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PollyMobiles Rebuild

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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
2024-03-16 Inside a Fuel Tank

Curious to look inside the old tank since I'll be binning it, took awhile to cut through cos it's made with at least 5-7mm thick plastic 🤏

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here you can see the bottom portion of the tank has the smallest area/volume and the mid-section sweeps over the exhaust pipe.

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the top portion is taken up space by all these indents, access port, fill pipe breather.

actually the fill pipe breather is the same level as the lower breather,
meaning if the 1-way check-valve / evap system / carbon canister on top of the fuel tank was clogged at all
(ie parked on incline, carbon canister hose blanked off, dirty check-valve)
then the tank will never be brimmed to 42L even with the fill pipe full cos there's a trapped air pocket near the upper breather port.

IMG_20240316_211017.jpg
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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2024-03-17 Window Glass Clips

Recently noticed one of the window clips had come off 🫣

Ever since I replaced the electric window motor last yr, I thought the mechanism seemed to struggle with too much binding, which probably caused it to come apart here.

Later on I soon discovered the mechanism wasn't aligned with the glass and made it jam. a slight tweak of the scissor arms fixed it

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The plastic clip was only glued from 1-side. the other side of the clip barely had any sealant applied, and it's more like bathroom sealant instead of strong tigerseal 👀

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scraped the old sealant off the glass

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The old clip was 35mm long & 3.6mm thick.
I designed a new clip that's 50mm long & 5mm thick to improve strength & surface area to bond

Window clip 3.jpg


Printed

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1 corner needed a slight trim

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Tigersealed it into the glass, such a messy task 🫣

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Once cured overnight, upon installing the glass I forgot about this slim gap it had to get through lol
It was a tight fit with the thicker clip, I had to grind the thread slightly shorter

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It fits and bolted up

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The drivers window now slides smoothly with less friction and as a bonus, that annoying hidden rattle near the drivers door / A-pillar has gone away 🥳😎
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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2024-03-19 Machine New Cover Plate for Gripper LSD

The Gripper LSD had a broken cover plate 5yrs ago
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/post-778518

IMG_20190602_205822.jpg


But since Gripper no longer cover my diff under any warranty and quoted me over £270 to replace a simple cracked cover 2yrs ago 😅
https://micra.org.uk/threads/pollymobiles-rebuild.35251/post-800218

I decided to machine a new cover from scratch on my mini-lathe

Removed the old bearing to measure & model up the old plate

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The old plate had these two holes which had no purpose and was the source of the fractures, which I won't include in the new part

original cover.jpg


Modelled a new cover plate to be machined on the lathe

replacement cover.jpg


Verified the new plate geometry will work with the LSD layout

verify new cover.jpg


Since this large part will be close to the lathes limit, I modelled the machine in detail to simulate & plan each cutting process

Machining Cover Plate - simulate.jpg


After planning, the 1st step is to cut this huge 110 x 80mm billet down to size.
It wasn't long enough to safely clamp on the bandsaw

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So I welded it onto a large pipe enough for the vice to clamp onto

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Jeez, it took upto 2 whole long days & 2 cutting blades for the poor struggling bandsaw to chop through 110mm of steel 👀

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Took another day to very slowly neaten up this rough billet.
Machine can only make 0.05mm cuts at a time or else it simply chatter badly, seize up or wear the tip quickly 🫣

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Got the overall dimension down from 110 to 104.95mm 🤏

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Ooh it fits like a glove 😎

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That's the 1st hurdle.
The rest of the machining will be a very long process 😴
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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2024-03-22 Insurance Drama part 2

Last week I spoke to AXA who said they would close the case, clear it off the database and send me a confirmation letter as evidence when getting new quotes.

I didn't receive any letter/email from AXA yet and as further stress, a recent letter from broker Adrian Flux after my policy has now expired also stated by current NCB going from 16yrs previously down to just 3yrs! with me still at fault and claim costing £3.5k
WTF!? Surely it must be outa date? 😨

So I immediately called Adrian Flux to check what's happened.
Thankfully the incident case has now been closed & cleared off the insurance records and my NCB has been restored from 3yr to 14yrs (I've lost 2yrs ncb in this mess but meh it's better than having none)

Asked Adrian for a new quote and finally got insured at a more acceptable £413 TPFT with breakdown cover. I could've rang other places for potentially cheaper rates but my anxiety of making any more phone calls has had enough 🫣

That's a relief and can now continue car work and get ready for the upcoming Japfest silverstone show
 
2024-03-22 Insurance Drama part 2

Last week I spoke to AXA who said they would close the case, clear it off the database and send me a confirmation letter as evidence when getting new quotes.

