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Sorry, lots of pics on this one! had one last drive out to the Thames to have a kayak then it was coming off the road for work to commence. Starting with the front end. One of the 1st bodges i found was two different length front brake flexis, to get the wrong one to fit the bracket for it on the chassis had been drilled out. This meant the proper one would not fit now! So i sourced a new bracket from a breaker and fitted it to mine.
I had noticed that both inner cv boots were leaking, and i was getting a click from the front. What i didnt expect was for both the caps in the drive flanges to be missing! That would explain the leak.. One inner and one outer joint was pitted were replaced with gkn joints, new boots all round.
i was invested in this now, so the following was replaced
hubs x2
bearings x2
vented discs, shields and pads
braided brake hoses and new hard lines made up
lower wishbones and ball joints
track rods
cv joints and boots
new springs and bushes for them
i then realised this was a opportune time to replace the V belts, coolant stat and water pump.
the main problem i had was the vertical bolt through the wishbone, this is super long on a country. The head snapped off 🙁 My only option was to carefully cut the wishbone away from the bush, cut the bush off, very carefully cut the inner metal part exposing the bolt. I could then get a set of stillsons on the bolt and undo, success!
Lastly i replaced the engine oil and filter, and changed the gearbox and angle drive oil.
Now pictures!!Attachments:
next up, i noticed the poor condition of the fuel lines.. On the edge of splitting in places. So i decided to replace them all along with the fuel filter and a new pump seal and screws. I used 100% ethanol hose as it really is fit and forget.
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if its of any help to anyone the TRW part numbers for the caliper carriers are BDA228 and BDA229. i did contact them directly because everywhere was out of stock. its a product they are no making again, but maybe if a minimum quantity could be met?.
next i found the speedo was over reading by a large amount, interestingly i realised that the country has its own specific speedo. what had happened is whoever had fitted the replacement engine had fitted the speedo from that car, luckily i found that the original speedo was in a box in the boot. At this time i also saw that classic parts still sold the country speedo, and it was only 30 euro’s! So i bought one just in case.. Removing the dash pod i found that the speedo cable was broke where it attaches to the speedo, it worked but i cant leave things like that..
Thankfully the original speedo worked on refitting. the speedo cable seemed to take me ages to get right, just couldnt engage it in the gearbox correctly for some reason!
Also, what i found out to be a common problem is the dash lights on the heater panel and switches didnt work, a bit of searching found a guy who fits led’s to them. Sent mine off to him and i’m pretty happy with the result.
i also wanted a stereo, dab to be exact. i didnt want one that lit up like a christmas tree as i wanted to match the 80’s dash. Kienzle fitted the bill nicelyAttachments:
it was about this time i noticed a few coolant leaks, one was from the bottom of the rad, the other from the heater flange on the back of the head. as you can see from the pics, the head was quite pitted in this area. I decided to build it back up with jb weld and see.
its worked very well and 7 months later is still leak freei got the MOT! on the way back stopped off for some agreed value pics for the insurance
needed to swap the rear fog light to the other side for the MOT, also found that the front fogs were slightly past their best ! New ones were bought from classic parts
Thanks Samsam, but as we all know a picture (and arch spats) can hide a thousand sins! 😀 looking forward to seeing yours develop too!
Conor, yes i have a 16″ westfalia syncro. The car is on facebook, ive given it its own page!Attachments:
Once the car was back in the UK i had a few weeks to get it UK registered and a MOT certificate, as insurance companies dont like insuring foreign registered cars.
decided i’d also sort out the amazingly vague gearshift at the same time. You can see in the pictures that i bought the weighted shift rod, this turned out to be a bad purchase due to the syncro rods being different. some of these catch up posts will be out of order, but i do get distracted and flit from one job to another… So, this is all the linkage stuff. Made an amazing amount of difference. All bushes replaced, inc the the one in the shift box that the main rod passes through. The cup at the bottom of the shift box, All the rods on the gearbox replaced with new genuine ones, new gearstick, unfortunately not available genuine anymore. Then set it all up, which was amazingly easy compared to a T3!
And i do have to say, as i’ll likely forget as time goes on, this forum has been an amazing resource, a mine of information. Really has helped me in finding parts, how to do jobs ect. Plus Chris S has helped a lot too!Attachments:
heres the offending article, and the nice shiny new bolts. You will see as the page expands, i do like shiny new stuff…. 😀
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i suspect they just werent bolted up tight. It had a replacement engine fitted, that was a bit of a rush job i reckon (i have the original one that will get rebuilt and refitted)
is there any way to have the actual pictures imbedded within the text. so like a description, then a photo, then some more writing, then a photo ect.
Or do they all have to be added as attachments at the bottom? i guess the good thing about attaching them is that they are always going to be there.
