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Thread: Pop Mayday.

  1. #1
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Pop Mayday.

    My friend Andy has asked for help in sorting his car for him.

    Last week I went over with Phil & Mark so we could see why it was not running right. Fired it up and everything was running really well.

    Later in the day I found the coil positive connector was really loose and barely connected, so we suspect this may have been the cause of the rough running and cutting out.

    We left it running for a while and the electric fan kicked in and all was still good. The electric fan did not kick out again though, so I checked the temp on the controller and it was set to 80 degrees. I changed this to 90 degrees and it seems to work a lot better now.

    Next job was to sort the seized door wedges, after chiselling off the paint & filler and adding some spray grease they now work properly so the doors now shut without having to smash them into the body.

    Next was to sort the inner door handle as Andy was struggling to open the door from inside, again this just needed a good greasing and it now works properly.

    Then I had a couple of hours trying to sort some of the wiring issues.

    Oil guage goes to max with ign on, but drops to zero slowly when engine running - its a smiths guage so I'm a bit stumped at present on that one.

    Water guage, dead. Tried grounding the sender wire, but still dead. I suspect the person who wired it shorted it out and killed the guage.

    The ign panel, it's wired wrong and the warning lamps don't work (they were not wired up!) Live from battery terminals (17mm) with no covers fitted going into a steel panel....

    Tried rewiring them so it worked how Andy wanted - but this caused other issues, so for now its noted which wires do what and I will have to investigate further another day. A lot of the wires fell out of the crimped (insulated) terminals - reinforcing my hatred of these - I much prefer uninsulated and heat shrink.

    Now the bad bits,

    First one - this is the kickdown cable - not connectd to anything at all " class="smile">



    Next is this sodding great hole between the engine bay and the passenger compartment;



    Front suspension - assembled with no locking nuts anywhere



    Before we left for the day I took it for a test drive to see what Andy meant about the heavy steering.

    My anyalsis of this is its truly shocking.

    It's not heavy - its binding! It's difficult to turn, and when you do turn it if you don't turn it back it stays turned! I don't know if it's the column or the rack or something else but it's bloody awful.

    Anything more than half lock and the tyre treads catch the front wings, and there is about 3" ground clearance.

    It will be coming over to me next weekend to start on some of the issues, there are many,many more that I have not listed here but I'll go through them as I find them.

    Overall, it's a good car, but it's let down by the fact it's been very rushed, and some of the work seems to have been done without any care.

  2. #2
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Fast forward to this week and Andy's car has now arrived, with my pop waiting to be put away.



    Andy's pop soon got tucked away in the workshop and immediately up on stands with the wheels off to try to find out why the steering is binding.



    The bonnet was removed to provide better access, That's Phil helping (he owns the Grey Pop I rebuilt a while back).



    Wheels all stripped off to investigate. First job was to disconnect the rack from the column to find out which bit was tight. Turns out they both are........


  3. #3
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Lets take the wheels off.......first problem, one of the wheel nuts just spins round and round. Luckily it was loose enough to be able to hold on to the back of the stud and unwind it by hand.

    What was the problem?



    Hole is not worn, its just drilled far too big. There are a few other studs that are loose as well. They will need to have small welds added to secure them properly.

    So.......lets remove the rack..........hmmmm.......not actually possible as it went in before the engine and one bolt holding it on has a stripped thread, mr angle grinder soon had it removed though. In the end after much swearing and removing the oil filter we managed to get the rack off.

    Can anyone identify what the rack is from?




    Sooooo, the rack is tight. The driveshaft is also not straight. It waves around like a whore trying to attract customers. Its been welded at both ends, the weld you can just see right by the entry to the rack is not welded on straight, so the opposite end rotates around about a 4mm arc at the other end.



    The other end is even worse, it's been welded on completely pi55ed.



    The rack I suspect is also not straight inside, which is why it's tight. It's also not narrowed enough as the wheels have around 30 degrees of lock at max turning.

    So...the rack is junk and belongs in the bin.

  4. #4
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Moving on, the steering in the car is still really tight. Looking in the engine bay there is a bearing just in front of the firewall. This was unbolted and it jumped away from its bolt hole - you can see how far from this photo.



    Unsuprisingly the steering is now quite free.


    This 'should' be an easy fix - except the engine is now completely in the way. The plan is to ditch this bearing & mount and build a new one that will bolt to a different section of chassis so I can make the (adjustable) bearing mount off the car and then make the chassis mount after it is fitted back on the column. The exhaust will need to be removed for access as well.

  5. #5
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    The shifter on Andy's car is really loose & sloppy and its a guess as to what gear you might have selected. A look under the car reveals the problem, the shifter operates a rod to the gearbox, the only issue is the rod from the shifter exits sideways to a ball joint on the end of the rod (and the rod is loose on the bottom of the shifter), so any movement of the shifter barely moves the rod as the sideways rod just flexes instead.

    This ought to be a fairly simple fix by eliminating the sideways exiting rod. You can see the sideways rod here - the fixing to the shifter is obscured by the gearbox in the photo.


  6. #6
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Suspension next.

    Gosh, where do I even begin? Well, lets start with the springs interfering with the upper wishbones shall we? This is with the suspension on full drop - which is all of 25mm from ride height You can see all of the paint smashed off the spring. Note the upper ball joint angle here......




    The springs are quite short as well, with the spring mounts wound a long way up the shocks. Again, note the ball joint angles.




    Can anyone identify these balljoints?




