The Toffee Apple

[ShakeyC]

Thanks weight wise they are the same and same alloy grade made with same procedures to meet product type approval; the difference being the suppliers has minimum order qty since I only needed 2 billets I casted them myself.

For everyday road cars I prefer rubber hoses because you can see them deteriorate and need changing well before they actually fail unlike braided hoses, same reason I hard piped fuel lines inside the car instead of braided fuel lines to avoid sudden hydroscopic failures and keeps me out of camp bling lol.

didn't we think of a new name? turd is bit unkind considering the epic fun had in the snow this weekend whilst everything ground to a halt 02 prevailed up steepest hills where only chunky tyre shod 4x4 could venture.

[ShakeyC]

With the full respray done I began to colour sand with p2000 working up towards p3000 for a nicer finish again with lots of hot soapy water and patience. In the meantime AlexH came to my rescue working his magic in couple hours making the turd electrically correct with switches doing the right things now.

Apparently the electric can was joined in with head light wiring, wires to the coil and tacho were broken, wiper relay wiring had melted and bodged together with unknown relay, the alternator was directly wired to fuel sender and heater motor…and much more electrical faults and problems.

Damn and blast I colour sanded too much in some areas striking through, my own fault here also gave me opportunity to fix the heavier sanding marks from hard rubber sanding block and DA. So popped over to Glasruit paints for another litre at bargain price of £18 and I mixed up couple aerosol cans from the mix for £11 each for future fubars.

Arse I forgot to put a new clutch in before fitting the gearbox

The following clutch info may be useful for others, apparently Sachs have changed the clutch kit to fit wider range of cars opposed to M10 M30 only now fit M20 M42 too with 228mm diameter flywheels, using same throw-out bearing too.

Before finding this out you all know what a bugger the clutch is to bleed on these, I could not get the clutch to release or accept any gears smoothly. To check raised the rear wheels off the ground and started the car in gear and had permanent drive with the clutch pedal up and down and made horrible grinding sheering noises if tried to change gear.

Next to check the clutch hydraulics fitted a manual diesel pressure gauge to master cylinder outlet (only fluid type gauge I had to hand) the readings meant nothing but every pump gave and held the same amount. Reconnected the new lines and repeated the test on slave cylinder, then removed the slave cylinder and enlisted some help to hold the push-rod in some huge adjustable jaws; with light press of clutch pedal (my little finger) was enough for push-rod to extend against my beefcake’d mate with all his might. Summary of test was very good hydraulics.

Unwillingly I resorted to dropping the gearbox to inspect the entire clutch system since the problem narrowed down to a mechanical issue.

Prop, exhaust, brackets ect all off and getting those pesky starter motor bolts out on first inspection everything looked fine, no witness marks inside the bell housing, clutch fork wasn’t binding with ball pin and spring still in place. Next was friction plate this again looked fine and correctly orientated with flywheel side against flywheel; ps you cannot install it wrong way around because of dowl pins and centre spline if deeper on gearbox side therefore no way the friction material will touch the flywheel face.

Friction plate off the problem revealed itself the NEW clutch kits uses larger diameter friction plate springs, these machined themselves against the flywheel bolts in the middle

Look at springs the shiny bit is where they machined themselves down halfway ready to ping out…close call

So what was happening the springs were taking up the drive and friction material did not touch the flywheel face as normal to take up the drive.

Look at the perimeter of the flywheel bolts this is where the springs rubbed against

The other problem was the release bearing was really floppy rattling around the plastic housing which most likely result in a rattling clutch.

A quick call explaining the problem a replacement promptly arrived, now that’s service! Jaymic found old stock clutch which had noticeably smaller springs in the friction plate and slightly taller release bearing.

New clutch kit installed, another bleeding week bleeding the clutch every which way possible manual, pressure bleeding, back pumping to get those air bubbles out.

I was so confident I booked an MOT the clutch was still crap not fully releasing with low biting point with some really really unusual rattling whining noise. Whilst it sort of working I risked the MOT part dissembled which is latterly at bottom of the hill so rolled down whilst they check over the car, which is pretty basic for daytime only test the old shitters don’t need seat belts, lights, mirrors, a visual only smoke test for emissions sweet it passed flying colours the only thing they couldn’t check was rear brake balance because of the missing driveline lol.

Towed back up the hill with some satisfaction now sporting an MOT. Another call to Jaymic and 3rd clutch was sent and this time I was really determined to make it work, so after many various clutch combinations found a reliable working solution.

