DarrenH 1989 astra merit D estate

[DarrenH]

I'm going to hazard a guess at some kind of cutoff solenoid or similar in that case.

I'm guessing that it's a Fuel Cut off Valve so that the engine can be stopped.

got it ! on the older land rovers (which also use lucas CAV pump) it was a pull knob on the dash with a bowden cable going to the pump!

[steven]

MOT pass! advisory on cv boots as expected.

we're motoring !

thats a good feeling.

[DarrenH]

two projects near to top of diaries section?!! it must be the fine weather

in one of the many ebay groups MarkH was doing a shed clearout type thing of vauxhall parts. amongst the treasure i spotted an uber rare mk2 astra estate load cover, pounced on it! it arrived this morning then offering up the rails and brackets it seem to coincide with these circular marks on the rear trim





these are the standoff brackets which are tubular and stepped and seem logical that they should go through the trim in these circles. with reckless abandon i took a hole saw to the irreplaceable (for a reason) estate trim!



don't get too excited though, vauxhall wouldn't do anything as lavish as have unused fittings hidden behind the trim just incase someone wanted to fit a load cover i put that riv-nut there. the parts catalogue shows some lashup with plastic nutsert and super screws, i thought i could do better with some M6 bolts !



heres one rail offered up, 2 brackets though the new holes in the trim. the 3 inch allen bolts were out of an old bit of ikea furniture i smashed up for kindling. seems sufficiently shonky for an old astra.



both rails fixed, then the cover slid into the guides



Yes! my teenage niece says this astra looks like "a funeral car", well now i can transport corpses in complete discretion. not hers obviously

[Pigeonrat]

No chance of the fittings being behind the panels, that would be far too generous. "Load cover, sir? That will also require a fitting kit for ?50?. I'm always surprised that these cars generally have a full loom fitted with spare plugs irrespective of spec - a bit of rash spendthriftery quickly suppressed on my Mk3, which apart from the electric aerial connector had absolutely nothing plug-and-play . If anyone ever buys that car I will have to supply a homemade supplementary wiring diagram...

I can't imagine those load covers turn up very often either. Very important on an estate mind. Another thing that really, really should have been standard! Also looks like your warning triangle compartment cover is a damn sight stronger than the "three uses before it breaks" crappy affair fitted to the hatchbacks...funny the inconsequential things you notice on other people's cars!

[Astra Dan]

i have a spare pair of rails and fixings if anyone needs them.

[marks-gte]

Looks much better in there than in my garage loft.

[DarrenH]

Looks much better in there than in my garage loft.

i'm glad you found the brackets, i would have been buggered without them

[DarrenH]

as you can see its almost a year to the day i bought this estate and started the thread.

this also means sweating like a nun in a cucumber field down at the MOT station, then greasing lancaster insurance weasel for another 2hundy for dessert. an additional 45 quid policy fee to issue me a renewal on what would otherwise be a cheaper premium, what a fantastic reward for my returning custom, heres my visa debit number.

as for the MOT, i washed the car on wednesday (with zip wax AND warm water!), hoovered the visible carpet round the edges of the rubber mats, i was really pleasant with the MOT tester and obviously i had previously fitted that natty load cover. however, it wasnt enough to nullify a boring minor detail about lack of braking effort from the rear passenger side brake drum.

what a bare faced cheek, charging me 35 quid and then enforcing minimum road safety standards

[easytrans]

Well done that man

[DarrenH]

So the actual fail point was Rear brake binding - nearside, the actual anecdotal from the MOT tester was that when you pressed the brake pedal there was naff all brake reading, then when he released the pedal that naff all did not return to back zero. i have to say i have noticed the brakes were needing more human effort recently but i'm usually very astute with problems, seat of the pants style, i always seem to feel or hear stuff that's gone wrong. honestly i had not felt the rear brakes binding.

