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I figure I should post. Don't want to lose this thread to the archive monster too. Haven't done a whole lot because I'm waiting on parts from Brazil or something, but I have been using it for a yardwork grunt instead of the VW. The shorter wheelbase is really helpful, but the awkward towball position is a negative. It would seem as though I guesstimated the thermo fan kickin temperature just right. I was going to do it properly once the cooling system parts arrive but it was kicking in at mid '90s and dragging the temperature down to the '80s really quickly. A little while ago I just slapped some more carnauba wax on another panel. This time the left rear quarter panel, or whatever you want to call it. It's pretty cool out so it'll be a while before I can give it a quick hand buff but so far the results were interesting. It was very poorly resprayed and blended at some point. It stands out horribly because of the very disparate colours. The HDPE wax did nothing to help that, but brought out the shine in the heavily oxidized paint. The carnauba wax to my surprise must have been taken in by the respray paint or something because the colour difference is a lot less now. It's still obvious but it's not jarring. When it's buffed off I look forward to seeing the result. After doing this I started to attack a small area up around the top of the hatch weatherseal to see how well I could clean up the rust. That didn't go too well. I noticed towards the middle over to the side of my test area what should have been the metal lip covered by the edge of the headliner that the weatherstrip grabs was sitting at a weird angle. I touch it. Crunch. Oh hell. A rusted away section of lip. The challenge with this is that I'm lacking in suitable metal and for whatever reason metal yards that are actually open are impossible to find. The closest one I know of is 40km away, has no phone number I can reach anyone at and always seems to be closed. Maybe I can scavenge up something from something in the yard or shed. I don't know. At least I know one of the reasons it was leaking. Although technically water should have never gotten to that part in the first place, but it did.
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Jun 15, 2013 03:16
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The whole top lip is hosed. Shoved the weatherstrip back on the tattered remnants and closed the hatch. Can't do anything to it now. I also removed the exhaust clamps from the front muffler or whatever it is so I could pull it off to weld up the crack. Not cooperating. Broke one clamp in the process but that's no big deal. It was seized anyway.
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Jun 15, 2013 06:48
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So what's the problem?   It really shouldn't be that hard to fix at least. If the lip is sliced off in sections leaving some of those remaining bits as a reference for alignment tempoararily it should be possible just to weld to the upright part which all seems to be more or less intact. Plus I'll be able to get a flapper wheel or something in there to clean up the mrtal a bit better if the lip is cut off. It sort of remibds me of the rear hatch window in the VW. The lip was in better condition but the window rubber had caused a corroded line of perforation for the length of the bottom of the sill too. This job should actually be a little easier. Once it's cleaned up what am I doing with it? I'm galvanizing the bastard. I figure if the top of the hatch is on fire I've got more problems than zinc fumes.
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Jun 16, 2013 01:41
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First section of the lip done and attacked with chemical gal.  Technically I could have just tack welded in this lip and it would have been fine. Its entire purpose is a place for the weatherstrip to attach to. It has a sort of blade that presses against the back of the 'U' which is meant to stop water. Meant to. When I'm finished the contact point for the blade is getting a bead of windshield sealant to prevent this happening again. Seam welding it was a goodamn nightmare because it was only accessible from underneath. Bonus shot of the back seat folded up. 
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Jun 16, 2013 08:23
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The parts arrived today! Sadly I can't install most of them for about a week but I did throw a few on quickly this morning. When I opened the box it became apparent that my order wasn't quite right but it worked out well for me. My order was supposed to have a couple of different types of distributor rotor because I was unclear of the type needed, but I only got one. It was the correct one. In stead of the other one was a distributor cap. Nice! So first thing I replaced that awful radiator cap. The new one feels a bit funny done up but it may be fine. Then I moved on to replace the distributor cap with the bonus, and the cruddy cracked and wire bodged rotor with a nice shiny new one. The underside of the old one had a splatter deposit of fine filings. The only place that could have come from is the mechanical advance which is housed by the rotor. I'll investigate later. Did a quick start test and it ran fine. Better than ever. The battery is however very low for some reason. Next week I'll get some nice hose clamps and do the cooling system, clutch and fan belt. Having a second good look yesterday revealed that it doesn't need new front brake pads. They have heaps of meat left on them. So I have a spare set now. I was worried about the new thermostat. The pictures made it look like it was plastic. It's not. The housing is cast aluminium or iron sprayed black. To my relief they sent me a clutch master cylinder and not a slave cylinder. Call me paranoid. No photos today. Too many other things to do.
