Bilbo's mk1 Cavalier

[bilbomk1]

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So, it's been a few weeks. Not a huge amount going on but I did get down to Retro Rides on the Sunday at Goodwood. Always a good show, some great stuff there. Treated the car to a wash beforehand



Was a pretty good day, weather was superb. Didn't take many photos but here's a couple that other people got of mine:






Wasn't sure I would see one but there was in fact 1 other Cavalier there!



Pretty early car, and quite liked the cool retracting burgundy roof, suited it. Looked pretty tidy too.

Other than that not much going on, sorted a few little bits here and there. Made a little update to my relocated shifter. I really ought to remake it a bit neater and cover it properly with a gaiter to hide everything, but it works well enough as it is for now. Replaced the front clevis with a rose joint with shim pieces either side to stop side to side pivot. Shift has a lot less slop now which is nice. But this is still v2.0 of the shifter, planning to make a much neater v3.0 when I get the time and motivation!



Weird looking thing, but it's worked excellently for over a year now and cost me like £7 for the rose joints so I'm not complaining 😂

 

Should have some more updates soon when I can get some more free days down the workshop.

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[Yezzz]

I wouldn't hide that shifter. If made well, a shifter linkage like that looks so good.

[aviatorspeedshop]

loving this!

[bilbomk1]

May 31, 2024 6:20:17 GMT Yezzz said:

I wouldn't hide that shifter. If made well, a shifter linkage like that looks so good.

Cheers mate, once I have made version 3 and made it a bit more presentable I may leave it exposed, we'll see how I feel haha.

May 31, 2024 12:43:07 GMT aviatorspeedshop said:

loving this!

Cheers mate! Getting there, sort of haha.

[bilbomk1]

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Well it's been a while! Some car stuff has been going on, but life has been busy as per. Events (mostly non-car related), work, cat getting ill and sadly having to be put down, it's been a mixed bag. Coupled with not much free funds I haven't been able to do too much lately. But I'm getting myself in gear now and sorting out some fairly important bits!



First off I changed my backbox. My mate had the backbox from my old mk1 MX-5 on his mk2, as it sounded really good. Unfortunately it started rattling badly so he cut it off and fitted a new one. I found the baffle rattling and tack welded it up, and decided to put it on the Cavalier in place of the Jetex silencer and cherrybomb-esque setup I had at the back before.

Went with an upswept tip, just had some pipe lying around and thought why not, it might look more retro. I kind of like it, though the backbox does look a little big sat there, but it's kind of grown on me. I quite like the tip, I cut the end at a slight angle to give it a more finished appearance, kind of a slash tip sort of thing. I think it looks alright.





Sounds nicer than the old setup I think, sadly not got videos yet, my bad.

With that all done, I was driving with a mate, and as I did a rather spirited rev limiter 1st to 2nd gear change the car let out an enormous flame and bang on gear change, and I genuinely thought I'd blown the engine up. Sounded like knocking. Anyway turns out that the oldest portion of my now wrapped Frankenstein manifold decided it's time had come, and promptly split almost the entire way around 😂



The most disgusting blow noise ever as you can imagine. I've now cleaned this up and have welded it back together, all sorted. Not ideal though 😂



Anyway, onto more important things. The diff and gearbox whine are now at a point where I am just hating it haha. Since the prop issue (prop has been good since UJ replacement touch wood), the gearbox whine did worsen. The diff appeared to stay about the same, but it was clearly not happy. Pinion seal has started to weep now so it's definitely the pinion bearing on its way out.

So I grabbed one of my spare gearboxes and a mate gave me a hand to change it over last week. I hadn't realised as my spares were mk1 MX-5 boxes that the top cover section that I have my shifter relocation welded to doesn't exist on these. Luckily my mate has a couple of mk2 5 speeds knocking around at the unit, so we just used one of his ones instead.



