That does look pretty grim, I would think the only way to properly clean that up would be to send it off to be sandblasted and powdercoated, atleast then it would be good for years to come.Probably easiest to find a cleaner rear axle and swap it out though.

Hi Diesel Monte, yes it don't look good, that's why I need differing opinions, I have thought of removing it and giving it a proper check over for perforation weakness on welds , and yes sand blasting is an option (don't have the gear)but would rather clean it up  it myself  with elbow grease!

Or swap it out for a refurbished one, I thought of looking for a scrap yard one but chances are they will be in a similar condition. 

Anyhow thanks for your input.

One good thing about Irish roads is that no one ever bothers to salt half of them. My orange fabia surprisingly has minimal rust for the most part. Most of the rust that has formed is moreso due to my over-exuberance in fields and leaving the car perpetually caked in crap. the underside of My Monte Carlo is about as crusty as my orange fabia. Its funny to me how a car that spent most of its life in NI,where the roads are always salted in winter, has half the miles and is half as old is equally as crusty as the older, Irish registered car. That being said, neither of them are really rusted at all underneath, just that they are both equally as crusty.

The first owner was from Halifax, the my Son in Cumbria who more than doubled the miles to 75,000 is. 

It is possible that salt was left on its underbody as the front suspension is also very rusty.

But it is 15 years old.

With the rear beam, it all depends how far you want to go. To make it truly mint you'll need to drop it off the car, in itself not a big job but you will need to remove the rear brake lines which could start another load of work!

 

I'd attack it in situ, flap wheel in the grinder, powerfile and lots of sanding will get the scabs off, then treat it with something like Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80, then paint to suit

Hi Lofty,well I want to improve it and I know the brake pipes would require seperating,  and removal of the beam would be the best idea but that would take longer and more involved as you say,but I would be more satisfied doing this myself than getting others .

Never bled brakes before but the callipers need renovating along with lots more, would the abs valve cause me issues when, if it empties  of fluid as regards to bleeding.

I have some Hydrate 80 ready to use on such as this ,but never had need of a powerfile, the spot welds are just as you found so I can see why one would be good to use.

Martin.

15 hours ago, kentdale said:

Hi Lofty,well I want to improve it and I know the brake pipes would require seperating,  and removal of the beam would be the best idea but that would take longer and more involved as you say,but I would be more satisfied doing this myself than getting others .

Never bled brakes before but the callipers need renovating along with lots more, would the abs valve cause me issues when, if it empties  of fluid as regards to bleeding.

I have some Hydrate 80 ready to use on such as this ,but never had need of a powerfile, the spot welds are just as you found so I can see why one would be good to use.

Martin.

Clamp the rear brakes off to stop you losing all your fluid. I think the abs only becomes a problem if you lose too much fluid and air gets into the pump. Then you need to get a computer to run the abs pump and bleed it iirc. atleast thats what I remember from when I had to do a caliper on an old hyundai of mine and made a mess of it.

Hi Diesel Monte, never thought of clamping, I have loads of joinery clamps that I use for work, so I don't have access to a computer programme that would sort out any issues with the abs, so am looking to buying a power file,I have an angle grinder and oscillating battery tool but power file sounds best if I keep the beam on the car, I need to access the garage and not disable the car at the moment.

Cheers

Martin  

Edited 9 January, 20215 yr by kentdale

When I say clamping I mean on the rubber bit of the hose, not clamping the hardline shut naturally enough. If you're removing the whole rear beam you could take off the calipers and hang them on the body somewhere with bungee cords, would save you from bleeding them at all doing it this way.

5 hours ago, DieselMonte said:

When I say clamping I mean on the rubber bit of the hose, not clamping the hardline shut naturally enough. If you're removing the whole rear beam you could take off the calipers and hang them on the body somewhere with bungee cords, would save you from bleeding them at all doing it this way.

Don't worry I knew where you meant. 

After changing all the internal door handles and re painting all our internal doors and trims over the holidays, I decided to have a look at the brakes which I knew would be in poor condition.

