GT mediated Awesomeness

[Jaba]

Its best to use loads of silicone when refitting as oil often finds its way through . In fact Citroen didn't use a gasket on the aircon ally sumps for some reason.
Leaks from the sump can be difficult to diagnose as well. They can come from the crankshaft oilseal and the mainbearing cap seals as well as from the sump/engine joint.

[panky]

I did a sump on a Mk1 Punto and they didn't use a gasket. The method was to put a bead of gasket silicon on the faces and suspend the sump on it's bolts and leave it until it was semi dried (about an hour) then tighten it up. The joint never leaked again so it worked.

[Kitch]

I wouldn't go silicone, personally. We see a lot of cars in where the oil has broken it down and bits break off and clog the oil pickup. A thin smear of high temp copper-based RTV and a decent gasket should do the trick. As Panky says above - waiting until it's fully tried to give it the last little tweak on the bolt is a good idea.

[panky]

The sealant was a special one recommended by Fiat so was definitely oil resistant (the joint wasn't actually leaking originally but the sump pan rusted through ), I just used the term silicon as a generic term. But yes use sparingly so no big blobs drop inside, but if a gasket is available then it's a no brainer.

[saintjamesy89]

Thanks for all the advice folks, i'd thought about some sort of sealant to aid the gasket so have ordered some hi-temp copper RTV stuff. I'll see about getting the sump welded too, i'd hate to have the damn thing off again - especially as the a/c compressor has to come off to get to the bolts!

No more BXing to report i'm afraid much to my displeasure! We are on annual leave until next Wednesdayand have quite the list of jobs, the Lexus has slightly binding rear brakes and a tiny water ingress, the Hearse still has a much larger water ingress and has lost 4th gear (overdrive), the kitchen needs half-disassembling to allow the builders to move the kitchen to lounge door to the other end of the wall and there is always other smaller jobs to do.

BUT we do now have hot water (a new hot water cylinder, such luxuries!) and a new addition to the family, Sprout, who is taking up considerable time and energy, although she is the cutest little bundle of teeth and claws and loves playing with our other dog Tulip, which is keeping her out of mischief too. Some of the playing gets a little rough, and Tulip finds herself with a baby dog dangling off of the nearest appendage, tail, ears, limbs etc

[Tim Leech]

Aww, dogs are ace

[mat_fenwick]

Liking the new addition

In other news, your fittings and extra hose have arrived!

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[mat_fenwick]

There should be a package heading down your way fairly shortly! Hope to see the next instalment in this thread in due course...

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[saintjamesy89]

It appears to be almost 2 years since I last updated this blog, how very recalcitrant of me!

Much has happened in that time, sdaly very little being BX related. We have been focusing on the house, mostly the re-wiring project that needs to be done pretty much before anything else. We've designed 6 circuits for the house, 2 are finished and the 3rd needs a few more walls being chased to be finished. The electrician is installing the new fuseborad etc on Saturday so If we can get the 3rd circuit finished it can be wired in and signed off. We've been running and chasing the wires ourselves, fitting a new heating system (ceiling mounted far Infrared heating panels), replacing ceilings and floorboards amongst the normal maintenance and social bits of everyday life. A busy time!

With our cars, we still have the LExus RX 400h which we love, that has needed some maintanance recently and does also need some suspension work; drop links, wishbone bushes and ARB bushes at before the next MOT. I'll try to do the ARB bushes and drop links but the wisbone bushes I'm going to farm out, the engine mounts need undoing and the engine/gearbox raising to access all the bolts, with something as complex as this I just don't fancy it!
The volvo 740 hearse is dormant, the cylinder head has been refurbished by a machine shop, the valves need grinding in and clearance checking/adjusting. I've done 3 of the 8 vales, so slow progress! The block needs cleaning and a whole set of gaskets, i'll do that once the valves are done. I'm not sure where I waqs with the hearse when I was last on here, but it has had a replacement rear axle and i've rebuilt the rear brakes completely - the calipers needed refurbishing as the pistons/cylinders had some corrosion. All in all it adds up!



The Saab is really quite needy, it's not been used much for some time so lots of little niggly things keep popping up. It needs a suspension overhaul really, most parts could do with being replaced but it will have to wait! It has never run quite right, although it is much better now than it was - I still have some sesnors to test and possibly replace, i'm leaving the O2 till last as it will be difficult... It is a fun and aesthetically pleasing car, i love it! Even if it isn't a turbo, it still is a 2.0 16v and sounds rather nice. I've popped a photo in for you, it is an incredibly flattering photo in the sunshine, In reality it has a fair amount of laquer peel and many dings.



Now onto why we're all here! I spent 5 hours yesterday removing the GT's sump and installing the alloy sump for the A/C compressor. Why I am doing this whilst there is so much else to do is that i'm losing the barn that the TRS and GT reside in, I don't know how long I have so I at least want to get the GT in a state where it can be MOT'd and driven out to its new home.
YOu may or may not remember that I was in the process of swapping the A/C on the French TRS to my GT, well both cars are semi-dissasembled as parft of this swap, so I want to finish the engine bay side of the swap so they both at least can run and drive to help move them. The TRS will need trailering anyway, but as the government so kindly changed the rules on twoing in December, as long as I calculate the weights correctly I will be able to hire a trailer to tow the TRS to its new resting place - the total of the BX + Trailer + Tow car must not exceed 3500kg and if I can borrow my in laws pickup, we're good! I'm planning to head back on Wednesday for another round.