Dug out the original 1.6 flywheel and my Exedy clutch that I took off the MX-5 when I broke it (only got about 20k on it so I'm using that now). The flywheel had been sat against the wall and had got a bit rusty, but he cleaned up the contact surface for me, and the spigot bearing felt ok, so we removed the damaged box and got it on.



The 1.6 flywheel is a couple of kg lighter than the 1.8 one that was on it. Clutch disc is a little smaller, but at this power level it's not a concern at all.

We then stripped apart the damaged box and he cut the input shaft off, so we now have a purpose-made MX-5 clutch alignment tool for free! Ideal. Anyway, replacement box went on no dramas, put prop back on, new oil in it, and it's much better. So that's that, and basically cost nothing other than 2 bottles of 75w90.

Notice inside the V banded exhaust, a very odd round portion of material. My flexi pipe appears to have done something a little odd, and is probably causing a bit of a restriction in there, so I'm going to cut it out and replace it with another I have soon. No idea what's happened there in all honesty 😂 And yes, that is an old Celica in the background. My mate has brought it back to the unit to get it roadworthy. Handed down to him from his grandad 9ish years ago, hasn't seen the road since the mid 90s. Very cool car!



I asked around about an axle and finally got offered one from someone very reputable in the Manta scene, which was ideal. My mate lived a lot closer, so he picked up the Manta axle and brought it down to me.



It's been sat for some time, but the corrosion was nothing to be concerned about, spring seats both look absolutely fine, nothing of concern on it. Took the brake lines and cylinders off, gave it a good old wire brush and conventional brush afterwards to remove any loose rust, dust and cobwebs etc. and it was looking a lot happier already.

Gave it a good coat of rust converter on all the surface rust and it was coming out real nice



Once that was dry I gave it a couple of coats of engine block paint, I thought as it's hard wearing, oil/chemical resistant, and temperature resistant it'll be ideal.



It's looking a lot healthier now. I've spun the shafts and pinion by hand and they appear to feel nice enough. I will take the cover off to inspect it before fitting just to be sure, but so far so good.

I have a brand new cover plate gasket, and a brand new pinion seal to go on it. I also have just bought the rear axle hardware kit from TJ Motorsport. It was relatively inexpensive really, so seemed a no brainer to replace the hardware when I put it in rather than using the old nuts and bolts, certainly won't hurt.

Hoping to have this diff in this weekend! And hopefully my whiney drivetrain woes will be over, and I'll no doubt be able to hear some other bad noise from something else 😂

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[bilbomk1]

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Thought this was pretty cool, don't see many of these Rovers about, so I was surprised to see it parked near me the other day leaving Asda

 

Sorted the axle this weekend. Had some help from a couple of mates at various points, as it's a bit of an awkward job, even with 2 very useful hydraulic breakfast stools to hold the axles on 😂

Old axle came out no fuss. Oil looked a little suspect, bit of glitter in it at points, but held a magnet up to the draining oil and it didn't pick up much of anything, so I doubt it's completely ruined. I'll open it up soon and see what's happened. Definitely pinion bearing, hopefully nothing else so it can be rebuilt easily at some point.



It actually came out pretty easy, the bolts were all completely fine, nothing snapped or anything like that, which was nice and made things more straightforward. We removed all the brake drums/shoes, and arms off of it to use on the new one. The rear brake setup I completely refreshed when I got it on the road, so it basically all looked brand new still and was put straight on the replacement.

The TJ Motorsport hardware kit was good, didn't use all of it yet as some bolts I haven't needed to remove, but kept them for when I do. All the bolts I did use seem fine, and they have all-metal self locking nuts, which is nice to have for peace of mind that they will stay torqued up. I pulled the diff cover off the new one and the inside looked mint, CROWN, pinion and diff gears all looked basically brand new as you'd expect of a normal condition diff. So re-sealed the rear plate, put a new pinion seal on, and got it in the car.

Overall fitting went well, bit fiddly, especially the anti-roll bar brackets, but nothing too bad at all.



