1989 vauxhall astra merit estate 1.7 diesel

couple weeks pondering it seemed nonsense to have to disturb the hydraulics and not just replace both rear cylinders. so i ordered another bosch cylinder, new bosch brake drums and a set of shoes. it was very easily sourced, loads of choice on ebay once the part numbers were sifted through. everything in the box totalled 100 quid which i think is marvellous for a 25 year old car that noone really cares about ? don't you?



also half an hour sifting ebay bagged me these ATE calipers and carriers for 33 quid a side. They are from an early 1.8 4 stud vectra C but are essentially identical to mk2 astra GTE 16v brakes, and therefore a direct bolt on upgrade for the current brakes. It takes me from 236mm solid disks and delco calipers to 256mm vented disks and superior ATE sliding callipers. hopefully by the end of the month i can get it onto the 15 inch steels, these brakes, in the process a fat slice of OEM+

vauxhall bedford opel rally was looming so i started pursuing some paintless dent removal on the front doors. the dents were there when i bought the car, looked like the old codgers wife slammed it into a wall edge or something. its let the car down a bit when its all cleaned and polished so thought i would try get it sorted.





success !! the guy came last friday, he took about 90 mins to do both doors and to be frank it was so good i had to look at my photos to check where the dents use to be! he admitted he quoted too high (175) partly to put me off, but after doing the work and chatting, was a local bloke, saw i was genuine enthusiast he knocked 60 quid off, nice !



spent the rest of friday washing and polishing it, sorry, i mean "detailing" (20th century slip there) then in the early hours of saturday set off for VBOA rally 2017, aka NotBilling ! here i am entering the new site. if you were wondering what the point of the bike was, none really just some retro accessorising. even the roof bars are period paddy hopkirk. the bike is my 1982 raleigh bomber which used to be my uncles in the 80s. (he died in motorbike accident aged 21) i found it in nans shed in 2012 and restored it from the blob of crippled chrome. Not sure whats happened to my face, its like steve carrell and david walliams had a baby together then passed it through martin clunes digestive tract.



During the journey home from notbilling i had noticed the rear windscreen fogging up a bit, when i got home the entire rear of the car had a fine mist of oily substance all over. sort of watery, but didnt smell of anything. odd. then through this week i started noticing dark patches on the drive and block paving at work, thought it was old drips from my accelerator, but didn't really line up with the engine bay though (still hadn't twigged yet) then i had a quick look under the rear wheel arch, aaah bllx



looks slightly more promising, hoses degraded rather than tank! but yeah seen this before on petrol astras, the rubber hardens and cracks then fuel wicks down the cotton braiding



luckily had a meter of 8mm ID in the garage so swapped that in and got the karcher out (these are water drips)

had a couple of them back in the day , cracking caRS

Looking good, the car & bike that is, you look like I feel....

Are you going to give the tank some protection? It all looks a little bit on the cusp of going from easy to sort to having to think about it ?

Please give the Bomber wheel a nudge backwards so the slack chain doesn't ruin the look for those of us sad enough to worry about such things.

James

Good to see the Bomber Darren. I sold mine after we moved to hilly Dover and I found I just didn't ride it anymore.

summer + 28 year old astra =



so this happened along with lots of crunching and cracking, i forgot how much the board is like an ice cream wafer. i also added more bitumen pads



this picture is deceiving but basically everything outside of the red line is sagging



found this little tag which is cool, formhimmel is the german word for roof lining, i think the literal translation is shape in the sky lol



the reason for the sagging (in my opinion) is that the scrim foam between the board and cloth ages with all the heat cycles and years. it turns back into its natural materials (oil) literally if you touch it it turns to black sticky goo. even the most tenacious contact adhesive wont bodge it back up

plan A is similar to my silver GTE, scrape and degrease, buy new scrim foam, contact adhesive sandwhich, fck it up completely, buy generic headlining fabric and stick it on.

spit and polish for oh so retro near margate. fantastic weather, capacity filled show ground, and a really eclectic mix of grass roots classic. perfect !

Still following all the updates!

I've realised one of these would be perfect for me. I often need space to carry stuff and occasionally need back seats. They're not easy to find these days though!

That does look good! I'll keep a look out. I followed an utterly immaculate Kadett on German plates through Devon recently and it got me thinking about them again