Scrapyard Dodger 24v Carlton GSi G624XME

[chris y]

Its been a long time since I posted, a lot has happened since, with some real low points but yesterday a real high when it passed its MOT first time with no advisories. Its not finished but the MOT is a real milestone and now I can road test and take it to where I can work on it.
I cant remember exactly what was done when but lots of small jobs got done and I prepared an interior from the best parts of two interiors, I cleaned everything and did some careful repairs to the door cards.
I haven’t got any pics of the bits before fitting but the seats turned out to be fantastic after a clean, the usual worn drivers seat bolsters are great, the seats are probably a good enough standard for a restoration which makes me think of selling them to someone who needs them to fund some aluminium seats.
The rear headrests are commonly dried up and split along the top on these due to sun through the back window but it turns out front headrests are the same as rears but with different posts, so I used four fronts to make a really good set.
I’ll post some interior pics later.
First, I cant remember if I posted this, the final patch count is 188



Here are a couple of other odd bits.
Here are those sunroof drains rerouted from inside of the sills earlier, now exiting inside the front wheelarches once the liners were refitted.


New aerial mounting grommet, and you cant see it but the aerial mount remade to fit around the bigger spare wheel well.


I made a new heatshield for the rear silencer.




Next a real low point.
This whole build has been done in a garage without power etc at my allotment as mentioned earlier. Well, someone decided that they wanted my allotment or garage or wanted to frighten me. I arrived one day to find death threats, warnings that someone was looking for me and to get out of my place within one week or it would be burned down.
I’m no tough guy and this really shook me up, I panicked and asked family to help, the same day we transported the unfinished car and whatever parts and tools we could to my home where the car fortunately fitted in my back yard. I had to complete the rest of the project outdoors and with no pit, it was a bit of a setback.

The threats were reported to the police who were great, they did lots of interviewing and made their presence known. I spent some paranoid evenings waiting at the allotment for the person to come back but they didn’t (thankfully as what I was doing was really stupid) Word got around the place that everyone was looking out for me and the police were making their presence felt and nothing more happened. Unfortunately though the damage is done, I’ll never feel safe there and will never keep another car there.

A couple of example pics, there was a lot more –






The next big job was to put an engine and gearbox together for it in the next post.

[georgeb]

Nice work on the MOT, not so good on the allotment though. Glad nothing seems to have happened. Local loony?

[pistonpopper]

Fark! That would have scared the poop out of.me!! Congratulations on getting the MOT though, excellent work.

[darrenh]

tenner says it was teenagers, thats not to play it down mid you

i know we cant un-tell our brains from thinking its personal, laying awake all night running through thousands of scenarios, is it that bloke i cut up at the esso garage, maybe that guy from work whos always had a problem with me. in reality the chances of someone actually maliciously deliberately pursuing you personally, due a grudge, and actually following it through, is probably slim to none

[chris y]

Thanks for the comments gents.

Darrenh, I'm sure you are right that its not personal, but I do think there is a real chance that someone jealous wants to force me out so that they can take over the garage and garden we have turned from a derelict mess to a great place over eight years. Scum are lazy and jealous, try to take what they want.
I don't want it to escalate to personal if they wont give up and decide to try more dirty tricks but I have let it be known that I'll never leave and would flatten it to the ground before anyone else would get it.

Anyway, hopefully its in the past and I can just tell you about the car and not any more of that kind of stuff.

[skoze]

I'm with Darren - bet it's some yoofs. Having said that, i'd have done the same - not worth the risk and fairly scary to boot when it's a total unknown!

Good work on the MOT, great to see one saved and due for use! We had K650 WNA for a family wagon when I was a kid, did a timing chain, motor got rebuilt, then it got driven into by some curse word in a Volvo, languished in a yard for 8 years, got passed on to a mate who wanted to take it to the ring. The car clearly disagreed though, as it snapped the timing chain again! Pretty sure that was scrapped immediately after... Shame, was such a lovely car.

Hope you enjoy yours!

[chris y]

Jun 8, 2016 16:58:58 GMT skoze said:

 

Hope you enjoy yours!

Cheers fella

I fixed a couple of faults today and went in it to help a friend with his Vauxhall rot rescue and thoroughly enjoyed driving it after all this time.

[chris y]

Engine and gearbox next, in the interest of saving time I’ll dump these pics here with maybe not great explanations.

Light single mass flywheel from TTV, beautiful thing.

Sprung friction plate from C&G motorsport.









Dual ram bits being cleaned and assembled onto painted casting. Larger bore throttle body bought from an ABS member years ago and not used until now.





A new exhaust manifold heatshield as the old one was in bad condition and the bolt holes had pulled through. The new one is double skinned stainless, 0.6 and 0.4mm the idea being improved insulation without too much weight.



You can see it under some other stuff that needs protecting from excessive heat here



The injectors were sent away for servicing and testing.


