wow... what a day ahead of me I have tomorrow

[veilsidedan]

So I bought this "cheap" runabout around 5 days ago now, after thinking it was badly hunting on idle and had a service light, air bag light and engine management light on I did the following

Changed spark plugs & cleaned throttle body - improved it a fair bit but still not right

Fitted brand new coil packs - made no difference at all

changed the oil - it was like water when it came out!

fixed the broken obd port - loose wire

plugged it in to find a wealth of fault codes! cleared the codes and its ran alot better, still has 1 code active for seat belt pre tensioner so i guess its had a bump and the air bag deployed at some point as the shut lines are dreadful and its clearly had a new door too.

so the car was still idling badly so I got it on the ramps last night and to my horror....

right engine mount - snapped
lower engine mount - snapped
o/s drive shaft - goosed
n/s inner tie rod - goosed
o/s rear spring - snapped
n/s rear spring - snapped
o/s rear chassis bush - split in half
n/s rear chassis bush - split in half
front brake pads - inside pads to the metal
back box - hangar snapped off


so I've ordered all of the parts today including some 30mm eibach lowering springs as they were only £6 more for a full set than 2 replacement rears.

So tomorrow consists for me of....

fit engine mounts
fit springs right round
fit new exhaust mount
fit new drive shaft
change gearbox fluid
change tie rods (doing both sides)
change pads right round (might as well)
change chassis bushes
repair heaters (new resistor and wiring ordered)
fit door lock covers (both missing)
fit 1.4 16v door bullet as one says DCI (must be from replacement door)
buy and fit a new stereo (front has snapped off standard one)
fit replacement driver seat belt (mine is all frayed and horrible)

so my cheap runabout has turned into an expensive car now haha but still should pay for itself in the fuel saved from my current car

[taffyhl]

I can't believe you are bothering to spend that much time, effort and money on what sounds like a car which has not been looked after for many years and very possibly been in a crash! On the other hand it would be great to see some before and after pictures and I do wish you the best of luck.

[veilsidedan]

I can't believe you are bothering to spend that much time, effort and money on what sounds like a car which has not been looked after for many years and very possibly been in a crash! On the other hand it would be great to see some before and after pictures and I do wish you the best of luck.

I thought the same to start with but the car was literally £400 to buy and £108 to insure for the year and when you consider I was putting £500 a month in my skyline in fuel its going to have paid for itself in a few months.

so today I've changed the springs - bottom coil on each rear was snapped.
ive changed the rear back box hanger - the rubber was split in half completely
ive changed the top right engine mount - again the rubber was split in half

didnt bother with the pads today as on closer inspection I think I will do the rear discs too so will leave that for another day,

sadly the dogbone engine mount didnt arrive today so it might come tomorrow but for now the car does feel a whole lot better.

all in the car now owes me £620 including repairs so still not that bad I dont think

[taffyhl]

I admire the effort. I was in a similar situation in May after taking my 2004 1.9dci to the local garage with slight wobble in front wheel when braking. They came back with a whole list of faults (rear springs snapped, front and rear discs and pads, top mount, lower wishbone, top right engine mount) and a £998 estimate. They recommended scrapping the car as it has 117k and an oil leak! Got out my Haynes manual and did all the work myself (minus top mount and engine mount as both were actually ok) but adding in the actual cause of the wobble - inner track rod end plus outer to be sure. Passed MOT in June with flying colours (except for 'tainted windscreen' warning!!) and all for £250 including a couple of tools.

[veilsidedan]

certainly better to give it a go yourself, these care are so cheap to buy that to be honest I didnt care if something went wrong.

dog bone mount
heater wiring
door lock covers
gear knob sticker

all arrived today so ive already done the door lock covers as it was a 2 second job so going to sort the mount and other bits later on today