skoda_cat

Today was rainier than expected, chickened out of welding again. But I ran the power wire for the sub amp from behind the seats through to the battery, clipped in along the passenger side, the RCAs will in due time go up the driver's side so we don't couple too much noise in there. I dropped off the brackets for blasting and they've come back same day pitted but looking good, still plenty of material there to support the wings and bumper, that said, the studs length suggests they've been snapped previously so they'll need drilling out and new ones hot glued in. I sprayed them with zinc primer to protect them. I'm really confused about draining the coolant, i don't seem to be able to remotely get 6l out of the damned thing. I can't find the block drain. only the tab in the lower radiator hose link pipe.

Oh you hero, that's exactly what they are. They'll need a run through a sand blaster and new studs welded on, but they're just the lads I need.

Woohoooooo, finally got it! By luck or by cheating really rather than any actual science. I spent ages poking stuff with a multimeter, comparing the wiring on the back of the loom sockets with the diagrams and aligning the right switches with the right sockets. Nothing seemed to help at all, fuses all good, wiring all seeming to be connected to the right stuff, but... as I was wiggling I saw the dash lights in the heater controls flick to life for a scant moment, so I kept fiddling with stuff and they flicked on again. The problem seems to be in the sidelight switch, I cleaned the hell out of the terminals (which were a little not ideal) and have squirted switch cleaner into the connector and plugged and unplugged the thing a load of times and it's not gone from hardly ever working, to *mostly* working. I think I'm going to have to get into the terminal connectors with some needle files. This said, everything seems to be present and correct now. Buzzer buzzes when the ignition is off and sidelights on and everything.

The weather today was insane so not much done, I bought 15l of fuel in cans to try and get the thing out of 'low fuel warning' and spent the rest of my time inside the truck cab with the weather cover *on* as it was too windy to remove it. Despite having got the high beam flash working as a freebie from installing a fan circuit fuse I can't fathom where the headlights have gone. I've got a small selection of switches, one I think is 'sidelights'; one is hazards, i know where that one goes and it works the hazards. I have one that looks like it should be fog lights, and one which I THINK is dipped beam. However, no matter which sockets I plug them into in any order I can't provoke the lights. Annoyingly I CAN get the heated rear window light to come on on the gauge cluster but that's a bit silly because we're a truck so we don't HAVE a heated rear window. Heh. The forlorn studying of the wiring diagram continues, we won't be beaten.

I've been busy and then I was sick for a bit, but today I got myself together enough and picked up 7L of coolant for the thing. I got the thermostat housing and lower hose off and pushed as much water as I could up the hose and out of the top. I got all the rust out of the jubilee clip on the lower hose, packed it with grease and rammed it back in. I got water and a bottle of coolant flush into the system and ran it up to temperature, no fan. Urk. I messed about with the radiator sensor connection for a bit, cleaned some green gunk out of the sockets, fiddled with the radiator connector. read the Haynes book a bit and finally found the missing fuse 17, shoved one in and now the fan kicks on and I can't make the thing boil over any more. In other news, I got a dash cluster with a rev counter which works which is EPIC, I can move my speedo with correct mileage into it, but the only glitch is that it expects airbags, which my truck doesn't have. I could just put tape over the warning light, but is there way to make the cluster happ... oh I can just take the bulb out can't I. ffs.

current tasks: learning to mig, here is my first go: front: back kind of crap penetration: flap disced to death I need to do a lot more practise i think before i touch the car, lol. Also, working out if the engine coolant drain plug is in this picture, because i can't find the one in the photo in the haynes book, I'll be off to search the forum, heh. I've got the radiator drain in the black hose, but there's apparently two because these engines are wild. I'm trying to do a full coolant flush having got the heater working, so we can get on and do an oil service and whatnot. I won't post pictures of what came OUT of the expansion tank

the welder is in the country, i picked up welding gas, we're running out of ways to avoid welding this crap together

