[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Fiesta's will leak eventually. There are quite a number of good YT videos out there, that will show you all potential leaks.

That was one exhaustive investigation and diagnosis. For the amount of work you've put in, this is a heading into the advanced DIY section. I'm unclear from your second update for another potential leak, if you found the source of that leak? Or was it just an area that was not dried out from the original leak?

I've been struggling with door card leaks on my BMW for a few years. On all doors. Similar to your Ford, the issue is widely known so plenty of videos on the Tube on how to resolve the issue.

As with most cars, you have a plastic sheet of sorts covering the inner door panel. As you've explained, this prevents ingress of water into the cabin. On my BMW (Or maybe most BMW's), they've used a sort of styrofoam material for this purpose. I think they use this material for improved audio acoustics and NVH. This is secured to the metal door frame using a sort of black tar kind of glue. I don't know the correct name for it. With changing weather patterns, the doors being opened and slammed shut, this styrofoam unglues itself from the black bonding material. This happens particularly at the bottom section of the styrofoam sealing to the door frame. The rest of it stays glued, probably cause water never makes contact to those area. When this happens, water makes its way past and flows into the foot well. Fortunately I identified this early on so have never had it too bad, as far as soaking of the carpets go. I've not done an exhaustive DIY to permanently fix the issue. All I do is refix the styrofoam to the black glue by pushing it and re-sticking to it. I think the correct way to fix it is to remove all the old glue and reapply the glue. I'm not confident to do that as the removal of that glue requires a heat gun of some kind as its pretty hard and solid. The glue flexes but removing by hand will be difficult. So once every 12 or 18 months, one or the other door will leak, I pry out the door card and do a temporary refix. Not ideal but works.

If you view the third image from this post (Failing rear door frame rubber seal on my BMW 3-Series (F30)), you can see the styrofoam material. Zooming into the image and observing the lower part of it gives you an idea of that black glue.

You mentioned the use of a RTC gasket sealant? How do you identify this?

A second leak that I've discovered is water making its way into the boot lid. This is the result of the weather seals on the tail lights attached to the part of the boot lid that lifts open. Water makes it past them and collects inside the bootlid. The actual tail lamp housing is free from water collecting in them. This is particularly noticeable when the car is parked on the side of the road. Kerb side parking has a slight camber, with the car leaning to the left a little. In the event I open the boot lid before heading out for a drive (..and if the car has been exposed to torrential rainfall), the water gushes out of the boot hinge. Alternatively, if I just jumped in and drove away, once the car is level to the road, the water flows out through the hole just where the boot latch is located. In the overall sense, a far less a severe issue though still needs attention. There is no water making its way into the boot area so thats a relief.

I'd appreciate any advice to resolve the door leak issue.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

I'm unclear from your second update for another potential leak, if you found the source of that leak? Or was it just an area that was not dried out from the original leak?

Sorry, I was not clear about it. I did not find a new leak, so until proven differently I assume it was spillover from the original leak.

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

You mentioned the use of a RTC gasket sealant? How do you identify this?

There are all different kinds of sealants about. I use RTC gasket because it sticks well, to (painted) metal and just about any other material. It dries quickly, but stays flexible. And if you ever have to remove it again its relatively easy to remove.

To some extent it is just trial and error, but over the years I have had good results with it. It is essentially a liguid gasket type of sealant. It comes in different colours and different other specifications such as heat resistance, chemicals and so on.

You can usually identify it by where it is used. So you would find it between surfaces for sealant! Not for waterproofing leaks. Certainly not by the factory.

So it might look like RTC gasket, but I doubt the factory used it. Did you check with a BMW dealer how they would remove it or what they would use to re-apply then styrofoam?

Originally Posted by sandeepmohan

I'd appreciate any advice to resolve the door leak issue.

Always tricky these things, but I think you need to try and clean that whole area, difficult as it might be, and reglue it properly.

Heat might work, but is likely to get very sticky. I would try different solvents, e.g. Spirits, petrol/diesel, acetone. Regardless, it is going to take a lot of elbow grease, because no matter what it will take a lot of time scraping and wiping!

On many DIY jobs, the proper cleaning of parts takes more time than the actual job of spannering itself.

Good luck.

Jeroen

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

So it might look like RTC gasket, but I doubt the factory used it. Did you check with a BMW dealer how they would remove it or what they would use to re-apply then styrofoam?

