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Jun 11, 2016 22:29:29 GMT
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A good Carlton GSi is quite hard to fond now Breng, there arent many left in any condition now and higher prices are being asked even for questionable ones. The torque wrench was given to me by someone who got it from work Darren. Its a lot of torque, I had a length of 50mm box section clamped across the engine stand and the far end of it to my work bench to keep the engine and stand from turning over. This isn’t a catch up post although there is still some catch up to do, but I’m quite please with a little bit of progress this Morning so thought I’d post it. The plan had been to have black steel wheels, using 16 inch Vauxhall centres with wider rims added. Anyway, there just isn’t time, I need it on the road and in use so decided to put the original wheels back on, they are the nicest wheels ever put on a Carlton from the factory in my opinion anyway. I was just going to give them a quick clean then get new tyres fitted, I got two cleaned up and was reasonably happy with them but the others were more badly kerbed, they all are to some extent. I put one of the worst in my lathe, I didn’t think it would be possible but it turned out that with the gap bed insert removed and the wheel over the chuck they fit. I clocked it in so that I don’t make it out of balance and turned the damage off then polished the bare metal, I’m really pleased with the result so it looks like I’m going to have to do all four.
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Engine and gearbox next, in the interest of saving time I’ll dump these pics here with maybe not great explanations. Light single mass flywheel from TTV, beautiful thing. Sprung friction plate from C&G motorsport. Dual ram bits being cleaned and assembled onto painted casting. Larger bore throttle body bought from an ABS member years ago and not used until now. A new exhaust manifold heatshield as the old one was in bad condition and the bolt holes had pulled through. The new one is double skinned stainless, 0.6 and 0.4mm the idea being improved insulation without too much weight. You can see it under some other stuff that needs protecting from excessive heat here The injectors were sent away for servicing and testing. The water pumps on these engines originally had metal impellers but the one in the engine was making a lot of noise so no good. Metal impeller pumps are / were almost impossible to find but the plastic impeller ones can fail. I had a plastic impeller pump that had had its impeller disintegrate while fitted to this engine (not a nice experience) but was otherwise OK, so swapped the metal impeller onto the pump that was a plastic one. It worked The sump plug in the engine looked suspect so in the years I ran the car I always changed the oil via the dipstick tube, now time to take the plug out. It was in fact half a spark plug The sump was no good, badly helicoiled and cracked so I machined a big hole in it and made up a bung with a sensible thread to take an easily available sump plug with O ring seal, the original was a stupid design, shallow threads in alloy and a copper washer that needs quite a good tighten to seal. Sadly the sump plug is a F**d item, I don’t think the car has noticed though. My more skilled cousin welded it in for me Lots of new gaskets and timing chain guides from Germany, not a cheap engine to rebuild and mine isn’t anywhere near a full rebuild. Timing chain guide location pin. To change the guides without removing the head you have to destroy this and fit a new one. GM don’t have them any more (like so much of these engines parts) so I'm or BC (depending on where you are reading this) kindly sent me an original so I could have it copied by a local company. Nice blasted and painted bits, paid for blasting, painted in the garage. New secondary chain guide from ABS years ago. A real Oh no moment, I used a torque wrench on everything in the engine but this bolt is for the secondary chain guide, and the thread is pulled out of the head! It was my own fault, the hole had oil in the bottom so hydraulic lock pushed the thread out before the bolt reached the tensioner casting. I worked very careful and a helicoil worked perfectly which was a huge relief. Its got new straight and curved primary chain guides. Cam cover baffle plate had to be drilled off for blasting so I drilled and tapped as advised by BC and used Loctite to fix it back on. Both ends got new crank seals from Germany. This blank plug was taken out of the timing cover and an oil temp sensor fitted, another item supplied by Edelschmiede in Germany where the gaskets and guides all came from, excellent supplier who makes it possible to keep these engines alive. New thermostat and associated bits The front crank / damper mass bolt proved to be a problem to source, of course GM didn’t have any and its said it needs to be renewed every time. I eventually found one and fitted it, torque tightening then angle tightening. Big torque wrench and angle gauge. Crank locking Engine and spare gearbox assembled and a lifting attachment made which seemed like a good idea until I realised that it has to be tilted so steeply to get in that the back of the bracket wouldn’t go past, I had to trim it with a hacksaw while the engine was half in. Still, its there for next time. Getting there, enough for tonight.
