Over the years we’ve purchased the odd broken car that’s arrived in the shop and treated as a wee project to do when we have down time. Often the cost of repairs can be more than the value of the car, so unless you have some real attachment to the car sometimes its easier just to get out of it and move to the next one. So this was the case with MZM532, stretched timing chain, resulting in 8 bent valves and zero compression.
So, WEEU bought the car to save it from the wrecking yard and popped it down the back end of the shop and waited for a quiet day to start some repairs. This picture is before we bought it, having just discovered the extent of the engine damage. As you can see its not in the best shape so its never going to be a show car, damaged bumpers, door gaps not great etc etc.
Anyway, a look over the the car uncovered other items, such as the drivers door window switch pack in pieces, some WOF items like front subframe bushes, and lower arm reaction bushes, roof lining starting to sag (Standard). What was going for it was, decent rubber and brakes, nice wheels (Likely changing anyway). Leather interior in reasonable condition.
So!!!!!! $500 buys the car. What is the plan?
In the first instance I figure we can save it from the scrap yard and keep costs down by having it as a ‘filler’ job. From there I don’t know. Fix and sell? Fix and sign write it, another loan car maybe? We don’t have anything really promoting ‘Wellington European Tyres’. So a tyre promo car??
Some jobs to take care of.. Window switch and door card repair, easy. Something we hadnt spotted with the car on the hoist and the tailgate up was the top of the tail gate was damaged., you will see we are now sporting a Black tailgate (for now).
Below, well the cylinder head came off and went to headmaster for repairs/rebuild, including 8 new valves and the re assembly included new chain kit, gaskets and the usual odds and ends. Interior is pretty good.
So we get the car going, ticked off the WOF work and some trim work and went driving. Other things to sort were some general tune and maintenance work, coils, plugs, and a DSG service. And while this was happening the apprentices added a sneaky bonnet stripe. For giggles it’s stayed on and might be inspiring something for the future branding on the car if that’s the way we go……
Now What?
So its together, its legal, its going well, and it has a black tail gate! And in amongst all of this we’ve engaged with a new tuner ‘EuroTune’ so we figured why not plug some power into it and have some fun.
So on paper a stage 1 power tune takes this little 1.4 to 200HP. We’ve also done some other minor mods like a decat/downpipe and added the pops and bangs for a laugh. For now aside from the downpipe the exhaust is standard so the pops and bangs are minimal. I know plenty are going to hate on the pops and bangs, but hey, we are having some fun!!!
Now what/ watch this space.
We do have some wheels that we might try on it, and possibly give it a little lowering job, and then some signage…. But the immediate future is to get some km’s into it and make sure everything is working as it should, and enjoy the 200 HP’s!!!
Upgrade time with the purchase of a new AC servicing station loaded with features. Our Weltec friend Adrian has been it to give us all a refresher course. Now loaded with the equipment to assess most faults with HVAC and AC systems, scan tools to provide code reading and live data, Thermal gun provides a great visual tool for our temperatures of high and low pressure circuits, temperature drops across condensers etc and of course the AC station for Recovery, recycling, vacuuming and refilling of systems.
Charging station put to work while we got schooled up on the new equipment. It was a bit of an eye opener as to how forgiving some cars are, we selected 4 cars, My car pictured, a BMW loan car, a customers Tiguan and a staff members Suzuki. All 4 cars fundamentally were cooling the cars, and exhibited no faults, IE, no electrical issues detected with the scan tools, codes etc. Thermal gun and touch test of the high and low pressure pipe work as expected, Ie, frosty cold and very hot. Temps across condensers acceptable and all cars were cool at the vents. (not freezing cold but definitely cooling). And the gauge pressures were with-in acceptable ranges…. However as we were training on the new equipment, all cars we degassed and the extracted amounts across all of them were 1/3 to 1/2 below the manufacturers specs.
As I said above, forgiving, however as we found out, they were working but no where near as effective as they could be and were about to be…. After a vacuum of the system and a recharge of the systems, all 4 cars had a considerable drop in temp at the vents. BMW loan car as an example we removed 330grams from the system which should have had over 700. Once recharged we saw as low as 1.5degrees at the vents..
All cars were tested for leaks, all were ok, all held a vacuum for our test period. Much like tyres on your car, there is a certain amount of loss over time., unlike a tyre where you can just pop on a gauge and top up the AC system isn’t as simple and the only way to really know is to recover and measure and recharge with the specified amount..
Thermal Gun, what a great tool to inspect the system, the obvious is check the temp at the vents, however its awesome to look at the expected temperature drop across the condenser (checking for blockages, internal or external) and pipe temps etc
Some time ago we added tyres to our growing list of services on offer. We have a large range available, Continental, Maxxis, Goodyear, Pirelli, Nankang and Hankook to name a few. Recently we managed to get YOKOHAMA on board. We had a request for some road legal track style tyres for the car pictured. Great outcome as we have now added Yokohama to our available tyre brands.
Here’s is a great pic and a great example as to why cars get inspected like they do. On older cars with brake drums and shoes, the car had a way of telling you there was a problem. the brake pedal travel would get longer as the shoes wore out. The handbrake might not hold like it used too. The pedal may go soft or spongy.
In a modern car with disc brakes all around you can virtually have no brake linings left, but still have brakes that perform well, as was the case with the car in the picture below. By design the brakes are continuously adjusting as the pads wear. So they don’t go out of adjustment like an older car might. These brakes pictured well and truly passed the WOF brake test on our electronic gauge, however on the visual inspection they are about as low as you would dare to go and in fact were failed a WOF.
Other factors here too are this is only 1 of 4 pads in the front, and the pads don’t always wear evenly so often the one we cant see easily is worse off.
Here we have the rear of an Audi Q7 engine. This section requires the removal of the gearbox for access. So ultimately the complete subframe and powertrain needs to be removed. and then there is room to split off the gearbox and all of the associated intake and exhaust plumbing. If you look closely you can see some of the timing tool locking pins are fitted. This job started out as chasing oil leaks and ended in timing chain replacement as some ‘routine maintenance’.
Check out these massive stoppers! These things are absolutely huge. Huge power under the bonnet requires matching huge stopping power to match. Nice Genuine fitment here, we also have some nice aftermarket options out there for these.
BMW in for heavy oil consumption. The car was performing fine however the oil usage was high. Tests came back with using about 1Litre of oil per 1000km’s. Thankfully this owner had a mechanical breakdown insurance who came to the rescue and paid for a large portion of the repairs. As it turned out we did 2 of these jobs in August.
Both with policy’s through different providers. This one required ‘exhaust’ valve guides and valve stem seals. A reasonably common issue. The work involved removing the cylinder head for inspection and repairs as required. The owner in this case opted to renew the timing chain ‘kit’. The timing tool in ‘blue’ is fitted here as we ‘time’ the engine and torque up the crank and cam pulleys.
Our car TOY006 was in for brakes and then its twin arrives for the same job. Snap, hit repeat in the shop.
Great seeing these arrive at WEEU. We are also looking after a few at the Hamilton shop, Terapa Auto Electrical. This particular one is a Graham Berry built replica. My 2 and 4 year year old boys were lucky enough to get special treatment with this car when we ran into the owner at a car show….
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