The 1993 Clipper cabio I didnt know I wanted. It found me.

Oh no gutted!! (Nice pic)

Yes nice pic shall remember the same on valentines next year. Nudge nudge .
No one proposed to me this year so it is up to me next year…
( can a car marry ? )… :-)

Been a while without updates as all I have been doing is driving the car.
Biggest bill since last update has been insurance which thankfully was only £130.
We had some sunshine here over the weekend so me and the Mrs went to a car show in Stirling and on the way back took a blast over the A821 (Dukes pass) from Callander to Aberfoyle, one of the best roads in the world.

The Dukes pass by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

The Dukes pass by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

The Dukes pass by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

The Dukes pass by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

In other news, its MOT time this week. From what I can see the offside front shock looks damp and there was something greasy on the nearside front wheel after the run over the pass so might be a ball joint/ track rod boot or CV joint boot away.

Dave.

MOT results are in. One leaky front shock. Think I can deal with that

Great news on the MOT.
Please, please, please replace both front shocks as should be done in pairs and a good time to fit new top mounts as well.

Congratulations on MOT. Summers here

Some good interesting shots on your flickr pages, that blue colour is the polar opposite o my red. Looks great. I'll look out for you around Glasgow too. I read the full thread too, congrats on getting the car back on the road too, from a potential loss. I trust you got out recently in the warm days we had in glasgow? 

Craigt said

Some good interesting shots on your flickr pages, that blue colour is the polar opposite o my red. Looks great. I'll look out for you around Glasgow too. I read the full thread too, congrats on getting the car back on the road too, from a potential loss. I trust you got out recently in the warm days we had in glasgow? 

Thanks Craig, the car is technically a daily as in its my main car but dont always use it every day but you might see me if you are on the Southside if Glasgow at some point.

I go with the rule that if its not raining and not frosty the roof goes down. Dosnt always go down well with SWMBO but whats the point in a cabrio if the roof stays up?

Job done, re-test tomorrow;

Shocking job by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

Dave

Thankfully all quiet on this thread as the car is MOT'd and (touch wood) running great.

largs run 5 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

largs run 1 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

volksfling 71 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

Dave

Wow, its a long time since I updated this thread.

Not much has been happening through the summer other than using the car and getting on with work on Jo's beetle.

I found myself parked under some scaffolding back in July;

clipper goes forth 15 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

I have taken the car to Biggar in August and not much else of note.

On the way back from Biggar I was getting a light rumble from the rear. On checking the nearside rear wheel bearing had a bit of play in it so adjusted it and have it on a list of to-do's.

I have had three weeks off work, all has been good but back to work on Monday and the car has thrown up a small problem.

After filling the tank yesterday I noticed a smell of petrol when I got home.

Today its still there so cant be spillage and when I had a look under the rear wheel arch all looked intact until I reached up and felt where the breather pipe connects to the filler pipe.

The problem seems to be that the breather pipe no longer connects to the filler pipe thanks to a bad case of iron oxide so I will need toe get a new filler pipe ordered up and figure out how to stop the petrol escaping the tank while I change it.

So glad im back to work and dont have time to spend on it.

Dave.

Finally I have a substantial update to the thread.

Parts arrived today to fix the fuel filler pipe rust so first part of the job was to get fuel out of the tank, especially as I filled it on Sunday before finding the rust;

Using this wee pump syphon I managed to get 30 litres out;


With the rear offside wheel off I could get a proper look up into the wheel arch. From here you can see why I missed the rust.



Still looks OK from here but on closer inspection the breather pipe is no longer connected to the filler pipe as the union has rusted through;



So its time to remove the steel filler pipe.

Step one, remove the sticker covering the three screws around the filler and then remove the screws;



Step 2, further down the pipe is a 10mm bolt holding the pipe to the inner wing;



Step 3, remove the jubilee clip holding the rubber pipe to the metal filler neck. The clamps here will probably be seized so have new clamps ready and if the rubber hose is damaged or perished, now is a good time to change it (I had a new one from VWHeritage but it wasnt long enough so re used the rubber pipe that was there).



With the filler neck off the true extent of the rust can be seen;



What was also obvious was the reason for it rusting out. The area around the top of the pipe was absolutely caked in dirt, most of which went up my sleves and in my hair but some made it to the ground;



The filler neck I ordered was for a saloon as it was less than half the price of the cabrio version.

With the old and new side by side you can see the difference;



The way to modify the saloon pipe to fit the cabrio is to mark the length of the old on the new then cut off whats not needed;



(there are some sellers on ebay charging over £100 for cabrio pipes that are sold as "genuine modified saloon filler pipes to fit clipper". Avoid these unless you want to pay over £60 for somebody to cut the end off a pipe).

