M Plate 1.8LS Saloon

[Robsey]

I am being over simplistic here, but if it won't last a year or two, wouldn't it be better to remove the old chassis rails and weld in new ones.?

A bit more faff, but at least the job is done once and for all.
Rather than re-visiting the whole job again in 12 to 24 months.

Easy for me to say, as I got someone else to do mine. - but I am sure that you do not want to keep going over the same jobs year after year.

Nice work though, on the whole.

[cavalier1990]

I am being over simplistic here, but if it won't last a year or two, wouldn't it be better to remove the old chassis rails and weld in new ones.?

A bit more faff, but at least the job is done once and for all.
Rather than re-visiting the whole job again in 12 to 24 months.

Easy for me to say, as I got someone else to do mine. - but I am sure that you do not want to keep going over the same jobs year after year.

Nice work though, on the whole.

That would be the best soution of course but it's finding time to do it at the moment; i do still need it as my runabout at the moment. I'm kind of planning to put this off the road hopefully next year and when dippy is out garage, AND when i get senny back on road, as would use that as my runaround - if i get finger out my ass - then i plan to strip cavy down and fix all those bits properly, plus things like bulkhead rust and at same time put sri 130 engine in it. The best laid plans n all that mind you !

[cavalier1990]

Today's job was to make up the template and panel for the rear axle mount section just behind where it pivots and weld on the rear chassis leg repair.

Also to go round the chassis legs and inner wheel wells that I had cleaned of old sealer on some old repairs and seal them up and spray them, as well as seal up the rear floor repair and spray that too.

Welding the bit behind axle was a bit of a pain, but I got a good panel made up and it looked like quite a good job once done. The rear chassis was a doddle to weld up as it is easily accessible and basically just 2 straight lines to weld.

This was after I had welded the panel on, as it is near tank and the angle I had to weld meant the welding was a bit more awkward, plus the metal here is a bit thicker than the average panel steel. So in some cases the welds don't take as well, others it can take well as the metal is slightly thinner in places. Always a good idea to hang a wet cloth over the tank edge and opposite the welding area to stop sparks going onto tank. Generally if you have a leaky or old tank that you suspect may be sweating be very careful welding near it for obvious reasons. If you can combine areas you need to weld round the tank, plus you might be looking to replace the tank, then always better to budget in taking tank out to do welding first.



Finished job and put my dynax spray pipe in behind to get a good coverage of the black gunk. There is a small rubber bung just above this area under the back seat near the door. Usually covered by the underseal sheet the manufacturer uses, easy to peel away and access the bung.



I'd already made up the chassis leg repair panel so it was just a case of welding it on


Then sealing over it with the black stuff.



I've still got a little bit on the back of the boot floor near bumper mount to fix and a wee bit on the back N/S floor where the little drain nipples are as well as paint the spare wheel well up as that had the usual spots of rust all over it.

Glad I got this done today, that is a lot of it complete. I noticed when I was under there that the anti-roll bar bushes look shot, so likely get a set of them and replace them.

[cavalier1990]

All remaining jobs above are done and tonight's job was to strip off the rear roll bar, sheesh what a job. The bolts through the bar were gubbed, managed to get them off eventually by grinding one bolt head from outside the bar and turning the whole thing from behind with grips until no bolt head remained, then shoved it through the hole. The other one was a mole grip on each end affair. The grinder doesn't reach up far enough to buzz the old bolts off so had to do it the long way.

Anyhoo bushes off, bar will get a clean and a paint as well while off.

[Robsey]

Woohoo - I bet you are pleased to get that out of the way
My old beam and anti roll bar were very heavily rusted - beyond economical repair.
A donor one was obtained in much better condition.
It was easy to strip and came up well after treatment.
- are you just painting, or stripping and powder coating.?

Do you need to weld some extra metal onto the flat ends of the rear anti roll bar?
They are known to rust and flake badly, leaving the ends a baggy fit in the rubber bush.

[Envoy CDX]

I like the progress
Personally though, for my own peace of mind that tank would have been out of the way.

[cavalier1990]

Woohoo - I bet you are pleased to get that out of the way
My old beam and anti roll bar were very heavily rusted - beyond economical repair.
A donor one was obtained in much better condition.
It was easy to strip and came up well after treatment.
- are you just painting, or stripping and powder coating.?

Do you need to weld some extra metal onto the flat ends of the rear anti roll bar?
They are known to rust and flake badly, leaving the ends a baggy fit in the rubber bush.

Gave it a buffing down tonight and rust treatment, certainly am glad to get that out of the way. I know what you mean about the beam axle, seen better days. I think I had to repair the spring seat on it last time.

I'm just going to paint the bar. I might give the axle a wire brush and some rust treatment while I'm there.

The roll bar ends look okish, seemed to still have some shape in them. will see when I get new bushes of course.

