The 110.

Good job on the brakes. Everything looks nice ad shiny and should stop you smoothly. You seem to be getting to be quite the expert on this. I usually use these brake dismantling moments as an opportunity to change the fluid rather than try and stop it running out. Brake fluid has been developed over the years so it's very good at flowing rapidly through small spaces, so it gets past clamps, fingers, improvised bungs and pretty much anything else. Just put some fresh in!

Brown said:

Good job on the brakes. Everything looks nice ad shiny and should stop you smoothly. You seem to be getting to be quite the expert on this. I usually use these brake dismantling moments as an opportunity to change the fluid rather than try and stop it running out. Brake fluid has been developed over the years so it's very good at flowing rapidly through small spaces, so it gets past clamps, fingers, improvised bungs and pretty much anything else. Just put some fresh in!

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Its also very cheap IME, and so its rude not to change it

Oh it will have a full new set of brake fluid running through its veins once the rear brakes have been stripped and rebuilt

min200 said:

Fiat 500

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Which one did you get? Hired a couple recently and was pleasantly surprised and loads of room for me at 6'5" and passenger. Nearest thing I've driven to a real Mini.

Morning Jam She ended up with the 1.2 Lounge model which is big enough engine wise for her small commute to Nottingham and back.
I know what you mean about the "Real Mini" thing and that was one of the main reasons she liked them! t the cost of parts as well before buying it and they are really cheap (you can get a whole replacement second hand engine for a couple of hundred quid).

Rear Trailing Arms...
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Thu, September 01, 2016 08:19:20
If I never ever ever see another rear trailing arm bush it will be a day too soon!
Right then I best calm down as I still have a headache from lying on my back all day yesterday in weird contorted positions and I would not want to burst a blood vessel now it's all over, if there were ever a time to do it that would have been yesterday afternoon about 5pm.

Let's start at the beginning. After my happy day of changing the front brakes over I decided that seeing as I had another all to myself free day I would make some real headway on the 110 by changing the trailing arm bushes. "Shouldn't be a hard job" I thought to myself as I had a shiny new hydraulic press in the garage. It was about ten minutes after that thought I began to wish I had not started.



The old bushes were completely shot and as in everything else I have done on the 100 so far it was all covered in a good layer of rust. Happily the nuts along with the bolts came undone easily leaving me feeling that this was a good omen for the rest of the job to come. I was mistaken.

The grinder had to come out to make short work of the bolts that held on the main bush to the chassis towards the front (seriously don't bother messing around with those little rusty buggers just go an get your grinder out and save yourself the hassle) and with that the whole arm came away with both of the old bushes still intact.
Keep your grinder out here because if yours are anything like mine you will need to cut off the front metal spacer here to then remove the old bush but this is just the start of the hell that is coming your way and is the rear bush...

I cleaned up the back end around the bush and confidently popped it into the hydraulic press. Soon enough I had it wound up way past its maximum pressure and that happy little bush just sat there not moving a millimetre. No problem I thought to myself so I turned it over to rinse and repeat from the other side. No joy there either so I dug out my drill and set to removing the rubber from the bush with that.
What a lovely smell burning rubber makes in a confined space but it was soon out (about fifteen minutes) so out came my hacksaw to cut through the metal bush outer before hammering the hell out of it to make it leave it's comfy nest.
A quick clean up after it was gone and the polybush was quickly put into place.



Now thankfully putting the whole thing back into place on the 110 was an easy enough affair that came with a nice warm feeling of satisfaction that I had beat the bloody thing, I had won! Then I realised that there was still the other side to do!



The arms need a lick of paint but that will be in a while and now the 110 is sat the right way around facing the garage waiting for me to start stripping the front end down to remove the old N/A engine so I can drop in the 200tdi I have sat waiting.
Things are about to get interesting...

nickysmith.me

Nice new nuts and bolts too. Mine are still looking shiny nearly three years on, so it's well worth doing and will last you a while.

I like shiny! Yep hopefully will last a while after all of this effort! Starting to really feel like I am getting somewhere with it now.

Yes, a bush or bearing or two every week and it soon mounts up.

The Crane Works.
The 110Posted by Nicky Smith Thu, September 08, 2016 19:30:10
Well I have talked the talk, now I am happy to say I have walked the walk. Yes folks I am past the point of no return where the engine is concerned you see it is finally out.
Now I have two choices I can either put the original back in or get on with the 200tdi conversion...I bet you can guess which way I am going.