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Jun 18, 2013 00:15
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That worked well.
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Jun 18, 2013 01:23
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I watched the Top Gear S12E06 Communist Cars episode again yesterday and I got very excited when the Niva came on. I hadn't seen it since before coming across this thread the first time and it was really cool. Jeremy and James actually liked it until it wouldn't start.
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Jun 21, 2013 02:40
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Psycho Donut Killer posted:I watched the Top Gear S12E06 Communist Cars episode again yesterday and I got very excited when the Niva came on. I hadn't seen it since before coming across this thread the first time and it was really cool. Jeremy and James actually liked it until it wouldn't start. Thanks for the series and episode. I just re-watched it. It wasn't their best segment by any means, but at least they liked the Niva I guess. Haven't been able to do much. I'm not really allowed to do much of anything until Monday. Surgeon's orders. But I've done a little. Had a second test of the radiator cap after putting it back on. No idea what I did wrong the first time. Maybe it snagged up and didn't close right or something. Can't confirm or deny if the system is holding pressure. It did manage to fill the overflow tank neatly with coolant, at which point I turned down the thermostat on the fans to enable them and within seconds the tank handily drained, being sucked back into the cooling system. Today I also went and bought hose clamps for the cooling system. Exciting, I know. During the warm up run I was watching the smoking exhaust. When it reaches a certain temperature or something, something changes. The engine note changes and the smoke just stops. I think it's something to do with the EGR still and believe it's also something to do with its idle wandering. It's not surging like a vacuum leak. It's different somehow. About the only thing I did was shift it a little to lessen the wrath of the explosive purple diarrhoea birds. They eat the berries on a tree in the yard and proceed to splatter everything with purple evil.
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Jun 21, 2013 11:33
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What about the PCV valve (if it has one)? If that is playing up it can be dumping some oil (only tiny amounts) into the carby, therefore hits the cylinders and starts smoking
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Jun 21, 2013 11:48
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You Am I posted:What about the PCV valve (if it has one)? If that is playing up it can be dumping some oil (only tiny amounts) into the carby, therefore hits the cylinders and starts smoking Anything is possible. In all honesty I'm not sure. It was built in '87 so it would have some emissions gear. It has EGR grafted in after all so a proper PCV system seems logical. However besides the charcoal canister hoses the only one I recall seeing is the big one going up from what I think is an internal breather box to the air cleaner. There weren't any signs of spatter on the element or the housing to my recollection. I don't know whether the breather thing in the crankcase has a valve or if it's just a catch can of sorts. There are a lot of possibilities for this. I did an investigation a while ago and I think I did a writeup on here. It wasn't thorough but it's a start. I might need to go back and look at it. I know I eliminated it being a manifold vacuum issue. Last night the idea of teeing in the vac gauge down stream of the EGR electric vacuum switch occurred to me. Connecting a multimeter would probably yield similar results. I still don't know what triggers that switch. I'll be heading out shortly even if just to get some fresh air. I'll have another poke then. Incidentally the new radiator hoses have this weird feeling coating on them like silicon or vaseline or something. What the hell is that for? Am I supposed to wipe it off before installing or something? Usually hoses are just as-is.
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Jun 22, 2013 00:30
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Well that was pointless and confusing. I took a good hard look at the vacuum hoses and concluded I don't know WTF. It's going to take me a while to figure out what's going on. The charcoal canister has two vacuum pots but I'm not at all sure what one of them does. Then there's the line T'd into the dipstick tube. There was also one more line going into the cleaner than I remembered. Connecting and disconnecting the power to the EGR vacuum switch was doing something but I'm not really sure what. It seems to get power when it's cold, so there goes one theory of how it works.