The existing black sealant thats visible does not look like a factory application at all. It does not have the perfection of a robot applying it in a perfect line. I have observed this on all doors.

My car is a used Japanese import. It feels as though for the purpose of vehicle inspection, they ripped out all the styrofoam material and reapplied it using cheap gasket glue. The application appearance is very rough. Not even. Some areas and thick, some are not. I suspect whoever refixed the styrofoam, just did it for the heck of putting it back using what looks like RTC gasket glue. The aftermath of that is what I am going through now.

The sole BMW dealer here does not have a sound reputation, hence the reluctancy to even go there and ask them what they use. I will walk in one of these days and ask them what they use for such issues. No harm done.

Here are some better photos of the issue. From another forum. Link
In this example, you can see a tear. I don't have that.
The BMW term for the styrofoam part is called Vapor Barrier.
I have found other DIY folks using this as a solution.

[Jeroen]

Due to some silly legislation my Alfa Spider is not allowed to be on the public road from 1st of December till end of February. Soon it will turn 40 and I can drive it all year around.

But 1st of March is an important day as I can take it out for a spin once again. Of course, after the latest engine overhaul by Marc, I was anxious to clock some miles and see how it runs. It also needs to be run in for about 1000 km. I want that done quickly as I have various big Spider trips coming up later this year.

As luck would have it, last weekend was cold, but sunny!!

On Saturday, I drove some 100 km in our neighbourhood. I visited one small event—a sort of car boot sale, but for tractors! The crowd was interesting.

I don't have a tractor, as my wife has vetoed it. But I thought it would be good fun to have a look. And as I expected, lots of tools and other interesting stuff for sale.



always useful to stock some various sizes bolts and nuts!













Anybody needing a rusty piston? Other than for making an ashtray or a paper weight out of it, I don't see the point of second hand rusty pistons!





Lots of tractor documentation about



I picked up an interesting sign for my garage!



The Spider drove really nice. But I think the coolant temperature gauge is broken. More about this in subsequent posts.

On Sunday, I had agreed to meet up with my best friend and Spanner mate Peter at van Neerijnen. One of the well-known and very reputable Alfa Romeo independent garages. We have known Koos, the owner, for decades. One of the Alfa Romeo clubs had organised a spare parts day. Technically, only for their members, but we just crashed their party. Nobody checked.

Koos and his garage have been featured in this thread before.





I had not come across these items before. Alfa Romeo branded ties!



A very interesting instrument to calibrate carburettors.



Koos works mostly on classic Alfas. (Of course, the number of new Alfas released to the market in the last decade is tiny). And he stocks a lot of second-hand parts himself.







He always has some nice cars for sale too. We knew this Spider Duetto. It belonged to an acquaintance of ours who's husband died some time ago. Koos is sorting it out and selling it on her behalf.



We arrived around 10.30 and the place was hopping. Lots of folks around. We always run into some folks we know. Especially Peter, as he is a professional classic car valuer and some of these folks were his customers. Had a nice catch up with Koos as well.

In a couple of weeks, the Dutch Alfa Romeo Spider Register hosts a technical day here at Koos as well. Peter will be present to do car valuation as well. So he and Koos talked over the last practical details as well.



Peter found this chrome ring for the Spider headlight. His had broken and this was good buy.

I also spotted several oil pressure meters. Our friend Bianca has been on the lookout for one of these for many years. A couple of years ago she found the correct one, but it did not work. So Peter and I are always on the lookout for her. We found the correct version, mailed an image and got the reply, please buy for me!





Outside, quite a number of Alfa had arrived. Some for sale, others members' cars.







Some modern Alfas (Relatively speaking that is)



After about an hour and half, Peter and I had seen it all and we decided to drive to nearby Breukelen and have a quick lunch. First time this year, our Spiders parked together once again.



Peter went back home and I decided to tour a few more hours in my Spider. Gorgeous weather. Lots of people out and about, walking and biking.

Waiting for one of the many little ferries in the Netherlands.



I have already investigated the problem with the coolant temperature gauge. I will try to fix it this week, so stay tuned. it is going to involve hot boiling water and a dash out job, so should be fun!

I returned home by about 1600 hours. The weather was still nice so I did a few other odd jobs. The black trim on the left front of my Mini was still not holding properly. I thought I had fixed it a few weeks ago with the special fastners I bought.

Hopefully I did a better job now:



I also gave the Mini a quick wash and put some of this special "black trim" stuff on it. You can see me using it on some earlier posts. This stuff works really well. The downside is its ridiculously expensive. Its properly cheaper to have the trim gold plated!