It was just a couple pf days ago that Wifey told me to "Get the 110 under the car port so you can work on it properly". So it was quickly parked up then the strip down began.


Off with the bonnet and wings then I had to drain down the coolant, which was very clean and new so someone has looked after this at some point, and then out with the old tar like engine oil.


That was the easy bit done now I stood back slowing myself down a touch so I could put things bacl in the right place when the 200tdi goes in. I decided that the easiest way to do this was to use masking tape around the wiring/cables I removed as I removed them so they could be easily identified.
Feeling glad I had made this early save I plodded on systematically removing wiring marking it up then taking off the pipework putting it into boxes along with tying it back out of place.
In short order I realised I had disconnected everything from the engine itself so that only left undoing all of the bolts from the bell housing and to get to that I would have to remove the floor pans I had painstakingly fitted months ago way before I decided on an engine swap.



With the floor pans out along with the tunnel itself, much to my surprise the nuts came away from the gearbox easily. Within the space of a mere few hours I was now ready to remove the engine but the day had grown long so I enlisted a friend to give me a hand to remove it.

The following lunchtime saw us digging the engine crane out of the garage along with a some rope to lift the lump clear. Now here in lies a tale of caution for you because we got away with it with nothing more than a little luck but you may not be so lucky. This particular bit of rope was rather old and even though seemed up to the task we only had the engine up a couple of inches before it snapped clean and the lump dropped perfectly back into place onto its mounts. Literally the luck of the Devil there because even though we were standing clear at the time the engine could of done a deal of damage to the 110 itself not to mention the driveway!

After a couple of "did that really just happen?" moments I dug out a much stronger strap and we had another more tentative go at getting it out.
This time it was much better with it all coming out easily. It was soon dropped down into the corner out of the way leaving me with the job of scraping clean the chassis and while I have the access I will underseal the whole of the bulkhead as well. As soon as payday comes around I will order a new clutch kit and look to get the 200tdi into place asap.





nickysmith.me

Parts & Panels.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Wed, September 14, 2016 16:57:26
When you take an engine out of any motor it gives you the opportunity to get to otherwise unreachable places. So with that in mind I decided that now would be a good time to scrape off all of the years and years worth of accumulated dirt and oil from the front chassis.
This sticky dirty mess has done a superb job of keeping any form of rust at bay but at around 10mm thick was now getting a bit on the thick side. Placing some cardboard along with an old shower curtain underneath to catch the mess as it fell, I set to with a shiny new wallpaper scraper getting the muck off. It literally ended up everywhere! I was covered in the stuff including the back of my head...I mean seriously how the hell did I get it on the back of my head when the scraper was an arms length away all of the time??

Still it's all a means to an end and when i had nice cleanish metal in front of me I set to with the underseal giving liberal coatings everywhere I could including the whole of the bulkhead as who knows when I could be getting back into there again! I was working on the prevention is better than cure line. Once finished I stood back happily perusing all that looked clean and decided the heater box needed a coat of Hammerite as well while it sat exposed.
The results are very pleasing. Is it just me that gets a geeky kind of pleasure when you have done this sort of thing?


When we bought this house one of the larger things that had been started but not finished was the conservatory at the back. All of the hard graft had been done on the groundworks side of things but the outer skin wall was where it all ended. Seeing as this was all at the top of the damp course level of the bricks it was top of the list of priorities to get done before the Winter sets in. Now this is probably beyond my capabilities so I have had a chap in to complete the plastics works who was recommended by a few different friends and it is indeed coming along nicely now.


I had to be in yesterday as he was here for most of the afternoon and evening needing the odd hand with a more awkward part which left me with lots of time for pottering on the 110. Seeing as parts are at a premium I set onto getting one side of where the tub meets the chassis patched as it was corroded.
Should of been an easy job but as these bloody fiddly jobs tend to do it took nearly three hours. I ground off the old nuts and bolts then measured up for a new panel to make. That was then set into place and riveted along with the four nuts and bolts re-added. I was going to underseal it but it had got that hot in the afternoon the seal had melted in the tin to a runny mess so no hope of it sticking to anything then!


Still I must of been cooler than the poor bugger that was fitting the conservatory because the sun sat high in the sky beating down on him all afternoon!
I then managed to sell a couple of unwanted Disco bits to a chap who came round giving me just enough to go and buy the clutch for the 200tdi engine today! That's now one step closer to going in than it was before.