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Jun 22, 2013 03:38
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God I wish I could find an old cheap Niva that isn't modded to illegality. It's one of my dream cars.
MrOnBicycle fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jun 22, 2013 |
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Jun 22, 2013 16:42
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MrOnBicycle posted:God I wish I could find an old cheap Niva that isn't modded to illegality. It's one of my dream cars. What part of the world are you in? And more importantly what sort of mods are people doing to them? Not much to report here. Used the garden hose to wash the purple avian diarrhoea off the back of the Niva. The water took some more paint off the hatch. The external water, which is raw water here at our house isn't the best flowing. Perhaps slightly higher flow than the average person taking a piss. But it still managed to rip the paint off. Just like the masking tape peeled all the paint off the top of the hatch last week. Guess that hatch well and truly has some paintwork in its future. Besides dicking around with the vacuum lines I didn't do anything to it except shift it so I can put one of the hose clamps back on. For some reason last week I just walked off leaving it hanging on the pipe. Oh yeah. Lots of welding and grinding burn. That'll do it. I'm looking forward to registering it. If I can steal some time this week I want to finish off fitting the parts I got, What remains are the clutch MC, the radiator hoses and thermostat, and the What else needs to be done. Passenger quarter window latch needs to be put on. The crack in the drivers seat needs to be welded up and possibly the rail straightened somehow. I need to finish the rear hatch weatherstrip lip and replace a blown number plate bulb. If I were being completist I'd say do the trailer wiring connector and fabricate a new front bumper mount too.
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Jun 22, 2013 23:45
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Today I changed the radiator hoses and thermostat. This was an interesting exercise as these hoses have been left untouched since before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Rock hard, crunchy hoses with horrific ham-tin hose clamps. If you truly hate someone, give them some of these clamps.  I opted to pull off the biggest bit in one piece. Besides this all there is is the radiator top hose. Like every time I laboriously removed the bash plate and stone guard so I could drain the coolant, but things went wrong. I pulled off the bottom hose from the radiator. A splash of coolant then nothing. So I decide to remove the radiator cap. SPLOSH! The whole system dumps out in a couple of seconds everywhere all over the ground. Guess the radiator cap works. Never had that happen before. Next up I decide to try my luck with the drain bolt in the block. There can't be much coolant left, right? Wrong. It shot out in a horizontal jet hitting the side of the bay and spraying everywhere. I succeeded in feeding the grass nearly 100% of the contents of the cooling system. Taking the brass drain bolt for a trip I went to see if I could get a petcock or a valve of some description. Nope. It's that goddamn lovely U.S. tapered pipe thread. I'll have to special order something from somewhere. So anyway I assemble the octopus then clamp it in. Here's the octopus. The black thing is the thermostat.  While I was at it I decided to change the fan belt. What a poo poo of a task. The pivot was seized solid or something. It was a crowbar job for sure. I got the old belt off and had to walk the new one on using the crank handle. Here it all is in an action shot. Ooooh.  I got it up to temperature more or less, but the fan kicked in a little early because it was still adjusted for before. Still, the hoses were pushing back so pressure was building. I consider that a success. next up is the clutch MC I guess.
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Jun 24, 2013 06:51
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The, ah, coil is mounted vertically...right under the radiator fill/overflow? drat. If you can get me the measurements, I'll see if I can score you either a petcock or an adapter.
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Jun 25, 2013 01:43
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PainterofCrap posted:The, ah, coil is mounted vertically...right under the radiator fill/overflow? Yep. I know, I know. I actually had to ask about that one. Believe it or not that's the stock location. I thought some tripper relocated it and connected it across the engine bay with a spark plug lead, but no. Totally stock. I appreciate the offer but I should be able to source it if I look locally. Besides I put the bolt back in, but I did think to look through my tackle box of brass fittings and found a match. It wasn't any use for anything but it's a reference at least. The other unfortunate fact is I killed the thread in the radiator stuffing a bolt in. Absolutely nobody could tell me what thread it should have had at the time, plus I have doubts the bolt in it was original anyway. Why would there be a steel bolt in a brass nut on a radiator. Back to the coil, the original was surprisingly oil filled too. It still worked but I had a spare GT-40. It may have been a placebo or may not but the idle quality felt better to me after replacing it. But replacing the new looking plugs and recent replacement of the rotor and cap all seemed to help too.
