G89 VFW (Project) Time for some TLC

[Hell Driver]

I finally got back to work on the car on Thursday, painting the valance. I got the new cambelt fitted just before Christmas, on the 18th December but work stopped when the snow and ice arrived. Now it's warming up and I can face it again (8 degrees C seems tropical now!)

So on with the belt cover, aux. belt, new (well nearly new) rad. and fan etc, refill with water and the moment of truth....will it run ?

Thank god for that

Running fine, in fact sounds smoother than before! Old belt was very old and done too many miles.

So, chuffed with my first solo cambelt change I thought I'd celebrate with a much need coolant flush and oil change.
Flushed coolant, not too dirty to say it's sat in there 6 years! (but not many miles) Then drained oil (pretty clean as it only did 8000 miles before car was taken off road) and put in flushing oil. Refilled with new coolant and then oil after fast idle for 10min. Checked for leaks. Coolant Ok. But whats this? a fine spray of something wet off the sodding engine. At first I thought it was water but then found it was OIL .

How the hell could changing the oil cause a leak? I didn't spill any on the engine and it wasn't there before the oil change.
But there it is, a very fine spray coming off the crank pulley all over everything in line with it, including my face
Now the car never used to leak, yes there was a lot of old sticky oil from minor leaks over the last 120,000 miles and 20 years, but it never dripped or sprayed oil like this before.

Ok I thought, is it crank shaft oil seal or cam shaft? So off with the timing cover. There was quite a streak of oil from the cam shaft area but after wiping it barely came back, so maybe crank shaft? Still oil spraying and now dripping onto floor. This really starting to p*ss me off.

I left it running for a while to see just how much oil it was loosing, and if it would get worse. I was just wondering how big a sponge I would need to hide in the engine cover to soak up the oil during an M.O.T. (I think very excessive leaks can fail? I may be wrong but an eyefull of hot oil won't do you any favours ) when...

As if by magic...no spray of oil and drip stops

I don't believe it, so I run it at 2000 rpm for 60 seconds and yes, no more oil.

Anyone had this before?

My ideas are,

1) Flushing oil has damaged oil seals (maybe short term effect)
2) Over zealous cleaning of old oil gunge around seals that was preventing/ soaking up oil leaks
3) Too rapid filling of flushing oil (which is a thin oil) in cam cover leading to short term build up of oil there which leaked through cam seal (which has had a long term slight leak). This oil then flowed down to crank shaft and pulley and has now all been sprayed off.

Sorry for long post, but it's a tricky one!

[sven360]

Flushing oil

Sounds like it's gummed back up.

Best left alone and just do regular oil changes.

[Hell Driver]

I take it your not a fan of flushing oil . I've always used it on other vehicles with no problems, won't do on this one next time!

[jtbo]

My car has been off the road because of oil leak that sounds similar, except it does not stop leaking, not even if I replace all seals using great care, also I did seal cam cover and cover that is at front of engine, crank shaft seal housing is in that cover, but it does leak still, can't pinpoint where it leaks, but there is not many places left, maybe head gasket spills oil to crank pulley or something like that is what I have been suspecting, anyway for me it is pretty much taking off whole engine and do it thoroughly from bottom to top, maybe after that thing stops leaking and this started with minor leak like yours, but got such bad that it does spill oil all over the place and cambelt gets wet from oil, which make it snap very easily, cambelt material and oil are not good match at all.

[nomead]

Just a general note about old engines, don't use oil that's too low in viscosity. All this 0W40 crap that's sold nowadays will just come squirting out of any small holes. 10W40 or even 15W50 for the win.

[jtbo]

Castrol TWS motorsport 10w60 = win, that is only oil that I put into my Volvo, well I could consider Kendall Elite racing 10w60 also.

Citroen must do with cheap brand called 'Alpha' or something like that, in 240 I used heavy truck oil, 10w30 I think it was, always bought 25l of it for under 3€/l, damn thing needed 7 liters each oil change and had to change oils to that one monthly, so with other oils it became bit expensive

I think that never ever I have used 0w oil, there just is no need for such, they cause more problems than make any good, imo.

[Hell Driver]

Good point, I wondered at first if it was just flushing oil running out cos it's thinner. The new oil I put in is 10w40 semi-synthetic. I think I used to use 15w40 mineral so maybe thats made it leak a bit more. Good news is I started the car from cold yesterday and although it did drip for a couple of minutes, it wasn't too bad and didn't get onto the pulley. Once the engine warmed up it stopped completely.

[Hell Driver]

The front valance is nearly finished now, just got to waxoil or similar the inside and put in and connect up the fog lights (made brackets up already). Also going to sort out how to finish off around them as they sit back inside (as on a 360). I might cut some glass to fit flush with the valance to keep all the crap out.

