Another weekend, another round of problems arise to challenge this "quick fix" project. Decided to remove the front end completely as it'll make life far easier to replace the wiring loom, clean the inlet up and replace the coolant housing and pipe work plus the thermostat and sensors. Immediately discovered yet more poor workmanship of previous "mechanics" (term used very loosely):
So out came the damaged driver's side wheel arch lining, not as much mud as the passenger side but still worrying amounts of build up:
Off comes the front bumper to add to the pile of bits destined for the skip:
But during taking off the bumper:
Yes, one of the big ass bolts has sheared completely in two, so the body of the bolt is well and truly stuck inside the main frame that it's all bolted too. Not overly bothered, but my options are try and drill it out from the other side once the front end is off the car, or drill it from the side on show, but maybe I'll visit the scrap yard again and just get a whole new metal frame and start again from scratch, seeing as I'm headed to the scrap yard again next week. More on that in a bit...
So anyway, decided that rather than plough on with doing the coolant housing (after spilling half the coolant on the floor when draining it),thought I'd attack the brake disc that's stuck on. Plan was to drill the head off and use grips to pull the threaded shaft left behind out. Easy, right?
Another drilling job. May look at taking the hub apart as if I was changing wheel bearings (may even just replace them while I'm here!) and then drill that bolt out as well. Or get a replacement part from the scrap yard.
A final note, the engine management wiring loom I had won't fix the hacked wires that short the fans out to stay on the whole time, the cooling system appears to have it's own loom so I need to get that from the scrap yard as well. So my list currently looks like this:
Replacement cooling system wiring loom
Both arch liners
Under engine covers
Possibly new frame for radiator
Possibly new parts to hub
Another productive day.