This week I am going to prepare Mrs. D Fiesta for its service. Couple of things I want to check/do myself. I have decided to let Ford do the distribution belt replacement. It is a big job and it requires five dedicated tools, none of which I have. I need to check the brakes, possible replace the discs and the pads and flush the brake fluid. And then the Spider coolant issue.

Keeping busy

Jeroen

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I don't have a tractor, as my wife has vetoed it...

Very unfair. See if you can get a combine harvester past her. You never know...



Or... one of those wonderful Liebherr many-axled mobile telescopic cranes! One of those came to my small, London residential street once. It had to lift a signal gantry over the houses and gardens between the road and the railway track behind the houses.

For all it's extreme manoeuvrability, it did actual get stuck on one of our corners, completing the turn only at the cost of a couple of concrete bollards.

I couldn't get a crane. But I manage to own a Liebherr fridge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxm9NCe4anc

[Jeroen]

Various brake jobs on the Fiesta!

Mrs. D Fiesta will need an annual service and an APK (Dutch MOT equivalent). As this Fiesta turns 10 years, its distribution belt must be replaced. I discussed it extensively with spanner mate Peter. In the end, we decided to let the Ford Garage handle it. Even though Peter and I must have replaced at least several dozen distribution belts and chains on all kinds of cars over the years.

The Fiesta requires five special tools that I would need to buy. More importantly, it would most likely take us at least 3-4 days, we don't have a lift, and we would have a very worried Mrs. D looking over our shoulders and driving one of my cars all that time. We have an excellent marriage, but I'm not sure if we could handle that sort of stress and anxiety.

So I made the appointment with Ford for the service and APK in two weeks. Last time we noticed that the front discs were getting a bit thin. I decided to check before taking the Fiesta to Ford. Replacing front discs is a straightforward job. And it will save an awful lot of money. So with Mrs. D out for the day, I started.



As per the usual, rear wheel choked, and front up on the jacks and axle stands.



I have this set of special "disc-calipers". As the discs wear, a ridge will form around the circumference of the disc. You need this special tool to measure properly.



The disc was only about 0,1mm above the minimum thickness



For good measure I also checked the drum brakes at the rear. Front wheel choked, jack, axle stand etc.

Remove the wheel and next remove those two little torx-bolt holding the drum. Next pry of the drum. It is good practice to clean the whole area of brake dust before starting this little job.



Removing a brake drum can be a bit of a challenge. Especially if the drum is worn, the shoes might get stuck behind that inside ridge. In which case, you need to adjust the shoes and turn them in. These drums might also get very stuck. Look closely, the drum has a single threaded hole, thread a bolt in there and it will push the drum outwards! Drum removed



I measured the thickness of the brake shoes and the internal diameter of the drum. All well within specification. Before re-assembly, give everything a good cleaning.



Another image of the internals of a drumbrake.



Before cleaning


After cleaning. The mating surface on this inside and outside of the drum must be properly clean.



So I needed some parts, the front discs and the pads. The pads on the Fiesta were quite fine. But when you install new discs you should always install new pads too.

So I called my friendly local car parts shop. They look up the parts by car registration number. Not in stock, so they have to order it. Which means it will be there around 13.30 the same afternoon. So I decided to start taking both discs, do all the necessary cleaning, pick up the parts after lunch and fit them.

I paid about Euro 170 for the two discs and set of pads. If Ford does this job, they will charge at least double for the parts and it will take their mechanic a couple of hours as well, at Euro 100 per hour, this simple job is a Euro 500 job at the dealer and not much less at an independent garage.

First thing is to suck some brake fluid from the reservoir. I will be pushing the brake piston inwards and that means brake fluid will be displaced from the caliper back into the brake reservoir.



To be able to remove the disc, you need to remove the caliper, which is attached with just two bolts.





You also need to compress the brake piston a bit. Because as shown in the earlier image, the disc has a bit of a ridge. With the piston extended, the pads will get stuck behind this ridge and you can't pull the caliper off the disc. So you need to wriggle it a bit, or use very large pliers to move the pads/piston inwards a bit.

Alternatively, you could take the caliper apart and remove the pads before removing the caliper from the car. I did not want to do that, as it takes a lot more time.

Getting the disc of requires a lot of whacking from behind whilst turning it. Took a couple of minutes of violence on each side.