They have been jiggled around a bit for better access, so they aren't quite so close to each other now. Getting them out will be a challenge though!

Happy BXing folks.

[Tim Leech]

Good to hear from you Tom, will you sell the TRS after you've finished with it?

[saintjamesy89]

And you Tim! It is nice to be back doing BX things, I do have some affection for the GT - I always seem to forget what a nice car it is. I'm sad I had to miss the X Rally, we are worse off with staff sickness in the pathology Lab than we ever were during any of the lockdowns, so we've all been picking up extra shifts out of necessity, as I have no kids or dependents I do seem to be one of the first to be asked.

Yes, the TRS will have to be sold to recoup some of the costs it has incurred. Just having it brought to the UK wasn't cheap! Someone told me I will have to sell it unregistered and un-MOT'd to avoid bureaucratic incident - that was a while ago though and I can't remember the details, so I will need to look into that. It had no French license plates or documents, so I will be contacting the CCC for a letter stating the car's manufacture date when it comes to it, the DVLA will hopefully accept this in lieu of the French carte grise.

I had forgotten what a pain it can be working on BX's, my hands are cut to pieces after putting the alloy sump on the GT! I know on Wednesday I'll have the pleasure of fitting the GT's sump to the TRS, I ended up removing the under engine MK1 cross member and accumulator sphere for access, but still managed to damage myself a fair bit... I've been spoilt by working on the Volvo and Saab recently - there is comparably so much more space in their engine bays! The Lexus isn't great, technically it's a FWD V6 so half of the engine is totally inaccessible, to change the rear bank spark plugs the inlet manifold must be removed, and to remove that without the engine coming out a support metal bracket needs to be cut to access all the bolts! Craziness... It is well and good that the spark plugs should last 100,000 miles in these.

[deltic]

The Saab is a lovely colour!

[saintjamesy89]

Thanks Jonathan, I feel it is a green to go with romantic blue, both are attractive pale metallic shades. Apparently its quite a rare Saab colour, I've only seen one other on an american fb page. When they are vis a vis I'd like to do a strategic photo to show them both off

Progress has been made! The GT is running, lifting and unfortunately leaking. More to follow when I can do a proper write up

[saintjamesy89]

I finally have time to write up the last GT instalment, I had some success and managed to retain most of the skin on my knuckles this time. I got my DIY Rivnut tool out so I could insert the new Rivnuts and mount the additional radiator fan mounts from the TRS, now all sorted!

Rivnut kit.


Bottom mount Rivnut, ready for use.


Top mount in, twin fan cars seem to have a different fan mounting trim for both fans. The GT had a small rubber mount that was integral to the fan unit, whereas the TRS with twin fans had a long plastic guard that sits on top of the radiator and condenser, this has two plastic locating lugs for the fans that the bolts pass through.


Fans and condenser in





Compressor in next, a bit of a fiddle and I ended up not using the bracket pictured as I couldn't remember which side it came from (the internet didn't know either!). If I really do need this, please let me know! The mounting bolts had lots of surface corrosion so I gave them a good wire brushing and smothered them in copper grease before mounting the unit, they were very difficult to remove as they were covered in salt/dirt/rust, hopefully a bit of grease will help protect them somewhat. I also popped the wheel arch liner from the TRS onto the GT, this has a different lower moulding to accommodate and protect the compressor and belt a bit from road grime- it took me a minute or two to figure out why the GT's liner wouldn't fit!





Anyone know what this is for? I think it came from somewhere on top of the radiator/slam panel area but there's nothing obvious! There was a similar, bigger hooked clip that holds the wiring for the fuel metering sensor on top the the radiator by the bonnet latch (this is for the GT specific fuel computer).



Once everything was back together and I'd connected the freshly charged battery, I topped her up with new oil (new sump, new oil ), checked the other fluid levels and started her up. The carb float must have been quite empty by now, as there was a fair amount of turning over - but she eventually fired right up, didn't run long as I think there is almost no fuel in it, you may remember the fuel cap was not correctly fitted - fuel would slosh out of it on those hairpin alp roads in France! Sorted now, but I imagine there has been some evaporation, what fuel is in there is at least 3 years old too! Next visit I'll bring some fresh fuel and run her for longer.
I think it is then just the heater/blower motors, windscreen wiper and scuttle panel to re-install. I need to check out a new LHM leak, could be the accumulator sphere that I removed for the new sump, hopefully it isn't the HP pipes in that area that have given up! The bleed bolt on the stat housing has been leaking too judging by the amount of coolant crystals in that area, so I might try a thin layer of PTFE on that bolt and see - i'm wary of cracking/splitting the stat housing though.

Once the above is done, it will be MOT time! Depending on how much time I have before I loose the storage I might try and look into the engine bay electrics for the A/C and twin radiator fans - the GT has 1 relay, the TRS has 6 or 7! When the GT is sorted enough the TRS needs putting back together and the carb and vacuum lines looking into at the least!

[panky]

I love rivnuts. Got one of those £25 sets off ebay not expecting much but it's brilliant, used it loads on my Minor restoration. I like your rivnutter, useful to get in where the big old setting tool won't fit.