I said i'll be back!

[Laird Scooby]

Well it's been a busy couple of weeks! Doesn't time fly when you're having fun?

Since my last update, i've renewed the rear shocks and springs and i'm pleased to say it no longer feels like a see-saw on the Townsend Thoresen at every gearchange or braking moment!

Also finally got round to fitting the new gasket between the front pipes and front box, only to find there's still a pinhole blow on each front pipe where they enter the flange. New front pipes seem to be like hens dentists so i'll be looking at a "field developed modification" instead.
Also as a result of a speed hump from hell (before i fitted the new springs and shocks) i had to repair the rear half of the exhaust system including welding up one of the mounting straps round the rear silencer!
Apart from the blow on the front pipe flange the exhaust is now nice and quiet - might try some JBWeld on it.

Today i did a bit more in terms of servicing. Did a part-change on the ATF using an el-cheapo ebay oil extraction pimp. First bit out was red but a bit thin and fairly clear. The rest came out a sort of greyish colour, very thin and watery in texture but didn't feel as if water/coolant was in it as it wasn't slimy. All in all i got 2.5L out of it and replaced it with 2.5L of Carlube ATF-U which is in fact a Honda Z-1 ATF compatible fluid but also backwards compatible with Dexron II-D, many of the later "specific" Volvo fluids and also most PAS fluids. The changes are now much smoother and the car pulls a lot better - surprisingly so in fact! I expected a bit of improvement but not that much on the first part-change!

Talking of PAS fluid, i emptied the pump/reservoir of PAS fluid using a 100ml syringe i bought some time back from Amazon for this very job. Got about 270ml out in total and replenished with about 300ml of ATF-U and the steering is now smoother and quieter, with less jerking around. Again the fluid was a dirty grey colour and had quite a lot of sediment in it.

Obviously neither the gearbox or the PAS has had any sort of fluid change for a very long time - if ever! Usually the third part-change of either of these fluids is the charm so i'll give it a moth or so and do another of each and then another a month on from that.

Now for the big one! Or at least the on that took the longest! The oil and filter change! Why did it take the longest? Because i had to go and buy a new oil filter wrench, the three-legged sort that tightens its grip the harder you turn it to undo the filter. Even with this, i put three dents in the old filter about half-inch deep it was on there that tight!!! Once i got the new oil filter fitted i crawled under the front and undid the sump plug. Well i tried to undo the sump plug! I got there eventually but i think Guy the Gorilla did it up before he went to the jungle in the sky! Not just because it was tight but i reckon it hadn't been touched for about 20 years!
By the time i got back from getting the new filter wrench, the engine had gone cold and i didn't want to fill the new filter with old oil so i drained the old stuff cold. I needn't have worried as it came out thinner than water!!! Barely had time to clean the sump plug before the old oil was out and i had to refit it! All 6L of it as well!

Anyway, new filter, 6L of 10W40 semi-synth and turned the key and it fired. I was expecting the usual cold start clatter before the oil pressure got up properly but despite the oil light taking a second longer to go out (dry filter, empty pump etc - only to be expected) than normal, i could hear nothing untoward from the start. Let it idle a bit to circulate the ATF in the box then snicked it into reverse - nice cushioned thump as it should be and it crept backwards very nicely indeed for a cold box, especially as it had to go uphill!

Since then the engine is much quieter, particularly when working hard. Purely out of interest i weighed the new filter before fitting it and it was 390g - the old one weighed 710g by comparison! Yes there was about 100ml of oil left in it which would weigh about 80g but that still leaves 240g of extra, unaccounted weight or dirt in the filter. I think this old filter was blocked, perhaps only partly but blocked nonetheless. Given its location i can sort of understand them wiping the outside of it with a clean rag to polish it up for the previous owner but how long had they been doing that!?!?!?!

I think another oil and filter change before the MoT in december and also a cooling system flush and new antifreeze before it gets cold as well.

Next on the "immediate" list is to get the tracking sorted, it's near enough killed the inside edge of both front tyres. My self designed/built tracking gauges are damaged at the moment so looks like ATS for me tomorrow. At least i can moan at them if they do it wrong!

Then will be the ECC system - need to sort it so it will at least alter the air flow direction!

In other news i have a new sunroof switch to fit and a set of 960 window switches (the ones that light up) to fit, possibly with LEDs inside to light them up green like the rest of the dash. For now i'll be happy being able to find them in the dark though!
Also got a snazzy little cup holder on its way that will fit in place of the DIN sized cubby hole below the stereo - hopefully it will be a plug'n'play thing although i have a feeling it won't be!

[biggbn]

I feel guilty. I just drive mine!

[Laird Scooby]

How does that saying go? Many a true word spoken in jest? Thought so!

I said yesterday " looks like ATS for me tomorrow. At least i can moan at them if they do it wrong!".

