Lude Generation

hey all!

Decided to do the sensible thing and move over the LG as well

Here's my 4th gen we bought it two weeks ago from a guy in Manchester who was advertising it on Autotrader - seemed a bargin for £200 even though it wasnt a runner and had some bodywork damage.

It took a car transporter to get it back as ludes are very heavy on trailers, but it was in our drive within 48hours of putting down the deposit

here she is:






obvious front bumper damage and nearside wing, but getting the engine started and running was the first job.

first day as it was cranking but not firing we changed the main relay, checked the airbox, changed the battery, changed the spark plugs, made sure fuel was coming through (could smell it in the exhaust), the alternator seemed to be giving plenty of juice, checked all the fuses and they were ok, and also dizzy was swapped over from the other lude to make sure that was fine.

Next idea was to borrow a compression tester and check that - in which resulted in 3/4 cylinders not having any compression at all! we then though ah crap - time to take the head off (could have done a leakdown test but didnt have the facilities blah blah). as we started unplugging everything we'd already had the rocker cover off to check the cams were ok, and thom (GENIUS) had an idea to check the valve clearences.....

and BINGO!! most of the them were at around 0 instead of 0.006-8 which would explain a lot. so we adjust them to simply open the valves up a load for testing - compression tested it again and 2/4 cylinders then had compression. Thom then had a neat trick of pouring new oil down the cylinder instead of putting the sparky back and bang! lots of compression - so we put the sparkys in, cover back on and WOHOO!! its started

after much hugging and dancing, we then adjusted the valves using the feeler gauges the next night to put everything correct. we have since put in engine flush then changed the oil, oil filter, coolant flush, new coolant (and new thermostat on order as its faulty after hot water test) so will need to do the coolant a second time.

and thats as far as we've got so far next is to order replacement wing, bumper, and sort some electrical problems such as headlights, a/c, then clean all the good stuff like IACV plus pipes, vtec solenoid, egr valve, so ill post more piccies and progress soon!

tata

and the second update

Right next update!
We ordered a replacement bumper and wing, then as i took them off i found i needed another bumper bar as that was bent too, so nipped to Bri's and he found me a pair of Headlights and a Bumper bar (plus a cd player a week or so later!), so cheers Bri !


after cleaning up all the crap and gunk from the above picture, i put on the replacement water bottle


fitted the new wing, then set to work and put on the bumper bar (then realised i needed to loosly fit the headlights as they wouldnt fit in otherwise....DOH!), so put them in then the bumper bar. next the replacement bumper


fitted that, screwed in the lights, fitted the splitter underneath then decided to fix the headlights which wernt coming on.
after checking the bulbs were ok, started checking the wires were giving a circuit etc using a mutlimeter, and when that started to go nowhere......Oh, im missing 4 damn Relays in the fuse box......WTF!! so previous owner must have removed them for some odd reason

anyway, lights working again. today i washed and waxed the car (picture pending), but also had time to fix both the silver lude and the other ludes rear window cover-seal thing as it was rusty and crappy.


so took them off - realised their just clips and i didnt have to undo the screws...ah well


i found using a stanley knife to cut either side of the old bits was the best trick


wire brushed them both down and painted them using black hammerite and came out good! again, picture pending.....

then gave it a good hoover inside, put a few internal bits back together and also found it has a coin tray....woop! random.

Great work so far and nice to see a run down lude being returned to its former glory instead of going to the scrap yard.
There was a discussion the other day about the rear window trim - your post has cleared a few things up and your right you dont need to remove the screws from the clips but you do need to do need to loosen them a bit before removing the seal strip.

Good work so far

Good work so far..

remember this car off ebay a few weeks/months back but think it was running then.

great work

Nice work!

we now have a good, driveable car





also gave under the bonnet a damn good scrub, with 'before' and 'after'




i fixed the rear fog the other day, the bulb holder was a bit rusty and is fine after a scrub with a wire brush! plus a headlight wasnt working - missing a bloody fuse again.
anyway, went to get its mot today, will find out results tomorrow - may need to fix the handbrake and swap the fuel pipe to the tank at the back as its pretty rusty

Great effort on this Drax! Nice to see she fell into the right hands. Bet she loves you!

Awesome work turning her round mate