I didn't receive any letter/email from AXA yet and as further stress, a recent letter from broker Adrian Flux after my policy has now expired also stated by current NCB going from 16yrs previously down to just 3yrs! with me still at fault and claim costing £3.5k
WTF!? Surely it must be outa date? 😨

So I immediately called Adrian Flux to check what's happened.
Thankfully the incident case has now been closed & cleared off the insurance records and my NCB has been restored from 3yr to 14yrs (I've lost 2yrs ncb in this mess but meh it's better than having none)

Asked Adrian for a new quote and finally got insured at a more acceptable £413 TPFT with breakdown cover. I could've rang other places for potentially cheaper rates but my anxiety of making any more phone calls has had enough 🫣

That's a relief and can now continue car work and get ready for the upcoming Japfest silverstone show
Hiya Paul,

Cannot wait to see the machine at Japfest; are you on a Clubstand? If I see yourself, am I alright to say hello?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
Hiya Paul,

Cannot wait to see the machine at Japfest; are you on a Clubstand? If I see yourself, am I alright to say hello?
Hi Scott

Aye I'll be on the MicraMafia stand (y) feel free to wave hello if u see me there with sunglasses 😎😁

You on a stand too or visiting?
 
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pollyp

pollyp

Club Member
2024-03-23 Flat Bottom Drill Bit

The next tool to make in prep for machining the LSD cover plate is a 6mm - 12mm flat bottom drill bit for making the 17 screw holes.

hole.jpg


It needs to feature a 6mm pilot hole to help keep it concentric, so I decided to modify an old step-drill bit on the lathe with the dremel, grinding away the 8mm & 10mm

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Finish off on the bench grinder by adding some +ve cutting rake angle behind the cutting lip allowing the tool to bite into the steel.

Testing it on some aluminium piece, it gives the result I'm after & hopefully tough enough to drill through the mild steel of the cover plate

IMG_20240323_224951.jpg
 
today went for a brief cars & coffee meet up with some m8s

View attachment 87973

View attachment 87974

back at home I cleaned up the white oxide off the dizzy cap, hopefully improve spark & AFR

View attachment 87975

Coincidently I recently cleaned up my K11 distributer segments oxide after eight years & another 30K miles.

The spark jumps the same inline 10mm plus gap live running with same colour/intensity & no misfires as before thus no measurable / discernible difference?

Spark Gap Ignition Tester | Pedparts UK

Happy days!
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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Coincidently I recently cleaned up my K11 distributer segments oxide after eight years & another 30K miles.

The spark jumps the same inline 10mm plus gap live running with same colour/intensity & no misfires as before thus no measurable / discernible difference?

Spark Gap Ignition Tester | Pedparts UK

Happy days!
I imagine the white oxide would increase the overall resistance of the HT circuit by a small amount.
at low rpm / load it probably won't be noticeable, it'll still spark ok for combustion
but near peak torque / high rpm it might affect the AFR / timing by a tiny amount.
 
I imagine the white oxide would increase the overall resistance of the HT circuit by a small amount.
at low rpm / load it probably won't be noticeable, it'll still spark ok for combustion
but near peak torque / high rpm it might affect the AFR / timing by a tiny amount.

Yes I agree as well as suspect that the increase in circuit resistance due to oxide is marginal wrt our old hat HT leads internal RF suppression resistance?

KSG, @ 32 plus years is looking good & a credit to your improvise, adapt & overcome very good efforts. :)
 
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pollyp

pollyp

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2024-03-26 Lathe Ball-Turning Jig

I wanted to fit a 2nd bonnet gas-strut but thought I didn't have any spare ball-joints, so decided to design a lathe jig for making spheres, using some spare round billet steel in the garage

ball cutter layout.jpg


Ball Adapter 3.jpg


machined this left over billet down to 13mm thick

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drilled the screw holes

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bolted the quick-tool changer on top, ready for machining ball-joints, round gear knobs, etc

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but then I realised in my spare parts bin, I already had some gas struts with spare ball-joints on them lol 😅

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pollyp

pollyp

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Removed the old single gas-strut

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The old ball-joint sat too low at 15mm, making the strut rub against the chassis top.
It needed lifting to 20mm high. the spare factory ball-joints sits too low so I grinded those off

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welded them to a new bracket 20mm high

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Riveting the new brackets on

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Both new gas struts fitted & secure

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pollyp

pollyp

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2024-03-27 Replace Rear Speakers

For the past few months the rear right exposed speaker must have got some debris stuck inside the coil because it distorts above a certain volume whereas the other 3 speakers are fine.



Ordered a new pair of rear speakers arrived today

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Gonna use the included protective mesh grill this time

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Now it looks much neater with the grill and now produces clear loud sounds without that annoying buzz

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