Libby - John's Supercharged Mk1

That's a bummer John.

It took a little while to sort out the MOT fiasco because I spent a very enjoyable long weekend in Bonnie Scotland, in a place called Cromarty. I had the misfortune of renting a Smart ForFour, which was canoeyist canoe car I've ever had the pleasure of thrashing around. I wrote a review on Instagram (@moca2cv) if anyone's interested. Or not. Whatever.



Anyway, on the recommendation of a neighbour, I tried a little garage just round the corner I didn't know existed. It was nestled down a tiny narrow alley off the high street, and I booked the car in for Thursday morning. When I dropped it off I knew I was in good hands. An older gentleman, operating out of a ramshackle outhouse with an old skool machine shop and Snap On tools everywhere. It was like my dream country house, without the house.

As I'm chatting and looking around, I catch a flash of orange through one of the shed doors that was slightly ajar... I asked if I could take a peek, and wandered in to see a near mint Ford Escort Mexico being worked on. It was in for a clutch change, and a general refurb as the interior had suffered over the years. If he can take care of that, my little 5 would be just fine.

I got a call later in the day to say the gaiter would be arriving tomorrow (he'd had a fun time with that, as Mazda wanted £60+VAT for one, and with a 3 week lead time!) and that he'd get cracking first thing and MOT'd as soon as it was done. Looking good for the weekend!

Then another call today, to say it was all done, no problem with the emissions, the gaiter isn't a rubber one but a neoprene one but best he could do, 1 hour labour plus parts plus MOT. Can't say fairer than that! I said I'd walk up to collect it, but the chap said not to bother and he'd drop it round. Half an hour later and the car is back in my garage, MOT'd and ready for a hot weekend of topless action I didn't have cash on me so he just said drop it round whenever. Far too cool for a guy I just met, I have a feeling I might use him again!

Ah the sutors. That's where we stayed. Much fun in the ForFour rally car

Last night it was roasting hot. So what better way to cool down than to drop the roof and go for a drive?

I met up with Alexey (a local 5er who had a mk4 courtesy car after a deer attacked his daily) about 11pm, and headed out in to the night. We headed down to Edenbridge/Lingfield way, then weaved about to Tonbridge/Groombridge way, then decided to go and take some photos so back to Ashdown forest we went, where there's a few good car parks atop hills with nice backdrops.

We then spent far too much time canoeing about with different lights, flashes, angles, exposures, other settings I'm not quite sure about, even filters, and got, ooh, about 3 good photos

At 2:30am we decided that, given home was an hour away, we probably should get back - we both have work in the morning after all!

Excited to see what the shots looked like when I got in, I immediately fired up the computer and found the 3 good shots. Here's my favourite of my car, haven't done any editing at all, that is all camera. How did I do? (yes I know the car needs a clean, but 2 hours of driving through bugs and dust is infinitely more fun )

Thanks Nick! Bit noisy as it turns out but I'll do better next time. Need to drop the ISO right down and expose for longer. I made a couple of minor edits to tidy it up some more:



I think it's an improvement... But editing isn't really my thing.

Anyway, back to the car... I went to a wedding in Sussex at the weekend and had a very enjoyable time on some superb roads. I even came across Billy's On The Road, a biker cafe, which had a photo of a past 5 meet on the wall. You know it's good at that point!

Over the last few weeks the idle had been slightly elevated but this weekend Libby decided that the car should idle at 2k rpm. Guess who looked like a right tit at traffic lights...

I had some time yesterday to investigate the cause, and came to the conclusion that it was the idle control valve. Blocking that off dropped the idle to a much more sensible level. So a TB and associated hardware was ordered and hopefully I'll be able to swap it all over at the weekend. Ideally I just want to swap the valve assembly over as the TB I have has been modified for the dual TB setup, but we'll see how that goes...

The parts arrived today, and were on the car by 10pm. Whoop!

First up, a nice easy task - replace the brake booster hose and valve. I suspected that the valve was leaking under boost so a new valve would be a good idea. Can't hurt anyway, it is rather old!

So, off with the old:



And on with the new:



Easy peasy. I like jobs like this, makes me feel much more talented than I really am. Next up, swap the throttle body over with one that has a working IACV. First I cleaned up the new (to me) TB with a little brush and some carb cleaner, then whipped off the pulley as I'd need the old one for my dual TBs.

The old TB was a b*tch to extract. The little coolant hoses on the bottom (presumably to warm the TB so it doesn't ice?) were held on by spring clips and my God they were awkward to get to. Who designed this?!



Once it was off, I reconnected the coolant hoses first then on with the new gasket. I went for a thermal one off eBay, not sure if it really does anything but every little helps, right?



Then back on it goes. The bolts holding the TB to the inlet were nipped up to 19-25Nm, and the IC pipework reassembled. The one way valve was put back the right way round, and all pipework nipped up. I also had to adjust the throttle cables slightly as the new TB is slightly different but also now further away due to the thickness of the gasket. That was an arduous task...



Moment of truth... Fired it up and the idle started low... Then bounced around a bit... Then settled at a nice 900rpm ish. That'll do me! Checked the IACV was working by turning on the lights and heater and seeing if the dip in revs was countered for, all good there. Called it a night. Phew!