its a fair cop and one of the reasons i fully support the MOT system, am also dead against the scrapping of MOT for pre 1960 historic road cars which they were talking about last year (to bring it in line with pre 1960 historic HGV vehicles which dont need an MOT (eeek) most of us work on our cars ourselves to a good standard, but as someone once said enthusiasm is not a replacement for skill, its always good to have a second set of eyes look over your car

the rear drum was bstard tight to get off and i could see someone had been here before as the backplate was mangled. inside the drum i saw straight away the reason for crappy brakes, the forward most half of the cylinder was not moving at all, i had to twist it with vice grips to free it up. also the handbrake lever mechanism was rock solid, i had to take that to the work bench to free off. i managed to exercise the seized cylinder out, clean it up and lubricate the bore and it now seems to be moving nicely. i also noticed slave cylinder is not quite right, i mean its bolted up fine and its working hydraulically, but the cylinders are completely wrong where the brake shoes sit in them. there should be a 5p shaped metal pad for the shoe to sit on, but these are like concave bucket shape









i thought i would be mad not to check the drivers side, glad i did as that also had 1of2 a seized cylinders, when i took the boot off rusty dust poured out !

i also had an advisory on nearside front CV boot deteriorated but not allowing ingress of dirt. genuinely this advisory has been on every MOT since 2011 which i thought was hilarious, when i pointed this out to the MOT guy he did not find it as funny as me! :/ he also did not find it funny when i told him i have 2 new boots at home which i bought right after the 2016 advisory




i've been spoiled with vented disk brakes all these years, i usually stick a stout screw driver in the veins then rotate that to the brake caliper to lock the disk and undo the hub nut. no such luxury on the 236 solid disks. had to get creative but even so i managed to bend this bit of 10mm bar, presumably lou ferrigno worked at the last garage this was serviced ?




the new boots are Febi versions, very pleased with the quality, nice thick rubber and comes with proper CV boot clips. used my new crimp tool for the first time too ! (upgrade from wire snips i used to use)




didnt take any more pictures but in the end i changed the drivers side outer boot too. got a free retest on tuesday, should be golden

[Clive]

Yes would tend to agree with you Darren in terms of supporting the MOT system. Whilst an MOT is only as good as the day its written it does at least make a car meet a minimum annual road worthiness standard. If the government wants to consider scrapping anything for the classic car motorist then let it be the Road Fund Licence once a car reaches 25 yrs old. Cant see that happening somehow !!

Good luck with the retest on Tuesday I'm sure the car will pass with flying colours.

[Astra Dan]

Nice, satisfying work there.
I thought pre-60s cars were already MOT exempt?

[tonka666]

Bought the cv boot clip tool myself not so long ago and also used to use the wire cutter method so much better with the tool! Your rear drum set up is totally different to the van. You would have thought a 1.7 estate would have the same brakes as a 1.3 van but van drums were bigger different wheel cylinders everything bigger or done differently

[DarrenH]

Bought the cv boot clip tool myself not so long ago and also used to use the wire cutter method so much better with the tool! Your rear drum set up is totally different to the van. You would have thought a 1.7 estate would have the same brakes as a 1.3 van but van drums were bigger different wheel cylinders everything bigger or done differently

i think i would have a nightmare deciding what to buy if i had to replace them. for estate/van epc says up to the middle of model year 1988 (summer 87 to summer 88) they were 240mm drums, then 200mm after. the "after" part number is the same as drums on all other models, rationalised for cost savings i bet. on the plus side that means white merit could yield spares

managed to get back in for the retest this morning, rear brakes came up good and biased evenly side to side and they release, so that means my work has worked! it also passed the MOT, which is also good! however, the MOT scores the brake efficiency with maths! total brake effort divided by vehicle weight, multiplied by 100. mine scored 51%, the pass rate is 50%!! so either his crib sheet has my cars kerb weight down next to "planet jupiter" or my brakes are still really sht !

[Astra Dan]

That's annoying but then I wouldn't trust those manky front slidey calipers as far as I could eat them.