The Chat Thread - in a funk - WC 06/11/23

Had the fastest project creep ever - my wife's 2010 Qashqai failed the MOT on the rear suspension trailing arms rotting through, which is a common problem. We did a bit of a car shopping and it turns out there's nothing else that managed to be what she wants to own and what I want her to own, so I decided to fix it. I could have just stuck some new trailing arms on and it'd have passed, but the rest of the subframe was looking very very scabby so I thought I'd drop the lot out and give it a brush off and coat of paint, and the wheels were very corroded so sent them off to be powder coated, and had 4 new tyres fitted too.

To drop the subframe off you need the exhaust off, and to pry at the exhaust rubbers it was easiest to pull the arch liners out, and that's when I found that the rear corners behind the bumper had rotted out, so now I'm restoring a 13 year old Nissan Qashqai because I'm too far in to stop, which is exactly how I want to be spending my evenings and weekends for the next couple of weeks.












And started wire brushing the subframe. Hopefully I'll get that painted and built up on the evenings this week then lift it back into the car in one piece, once I've cleaned,painted and undersealed as much of the rear floorpan as I can.



In slightly more positive news I'm 90% there stripping all the bits out of my dead Clio and got a few more bits ready for the other car.

I've got an APK on the GTI on Thursday. All the lights work, it pulls up square, and there's not a single warning light on the dash. I gave it a half-arsed clean earlier as I don't like presenting dirty vehicles for inspection. Be interesting to see what it fails on this year.

Did it : www.flickr.com/photos/retroscenemag/albums/72177720312539997

Pao continues to sit under a cover and probably rot slowly as I try to find it in myself to go out there and take the flywheel off and find new ringgear to replace the old shredded one. While it has been parked somebody has run into it scoring a deep cut down the OS rear wing and ripping a rusty bit of the wheel arch lip off. No note or admission of course. So I also need to find time and weather to cut, weld and paint it. Oh and take the carb off for a service because it wouldn't idle last time it was running.

Minor is still in pieces but at least dry in the Marlborough Autohaus.

Surprisingly enjoying sorting the Qashqai as funnily enough it's perfectly ok for me to go in the garage for a couple of hours at least every night when it's my wife's car lol. Lots of fettling and cleaning and painting. Subframe needs one more coat of paint then some stonechip and it's pretty much ready to bolt back together. I'm sure once it's done there will be other more important jobs that mean I can't put the same energy into my car's.

Also built a tidy Pinto at work and now onto a Rover V8.

3 years on from buying a welder off Marketplace, I finally got out in the garage to give it a go on some scrap that I got from trying the R Tech welder at RRW last year







Going to keep playing with the settings but hopefully I'll be able to fill in some holes on the Crossfire before long...

A 2004 Range Rover has been sold at an Iconic Auction for 118.000 pounds - almost twice the expected sales price.

It's a car with the plate BN04 EPU, formerly owned and driven by the Queen.

Can't give You a link, because my google search only delivers german links to me.

Nice of her to celebrate her roots by owning one with a German engine too :-)

Six month restoration build for a client and collection has already been pushed on a month and then another fortnight, with lots of things taking more time than thought, and finally it's this Saturday at noon.
yesterday afternoon after a big push it was looking very promising.
Then it wouldn't go into gear. Could not see any issue but it's a box I'd repaired, so in the evening (by which I mean 8pm to 3am) I changed the box over for another one... with the same issue. Much more fiddling and it turns out it's the shifter linkage, which is fouling by the slightest, merest amount but it's just enough. So, found another linkage that would work. Built all back up again.
Found in my haste that I'd broken a pipe when ripping the box off in middle of night. That's adding insult to injury after I'd realised changing the box was a waste of many hours.
Only access to the said pipe was to remove the servo, bracket and heater matrix. Did all that lying upside down.
Tried to bleed clutch for quite a while. Realised the master cylinder was faulty. Spent 2 hours replacing that. Got it bled - slave cylinder randomly decided to explode inside gearbox. Managed to fish all the parts out of the box via magnets and hopeful thinking. Fitted another one. Couldn't get a gear. Pulled the slave back out (which means dropping the box, every time) and measured it and found the hydraulic pin on it was 4mm shorter than it should be depsite matching part numbers. Figured that was the cause and changed that for yet another one, and bled the system again (almost used the whole gallon of Dot4 now) and it made no difference.

Sitting here at midnight trying to figure out why the clutch will not disengage when the pedal is pressed. Pedal is firm, fluid is bled.
Starting to worry that the new clutch isn't the right one...
Also would like to sleep.