Gave all the exposed threads on the hardware a coat of 3M Anti-Corrosion Spray, just to make any future removal nice and easy, and greased up the various bolt shanks with some copper slip too.

Feels good to refresh the rear axle a bit, it's basically the only part of the car I haven't really touched since owning it, other than the initial oil change.

Drove it home after sorting the rear brakes out after reassembly, and it is unreal. I've lived with the noise for so long, I even thought the replacement gearbox had overrun noise after we put it in. But it was all the diff, every gear lash type noise, the whine, the wallowing noises. All gone. I can hear my music properly, pure ITB sound, and exhaust now. 100% worth the effort. I forgot just how good ITBs actually sounded 😂

Will drop the diff oil and replace next week as this axle was sat for many years, just to have a look and make sure everything is ok, and to give it a flush. Will also re-check the torque on all bolts after they have some time to settle in a bit. Overall, so happy now, car is lovely to drive again.

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[bilbomk1]

So, shifter v3.0 decided to finally throw in the towel. The weak point, the threaded bolt under the shifter that connected to the vertical rose joint snapped. My welds never failed, but the bolt itself sheared itself off. It was a weak point, it worked for a fair while though, so it did alright. Unfortunately it happened during a 4th to 5th gear change on a dual carriageway, which wasn't ideal, but it is what it is 😂

Now re-done again, This time I have welded the rose joint directly to the underneath of the shifter. Got it absolutely belting hot, it is well and truly welded on this time, no weak threads to worry about. Also while it was off I had bought some more little rose joints, so made the top section double rose jointed on both sides, not just one. This is far superior, when it's all bolted up the motion of the shift is almost identical to an MX-5 shifter in the standard location, with no side to side movement in the joints at all

Shifter 4.0 is officially the best version yet. I'm sure something will occur and 5.0 will appear at some point 😂

 


In other news, I made a discovery. Rear shocks. Spent some hours trawling various forum posts, discussions etc., and looking on parts websites at what was available.

My right rear KYB shock has blown. It's not horrendous, but it has been leaking for a little while. It's a standard length shock on a fairly lowered car, we all know this does happen. I could have just replaced it as they're not exactly pricey, but I didn't want to. I wanted shorter shocks, to reduce axle droop and keep my rear spring properly captive even when on the ramp.

The only shortened rear shocks I could find for a Manta/Cavalier were KONI ones. The Bilstein B6s might be too, but annoyingly they don't list these length specs anywhere, plus they're quite expensive, and non-adjustable. I don't really have the budget for £130-£150 a shock right now, despite that people do rate them.

So I started looking at other options from different vehicles. Rear shocks from similar cars with a bottom eye and a top pin setup. A fair few options out there, mostly all too short. Then I came across these:

www.autodoc.co.uk/bilstein/637572

Mk3 Cavalier rear shocks. Bilstein B4, not the sportiest option, but they seem to be widely liked across many different model owners as a decent OE replacement shock.



My KYBs were 610mm long fully extended. These are approx. 560mm fully extended. The top pin is the exact same diameter and thread as Manta shocks.





The bottom eye uses the same shank sized bolt to secure it, and the width of the bottom eye is basically identical to Manta shocks.



They also come with 2 rubbers and large washers for the strut mount at the top, exactly the same as a Manta shock.

Literally the only difference is the thread on the top pin is longer when fitted, so a bit more work with a spanner to secure the nyloc down, that's it. I now have approx. 2 inches less axle droop when raised on the ramp, my springs are happier sitting in the spring perch securely, and the shock is under way less compression when at resting ride height than the old ones. They should last longer as a result. They feel a tad firmer, which I actually wanted, the rear was super soft on the KYBs for my liking, but it isn't overly stiff now either.




It sat a little higher at first but settled a bit after the drive home. £33 each, I really can't complain.


