Rusty hatch

[festy]

"New" exhaust is done, made from whatever random bits and pieces of exhausts I found in my garage.
There's still a small leak near the front to fix, but otherwise it seems to do the job.
Plenty of clearance now too - well over 100mm at the lowest point.

I got the engine up to temperature to start tuning it, but abandoned that idea when I saw that the alternator was only putting out about 12.8v which dropped to 12.4v when the thermo fan kicked in.
I'll replace the mechanical regulator with a modern one and give the alternator a quick freshen up before trying again.

[festy]

The way the alternator's output dropped off as soon as a load was applied sounded like a brush/slip ring issue to me, so open it up and...



Yeah, that'd do it 

After a quick clean up they were looking a bit better:


The brushes looked ok so just gave them a super-light sand and a squirt of contact cleaner.
The front bearing should probably be replaced soon, but it'll do for now.

[festy]

Alternator is working a bit better, but still drops below 12.5v when there's a load so will need to check the wiring and test the regulator.
But after 10 mins of running there was a decent oil leak from either the head gasket or timing cover gasket, so will have to pull it all apart and replace them before going any further.
 

[festy]

Well, that escalated quickly 

Oil leak is temporarily fixed, because I guess it can't leak oil when there's no oil pump   



I think I found the problem, timing cover gasket was a bit short at the top leaving a paper-width gap for oil to escape through.

[GTVeloce]

Love the Frankenstein liner clamps!

Good to see this GTV slowly coming back to life. Keep up the great work.

[festy]

All back together, fired up first go.



Nothing leaking from the head, timing cover or sump, happy days.

But 30 seconds later there was petrol pouring onto the ground - my 'brand new' braided hose feeding the injector rail that I installed only 12 years ago must have only just been holding together, and repeatedly bending and twisting the hose to move the rail out of my way over the last few weeks was enough to crack the hose.
Oh well, I much prefer it happen now than when I start driving it on the road...

I needed a quick youtube refresher because its been about 12 years since I made up a braided hose, but I only managed to stab myself with the braid once and the new hose keeps all the petrol on the inside so must have done an ok job

Then, after 5-10 mins of idling I noticed an oil puddle on the ground I followed the drips back to the remote oil filter housing...
Its in a pretty awkward position for accessing the fittings, but after a lot of messing around I eventually found that the o-ring on the M16(?)/AN10 adapter in the bottom of the filter housing was rock hard, flat, and falling apart and like my fuel rail hose, was doing ok until it was disturbed.
Lots of choice words were said while I was battling to get a pair of 12" long spanners into a 4" gap to reassemble.
Eventually I got the fitting and hose back on and nipped up, cleaned up all the oil, and fired up the engine - to find that the leak was fixed, but now of course the other fitting was leaking because I'd disturbed it while fighting with the first one so I get to do it all again  

This morning I de-greased and washed down the engine bay, then got the engine up to temp to re-torque the head and then let it run for about 20 minutes to look for any more leaks.
Only two more minor leaks this time - a pinhole drip from the turbo coolant supply hose that was a quick and easy fix, and an occasional drip from the 90° AN6 fitting on the turbo coolant return line.

The alternator still wasn't charging properly, so replaced the mechanical regulator with a Bosch RE55.
That helped a bit - now I'm seeing 13.2v at the battery at idle, but it still drops to 12.6v with the headlights on so still some work to do there.

Only a couple of small jobs to do now before its ready for a blue slip.
Amazingly, its still in RTA's system:

I bought it as a parts car in 1999 i think, I hope I still have the receipt somewhere