The front offside was shot, the steering knuckle was very rough in appearance with 1mm plus thick rust scale all over. I decided to carefully remove the rust with a combination of hammer and old wood chisel and wire brush.

Whilst this worked fine I was rather alarmed at the thickness of removed rust, I put a post on the Fabia forum and was reassured by Sepulchrave and Wino that it would be ok.

As Wino stated rust expands to look a lot worse than the actual thickness lost, well something like that, I seem to remember that from something I read.

So its good to get opinions from others.

The front disc shield was holding together with fresh air, as soon as I touched it it folded over, one of the bolts that retained it is reluctant to loosen, wont tighten slightly either to help removal so liberally coated with wd40 .

Anyhow I am not replacing brakes with the new ones as yet because of burst outer drive shaft gaiter, so put old stuff back for now.

Looked at the back offside all ok there, handbrake mechanism working as it should with strong return also Bowden cable feels free.

Yesterday looked at the back nearside and found the brake was locked on solid, I struggled with this side to remove the calliper carrier even when using a two foot breaker bar due to clearance from the floor.

Anyhow finally managed its removal.

The hand brake mechanism was also working fine, strong return action and cable nice and free, this had me confused that is until I looked at the carrier and found that one of the slider bolts was solid in its housing.

I managed to finally work it free with mole grips.

I was expecting a split rubber boot but that was ok, there was no sign of grease at all in its hole or on the bolt, bearing in mind both back calliper's have been replaced at some point, some one possibly forgot to grease that one who knows.

Anyhow all cleaned up, the bolt had a minute area of discolouration but no rust, used 1200 grade sand paper on it and now slides in ok, just have to re grease and fit back then check if that has sorted the sticking brake.

I know its not much progress but every little helps.

Plus its cold in the garage at the moment.

Martin

Just an update, I fitted the new discs and pads to the front due to the fact that both fronts had pads friction material that detached from their steel backing plates once I got them off the callipers.

Following on from advice from- TMB, Wino, Peterj22, duck and Paulkennedy  on my  drive shaft issues -split offside outer cv gaiter I have sourced the relevant tools and parts to get the repair attempted.

Hope to get this sorted shortly.

I have also removed the front grille and bonnet slam panel , the grille retaining brackets were starting to rust as was the slam panel especially on the spot welds.

Used a drill with various wire brushes to remove the paint/rust then used 800 grade emery paper to smooth the metal work down, I left some of the underside paint intact just rubbed it over with the emery paper to provide key.

Martin. 

Martin

Moving things slightly forwards (hopefully)  now I have never attempted this type of work before but what the hell if I make a mess of it all is not lost as parts a still readily available.

With the aid of a Haynes manual, this forum and youtube I got to it although the car is on axel stands the working space is rather tight.

I removed the offending driveshaft with the split cv gaiter (offside) from the car yesterday, the three captive nuts on the lower ball joint were in a sorry  state , when I liberally sprayed them with penetrating fluid 3 weeks ago I wrongly assumed that they would un do fairly easily, how wrong could I have been! One out of three complied, second one with the aid of a Stilson wrench came loose the last one refused and with no room for the wrench I had to hacksaw it off being careful not to catch the surrounding suspension arm.

The drive shaft was complete with manufacturer's sticker and dated 2005 so was original issue to the car, once I had the one shot locking drive shaft off the shaft would not come loose from the hub.

I remembered I bought a set of "British made" 3 leg pullers when I was 18ish so I gave them a go and with a slight bang they pushed the shaft loose.

I then cleaned an area on the gearbox cv joint so as I could tip ex a mark to allow re fitment in the same line up when repaired just in case of balancing issues.

I clamped the drive shaft in my vice and decided to loosley  fit smaller nuts and bots through the gearbox end cv holes in case I came apart as there appears to be several sections , then I de greased this joint with brake cleaner and covered it with a plastic bag.

Today I have removed the outer cv joint with a soft rubber hammer and carefully eased out the six ball bearings and the two cage thingies, de greased all parts and looking to paint the rusty part of the cv joint.

