolds.
Yesterday was spent tackling the ZTs rusty rear suspension arms...
A couple of seized bushes and a spinning captive nut later meant this job got a whole lot more time consuming. I ended up removing the subframe so that I could take it to have the nut welded back on this morning.
Used a wire wheel to get rid of any loose rust and gave it a coat of Hydrate 80. Probably give it 2 coats and then maybe a coat of Hammerite to further protect it. Hydrate 80 is cracking stuff though, my favourite anti-rust coating.
Got rid of the ugly yellow lights in the interior. Ford really could have done better with the map light housing
IIRC @Gibbo did quite a few little changes to his ‘stang to freshen it up and made a huge difference for what little effort, time and cost was put in.
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Wow those arms are worse than my E30's ones
Very very common on the 75/ZT. They weren't even flagged up as an advisory on the last MOT.
The new arms should last the rest of the car's life though. Couple of coats of Hydrate 80, couple of coats of Dynax UB over the top and some Dinitrol ML in the cavity.
The passenger side arm was ok, but as I had bought both arms, decided to change both sides. Sods law, it was the passenger side that broke the captive nut
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
I may switch it back to full length actually. You can't tell very well on the picture but a previous owner/dealership has screwed into the bumper and it displeases me greatly.
For now I like the spacing though, although I know I shouldn't!
For now I like the spacing though, although I know I shouldn't!
Caporegime
- Joined
- 11 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 32,222
- Location
- Leafy Cheshire
Chavtastic.
Time to bring my old 55 plate RAV out of retirement, after 14 years and 120K of needing virtually nothing other than service/consumables, it needs a little TLC to bring it up to standard. I've kept it road legal, but it's been consigned to occasional trips to the tip and moving appliances for the last few years. The plan for phase one was simple:
First job was the fobs, Toyota/Lexus fob’s were crap for most of the previous decade, the turning force required to operate the ignition results in a stress fracture across the plastic where it meets the blade. My solution is cheap, simple and Chinese. £3.69 buys you a flip key conversion kit, swap the remote fob over, get the blade cut and you’re good to go... or in my case 3 trips to Timpsons and £10 lighter because they are the only people locally with a jig that will handle a curved fob and it took 3 attempts to get it right. China didn’t consider that moving the remote centrally in the fob increases the distance from the ignition pickup coil, leading to intermittent IMMO disarming, a dab of superglue later the chip was relocated to the closest edge and now works perfectly.
Then it was onto the door sensor on d/s, it’s been intermittent for a while so I had swapped it with the p/s as a short term fix after auto lock kicked in and nearly caught me out. £6.95 delivered for a used part seemed better than Toyota at £30+ new.
After that it gets really boring, full service (oil, all filters, coolant - Toyota 10yr changed out at under 5 as per schedule, gearbox and diff fluid, wiper blades, cabin filter, everything was straight forward and easy, minor weeping on rear O/S diff seal (genuine part ordered at £24 per seal... ouch
), fluid level wasn’t bad, so it’s not a major priority yet, PRV is free/clear. If i’m dropping the diff, then it’s getting blasted and painted, so that’s a weekend job.
Next up brakes, front discs were serviceable, just light surface rust from lack of use. I went with EBC Ultimax2’s, the brake-in coating should scrub the disc’s clean more quickly than standard pads. EBC normally include anti-squeal shims... unfortunately not for the RAV. Copperslip to the rescue - before anyone says galvanic corrosion or sensor issues it's non conductive and the sensors are sealed. For the rear's i'd grabbed Mintex discs/pads as I was replacing both, so no need to scrub up the discs. O/S went on fine, slight corrosion on the pins etc. but nothing unexpected, as soon as I got to the N/S things were a little more tricky. I managed to snap a 1/2" 21mm bi-hex socket on the wheel nut without even getting to the breaker bar stage.
