stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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Jan 15, 2014 17:59:55 GMT
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For the past few years I have been using my Triumph GT6 as a daily driver, but the bad winter roads and the need to take tools and things to a ship I am working on made me think about getting an alternative car. I was looking for a Herald estate but this Bluebird came up local and for a good price, so here she is; She was pretty clean but I have been going over her again with clay bar, Sonus polish and then Colonite wax to stop the red paint going pink. Armed with a few goodies I set about trying to re-find some of the horses she might have lost over the years. One of the first tasks was to replace the distributor cap as it was in two pieces, but still running. Just to make things interesting, the lower cap screw was close on seized in the dizzy, so I had to carefully work it out to make sure it didn't break off. With the cap off, I also replaced the rotor arm. The one in there was a genuine Nissan part, so perhaps it hasn't been replaced for quite a while, it certainly need replacing. Plug leads are on order and hopefully should be here for the weekend. With the cold weather coming I dipped the coolant and despite it having a new radiator recently, it smelt off and was very brown in colour, so a flush was called for. I've re-filled it with just water for now after back flushing it, so I can go for another short run before flushing it through again. The bodywork is in pretty good condition, so when the weather warms up again I'll coat it with Dinitrol. The front drivers wing is the worst with the front lower section probably being more filler that metal, so I'm on the look out for another if anyone knows where I could get one.
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Last Edit: Mar 24, 2015 13:33:42 GMT by stevea
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Jan 15, 2014 18:08:55 GMT
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It's a nice car. The brown coolant could be an indication of a head gasket on its way out.
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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Jan 16, 2014 19:48:14 GMT
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I hope it isn't the head gasket, but I'll keep an eye out for that. I've flushed it out a few more times and this time have added some vinegar in the hope it will loosen of some of the corrosion.
This evenings job was to fit the new plug leads and much to my surprise while fitting them I found that three of the spark plugs were finger tight. With them tightened up and new leads, the engine is running much better.
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Jan 17, 2014 10:22:53 GMT
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That looks very smart indeed... Do you have any plans for the 'look' of the car?
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***GARAGE CURRENTLY EMPTY***
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ud-uk
Part of things
Living the French dream!
Posts: 334
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Jan 17, 2014 17:24:44 GMT
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Nice to see another old Bluey serving reliable daily duties.
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1991 Transit Dormobile, The Sweet Bus - SOLD - Now trading in the Bristol area
1991 Mercedes 230 CE - She's a Beauty
1987 Renault Express van - SOLD-
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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So over the past few weeks I've been working my way through all of the routine maintenace jobs that I have a feeling might not have been done for a while, replacing the air filter and the thermostat so she comes up to temperature quicker. While on the search for a speed related I noise I found a knackered rear wheel bearing, which was pretty easy to relpace, but unfortunately did not cure the noise. Looking further forward I noticed there is some slack between the driveshafts and front wheels, which I believe is coming from the CVs (hopefully not the driveshaft splines) So I've ordered up a couple new CV joints in the hope it will take up the slack and noise. To make checking for leaks easier and generally making it nicer to work in, the engine bay got a quick scrub too. Before; After; After numerous flushes, the cooling system has finally been filled with an anti-freeze mix. No doubt it'll benefit from another flush in a year or so, but it's got to be much better than it was.
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Nice, I really liked by Bluebirds. The Nikki carb on my 1.6 was a little temperamental and the stupid emissions over-run valve drove me crazy but overall a really easy car to work on, reliable also. You do get a lot of toys for a fairly base-model (LX) also...
Mine was full of nasty old brown coolant- I think it was the original, where the colorant they used had gone a nasty shade. Flushed it through a bunch of times and refilled it with the proper stuff. the kept its' colour until I sold it. These do suffer from giffer maintenance (ie, it's running so it doesn't need any). Mine responded well to setting the valve clearances properly, threw a new cambelt on it at the same time (easy-peasy job!).