Same model number different release bearings

Floppy release bearing on the left despite Sachs adamant this was normal it is NOT

The problem appeared the old stock clutch cover fingers were over preloaded on the new flywheel, so the release bearing lost half its travel as the clutch would only half release hence the whining rattling noise when the pedal fully depressed.

A new clutch fork, ball-pin flywheel bolts, new slave cylinder, new clutch flexi hose went in for the sake of it, this time I didn’t use the flywheel bolt locking ring which gave another couple mm clearance and used small dab of thread lock on the flywheel bolts. So with AP organic friction plate with Sachs clutch cover and E30 slave cylinder and Sachs LUK release bearing the clutch worked. I removed the slave cylinder and added 8mm to end of the push-rod to give it a bit more travel which raised the clutch bite point half way lovely.

[NickVyse]

Glad you got that sorted Chet, but why do you think it fouled the flywheel bolts? Flywheel been resurfaced too many times over the years? Bad batch of clutch plates? In correct clutch plate?

I've recently had delivered the same clutch kit from Jaymic for the NK - will be checking clearances very carefully before putting it all back together!

Cheers, Nick

[ShakeyC]

Nope it was brand new flywheel at maximum thickness as it should be.

I did wonder about machining the bolt circle down but i didn;t want to bodge it when it should have been a simple fit and forget job. Everything is brand new, new guibo, nuts, bolts, washers, rubbers, drive shafts ect..

The problem lays with manufacturing change they never informed any suppliers or resellers using existing part numbers; however for everyones sanity i called up the Sachs Fitchel, LUK and AP factories and tore them several new holes and agreed to revert to seperate clutch kits for M10 M30 and back to M20 M42 M44; but refused to recall the combined batch.

Basically they tried to use M42 friction plate with M20 clutch cover and release bearing for both M10 and M30 to save manufacturing costs by making 1 kit to fit all.

Unfortunately no way of knowing from part numbers alone, do a dry build with blue tac or something between spings and flywheel bolts minimum 1.5mm clearance required when drive is taken up which compresses spring increasing its diamter slightly fouling the flywheel bolts. If in doubt remove the flywheel locking ring too.

[ShakeyC]

Few days away to rest and recover upon returning to the workshop I discovered ring marks on the roof, wings bonnet and boot lid like little crop circles in the paint, some fuckwits been using my car as coffee table damaging the paint really badly.

Instead of blowing over a light coat I now had to remove the lot because the coffee cup strains had damaged the primer underneath so all my hard work was undone and sanded it back to bare metal.

Painting it again (lost count now how many times I painted now) this time I moved the car into the next unit to avoid the bastard using my 2002 as table/work bench again.

This time painted with much thicker first coat, gradually thinning it out coat by coat and let her stand for few weeks as the temp hovered around freezing point. Colour sanding from scratch again I went with the manual method instead of DA to avoid the fine pigtail marks that previously appeared from marred up balls of soft paint on sanding discs. More colour sanding followed my compounding then polishing which is something I utterly hate doing.

During the autumn managed to see quite a few detailing products and shows first hand because I rarely believe the hype around the huge variety of products and peoples rose tinted blind faith that because they purchased it by default is the best… the whole detailing scene is a mind field of BS, I learnt you certainly do NOT get what you pay for.

For cellulose paint I using which is soft and takes longer to go off unlike 2pac or water based oven cooked paints I learnt I should use a diminishing compound to make the default cellulose matt finish glossy then polish with a fine product to enhance the gloss. I decided to by product from Germany called Menzerna used by Mercedes BMW Audi Rolls Royce as OEM product, if good enough for their factories its good enough for me. Advised by the folks in the factory only 2 products I need to use was Fast Gloss S500 and Super Finish 106 FA both were £6 and enough to do 10 cars+ bargain!

Getting the technique down for compounding was hard/aggressive pad on medium speed and take your time working slowly moving slowly applying even pressure over lapping each stroke by 50% regularly cleaning the pad with a spur. Without a £3 pad spur I would have used at least one pad per panel but with a spur 1 pad lasted entire car! Because it was cold and dimishing compounds need heat to break down into a polish I gaffa-tapped my hot ait gun to underside of my DA on low heat to help product work and keep my fingers warm; worked a treat slowly but surely the matte paint revealed its gloss.

Using softest pad with Final Finish left a deep glossy wet finish but my god is it dusty, wear a mask if you don’t want blue boggies for days. Polishing used the exact same technique as compounding but the results came much much quicker because time spent colour sanding for flatness, compounding to gloss and polish just finishes it off.