After retreating to Machine Mart (first time i've needed to use the Clarke Pro warranty in over 15? years), I decided to break out some heavy weapons. The snap-on cordless impact wrench I have is underpowered, so I decided to do something I should have done 10+ years ago and buy a higher torque impact wrench. I'd prefer pneumatic, but my portable compressor is probably on the limit for anything over 250Nm and i'd need to upgrade my airline to 10mm ID anyway, my big compressor is too far away to be of use, so it was either a new airline, impact wrench and a 3rd compressor, a cordless (not ideal for the limited number of uses it will see each year), or a mains unit. I went with the Clarke own brand 450Nm mains electric version as I only need it a few times a year. Obviously this isn't high end or suited to daily use, but the claimed output of 450Nm should make short work of things like the suspension leg bolts I have to pick a fight with later. Two minor problems, it's bigger than the air versions which can limit access, but more importantly it has no concept of graduation, it's literally 450Nm or nothing which has obvious implications for bolts (it’s a WoBD) and as such will only ever be used to dismount bolts if plusgas and harsh language don’t work.
Either way it did the job, the wheel nuts lasted about a second, my smugness at wielding my new found power lasted fractionally longer, right till I was met with this:
WARNING: ITS NOT PRETTY.
I remember watching 'Titanic: 100 Years On' and i'm pretty sure bits of that were in better condition than what I had in front of me. I don't understand how/why this one corner has corroded so badly when the other three are fine, amazingly the piston still moves, its not been treated any differently than the rest of the car. Perhaps a disgruntled neighbour has been peeing on it? After cleaning it up and ensuring I wasn't about to star in my own version of Final Destination that pretty much ended the brake overhaul for today. ECP is open, but they're literally twice the price of my normal factor for a replacement calliper. I settled on a 3/4 complete brake change and sourced a replacement calliper, hose and slide pin fitting kit along with some rust remover and converter. I guess I may as well treat them all to a refurb/paint while i'm at it.
Suspension will have to wait till the w/e now and hopefully parts will be in tomorrow morning.
- Sort the minor non service related niggles.
- Carry out a major service.
- Overhaul the brakes.
- Upgrade the suspension and renew associated components as required (read pretty much anything I needed to touch).
- New tyres and alignment.
First job was the fobs, Toyota/Lexus fob’s were crap for most of the previous decade, the turning force required to operate the ignition results in a stress fracture across the plastic where it meets the blade. My solution is cheap, simple and Chinese. £3.69 buys you a flip key conversion kit, swap the remote fob over, get the blade cut and you’re good to go... or in my case 3 trips to Timpsons and £10 lighter because they are the only people locally with a jig that will handle a curved fob and it took 3 attempts to get it right. China didn’t consider that moving the remote centrally in the fob increases the distance from the ignition pickup coil, leading to intermittent IMMO disarming, a dab of superglue later the chip was relocated to the closest edge and now works perfectly.
Then it was onto the door sensor on d/s, it’s been intermittent for a while so I had swapped it with the p/s as a short term fix after auto lock kicked in and nearly caught me out. £6.95 delivered for a used part seemed better than Toyota at £30+ new.
After that it gets really boring, full service (oil, all filters, coolant - Toyota 10yr changed out at under 5 as per schedule, gearbox and diff fluid, wiper blades, cabin filter, everything was straight forward and easy, minor weeping on rear O/S diff seal (genuine part ordered at £24 per seal... ouch
), fluid level wasn’t bad, so it’s not a major priority yet, PRV is free/clear. If i’m dropping the diff, then it’s getting blasted and painted, so that’s a weekend job.Next up brakes, front discs were serviceable, just light surface rust from lack of use. I went with EBC Ultimax2’s, the brake-in coating should scrub the disc’s clean more quickly than standard pads. EBC normally include anti-squeal shims... unfortunately not for the RAV. Copperslip to the rescue - before anyone says galvanic corrosion or sensor issues it's non conductive and the sensors are sealed. For the rear's i'd grabbed Mintex discs/pads as I was replacing both, so no need to scrub up the discs. O/S went on fine, slight corrosion on the pins etc. but nothing unexpected, as soon as I got to the N/S things were a little more tricky. I managed to snap a 1/2" 21mm bi-hex socket on the wheel nut without even getting to the breaker bar stage.