Lots of cleaning of the various mating surfaces



With the caliper off the disc I used my special brake pad tool to push the pistons in. The new disc will be wider than the worn disc and the new pads will be thicker than the old ones as well. So you need to push the pistons in. You could do it with a large pliers, but I have this nifty tool which works well.





Make sure the caliper does not hang from its brake hose. Use a bit of string or tie wrap to tie it up properly.

I got the parts. New brake discs come coated with a protective oil film, so clean very thoroughly with brake cleaner.



As per my usual mode of operation. Always check old and new parts to ensure they are identical. In this case they were not! The new one has a threaded hole in it. That means, just as with the brake drum, you can thread a bolt in there to help remove them. Less whacking with a hammer, violence and cursing!





There were two problems with the new brake pads. They came with the incorrect anti-rattle springs and they had these special wear indicators.



This is the cheap, mechanical, wear indicator. As the pad wears at some point in time this little metal clip starts hitting the disc and that gives a peculiar noise. Time to put new ones in. But I was not convinced it would not interfere with the pads sliding back and forth. So I just cut them off





Installing the disc and the new pads is simply the reverse procedure. Put a little copper slip on the brake pad ears. (That's the area where they slide across the caliper and or anti-rattle clip.)

Bolts on the caliper are torqued at 70Nm. Fill up the brake fluid reservoir. Very gently tap the brake lightly till you have a hard pedal. Check the brake fluid level one more time and take the car for a short test drive.

It took me most of the day, but that was partly because I had to wait and get the parts and go back to get the correct anti-rattle clips. The actual spanner time of this job was probably around 3-4 hours. Of which a substantial amount of time is always due to cleaning!

Working on brakes, especially disc brakes tend to be straightforward. You don't need any special tools. Even though I have and use some, it can all be done with just some regular tooling.

You do want to check the torque values and have a proper torque wrench. Also, on some cars removing the disc means pulling out the front bearing as well. You can see me doing that on the Alfa Spider a couple of years ago. That always requires some more careful spannering. In most cases those bearings require careful re-installation with a very special sequence of tightening and loosening with specific torque values.

Most importantly, these are the brakes, so make sure what you do!!

Jeroen

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

You also need to compress the brake piston a bit. Because as shown in the earlier image, the disc has a bit of a ridge. With the piston extended, the pads will get stuck behind this ridge and you can't pull the caliper off the disc. So you need to wriggle it a bit, or use very large pliers to move the pads/piston inwards a bit.

Alternatively, you could take the caliper apart and remove the pads before removing the caliper from the car. I did not want to do that, as it takes a lot more time.

What I do is remove the brake reservoir cap and pull/press the caliper piston into the inner face of the disc with the whole caliper assembly as it is, holding the caliper piston part with both hands. This will compress the piston and free up the pads. Then I proceed to remove the caliper pin bolts and remove the caliper piston out. Followed by the bolts holding the caliper bracket to the knuckle to remove the caliper bracket out.

BTW, what grease do you use to lubricate the caliper pins?

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

What I do is remove the brake reservoir cap and pull/press the caliper piston into the inner face of the disc with the whole caliper assembly as it is, holding the caliper piston part with both hands. This will compress the piston and free up the pads. Then I proceed to remove the caliper pin bolts and remove the caliper piston out. Followed by the bolts holding the caliper bracket to the knuckle to remove the caliper bracket out.

BTW, what grease do you use to lubricate the caliper pins?

That is more or less the procedure if you just want to swap pads. In my case the whole caliper needed to come off in order to remove the disc. I did not remove the caliper pin bolts. They were moving freely, the rubber boots looked in excellent condition, so no need. I just leave all that and only undo the two bolts holder the caliper to the knuckle.

You must have stronger hands that me. I don't think I have ever managed to push the pads/pistons in by hand.

Why would you take the caliper piston out? There is really no need for it, unless you are going to overhaulmthe complete caliper, split it and replace all seals. I would never replace a piston without replacing the seal. Can be a royal pain. One of my very first posts on this thread is about replacing the seal of the pistons on my neighbour Toon W123 Coupe 280.

I have stopped overhauling calipers myself. Its a big job and new ones, for most cars are dead cheap.

I have some special grease for the pins, can't remember the brand. I'll see if I can find it next time in the garage.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

BTW, what grease do you use to lubricate the caliper pins?