Whilst the paint continues to harden off it still to early to wax seal or coat so I masked it up to avoid contamination. The chrome was in pretty bad shape dented creased and all sorts first job jet wash the chrome front and back. With trim relatively clean I pinched a wooden clothes peg from my washing line which fitted perfectly inside the all chrome trim pieces like waist line belt line front grills ect a leather sand bag and the toffee hammer quickly hammered out all the dents and creases. Using Autosol liquid chrome (much better than the Autosol paste) polished and protected the restored trim, sure its still looks scratched up close but from 1meter away it’s hardly noticeable.

Finally dressed her up in chrome fitted the interior and exterior trinkets some lovely new wing mirrors, early all chrome centre kidney grills finished her off with ariel deleted for now. A thick coat of wax from rustbuster liberally sprayed everything underneath inside all the closed channels and box sections help protect it from future rot, unlike black waxoyl stuff this is clear which doesn’t hide rust or traps moisture between itself and the metal leading to rust starting from inside out.

New tyres on some long life all seasons with a pretty pattern; new fuel tank sealed in and coated with specific fuel resistant product.

Because weather hovering around freezing the wax hasn’t really gone-off remaining a rusty amber colour instead of going clear, not a problem though

My lovely brand new 5spd overdrive

Exhaust lined up and with new oem centre section the old exhaust was jammed up against the body over the rear axle fitted like crap. Hot air gun started to convert the wax from amber to clear

Front coilovers rebuilt

Rear coilovers rebuilt, i didn;t bother reinforcing anything here because rear suspension will be ditched soon as i can.

[ShakeyC]

Various stances ride heights and poses for the camera, tart

ops forgot to close the doors properly

[ShakeyC]

With the paint finally hard from all the products I saw the American Prima brand seemed easiest to apply in all conditions with best finish without problems I saw with many other brands like holograms, scraring, looking different from different angles ect. The Amigo didn’t appear to do much maybe because I colour sanded the imperfection out. Then several coats banana gloss was so easy wipe on wipe off no elbow grease needed, last time I waxed a car back in 90’s was akin to plastering sky scraper lol.

Ready to hit Brands Hatch hunting down those pesky moderners

[NickVyse]

Excuse my French, but I would hunt the cunt down and leave a permanent coffee cup ring on his face. Ahhhhh!

But XRO is looking superb - I think you should christen her HMS Perserverance.

[scanner]

Looks great and love that colour. IMHO i like the look of the old 1K paints that you have to cut and polish, the downside is their not as tough as the newer 2k epoxys. Still undecided which to use on my project!

[ShakeyC]

Excuse my French, but I would hunt the cunt down and leave a permanent coffee cup ring on his face. Ahhhhh!

But XRO is looking superb - I think you should christen her HMS Perserverance.

Thank you mate XRO has certainly tested my patience, HMS Perseverance it is.

Now Perseverance is running with all the bad karma surrounding that site/workshop just gladout of there for good.

[ShakeyC]

Looks great and love that colour. IMHO i like the look of the old 1K paints that you have to cut and polish, the downside is their not as tough as the newer 2k epoxys. Still undecided which to use on my project!

Thank you Riveria Blue is growing on me, the original colour in the shop is bit darker and deeper nearer navy blue however considering my initial intentions never planned on full respray I colour matched it against the aged paint.

Thing is for this age of car the original solid colours for the era were pastel and 2pac and modern water based paints either end up looking like plastic or too shiny without the gloss or depth. I made conscious decision to keep the pastel character of the paint and having original supplier paints compared to DuPont and other brands the difference is huge!

The cellulose is tough but takes much longer to reach that state unlike 2k or modern water based paints which are also less DIY friendly requiring hefty breathing apparatus and cleaner working conditions. You can also spray a clear coat on top however this imho reduces the paint lustre and milkyness the 70’s pastel colours had OR add ceramic coating to further convert the outer most skin to much harder wearing finish.

If you’re using a metallic colour then options are all yours, my old 1602 Taiga looked better with modern 2pac but rolling that it refused to polish out.

[ShakeyC]

Shall I bolt on this to my stock donk?

T4 sized Schwitzer S200

Or should i go NA with a spare donk?

[NickVyse]

I'm a fellow Londoner and even I don't know what a donk is ;-)

[M3M3]

great work here!!!!

[ShakeyC]

Donk as in donkey as in workhorse as in engine...

(bit on in-joke with another member from Texas i was on the phone too eariler today)

fair point Nick a cockney slang too far; shall restrain myself from such stupidness