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Excellent, I'll be following this one, great idea and top work there.
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Cheers fella I fixed a couple of faults today and went in it to help a friend with his Vauxhall rot rescue and thoroughly enjoyed driving it after all this time.
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Thanks for the comments gents.
Darrenh, I'm sure you are right that its not personal, but I do think there is a real chance that someone jealous wants to force me out so that they can take over the garage and garden we have turned from a derelict mess to a great place over eight years. Scum are lazy and jealous, try to take what they want. I don't want it to escalate to personal if they wont give up and decide to try more dirty tricks but I have let it be known that I'll never leave and would flatten it to the ground before anyone else would get it.
Anyway, hopefully its in the past and I can just tell you about the car and not any more of that kind of stuff.
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Its been a long time since I posted, a lot has happened since, with some real low points but yesterday a real high when it passed its MOT first time with no advisories. Its not finished but the MOT is a real milestone and now I can road test and take it to where I can work on it. I cant remember exactly what was done when but lots of small jobs got done and I prepared an interior from the best parts of two interiors, I cleaned everything and did some careful repairs to the door cards. I haven’t got any pics of the bits before fitting but the seats turned out to be fantastic after a clean, the usual worn drivers seat bolsters are great, the seats are probably a good enough standard for a restoration which makes me think of selling them to someone who needs them to fund some aluminium seats. The rear headrests are commonly dried up and split along the top on these due to sun through the back window but it turns out front headrests are the same as rears but with different posts, so I used four fronts to make a really good set. I’ll post some interior pics later. First, I cant remember if I posted this, the final patch count is 188 Here are a couple of other odd bits. Here are those sunroof drains rerouted from inside of the sills earlier, now exiting inside the front wheelarches once the liners were refitted. New aerial mounting grommet, and you cant see it but the aerial mount remade to fit around the bigger spare wheel well. I made a new heatshield for the rear silencer. Next a real low point. This whole build has been done in a garage without power etc at my allotment as mentioned earlier. Well, someone decided that they wanted my allotment or garage or wanted to frighten me. I arrived one day to find death threats, warnings that someone was looking for me and to get out of my place within one week or it would be burned down. I’m no tough guy and this really shook me up, I panicked and asked family to help, the same day we transported the unfinished car and whatever parts and tools we could to my home where the car fortunately fitted in my back yard. I had to complete the rest of the project outdoors and with no pit, it was a bit of a setback. The threats were reported to the police who were great, they did lots of interviewing and made their presence known. I spent some paranoid evenings waiting at the allotment for the person to come back but they didn’t (thankfully as what I was doing was really stupid) Word got around the place that everyone was looking out for me and the police were making their presence felt and nothing more happened. Unfortunately though the damage is done, I’ll never feel safe there and will never keep another car there. A couple of example pics, there was a lot more – The next big job was to put an engine and gearbox together for it in the next post.
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I've always done them on my own and without any tools such as the Gunson one.
When I had my first car my elderly neighbour told me he had always followed what it said in the manual he had from a Reliant Regal, its never let me down.
Free nipple & add pipe to jar or bowl as usual. Top up reservoir & leave lid off. Loosen nipple maybe 1/4 turn Long slow pedal press to floor or close to it. slow pedal release. Short pedal press, approx. 1/3rd travel and release, do this 3 times, doesn't need to be slowly. Repeat 1 long and 3 short pedal pushes until fresh fluid is coming from the nipple, if its on the other side of the car just go and have a look occasionally and of course keep the reservoir topped up. Tighten nipple. Repeat for other wheels.
This has always worked for me, cars such as Beetle, Carlton, Golf, Scimitar, Robin etc etc.
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I always try to be polite, you do meet some interesting people
Once though I arrived home in my very poorly XJ40 with smoke and noise coming from under the bonnet because it had a holed piston (didn't know that until the head was off) and a neighbour asked if it was broken, then said that's what you get if you have those fancy cars, laughing!
How I kept any hint of politeness that day I don't know.
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Mar 29, 2016 23:13:33 GMT
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Good move to contact the company and chat to the boss. Just be friendly and fair about just wanting it fixed.
I saw a commercial vehicle reverse into a neighbours garage door once and told the neighbour, he called the company and the boss didn't want an insurance claim so was happy to just get it fixed at his cost so everyone was happy, I got a crate of beer for telling him too.