It was then onto the final potter of the day painting up replacement pan hard arm and fitting the new bushes. Am I going over the top painting these new bits that are going to be fitted? Maybe but just once I want the whole thing to look nice before the rust fights back through or the weather takes its toll.


You have to admit it to yourselves though that car parts always look better when painted.
Possibly the funniest thing I have seen today though is my dog sitting next to the conservatory doors waiting to be let in through them...they have not been glazed yet.



nickysmith.me

Not Much Left In.
The 110Posted by Nicky Smith Mon, September 26, 2016 14:18:30
Honestly I have been crazy busy with life of late. Family have been coming and going, in fact I have had more family along with friends visit lately than ever before so with all of that good company along with trying to fit in a bit of walking and other hobbies, time has really been tight.
Now I will readily admit here that I am on the "Little bit fed up" side of the rebuild at the moment but I still try to get at least a few hours in once a week if I can.
Without reading back through my blog entries I cannot recall if I have said what ratio transfer box I was going to go with. It will be the Discovery 1:2 ratio and the box is already bought.

The reason I have gone for that ratio s the 110 will be my cruiser/camper that is going to rack up the road miles like nothing else. There will be no off roading with it apart from where it will be parked up for the night. So with that in mind I have started to remove the gearbox so the transfer box can be changed over and the gearbox mounts replaced.


This is not a five minute process. First things to be tackled were the propshafts and the challenge of getting the very rusty nuts and bolts off.


These off course are quite easy to get to from underneath but what I would not recommend is the following when tackling them.
As you lie on your back with spanners in hand do not, I repeat do not put so much pressure on the said spanners that when they ultimately round off and slip off of the nut you are trying to loosen you get to smack yourself with a full force punch square in the middle of your face.
Then after the tears have passed and the pain has subsided enough that you can once again see reasonably clearly do not then realise you were wearing your last pair of good glasses that now sit splayed bent outwards on themselves with two broken arms.

After weeping quietly to myself in the corner of the garage for a few minutes I went and got my reading glasses so I could see what I was doing when trying to repair my now rather sorry looking specs. A bend here and a couple of strips of black electrical tape later and voila! A nicely repaired set of bins.


Back to the bonded bolts then. After some muttering along with lots of lubrication both propshafts were soon removed.
Once the handbrake, reversing light wires and accelerator cable were removed I drained off all of the fluids from both boxes. But that was the end of my day. I was tired and funnily enough had a headache/faceache coming on in earnest so removing the cross member and then dropping the box out will have to wait until later in the week.


Quite honestly I don't think there is anything else mechanical that I have not removed now! But I can rest easy knowing that once i have put the better engine and transfer box back in and popped the front end back into place, it will look like I have done sod all for the last couple of months!

nickysmith.me

Films & Fumbling.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Thu, September 29, 2016 16:14:27
As I sit here writing this I have popped the TV on for a change, I fancied some background noise for a change. The programme I managed to find is an old 1950's B movie about a Plasticine monster from Venus that is set to rampage around Rome whist the rather well spoken Army folks chase it around generally making things worse whilst trying to kill the poor bugger using whatever the biggest weapons they can find. Our poor women though, bless them because all they can do is stare straight ahead at the danger raising their hands to their faces and scream at the top of their lungs at the horror of it all! I mean it might mess up their lipstick or hair styles for goodness sake...where are all of the strong men to deal with the issue??
You have to love it. I often look back at the simplicity of the past compared to the present. Then I get to wondering if our grandchildren will be doing the same in another 70 years?

Still I waffle on a bit too much about this so as the polystyrene boulders fall I shall make my way back to the 110 and it's gearbox removal.
It's out. It's just lying there on the ground looking at me laughing at how long it took to come out and now knowing I am shattered so it will sit right there under the 110 waiting to be dragged out by me and a friend later. Then I will get to fitting the replacement transfer box that I am collecting later this evening.

I got the bugger out using two large trolley jacks in the end. Up went one end then the other. Out came a big crowbar that was used to lever the lot to the left then the right getting clearance to drop it down. Add into the mix some large bits of wood to protect it from the jacks themselves and after thirty long fumbling minutes the damned thing finally hit the deck...out...done.



The 110 then got jacked up on the nearside to give me easier access to try to drag it all out and this led to a bit of an annoying revelation. You see now that its all jacked up on one side I think I will be able to get the engine crane in through the door...that'll make life a little easier getting the whole lot back into place eh.



