1989 Skoda 120L5 - 136 Engine&Bike carbs - 2023 Winter Jobs

Sorry, lazy me, I looked closely and found what you use for underseal. Nice job. What kind of air compressor do you use for this job?

Hi all - bit more of an update.

I have done a bit more reassembly. Brake hard lines, clutch hard line, front subframe, rear suspension etc.














Currently waiting on new rear flexi brake lines before going much further - they are quite tricky to get to once the gearbox is installed. Got a few other odds and ends to do first.

Not yet fitted the front callipers - I got a new seal kit to re-furb the calipers, but upon taking them apart, there was some corrosion on the sealing faces of some of the brake pistons. I can get new ones from the czech republic, but the 46mmx29mm pistons are not available in the UK (the 34mm ones are for the 4 pot calipers, but not the larger ones for the single pot calipers). Looking on ebay, I found that Subaru Imprezzas with the brembo calipers use 46x29mm pistons, so took a punt and ordered a set of hard anodised aluminium ones off ebay (for less than importing some standard steel ones). I have a set of 4 pot calipers which I would like to fit at some point, but they are not direct bolt-one replacements. There are different caliper brackets (which I have), but the disks are smaller (to clear the original 13 inch wheels) and the brakes are dual circuit which requires modifications to the hard lines and brake splitters. All do-able, but a pain. I might made custom brakets so I can use the 4 pot calipers with the larger 2 pot disks and make some custom distribution blocks to make fitting the dual circuit calipers easier. Anyway, a project for another time.

Got the gearbox in the shed to try and sort an annoying niggle with the gear selector. It was always tricky moving across the H-patern. It always felt a bit graunchey and would sometimes get stuck in 3-4 and not move across to 1-2. I was a bit worried that it was terminal/serious, so went digging.












The selector fork moves between the two rods and the cast bit in the middle. It appears that they are at slightly different heights - only a fraction of a mm, but enough to cause the selector fork to catch. I couldn't see any reason why they were at different heights so instead cleaned up the end of the fork (a slight burr where it was catching) and put a small chamfer on the edges of the fork to help lead in out out a bit better (one of the rod already had a lead-in worn into it). Now reassembled with a new gasket and it appears to work better now.

Better than brand new! Very nice work

Hi all,

Not much of an update - been doing a few little jobs like making sure all the various hoses, pipes, clips, cables etc are all sorted out before fitting the gearbox. Took me longer than I care to admit to get the brake pipe bracket retaining clips snapped back into place.

Re-fitted the front calipers with new flexi pipes, torqued up some of the front suspension components and fitted new split pins in the castellated nuts. I still need to get final torque on the front wheel bearings, but I want to get it one its wheels and let it roll a bit first before finally nipping them up.

I did manage to re-fit the gearbox and re-assemble one of the drive shaft UJs - I lost all the pins out of the needle bearings when pulling them apart before christmas.

Brakes and front end...



Gearbox going back in...



Took me WAY too long (like an hour) to get the two gearbox mount bolts re-fitted - you can't get a socket on them due to the rear subframe, and the little space between the two halfs of the fuel tank gets mega tight with lots of cables, pipes and other stuff passing through it. Due to the tight space you can't really get a spanner on or even really get my fingers in there to start the bolts. I guess the gearbox and suspension cross member should be fitted to the gearbox before installation, but that would have prevented me fitting the rear suspension until after the gearbox was installed.

I forgot to take pictures, but I also made a few modifications to the gear selector linkage - like most old cars the gear selector is like stiring poridge - much of the slack is INTENTIONAL slack designed into the linkage - I guess to allow for assembly tolerances. I ended up drilling out the pressed in pivot rods, drilling out the various brackets and installing M10 sholder bolts instead with a load of o-rings and rubber shims to remove a significant portion of the slack. Gear selector feels much tighter and snappier now.

I purchased the rear suspension and gearbox from someone braking an old 130 (different rear suspension) and never really paid much attention to it. However it appears that I have 2 different vintage drive shafts. One use bushes on the UJ spider bearing things, whilst the other uses needle bearings with loose pins. When I took the driveshafts out I forgot this and managed to let the bearings come apart and drop all the pins on my gravel drive. I ended up having to order 100 pins off ebay and rebuilt them.