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Jun 25, 2013 03:14
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What's wrong with it being filled with oil? All the Jet-tronic ones are, I think. It's to speed heat dissipation IIRC.
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Jun 25, 2013 03:42
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Splizwarf posted:What's wrong with it being filled with oil? All the Jet-tronic ones are, I think. It's to speed heat dissipation IIRC. Nothing's wrong with oil filled ones. Quite the opposite actually. I'm just used to lovely OE coils not being oil filled. I really didn't expect a low output Soviet coil to be oil filled, but then the Niva is full of surprises. Mostly pleasant ones at that. Besides rust repair which I hate in general, and the sharp edged bodywork I'm liking working on it for the most part. Not sure if I should be scared of doing the clutch MC. I may be wrong but it looks like the brake booster overlaps one of the firewall clutch MC bolts just a tiny bit. In all fairness the only real design weirdness I see with the car is usually related to the RHD conversion.
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Jun 25, 2013 03:49
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The new ones you can buy in the UK get around that easily, they're all LHD 
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Jun 25, 2013 16:36
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Cakefool posted:The new ones you can buy in the UK get around that easily, they're all LHD That's very true. I don't even want to think of the nightmare involved in importing a 2013 (For argument's sake) Niva, or preferably a 21213 (5 door LWB model) and getting it road legal in Australia. I've seen what could be called Ship of Theseus speculation over what would be considered a new Niva if one were imported and combined with an old one. Hey if I had the money to throw around and some legislative guardian angel / Satan watching over me I'd import a 21213 and do an RHD conversion using a RHD Niva for RHD specific parts. The factory has the tooling for RHD but they won't dust it off unless they get something like a 500 unit minimum order for RHD vehicles.
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Jun 26, 2013 02:45
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Today i did the clutch master cylinder. It was horribly awkward because of the cramped nature of the RHD models but as far as they go it wasn't bad at all. First i had to purge the system. There are a few ways to get to the bleeder on the slave but I find it easiest just to remove the battery.  There's the lovely old master cylinder. Ignore the stray vacuum line. That's a charcoal canister one that has a broken fitting. It's on my todo list.  Undid the two nuts holding ti to the firewall (It sounds so easy!), undid the fluid line and the hose for the reservoir and pulled it out. The bottom nut was stubborn and horrible to reach. I had to feed my arm inbetween the intake and exhaust manifolds to get the spanner to the nut, then got underneath and reached up with a crowbar to pry on the spanner to crack the nut. After that I undid the rest by shoving my hand back through, and dropping the spanner multiple times. I put the new one in place and started off the threads on the nuts. Then I remembered the rod. The rod isn't a part of the MC. It actually sits in a cupped bit on the piston of the MC. So i loosened the nuts off, pulled the MC forward, and went around, reached up under the dash and put the rod in place in the hole in the dust seal on the MC. Then I just went around, pushed the MC back against the firewall and retightened the nuts.  Here it is in place. I had to go get some new hose because the new MC had a right angle barb which faced away from the reservoir, so of course it didn't reach. It was also an evil job to push it back on. It could have gone on further but it'll never see any pressure so it's good enough.  Bled the "old" fluid out. Probably a couple of months old I think? Thereabouts anyway. Had this weird stratification going on. It settled like that within seconds of being swirled by my removing the bleeder.  I feel like I'm telling you all how to change a dome light. It didn't all go smoothly. I got to experience new and exciting coolant leaks. I had a nice supply of fresh coolant on my arm coming from the intake manifold as I was undoing the bottom nut on the MC. Also I noticed some dribbling down the transmission tunnel on the drivers side floor well. Oh yay, the notoriously hard to deal with heater valve is leaking. Lastly I decided to give it a test. Took off in reverse and heard a godawful metallic clank! Remember that crowbar? Guess who didn't. I couldn't see any damage thankfully. Massive relief because it could have owned the suspension, the steering including the steering box, the bellhousing, the starter, an engine mount or the firewall. Clutch feels a little different now. I think the whole thing was totally out of adjustment even before the fact so that needs doing still. The clutch engagement has a massive difference in pedal feel about 1/2 way down the travel which probably isn't right. It's what it was like before. Also worth noting when I was purging the system to remove the old MC something weird happened. The pedal went from no resistance to having quite a lot of springlike resistance near the bottom of its travel. No idea what that was about and don't really care. Maybe a seal dropped off and jammed inside the crusty MC. Nearly forgot this morning I saw a steady drip drip drip of coolant when I went to put the stone guards and bash plate back on. Leaky bottom hose. I tightened the hose clamp with a small shifter while I was down there. It's stopped now. I also figured out what the two holes through the bash plate are for. They line up perfectly with the screws in the middle of the two part stone guard meaning I don't need to dismantle everything to drain the cooling system. Live and learn.
