Adrian Southgate's Blog (42)

For those days when your parts just can't arrive quick enough, for sunny days when the transit just isn't 'fun'...

Project X...

Coming soon to a shed near me.

1997 DOHC, weber TC, MT75 box and Sierra fixed 3.72 diff in a Phaeton 3/4 hybrid.

I did some playing on gear calc and the theoretical stats look like this.…

Thanks to Mr Sheringham for the uncannily accurate artwork. 

So, collected last weekend and the first chance I get to go over it we have snow / hail / rain and gales... lovely if your a penguin I guess...

Q835XSC purchased from the factory in 1988, completed in 1990, stored for the winter in 1991 and there it sat for 22 years, possibly one of the saddest Legerras I have ever seen apart from my black one.

It…

So the saga of the gearbox rear seal continues. When it had the rear crank seal done the garage also fitted a prop/tailshaft seal which promptly leaked just as badly as the one they took out.

When I had the horrible vibration issue it was coming from the prop not fitting into the gearbox. Thinking this might have damaged the bush inside the…

So, MOT sorted by the skin of its teeth, loads to do before tomorrow morning, panic has set it due to a little mishap with the pedal box...

How many of you fitted metal spreader plates between the pedal box and the bulkhead? Here is something for those of you with pinto engines to think about.

I didn't see this coming 8 years ago when I re built…

So, happily sitting in the office, pokey room, front of the house when I hear a car starting, or attempting to start outside, thought to my self ... sounds like my Sierra... why would some prat try to nick that?.. Grabbed the mag light and rushed outside to find the car attempting to self start, full of plastic smoke and being rather toxic, enter headless chicken mode for 30 seconds rushing to get the keys, threw some large heavy objects out of the rear with amazing ease and ripped up the…

I am currently 'taking stock' while clearing out the garage and will be listing parts on here as and when they crop up.

I'm not going to put prices on anything as they are only worth what someone wants to pay for them, if you want something PM me and make me an offer. I have access to a courier at a small charge so can send items upto 18kg.

I'll include photo's if possible.

If anyone else wants to list 'spares' please feel free to add them on here so its a central list…

Working on the new letters for the club's 'refurb' into office from works.

Using the new logo and setting up mail merge links to the database, re-writing all the letters we commonly use in word rather than works... my eyes hurt and so does my brain. This might be easy stuff for office wallahs but its made my brain hurt, looking forward to tomorrow when it's supposed to be dry and I could possibly get a chance to do my head gasket.

Did i mention that my brain hurts?

So driving to work this morning and I am suddenly showered in little glass cubes, the drivers side door window has shattered, no visible cause but there was a 7 1/2 tonner going past me at the time so I suppose it could have been a stone impact.

Auto windscreens, bless em, have quoted me three to four days and that's with no guarantee's.. :-(

So the obvious question is, does anyone have a spare drivers door glass for a sierra?

Being wheely busy...

So them 'chelsea tractor' rims went from being shiny chrome when they arrived to rusty in a very short space of time. Seems they had been polished with some really abrasive material which had removed the outer chrome part of the plating leaving highly polished steel rim in places. Now this looked nice until they got wet but after washing they started to brown up and soon had rusty bits all around the outer part of the rim.

This is somewhat unappealing so I…

avoiding taking the engine out of the Sierra (AGAIN) This was accomplished by attacking the floor in the cab with an angle grinder and buzz saw. The end result will be a much lower tunnel which will then allow my seats to fit properly. In the process I have removed thin tin plate, polystyrene blocks, a shed load of P40 and some cardboard (soggy).

Killing P40 and P38 with a flap disc in the angle grinder REALLY makes the dust fly. I ache from leaning in through the door of the car but…

Dismantling my spare engine block.

As you can see it's now in bits, all carefully laid out on a clean board. What you cant see clearly is crud, oily rust particles which have crept in everywhere, Dave is bringing me some engine wash tomorrow to clean up this mess with. By this time tomorrow I hope to have a pile of nice clean parts to…

Peugeot leather seats from a cabriolet of some description, Black need cleaning but not ripped... £30 and he threw the back ones in as well.

I thought the material from the backs would come in handy for trimming the doors and centre console, maybe even a dash top.

Now... where is that leather cleaning stuff my mrs bought for her mondeo :-)

Oh.. pictures to follow .

under the bonnet of the Sierra. I have to say the cylinder head and exhaust manifold is a very awkward lift at that height, I might have a twinge or two tomorrow :-(.

Its out now though and the top of the block has been scraped clean of kak, head bolt threads cleaned out and a clean cloth soaked in wd40 laid over the block and weighted down to keep the crap out over night. I found some interesting 'blockages' on the water channels where the previous owner hadn't popped all the gasket…

Have a read of this people. LINK 

I have already posted one comment which hopefully reads with good humour. Maybe some of you want to chip in and stick up for our cars.

As someone suggested earlier I have started to write up all those fiddly jobs on the Sierra rebuild on Mr'G's forums to save them getting lost in theis one or cluttering it up.

Read all about it here.

patting myself on the back.

The Beast of Blackrod rides again. Made it up the drive and back a few times under its own power, brakes need attention but that was expected after a two year layup. Still have a lot of wiring to do behind the dash but I'm a happy chappie.…

Finishing the engine refit, wiring the capri dash and fitting the brightest LED daytime running lights EVER instead of sidelights... I'll see if I can get away with it as they are not E marked. ( I have a backup plan just in case)

refitting the engine and box to the Sierra, third time lucky and hopefully it won't have to come out again for a while.

Thanks to Dave T for pointing out the obvious grot on the splined part of the input shaft which I blatantly missed when assembling the engine and box the first and second times... :-)

cooling and lights/grill still to be put back but other than that she's back together.

Been out playing with pipes tonight. Thanks to Martin for the loan of his old westie exhaust, can't wait to fire her up tomorrow just to hear what it sounds like. I'll get a better picture in daylight.