General New guy old Uno overhauling the creaky bits 56k

[Hyperspace]

So, we were checking out the car, with it standing against an incline when the uncle looked over the back of the car and declared it blew a top gasket, as water was streaming out the exhaust.... friggen nice way to start my day... oh well its the first mechanical issues I ever had with the car.

 

[alexGS]

So, we were checking out the car, with it standing against an incline when the uncle looked over the back of the car and declared it blew a top gasket, as water was streaming out the exhaust.... friggen nice way to start my day... oh well its the first mechanical issues I ever had with the car.

Hopefully the knocking hasn't been caused by the combustion chambers being filled with water. Take the sparkplugs out and get the water out. Make sure it's capable of running knock-free before you get on with the task of changing the headgasket - otherwise you might have big-end bearing problems as well that you'll only discover later. At least it's a relatively easy head gasket change compared to modern, complex engines. You won't need any special tools.

-Alex

 

[Hyperspace]

Luckily my mechanic lives just 300m up the road from me.
Car is standing there now, poor guy, its his birthday and he wasn't gonna work on cars today.... but he said he might pull my top off this afternoon just to see what is wrong...

In the mean time I got an itch and grabbed the phone book and started looking for the company that modified my Corona's engine. Findlays turbines, company moved but still in business and even remembered my car. Anyhow turns out they will balance my engine and cut the flywheel for about 75 pounds. Do you guys think it sounds like a good price? The 2l they did for me would rev almost without disturbing a cup of water on top, and killed the new M3's that came out when we did it, from robot to robot. I have no doubt in their skill. Just wondering if it is worth while, would probably improve economy a little.

 

[Hyperspace]

Block, still looks ok and offered opportunity to get engine degreaser on to the gearbox housing....

Gasket... swiss cheese.. and that after I took it for a test, maybe a month ago, the dwindleing water in my radiator was bothering me.

Head is gonna set me back up to 100 pounds (1000 rand) at the engineers, as it needs to be welded up on quite a few spots, skimmed etc, the guy said when they weld that much they may need to do valve seats over or something due to warping or summit'. Leaves a real sick feeling on the stomach, not gonna be able to afford to balance the bottom too . Friggen sucks being poor in the middle of the great depression doesn't it.

Anyway its not everyday you get to go to the engineers with your mechanic in tow.
Its uncle Johan's 62 birthday today, and he helped me sooooo much.

 

[Ucof]

Yaah, I had my head gasket go after I bought my current Uno, there's a thread about it somewhere.

It cost me the same amount I paid for the car as it did to get the head gasket changed and the block skimmed.

Still, was well worth it as I know I have a car in great shape, that should continue to run for years. Only 40k miles on the clock too

 

[Hyperspace]

Yeah, but my heart is broken, I'm not a man of means and not realy sure how I'm gonna pay for it all yet.

The provisional quote so far is
100 gbp, and includes wors case scenario,
Reface valves,valve seats, head
Grind valves/head/set clear
chemical clean
adjusting tappets
welding the top
and for some reason the quote doesn't include the core plug we asked them for, but we poked a hole through the rust, so I guess they'll pick that up. No doubt, it will add a few bucks.

Then there is the so far unknown cost of new headgasket, new cambelt, the other one is pretty cracked, and has done just shy of 200 000km. (about 8000km short)
Bolts
New fanbelt ^^^^
New sparkplugs
New oil filter 5 GBP
oil 15gbp
Probably new transmission oil too as that oil is very old allready and we are getting dirty anyway.
Oh and paying uncle Johan for the labour is another 50 GBP, so we are looking at like 200+GBP.
May this be a lesson to all to use antifreeze in their cars, its only the coolant paths that coroded away, not the pistons or other critical parts. and it Didn't get an opportunity to overheat. Lol it was friggen watercooled in the extreme.

Guess I'll have to swallow my pride tommorrow and organise a loan of some kind.