Also AutoDoc have brand new Hella handbrake cable for Mantas, arrived today and all the ends, and centre bracket piece all look the same, so I think it's correct. Only £10, ideal. Will fit it later this week.

Overall super happy with the mk3 Cavalier shock discovery, it's nice to have a budget shorter shock option that works well and is easily available.

I will be changing my fronts soon as they're just cheap Ridex ones and are too soft. Seen several people mention classic Mini rear shocks fitting, so I might order some GAZ adjustables. Mini owners seem to comment how hard they are on the very light Mini, so I reckon they could be ideal on the front of this. Super cheap too so will give them a go I think!

[bilbomk1]

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So had a week to let the Bilstein rear shocks settle in. They definitely sit a few mm higher than the previous ones I think, probably because the right rear was blown no doubt. I also think my front shocks might be a bit unhappy, as the front definitely looks lower than I remember being.



I had a look at the front shocks and neither seem blown, but looking at the clean to dirty line on the shock body, where the top cover section is sitting when it's on the floor, they are under a lot of compression all the time, so I think I'll need to order those Mini Gaz shocks soon. I've definitely felt the bumps stops get hit a couple of times recently, so maybe these ones have had it.

These shocks should be 410mm long extended, did a rough tape measure measurement and it's somewhere around that, maybe slightly shorter. Compressed should be around 270mm. Mini Gaz rears are 410mm extended/280mm compressed for standard version, or 350mm extended/250mm compressed for the Lowered version. Torn on which to go for. If I go for the standard ones I think they'll be ok, but I do like the Lowered version having a shorter compressed length. Not decided yet. The adjustable dampening will certainly help either way.

Also my mate made up a new bench at the workshop, one thing we've never had. A proper workbench. 3mm box for the frame and 4mm plate for the top. Very thick 10mm on the right side to give the vice some extra support. He also picked up a pillar drill recently for free, so we'll get that set up too. Just need a bench grinder now!



And I sorted out my absolute tip of an area upstairs. We all have our own areas for storage, and mine was horrendous. Stuff everywhere, no order or place for anything, just a mess. Got it all sorted out now.



Ainsley is there for moral support 😂

Had a big tatty box of all my bolts, nuts, screws, washers, everything. Was a pain to find anything, so put up some bins and got everything separated into usable sections now, will definitely be so much easier to find stuff!



I've got a creak on the front right of the Cavalier, at first I thought maybe a creaky bush. But when I was dry steering it to line it up for them ramp I realised it did it on steering input. So I've bought new track rod end and lower ball joint, will do both this week, I'm sure it is going to be one of them. We had a look at it on the ramp and neither look bad, but it's definitely one of them doing it I think. 

And finally I have some play in the rack when centered, checked UJs and whatnot, all good, it's the rack and pinion itself. Tried to tighten the pre-load nut just a bit to see if it went away, but no good. Will source a used rack to replace that soon as I don't like the play at all.

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[bilbomk1]

So the Gaz Mini shocks arrived:



£58 each plus postage from Moss, not bad! They look pretty snazzy, and the adjustor has a really nice satisfying click to it as you twist it.

These are classic Mini rear shocks, the "Lowered" version, which are shorter than normal Mini rear shocks. At full extensions they're 350mm long, which is 27mm shorter than the KYBs I had fitted, and looking at some specs for other OE replacement shocks the KYBs were actually a bit shorter than some brands anyway. So these are pretty tiny.


Anyway, some small modifications were required to get these to fit.

The original lower shock bolt does not fit through the eye of the Gaz shocks. It is so close, but it doesn't go through. The bolt is an M10 shanked one. I tried an M8 bolt but this was clearly too small. We concluded that the Mini bolt for this eye was likely an imperial size, which we didn't have. So I put the shocks in the vice and gently drilled the metal bush inserts out to 10mm, which was pretty easy, as they only needed a very small amount of material taking out of them to fit the bolt.




All sorted.

