What's in the workshop? Gareth's Tree-find

[MikkiJayne]

Miss September is Gareth's 2001 Ming Blue which he found under a tree, as introduced here Things have obviously been on hold in the workshop for most of the summer, but this one has been stood for so long it needs rescuing before the winter before it deteriorates even further. So, this isn't a restoration this time - that will come next year. Instead this is a basic recomission: get it running and MoT'd so it can be used.

It scrubs up reasonably well:





A little grubby under the bonnet:



After some checks and tests we spun the engine over and all seemed well, although I had to hot wire it from the driver's wheel arch since it wouldn't turn on the key - indicative of what was to come After some checks in VCDS, it then started and ran - the first time since it was rescued. Its quite noisy with a bit of lifter tick which is hardly surprising considering how long it was parked. There was the inevitable chain rattle on startup, but that quietened down quite quickly.

After warming it up a little, we then put it back on the ground to see if it would move, and it did! No gearbox errors for a quick shuffle in the workshop which is a very good sign

Interestingly though, if the wiring in the ecu box was so much as touched when it was running it would immediately shut down with canbus errors galore which is interesting. We know this car suffered badly from water ingress, and someone has clearly been messing in the electronics box, so we suspect this is why it got parked up in the first place.

Time to dive in...

A bit of an oil leak, and also some squirrel signs



Some nibbling has happened!





There are nuts and seeds and detritus stashed all over the place!

She's a bit of a fighty one, with many seized fasteners having been damp for so long. I had to take the bumper off in a somewhat unconventional fashion which involved the headlights coming out first, which also put up a fight





The bumper had to come off with both supports I will deal with that later



The radiator looks ok so far, but the condenser is past its best





It was very difficult to push the car, and it turned out the rear right caliper was seized, due the usual fault:





I removed the pads and put this back on for now so I could roll it on and off the lift since I will need to get in to the interior to figure out the electronics issues.

I had a better look at the electronics box. This is 'interesting'



Erm...





Time to remove it and see what's going on which reveals possibly the most heinous bodge I've seen so far on the D2 - someone has sawed the front off the electronics box, then glued it back on with silicone sealant





No wonder the poor car had issues with water ingress! I think this may have been done to change the heater valve block, considering where it was cut. There is evidence that someone attempted to remove the electronics box, failed, and broke it in the process, so just gave up and cut it apart I'll be replacing that then, after I've done Botang's hole.

I forgot to take a pic of the whiteboard, but overall the list isn't too terrible. I score this one 3.6 rontgen I'm aiming for an MoT in 3 weeks time