As it happened, they did do it wrong and tried blaming the rack on the car! Driving it the tracking was 10 times worse than it was before i went in there. Worse still i can't actually moan at them! Why not? Because they knew they'd screwed it up and didn't charge me.

However, i did a bit of investigation and realised that in the straight ahead steering wheel position, the rack was in fact trying to turn right - hence why when they took the clamp off the steering wheel while doing the tracking it suddenly turned to the right! The spool valves in the rack were sensing steering wheel input and opened accordingly. Obviously they were using scuff plates to make their life easier while adjusting things so there was little or no resistance to the turning effort needed to turn the wheels.

When i got home i worked out where the centre position of the rack was and removed and repositioned the steering wheel accordingly. Then spent the next 2-3 hours crawling underneath and adjusting the track rods until i got it more or less where it should be. It's still guesswork to a apoint but at least it's educated guesswork in as much as ATS got the wheels aligned about a certain point, by altering the track rods the same amount each time i simply shifted that point to coincide with the central point in the rack and the steering wheel in the straight ahead position. Maybe on friday i'll pop back there and get them to check it again, just to be on the safe side.

On the good side my cup holder landed this afternoon, doubt i'll get time to fit it today but will post pics when i do.

[Laird Scooby]

Little update - my servicing seems to have had at least one good side effect!

Thursday evening i filled the tank with 10 gallons of fuel (£55) in anticipation of a trip to London to pick up some spares for my 827 coupé and today i refilled the tank with another 10 gallons (£56 - yes it went up 2p/L) and the total distance driven was 269.9 miles.

By my calculations that's a respectable 27mpg considering it was a mix of high speed motorway driving and snails pace town driving including a 2 hour follow my leader game on the M25 on the return journey!

The gearbox is certainly smoother following the part-change of the ATF, needs at least 2 more similar part-changes to get there, maybe three and it should have nice clean ATF by then.

Weather permitting tomorrow will be checking the front brakes, springs, shocks and attempting to fit the 960 window switches, sunroof switch, the DIN cup holder/drawer and a better stereo.

[AndysR]

Good to see you're still making excellent progress with yours. I've done around 800 miles in mine over the last 2 weeks and I've been looking at the MPG, its achieving 29.6 mpg. For a PRV I think that's excellent, although I've noticed that the welds around the downpipe where it's fixed to the flange for the centre box have started to fail. This means new downpipe time, or cut that section and the front box out and put a piece of straight pipe in

[Laird Scooby]

After sorting out a headlight aim problem for a friend today, i decided to look at the tracking problem. It seems there's a bit of a pattern on most of the repairs that have been done in recent times on this Urban Assault Vehicle (UAV) and the ethic seems to be "Will it get to be legal again or will it make it driveable?".

Sadly this has caused a few bigger, more expensive problems than fixing the problem correctly in the first place.
Part of the reason ATS couldn't track it properly is because the steering wheel in the straight ahead position wasn't in the centre of the rack. After correcting this i set about shifting the work ATS did sideways so that it should (in theory) travel straight ahead when the wheel is at the straight ahead position.
While doing this today, i noticed some excessive play in the bush between the radius arm and the lower control arm on the nearside.

Looking more closely at this bush it appears that no less than 4 thick washers have been used to eliminate enough play previously to pass an MoT - just! This is throwing the tracking out with variable results every time the car moves and also making a knocking sound over uneven surfaces.

Have ordered 2 bush kits that come with 2 washers, 2 bushes and a new bolt. These bush kits were only a fiver each, granted that was a clearance price but even at double that they're still relatively cheap. Certainly for the cost of garage time to bodge it, it would have been cheaper to fit the proper bushes and have done with it! Also it would have meant the front tyres would live longer!

I'll fit the new bushes when they land and see how things are then. Also with the vast ride improvement from the rear springs and shocks, i think i might fit new front ones as well.

Nearly forgot! On the creature comfort side, i've added a cup holder as well!





It was a nice tight friction fit in the original cubby hole and provides a slim drawer and the cup holder. I plan on fitting a better stereo at some point as well but whoever fitted the el-cheapo Maplin thing did a chop-shop job on the OE wiring using red bullet crimps - no wonder the sound quality is so bad! That will need a set of ISO plugs to fix and some time with a soldering iron, multimeter and heat gun for the heatshrink - job for another day!

That's pretty good economy Andy - i daresay mine might have matched it if it hadn't been for the 2-3 hours i spent at a snails pace playing follow my leader on the M25 and the North Circular Road/Fulham Palace Road the other day! Also when i wasn't doing a snails pace i was generally cruising between 80-90 when possible as the car seems happiest at that speed.

As for finding a new front pipe - good luck! It seems they're extinct now, there's a few listed on ebay but a phone call to the seller seems to result in "Sorry Sir, we don't have that in stock, if you can hold for a couple of minutes i'll phone our supplier and check..............<a few minutes later> sorry sir, they haven't got any and can't get them".