    So, first job was to re-drill the fixing bolts nearer the joint and mark out the arm for material removal.





    And with the metal removed.





    Nice?? open ends of tube - bare metal and not capped off. These will be plated over.





    That's better, full drop and about 4mm of clearance.



  7. #7
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    The springs on Andy's car are 8" 425Lb ones, I had some 10" 350Lb ones spare so I fitted those to see how that might work.



    And fitted back on the car - this was not so easy as they don't fit, unless you split the upper balljoint first, fit the coilovers and then reassemble the balljoint with the suspension compressed. That will be why the 8" springs were fitted then...........

    Overall this is a far better setup with more travel and spring which will give a better ride, but will require some work to make it practical.




    Compared to the unmodified setup on the other side.




    Remember those balljoint angles? Yes, they are the limiting factor in the suspension travel, hit any bigger bumps and the balljoints bottom out of angle before the suspension stops moving........

    Looks like I will be reworking the upper & lower wishbones as well then.....

    It gets better though (well worse really), The shock bushings looked pretty stressed when I took them out (car has only done 100 miles) and I wondered why the spacers at the top were not equal, So....with the 12mm machine screw removed from the lower mounts (which were chewing up the mounts nicely with the threads) and a correct 1/2" shoulder bolt fitted, this is where the shock top mount wants to be (and it's wedged tight against that face too)






    And this is the lower mount bolt - which is also massively misaligned. The only way it originally fitted was because the bolts were undersized so the shocks could flop around on them enough to be (mis)aligned.






    And that is what I have found in the first 4 hours of working on the car...........

  8. #8
    NSRA member Captain Scarlet's Avatar
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    Where are those happy days? They seem so hard to find
    I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind
    Whatever happened to our love?
    I wish I understood
    It used to be so nice, it used to be so good
    So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me?
    S. O. S.
    The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
    S. O. S.
    When you're gone
    How can I even try to go on?
    When you're gone
    Though I try how can I carry on?
    You seem so far away though you are standing near
    You made me feel alive, but something died I fear
    I really tried to make it out
    I wish I understood
    What happened to our love? It used to be so good
    So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me?
    S. O. S.
    The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
    S. O. S.
    When you're gone
    How can I even try to go on?
    When you're gone
    Though I try how can I carry on?
    So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me?
    S. O. S.
    And the love you gave me, nothing else can save me
    S. O. S.
    When you're gone
    How can I even try to go on?
    When you're gone
    Though I try how can I carry on?
    When you're gone
    How can I even try to go on?
    When you're gone
    Though I try how can I carry on?

  9. #9
    NSRA member Captain Scarlet's Avatar
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    Good thing you went round Mark

  10. #10
    Moderator martin's Avatar
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    This is what happens when a car is "TV" built to a time frame.....

    Must admit though, it looks a hell of a lot better than the Wheeler Dealers Pop.

    Who cares If It's glass or steel, It's still a hot rod.

  11. #11
    Moderator Brizey's Avatar
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    A lot of `bodge it to make it fit` work there Mark!, some people shouldn`t be allowed near cars!!.
    Should be a nice rod once sorted!...
    "The older i get, the faster i was".
    Out to pasture ...
    My Intro My Rods

  12. #12
    Moderator jsf55's Avatar
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    Fair doo's Mark you won't let it rest till it's right ! pretty sure thats an escort mk2 rack check rally design for pics, could that possibly be a HA viva one, check Phils car ?

  13. #13
    NSRA member Captain Scarlet's Avatar
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    It does resemble HA Viva , 'D' shape mount one end with tube at the other (a few like that though) , there are two type very similar the early Burman one with shorter input shaft while the later one had a longer input.

  14. #14
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    Thanks John, one issue is I have virtually no budget

    Can anyone identify the balljoints and the stub axles? I'm thinking it might be easier to fit smaller footprint balljoints with new suspension arms to allow for more clearance.

  15. #15
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    I'm thinking its a modern (Ford?) rack as the TRE threads are a modern metric coarse thread.

  16. #16
    Moderator martin's Avatar
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    Roasty might know a few answers as he was part of the filming of the programme.

    Who cares If It's glass or steel, It's still a hot rod.

  17. #17
    Moderator jsf55's Avatar
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    Later mk2 escort were metric Mark

    Sent from my SM-A515F using NSRA mobile app

  18. #18
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    I strongly suggest this thread should be in the members only area, dirty washing etc, not for public consumption.

    Anyway, handy that there are apparent exemptions from those pesky annual tests, huh?

    Buzz Lightyear and others should be ashamed.

    At least it's now in good hands, and disaster averted!

    Chris
    Bumper sticker - This is an historic vehicle and only has three speeds....... if you don't like this one you sure as hell won't like the others.

  19. #19
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    Mark, you mention absence of budget. Anyone who's seen the programme knows of the guys plight and the letdowns he's had along the way, and somewhat ironically the 'help' from the TV show continues the trend. Grrr!

    What money is required to fix this? If it was say £1000, that's only 20 people putting up £50 each. I'd be in for that. Just a thought.

    Chris
    Bumper sticker - This is an historic vehicle and only has three speeds....... if you don't like this one you sure as hell won't like the others.

  20. #20
    NSRA member Blackpopracing's Avatar
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    That's very generous Chris,

    I'm thinking a grand should be enough, the rack will be expensive I think, the rest not so much. I think some form of whip round or crowd funding may be a way forward.

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