Bop-Bop-Bop...

I notice the glassfibre front Valance has a lot less holes in it than the ones in steel. Cannot that be a a problem for cooling? I Guess you can shear out some more rectangles from it if you need to. Your car looks very clean and must be a joy to work on when you finally has reached this stage!
regards, Barten
 
BOP's oil pressure gauge stopped working recently. I earthed the transmitter wire (light green on the left) & turned the ignition on. The gauge worked, so I need a new transmitter unless they have an easy fix. I've tried cleaning & tightening the contacts.

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I may have a spare somewhere. Does anyone know how they come off?
 
Give the oil pressure sensor/sender a few journeys before thinking of replacing. Mine sticks (zero pressure) if I don't use the car frequently. So far it has always jumped into life when I'm not watching.
To me the oil pressure warning light tells me that oil is being pumped; the engine is working. The gauge is an indication to the health of the engine, so if it is not working for a few days that's ok. I'll keep a mental record of the pressure changes over time, but not to worried over missing a reading or two. :cool:
All of that doesn't stop me worrying when the gauge is showing zero pressure at 6000rpm!!! :eek::eek::eek:

To answer your question; how they come off? sorry no I don't.
 
There is a hex under the main body of the sender that is for removing/refitting. It's round about 11/16 or 3/4 AF or 3/8"Whit, I can't remember exactly. You may have to bend an OE spanner to get it to fit on with clearance to be able to turn it. Once they're cracked off they will usually screw out by hand.
 
You may have more success with a working second hand OEM part than a new one. Mine failed and the new replacement was 'not suitable'
I borrowed a mechanical piped gauge and screwed into the pump in place of the low pressure light switch, then fitted a second hand electrical sender unit and fine tuned by oh so gently teasing the needle to be spot on with the trusted mech gauge.
I do warn you that you need nerves of steel and the skill of a jeweller to do it, as the 'stem' of the needle needs holding with tweezers whilst the pointer is bent sideways.
 
I thought I'd start tidying BOP's doors up a few weeks ago, whilst it was sitting there.

Now I have many spare doors, some of which are near perfect, but I'm not (yet...;)) a great sprayer & the weather is cold & damp too, so I reasoned that a tidy up & localised spraying would suffice, especially seeing that the rest of the paint is passable. BOP is an 'everyday' car anyway, so I have to put up with a bit of imperfection here & there! :D

The n/s/r door didn't look that bad:

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..but I had to repair quite a lot of it. The inner paint was appalling, too:

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I managed to retain most of the outer lip, so made up sections for the inner shell:

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Not perfect, but serviceable for a daily car. I've applied some seam sealer & primer but will wait for a few months to apply the blue when the weather's better. I have fully waxoyled the inside of the door bottom in the meantime.
 
Hi Phil, I only joined the forum today and was interested to see your car BOP, in the 1970's my parents owned a Tobacco leaf brown 2000 TC reg BOP 68K.
 
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Hi Darren,

‘BOP’ was a Birmingham number - mine was registered by “Colliers” in Acock’s Green. I believe they’re still there.

Welcome to the forum,

Phil.
 
It's a while since I've done anything on BOP; I've tended to run it every couple of weeks but have concentrated on the others for the last few months.

I still haven't sprayed the door blue :rolleyes: so intend to do so before the weather gets damp again. I have done a few small jobs including renewal of the accelerator rod bush:

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I think the old one wasn't the correct type anyway, but was very badly warn & loose. It has transformed the feel of the peddle & engine response :). I've owned BOP 10 years as of yesterday, so it's probably time I'd done it! BOP's the one I've had the shortest time; Hazel is 12 years & OCC 15 years, although I haven't been without a P6 for 31 years this month!

If you've followed this thread at all, you'll probably remember that BOP was left to me in a friend's will. Given the state of it, I really don't know if it was a sort of last laugh / joke :rolleyes:. I'm almost certain that if it had been left with the other demic classics the guy owned, it would have been banger raced & / or scrapped as it was really beyond redemption.

Here's a gratuitous photo taken a few days ago:

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At least it's solid as a rock underneath with fully refurbished rear suspension & it still drives reasonably well despite its near 150,000 with several not very careful owners.
 
my favourite of your 3 is the above Phil, paintwork as seen in the photo above looks solid, not sure about the front bumper though, what's going on with that? is it a vinyl roof?
 
my favourite of your 3 is the above Phil, paintwork as seen in the photo above looks solid, not sure about the front bumper though, what's going on with that? is it a vinyl roof?

The paint has poor patches & also some small rusty areas where I've never seen them rust on other P6s! The front bumper does want re-aligning & is one of the jobs at the top of the list....
 
BOP has been receiving a fair bit of attention recently since our 20 year old son wanted putting on the insurance.... He has an 'ST line' Fiesta (which is a cracking car) & I was convinced he'd soon think BOP was an old barge ;). However, he's pretty well smitten so I've elevated it in the queue.

Then our daughter got engaged & wishes to use both BOP & Hazel for her wedding next summer, so I've got a bit of work to do :oops:

I now have sprayed the rear door bottom that I repaired many moons ago & also the front passenger door too. The latter I did yesterday on probably the last day of dry/warmish weather we'll have until the spring. I always spray outside, from a health point of view but also to stop the garage getting paint dust everywhere, so I need a dry atmosphere especially as I use cellulose paint which can 'bloom' if there's a bit of damp about.

I managed to get the replacement front valance done a few weeks ago:

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(This will replace the fibreglass one on the car - which is free to a good home, if anyone wants it - it must be extremely rare if nothing else!).

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I was very pleased with the results - much improved over my previous 'orange peel' efforts which required a lot of work to make them good. This time, I just flatted it with 1500 wet or dry then used Farecla G3, T-Cut & polish:

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The light in the different pictures makes them look odd, but the match is excellent 'in the flesh'. I'll have this panel changed over during the winter.

I'm obviously no spraying expert but I am learning & enjoying getting better. A car's paint is so important & I've always wanted to have a go at a full car myself, which is becoming a reality with my 2000 as the years progress & I get another panel or two done!

I've improved my technique by thinning the paint more than before (1/3 paint : 2/3 thinners, & then much thinner on the last couple of possibly five coats), together with turning the compressor down to around 1.8 Bar. This is lower than recommended but seems to work well as long as the weather isn't too hot & dry.
 
BOP has just notched up 150,000 miles today! Nothing compared to some on here I know, but quite a milestone nonetheless :cool:
 
Getting ready for its new valance to go on....

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& just for comparison, here's Hazel 10 days earlier after changing the radiator & doing a bit of tidying up:

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BOP lasted a few miles on the road until I got it out of the garage a week or so ago & the brakes totally failed :(

There are many posts on this forum regarding rear brakes & various preferred methods of replacing the rear brake calipers as is the issue here:

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Plenty of brake fluid on the rear caliper/handbrake mechanism so I've put some reconditioned ones in & just about got it ready for bleeding.

However, I thought I'd just comment that I intended to leave the diff where it was, but when I took the pads out (with a bit of difficulty) I decided to drop it onto a wooden block with the help of a small jack:

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It makes everything so much easier :cool: & if you have the facilities I would recommend it. Fortunately I have a pit, so can support it on a couple of the boards that sit in a recess at the top of the walls although obviously the diff can't fall on you because it's still attached to the drive shafts etc. However, you do need to be able to get a jack back under it afterwards because it's too heavy to move any other way & you need to realign the 3 fixing bolts through the back plate & you need some control.

If you're going to drop the diff, just remember to disconnect the flexi-hose at the body clip first as it's not long enough for the diff to drop by more than an inch or two (top left in the 1st picture).
 
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