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Mine is gone, sold it for £440 yesterday, cheap even for what it is but I've never been so happy to see a car gone. Why's that? because of the stuff I posted further back in this thread. Utterly shockingly non durable car.
Having said that, if you get the chance of a cheap or free one and just want some fun with it then go for it, they are a nice looking car and a bit of a different car to modify than the others as you said. I kind of wish I'd modified mine as its not as if it would have been worth much less in the end.
Don't get caught in the trap of trying to keep on top of repairs without first checking how badly shot it is, have a good look at everything suspension related with the wheels off the ground, if the back end is shot its especially costly to fix and everything is a pain to work on due to the aluminium / steel mix. Do also check for rot, mine didn't fail a test but there is no way you could use the jacking points and the brake pipes are typically rotten too.
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Feb 28, 2016 10:30:30 GMT
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Mine is gone, sold it for £440 yesterday, cheap even for what it is but I've never been so happy to see a car gone.
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All of the bad mpg reports here surprise me, maybe the manual box in mine makes a big difference but throughout 30k miles of ownership I nearly always got 27mpg long term mixed driving. Any long journey if I reset it it got 32mpg.
I'd recommend a manual.
The last of those long journeys was to see its replacement so now its up for sale at £500.
The replacement car does 21mpg and that's a 5.7 petrol auto 300c Estate.
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Feb 15, 2016 23:37:32 GMT
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Brilliant, that will be a hell of a car.
Do you have the donor yet, I know where one will be coming up in a few months
Whats the donor like and how much please? The donor is a V reg 3.0 manual with MOT until about September, it looks like the one in the first post, lovely colour, and various issues such as knocking antiroll bar, play in the back end joints, rust on wheelarch edges etc. Good interior, all working windows being a special feature, 99k miles. Coincidentally I hope to pick up its replacement next weekend and it will be for sale, don't know how much yet because I haven't looked to see what they are going for yet. I would guess about £600 with the original 16"wheels or £800 with the rather nice looking 17" ones with almost new winter tyres (also original Jag wheels that I bought for a lot more than the extra cost). Sorry for threadjack.
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Feb 15, 2016 23:30:28 GMT
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[/p]
[/quote] I've had a snapped wheel stud on mine since June, I can't get the hub off to change it is its fused together, my only option is to buy a complete lower wishbone assembly from a breaker![/quote][/p]
I've had the fused hub thing on both sides of mine, heat and a very large hammer with the suspension upright over the edge of a scrap wheel worked eventually, utter destruction of the hub though, if you can get a new assembly its a better idea. Personally I'd be drilling the broken stud out.
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I advertised for a Carlton GSi when they started to become hard to find and had a call from a local fella whose son had had one parked at his work for several years and he decided to sell it. It was rough, severely faded red paint, went well, he wanted £300 and said that he would have the chassis welded and put a full test on it in the price which he did.
Silly bargain at £1.50 per horse which is how I viewed it, I ran it for 3 years needing mainly welding, saw it past 150mph and eventually broke it for spares and it keeps my other Carltons going.
My silver GSi (scrapyard dodger) was another, advertised for £300 to save it from being scrapped with long MOT and tax, I bought it unseen on the phone so the owner said he would deliver it from the other side of the country for a last drive of it for an extra £25. I got home from work one day to find it outside the house, the owner came back later for the money. Its my favourite car ever now.
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Jan 30, 2016 15:48:48 GMT
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Next it got much worse, Carlton owners should check here. There was nothing to see with the seat back still fitted, but once it was unbolted I found serious structural rot and cracking! Just a little bit of rust here it seems – And some little cracks here, and whats that, a pulled out spotweld? Well it turned out that as well as various cracks all of the spotwelds were pulled out. I had to chop out the corners of the rear bulkhead to investigate, and found that the rear spring seats were busy trying to get into the boot. Lots of rot. I’ve seen rear bulkhead crack pics before on a Lotus Carlton, maybe related to the power but I suspect this car is cracking up due to flex due to extreme structural rot. I built it all back up. I added some braces to each side to reduce stress on the bulkhead corner joins, but in hindsight I’ not convinced it was worth the bother. Next I looked at the other side, would you believe it this corner was completely separated too. Similar rot too. Some new bits made and welded in. Both sides have more overlap that standard. Car shaped again. The black plug in the new patch over the chassis leg repairs is one I added again, its directly over that large hole in the inner chassis leg skin and allowed me to put a large amount of wax and oil in to soak through the gap between the skins to prevent new rot. This time that’s the rot really all gone and the welder back home to stay. Oh, and I had to get the paint gear back out now to do the boot again. Lots of other progress done and to post soon hopefully.