The bottom eye is not very wide, even the KYBs I had to add a thick washer/spacer either side to hold them in the bracket. These needed the thick washer and another small washer either side, and then they fit perfectly snug and bolted up nicely. Sadly I didn't have new nuts and shanked bolts for these, so the old ones we re-used.



As for the tops, the rubber pieces and metal washers that came with the Gaz shocks weren't really right, so I used the ones I had fitted previously instead. The lower washer that goes on the shock I had to drill out to 12mm, as the piston rod on the GAZ shocks is actually bigger than the Cavalier shocks were. After that it slid right on (the rubber was super tight fit but went on with a little persuasion).



The rubber piece above has a smaller part that goes through the hole in the strut tower and holds it in place, so I think it is important to use this one.

As for the engine bay side, no modifications were needed, I just used the original rubber and washer with the new GAZ nut (different thread to original shocks).




Not got any photos of it back on the ground, but the front is a little higher than it had been. This is a good thing as the old shocks had clearly slowly deteriorated from the heavy compression they were under with it being lowered, and the front was sat noticeably lower than when I first got it on the road.

We have set them about half way between full soft and full hard to start off. I was a little concerned being for a very light Mini rear end that these wouldn't be hard enough even on full hard, but actually I might need to back it off just a couple of clicks from where it is now, which surprised me.

Overall pretty happy with this, the modifications really didn't take long and they fit just like an OE shock would.

Next up is sourcing a replacement rack, think my pinion is worn, the play is getting worse and I'm not a fan at all.

[spacekadett]

Those Gaz Mini shocks are a good budget option for a few cars, and I had a standard length pair on the back of the 100E for ages. They did finally cry enough a couple of years ago though, probably because of the axle tramp when ‘pressing on’ 😉😂

[bilbomk1]

Aug 24, 2024 6:37:49 GMT spacekadett said:

Those Gaz Mini shocks are a good budget option for a few cars, and I had a standard length pair on the back of the 100E for ages. They did finally cry enough a couple of years ago though, probably because of the axle tramp when ‘pressing on’ 😉😂

They seem pretty good quality I must admit, and for the price I can't argue at all.

[bilbomk1]

​
So sorted out the creak on the front right. Turned out we were right and it was the lower ball joint. Got the new one in now, put a couple of little tacks on the bottom as it's had 2 new ones in its life now, just for peace of mind (I had an upper ball joint pop out on my old MX-5, not ideal!).



Arms have some surface rust but they're still fine, I'll sort that one day.

 

Now, as for the Mini Gaz shocks. So after I drove the car and it settled, it was sitting lower on the front. We played with the adjustment settings, but it just wasn't happy at all, raking quite hard. We took everything apart on the front to have a look, and it seems I have a mistake to admit to, one that goes all the way back to when I first fixed up the car.

We discovered that I have had my front and rear springs around the wrong way the entire time 😂 The weird part is, it wasn't even ridiculously noticeable before in terms of how the suspension behaved!

This does however go some way to explaining why I had to cut 2 coils off the rear springs when I first fitted them though 😂 (the springs are open pig tail end, so this is perfectly fine and they seat identically to an uncut spring, just shorter) I genuinely thought that the progressive rate spring would go on the front, but it turns out that is not the case. Apparently I am blind as there is a very very faint "Rear" written on my current front springs. Oops.

Anyway, we swapped front with rear, but due to the 2 coils being gone, the front was even lower. Brand new lowering springs are now ordered and will be done this weekend, and I can pretend this never happened. For now I have removed the Gaz shocks and put the longer KYBs back on as it's more suitable.

 

Regardless of all this it still looks great



Sometimes the updates can't be all about how much good work you are doing I guess 😂

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[darrenh]

good catchup. i cant think of anything constructive to say other than B6 are standard length

[bilbomk1]

Aug 27, 2024 12:29:36 GMT darrenh said:

good catchup. i cant think of anything constructive to say other than B6 are standard length

Yeah I contacted Bilstein directly to get the exact measurements and they're just standard mk3 Cavalier length, but that's approx. 50mm shorter than mk1 Cavalier rears, so it was perfect.

