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

Car has now been for an MOT and although not a pass its not a terrible fail.

Cat flanges are rotten so exhaust has a leak. New cat, down pipe and mid section on the way.

Anti roll bar clamp broken. New one on the way

Play in ball joint. New one on the way.

Rear brake imbalance. I will give them a re-build.

Not a lot but certainly a list of little jobs. Add in the gear linkage that still needs adjusting (any tips to doing this gratefully received) as well as its poor idle and its want to cut out it will still be a week or so before Im out cruising in the sun.

Dave.

Another update and bits of this car are really trying my patience. Remember back to the start of this project and it was going to be a quick turnaround but it taking a bit longer than hoped.

One of the reasons has been the gear linkage (seems to be a common source of frustration).

I have now replaced the bushes and I can get 1st - 5th perfectly, reverse is the problem and I have spent far too long looking at the car from this angle;

.

To help explain whats happening with reverse I made a diagram (ooh,get me!).



Picture 1 shows the linkage in 1st and second gear with the red surfaces touching. This is the reverse lock out.

To select reverse the gear stick goes down and left forcing the hook to pass under the stop plate and allowing reverse to be selected.

I can get reverse gear but there is a nack to it and it involves not pushing the stick all the way to the left when selecting reverse.

From what I can work out with my car, the gear lever is passing too far to the left and missing reverse so I have an idea that the yellow surface is worn and allowing too much movement of the stick but interested to hear if anybody else has a theory.

More bits arrived this week;

Down pipe, cat and mid pipe for the exhaust. Only £116 from a local motor factors but compairing them to whats on the car only the cat looks right



Rear speaker covers, £22 including postage;



And glove box lid, £15;



With good hinges;



More to follow and hopefully done by winters return.

Dave

Hopefully it's just adjustment needed to get reverse right. I think it will just be trial and error.

I had the same issue recently, if I followed the recommended dimension between the bottom of the gear lever and stop plate (as in your first photo) which from memory should be 15mm then reverse was a bit hit and miss.

If you slacken the pinch bolt on the clamp at the engine end of the shift rod, you can adjust the gap until it's just right. The ideal is with the car on a ramp with you under it and someone in the car checking your adjustments.

It needs a bit of time and patience but you should get there with it! lol

I read somewhere 14mm for a 5 speed linkage so using a vernier gauge I went through my socket set and found a 10mm snap on socket had an external diameter of 14mm so stuck that in the gap to space it.

All gears were perfect apart from reverse so jiggled it very slightly from there and had no improvement with reverse but a gradual deterioration of the rest of the gears so decided 14mm it would stay.

I plan to try running a cable tie round the bottom of the gear lever to deepen the yellow surface in the diagram and limit the travel of the lever, I will report on the results of that experiment.

Dave.

If you've got an old cassette tape knocking about then the tick bit at the bottom where the tape runs through is supposed to be the ideal size. The thickness of the plastic  housing that is..

A cassette? Whats a cassette????


Dont worry, thats just me desperately trying top appear young.

Job one today was to drop my fastback off for an MOT;

Fasty at the MOT centre by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

With that done I had a few hours to kill before going back for it so up to play with this;

It will eventually be finished by Dave Campbell, on Flickr

Didint want to get too full on as its usually when up to the elbows in one project that the MOT centre calls with another list of bits so decided to see where I was with the exhaust.

If you remember back, this collection of exhaust bits arrived and looked wrong;



Sure enough they bare no relation to whats on the car :-(.

I ordered up the parts on the basis of the MOT fail that said exhaust leak at join and the MOT man that said the flanges were knackered. After a proper look myself I concluded that I have dealt with far rustier exhausts so with a handful of new bolts and some assembly past the old one was fixed and re sealed;



All done just in time for this;

Good news......Its another pass. by Dave Campbell, on Flickr :-)

Ball joint and anti roll bar clamp left and it can go back for retest then need to get it running properly and I can start arranging the new roof and some bits of paint to get mended.

Dave.

New MOT, excellent  

Are you going to be swapping the tyres for something fresher?

Hairyarse said

New MOT, excellent  

Are you going to be swapping the tyres for something fresher?