I have a couple of ideas. First is because i'm thinking of maybe fitting an LPG conversion at some point so will need Lambda sensors. The idea is cut the front pipes about 6" ahead of the flange, remove the flange and weld up the leaky area then refit it using these :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2811283117...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Would obviously need one on each pipe and a blanking plug until i fit the Lambdas.

Second idea is almost the same but using plain pipe.

Third idea is get a flange made up with two lengths of pipe fitted to slide over the existing front pipe and refit with (another!) new gasket.

Fourth idea and probably favourite at the moment is cut the flanges off both the front pipes and the front box and fit sleeves similar to first and second ideas.

Fifth and final idea is to drive it to Demand Engineering in Ipswich (they come highly recommended from a fiend) and get a stainless system made up for it. Obviously while they're making it the Lambda bosses would be fitted in a better position with blanking plugs, ready for when (or if) i go ahead with the LPG conversion.

Meanwhile i think JBWeld will be slapped all over the leaky bit!

[Laird Scooby]

Minor update to the above - i've also fixed the problem with the climate control not directing the air where it's meant to go. After a lot of faffing about, diagnosis and other grief, it turned out to be dry joints on the vacuum solenoid block that operates the various flaps etc to direct the air where it should go.
This also fixed the coolant valve under the bonnet that cuts the flow to the heater matrix when cold is selected on the temperature dial.

While pulling the interior apart to work on the heater, as a diversion i changed the window switches for those from a later 960 which conveniently have green LEDs inside and light up a window symbol on the switch. The originals were plain black so couldn't be found after dark!

Currently still waiting for new track control arm to radius arm bushes to sort out the tracking and front end vibration problems, also a pair of 850/S40/V40 etc washer jets as the ones i've ordered are the mist type/fan spray to upgrade the washer jets seeing as they're not working very well.

All coming together slowly but surely but lke many things, just when i think i can see the light at the end of the tunnel i realise it's someone with a torch bringing me even more things to fix!

[Laird Scooby]

The new bushes for the lower control arm to radius arm arrived today. Knowing the passenger side was relatively loose after checking it the other day and also that the bushes had disintegrated there, i did that side first with some help from a friend. Had a couple of fiddly bits but reasonably plain sailing doing it.

The drivers side could go one of two ways - easy because it hadn't been bodged or hard because it hadn't been touched. As it happened, it was hard because the original bushes that were fitted in Sweden were still in there and besides the fact they had crumbled apart, the part of them closest to the control arm had rusted to it. Curious mix rubber and rust!

After spending about half an hour scraping, chiseling and filing this mix off the lower arm, after a bit of jiggery-pokery i finally managed to get the new bush fitted.

As luck would have it i over-compensated when shifting the tracking sideways but at least it still goes in a straight line without unexpected pulling now apart from a bit of vagueness as the wheel needs turning to the left from the straight-ahead position to get the roadwheels to travel straight. Should be able to set this right fairly easily tomorrow.

I did notice the front pads are down to about 1mm of material and the discs have also seen better days though so that will be the next job. Big old discs too - 300mm ish! That's gonna hurt the wallet no doubt! I did notice that the calipers are the single bleed screw variety which will make bleeding easier hopefully - the others have 3 bleed screws each, two on the bottom and one on the top and can be a pig to bleed! Definitely needs bleeding, the brake fluid is black and the pedal is feeling a bit spongy, it's better than it was before i changed the rear pads but spongy nonetheless.

I have got some pics of the old and new bushes but haven't been able to upload them yet. The pc did an upgrade and went all "Microsoft" on me, extremely slow and uncooperative!

I'll upload them once the PC has sorted itself out with some help from Defraggler and C(rap)-Cleaner.

Meanwhile the ISO leads for the stereo also landed so i'll get them fitted tomorrow and tweak the tracking and hopefully it will just be the front pads/discs, shocks and springs and then routine servicing.

[Laird Scooby]

As promised, the Gallery of Horrors aka the pics from the radiusarm/control arm bushes.

Only two i'm afraid, both from the near side :





The off side was even worse, half expecting to have to renew these bushes again in under a year for the simple reason that the old bushes were left so long that instead of keeping the surface of the control arm relatively clean they merged with it so the mating faces aren't as clean as they should be so likely to wear the bushes very quickly.

[baggy798]

I changed those spaceship bushes recently too. The slotted outer metal rings had fused to the control arms and it left a bumpy rust pattern. Cleaned them up best I could but the poly spaceships were quite awkward to fit as a result, had to wind it together using a longer bolt (the inner control arm bolt) and a socket (like where the washers were on yours).

I should have just bought new control arms in hindsight, wouldn't have had to grind off the shoulders on the old inner bonded shell bushes either.