Tonight I've made a start on the rust on the rear cross member between the diff and the fuel tank. This is one of the things that the car failed on when I last M.O.T.'d it 6 years ago. Got to be the longest ever return for a re-test Wonder if I'll have to pay again £40 now...I remember when it used to be £15 and it wasn't that long ago.
I've taken the tank off cos of the welding required in the tank and fuel pipes area. Not too bad a job, just got to be careful and plug the tank filler tube as soon as it's off, the fumes really pour out, you can see them No naked lights/phones or sparks . The tanks virtually empty (probably more dangerous than full cos of the fumes) but nice and light! I've found out why so much petrol used to pour onto the ground if I filled the tank to the top...most of the metal hose clips have rusted away almost to nothing. Lots of new pipes and clips required here. Worst part was holding one of the fixing nuts, you just can't get a spanner in anywhere on the rear drivers side corner. Had to make one to jam in out of an old bike spanner. Luckily, I had a tow bar fitted not long before I stopped using the car so the nuts and bolts were like new. If not I think I'd have had to grind that one off.

Tanks very rusty on top, needs painting. Sounds like theres a lot of bits inside too

Rust holes to fix

[classicswede]

Sorry I did not get time to show you the poly bushes. I need to update the offer thread with pictures soon anyway.

The project is coming on well.

[Hell Driver]

Thanks, thats ok, I would have stayed a lot longer but Rachel wasn't feeling to well. I'm not sure if it needs new ones for the M.O.T. but I'd like to change them anyway at some point as they are cracked. I was aiming to get the car on the road for the beginning of April, but I don't think I'll make it, each time I take a bit off I find something else to clean fix or paint as it's not likely to come off again! I'm trying to stick to the M.O.T. stuff really.
If those poly bushes are available for the radius arms I should really order some now, how long would they take?

[jtbo]

My (not so good) estimate of situation is that it looks quite bad, I'm not too sure if TLC will puff that one in full glory.

What worries me is that there are lot of rust in structural beams and seams/joints of structural beams, even if you do get it all cleaned and painted, there probably is still lot of rust inside those boxy sections, that will continue to weaken structure from inside and as there is new paint on other side it will take long time until it shows signs of itself and that could mean there is not much of strength left in structure.

However you know it much better, front of monitor looking pics it is quite impossible to say anything for sure, that just does look quite far gone what I see in pics, it might require quite extensive restoration to get all that rust out so there would not be future problems in let's say 3 to 5 years from now. Just throwing something to think about.

My car had quite badly rotten diff crossmember too, when we took it off it was much worse that what it did look, screwdriver was easily pushed trough from almost any place, it was miracle how it did hold there so long. Had to get new one from Volvo.

There is lot of work, but you seem to be doing fine, so keep up the good progress

[Hell Driver]

It is a bit of a mess under there, but I'll be welding plates over the holes after a good clean up. Yes it's not ideal, you can't easily get to rustproof the welded area. I'm using weldable primer and will try to get waxoil into the box sections, but yes it will rust again, maybe faster than first time but it has taken 20 years and 130,000 miles to get this bad. I will probably use the car all year (unlike the 360 I have for just summer) but I don't drive to work (I work from home using the transit). We also have the scenic (my wife's car) so it won't get a great deal of winter use anyway, maybe just a search for empty snowy car-parks in winter
I was a bit concerned about the cross member that holds the diff, it does look very rusty. But it's not got holes in and and if I can't make holes in it with a screwdriver & hammer it must be ok . I may take it off to check/paint or replace it in future once car has an M.O.T.
The petrol tank top was bad. I've cleaned it up and it was ok, no holes but I reckon many older cars out there may be close to rusting through where you can't see it.

EDIT Looking at the photos, it does look worse than it is. Some of the rust spots surrounding the worst areas are just very minor surface rust I'm going to treat while I'm there.

[jtbo]

Sounds good

Here we have black tar under cars, that was added by a dealer (required by the law at 80's), so that stuff hides quite well all the rust until things go really bad. If people would just add some waxoil yearly there would be no problem, but that seem not to be done to majority of especially older cars. Your country seem not to have such law, it is easier to see whole situation when under the car, so to some extend that is better, even there is bit less protection on early years.

Design of that diff area is such that all road salt and such have kind of shelf to sit there, keeping surfaces damp and salty, which causes quite lot of corrosion. It is also quite difficult to keep clean, without removing lot of parts, so indeed many cars will have problems on that area.

[Chris_C]

Top of 340 tank is super common for rusting out

Any chance you can cut out and refit metal rather than plating? You'll only be putting off the inevitable otherwise!

[classicswede]

Thanks, thats ok, I would have stayed a lot longer but Rachel wasn't feeling to well. I'm not sure if it needs new ones for the M.O.T. but I'd like to change them anyway at some point as they are cracked. I was aiming to get the car on the road for the beginning of April, but I don't think I'll make it, each time I take a bit off I find something else to clean fix or paint as it's not likely to come off again! I'm trying to stick to the M.O.T. stuff really.
If those poly bushes are available for the radius arms I should really order some now, how long would they take?

I keep those bushes in stock normaly so can get them to you within a couple of days of ordering. If they are craked they could pass the MOT but they will need replacing. Just to cheer you up quite often if those bushes are cracked the holders can be quite corroded and need some repair. You can sometimes find the hole the rod goes through has opened up and will need a washer welding in to repair it. That is not always the car sometime just minimal surface rust but other wise fine. It is nice to see someone dealing with rust on a 300 series.