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Jun 26, 2013 07:12
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I had an epiphany. The way the cooling system behaves has been striking me as a little bit weird. Unfortunately it's based on assumption to fill in data I don't have. If I look at it in terms of the old cooling system sort of working and the new one working properly then I can assume that the coolant isn't boiling at ~100* but more at 110* or whatever because the system seems to be pressurizing. That leads me to believe that the sender is the wrong type. This also explains why an (admittedly cheap Chinese) thermo switch rated for 30-110*C is set totally maxed out. So I changed strategy. The needle seems to stop for a while at where I'd say 75-80*C is on the gauge. This is where I'd assume the thermostat is fully open. So I re-set the fans to roughly there. This may also explain to a degree the leaky heater valve. Funny thing is I had a look and it was happily dripping away overnight, so I shoved a butter tub under it and warmed up the engine. Maybe one drop fell. The cooling system pressurized too so I don't know what the deal is. I also reset the idle setting because I realised why I needed to keep the choke on so long. I was setting it when the engine was way hot instead of warmed up. Really I don't think any damage was done. I hope.
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Jun 27, 2013 03:08
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It's been a while since I started it. I did today because the purple diarrhoea birds of doom (topknot pigeons I think) totally splatterbombed the back. Started straight away and easier than normal. I suppose being tuned for normal temperatures rather than borderline overheating helps. The heater valve or whatever it is leak is getting steadily worse. On looking at a few howtos it looks like it's a not totally horrible job. Trouble is the howtos are of a LHD one. On RHD the valve is nestled between the steering column and center console. If I can get a camera up there at a decent angle without danger of having coolant dripped on it I'll be happy. I need to see what's actually leaking. It doesn't 100% seem like it's the valve but looking at the design it may be the gasket that the valve bolts on to. If so that's an easy fix. What a goddamn pain. I realised I've probably spent about as much on coolant for it as parts. e:  
General_Failure fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 04:35
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The heater valve has mysteriously stopped leaking. It's still slated for replacement. Today I finished the driving lights and thermo fans. Did the wiring for the fusebox and relays, and tied it in with the existing wiring, so the relay sense lines are coming from the fusebox in the cabin. Worked first time of course. The thermo fans have three fuses. One before the relay and one for each fan after the relay so if one shorts it still has cooling. Also I don't trust relays. When I get around to it the wiring will get all bound up. Had to walk away once it was all done. Too drat sore. There's about a million km of extra wiring in the engine bay now but it's done in a way I feel a bit more happy with. No photos currently. Sun's going down and I have other things to do. Also re-routed the speedometer cable recently. It was running under the transmission, straight under the drain plug and also kind of resting on the exhaust manifold. It's back where I think it should be, above the transmission now. It was a bastard of a job for sure.
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Jul 8, 2013 07:48
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Messing with the wiring and the speedo cable, you had a fun day. Is it a mechanical speedo? Even just connecting the cable in one of those systems is a pain. You've almost got me interested in taking a look at the wiring in my Fairmont, things keep breaking for no reason (rip heater box fan) and I keep getting told to check out the wiring. It's really annoying getting under the dash in my car, I can't imagine what you have to go through seeing as you probably have about half the room I do. I'm a bit surprised you keep dumping coolant in there if you're losing it. After two bottles of coolant I just went back to good old hose water (something I need to replace now that it's fixed!).