I checked this thread and I posted this some time ago whilst working on the brakes of the Jeep

[Jeroen]

I have driven my Spider some 400 kilometers already. I need to clock a total of 1000 km, after which I will take it back to Marc. We will do an oil and oil filter change and re-torque the headbolts. And hopefully, no more excessive oil usage!

There are a few other small jobs that needed some work. The most pressing one was the coolant temperature gauge on the dashboard. It was indicating about 25oF too low. This is an Italian Spider produced for the US market, so the speedo is in miles, the oil pressure is in psi, and the temperature is degrees Fahrenheit.

I knew the engine coolant was running at the correct temperature. Marc had replaced the thermostat when redoing the pistons and liners. I can check it in three different ways. The cylinder block is supposed to be at least 75°C.

It takes a bit of training and experience, but as a rule of thumb, up to about 65oC you can still put your fingers on it and hold them there. At 75- 80 °C you wont last more than 0,5 second. The cabin air heater is also a good indication. When it is set to full blast, again the hot air is too hot for your feet.

And more exactly, I also use my IR thermometer to check the temperatures. A small word of caution here. IR thermometers are notoriously unreliable or rather inaccurate on aluminium. And the Spider is an all aluminium cylinder block and valve cover.

I checked the resistance of the coolant sensor and concluded that the sensor appeared to be working correctly. With the mass cable from the sensor connected directly to the chassis, and the ignition on, the coolant temperature gauge should give maximum deflection. Which it did not, it was, again, some 25oF low.

Which led me to the conclusion that my coolant temperature gauge was off by 25°F. So time to open up the dashboard.

My Spider has one of these central Instrumentation clusters. All the instruments are in one cluster. The trickiest part is removing the bezel. Because it is made of plastic, and nearly forty years old, and you need to twist it to get it from underneath the cluster.



The instrument cluster is held in place by four simple screws. Undo them and you can pivot it sort of forward which provides, sort of, access to the four plugs at the rear of the instrumentation cluster.



Here is the complete "cluster" as it is known



Upside down to remove the bottom half which included the coolant gauge. Again, just four screws.



This is the top half of the cluster.



I placed that back into the instrument pod and hooked up the three respective connectors. The fourth connector is for the lower instrument part





Next I put an electric kettle inside a big plastic tub on top of the engine. Marc had lent me a new spare temperature sensor. I attached the sensor wire to the new spare sensor and connected the sensor body to the car chassis. So the input for the temperature gauge is now the new spare temperature sensor inside the kettle!



With the water in the kettle on the boil, I adjusted the needle of the temperature gauge to read 212°F (100 °C). You can adjust the position of the needle utilizing a small lever that protrudes right at the bottom of the gauge.



It's a bit fiddly and I had to redo it several times, but I got it right in the end!

Put everything back together again. Look at this a solid 175°F (80 °C) with the engine properly warmed up. Also, repeated long-term idling with all the fan and AC on, did not move the needle. Which also means the new thermostat is working well.



Another small job: When I had the soft top replaced, the whole frame was removed and powder coated. It looks great!. And I want to keep it like that. When you lower the soft top (and I always drive top down, sun, rain, sleek or snow) you have these special elastic bands that keep it pressed down. They hook onto the frame.





These hooks are bare metal and will damage the powder coating. So I wanted to cover them with something "rubbery". In the end I used bits of crimp hose.





Looks good, I will need to see how long they last. The reason for putting these elastic bands is to compress the top in the down position so they fabric has little room to rub against each other.

Next job is to open up the right door, by taking the door card off. You have seen me do this numerous times on the Spider and my other cars. There is some rattle that I can't pinpoint what is causing it. So I am going to open up the door.

Stay tuned.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Earlier this week I decided to tackle the rattle in the passenger door. although I am not convinced there is more to this rattle, than just the window guide rail. I am 100% sure the guide rail is rattling. Because when I wiggle the window I can hear a rattle. And I have had this very same problem on the driver door already.

The door locking and alignment mechanism are the first suspects on these door rattles.





But I keep those two items in the doorframe and the door itself well lubricated with some special spray.

To get access to this inside of the door, the doorcard has to come off. You will have seen me do this countless times on the Spider and some of my other cars too. Out comes my nifty tool!



