Taking care of some old cars including my Alfa Romeo Spider & Mini One

I wanted to change the transmission oil which is a very simple and straightforward job, but a pain without a lift.

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I came home from our 5 Spider trip to the Eiffel a couple of days ago.

First order of business is to wash and dry out the Spider as it got incredibly wet!

Luckily it was very nice weather in the Netherlands!

The Spider did really well in Germany. It used about 300 ml in about 1000km. So it looks as if the oil usage is still coming down. As it should on an overhauled engine. Even so, I am still not completely convinced about my Bosch L-Jetronic system working properly. So I have made an appointment in two weeks time with a real classic electronics specialist. See what they can find.

I cleaned the clamps on the battery with my special little nifty tool.

And also all the ECU ground connections on the engine. Just for good measure.

I spend a lot of time drying out the floor plan underneath the carpet. It has noise dampening material and it got soaked. Used my wife's hair blower!

The problem is the hood leaks badly when it rains heavily. I am going to buy a special little cover that fits just over the hood to keep the water out of the cockpit.

Yesterday I went to see Berndt. I had one job on my Mini and Berndt had three jobs on three of his cars. First, my Mini went up on Berndt's lift as I wanted to change the transmission oil. A very simple and very straightforward job, but a pain without a lift.

When changing out oil, before draining said oil, make sure you can open up the filler. Both the drain and the filler plug have an 8mm Allen connection.

This is the drain plug:

And this is the filler plug. As you can see, it was badly damaged.

Some idiot must have over-torqued it! These plugs don't have (copper) washers or o-rings. they seal just on the thread and need to be tightened to precisely 43 Nm. Looks like somebody overdid it.

So I decided not to proceed and get two new plugs first before making an attempt.

The next job was on Berndt's Ollie, his Austin Somerset. Last year we spent quite some time on this little car. We overhauled the fuel pump. But now and then the engine seems to stall when it is warm. We have a feeling we did not reassemble the pump correctly. This means that the fuel lines are very close to the engine block. Here you can see it, I have already removed the fuel supply line.

We took the pump of the engine and re-positioned the top half so the inlet and outlet would be rotated about 120 degrees.

Much better!

Next job was on Berndt's 1985 classic Mini. It had failed its MOT due to a frayed parking brake cable. Quite the job to replace it, but made it a lot easier having the Mini on the lift. Sorry, I did not take any photographs other than this disassembled handbrake.

It took us almost three hours to replace the handbrake cable. Which meant we did not have enough time left for the fourth job, fixing the gear lever play on Berndts Landrover.

We will redo the Mini and the Landrover in a couple of weeks time, second attempt.

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