Thank you, I checked and adjusted the selector rod lengths and got it all back together on the car today and the gear change is now super-light and smooth, which makes a change, but the park pawl is still playing up. Bah Humbug, we're too far from Christmas for good luck at this point, but never mind. The sump will be drained and removed tomorrow, hopefully. Too busy to remember to take pictures today, but will do asap.

Nice one. Having decided the pawl thing must broken, I drained the ATF out to filter and keep for the spare gearbox (waste not, want not) and removed the sump and the pawl mechanism was found to be absolutely fine.




Duh. However fiddling about suggested that the gear lever isn't engaging the pawl well enough and this causes the ratcheting. Ok so spent some time trying to put the compensator lever on at a different angle via its serrated teeth but that made it impossible to get all the gears and P was in the wrong place. Hence set it back to original angle and have decided to shorten the small selector rod as that will achieve the desired effect, I hope. I am led to believe that because the garage had previously made it a couple of cm shorter than it should be but I read that it was critical to have the correct length and set them all to the right length while refurbishing the compensator (see above). Evidently, that's not the case for an old box.

Main good thing though is that there's no evidence of massive breakage in the gearbox. One flying ant-shaped piece of metal, but that's about it.

Coolio Joe, I cleaned the visible parts of the BW35 innards and took a bunch of photos for a chuckle and replaced the floating magnet (not shown).






Then the flange was cleaned again and the same for the sump pan prior to application of silicone sealant. Eventually the pan was refitted correctly and the bolts done up hand tight so that the gloop can partially set overnight prior to final tightening to the right torque.




As can be seen, the selector mechanism was given another spray of white grease.

All back together again, working and MOT aquired. All it needed was rear brake adjustment and a new windscreen washer motor which the garage asked me to do because they were too busy and they can't order bits for severiously old cars or bodge modern parts to fit old motors. Nice one, top one, sorted. Still the garage wanted £300 pounds. Hmmmm, are they charging me for my own work ;-? ;-?

Anyway, now its time to sort a couple of rust patches near the rear windscreen with copious amounts of naval jelly.



Someone rotate that image. The problem with this car has been that the actual colour is a bit of a mystery. The original colour was Bordeaux red, but the people who have done any painting on it says its miles off. The best match I could get was with a Ford colour, an aerosol can of which is shown for comparison.

Meanwhile, Deep Blue is put back into everyday use to give the 360 a bit of a rest and to sort a couple of things that have gone wrong with it, thankfully nothing major. The suspension noise from the new strut has completely gone proving that it was due to the fact that I had not tightened the top nut to the correct torque before.

After several scrapings away at the rust between overnight applications of fresh naval jelly for about a week, this is how it looks:



Semi sort-of getting there, I hope. Still more jelly treatments needed though.

Ok, so Rover P5 it up. This is how the rust looked after about 2 weeks of overnight treatments with naval jelly and scratching away at it with screwdrivers of various sizes.



I have a bit of a weird system, but I then put on zinc antitrust primer.



And, when it's well proper dry, cellulose putty wherever its needed.





Finally, a prepaint rub down after letting it dry some more, of course.



Meanwhile, the 360 has some work done to fix the broken rear driver side door restraint.





Back to the paint on the old Rover. *Sigh* Oh well, it's not a great match but mixing and matching different colours with tons of thinner gives a reasonably OK finish. Some of the successive steps are shown below.







After tons of polish, it shouldn't show too much in the bigger picture ;-0





Trying to get this ready for a local show but I heard it might be cancelled as animal rights protestors are threatening action in town.

Bumbu sauce. Talk about the cancel culture. The show's off, and it's not for animal rights protestors, it's for none other than our very own and noble queen (no, Elton's still around AFAIK). Mais c'est pour la republique! Well, I'll have you know I'm currently organising my own mother's funeral which is shortly after the date of the same said and now non-happening show. I can see the funeral being cancelled now....

Hah! Sunday 2nd October and its the V3M trip to the Haynes museum in Sparkford, Wilts. I spent the night before at the Travelodge in Wincanton and opened the curtains to see a very wet Deep Blue. Good job I polished it, once for my mother's funeral and once again for the show!



But it got better later on, with 6 or 7 cars turning up.



The museum is a very, very interesting place, but the polish on this DeLorean caught my eye in more ways than one!



That's a tough act to follow.

