Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[CitroJim]

Excellent on the aircon regas Zel It slowly faded with me and in all the time I had the car I never had it regassed... It finally stopped about two years ago...

Not that I was bothered as I never use aircon... Truth is I can't bear it, either in a car or a building...

[Zelandeth]

Xantias seem better than most cars of the era for just needing a quick recharge rather than having issues with holed condensers - reckon the fact that it's better protected than most back behind the fans helps.

...Also makes it even more of a project if it needs changing mind you!

Main tasks for this weekend will be to clear the remaining stuff out of the Saab (off to its new home this week hopefully) and to throw some wax at the Activa. She's due an oil and filter change (seriously, six months already?!?) which I have sitting in front of me, so may well get that done too.

[CitroJim]

Six months

Time flies! Seems only last week...

[Zelandeth]

Six months

Time flies! Seems only last week...

That was pretty much my reaction when the tax reminder dropped through the door yesterday!

Oil and filter now changed without drama.

Activa doesn't have the least accessible oil filter of any car I've worked on...

...It however isn't far off. Thankfully I've got skinny arms so could reach under the boost pipework to get to it. Easy enough when it comes off, but if it was stuck and needed tools it would have probably been time to start pulling apart the inlet tract...

[CitroJim]

Yes, the filter is a bit of a challenge...

I always used a pair of automotive forceps to undo it and strictly tighten by hand only...

I trust you did not find it too tight this time Zel!

[Zelandeth]

Yep, it came off no problem.

Today I've finally got started in tidying the Lada fuel injection system up. While it worked just fine, any sane MOT tester would have laughed at it. Things like the in-tank fuel pump from a Saab cable-tied onto the linkage for the brake bias valve just aren't good. It was a prototype to prove it worked, nothing more.

I do however have all the necessary bits here to get it sorted far more professionally though (save for a few fuel hose clips maybe). Just had to actually get around to sorting it all out.

Today's task - swap the fuel tank out for the injection spec one with the internal pump.

Rough sequence of events...

[] Drain down the tank. It was already showing as near empty (light just about on), so I grabbed a fuel can, pulled the feed line off the throttle body and stuck a jumper wire into the socket for the fuel pump relay.

The fuel gauge lies...there was nearly 20 litres of fuel left in there!

[] The side trim panel in the boot is only held on by a couple of screws. This hides possibly the most convoluted tank breather system I've ever seen.

The large blue hose goes to the top of the tank, so I pulled it off here so it wouldn't impede removal of the tank. Sure there should have been a hose clip on there, no sign of there ever having been one though...not that this necessarily means anything on a Lada!

[] The filler neck to tank connection is behind a guard plate that's thick enough you could probably jack the car up with it...

There's a trio of bolts holding it on, one visible here and a pair in the wheel arch. Once it's removed you have easy access to the filler neck.

Interestingly I think someone has been in here before, one of the rubber sections has a VW/Audi logo on it. The later cars did away with the rigid section in the middle, instead using a longer bit of tube on the tank and a single piece rubber flex joint - so this whole lot had to come off.

[] Last thing to do was to disconnect the fuel gauge and fuel lines from the top of the tank, there's a little access panel allowing access to this through the boot floor.

Once that's all done, a 13mm but and a couple of washers at each corner are all that holds the tank in (no straps to faff about with!), and once they were removed it smoothly dropped out. There's just enough friction from the filler neck even with the clips loosened that it slowly and smoothly lowered to the ground.

Not looking bad in here for a tank from 1993.

This will definitely be kept as a spare or offered to someone who's needing one as aside from a little external grime, it's in fine shape.

The breather is that odd hard but slightly flexible plastic that always seems to be found somewhere on cars from the Communist countries (Skoda used it for the crankcase breather on the Estelle), it's really odd stuff.

The kink in that I reckon goes a long way to explain why it was impossible to fill the tank at a sensible rate - I'll see if I can get a spring inserted in the pipe to stop it doing that where it does a 90 degree bend in the wing.

I took the opportunity at this point to also pull out the massively over-long fuel pump wiring, the temporary fuel pump and associated plumbing. The tank being out the way made it a lot easier.

[] New fuel pump unwrapped...

[] ...Then fitted to the new tank, the relevant flexible hoses attached, and labelled...as I know otherwise I'd wind up forgetting which was which while crawling around under the car.

Next up was the "simple matter" of manhandling the new tank into position. Though first I needed to reattach the breather line to the new tank, and get the new filler neck flexible joint ready.

I had the bright idea at this point to replace the kinked breather hose with something more flexible...this was a bad idea. I had a bunch of 1/2" fuel hose in stock (Saab 900 PCV hose from the cam cover to inlet manifold in case you wondered), which was the right internal diameter...however the external diameter is slightly wider.

The result of this was that it was utterly impossible to get it to push through the hole in the rear inner wing as you manhandle the tank the last couple of inches into place. It just jams, kinks and wedges the tank in place.

