The one in which the Oxford gets more welding..

As regular readers know, I’m somewhat in the middle of a ‘return to the road’ build of my Morris Oxford. Between myself and my mate John, we’ve been stuck in a groundhog day of grinding, cutting and welding for some time.

Last Sunday was planned to be different! Up super early, and the GSA thrummed up the road with considerable aplomb, we were ready to tackle anything..

Well, nearly anything.

This was the starting point.

Approx 1 metric shit tonne of filler appears to form the outer sill at the front.

It all had to come out and be investigated.

Sometimes I used a cold chisel, and sometimes the vicious grinder mounted wire wheel.

The sill appeared to have had a flat repair panel tacked in, and the curve was formed using several tubs of filler – somewhat akin to a plaster dado rail.

Having got this far, there was nothing for it but to chase the sill back to bare metal and see what other horrors lurked.

It wasn’t great. Not great at all. It was also filthy work.

These shoes should be bright yellow..

With most of the filler removed, we could get on with seeing what we had to work with. Out with the cutting disc and “off with her welds”..

You can see the mid sill panels we built when doing the floorpans, so we have something nice and solid to tie to.

Meantime, John had fitted a whole new wiring circuit to the unit, and we had actual light to work in.

It was felt that a break for lunch would be appropriate, so I vactan’d up the front wheel arch repair and we scarpered to scran.

Upon return, the Vactan was dry and it was time to get welding – adding in metal for the first time on the day!

This connected up and reinforced h mid sill to inner wing join. It’ll need ground back and tidied but it at least provides somewhere to start from.

In this pic, the bottom of the larger panel has not yet been welded onto the outer sill- we left it like this to allow for outer sill manipulation when lining up other repair patches. It will get tied off before being boxed in.

Next up was to salvage the one decent patch at the front. It had only been tacked on, so it was a case of applying more weld where appropriate

As you can see, the jack proved useful for positioning the outer sill.

Whils I was doing that, John was having great fun finding other outer sill patches that were required..

In his defence, he did make an awful neat job of repairing it!

There was just time to start forming up the front sill repair – handily, the old conduit pipe from the unit lights was ideal as a shaper for the curve.

Still some work to do, but we were tired and dusty by then. Hopefully we’ll get the LHS finished soon!

Achieving a (GS)A Plus! (PT 1)

I don’t excel at much here at Fu’Gutty towers, except maybe stupidity..

It’s such a thing that got me into my latest pickle (no, not Pickle Rick..).

Imagine the scene:

The day before Valentine’s Day, I sit at work sipping a cup of coffee, having a quick gander at my phone..

(Regular readers will recognise this precursor)

What should pop up, but a bargain…

Now, back in the midst of time, FuGutty cars and some good mates lost a fair few cars in a terrible unit fire.

Amongst those lost was my Citroen CX Prestige. A symphony of length, grace and gaff tape.

Here it is, resplendent in its shonky glory.

It never really worked, leaked LHM and was generally an obstreperous bugger of the highest order.

It was, however, one of the most beguiling and sublime cars I have ever owned.

Design touches abound, and the interior was splendiferous in its buttoned blue leather brilliance.

But more than that, it opened me up to the possibility that driving a car was not a task that could be made pleasurable only via feedback and interaction – instead a more subtle, measured and restrained approach could bring just as much joy.

Gone, but not forgotten, it left an indelible mark of an alternative path to motoring enjoyment.

But I have not bought another CX! No, such things are far too rich for I these days.

However, at a more accessible pricepoint, one can access an element of CXery in a more miniscule form.

Step forth the GSA. This one in particular.

So how did that happen then?

Back to the coffee. The reason for the coffee was lunchtime. And at lunch, I scout the interwebs for BARGAINZ!!!

On a forum I frequent, at 12.56pm, a member posted his GSA up for sale. By 12.59pm, I was in contact and arranging a deposit.

Why the haste?

2 main things.

Firstly, this article : by Carlton Boyce that beautifully describes the innovation and discombobulating nature of the GS/A.

Secondly, it was a left hand drive green blooded monster with MOT for an unmissable price.

Even with travel, it was a good deal.

Travel, ah yes. The bane of many a car seller:

” Good luck with the sale mate, it’s too far from me”

“Can I have £100 off as I need to travel 100 miles”

Etc etc etc.

Just bloodywell MAN UP and get on with it.

A flight to Exeter beckoned. For a 38 year old, bought sight unseen French car. With LHM, and an air-cooled boxer 4 cyl.

All good.

But was it?

Not quite.

Day of intended collection dawned. 15″ of snow lay on the ground.

All flights were off, so a reschedule was called for.

This also resulted in a change of travelling partner – the good lady being somewhat constrained by employment. Step forth Sir Brutha_touring of Roadtrip.

After a further two weeks, most of the snaw had melted and we could take the metal bird to the southlands.

Upon landing, we were excited* to collect our Corsa hire car..