Went for new tyres the following day then put together a cautionary post on the chat section;

http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&id=chat%2Fgeneral-chat_3%2Fplease-check-your-tyres

If anybody is interested in the restoration of the Type 3 you will find the process on this thread on my local VW club site;

http://vwscotclub.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4502&title=the-type-3-resto

The fastback and I will be at the Bridge of Allen car show tomorrow (17/5/15) and Volksfling in Biggar next weekend if anybody wants to get a closer look.

Dave.

Finally getting to the light at the end of the tunnel. The last job for the re-test was this;



A space where the anti roll bar clamp should be and how it now looks with the new clamp fitted;



Such an easy job it seemed rude not to replace the other side while I was there;


 Glad I did, the old one was ready to disintegrate as well.

All going to plan I will have a bit of paper from the ministry tomorrow saying my car is safe for the road.

Dave

Good luck for tomorrow Dave  

No news from the MOT place so good chance they didnt have time to fit in the re-test today.

Not too bothered however as I went onto the DVLA site last night to see how to tax the car to bring it home today had it passed.

Nearly fell off my chair when the website said my 6 months tax would start on May 1st so in effect I would only get 5 months and 2 days tax for my £126!

Add to that the 2 weeks tax I lost for selling my last car mid way through March.

They need to fix a system that is such a rip off.

I will go for the car next week and gain a full 6 months tax by waiting 2 more days.

Dave.

You should still be able to drive it back home from MOT centre when it's passed without taxing - as long as you drive directly home.

I had that plan as well but if I brought it home it would be out on the drive. Left at the garage its indoors for another few days so better its up there where I cant use it than waving at me from outside where I cant use it.

L plate clipper - Nice find, enjoy it :-)

Congrats on the pass  

Hairyarse said

Congrats on the pass  

You have got a wee bit ahead of the story there mate, I still havent had the official nod from the MOT mat but cant see why it shouldnt pass as all the fail points have been addressed.

Oh sorry mate, misread it! lol

Let me start this update with some knowledge. If you use the same MOT centre for 20 years and are very happy with them, keep using them.

My car was ready for its re-test 7 days ago but because I elected to use the nearest MOT centre to where the car was stored instead of the garage I have always used it has taken them this long to print the pass.

Thats right, it has been a long wait but I now have an MOT



And I drove it home.



Drives nicer than I expected, brakes are pretty awful but it will take a few drives to clean up the surfaces after it has sat so long. Think I need to look at wishbone bushes as its a bit clunky over bumps but at least its home, I can drive it and I can start the clean up, book the new roof and have fun in the sun

I had plans to get stuck into a lot of the small cosmetic jobs today but as it was raining I decided I would go for a drive and see if the car agreed with me after all the work.

I got 6 miles, had just joined the motorway and smoke, smell and warning lights.

Anybody spot the problem?



Limped slowly to the next off ramp where I knew there was a motor factors near by. Bought a new belt and went next door to Lidl for a set of spanners for a fiver and we were on the road again (but obviously now have cam belt job nearer the top of the list).

Odometer made a pretty picture (couldnt stop in time for the trip to stay at 0110)



Visited my parents who wanted a shot then when I got home my Mrs was back from work so went an hours drive in the country lanes…….. Its growing on me big time.

Still nice and sunny this evening so seats out for a scrub;





Carpet hoovered and tucked back in at the edge as well as dash washed and door panels scrubbed;



I think the small return hose at the top of the radiator is leaking at the join, roof is working but one of the hydraulic lines is leaking (can these be got easily?) and  put down my deposit on the new mohair top to get done in the next three weeks.

Still got plenty of small jobs to do to be happy with it but at least I can enjoy it now.

Dave

Awful weather today so no big jobs done but I managed to fix something that has been annoying me since I got the car.

The company who fitted the stereo and speakers (a professional stereo installers) had made a mess of the rears.



There was one screw holding this speaker on and no screws on the offside.

I saw genuine speaker grills go for silly money on ebay, usually £30 per grill so I bought some aftermarket covers. I didnt allow for the lack of space behind the window winder so they were useless.

Then by luck, I found a genuine pair on ebay and got them for the grand total of £22 including postage.

Much better dont you think?





Dave.