Oh yeah I paid 1900GBP for the car in 2003 including the suspension work I did on it before bringing it home. Fixed up, its still worth that much. Cars are expensive here, the cheapest new cars start at about 11000 Pounds.

And you have to agree she is a looker with that bodycolour bumpers and spoiler. They realy made a mistake with the new Uno Mille, they make a white one without the black trim, it looks so bland.

 

[Hyperspace]

Just had a call to say the head is ready for collection and it was only about 75 pounds.... still gotta buy the decoke set and oil and filters and stuff.

Probably wasn't worth posting, but i'm desperately bored and cooped up in the house.

 

[Ucof]

Thankfully, those bits are quite a bit cheaper

 

[dzogi]

Fingers crossed for you mate

 

[Hyperspace]

Hey there, I was just too tired last night to post pics of the progress.
Sit tight for a bumper crop.

Back from the shop with all the new parts and the serviced and repaired cylinder head. As you can see, we replaced just about everything, right down to the belts and tensioners, as well as all the fanbelt side core plugs (which required another trip to the shops).

The damage for the parts, forthose who'd like to know what things cost.
It doesn't include the the welsh plugs which we got seperately.

Cool gasket set

Uncle Johan inserting the new camshaft seal.

Old hands that know their way around work.

Top gasket getting covered in quality gasket sealer.

With the thermostat inspected and attached, its time to put back the manifold.

Here we go, ready to install.

Almost done.

Belts on, oil in, antifreeze in.

And then we just had to tune her timeing again.

And now its all better.

 

[Ucof]

Yay!

Good work on the doing stuff

 

[Chas Uno]

Top gasket getting covered in quality gasket sealer.

Um, all manuals I've read state that you should never use any kind of gasket sealer/ cement on a head gasket. Most head gaskets are designed to seal dry so I'm not sure why your mechanic used sealant on it?

Good progress with the re-build nonetheless

 

[Hyperspace]

This guy has over 40 years experience, who am I to argue with him. It is not like he used red gasket sealer, Its a very fine copper spray that dries onto the gasket...

 

[alexGS]

I have seen a Wurth product in use - probably the same one used here - which is a copper-coloured sticky spray, and I have seen this sprayed on FIRE head gaskets, so it gets a vote from me even if Chas hasn't seen it

Personally I wouldn't bother but we each have our own techniques that we like to do, techniques that have served us well in the past

-Alex

 

[Hyperspace]

Hey there, how can I tell whether I'm haveing trouble from the gearbox or the clutch?

One of the above seems to have given in while I waited for my wife to open the garage last night to pull the car in... had quite a struggle changeing gears, but none of the crunchy sound I got when I had problems with the clutch hydraulics. Also over the last week there has been a kind of soft whistle/wirr from somewhere towards the flywheel position (as heard from inside the car) between 45 and 50kmph, this wirring sound moved up last night to occur above 60km shorty before we got home. Very faint sound, but I know my car's sounds. Also there has been a bit of body shakeing when idleing very low, intermittently. Engine part sounds fine though.

 

[alexGS]

I didn't want to have a guess on this one... but seems like no-one else has risked a guess either...

Whirring noise... if you notice this more in low gears than in higher gears, it might be the gearbox input shaft bearing. That's the one directly beside the clutch (and, on the other side, 1st/2nd gear). The bearing comes under a high load during removal/refitting of the gearbox and has been known to fail some time after. Also, when it fails, it tends to leak gearbox oil out onto the clutch, causing shudders and slips. Only way to fix is to remove gearbox, not good news

Cheer up though because this is only a worst-case guess.

First thing to check is the engine mounts, particularly the one at the back of the gearbox - if that has fallen, there may be a vibration and transmission of noise (whirring) that wasn't there before, and this also tallies with the shaking you mention when idling slowly. And, a sagged engine/gearbox could explain the problem with the gearchange, too. So let's hope it's something like that.