Right, long gap in comms, but I've been struck down by idling difficulties on the Hyundai which I can't fathom out. The general lie of the land is as follows:



Anyway, the first thing perhaps foolishly, was to check the EGR valve in case it was blocked or broken, but removing it for a clean out and test showed it was working fine. The car is australasian spec i.e. it doesn't have cruise control which the UK models had as standard. The latter had an electric motor which rotated the throttle vane whereas my car has a good old fashioned bicycle brake cable doing the job instead. I took the opportunity to tweak the cable tension via the adjustment plate shown below and replace one of the thin EGR hoses which was cracked.



I then got some MAF cleaner for the mass air flow sensor which is the big thing hanging loose here:



but that didn't make any difference and in the chaos I actually broke the fuel vapour recovery solenoid which is shown below:



However, that was eventually repaired, I think, with a generous dose of superglue ;-0 ;-0

This has been broken (by me, I assume) at least once in the past already so there's a second-hand spare coming in the post. I then thought it might be the throttle position sensor which is indicated by the arrow below. It can also be seen better in the top photo on the left. Anyway it all seemed to be spot on after a bit of adjustment.



Ok, coolio Joe, but no progress to show, so far anyway. I then thought it might be the idle air control (IAC) solenoid, which is shown in the picture below (note the epic Mitsubishi logo) because the mixture on idle is incredibly chokingly rich. *cough*




This beastie sits in the hole below the throttle which is shown below. Said hole was, despite appearances, cleaned out with copious amouts of carb cleaner, etc.




The IAC valve itself was opened and given a clean-out and and oil-up. The resistance of the coil is about 40 Ohms while it should be 30 Ohms, but I have no idea if that's a problem. Anyway, there's a cheappie spare from China coming in the post in case its the issue, given that the original item dates almost from the Ming Dynasty ;-0 ;-0



As indicated by the red arrows above, the curious pointed protrusion moves in and out to open and close the air channel which bypasses the throttle. The movement is driven by a screw device which itself is driven by the core that rotates in the field of the solenoid (as shown). If this sounds barmy, it certainly is, as the ( warning: * LOUD * ) video shows below.

https://streamable.com/liawg9

I love the rattle it makes when the protrusion pulls itself in ;-0 ;-0

I don't know, but it seems to be doing its thing (??), so I am thinking it is probably working OK, but a test run shows that the car still stalls when its warm on idle. Answers on a postcard....

A little but of progress today. Hidden behind a little blanking plug, as well as the befuddling veil of all the high-tech paraphernalia, was a little old fashioned idle adjustment screw and a tiddle of it today seems to have the idling in a much better state. To be confirmed ;-0 ;-0



This screw simply acts as a stop for the throttle cable pulley which can be seen above it.

Bah humbug, it still stalls. Getting close to Christmas.

Sorted. It was the mass airflow (MAF) sensor. A replacement at £66 seems to be a complete cure so now, after an MOT and an oil change, I should be able to get back to the Volvos ;-0 ;-0

Well, I've deeply woken up to the fact that the ULEZ is expanding to New Malden next year so let's Volvo it up. A trip to Havant to collect a new set of interior trim was a success as shown below.






The seats have a very gothic style maybe and seem to clean up better than I expected. All is ok bar one door card which needs a papier mache repair.

There are no speakers and I don't want to cut holes in the door trim but it has the manual window winder holes. Can we get mini speakers to fit there instead?? Worth a thought.

Hah! Looks like I am the first to post in 2023. Happy new year!

To see how my life has, at last, just got a bit simpler, and this isn't a scam (I hope): click here.

The vovlovovs live on ;-0 ;-0

Hi Jon, Its a bit late for me to be wishing happy new year now, hope all is well, I've been a bit quiet of late.
The 360 is still on SORN for another month or so, it will either be brought out 1st March or 1st April, will see what happens...
A few jobs planned and hopefully nothing unexpected will trip me up this year.....!
Enjoyed your blog as usual and look forward to more installments.
A shame about your Rover and the ULEZ.
I see we now have signs up in Glasgow about the forthcoming ULEZ within the city centre, its like a virus spreading through the country. Thats my Skoda defunct from city trips (not that I did many!) but it feels like the everyday working man is being controlled under a dictatorship and pushed ever more into bowing down to the green brigade. Ultimately the ULEZ is a money making scheme, you either pay the charges or pay to change your vehicle, or pay for public transport.
I better get off my soapbox considering we are drifting off topic !!
Catch you again on here soon
Dave