UJ with bushes on one drive shaft



Roller/needle bearings on the other one



Anyway, weather has been pretty wet over the last week, but I hope to get the engine out of the storage shed this weekend, change the friction and pressure plate (already fitted a new clutch release bearing to the gearbox) and get the engine re-fitted at the weekend.

Cheers

Lewis

Engine in will be another HUGE milestone, great progress dude

Thanks for the kind comments everyone.

James - agreed, the engine and box are not very heavy but together they are too much for me to manage on my own. I can do them separately by myself but not together. I don't have an engine crane, so it is brute force and a trolly jack only!

Once the engine it, it is fingers crossed that the last little while being sat idle has not caused any major problems. I did consider taking the head off now, but figured I would get it in the car and see - I can always take it out again if needs be. If there are problems with the engine, I can see perhaps rusty bores or valve stems, so a hone, new rings and new valve stem seals. I do have a spare set of valvues in good condition if needs be, or I can still get them from Czech. I hope not and she just springs to life, but best to be prepared for the worst!

Fingers crossed for nice weather this weekend (well just not raining, cold is fine but rain is a show stopper).

Nice weather today, so managed to get the engine re-installed into the car.

Here is gearbox re-fitted the other day



Engine out of the shed ready for a few new parts before being re-fitted.



I got a clutch kit on ebay for not much money - I didn't think it needed it but seemed sensible to change it while the engine was out.



Flywheel mating surface still looks in good knick - gave it all a wipe down with brake and clutch cleaner



Looking at the friction plate, it did actually look quite worn - this is the original clutch from the car when it had the 120 engine so had done less than 30k. Also new clutch is a spring loaded one rather than the original solid plate so that is an upgrade I guess!





Fitted and torqued



I got some new engine mounts in my parts order from Germany. Stupid me only bought 2 rather than the required 4. So fitted 2 of them and will order 2 more at some point. The old mounts had sagged over time, so when I reinstalled the new 'sport' mounts (one on each side), I turned the re-used old mount upside down so it is now sagged 'up'. Should help a bit I guess!






And then re-fitted the engine.




Got lots of little jobs to do over the next few days like hooking up wires, pipes etc. I can then re-fit the intake manifold, carbs and then look at skimming the exhaust manifold flanges. Will also de-grease the engine block too - spruce it up a bit.

I gently cranked the engine over with a breaker bar and it was still nice and free and turned easily. At first there wasn't much compression, but after a few revolutions compression started to come back. So rings were probably a bit stuck and a gentle spin and I guess a bit of oil flowing has started to get them to re-seat.

Shone a torch down the intakes and all the valve stems look good with no rust or anything, so fingers crossed it has survived my neglect without too much damage being done.

Yeah, there are a few rear engined cars out there other than VW and Porcshe, but not that many. Not many of these left on the road either in the UK. How many left lists just a handful of each of the models.

Odds and ends update...

Spent the last week re-fitting various bits and bobs, ordering parts and getting a few more coats of paint on the inner wings before I bolt the wings back on soon.

I couldn't fit the exhaust manifold on the CNC - not enough Z clearance, so carefully hand filed the exhaust flanges using my surface plate and straight edges as a reference.








I decided I fancied 'titanium' exhaust wrap instead of white, and also wanted to wrap the back box and rest of the exhaust so ordered a load and installed it. I kept the white already on the manifold in place and wrapped over it, so the 4 branch as 2 layers and the rest of the exhaust a single layer.








Then refitted the intake and exhaust. I also got a super cheap air filter off Amazon to see if it would fit - there is not a lot of clearance between the carbs and the boot lid, due to the angle these carbs have to sit at. I might change the carbs in the future to ones that sit more horizontal, but I am going to stick with these for the time being.












I have gearbox oil, brake fluid and some other stuff coming tomorrow. So in the next few days my plans are to finish off installing new brake hoses from the res to the master cylinders and then bleed the brakes and clutch. At that point I can probs drop it off the stands back on to its wheels.

Some frustrating progress, but still progress. Have you got a matched recess and flare and or any damage inside of the splitter ? Just remember having about 5 different options on the flaring tool we borrowed ? If not sounds like a new length of cupro nickel is in your future, but having the tools to hand its not too bad.
Onwards.
James