2nd Lockdown Project

colinthefox

colinthefox

0
During the first lockdown I was lucky enough to have a major building project going on here, but that's finished.

Seeing a second lockdown looming over the horizon, I felt another project was in order to avoid going stir crazy.

First clue

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The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that it's a vehicle with a rather endearing reg. no..........
 
Nothing very exciting I'm afraid.


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Our daughter used to have one of these, and it really was a cracking little car. It's a 1.7 normally aspirated diesel. these have a five speed box and are quite capable of civilised cruising at 70mph and much more at 60mpg.
This particular example has been off the road for a few years and needs total recommissioning. The idea is to eventually pension off the old Volvo which is 25 years old and has 370K on the clock as we don't need a shed any more.
To give you some idea of how it is, the original owner had carpet squares to protect the carpets, over which he had genuine Peugeot rubber mats, then generic rubber mats to protect those. The interior is immaculate, and the body is pretty good for its age too.
It is 35 years old, so most of the rubber components need replacing, and mice have been living in the bellhousing, so everything will be refurbed.
By the time it's back on the road, it will be coming up to historic vehicle and MOT free status in a couple of years.
 
Whoops! :rolleyes: Here we go again.

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Well, that's most of the gubbins out of the way. It's the only way to clean up a filthy engine bay and inspect everything. Just as well, because the hoses connect to the back of the engine down where the sun don't shine, and three of them were on the point of failure. Does look nice now it's clean though. And no rot!:). I suppose the thick coating of black oily muck probably helped.
 
As it's not a Commer, I'm not doing a blow by blow account, but a bit of progress. Everything has been degreased and pressure washed. (No snowdrops were harmed in the process, I'm pleased to say).

So here's most of the clean stuff back in the engine bay.........DSCN1056.JPG
I'm always looking for the £5 reason that previous owners have moved their cars on. This usually involves a bit of speculation, but in the case of the oil leak, it had been there from new, because in the engine factory, they had forgotten a dab of sealer on the end cam bearing face. In the case of the sloppy gearchange, someone had overfilled the transmission oil, presumably resulting in difficult gearchanges, thus loosening the gear linkages. The wet carpet underlay must have resulted in misted-up windows on cold mornings, as a result of a small rust hole under the wheel arch where one of the carpet fixings had rusted through.

Apart from cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning, work so far has included.........
Cam belt, alternator belt, new oil seals for engine and transmission, modified gear linkages, welding up that little rust hole, new drive shaft boots, new track rod ends, new wheel bearings, painting all the brackets etc (and a quick lick of paint on the engine block Jim) new front struts and top mounts, new brake pipes and hoses, oil and coolant changes, new filters, new hoses and metal pipes, with new end sections on some, treating waxoiling and undersealing the front arches, some new electrical connectors.

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So with the headlamps resealed and the rad and grille back on, it's all buttoned up back as far as the A pillars, so next job will be to turn the car round, and strip out the interior so I can dry it out. I wonder what nasties lurk under the carpets?
 
Great what a bit of knowledge and elbow grease con do, cracking little car. I've got a hankering for one of it's cousins, different manufacturer and with hydropneumatic suspension :cool:
 
There was a black CX GTI turbo 90,000 miles at Anglia car auctions last year...beautiful thing with the black leather interior. Was struggling to keep my hand down - went for £7k, still guts me that I wasn’t brave enough
 
jimberlake said:
There was a black CX GTI turbo 90,000 miles at Anglia car auctions last year...beautiful thing with the black leather interior. Was struggling to keep my hand down - went for £7k, still guts me that I wasn’t brave enough
Click to expand...
Know what you mean. A couple of years ago there was a lovely 13 seater Karrier Bantam diesel minibus on eBay. I waited for the price to drop........twice......but then it went. Chance gone. Oh well.
 
jimberlake said:
This one in fact
angliacarauctions.co.uk

1985 Citroen CX 25 GTi Turbo

1985 Citroen CX 25 GTi Turbo available in Anglia Car Auctions January classic sale
angliacarauctions.co.uk angliacarauctions.co.uk
Click to expand...
Wonderful cars but I was thinking slightly smaller. I had a BX GTi many moons ago, in fact I sold it to buy the Mini, it was my favorite car - ever. My interest in BX's was piqued again when I saw a BX Digit for auction a couple of years ago - I think that was Anglia Auctions too, the only right hand drive one left in existence with a mad digital dash, perfect interior and bodywork and gloriously unique '80's styling - it went for £700. To say I was sick was an understatement.

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Just an update on the 205 project. No pictures though I'm afraid.

Everything has been off underneath up to the shell. The offside rear wheel arch had a big patch of rust, where all the fuel pipes create a rust trap. All double curves and complex structure to rebuild where it gets down to the sill. All surfaces scraped back and waxoiled. All new rigid pipes front to rear, new shockers, brake hoses and cylinders, new handbrake cables, and all running gear cleaned up and painted. I was surprised to find that the exhaust front section was NLA so had to fabricate a short bit and weld on. All put back on and looking like new under there.

Everything has been out from inside own to the bare shell. Four small areas of rust where the floor pan joins the sills have been repaired. Damage due to bad jacking by the gorillas at the tyre depot has been straightened from the inside. The instrument cluster has been repaired and assembled correctly for the first time ever, and all the upholstery and carpets have been thoroughly shampooed, to reveal a shadow mark where the steering wheel had been taken off and had sat on one of the back seats, long enough for the fabric to fade around it! OEM rear seat belts from a scrapper, and new speakers front and rear. All back in and looking like new. The only let-down being the rear parcel shelf which has faded quite badly. Not sure what to do about that yet, as there don't seem to be any 100% satisfactory solutions to that one.

So now the car is a driver once again, but I'm not going to do the outside bodywork until the spring, when I can guarantee no condensation and can spray out in the yard. It's a tidy little motor, just as I remember them :)

Now I just have to wait 4 years till it's a historic vehicle.

On with the "cold weather" project for the third lockdown. I've ripped out the stepper motors from some old printers and a fax machine, and I'm teaching myself to control them with my Raspberry Pi and a Python tutorial. Ever since I bought my first Commodore PET computer (32k memory for £700 :)) back in 1970, I've wanted to use computers to control real world machines. Trouble is the real world got there a few decades before me. Ah well!
 
Sold the old Volvo with 385K on the clock to an 850 enthusiast, and the 205 is now our daily driver. It's a truly crackin' little motor. Lovin' it. :cool: Ran it for a month on diesel siphoned out of the Volvo. Only downside has been that the Alternator packed up. :rolleyes: Something to do with having spent 6 years sitting in a field before I got it.
 
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