[bilbomk1]

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Right, the new springs turned up. Exact same ones as before, only they were cheaper this time than before. £80 on eBay (listed as Manta B springs) for a set of 4 lowering springs. Must be terrible right? Well they're Kilen springs, I don't know much about them but apparently they're a Swedish brand, and from some Google searches the Volvo and Saab owners seem to really like them, so I guess it could be worse.

Anyway they're 40mm springs according to Kilen. So I split the front ball joint etc., got the old ones out (obviously rears on the front and fronts on the rear as I explained before 🙄), and I got the new fronts fitted. Finished that off and the rears were super easy, just undid the shock bolts and swapped the old for the new.

Also re-fitted the Mini Gaz shocks, and got it all back on the ground:



Sitting a bit high! So I gave it a drive, it was very comfortable to be fair! Let them settle, which they didn't do too much of in all honesty.

So yeah this is too high for my taste, and also the Mini shocks being the "Lowered" variant were very close to the top of their travel which I didn't like the idea of, so I modified the springs to suit.

Obviously fronts and rears are both pigtail end springs, not flat end ones. So cutting them is no different to how they come out the box, so I cut exactly 1 coil off all 4 springs. The springs rubbers slot back on perfectly, and they all went back in fine. All springs are perfectly captive, even with the rear axle on full droop (thanks to my new shorter rear shocks mainly).



Drove it home this evening and it is almost identical height wise to before (just a touch higher which I don't mind).



The Mini shocks are only set 10 clicks from full soft, I believe they are 20 or 22 clicks adjustment, and the ride is pretty firm on the front, but not too harsh. Honestly I'm a little surprised, as they are for a very light Mini rear, I was expecting to need to crank them up close to full hard to make them effective, but honestly I may even back them off 2 more toward soft, they are plenty firm enough. Which is great news as I no longer get harsh ducking and subsequent scraping on less than ideal bits of road now, these shocks seem much more up to the challenge, and of course having the correct springs on the front has certainly helped too 😂

 

In other news I had a search for a replacement rack. Found a couple of used Manta ones on eBay, but after searching for literally 30 seconds on Marketplace I found a Peter Lloyd quick rack (2.5 turn), never been used, and only 15 minutes away from where a mate of mine works. And for a really decent price too. So he picked it up for me this week. Will be fitting it next weekend. I would prefer less turns lock to lock, and the rack play is becoming very undesirable now, so 2 birds with 1 stone, ideal.

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[ChrisT]

From experience, just be aware that you'll probably need another UJ to connect the bottom of the steering column to the quickrack - it's usually a straight shaft rather than having the rubber coupling and female end.

[bilbomk1]

Sept 5, 2024 5:05:25 GMT ChrisT said:

From experience, just be aware that you'll probably need another UJ to connect the bottom of the steering column to the quickrack - it's usually a straight shaft rather than having the rubber coupling and female end.

Cheers for that mate. I got my mate to send photos of it, as I haven't got it off him yet. Luckily it has the rubber coupling and female "Double D" style attachment for the OEM shaft to go into (that's a ridiculous sentence without context 😂😂). So hopefully it will be a like for like replacement of the current setup.

[bilbomk1]

​So, the quick rack. My mate took me up to get it from my other mate in Kent who collected it for me last week.

It is quite literally brand new, never been fitted. It was in a Nintendo SNES box with Peter Lloyd Rallying written as the sender, so it is one of those ones. wasn't expecting the 30+ year old box it was in though haha. Anyway, the rack itself is of course identical to my current one.



Removing the original rack was actually really easy, everything came undone no trouble at all and it was off in about 20 minutes. We inspected the rubber coupler and double D attachment points on the new rack (hence why it is missing in the photo above) and realised that while the lower side bolted onto the pinion rod fine, the upper column end was actually too small and there was no way it would slide onto my original column.