[cavalier1990]

I like the progress
Personally though, for my own peace of mind that tank would have been out of the way.

Something I know most garages would take the tank out but it can be done, at your own risk of course. As long as you know the tank isn't leaking and you have a wet cloth in the line of fire you should be ok.

[Robsey]

It also helps to have the tank out to look for hidden rust patches. And update any underseal treatment.

Although the area above my tank was in pretty good condition. Much better than the rest of the underside of my car.

[cavalier1990]

It also helps to have the tank out to look for hidden rust patches. And update any underseal treatment.

Although the area above my tank was in pretty good condition. Much better than the rest of the underside of my car.

Done that last refurb I done when I changed the tank. Not much been happening just now with cavy, last wee bit of work was the other day, putting the back seats back in, been a bit tied up with work stuff and being a way a long weekend break so hope to get a bit done tomorrow.

Got to get the reverse lights fixed then put the front N/S seat in, and build the thing back up. On the plus side I now got the handbrake new leather boot on it. As it had been quite warm the interior was warm so figured that was the time to slip the handbrake grip off, and it came off quite easily. Also got all the welds treated and the shady spray can job of the back sections of the sills done so all good.

[Robsey]

It should not be too painfull to fit two wires to the car to sort the reverse light.

Assuming you can handle basic wiring - I know some people find it confusing or daunting.

I am sure I gave the wiring info on a different thread for the reverse light switch.

Here you go - it is a fair way down the thread, but both myself and TobiaCDX give some useful info.

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=16406&p=165811&hil ... ht#p165811

Sounds like the car is nearly MOT ready.
Exciting times.

[cavalier1990]

Thanks again robsey, i was going to refer to that wiring set up once ready to do it. Hopefully once i trace the correct wires i can get a feed on to the switch. I do have a 2 litre loom that i'll use for the reverse switch plug so half way there.

[Envoy CDX]

Good luck with the MOT as it seems it is looming.

[cavalier1990]

Good luck with the MOT as it seems it is looming.

Cheers mate fingers crossed.

As I was going to build up the interior yesterday I noticed damp on the newly repaired N/S floor, so took a deep breath and decided to start stripping out the glovebox area and get in behind the foam to see if I can see where this water is coming from.

I did notice a slight brownish stain down the side from top of side kick panel area. I knew the other side at that area was leaking as I had fixed that before, so decided to have a peek in there first.

Could see the back end of the blower motor foam seal and I had done a good bit of rework there th last time I done to hopefully cure any water leaks. Replaced foam as well as it was crumbling into pieces.

I will be doing some water leak testing tonight and get to the bottom of this once and for all.

[cavalier1990]

So here's the pics of the offending rust and the water leak. I've now stripped out the plate around the blower as I needd to re-seal all of this, also the drain trunk hting was blocked solid so the water was pooling and possibly overflowing. It's going to be a patch up again at best as to really do this justice I need to remove the whole engine and all the bukhead trimmings, then cut all the rust out and replace.

This is where the water is dripping down


Random pic of the foam removed on N/S/F



The bukhead rust:



More bulkhead rust:



I've created a repair template that the elephant trunk fits into and I will secure this to where the old one was but will need to cut the old metal away and reseal the plate to the bulkhead so that it doesn't create another water trap. Then will need to reseal at the back along the channels towards the back of the new plate so the water is channeled straight out the trunk

Interesting stuff. So if you have a water leak and a car of similar age this is likely the issue.

[Tobias_CDX]

This is the result of a wet isolating mat at the outside of the bulkhead. The mat is not really necessary and for rust reasons it's better to rip it off.

[Envoy CDX]

Oh joy! Just when you think you're getting to the end.
Looking forward to seeing the progress on this one. Is it double skinned at that point? I can't remember.

[Robsey]

The matting is there for heat and sound deadening.
As such, I would agree that it is not particularly needed as there is very thick insulation on the inside of the bulkead.

Another set back, but nothing that you cannot sort out quite easily.

Just a pain if you are near the heater matrix stubs etc.
On the bright side - once it is done to your normal standard, it should not need doing for quite a few years ahead.

[Envoy CDX]

Thinking about it, for the work involved, may as well get the dash out, heater box out and all that too. There is an L shaped ledge between the floor and the bulkhead and if it's going there too you're going to need to do a far bit of graft welding wise to repair it.

[cavalier1990]

Managed to avoid taking out the heater box and dash as most of the rust was to the left of this, viewed from drivers seat. There is some rust behind servo on the bulkhead upper apron bit but only cosmetic, I can fix this next time I feel syched up enough to remove the servo! I did however remove glovebox and all the gubbins behind it so I could get to the back of the bulkhead.

I created a repair panel for the bulkhead drain, I reckoned this was a good place to start, and I decided to take off the whole old section rather than faff about trying to patch up wee bits. The end result looks pretty good, I even managed to weld some of it, but not the bottom section which is behind the heater box, don't want anything melting or going on fire in there!