The water pumps on these engines originally had metal impellers but the one in the engine was making a lot of noise so no good. Metal impeller pumps are / were almost impossible to find but the plastic impeller ones can fail.
I had a plastic impeller pump that had had its impeller disintegrate while fitted to this engine (not a nice experience) but was otherwise OK, so swapped the metal impeller onto the pump that was a plastic one. It worked




The sump plug in the engine looked suspect so in the years I ran the car I always changed the oil via the dipstick tube, now time to take the plug out.
It was in fact half a spark plug



The sump was no good, badly helicoiled and cracked so I machined a big hole in it and made up a bung with a sensible thread to take an easily available sump plug with O ring seal, the original was a stupid design, shallow threads in alloy and a copper washer that needs quite a good tighten to seal.
Sadly the sump plug is a F**d item, I don’t think the car has noticed though.





My more skilled cousin welded it in for me



Lots of new gaskets and timing chain guides from Germany, not a cheap engine to rebuild and mine isn’t anywhere near a full rebuild.



Timing chain guide location pin.
To change the guides without removing the head you have to destroy this and fit a new one.
GM don’t have them any more (like so much of these engines parts) so I'm or BC (depending on where you are reading this) kindly sent me an original so I could have it copied by a local company.



Nice blasted and painted bits, paid for blasting, painted in the garage.


New secondary chain guide from ABS years ago.

A real Oh no moment, I used a torque wrench on everything in the engine but this bolt is for the secondary chain guide, and the thread is pulled out of the head! It was my own fault, the hole had oil in the bottom so hydraulic lock pushed the thread out before the bolt reached the tensioner casting.



I worked very careful and a helicoil worked perfectly which was a huge relief.

Its got new straight and curved primary chain guides.



Cam cover baffle plate had to be drilled off for blasting so I drilled and tapped as advised by BC and used Loctite to fix it back on.



Both ends got new crank seals from Germany.



This blank plug was taken out of the timing cover and an oil temp sensor fitted, another item supplied by Edelschmiede in Germany where the gaskets and guides all came from, excellent supplier who makes it possible to keep these engines alive.


New thermostat and associated bits




The front crank / damper mass bolt proved to be a problem to source, of course GM didn’t have any and its said it needs to be renewed every time. I eventually found one and fitted it, torque tightening then angle tightening.
Big torque wrench and angle gauge.




Crank locking



Engine and spare gearbox assembled and a lifting attachment made which seemed like a good idea until I realised that it has to be tilted so steeply to get in that the back of the bracket wouldn’t go past, I had to trim it with a hacksaw while the engine was half in. Still, its there for next time.




Getting there, enough for tonight.

[breng]

I would like a gsi. Finding a good one is very difficult.

[darrenh]

ecxellet recon. i like the crank locking, when a screw driver wont do use an entire ring gear

where did you get the BFO torque wrench? guessing its a truck fitters type one, when i did the crank bolt it was way beyond the end of "highstreet" torque wrench range.

[chris y]

A good Carlton GSi is quite hard to fond now Breng, there arent many left in any condition now and higher prices are being asked even for questionable ones.

The torque wrench was given to me by someone who got it from work Darren. Its a lot of torque, I had a length of 50mm box section clamped across the engine stand and the far end of it to my work bench to keep the engine and stand from turning over.



This isn’t a catch up post although there is still some catch up to do, but I’m quite please with a little bit of progress this Morning so thought I’d post it.

The plan had been to have black steel wheels, using 16 inch Vauxhall centres with wider rims added.
Anyway, there just isn’t time, I need it on the road and in use so decided to put the original wheels back on, they are the nicest wheels ever put on a Carlton from the factory in my opinion anyway.

I was just going to give them a quick clean then get new tyres fitted, I got two cleaned up and was reasonably happy with them but the others were more badly kerbed, they all are to some extent.

I put one of the worst in my lathe, I didn’t think it would be possible but it turned out that with the gap bed insert removed and the wheel over the chuck they fit.
I clocked it in so that I don’t make it out of balance and turned the damage off then polished the bare metal, I’m really pleased with the result so it looks like I’m going to have to do all four.

[darrenh]

agree on the wheels. theres a 24v for sale on this forum which has weird slab sided ones on it, not sure if they are off of an opel something or other, just doesnt look right

[Phil H]

Jun 11, 2016 23:10:14 GMT darrenh said:

agree on the wheels. theres a 24v for sale on this forum which has weird slab sided ones on it, not sure if they are off of an opel something or other, just doesnt look right

Those slab sided ones look like the Carlton Diplomat ones?

[chris y]

I missed a bit of the story, after all of the other challenges sent to test me during the project the last straw (almost) was the car trying to put me out of action.
Before the engine was installed I was doing some prep and working under the car quite a bit.
I came home one day and a neighbour had put some jackable ramps out to be collected by the scrap man, they looked handy so I asked and got them.
I decided to put the back of the car on normal ramps, and the front on these jackable ones once I’d freed them off, so far so good and the car high enough to help a lot with access underneath now that I’d lost the access to the pit after what happened at the other garage.

