A new challenger 'The Beast from the East'

[richrx]

Hey, Great Thread Title!!!

Looks a good base car, some real potential. Looking forward to all the big and small updates!

I agree on the surface these cars may not initially seem to be the easiest driver but they are fun in an old skool way ... They really like being taken by the scruff of the neck

Rich

[rotarypower]

When the arrow on your rotor arm points to L1 on the distributor cap, that is TDC. That will be your Leading mark. You'll want a Trailing mark as well. I can measure the distance between the two next chance I get. (unless someone on here knows that already).

That would be perfect cheers.
From googling I know there's an inspection plate I can take off to find TDC if the dizzy isn't installed, but its the trailing timing that looking like it will be tricky.

I take it the leading mark is used for the leading plug against the pin on the cover and the second mark is for trailing?
It might be easier to try and find a 12a crank pulley and refit that for the timing! I did have a quick look on eBay but nothing at the moment.

Last night I discovered what could be some of the cause of my issues, I could hear sparking in the engine bay & on closer inspection there were sparks coming out the side of the boots on the leads going into the two coils!

It looks like a lot of the ignition stuff is the same between the UK FC and FB so I'll have a look through the garage, somewhere I have a full set of new leads, new plugs, known good coils, new dizzy cap & rotor arm etc.

@richx - Its such a weird feeling the steering goes from ultra light to wrestling with a bear and then past a certain point it goes super light again, weird. I need to drive it for a while, but apart from the actual amount of turns from lock to lock I actually quite like it!

[spirit r]

Looks a good base car, some real potential.
Rich

I didn't think many rust coming from inside of the bodyshell is a good base for a long time.


Pulley Set with timingmarks.

Screenshot_20190709-221900_Chrome.jpg (126.94 KiB) Viewed 10940 times

[rotarypower]

Cheers, I spoke the previous owner and he still has the old pulleys so he's going to post them to me. I can then turn the engine over by hand to those marks and then refit the gilmer drive & put marks on it.

@SpiritR It will be getting an extensive 'de-rust' this winter.

[rotarypower]

Well, an update on the car.

Engine wise, I checked the timing and its spot on at idle.
I received the original pulley from the PO and after a bit of messing around to get the engine to TDC I reinstalled it along with the water-pump & alternator pulleys.





Well he forgot to send me the alternator pulley but luckily its the same size or close enough to one of the FC ones I had knocking around so with the correct spacer it all lined up okay.


Both leading and trailing are absolutely spot on.
Got to say there a few design flaws on this pulley kit, it was a nightmare getting these bolts out quarter turn at a time, couldn't fit a socket in!

So next stop for the engine issues are fuel filter (of course I have to order it, no one local sells one), and see if removing the Gilmer and going back to the original pulleys has fixed my vibration. I'll test it with and without the viscous fan.

Moving on with the weather being as good as it is I thought it was time to have my first few forays into the metal work under the car to see what I'm dealing with. Starting with a small test area on the rear arch. I also took the time to measure up for the discs.












So its not the worst I've seen, certainly not the best either, hand brake cables look new. Definite signs of repair work being done in the past and not the neatest of jobs, I decided that while I was in there it was worth stripping off some underseal to see what was hiding underneath.






So some holes to take care of, its alarming how fast and angle grinder and a wire wheel can make a car disappear! I'm more concerned however with the corrosion around the rear suspension mounting area which I suspect will need some remedial work.

I painted up all the area I stripped back with Rust Encapsulator platinum, its great stuff but man the lid doesn't want to come off that tin a second time, despite cling film under the lid I had to basically destroy the tin to get it open.



Considering how dead the bushes and struts are its amazing the car handles as well as it does. I foresee a big rock auto bill in my future.

[rotarypower]

Midday update because I need a break from rust falling in my face.

Decided to have a crack at the fuel filter while it was up on the stands.
Obviously all the fasteners for the cover were completely rusted in place, some of them I was able to carefully remove, but others sheared the heads immediately.



I soon realised it would be easier to just drop the whole shield assembly along with the fuel pump and take it apart off the car, of course this was easier said than done, one of the studs spun off its mount and I ended up having to do some precision angle grinding in the car. All the while praying that stray fuel vapours from the pipes (which I did block off) wouldn't blow me sky high.

I also discovered manky and sodden underlay beneath the rear seats.






Nice.
And the mission creep has begun, I absolutely can't put that fuel pump back in so now I need to upgrade and I'm down the wormhole of making sure the pressure / flow etc is all correct from aftermarket pumps.



I ground back the parts of the cover that were recoverable. (The filter cover is FUBAR) And put on a quick coat of rust encapsulator. Hopefully long term I can come up with a better cover system, but this is quick and will stop it rusting for a few years at least.



Finally I put my dehumidifier into the car and taped up the window I put the power lead through. Hopefully after a few days it should drag all the moisture out the interior.

[ian65]

You're soon getting stuck into that. Pull off the rear arch trims to assess the amount of corrosion in the radius arm mounts, they usually rust through and a patch on the outside won't strengthen them enough



more info here...

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=36

[rotarypower]

Will do! (I'm tempted to do it now beer in hand, love this late daylight!)

Regarding the rear suspension mount, would it be enough to clean all the rust out the side of it and then stitch weld the side that looks to have micro holes in or do I need to cut it all out?

Not done any welding before, but I'm pretty handy and its one thing I've wanted to learn, however don't want to start on too hard a project or I'll end up ruining the car!

I've also got a bumper order lined up with Rock auto, but I'm waiting till the FC and Megane sell before I hit buy as I'm between contracts so can't go spend mad until I have more work lined up.

I ordered a new fuel pump & some rubber air conditioning pump stand off mounts off Amazon and they should arrive tomorrow, its rated 4.5-6psi which maybe a little high, I can always get a FPR mounted in the engine bay somewhere if that's the case.

[ian65]

I'd thoroughly clean the radius arm mount s back to bare metal then see how they look. To pass an mot any welding within 300mm of a chassis mounting point needs to be seam welded... you might be able to plug weld micro holes but whatever you do you need to make sure the mount is still strong enough. The reason these mounts rust in the first place is because the stresses from the rear axle cause the plates to crack then once the underseal also cracks, moisture gets in and they rust away. Your welding doesn't have to look neat but it must be strong.

[rotarypower]

Well the good news is that changing the fuel filter seems to have fixed the losing power issues I had around 60mph.
And putting the original pulley system back on has completely taken care of the vibration issues I had, so the engine revs smoothly to the redline.

That's a result all around I'd say.

I was also having some issues having to pump the clutch to get the car into gear, there were no obvious signs of leakage from the clutch master or slave cylinders so I went ahead and flushed new brake fluid through the system, maybe there was some air in there because its now working perfectly again. The old stuff was pretty manky.