Hi all,
Over the last few months during my coronavirus-induced unemployment I've been in the process of fixing up a '92 405 Mi16. I figured many of you would enjoy seeing the details behind this so I'll be documenting the work I've done so far, and the work to be done in the future.
It first started off back in early May, when I spotted a sad looking Mi16 in need of a home on Gumtree. The owner was moving overseas, and needed to sell the car. A quick back and forth over Gumtree, a price was agreed on, and a few days, a border permit, and a hired trailer later, I was on my way down to Tweed Heads, where the car was parked in a shed in a storage facility. We pushed the car out, where it saw daylight for the first time in over a year.
The car was in fairly decent shape cosmetically, other than a whopping big dent in the front left guard, a sun-abused plastidipped black roof, and the paint being in desperate need of a correction. No clear coat peel, which was a bonus though! However, on the mechanical side, the car needed a lot of TLC. The owner reported a timing belt that was flapping against the timing case, oil leaks from various places in the engine bay, and a cactus battery. Money was exchanged (with a bunch of spare parts and a hard copy of the Haynes manual thrown in), the car was pushed onto the trailer (hooking the middle muffler on the edge of the trailer in the process, crumpling it a bit and cracking the weld
), and we were back on the road, Brisbane-bound.
Upon getting it home (and surprising my parents with yet another broken car), I threw the battery on a charger for a laugh to see if it could be revived. It looked good for the first hour or so, where the battery looked like it would accept a charge. Just after the 1hr mark though, the battery started getting real hot and smoking, so any hopes of reviving that battery were immediately dashed, and it was placed in the cluster of scrap batteries in the corner of the garage (after being left outside overnight to cool down). The following day, I ducked down to the local battery shop and bought a new battery for it, threw it in plus a splash of fresh fuel, and after a bit of cranking......
It lives again! The starter motor was definitely not a happy chappy though, it took a fair bit of cranking before it started turning over at full speed. At this point, I wasted no time getting it into the garage and giving it a proper once-over before pulling it apart.
It didn't look too bad from a quick surface level inspection, the distinctive sheen of leaked oil was visible all over the bottom of the sump and the subframe. After doing some research, it was decided that I also wanted to throw in a reground cam and redo all of the exterior oil seals on the engine, so it was now an engine out job. I wasted no time getting the front of the car on stands, and started unhooking things, and before you know it:
The engine was hanging off the crane and well on its way to being out of the car. After much wiggling and crane adjusting later, the engine was totally out of the car and waiting for its examination
As you can see, the motor and gearbox were absolutely FILTHY. This car had been leaking fluids from basically every orifice, for a fairly long while. Basically everything below the rocker covers was coated in a greasy mixture of oil, ATF, gearbox fluid and even CV grease. Time to crack out the neat degreaser and a pressure washer for an initial washdown......
Ahh, there we go, much better. Still not perfect, but far far better than it was before. (continued in next post due to max. 10 images per post)
Over the last few months during my coronavirus-induced unemployment I've been in the process of fixing up a '92 405 Mi16. I figured many of you would enjoy seeing the details behind this so I'll be documenting the work I've done so far, and the work to be done in the future.
It first started off back in early May, when I spotted a sad looking Mi16 in need of a home on Gumtree. The owner was moving overseas, and needed to sell the car. A quick back and forth over Gumtree, a price was agreed on, and a few days, a border permit, and a hired trailer later, I was on my way down to Tweed Heads, where the car was parked in a shed in a storage facility. We pushed the car out, where it saw daylight for the first time in over a year.
The car was in fairly decent shape cosmetically, other than a whopping big dent in the front left guard, a sun-abused plastidipped black roof, and the paint being in desperate need of a correction. No clear coat peel, which was a bonus though! However, on the mechanical side, the car needed a lot of TLC. The owner reported a timing belt that was flapping against the timing case, oil leaks from various places in the engine bay, and a cactus battery. Money was exchanged (with a bunch of spare parts and a hard copy of the Haynes manual thrown in), the car was pushed onto the trailer (hooking the middle muffler on the edge of the trailer in the process, crumpling it a bit and cracking the weld
), and we were back on the road, Brisbane-bound.Upon getting it home (and surprising my parents with yet another broken car), I threw the battery on a charger for a laugh to see if it could be revived. It looked good for the first hour or so, where the battery looked like it would accept a charge. Just after the 1hr mark though, the battery started getting real hot and smoking, so any hopes of reviving that battery were immediately dashed, and it was placed in the cluster of scrap batteries in the corner of the garage (after being left outside overnight to cool down). The following day, I ducked down to the local battery shop and bought a new battery for it, threw it in plus a splash of fresh fuel, and after a bit of cranking......
It lives again! The starter motor was definitely not a happy chappy though, it took a fair bit of cranking before it started turning over at full speed. At this point, I wasted no time getting it into the garage and giving it a proper once-over before pulling it apart.
It didn't look too bad from a quick surface level inspection, the distinctive sheen of leaked oil was visible all over the bottom of the sump and the subframe. After doing some research, it was decided that I also wanted to throw in a reground cam and redo all of the exterior oil seals on the engine, so it was now an engine out job. I wasted no time getting the front of the car on stands, and started unhooking things, and before you know it:
The engine was hanging off the crane and well on its way to being out of the car. After much wiggling and crane adjusting later, the engine was totally out of the car and waiting for its examination
As you can see, the motor and gearbox were absolutely FILTHY. This car had been leaking fluids from basically every orifice, for a fairly long while. Basically everything below the rocker covers was coated in a greasy mixture of oil, ATF, gearbox fluid and even CV grease. Time to crack out the neat degreaser and a pressure washer for an initial washdown......
Ahh, there we go, much better. Still not perfect, but far far better than it was before. (continued in next post due to max. 10 images per post)
