Your car is so nice dude! Nice to see her on the road m8

M.O.T. time comes round too sodding quick

A day late I went for the M.O.T. on Thursday last week. Failed just on one thing, broken offside front coil spring, with an advisory on worn bottom ball joints on the front suspension and a long standing windscreen stone chip.

Can't believe I'd not noticed it, but it was right at the bottom. But I do remember hearing an unexplained bang a while ago now I think about it

As soon as I got home I shuffled cars around to get the spring off a parts car I have. But soon decided that the best option to avoid future problems is to put new standard ones on both sides and renew both bottom ball joints. Also some new dampers might as well go in while the struts are off.

This was the state of play that evening....


Spring cups in pretty good condition, just need claening up and repainting.

Not too much corrosion in the turret, just surface rust to be treated.

I thought I'd better bring this thread up to date, as I abandoned it 6 months ago!

On dismantling the struts I found one of the orange foam rubber bump stop things very much in bits, so I went to the scrapyard for the struts from the GLT in the hope they had better one(s) (which I was grabbing anyway) These had one good one left so I managed to make up a good pair which seam to have escaped the photo!

After some new parts, a few days and some cleaning/painting I ended up with these!







I had the springs removed/remounted at the garage (which they kindly did for free!). The top bearings were fine, just needed a good clean and new grease. The spring cups were also in good condition so I cleaned them up and they painted up well (hammerite). The brown is undercoat as I intend finishing in black hammerite when they are back on the car. This still needs doing

It was all ready by the 16th June and the M.O.T. was passed

Another job which had come up was the water pump, this had leaked on the Trip to Theo's, Cornwall, in January (2011) and lost a lot of water. A new one had been waiting for a few months (the leak had blocked up again!). I decided to change it as with the stress of towing, it would be too much to expect it to not fail again.



I had the rumbling offside rear wheel bearing renewed by the garage before our first caravan journey. One final touch was some new, 1970's early 80's, raised style number plates! Ordered pressed aluminium but they sent the far more expensive older style ones by mistake!

The rebuilt struts/bottom joints proved to be well worth the effort, the steering felt much better and the see-sawing with you get with a caravan was much less due to the as new springs.

Caravan Capers to follow!

Knapp Hill, Wiltshire, 29th July 2011

Just a couple of recent photos, the winter steels and skinny tyres have been on for a while now, found some nice stainless steel for them on ebay a few weeks ago, I never was keen on plastic wheel trims of any kind! The wheels themselves are quite rusty now, could do with a rub down and repaint. Those front tyres were on the car when I bought it in 2001 The rears must be almost as old!

I much prefer how that looks compared to the wheel trims. Now get some back to black on them bumpers

Hi mate
The car doesn't owe you a penny
Still looks good.
Cheers Mark.

MCHUDD wrote:Hi mate
The car doesn't owe you a penny
Still looks good.
Cheers Mark.

No, just quite a few hours of work! I'm amazed how rust free it appears to be! The paint work is in pretty good shape, lucky all the rust has all been in out of sight places. A car cover has really helped since it's been back on the road and no longer stored in the garage. It's always covered when not in use, helps to stop all the rain running through the panels and finding ways to leak through seals!

Quick update.

M.O.T. passed this morning with no advisories

Better than last year with the broken spring fail!

Although we all dislike M.O.T. time it, no one wants to drive around in a deathtrap. Those new front springs, ball joints and dampers I put in (with the new rear dampers I put in the year before) have improved the car a lot. Although just standard, it does at least handle as intended, which is better than most give them credit for after forming an opinion by driving saggy old tired ones. It's still a boat, but at least the tires don't rub on the top of the wheel arches now and when towing the caravan, a lot of the nasty front to back see-sawing has gone.

The rust has been kept a bay by trying not to use it in the rain if I don't need to and keepring it under a car cover....the cover has now become non-waterproof due ice from 2 bad winters. I need to find a better more durable one, it still keeps the bird crap and dirt light rain off but heavy rain soaks through. It was good for about 1 1/2 years, fully waterproof.

I put a new dist. cap and rotor arm on before the M.O.T. and cleaned the crank sensor as I thought the engine seamed a tiny bit rough. Later realised I'd been spoilt by driving the GLS for it's M.O.T. on Tuesday and the 1.7 's just like that anyway Won't do it any harm. Air filter checked, bit grubby but not time for another just yet. Spark plugs OK, oil's still clean and only 3400 miles old. Will change oil and air filter before the summer holiday driving, if sodding summer gets here that is. Alloys are back on now.