That's as far as I got today before I had to down tools and start cooking dinner.

Tomorrow I'm going to add some anti-kink measures to the original breather line and refit that... hopefully getting the tank in then will be merely awkward rather than impossible.

Next up will be to make up a short hose to bridge the gap from the tank pipework to the existing hard line on the car. This is more than up to the job, so seems a shame to make work. The fuel pressure regulator here is set to only 27psi, so stuff doesn't have to deal with crazy pressures. Likewise I'm using the existing return line, just having made an adaptor from the tank to normal flexible lines (forgot to photograph that).

I did some highly technical testing there, having ascertained that the joint is strong enough to support my body weight, so it should be fine. Also there were no less than eight such joints on the original setup, and I never had any issues with any in about three thousand miles driving.

So... that's where we left it tonight - tank hanging out the back of the car. Hopefully tomorrow will see it done.

Engine bay should be comparatively easy, it's just a matter of replacing a few hoses and trimming some others, and fitting a new fuel filter.

...watch this space I guess!

Oh...and I discovered why the exhaust was rattling so much. Apparently I've lost a hanger entirely on the rear silencer.

My original fuel pump can just be seen there, it's the shiny silver cylinder.

Being honest, the exhaust is pretty shot...reckon stainless from the cat back is the way to go. If it goes through the MOT without any other major issues we'll see about that maybe.

[CitroJim]

Excellent work Zel

At least the fuel gauge lies in the right way and errs on the side of caution

[Zelandeth]

Excellent work Zel

At least the fuel gauge lies in the right way and errs on the side of caution

True, though the question does have to be asked of how much of that would be used before you started having issues in real life on the move given the total lack of baffles in the tank...

Having said that, it's not a car you're likely to pull many Gs in while cornering (unlike the Activa!).

[Zelandeth]

Finally!

Got my website back up and running. Now on a clean CentOS7 installation rather than nearly ten year old patched together Ubuntu one, along with a home directory that dated from three machines ago. It's far less dodgy now!

Did have some problems with getting permissions sorted out, but got that worked out soon enough.

What took me three afternoons of poking it on and off was getting it to load the homepage rather than listing the directory. Because I'd got index.html set as the target address in the configuration file not index.htm as per what was actually there...rookie mistake.

Should hopefully be back up once the DNS servers have caught up.

[Zelandeth]

So I left the Lada with the new fuel tank half hanging out the back end of it propped up by an empty fuel can. Less than ideal.

I spent about half an hour today fighting with various different configurations until eventually giving in and sticking the original kinked breather hose back in place (figure I'll cut it in the future and stick a metal elbow in), as at least I knew that was the right shape! It only took another hour or so of swearing at it until I eventually managed to get both the breather and the filler neck to behave and let me slot the tank properly into place.

Filler neck hose clips put in place...

...I definitely reckon that the older style three-piece joint here is *far* easier to work with. I really hope the rubber piece there is made of better stuff than the similar part I bought for my VW T25 a few years ago which turned to powder after about six months.

I did however stick a hose clip on the breather hose inside the car. Hoping that this resolves the occasional stink of petrol in the cabin on hot days...as I honestly don't know where else it can be coming from.

Connecting the lines up was downright child's play compared to trying to convince the breather hose to go where it belonged...Let's hope I'm still saying that when I've got the pump running! Haven't bothered with the cable ties yet (to keep them clear of the brake bias control actuator rod and the nearside shock absorber), want to make sure we don't have any leaks first.

Then discovered one slight hiccup when I came to put the petrol back in it...in that I couldn't track down the spout to the fuel can.

Not one to be discouraged I improvised.

Worked like a charm...even managed to avoid getting a mouth full of petrol this time!

No leaks from the filler (thank goodness) in evidence at least with about 20 litres of fuel in. I'll need to figure out the connections to the fuel pump and sender tomorrow, tidy stuff up in the engine bay a bit, then hopefully wind up with a car that still works at the end of the day...

Actual technical difficulty of that job? At worse a 2/10. Sheer awkwardness: 8/10.

What a faff that was for such a simple job...If only the breather was accessible with the tank in place it would have been child's play.

In the saloon it's dead simple as the tank just sits in the boot held in place by a couple of straps.

[Zelandeth]

Well...Had quite a few things I'd planned to get done today...however this pretty much sums it up.

...Looks to be clearing up a bit now, now it's too late for me to really get started on anything.

[CitroJim]

I've spent most of today sleeping...

[Hell Razor5543]

I've spent most of today sleeping...

I wondered what that distant rumbling was!

[Michel]

I've spent most of today sleeping...

Good.

[CitroJim]

I've spent most of today sleeping...

Good.

It was just what I needed Mike And a perfect day for it too

Zel, I hope the weather soon allows you to progress on the Lada very soon... Tomorrow looks a bit better and Sunday even better...