So while I was messing around with inner tie rod related things, my mate cut the riveted upper coupler off of my original rack, and then nut and bolted it to the new coupler. Now both ends were correct and it could be fitted.





Here you can see the new rack and coupler, but with the original upper section now bolted on, which is the correct size.


I realised that as well as some rack play, my driver's side inner tie rod had some in and out play as well. I couldn't get Manta/Cavalier ones from Euros or our local GSF there and then, so I tried to do what I have done with my shocks and find another car's inner tie rods that would fit. I thought I had it figured out, but then realised that GM must be pretty much the only manufacturer in the entire world that made racks that were male threaded ends. I swear every single other car has female end racks, with male thread inner tie rods.

I couldn't find anything suitable, so for now I have just cleaned and re-packed the inner tie rods with some thick grease which has temporarily helped a bit with the play, and I will have new ones ordered ready to fit next weekend. Will also do outer track rod ends at the same time.


Anyway the rack, while unused, had been sitting for many years in a box and felt fairly notchy so all the old grease was cleaned off of the inside and new grease applied everywhere required. Much much better after that. Then we put it in the car, again super easy job. My mate did a new shape Mini Cooper rack yesterday, where the entire subframe had to be dropped, so he absolutely loved the simplicity of helping me out with this one 😂



All done for now. We adjusted the toe a bit with my mate's toe plates to guide us as it was a little off. Pretty much bang on now, but will have to redo it next week when I get the new rods anyway 😂

It is quite odd how much quicker it is, but I quite like it. However it has of course made the steering quite a lot heavier, but to be honest it feels not much heavier than my old MX5 was without power steering, so I can live with it. At speed it is fine.

Only issue I have now is that the rack is tight and fresh, and I haven't balanced my front wheels when we changed the tyres. As the rack has no play or wear, it now all transfers directly to my hands, so at 60-65 mph you can really feel the vibration in the steering now, I should probably get that done soon, it's horrible 😂

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[bilbomk1]

So after a bit of a fiasco with AutoDoc and Evri I finally got my new inner tie rods and track rod end delivered. In the meantime I found someone selling a single NOS QH inner tie rod on eBay, so I grabbed that last week.

When I pulled it all apart and really looked at the inner tie rods and track rod ends it's clear there were some issues. Overlooking the old grease in my original rack had cause the mud brown gritty grease to go all over my inner tie rods, and the driver's side one had developed a very noticeable amount of in and out play (this was brand new when the car was put on the road last January). This was the main source of my 9 and 3 play in the wheels, as well as the old rack having a little itself.

The track rod ends themselves had also developed an issue. I can't recall what brand they were, but it appears the clips/ties for the rubber boot had come away on both sides at some point, leading to the joints becoming dry and dirt getting into them, despite both boots still looking perfectly fine on the car.

Anyway all of these have now been replaced, with new MOOG inner tie rods and track rod ends fitted this evening.





The gaiters were both in perfectly good condition, so I just cleaned the inside of them an re-used. As you can see I did add a thick cable tie both sides in the grooves on the inner tie rods though. These boots are a harder plastic type boot, and I noticed even with clamps on the outer side, when compressed they would sometimes slide a bit over the tie rod as they resist compressing much more than a soft rubber boot. The cable ties stop this from happening, so the boots stay exactly where I want them, meaning they can't collect dirt inside them by dragging over the exposed tie rod over time.



The steering is so much better now, there is no wheel play, and absolutely zero free movement in the centre of the steering at all like before. The rack feels tight and it is much nicer to drive. Its heavier, but the decreased turns lock to lock is very noticeable, especially when needing to go to full lock when parking etc. Also got some new Toyos fitted to the front, and I did put on my new cam cover a while ago but forgot to show it:



Engine bay is looking a bit grotty, I should probably give it a clean soon. I'm a little disappointed with the cam cover, while the red lettering came out well the metallic black high temp paint I used is more of a matt grey, But it's still better than the oil covered original one I guess.