This is what the doorcard looks like on the inside. It has some mold on it and some of the holes that hold the plastic trim bits are torn. I have already spoken to my good friend Bianca. She had redone the doorcards on her Spider recently. She has a piece of the correct wood left and she will help me make a new door card sometime in the next couple of weeks. She is much better at this sort of work than I am. For now I will put this old crappy one back at the end of this job.



inside of the door with the doorcard removed;



You only need to take a few screws and bits of the door to remove the doorcard. Knowing where all these screws are is the tricky bit. Some are pretty much hidden from plain view.



You can just about see the window guard rail here. Contrary to the one of the left door, this one has the felt inside it in pretty good condition.





Regardless, I ripped out the felt, because I want to clean up and repaint the guide rail



Here you see the root cause of the rattle. The top of the guide fits under a metal strip inside the door. The bottom of the guide is bolted down inside the door. But the top moves about a bit, when the car hits potholes and so on.



Tricky to see, but you can just about spot that metal clip that hooks behind that bracket on the guide rail.



Next, some very rigorous cleaning of the guide rail. I use my pneumatic driven rotary brushes, it goes very quickly, just very dusty!

I still had lots of the felt sealing material left over. When I buy this sort of stuff for a particular job, I usually buy lots of extra, just so I will never run out in the future.



I use this special metal spray. You have seen me use it before. Fanstastic stuff, goes straight onto the bare metal/rust. Gives a nice finish and lasts very well.



I left the guide rail to dry inside our home overnight, because it is a little cold in the garage, about 5-6°C. Next I cut off the correct piece of felt liner and glued it back into the guide rail.



This glue works well on this sort of application. Rubber to painted metal. You apply it to both sides, wait at least 20 minutes and then press both parts together. I used a piece of wood, same thickness as the window itself, to push the felt liner in place, whilst curing against the radiator inside our home.





I cleaned of the mold on the inside of the doorcard. Just brushed it off with a metal brush. Next I inspected all the various clips. Believe it or not, but Alfa Romeo uses four different kinds of clips on one door card! Luckily, I stock them all!



This is the main problem, these plastic clips need to be twisted inside a hole inside the door card. Over time, those holes get damaged, become larger, and the clip doesn't sit well. Only remedy is to replace the complete door card.



My door cards are unique as they have real leather on them! So, with the help of Bianca, we will make a new wooden door card, remove the leather and various bits and install it on a new wooden door card, in which we have to drill and cut all the various holes.

Next, how to install the guide without it rattling. I can't change this stupid design, but I can make it rattle free. I just put a piece of crimping hose on the metal clip. Tricky to get it in place, so I used another one of my highly sophisticated tools to put it in place.



Apply heat!



Done!



I also applied a lot of grease to the bracket on the guide rail, just to make sure. Re-installing the guide rail is pretty straight forward.



With the door card back on I took the Spider for a nice tour around the Netherlands. Cold, but gorgeous weather!





I am happy to report some of the rattle is gone, but there is still a distinct other rattle. So back to the drawing board. I have also clocked up 1000 km. I will be calling Marc to make an appointment to change the oil and oil filter and retorque the cylinder head bolts. The engine has used about 500ml of oil during this run-in period.

Unfortunately, it appears the Spider has developed another problem. Looks like the right rear wheel bearing is about to go! Need some special tools to pull that bearing from the axle. I might ask Marc to do that as he will have the Spider on the lift for the oil change.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

The other day I noticed condensation in one of the Mini lights.

These are the fog/DRL lights. However, my Mini does not have the Front Fog light option. As you will see, that was most likely the cause of the water ingress/condensation.



On the Mini, you get access to the lights via the wheel well arch. There are two little inspection covers inside the liner you can take out, just to replace the bulbs. If you need to take the complete light unit out, the wheel arch liner has to come out.

So, on the jack and axle stand, the wheel comes off.



Here you see those two inspection/light bulb change-out covers.



I undid the fasteners and peeled back the wheel well liner. I left the rare section in place.



The window spray reservoir has to come out too. Three bolts, two connectors and one small hose disconnected. The reservoir has a very odd shape. In the middle it is open, to accommodate access to this very Foglight/DRL to change out the bulbs. The filler neck has some very elaborate twists in it, and poke through various chassis struts up next to the air filter. Apart from the three bolts it is held in place at the bottom with a large plastic bracket. Which I broke pulling the reservoir out of course.





The offending part is finally out!



Here you can see the problem. The DRL fitting goes into the small top opening and seals that. But as my Mini does not have a front fog light, the main much larger opening has just been "taped shut" by the Mini-geniuses! At some point in time that will start to peel back and you will find water inside the light unit of course! Duh!!