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Jul 8, 2013 09:37
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Ansith posted:Messing with the wiring and the speedo cable, you had a fun day. It's only a slow coolant drip. As far as I was concerned when it went in I was done. But cars being what they were it had the last say. Wiring's not that bad so long as you can be in the right mindset for it. When I did the thermo fans and the driving lights today I was doing both concurrently. My wire colour choices were limited but it didn't matter. Doing things methodically always gets the job done. I didn't question my work at all. But I was a little worried because I had to unbolt the fusebox under the dash. Doing that with an older vehicle is tantamount to a cardinal sin. Everything still worked after. After having Fords, I can say that I think I have it easy working on this. You just reminded me of the unique agony of working on them. Like getting stuck twisted sideways under the steering column in the footwell. If people are saying check the electrics then check the electrics. You can check an awful lot with a multimeter or test light. I've been playing around with electrics / electronics since I was little so my perspective may be skewed, but automotive wiring is pretty basic. Just study the diagrams and play match the failure mode with the wiring. I also say this with absolute honesty, with the Fords, in most cases you are best off getting yourself prepared then dismantling the dash. It seems daunting but it's not. They come apart pretty easily if you have a manual to work off. It's just there's a lot of screws to keep track of really. A fun thing with the Niva that I've never encountered before is the layer of insulation on everything. It's sort of like silver grey saking with maybe 8mm of lint-y stuff sandwiched between it. Not bad to work with. Just unusual. I still have to go through and secure the wires I added under the dash, and make the ones under the bonnet into a loom so there's no question of legality. Read your ADRs and VSI bulletin 06 and you'll grow up to be an aussie car  . There's even a rule about running wires.e: I went out to lock up. Needed to retrieve something from the back so I open the hatch, grab it, go to close it and there's a nice crunch and it doesn't close completely. The weatherstrip moved and crunched the metal on the left top corner of the hatch lip  Apparently it was thinner than I thought. Damnit. More metal repairs on the list.
General_Failure fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 11:55
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No photos. been a busy day including thoroughly messing up the Fairlane's cooling system. Today I fixed the horn! My questionable contact for the contact ring on the steering wheel wasn't entirely at fault. it was that I soldered the contact to what I assumed was the end of the wire which I could see. But apparently the small bit of metal wasn't the same as the wire. So I soldered a wire bridge in. Shortly after I did a quick cleanup job of the wires I put in for the thermo fans and driving lights. Just a quick electrical tape wrap. it looks a bit less scary now. Also ziptied the extra wires to the main trunk under the dash. To finish off I did my best to stretch the headliner up back to where it used to be to slip the weatherstrip on to make it look acceptable for now. Because the Fairlane is stricken with a broken thermostat housing (and disconnected hoses) if there's an emergency I have to do something. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to the Ford dealership about getting a roadworthy next week. Pretty sure it won't pass but at least I'll know what's needed still. Why the Ford dealership? By law we can only take an unregistered vehicle to be registered at the nearest location. Plus I'm hoping they'll be thrown off enough by the odd layout that they won't find anything obtuse to pick on.
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Jul 11, 2013 08:46
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Booked in for roadworthy next week. I don't like its chances but nothing ever passes first go. I grabbed a small roll of white cloth tape to augment the rear of the headliner so I can secure it in place. I suppose all that's left for me to do is do some cleanup for roadworthy. Cover the visible rust on the rear hatch, make something lens-like for one of the rear plate lights and I should probably weld the crack in the crossmember thing in the base of the drivers seat. If they choose to pick on the leaky rocker cover then good. That's an easy fix. Same goes for the questionable trailer wiring plug. If they don't have easy morsels then they pick something hard.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:52
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Today I broke one of the handles off one of the latches that holds the back seat in place. At least it's locked in I guess. The drivers seat cracks got welded up and cold gal'd yesterday. I hit them with a black epoxy paint today. I pulled off the old plates, temporarily fixed the drivers door handle sort of by gluing the plastic back together, cleaned up the engine bay of bits of wire offcuts, plugged in a vacuum line, swept the floors, took the toolbox out and plugged the securing pin hole in the floor with a grommet blank, pumped up the tyres and... that's about it. Oh yeah I massaged one of the front guards a little to try to stop it from rubbing under certain circumstances, and made a lens like thing for the plate light out of a shard of plastic I found on the ground from an old fridge. Tomorrow morning it goes for roadworthy so I get to see how many ways it fails. My main guess is they'll pick on the wheels. Next up the surface rust and then perhaps either the little bit of play in the steering, the bits of surface rust or the popped stitches on the driver's seat. Tomorrow we will find out. e: I also dumped 20L of 98 (Don't know the U.S. octane) in it. Hmm... maybe they'll pick on the fuel gauge that needs a tap to come to life.