I did weld it on to the upper apron of the bulkhead so it's firm enough. I then sealed along the back with panel sealer to make a nice run for water channel.

I also removed a rusty bit on N/S of bulkhead apron and a small rectangular section that was pitted I cut this out too, cut a template and made a repair panel then welded on, and treated rust above the main wiring loom hole. Here's the pics enjoy:

[Robsey]

Excellent work as always.
I hope the bottom part of the repair is sealed enough to prevent water creaping in through where you couldn't weld it.

Still another job ticked off from the "must do" list

[cavalier1990]

Excellent work as always.
I hope the bottom part of the repair is sealed enough to prevent water creaping in through where you couldn't weld it.

Still another job ticked off from the "must do" list

It was a nice line of sealant towards the trunk hole. I couldn't have welded here due to the metal being on a shaky nail, and air box behind it so just treated it with rust eater, sealed the porous bits and painted over it. The repair was quite firm due to it being welded on to the top apron and in a bit of a curve shape giving it strength.

[cavalier1990]

All the panel work is complete and primered, all I need to do is give it top coat, then put blower fan cover on and test for leak. Needless to say the blower cover will be getting sealed good and proper.

I've also just discovered a cracking in screen from bottom up about 6" with a bit of a loop in it. I hope it wasn't anything I doe when working in scuttle area, but screen is all white at this area so maybe a combination of heat and maybe I struck it at some point although I have only taken off scuttle cover from that bit.

Either way screen needs replacing anyway as it's got the white degradation right round it.

[cavalier1990]

Got stuck into finishing this bulkhead repair tonight. For some reason or another the trunk thing seemed a bit tight in the aperture hole I had made for it, perhaps the welding warped the metal a bit or something else, but the upshot was I had to file a bit more off of it.

That meant repainting the section where this goes on to. I also had to use one of the wiper mechanism bolts to tighten down the blower motor cover as one of the little plastic columns that it tightens down onto was missing/broken off. In other words the missing bolt seat meant the longer bolt was tightening up into the inner air box, but was not seating on to the top of the blower surround. Quite lucky I spotted this as I could easily have missed it.

Something fell down the front of the car last week and I wonder if that was what it was.

This would have put in vain all the efforts of sealing the cover back on, and all my repairs to stop water getting in.

I took plenty of time to properly bead seal round the blower motor cover. I laid a thick line of upol sealer round the leading edge, put it onto the car, and put a large rectangular slim brick on top to stop it springing back up. I also ran the sealer flat with finger along the edges so there wasn't any gaps.

Finally painted and lacquered the finish then sealed the elephant trunk in to the hole using upol sealer again.

Some pics:



Here's also my cracked screen



Something else I thought I wouldn't have got done tonight was the reverse lights. I shorted out the 2 pins on connector x5 with a split pin and they worked so that spurred me on.

I have got a manual wiring loom in my garage with reverse light switch. So got the X5 connector from it, pulled the yellow gate thing out that holds the pins in and removed the 2 wires for the reverse light switch. Bit of a bugger to get out, trick is to push them from behind so they come out into the connector end, and also to loosen them, then under the pin there is a little securing notch that holds the pin from coming out backwards when the plugs are pushed together.

Push this up with a little screwdriver or something thin and flat, then pull the wire and connector out.

Pulled the wires out from my loom same way and replaced with the ones from my manual loom to give me the connector for reverse light switch. Firstly though, I took the reverse light switch out as it looked a bit gloomy in the connector side of it, gave it a clean , and tested it for opening and shutting with the connector on it and using a multimeter against the wires to test resistance.

Then plugged wiring all in and put x5 back together and boom lights:



I am old and wise enough to double check the lights then went out when I took it out of reverse, just in case I'd screwed something up in the wiring.

Here's some of the wiring pics, I didn't do anything in here but was tracing the wiring to convince myself I was on the right path, plus was having a general look around at things.







While I was in there I seen these two extra plugs. What are they for?



I also got the rear anti-roll bar on as well so all in all a productive few hours tonight.

[Robsey]

Indeed a VERY productive few hours.

That crack on your screen looks exactly the same as the one that appeared on my screen about 4 years ago.
No obvious cause... it just appeared from nowhere.

Hmm lovely picks of the large X6 connector in the footwell, and the X5 connector up by the battery in the engine bay.
X5 is a nice simple connector with just a few pins in it...
X6 is enough to scare the be-jebus out of almost anyone.

I am not sure what the two connectors are...
The brown / white on the 4-pin connector made me think of a diagnostic wire. but lord knows what the other two wires are for.
And as for the 6-pin connector - not a clue, again a red would be battery live. Plain blue is usually a sensor wire of some sort - if it has a coloured stripe, it would narrow the choice down a bit.