Oh and if you are wondering what happened in the film, the beast from Venus could not be killed by any weapons but the clumsy bugger fell off of the top of the Colosseum in Rome and killed itself. You would think after travelling all that way from Venus it would pay a little more attention to it's surroundings but the 50's women all climbed into their men's chests for happy reassurance that the world was right once again

nickysmith.me

Ay up!
Good to see the updates still coming!
I know what you mean about the 'a bit fed up' stage!!
I decided last week to crack on with the 300tdi transplant into my na ex mod 90. Naively, I expected to be done by now but no!
Engine is in but all the other stuff is taking an age!! Wish I hadn't started but gotta press on as we need 2 vehicles! 6 people and a vauxhall Corsa is never going to be a happy situation!!
Anyway, enough of my waffle!
I know I haven't piped up for a while but I am still reading!!

Cheers,

Rich

It's not waffle chap I enjoy the feedback! Seriously though it really gets on your pip sometimes doesn't it!
I have a mate coming up tomorrow who loves working on gearboxes so hopefully we will get the transfer box swapped over and teh gearbox back into place on new mounts

Pick Ups & Put Downs.
The 110 Posted by Nicky Smith Tue, October 04, 2016 14:58:52
There were great big heavy lumps of metal everywhere underneath the 110. In fact there was no large metal lumps left at all in the 110 and this left me a little miffed with what lay ahead.
But as with all insurmountable chores that lye ahead you really just need to chose a point to begin then take it from there.
An old friend was up for the day to give me a hand in what was meant to be a quick change over of the transfer box before popping it back into position. Easy eh? But the best laid plans never go to plan.
It didn't take long to separate the transfer from the gearbox and that really was the easiest part of the day!



With that done my friend, who is a mechanic by trade, piped up with
"Well lets get the engine in then."
"What!?" I said.
"Lets get the replacement lump in, then pop the gearbox on and finish with the replacement transfer box."
"Err ok then" I replied.

So with that very short conversation the afternoon had changed from a quick swap and lift into place of the gearbox end into a lets get all the big bloody metal lumps back into where they are supposed to be sort of affair. This I was not expecting at all.

Out came the engine crane along with the 200tdi attached and in what felt like a matter of minutes it was dropped straight into position with minimal wiggling.




Before we popped it in I replaced the rear seal behind the fly wheel (I forget what it is called) because I did not fancy having to pull the whole thing out again to change it later and seeing as the engine has been sat around for a couple of years I figured prevention is better than cure.
Then I scrubbed up the fly wheel itself before we fitted the new clutch.


It was now time to refit the gearbox but would it just drop into place? Nope. We twisted we wiggled I even called a friend in case I was missing something obvious but after a bit more jiggling as well as turning the engine over by hand slightly we had the whole thing in place.
It was at this point that my friend said "Oh you are not going to be happy with this" then he pointed to the clutch release bearing that had somehow dropped out when he was manoeuvring the gearbox around on his legs. So off came the newly fitted gearbox once more and the merry go round started again! It was all good though and before we knew it the transfer box was refitted to boot (along with replacement seals first of course).

After a quick meal we were back out popping on the replacement gearbox mounts. I made that sound easy didn't I but it was a pig of a job to do. At this point we were both getting to the "more than had enough of this point" but we pushed on until they were in place.


It was now that we realised that we really should have kept the transfer box bolts in order because they are all different lengths. This still needs to be sorted but we had had enough so seeing as the whole lot was now securely in place we both walked away to get washed up.



I am now a damned site further ahead than I planned to be around now and I thank my friend for that. I do need to try and find some enthusiasm for the project again though because I am still pig sick to my back teeth of it!
Having said that I am now once again at the point that I can just go out and potter from time to time on little easier bits. So forward we go folks pushing just a little further each week to get this old beast back onto the road...

nickysmith.me

At least your at the stage of putting bits on instead of taking them off. Should start to get that good feeling of completing jobs

It's great when mates like that get involved. I had a mate who sadly died a few years ago but every time he came round, the wee job I had planned mushroomed into a mega task but because he was there we always got it done.

Alibro said:

It's great when mates like that get involved. I had a mate who sadly died a few years ago but every time he came round, the wee job I had planned mushroomed into a mega task but because he was there we always got it done.

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I had a mate like that too, who similarly passed away under tragic circumstances.
Sad times but I like to think he would still approve of my tinkerings, although he would probably tell be to stop faffing about and crack on!

Min, it should now be quite straight forward with your reassembly. You will probably be surprised how quick it all comes together!
Just do one thing at a time.
Still lovin ya work!
Rich