-Alex

 

[Hyperspace]

Hey there, been a long time since I posted, life can get so complicated.
Had a heart attack not knowing my wife was pregnant with my now 2 month old daughter, etc.

Anyhow the old lady is still going. Engine is still nice and crisp after the big overhaul, although a few weeks back it started a new issue.

Once you drove a few km's and parked it , it would only go about 3 km before backfring and stalling, and then it would take a long while for it to "cool down" (though it wasn't hot) enough to restart.

Anyway we had to go to the hospital in the town my daughter was born for checkups and just left the town when the car stalled and refused to budge. To make a long story short, we ended up at a garage (3rd one we tried) who identified the problem as the little black box that sit on the distributor.

So now the car idles realy great and is rock solid engine wise....
Last week I started hearing the CV joint again, and back to uncle Johan it goes. Drivers side CV is realy worn badly (since the pics I posted last.) and had to be replaced. While he was working on it, he also got annoyed by the whirring sound I moanded about before. He traced it down to the springs being too tight between the exhast manifold and outlet pipe. So, that got fixed too.

BUT it stil mad a hard knocking sound from the suspension if I hit any small bumps in the road too hard (we are talking 40 to 50kmph).

Had it at the tyre place localy yesterday to replace the one that got warn due to the bad CV joint, and asked them to investigate the knock.

We quickly traced it to worn front lower control arm mounting bushes. They are so worn, the one control arm could be made to knock against its mounting with a crowbar and a tiny bit of pressure.

Still waiting on them to source new bushes, but I think the car is going to be a real nice ride again when I get it done.

Thought I'd post on here again as a joblog to myself, and a problem and solution for others experiencing similar issues.

 

[rawill]

A fun write up, thanks for coming back and posting. I had a good read.

 

[Hyperspace]

OK she has a new tyre, new CV joint and new control arm bushes.
Also did the 4 wheel allignment this morning (the steering wheel does not point straight now when driving straight, maybe 5 degrees out, but more comfy in hand ) Took it to 140km on a small stretch of road and the steering is great, suspension awesome like new, but still had the knock... turns out the engine mounting looks a bit tired. so few more bucks and the car is near perfect. Next month putting on new door and takeing out some minor related rust .

I'm gonna be sad when I have to let her go at the end of the year.

 

[Hyperspace]

remember this?

Spot any difirences?

Sadly the panel beaters also made a real mess, breaking the top of my dashboard, so I went scrapyard diving, the new dash looked realy haggard when I dug it out of the wreck of a blue 5-door.

Full disassembly and a bucket of sugar soap followed by a good hosing and a spray of that non greasy dash stuff in a can jobs.

And the final pic...

A new (pirate) bumper, R350, probably about 20 quid your side of the pond.

I am busy taking those two rust spots on the front of the bumper out, nearly done with the first, about to go to 2000 grit paper, sadly there is a little colour mismatch, but its good enough most of the day. and certainly better than rust.

Then while cleaning the carb again I noticed the car reved up every time I sprayed near the throttle linkage, my worst fears came true a throttle shaft leak, luckily I found a nice looking exact same model weber at another scrapyard, although the jets and linkages were removed, took it anyway for another R350. The float was also horribly off causing the car to surge when you hit about 115kmph, ( we tried just installing without opening it first... Second time around I took the carb off myself I am proud to say, and we stuck a new kit in adjusted fast idle and vacuum drawdown (anti-flood) according to the manual's specs.

Man what a dream, it appears to be only sipping petrol now and the handling with those new suspension bushes is to die for, FAR better than my "new" toyota conquest, although the toyota does have it beat in ride quality. The Uno's 7kg for every 10kg of the conquest/Watt does make it so much easier to drive around town, also the Uno's higher seat gives better view during parking.

Next week the engine needs to come out so we can replace the stupid welsh plugs between the block and the gearbox, why couldn't they have used brass or stainless... R500 job for a R5 part, will do the engine mount replacement while I'm at it.