Now I am no expert there does no appear to have been any ingress of foreign bodies from the gaiter split as the bearings, cages and main joint look in amazing condition, there are some vey slight marks but I am hopeful all will be ok once I re assemble with new grease and boot.

 

Some good work been put into this 👍

 

 

Trying my best, hope to sort a replacement head soon.

Cheers.

What’s up with the head?!

My Son was the second owner from new, fssh, he was desperate to have it tuned so got darkside to give it the 165 or something tune, problem being they did not mention it would be safer to change the head bolts for stronger ones, he drove it for a few months when it was due a service and cam belt, the garage advised it was suffering from a leaking head gasket having carried out a chemical test on the expansion bottle water.

I have carried out the same test last summer and it has combustion gasses present .

So I assume head lift has occured.

 

At last, 3 years after getting the car off my Son with a head gasket leak , buying a used cylinder head 2 weeks ago, taking it to a noted engine builder / repairer only to be told it required skimming and valve sleeve's, got a refund from the seller, and being thouroughly peed off I decided to promise to do the washing up for ever! and look for a new cylinder head.

 

This evening bought a brand new AMC bare head (£loads of money) from a supplier of new engine parts to fit my AMC camshaft kit in to which I bought of a chap in Northern Ireland for £125, last year.

Aparrently he had a Fabia VRS and was collecting items to rebuild his engine only to have the car stolen/ smashed up.

I need a set of valves,valve springs and other things (never attempted this type of job before).

If anyone can advise what else i need that would be great, along with best manufacturers names.

Getting a Gates cam belt kit, already have a timing locking kit and pd 150 head bolts.

Just need that final push to begin the strip down/point of no return!

 

 

Things are coming together now, new AMC cylinder head arrived this week.

Ooooh, shiny! 😎

 

Gaz

Personally, I would take what you need from your current head as the pets fitted at the factory are superior to aftermarket stuff, IMO. 
 

If you don’t wanna do that, which would be fair enough, I would contact GSF for new parts. 
 

I bought an Erling head gasket for £24. Make sure it has the same number of holes as the one you’re taking off. 
 

What else are you missing?!

Hi Titanium!!

Hope you are feeling better.

 

Car has only covered about 72,000 miles fsh, but off road for 3 years but started every month, oil looks thick though!!!!! but starts instantly, no glow plug time required even in winter.

As to bits for the head swap, I figured on sourcing new valves, 'Febi' or Elring possibly.

I did think about using the existing ones but possibly false economy.

I suppose I ought to use fine grinding paste to help them seat, not sure if I should.

New valve seals, new valve springs, hope to remove existing glow plugs and re use with new sealing washers.

new valve cover rubber gasket although no sign of leaks from it.

Not sure if I should re use valve rockers, no Idea what other parts I might need, getting some engine building oil for cam shaft, valves.

Coolant, vw spec stuff what ever that is,ne pd spec engine oil, thinking of running engine untill up to temperature on the drive then draining it, and  re filling.

And as mentioned the Gates cam belt kit.

More than you realise but need to do it the best I can

Martin.

Yeah, I’m getting there thanks. One more hurdle to overcome then the rest is down to me  

 

No need to change the rockers if they’re not damaged, but will definitely need to lap in whichever valves you want to put in the new head, and I would 100% use engine assembly lube as new parts are going in. 
 

If money is no object, why not replace it all, including all the various bolts, gaskets, nuts etc. 

 

I would run the Engine for a week then change the oil, making sure it’s given a few heat cycles and not extract the urine with revs during the first few days. 
 

Not an overly difficult job if you have the tools for removing the valves etc, but good luck 👍

41 minutes ago, Titanium_Man said:

I would run the Engine for a week then change the oil, making sure it’s given a few heat cycles and not extract the urine with revs during the first few days.

What does that actually mean though? I had a Citroen BX 1.9XUD with the following running in instruction "do not exceed 4_000 (four thousand) RPM for the first 600 miles".

That engine had a governor that cut in at 4_600 RPM.