When refitting, you will need to bend this bracket slightly to make it fit;



New jubilee clip on the breather hose;



If I had the time I would have given the pipe a coat of paint but as I needed the car mobile again I chose to fit it and coat it with wax and I will keep an eye on its condition;



All that was left to do is check everything was done up tight, re-fit the wheel and get the 30 litres of fuel back in the tank.

So far I can report that the job is a good one, I just hope there is not a lot of water at the bottom of my tank.

a good job, well done.    I wouldn't worry about the water in the tank, if you had any, that's already went through your system.

Looking good.

Nice little 'how-to' - job well done  

Cheers mate.

I need to be more careful about what I say. Less than a week after saying "finally, a substantial update to this thread" and posting the process of fixing the rusty filler neck I have another pipe to fix on the car.

Monday night at 10pm I was on my way back from dropping off the engine for the Beetle at Ed's when my car went from sounding normal to having a rasp. Then it had a rumble followed by a growl and ended up at full on roar within 5 miles on the M77.

I made it home and woke up the neighbour hood with the noise and left it to check what the problem was on Tuesday.

I had expected to see the joint at the cat hanging down but these were intact. It wasnt until I got right underneath that I found the problem, the down pipe was in 2 parts;



So I set about taking the exhaust off. The nuts at the front of the cat were really rusty and rounded off so I undid the nuts after the cat.



I then removed the heat shields and guards;



This gave me the access to cut the studs and remove the cat but wiith the pipes out the way I had to deal with the dreaded C clamps that were holding on the downpipe flange.



Leverage and struggle got the C clamps removed but this turned out to be the easy part of dealing with the clamps. More to follow on that subject…..

Pipe and flange in hand (snigger) I could see what went wrong. Amazingly the pipe had split cleanly around the weld line;



Normally I would expect to be replacing an exhaust pipe that had split but because the metal was in good order I decided to fix what I had.

You can see here the 2 parts sit together perfectly;



So I cleaned up the surface at the join;



Dug out my welder;



And with a zap and a grind it was one piece again;



While I had the welder plugged in I quickly added a couple of washers to the hanger bracket as the holes were rusting through;



By this point it was 5pm on Tuesday evening and I had visions of glory that the pipe would be back on and re-assembled before dinner…….. How wrong was I? An hour of fighting with, swearing at and losing skin on the C clamps it was getting dark and I was thinking of setting the car on fire to stay warm and avoid ever having to deal with the bloody things ever again. I would like to meet the designer of the C clamp down pipe fitting and take a poo in his coco-pops.

In a huff and in the house I came across the solution on this here Mk1 Golf forum so Wednesday lunchtime I was back under the car and using this solution (I know there is a proper tool but I didnt have one).

The C clamp which needs opened out to go over the flange (snigger);



The solution, an exhaust clamp;



Remove nuts, remove slider, replace nuts and replace the slider upside down and you get this;



Insert the high tech C clamp tool inside the C clamp and wind out the nuts to apply pressure to the inside of the clamp;



Now the clamp can be fed over the flange (snigger) before releasing pressure on the nuts and the clamp will hold the down pipe. The last sentence sounded simple but in reality with the limited access and the amount of tension on the clamps I think I spent a full hour faffing about with my arms in the air applying skin strips to my engine block.



The rest of the exhaust was re-assembled with new nuts and after a test drive I can confirm the car no longer sounds like a WW1 Bi-plane.

I will keep an eye on it for a few weeks and if it split once it may well split again but its working for now and didnt cost me anything so jobs a good one.

Dave

Nice repair there - I've not seen a pipe split like that before! Oddly I've never come across that tip on the C-clamps either.

Nice use of the word flange, I'm glad I'm not the only one with the sense of humour of an 8 year old!  

Not seen them split there before.
Invest in a exhaust clamp tool if you intend to keep the car, only £13 and makes the C clamps an easy job to do, takes a matter of minutes to get them off and on.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Exhaust-Spring-Clamp-Removal-Tool-VW-Audi-VAG-Golf-Mk1-NEW-UK-STOCK-/112080707966?hash=item1a1887e17e:g:jZ0AAOSwNRdX4qJX

I've not seen that tool before. Every day is a school day!    

Nice. I had to get the car back together in a rush, thats why I have fixed up the exhaust thats on there and why I improvised with the exhaust clamp but I will keep the tool in mind for the inevitable next time.

With out going too off topic the reason I need the car to be going is I am getting near to finishing the resto on my wifes Beetle which is starting to look pretty good If I say so myself;

bolted down by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

bolted down 1 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

bolted down 9 by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

Dave.

Wow that looks tidy - nice paint and the underside looks very tidy!