The car got a small dent on the wing the other week, some clumsy sod caught it with a bit of wood but denied it. Thought it was a filler/paint job. Took it to the place near us that does respray/accident work. They got a mobile dent man to come in and I can't say how good he was at getting it out, perfect again wouldn't be going too far.

Not earthshattering modification stuff, pretty run of the mill stuff really....but I'm happy

I promise to start the Mk 1 project this year, this summer, next week in fact....I'm clearing the workspace now, just the exceuse of the BKV to stop me getting on with it!

When getting the car ready for the M.O.T. earlier this year I replaced the dist. cap and rotor arm as I though the old ones (only about 2 years and 8000 miles old) were a bit worn looking. I'm wondering if this a reasonable mileage to replace at or early. It does quite a bit of towing so I expect more ware than normal.

New rotor arm on the left was almost identical to old one but the made in France mark had been sanded off. At first I thought it was the wrong one as it didn't fit but after making the hole bigger by sanding the edge it went on.

Old one below, is this level of spark erosion enough to cause problems?

Name on new cap below. Caps seam identical but different names.

When getting the car ready for the M.O.T. earlier this year I replaced the dist. cap and rotor arm as I though the old ones (only about 2 years and 8000 miles old) were a bit worn looking. I'm wondering if this a reasonable mileage to replace at or early. It does quite a bit of towing so I expect more ware than normal.

New rotor arm on the left was almost identical to old one but the made in France mark had been sanded off. At first I thought it was the wrong one as it didn't fit but after making the hole bigger by sanding the edge it went on.

Old one below, is this level of spark erosion enough to cause problems?

Name on new cap below. Caps seam identical but different names and the made in Italy stamp on old one blotted out on the new one and made in germany stamped on. Strange goings on.

Quick update from last few jobs done, bit late, from August last year!

I decided to tackle a "small" bit of rust below the back light. I'd noticed a bit of dampness in the boot once and have seen water inside the bodywork below the light when changing bulbs and here was the culprit.





A few years ago I'd have been tempted to fibre glass and fill this but I decided to weld it to maintain a bit more strength. I didn't weld to the top seam as the paint above is fine and I wanted all the repairs to be out of sight without messing about above. Still got to be better than just filler! I tried to shape the metal a bit to avoid it standing proud after smoothing over with filler, although it's out of sight anyway. The idea was to make it smooth so water will run off too.



I found that the whole length of the seam above was quite rusty (surface mainly) and had a few small holes in which was tracking water back through the seam an into the internal space where the lights are. After a lot of wire brushing I smoothed it all off with filler to track the water down and away.



I decided just to paint on some metalic grey smooth hammerite I had spare, as it's out of sight anyway.. No messing about masking off and I could put it on nice and thick to make it smooth.



While the bumper was off I swapped the bumper brackets and bumper metal (which were all very rusted) for some much better ones and painted the brackets with the same paint. Also had to repair a broken clip.





At some point years ago there must have been a slight incident which broke the clip as I can see a slight dent in around the fixing on the wing.



While I was waiting for all the paint to dry I decied to replace the headlamps with some good ones I got a while ago from a scrapyard. The old ones had a lot of white bits of corrosion on them and the reflectors were getting poor. Both headlamp wipers now work.





Jack drives a car for the first time aged 7, feet on the pedals and using the clutch! (note my hand on the ignition key )

Brilliant stuff, nice welding job. I think I drove my first car about that age too in much the same way, sitting on my grandfather's lap in his Hyundai Pony pickup (A792 KJC).

Hi Andy.
Great repare work there mate.
I like your front grill. Did you do that yourself?
Cheers Mark.

MCHUDD wrote:Hi Andy.
Great repare work there mate.
I like your front grill. Did you do that yourself?
Cheers Mark.

Thanks, its just a Mk2 grill with the silver surround sprayed black, the lights are fixed to metal brackets behind, bolted to the bodywork to avoid movement. They fit nicely into the grill with the squares. (had to cut out some). Bumper fitment not quite right as it's Mk2 grill on a Mk 3 bumper, but it's only a slight gap and only we would notice that

Hell Driver wrote:....its just a MY82-85 grill with the silver surround sprayed black

Must be a GL thing. I don't recall mine (a DL) having a silver surround.


DSCF1292 by macplaxton, on Flickr