Next up I have a brand new Hella handbrake cable to fit, a couple of little rust areas to attend to, as well as a couple of bodywork issues that have been bugging me. The car has also had a couple of minor running issues, I think this is potentially related to my wideband sensor reading, perhaps an intermittent earthing issue somewhere. I'm also going to check the exhaust pre-sensor for any blows, as sometimes the AFR readings the last few days have looked oddly lean at idle sometimes, so maybe some fresh air being drawn in. Will get the laptop plugged in and see what's going on.

[bilbomk1]

So I had been planning a new exhaust manifold. Bought various bits over a week ago, booked a day off work to do it. DHL lost the parcel with the pipework (it was eventually found days later), and then my mum snapped the driveshaft on her Corolla clean in half. Not ideal, so that holiday day was gone sorting that.

Fast forward to this Friday, I had booked another day off, all the bits had arrived, and I was excited to get on with it. On my way to the unit I was on the duals, just about to overtake a lorry. Saw some mud on the road from tractors crossing over. Lorry hit the mud, out came a perfectly aimed stone from the back wheel and Voilà:





Direct hit and instant kaleidoscope windscreen. Now at 70mph this is less than ideal. Luckily I managed to overtake the lorry and stick my hazards on and he slowed enough for me to drop into a layby just a few hundred metres up the road.

A mate luckily happened to be driving by and stopped, and took me to the unit. Met up with another mate and used yet another mate's recovery truck to go rescue the car. It was way too far to even attempt to drive with such ridiculous screen damage.

The screen was very delicate and was making the constant noise of Rice Krispies as tiny little pieces of glass popped off and into the car. Closing the door caused the centre to bow outwards, so I decided to tape the screen up to at least protect other people on the road from any glass, which worked quite well.




Sadly the interior didn't fare so well, and all the bumps on the journey caused the centre to break away into the car, sending a fair bit of glass everywhere. Once we got back to the unit I used a bedsheet to catch the vast majority of the remaining screen, and broke enough of it away so I could pull the rubber seal away and out.



The glass went into such tiny pieces, it is honestly an absolutely miserable job. Luckily most of the pieces apart from the tiny specks were not sharp and easily removed by hand. I then carefully dug the edge of the window out of the rubber seal bit by bit with a small flathead, and am happy to say not a single bit of damage or even a tear was done to the seal, and almost all glass is completely removed now. The seal is also still incredibly supple and flexible despite its age, which is remarkable to be honest, perfectly reusable. The filler strips and corner pieces are also all intact and perfectly reusable, which is something at least.


Anyway, it's just as well this happened really because underneath the seal is very much in need of some restoration and work. Luckily nothing truly hideous, most areas just had localised corrosion and some discolouration.



The only bad area really is down on the driver's bottom corner where there are a couple of holes:



After scraping more of the grime and whatnot away it really isn't too bad, and the vast majority of the frame will be perfect after a wire wheel, a bit of rust converter, and a little bit of paint. The holes I will weld up tomorrow, in total there are 3 or 4 and the one in the photo is the worst of the lot.


A guy I know on the Manta owner's club very quickly replied about a screen and was preparing to bring his bronze tinted one out of his storage for me to collect. Sadly the screen was damaged and cracked right down the centre, so it was no good to sell, gutted.

I have since sourced an Ascona screen from another member of the Manta page on Facebook. By a stroke of luck he is coming down to the AMEX to watch Brighton on Sunday, and all being well he will deliver it to my parent's for me to pick up some time in the week.

Not exactly the weekend I had planned, but it is what it is. At least I have caught the rust early enough to fix it without it needing an entire new A pillar, so that's something at least, plus the new screen is a more modern laminated one, which should help stop this happening again in the future hopefully.