Whilst waiting for my mig welder to show up I've been fiddling with car audio... I'm still planning to drop car play into this mess, but I wanted to check the amp and sub would work so I lashed it it up with a lovely classic alpine unit on a bench. It's a TINY bit underwhelming, but you can't expect terribly much from an 8" speaker and once a windscreen goes in it's a VERY small cab space so I think this will be fine. it squeezes in here, obviously. I may actually mount it a bit higher so the top is flush with the body ridge to get a bit more seat clearance. I'm not short. This will require cutting off the studs that used to hold the weird bucket thing. I can stash them though and weld them back on if i ever need to.

might just be captive nuts like 19" rack mount gear but how you get em in from underneath i dunno. lad on youtube just welded in captive nuts to his repair, fair play i guess.

https://vehicleclips.co.uk/products/plastic-expanding-nut-screw-grommet-with-rubber-seal-skoda-n10621301 maybe?

hmm, I *think* they're the plastic wedge type ones. The rail on the car has rectangular holes punched in it. I expect the wedge is square and gets wider when a screw goes in like a rawl plug, to give front to back adjustment for the panel alignment and then a firm grip when clamped. but I could be wrong.

Two things: Anyone know what search term to use for the clips that go into the car body that the wings screw into? i dunno what i need to buy and i don't want to slam tech screws in like i don't care. Also, anyone recognise these bits? Maybe they're not even off this car?

oh my days those new wings are GORGEOUS.

Mig welder ordered, this will be back on the road in weeks, I reckon... oh wait I need to get a windscreen, scratch that timeline, hahahaha

It's been a three day marathon, I'm knackered. I got the starter back on, clutch inspection plate back on, clutch hooked up and the electrics hooked back up. Started it up, chucked it in gear and one shaft rotates, obviously we don't have an LSD in these things 😛 (is an LSD an option?) Anyhoo I dropped it off the stands back on to its feet and drove it up the drive and back. yay. Spent the rest of the weekend cleaning the filth of a chain smoker and a decade parked in a disgusting shed off the interior parts which were all in the bed. I seem to have about 99% of the interior present which is great news. just stuff like turning into A pal took me to pick up a sheet of steel for fixing up the rusty bits and i've ordered new wings for it which might turn up on Tuesday. I will need to find out what the clip things are which go into the body into which the wing's bolt into are called and where I can buy some. One thing the interior IS lacking is almost all of the screws and bolts. It's still a little smelly but it's bearable, and time is on my side.

hahah, my pal from three doors down who reckoned he knew a thing or three about skoda gearboxes came over, discovered he didn't know anything about this gearbox arrangement, but using the mechanical sympathy he has developed from a career working on industrial hydraulic equipment he leaned on it, then leaned on it some more, and gradually eased it into doing some shifting. We drenched EVERYTHING we could reach with posh oils and wiggled it and wiggled it some more. Tomorrow I'm going to put it back together and slap some wheels on and see if i can drive it up my driveway a bit. woooo

Right, that would defo be box out though? Or can you get just the end off to fix that?

Got it up on axle stands, wheels off, starter out, speedo drive disconnected and the drive gear fished out of the goop. I found the hall effect sensor in the end, on the top of the unit hiding under the coolant pipes, heh, but I've not got that out yet. Disconnected the shift switch and some other sensor on the front of the bell housing that I can't work out what it's for; when removed no oil fell out and it has a clean metal face with a hole in the centre. Pressure switch? I dunno. Got the small cover off which is between the bell housing and the sump which is a pain in the hole when the drive shafts are still in, and after that I gave up for the day. We're doing this on a drive way and the weather is very. We tried taking out the bung on the bottom of the transmission which has the hex drive in it thinking it was the oil drain, but it doesn't seem to be... What on earth is that and what did we break? I wonder where the oil drain IS. I've been under the thing and tried to make sure that all the linkages are right, and tbh I can't see anything wrong, all the joints are working, the steady bar is present and everything. I think I need to get that disconnected and see if the box can shift by hand. However apparently one of my neighbours apparently knows about these things and has mentioned a 'common fault' which mucks these gearboxes up. I can't find a trace of that with a search on this forum, I've gone so far as to pay up and ask in the secret forum but no information is forthcoming, so as time and rain allows the box is still due to come out and get LOOKED at.