After retreating to Machine Mart (first time i've needed to use the Clarke Pro warranty in over 15? years), I decided to break out some heavy weapons. The snap-on cordless impact wrench I have is underpowered, so I decided to do something I should have done 10+ years ago and buy a higher torque impact wrench. I'd prefer pneumatic, but my portable compressor is probably on the limit for anything over 250Nm and i'd need to upgrade my airline to 10mm ID anyway, my big compressor is too far away to be of use, so it was either a new airline, impact wrench and a 3rd compressor, a cordless (not ideal for the limited number of uses it will see each year), or a mains unit. I went with the Clarke own brand 450Nm mains electric version as I only need it a few times a year. Obviously this isn't high end or suited to daily use, but the claimed output of 450Nm should make short work of things like the suspension leg bolts I have to pick a fight with later. Two minor problems, it's bigger than the air versions which can limit access, but more importantly it has no concept of graduation, it's literally 450Nm or nothing which has obvious implications for bolts (it’s a WoBD) and as such will only ever be used to dismount bolts if plusgas and harsh language don’t work.
Either way it did the job, the wheel nuts lasted about a second, my smugness at wielding my new found power lasted fractionally longer, right till I was met with this:
WARNING: ITS NOT PRETTY.
I remember watching 'Titanic: 100 Years On' and i'm pretty sure bits of that were in better condition than what I had in front of me. I don't understand how/why this one corner has corroded so badly when the other three are fine, amazingly the piston still moves, its not been treated any differently than the rest of the car. Perhaps a disgruntled neighbour has been peeing on it? After cleaning it up and ensuring I wasn't about to star in my own version of Final Destination that pretty much ended the brake overhaul for today. ECP is open, but they're literally twice the price of my normal factor for a replacement calliper. I settled on a 3/4 complete brake change and sourced a replacement calliper, hose and slide pin fitting kit along with some rust remover and converter. I guess I may as well treat them all to a refurb/paint while i'm at it.
Suspension will have to wait till the w/e now and hopefully parts will be in tomorrow morning.
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What a shame they couldn't make 2 dashboards - one for LHD and oen for RHD. It just looks so weird with that hump on the passenger side.Got rid of the ugly yellow lights in the interior. Ford really could have done better with the map light housing
I know they've been symmetrical since the mk4 Mustang, but it just looks so obvious
Yeah I'm not reading that.
TLDR: Key’s, door switch, full service, 3/4 of brakes, postponed suspension upgrade.
That any better? Just click the spoiler, you’ll love the pic.
Perfect for my short attention span.
Yeah that caliper and related gubbins looks a bit bottom-of-the-deep-blue-sea doesn't it. About the same as my 30 year old BMW which is an achievement.
Though I do have calipers, disks, pads, backplates, hoses, handbrake shoes, and rear wheel bearings, to totally overhaul mine somewhen...
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Had two new Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres put on the front of the E46 this morning, then took it for a 4-wheel alignment as it was way out from when I did the rear trailing arm bushes and a couple of other things quite a while back. Took it for an alignment just after doing the work and that place obviously screwed up because I had major wear on the insides of the front tyres, hence the new ones.
Despite my last post in this thread about getting an E90 almost a month ago the HPI Check revealed issues on it that I'd never be happy with (even though the seller clearly stated it was HPI clear twice when I was looking at the car) so got my deposit back and the E46 will have to keep on trucking as I'm now in the middle of buying my first home. The E90 I was going to buy was a really nice car on the face of it, but looking back at it now I'm kind of glad I saved the £6500 it would've cost because that can go on the house now.
Only thing that annoys me about the E46 other than the rear wheel arch rust is that the air conditioning is pathetic despite being regassed last year - obviously has a leak somewhere. Guess I'll just have to hope the window regulators don't pack up
Despite my last post in this thread about getting an E90 almost a month ago the HPI Check revealed issues on it that I'd never be happy with (even though the seller clearly stated it was HPI clear twice when I was looking at the car) so got my deposit back and the E46 will have to keep on trucking as I'm now in the middle of buying my first home. The E90 I was going to buy was a really nice car on the face of it, but looking back at it now I'm kind of glad I saved the £6500 it would've cost because that can go on the house now.
Only thing that annoys me about the E46 other than the rear wheel arch rust is that the air conditioning is pathetic despite being regassed last year - obviously has a leak somewhere. Guess I'll just have to hope the window regulators don't pack up