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Jan 30, 2016 15:39:33 GMT
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Sorry for the long delay in any posting, lots of other stuff in life keeping me busy, some good stuff though. I’ve been working on the engine but the thread is still way behind on the rest of the car. I thought all of the welding was finished again and had painted the interior. Next was to prepare a set of seats and door cards using the best of what I had, I’ll post about that later as it turned out really well but I found something on the way. First I took the rear seat base out and was troubled by a small bubble in the sound deadening, the fact that the chassis leg under here is almost impossible to see and I didn’t have confidence that the invisible bits were OK I decided to start cutting again, and had to take the welder back to the garage for one last time. Under the sound deadening I found a little hole But I wanted a good look underneath so cut quite a bit out. It was the right thing to do, the chassis leg wasn’t very good and I decided to chop some of it out. And made repair pieces to fix the outer skin. The outer includes the flange on the right, the inner includes the flange on the left, they are spotwelded together. The open end of the outer is probably why they rot, any water that gets sprayed there when driving will run directly between the skins ans cause rot. Inner bottom panel with plug weld holes and a big hole that has a purpose later. Zinc primer on. Welded in and one side made and primed. And so on Inner completely panelled in to where it should be and started using rust converter on the rest of the inside, later zinc paint everywhere and lashings of wax and oil. Of course next I replaced the top panel, no pic. More to follow soon.
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Jan 28, 2016 13:27:03 GMT
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I think the best use for a 3 litre manual is a V6 ford based engine and box donor for something like a Scimitar. Which is exactly what I am fitting to my yellow Scimitar SE5!
Brilliant, that will be a hell of a car.
Do you have the donor yet, I know where one will be coming up in a few months
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Jan 28, 2016 13:25:12 GMT
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I have a V reg one, 3 litre petrol manual. Utterly appallingly non durable. At 69k it had a failed heater valve, all except drivers door mechs, all 4 droplinks, bottom balljoints (very difficult job) front wheelbearings, rear control arm, expansion bottle etc etc, cant remember it all. 2 1/2 years later at 98k and its had 5 window mech failures (the sea of cheap Chinese repair kits says a lot about demand) plastic parts crumble. The heating is haywire again (only does hot)rattly engine (been like that all the time), common vvt issue, rev it up to free it off with oil pressure and the noise goes. Outside temp has always been 10 degrees, rear suspension is shot at every one of the many joints and will never be worth repairing, plenty of rust, countless other faults. It does average 27mpg long term though. I wouldn't really recommend an early one, apparently they made a lot of improvements in 2002 due to them being terrible! I think the best use for a 3 litre manual is a V6 ford based engine and box donor for something like a Scimitar. Avoid early ones like the plague, my grandad has a 1999 one and it has all the issues you've mentioned above. It's the main reason I went for a 2005 one.
I agree, they are available for peanuts but even then aren't worth it, so frustrating and time consuming to keep working.
A significant problem in my eyes is the extensive use of aluminium and steel in the running gear with no thought to corrosion, its incredible how well some parts become fused together. An ABS sensor failed on mine too, of course it was held on with a tiny (M3 or 4) bolt into aluminium that was well corroded in and sheared off instantly, that was fun to drill out.
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Jan 26, 2016 23:30:13 GMT
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I have a V reg one, 3 litre petrol manual. Utterly appallingly non durable.
At 69k it had a failed heater valve, all except drivers door mechs, all 4 droplinks, bottom balljoints (very difficult job) front wheelbearings, rear control arm, expansion bottle etc etc, cant remember it all. 2 1/2 years later at 98k and its had 5 window mech failures (the sea of cheap Chinese repair kits says a lot about demand) plastic parts crumble. The heating is haywire again (only does hot)rattly engine (been like that all the time), common vvt issue, rev it up to free it off with oil pressure and the noise goes. Outside temp has always been 10 degrees, rear suspension is shot at every one of the many joints and will never be worth repairing, plenty of rust, countless other faults.
It does average 27mpg long term though.
I wouldn't really recommend an early one, apparently they made a lot of improvements in 2002 due to them being terrible!
I think the best use for a 3 litre manual is a V6 ford based engine and box donor for something like a Scimitar.
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