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Jul 16, 2013 05:38
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Wait, you'll fall a roadworthyness test for stitching on the drivers seat?  I'm never moving to Australia.
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Jul 16, 2013 05:59
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Cakefool posted:Wait, you'll fall a roadworthyness test for stitching on the drivers seat? Depends on which state you move to. Some of them don't give a poo poo about inspections other than for registering or reregistering a vehicle (SA and WA, I think).
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Jul 16, 2013 06:25
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Cakefool posted:Wait, you'll fall a roadworthyness test for stitching on the drivers seat? Depends on the mood of the person inspecting. Oh poo poo. I forgot to get a pair of cheap seat covers for the front to cover where I used cloth tape to stop a small rip from spreading. Uh... poo poo. Not as if I can do anything about it. Maybe I could borrow the VW's covers although I'm pretty sure they're good and stretched by now. e: Here's a motorcycle that failed because of damaged seat upholstery. http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?s=f6ce2bf7d70329c3575131c43f6a2416&t=886154 General_Failure fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 06:29
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General_Failure posted:e: Here's a motorcycle that failed because of damaged seat upholstery. Holy poo poo, that's insane 
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Jul 16, 2013 06:55
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KozmoNaut posted:Holy poo poo, that's insane yep. I've bumped in to similar things myself. Just came in from doing something I hope to never do again. Swapping seat covers in the dark. I borrowed the fronts from the Fairlane for the Niva. Nice blue fluffy Hello Kitty ones. It's a family car, and they oddly suit it. No recent pics. Here, have one of the relays and fuses.  and a random picture I took when the memory stick was still in my phone. 
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Jul 16, 2013 09:19
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I hope you don't get failed for "That looks bogged up, I bet there's rust under there" while staring at some cracked paint. That one is my least favourite. From what I gather a lot of the mechanics will give you a pass on smaller poo poo if they know you're registering it for yourself and not selling it. That's how my Fairmont got registered, up until a month ago I still hadn't done a few things on the list of things that needed to be done. Good luck with it, I hope they don't get you on too much poo poo, the guy probably won't even know what he's looking at so you might have a chance!
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Jul 16, 2013 09:57
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Ansith posted:I hope you don't get failed for "That looks bogged up, I bet there's rust under there" while staring at some cracked paint. That one is my least favourite. I'm hoping. It is a Ford dealership I'm taking it to after all. Hell, they wouldn't even know what to do with an Explorer if they fell over one. I probably said before but legally I can only take it to the closest place. If I get a bad enough answer I'll take it somewhere else. I'd be pissed if I got the bog one with this. As far as I know there is none. They'll probably pick on the bubbles on the hatch, but if they do then that's easy. I can just fix it. Or alternately sand it back and stick a couple of bumper stickers over it. This thing has patches all over where patina has started to shine through because of the variable quality Soviet paint. Not sure what the dealer thinks of me. I've been there plenty of times inquiring about parts and it usually ends in a kind of  kind of way. They don't even stock the right grade of oil for the Fairlane let alone any parts for it, and most of them are listed as NLA or cost more than I get in a week ...or once more than I get in a month. We'll see, eh?Hello Kitty! 