Enjoy it, it looks like a nice example. Yes, the headlights are curse word on all of them.
--Phil
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Last Edit: Feb 1, 2014 17:56:21 GMT by PhilA
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I've got a working 1.6 carb for this if you need one (for postage). Think it's a Hitachi carb on these, which explains why they can fail (Nikki's are great).
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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Mar 11, 2014 17:15:35 GMT
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Thanks for the offer David, I might take you up on that offer as the carb does seem to be a little temperamental with it's tickover speed. Today was time for the MOT and in preparation for this I had fashioned a new exhaust downpipe gasket from a piece of copper as the old one had disintegrated, outer CV's and boots were also replaced for good measure. And the result of the MOT was a fail, the first time I'd had a car fail a MOT for almost ten years. Fortunately the list is not too long; Indicator repeater not working - just need to clean contacts Front ant-roll bar drop link failed - new one on order Rear anti-roll bar bush failed - now this one is not so easy, bush is not available from my local motor factors and I've not been able to find anything online yet. I've mailed a couple of people on ebay breaking Bluebirds to see if I can get a second hand one, but I wonder if it might end up easier removing it and any brackets to get through the MOT? It's such a weedy looking thing that I doubt it does much.
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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Jul 31, 2014 16:27:20 GMT
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So the Bluebird has been giving me good service since the MOT, the only job I had done until recently was finally sort out the intermittent headlight, which needed a wiggle on the contacts, this was replaced with another connector I had in my pile of bits. To come onto the current problem, a couple of weeks ago the battery light came on while driving, so I turned off anything electrical to save battery power, but by the time I had got home the light had gone out completely. This happened again a week ago and the light went out again and I still hadn't got round to putting a multimeter across the battery, the light goes out so it must be charging, right? So last night I got back home, stopped the car to wait for other cars to move out of the way before parking up for the night, but when I went to re-start, it only pushed the engine very limply significantly dimming the headlights, that'll be a flat battery then. With the battery charged up enough to start the engine I checked the battery voltage with the engine running, a steady 12v, hmm... it's not charging then and the light has gone out on the dash. I don't really want to buy a whole new alternator so I'll see if I can find somewhere to buy a regulator pack for it. Just to top things off, I had a check around the engine bay and found that the rubber fuel hoses have been chewed, so they'll need replacing also as one is just about gone through. It's probably due to a squirrel, one of the injector lines on my GT6 was chewed all the way through last month, spraying high pressure petrol in the engine bay. Fortunately no damage was done, though it could have been much worse.
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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Mar 24, 2015 13:32:02 GMT
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Another year and all too soon it was time for the MOT again. To bring things up to date, the charging problem mentioned above was traced down to corroded contacts at the regulator pack, but the pack was changed anyway just to be sure. There was a couple of jobs I knew would need doing for the MOT, firstly the drivers side front wheel arch. This had been 'repaired' by a previous owner using bits of aluminium and chemical metal, but had fallen out some weeks ago. I don't have a shrinker/stretcher and didn't want to remake it out of multiple pieces of steel or excessive filler, instead I managed to find an old wing from another car, which just about fits in there. I know it is quite the right shape, but does fill the hole and keep it legal. Ideally, it could be best in the long run to try and find a replacement wing. The second job was to be the exhaust, I knew it was blowing at the back box and had hoped I'd be able to patch it, but as I looked closer I found half the pipe connected was pretty rotten too. Rather than waste time trying to bodge it I bought a new complete section, which received a coat of paint before fitting. Up she goes on the ramps. Fitting was pretty straightforward with all the necessary fasteners coming undone without too much of a struggle, helped by being given a squirt of ferrosol the night before. Then today was the MOT, which it passed with only a couple of minor advisories and the usual comment from the tester about how unusual it is to see Bluebirds and how solid it is underneath. And next? It's been super reliable but I fancy a change, perhaps something a bit smaller and preferably hatchback or estate, so if anyone wants a swap for something with a MOT, please let me know.
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