I used a kitchen towel to dry out the inside as much as possible. Next I put it on the window shelf of our kitchen, in the sun to dry out completely.

In the meantime, I tidied up bits on the Mini, which I had now access to, due to the wheel arch liner being peeled back.



My trusted JB weld to the rescue to fix the broken bracket of course!



You might recall I got this very special tape to fix some of the holes inside the Ford Fiesta Chassis. I used the same tape to seal up this Mini fog light opening.



Re-installed everything. Tested the lights and the window spray before I pushed the wheel arch liner in place. Cleaned the wheel hub before refitting the wheel Torqued the nut lugs to the specified 140 Nm.



All done!!

Last weekend I visited the Antwerp Classic Car show. Always a nice event. I picked up a new engine. I am very pleased with it!





Jeroen

[Ravi Parwan]

Hi Jeroen,

Since you had the fog lights out, why did you not install bulbs into the housing, instead of tape?

That would have taken care of the water ingress problem as well as given you additional lighting for night drives.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by Ravi Parwan

Since you had the fog lights out, why did you not install bulbs into the housing, instead of tape?

That would have taken care of the water ingress problem as well as given you additional lighting for night drives.

There are no bulb fittings installed and no wiring for the for lights either. So all you have is this big hole. Nothing else unfortunately.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

A few months ago, Peter and I put new wheel bearings on Peter's very rare Lancia, see here:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/diy-d...ml#post5890819 (My Car Hobby: Jaguar XJR, Mercedes W123, Alfa Romeo Spider, Jeep Cherokee & Mini One)

Peter told me the right rear bearing was making a huge racket a few weeks ago. So he investigated, and it was completely shot.

He tried to pull the bearing off, but was only partially successful.



Part of the bearing got stuck



This happened last time as well. But I managed to pry it off that time. This time it was more stuck and more difficult to get access to. Peter thought one of his smaller pullers might work, but it needed extending by some 10-15 mm



Could I produce four of these a bit longer?



My mini-mill and I have produced more elaborate bits of tooling, this is a piece of cake. I found a piece of 3 mm-thick galvanised steel.



So I used my angular grinder to quickly cut four rough pieces. Next I used my mini mill to make them nice and rectangular.







Next, I managed to clamp them all down and drill two sets of holes. Put a 4mm bolt through.



Tidied them up a bit more, looks good



A little bit of polish. All done in under one hour



Peter and I had been discussing on how to extract that last bit of bearing from the axle. Peter had driven quite a bit with this broken bearing. The risk is that due to friction, the bearing inner cage gets so hot it more or less welds itself to the axle. So I loaded up the W123 with every possible tool that could help us.

First of all: Stuck bits might need heat! So I put my Acetyle/Propulane set in the car. In such a way that, I would hope, meets with the approval of safety inspector Thad!



Next, a bunch of grinders, electric saws, crow bars, BIG hammers and so forth. And some more wax/polish stuff, as I was going to visit my boat Sirion afterwards.



When I arrived at Peter we always start with a coffee and a chat. Whilst I went ahead and got my tools out, Peter was going to attach the new bits to the puller.



However, I managed to dislodge the remaining part of the bearing with just the pickle fork and my large hammer. We still had to use the puller to get it off the last 5mm as well!





Peter had ordered the new bearing assembly and he called the dealer to check whether it had arrived. Only then did he find out they had ordered the wrong part. This Lancia has ABS, and that means the bearing assembly comes with the ABS sensor input ring (see the previous post linked above). So we could not finish the job!

It will take a few days for the new part to arrive.

We did discuss how this could have happened. A brand new bearing, gone in under three months and a few thousand kilometers. It could have been a quality problem with the bearing. If you have followed this thread you will have seen we have come across quite a number of problems with brand new parts.

Peter said he was surprised at how little force was required to undo the main nut. Which was a surprise. These nuts need to be tightened to 350 Nm! Neither Peter nor I have such a torque wrench.

Peter replaced both rear bearings because the Lancia was about to fail its MOT due to play in the left rear bearing. We, for good measure, replaced both. But we did not have the torque wrench, so Peter agreed with the MOT station that they would redo the MOT and tighten the nut. We suspect they might have only tightened the left one, as that was the bearing that did not pass inspection.

Regardless, we will never know, most likely. But as soon as we have the new bearing, Peter will go back and get both nuts checked/retightened.

Jeroen