Hiring this plus fuel was not only £20 cheaper than using public transport, it halved the distance and cut travel time in 3 .

Much bland driving but spectacular scenery followed. until.

What a looker! Matt, the seller flung me the keys, and she fired straight up.

Immediately I was confident. No test drive for me, just straight off into the unknown!

The continued Travels of the Oxford

Poor Bodicea, she had been patiently waiting since early Feb for further treatment of her ailments.

Early March saw another session of welding commence.

First up was to make the tie/closing panels for the front footwell. This consisted of an L return in curved panel, and a flattish plate for the floor to wheelarch join.

This is the tie panel for the A pillar to the wheelarch. It took a long time to get that level of fit – it’s not the prettiest, but once fully welded in, it’s more than strong enough!

With the flat panel at the bottom added in, that was the front footwell finally welded up!

I applied some supahdoopa to the inside of the car, in the hope of staving off rust.

Next up was heading to the rear of the car for more exploration (whilst John finished off the rear floor/mid and inner sill welding).

Underneath the filler, there was some actual metal. It withstood the joy of a grinder mounted wire wheel, so I hit it up with some rust protection.

Additinally I cleaned up the floor section to the chassis rail/spring hanger – again it was in decent condition.

I intend to continue cleaning it up and preserving it over time – hopefully if I can protect the currently solid parts it’ll minimise what else is going to need welded in the future.

Speaking of welding, the welder had a jam, so some time was lost sorting that out!

You can see a small hole in the gas line in the pic above – so that line needs replaced now too.

Next up was the thorny issue of the outer sill/front wing.

Not in the best of shape, so we stripped the wing retaining panel off the A pillar.

With that removed, we could swing the wing outwards and assess the mess therein.

The worst seemed to be on the sill – it looks like a fair bit of work will be required. Isopon shares had obviously received a big bump when this car was last done..

Fucksocks. We stopped for the day!

Progress where once there was none..

“The beast from the east”, “Snowpocalypse 2018” – call it what you will. But we all know that to which I refer.

I called it”Damned inconvenient”, given that a large volume of snow in a short period of time wreaked havoc with my plans for automotive progress.

We left off the last blog with 3 inconvenient truths:

1. The Toledo needed work for its MOT, and time was running low for the 10 day retest.

2. “It was the wrong driveshaft Gromit” for the good lady’s Clio 172

3. The other Clio 172 needed the rear brakes sorting, should it wish to continue in service.

The obvious place to start was in repaiing the car with no MOT or gearbox oil..

Brutha_touring had managed to source a used driveshaft with sound gaitor for Babette (#54). All that lay between us and success was some snow.

Luckily, it was not yet frozen, so could be shovelled out of the way.

Fitting the new driveshaft was relatively simple, due to multiple practice runs. She was back together in relatively short order.

That done we gingerly moved her out of the space in front of the house, and down to the “waiting projects holding cell”.

It was now dark, and cold. Ideal brake fettling weather!

With #60 moved into position, the carrier was stripped, and the 30mm retaining nut holding the disc removed.

It was not pretty! An obvious failure of the disc across the bell and friction areas that appeared to have been some time in the making.

Time for the new disc

We called it a night at that.

The next day it was time for the passenger rear. All in all, a simple repair.

This done it was test drive time.

Almost immediately, it was obvious that the right rear caliper was sticking on – and it’s likely that was at least partially to blame for the disc failure.

Oh well, time for a strip down and clean.

The dust boot round the piston was poor, and the piston itself was dirty.

We got it wound out (lefty loosey), removed the seal and cleaned everything up with brake cleaner. We replaced the seal with a better spare one and wound the piston back in.

The sliders were not in great shape – they need to be if the floating caliper set up is to work correctly.

Between the ones on the car and spares from a second caliper, we got the best pair sorted and cleaned.

Some reassembly followed by spirited testing revealed a working setup that didn’t constantly drag.

I was now up to one working car!

Aiming for a doubling of working fleet size, it was the Toledo’s turn for fettling.

I’d already sorted the failure for incorrect headlight pattern by fitting the passenger bulb retaining clip correctly. That left 3 things.

“Parking brake lever insecure”

Resolved by tightening the two 13mm bolts holding the lever to the floor.

“Offside front coil spring broken”

Out again with the dugga dugga, and off with the 3 nuts/bolts (21mm top, 19mm strut onto hub).

Aye that’s buggered.

Judicious application of screwdriver and torx drive = deconstructed strut.

Repair and replacement was the reverse of removal.

Lastly, “rear brake load sensing valve siezed”

This is a common failure for there sorts of car – it only really comes into play if the car has heavy loads in the boot – not an everyday occurrence, so they stick.

Some remonstrating fluid and wiggling later, we had a moving load sensing valve.

Shortly thereafter, I was in receipt of a pleasingly clean piece of paper.

It was pressed into use the very next day, but that’s for another post!