Anyway, I worked on the car and one day went to the boot to get parts out and a very unpleasant thing happened, the car rolled back off all four ramps and landed on my legs pinning me against the grassy slope of the garden.
It hurt a lot and I was very frightened, I shouted for help and grabbed things from the boot to try to get the car off me but couldn’t although I did get a handy jack out and tried to relieve the pressure.
Anyway, the young lad next door heard me shouting and his Mam and her Boyfriend Ian ran out. Unfortunately my 6 foot high fence and locked gates suddenly seemed a bad idea but Ian jumped over the fence, smooth side of the fence barefoot and came to help. I don’t know how he did that, quite impressive. He couldn’t move the car because he was effectively trying to push it up four ramps. Anyway, we wedged the jack between the bumper and while I wound it he pulled on the car and I got my left leg out, it slipped a couple of times which hurt a lot, we jacked again and I got my right leg out which was trapped at my foot.

Have a pic, the jack is still dug into the bumper and my right shoe is still between the car and grass, the steel toe cap had meant it wouldn’t fit out and I managed to get my foot out of it. The pushed in part of the bumper was where my left leg was.



Anyway, unbelievably no broken bones but lots of bruising and pain and a long recovery.

I worked out what went wrong, when I jacked up the front ramps they moved in an arc and moved the back wheels to the edge of the ramp slope without me noticing, the hand brake couldn’t hold it and back it went.

The car was damaged, some damage to the newly painted floors and sills and worst of all the fog lamps which are quite hard to find and I’d done some restoration on were smashed, both bumpers were cracked, the rear one by my leg, lucky the bumper gave way.



Well, that was another low point, nearly the last straw and put me out of action for a short time but in the end the engine went in with the help of my Uncle and everything else was fitted with some help from my Uncle and friends and the accident damage repaired.






I had lots of problems as expected, the clutch clave cylinder immediately failed, the starter had seized, and many other things, the most difficult problem turned out to be a fuel pump problem. It would pull away but any throttle and it would die. I suspected fuel delivery and proved it by adding a pneumatic pressure gauge to the fuel line and watching the pressure drop off even revving it while stationary.
That was a strange fault, the pump which had been noisy all the years I’ve had the car had been pressing against the bottom of the tank which had sucked up years ago and the rubber connection to the pickup filter had stretched to almost close the orifice. A spare pump had it running.

So then it went for test, and passed no problem. Wheels and tyres followed just last weekend and I took it out and took this pic which I really like.



I should remind you all that I haven’t done the paint part of a restoration intentionally, its kind of the reverse of a poor restoration that some cars get where they have lovely shiny paint covering a badly repaired car. This car looks very untidy but I just love it, its my favourite car of any I’ve ever owned and I don’t worry about driving it and parking it, a few more marks wouldn’t make any difference.
That said, I did machine polish most of it quickly and it turned out OK, hundreds of scratches and a few dents but other than the bonnet it doesn’t look bad. I have the satisfaction of knowing that its now a far better car than it looks, I don’t really care much what people think, I have my cars for my own satisfaction. You could say it’s a bit of a sleeper as my friend said, it looks run down and lucky to be alive but in reality it can surprise people.
It drives very well, its not as noisy as I would have expected inside, the gearstick is my favourite bit and it works very well, it goes well and revs like a motorbike with the flywheel and engine work.

So there you go, for now its on the road and finished…..probably.

I’ll get a few more finished pics one day, perhaps if not before at Billing for the VBOA rally if it gets there.

Now that its done I want to thank everyone who has commented and encouraged, it really has made a troublesome and challenging project more worthwhile, and probably helped prevent me from giving up as I have thought about at times.
Cheers all,

[gazz81]

Wow, what a great story. So nice to see it on the road, just goes to show that hard work and determination does pay off.

[s1105117]

Awesome buddy :-) one heck of an adventure of a resto! Car to proud of dude, great result for mad effort! Oh btw allegedly there is a 3ltr irmscher carlton in my local yard's not-sure-what-to-do-with section if you want another! :-)

[darrenh]

uuuugggh at the jack incident, i'm sure you have a head full of shoulda woulda coulda so lets not go there !

my wife regularly recalls a similar story with her mum and dad, the mum inexplicably lifted the car off stricken father like one of those "unexplained mystery super human strength in a crisis" type things. to be fair i think it was only healey sprite and she wasnt a small lass

glad its running and usable. the last time i saw a gsi out and about, well a carlton at all come to that, was in 2008 (no really !!) (ignoring billing of course)

[vanpeebles]

Lucky escape on the car rolling away! I know exactly what that is like! I had very similar incident with my MGB, it rolled back off two blocks of wood after I'd been busy trying to sort a stuck handbrake all day. My mind was wandering about getting packed up for tea, it rolled back off the edges of the wood, knocked me on my backside, and my legs and feet went right under. I caught the back of the car with my arms out forwards while sat, and managed to wedge my knee under the big rear bumper and used the jack handle to flick some stuff to chock the wheels with. Thankfully just a big bruise and stiff knee, yours sounded a lot worse!

[Sweetpea]

Blimey, you were lucky! That's a damn stupid thing to say to somebody who whose car ran them over, but you know what I mean.

Good to see this back on the road. Hope you keep posting about it. Do some pistonpopper type posts about life with the old girl.

James

[pistonpopper]

Yeah, what he said ^^^ It would be great to hear how you're getting on with the old thing. You've done a great job and survived to tell th as tale... just!