I popped the alternator out a day or so back, the diode checked out ok, so I got the brush unit out. There was a dab of rust on the bendy bit of metal that attaches to the 'something', and the pad that connects the brush unit to the bendy bit of metal. I have a brass wire wheel for my dremel so I went at both surfaces with that, also the body of the alternator where the brush unit earths out on it. My lovely neighbour lent me a battery and we started the car, it's showing 14.3 V on the battery now, No clue how many amps we're getting, but 14.3V seems a pretty healthy start to me. I've also started 'cleaning' or at least trying to make the interior tolerable for more than a few seconds at a time. It's not going great, see if you can tell which is the before and after comparison in this photo I don't know what that red stain is and although it's fading and lifting I don't think it's ever going to fully go away. Not sure whether to engage a professional detailer or send the seats for recovering. They're fairly well used and as you can see, ripped. So now it runs, and it charges, and I can NEARLY stand to be near it. What on EARTH could be causing the total inability to select any gear... *scratches head*

I'm an idiot and I like a challenge. Thanks for the tip about the platforms being different. The rail looks AWFUL but most of the structure is still there so at least I have decent references to work to. I'm just going to patch in sections till it's all replaced, I think. Welding is going to wait for the seats getting washed though, it's too gross and smelly to be near at the moment

I spent all of last night hoovering all the mouse fun out of it, fully masked up and gloved. The car was owned by a smoker, so there's that to deal with as well. It's clean of debris now, but it's due a healthy bath of disinfectant before we can really get into it. It still can't select any gears, the lever moves left and right fine, but front to back is locked up, you can see the linkage at the gearbox end move a BIT when moving the selector back and forth but I don't know where it's bound up. I got under the car and doused the selector joint under the car with penetrating oil just in case it's sticky in there somehow. I'm sure I'll get it figured out. Till then, this can never be unseen

1997, white. Two donor cars in its history, a yellow one so probably a fun and a red one, which I think was a 4 door. It's been sitting in an industrial unit for 12 year, one owner from new, some welding evident to rear turrets and 'most of the flatbed' Needs welding on the front upper wing supports and to the windscreen frame. I'm wondering if the weld in panels from a mk1 caddy would be a close enough match because they can still be got. The most exciting thing is that the windscreen is entirely absent, so a new one will need to be sourced, yay. It's a 1.3MPI petrol, which we got running today after getting the plugs out and some oil down the bores, making sure it had fluids where they should be. we bottle fed it for a bit down the throttle body hoping it would pull some fresh fuel from the tank. It was only later one when we emptied the pickup bed to repack it (all the stripped parts of the interior from 3 cars was in there along with a set of wheels that we found the fuel pump was unplugged. it struggled for a good while on gummy injectors, and we couldn't get it to fire, but we bottle fed it again till it cleared up. no smoke, ~50K miles it's practically NEW. The brake pedal was going to the floor but has firmed up since it's run so hopefully they're ok enough for yard driving, it's not charging to the alternator needs looked at. The main showstopper right now is that it won't go into gear either running or when switched off, which is weird. I cannot WAIT to get this thing sorted enough to get an MOT on it, but.... a bunch of work to do before that can happen

ran. when. parked?

Hi, I'm cat. I've just bought a 1997 skoda felicia pickup which is still in the back of the industrial unit its been resting in for the last 12 years. It's a 1.3 petrol and needs some welding to return to road legal, definitely front wing supports and quite a bit of lower windscreen at the minimum. I've wanted a pickup for decades but have never managed to get one till now. Hopefully I can get this one back on the road and put everything I can think of in the flatbed I'll be posting loads of questions (in the right forums hopefully) when I've recovered the car and know more about it. For now, Hi :)