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Jul 16, 2013 10:54
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Basically with road worthy (Blue slip) the best approach is to be open that you expect the car to fail but you are keen to get it right - the inspector usually goes on your side and will point things out but pass them anyway because he thinks you are trying to do the right thing. Worked for me a few times - passing the attitude test makes things things so much easier and poo poo can be bodgy. "Yeah he's just a car guy trying to do the right thing.... we'll help him out a bit" Good luck with it
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Jul 16, 2013 12:20
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Cat Terrist posted:Basically with road worthy (Blue slip) the best approach is to be open that you expect the car to fail but you are keen to get it right - the inspector usually goes on your side and will point things out but pass them anyway because he thinks you are trying to do the right thing. Worked for me a few times - passing the attitude test makes things things so much easier and poo poo can be bodgy. I agree. The seat covers thing is kind of playing into that. The tape on the seat base and the few popped stitches can be in that dangerous grey area for inspectors but covering them up removes that issue. There's a few things they can pick on which aren't hazardous to any remotely sane person but can be points of contention for the rule makers, who for the most part I would at best say are somewhat detached from reality. I appreciate you wishing me luck. I need it. e: Totally forgot I changed my license over on Monday so I could take a shot at registering this. I had to abandon my HR rating because I would have needed to consult an optometrist. I can still get it back but it would have been extra stuffing around. e again: Found this list. Taken from here: http://www.fordmods.com/ford-bodykits-f15/blue-slip-checklist-t117396.html All lights have to work, All seatbelts have to work and have no sepperation. Horn has to work. Dash lights have to work. Wiper blades have to clear. Windscreen demister has to work. All door handles have to work, inside and out. Child locks has to work. Brake pedal ruber can not be worn through to metal. Must have correct fuel cap. Brake master cylinder can't be leaking. Must have battery tie down. No oil leaks, PowerSteer, auto, diff. Engine mounts must not be torn. All bushes in good order. All tyres more then 1.5mm tread across the surface. Ball joints,Wheel bearings, tie rods, rackends no more then 3mm freeplay. Shocks in good order and not leaking. All rubber brake hoses, not to be cracking showing canvas. NO rust holes. Basically if you can poke a screwdriver through it it needs to be fixed, save yourself the hastle and bog it up. No cracks on drivers side of windscreen or only allowed I think 2 bullseye chips smaller then 15mm anywhere on the screen. Tint has to be clean, not badly bubbled. And usually the vehicle must be close to standard. No less the 100mm from the ground, 2 mufflers and cat in the exhaust, decent sized wheels, correct coloured lights ect ect. And it's gotta pass a brake test and not veer or pull under heavy braking. Ignition barrel has to old the key whilst running aswell. General_Failure fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 13:03
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About half an hour until I drop it off. Some tape tore off the bottom of the door frame on the drivers side. A high wear area I guess. Looks like they used the Gaffa tape to cover some harmless surface rust. You know the sort that could stay as-is for a millennium. So I thought just now maybe I can put another piece there in its stead. Not a chance. The fog prevented it from adhering, So I spent about 10 seconds cleaning up the rust with a little bit of coarse wet and dry, maybe 120 I don't know. And did what I've done on other bits. chemical galvanized it. Looks like primer but a lot more durable. Plus as I learned yesterday I can successfully paint over it. I recall nothing about the paint needing to be pretty. Now, I wonder if it'll get knocked back over all the rust around the compliance plate. Water runs down past it when it rains. In a way I kind of hope it does. I didn't want to tamper with that area, but if they see it, go "Yep that's covered in surface rust, fix it." I can without all this fresh paint around the plate looking suspicious. e: Also tried starting it. Instantly burst to life. That's a relief. But if the Fairlane refuses to start then my jump mobile is absent and the VW is tethered to the caravan so it's a pain to do it with.
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Jul 16, 2013 22:28
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Well, it's over there now. It's going to fail The left mudguard needed clearancing too apparently. hard to test for this poo poo when it's confined to the yard. Thought I'd better mention to the bloke that took it (not the inspector. I don't get to meet them) that the front seatbelts cross over the transmission tunnel. It would have been failed straight away for that otherwise.
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Jul 16, 2013 23:17
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