Davy

Continuing this thread 'cause this is somewhat related. This was an experiment I did a while back on my car's door pulls because they were all burnt up and looking filthy. The handles were this way from the day I bought the car and I was meaning to restore them or get a new set of handles altogether, but I thought of trying out the restoration first. Why I called this an experiment is because I wanted to wait a while and see if this really worked. It's been a few months now and it seemed to be holding up well. This is what I started with: The original colour of the door handle is gray (there's a little patch still left in the above photo as you can see). The area intact seems to have been in the shade and survived being sun burnt. Anyway, this is what I needed: 1. Sharp blade 2. 800 grit and 1200 grit water sandpaper 3. Plastic primer spray can 4. Paint to match the door handle (spray can) Note: Plastidip would have been the ideal choice, I couldn't find plastidip spray cans (matching the colour), so I had to opt for this. I took both door handles off the car and gave them a good scrub using a sharp blade. It's important to highlight that the plastic does not have a texture, it's just smooth plastic - otherwise I would have lost the texture while doing this. The surface was so brittle that what's scraped away was like a fine dust. After cleaning them, they looked like this (the gray underneath has surfaced): Here's the primer and paint: Took one door handle with me to match the colour and I found a colour that matches the plastic colour very closely. Washed the part well to get rid of dust and grime. Then applied two coats of plastic primer. After the primer has dried up fully (I left it for a day), I sanded it well using the 800 grit paper and then moving onto the 1200 grit paper. Since I found some fine scratches here and there, I applied two coats of primer again and repeated the sanding process. This is the part after sanding it down totally. Super smooth and no more scratches. Left it for a couple of days more until the primer fully dried up (not necessary), and then moved on to the colour. Applied two coats of colour carefully, without letting it drip. Really satisfied with the end result. No more faded door handles! This can be done on most plastic trims and it's pretty easy.

Thanks, Care to share what happened? There... fixed.

Almost fell off the chair laughing.... Well, it's the same photo that OP posted, so there's nothing to hide anyway.

Just saying... But seriously... a good paint job won't cost you much since it looks like a spot paint job can be done. If you're going for a touch-up pen, I saw an ad recently on a popular online advertising site where they claimed to have quite a lot of colours to select from. Price of a pen was 700 or something if I remember correctly. Even if you do a touch-up pen job, you'll need a clear coat pen as well to make the job look perfect. EDIT: Erased number plate. Thanks pug360xsi

Like all highways, I remember the safety railings on SL highways also being designed so that vehicles re deflected away upon collision, without piercing through it and causing damage like this. I think we have the type in the middle in the image below: The thing about our highways is that I don't think the railings are restored properly once an accident occurs. I'm sure most of you have seen twisted and warped railings everywhere on the highways. In this case, an end could have been exposed or not properly bolted on, resulting in it coming apart and going through the vehicle (and this gendleman's leg). Just a possibility.

About your issue with the clutch: Do you rest your left foot on the clutch (especially in traffic)? Doing this can cause the clutch to wear off prematurely and cause the clutch to heat up excessively. Always rest your foot on the foot rest next to the clutch if you are not in gear (and obviously when not shifting). Another thing is that the pressure plate can develop "hot spots" when they get heated excessively. The "leaping like a frog" behaviour might be a result of a bad pressure plate which has developed hot spots. When you go to UniMo to get your timing belt replaced, ask the technician to drive the car and check if the clutch is worn out. Thanks for the updated prices of the timing belt parts HashanJay. I must have been half asleep when I said 40k. Hey hey... long time huh. Call you tonight for sure.

Looks like I was off by a large margin on the cost estimate. I swear I remember like it was something close to 40K. trinity, machang didn't the guys at UniMo tell us that they have this timing belt package for about 15% off and the cost would be about 25,000 after the discount? (This was on the free service campaign day). Also HashanJay, the prices trinity has put down are from 2011, which means the prices would have increased now. That being said, i guess there is no other option than to get the parts from the agents themselves. You can even call them up and get a quotation for the parts over the phone (they will ask the registration number or chassis number of the car). As you say, if the coolant is fine and if you're not noticing any abrupt fluctuations in your temperature gauge (in traffic especially), then your water pump is good. Don't worry about it. I always thought the night visibility on the CS was pretty good. I have not had a problem with visibility at all. I adjusted the headlights on my own after referring to the workshop manual (found here) and it has been perfect ever since. Doesn't your headlights get heated up unusually because you're using bulbs of such a higher wattage? As for the fog lamps, the eBay link trinity has shared would be the way I would have done it.

Welcome to the forum! Although this has been briefly answered before here, here goes: 1. The manufacturer recommended mileage for timing belt replacement is 100,000km (60,000 miles). BUT, if you are not the first owner of this car and have bought it from someone, I advise you to change the belt immediately. 2. Apart from the timing belt, the oil seals (I think there were two - crank oil seal and cam oil seal) need to be changed together with the timing belt tensioner. 3. Rough estimate with genuine parts from Unit#d Mot#rs will be about 40,000 LKR (someone please correct me if they know an updated price). For a repair like this, I recommend nothing else but genuine parts. Hope this helps. EDIT: - The water pump need not be changed. Especially if you have been maintaining your cooling system properly with proper coolant. - Cost figure given here appears to be off. Sorry about that and thanks trinity for giving the correct figures.

Good work! Nice to see a new restoration thread every once in a while. Wish you had posted detailed information as to what you did during the restoration (with photos!).

You beat me to it Watchman... I was typing the exact same thing.

If you got the car brand new from the agents, then the owner's manual has all the info. on maintenance and servicing.

Yeah it can be cleaned off using adhesive remover (available as spray cans). Before buying the can, make sure it can be used on plastics. Some can only be used on glass and painted metal. If you can't get hold of adhesive remover, polishing the headlight will also work as The Don has mentioned.

You're absolutely right on the fact that the pins allow the pads to move back and forth. In fact, the pins themselves is what sometimes makes the squealing (caliper pins coming into contact with the rotor) noise when stepped on the brake pedal when running with excessively worn out pads. But to allow the pads to travel back and forth within the caliper, the pins do have to keep the pads locked into position, so the pins actually hold the pads in place, and a missing pin (or pins) means that the pads are just wiggling inside the caliper when the car moves about. As for lubrication and according to my knowledge, the only part that needs to be greased up when re-installing the caliper is the long nut that holds the caliper and knuckle together. This of course may vary, depending on the vehicle.

Yes The Don; Ideally they should, because the shims just corrode away with time and sometimes break into pieces when removing the old pads as I've mentioned before. Unfortunately, they don't come with the pads, so our mechanics just opt for the easy thing of just removing them. When I went for the first brake pad change on my CS3, I discovered that a mech had fabricated a piece of metal to do the job of a caliper pin. It was so tight that the pad was stuck in the caliper. My mech had to pry the pad out. It was then that I switched to a set of genuine caliper pins. If all the bits and pieces (shims/pins) necessary for the re-installation of pads, then this wouldn't have been the case.

Yeah, I remember having to deal with a lump in a KENDA tyre in my previous car and it was on the sidewall. I could clearly feel the vibration through the steering as well (mainly because the car did not have power steering) but it went away when I got it balanced. There was a lot of weights pasted on the rim in my case too, a whole lot of 5g weights, but I don't remember exactly how much the total weight was. Still It was bugging me although there was no vibration at all, so I switched that particular rim to the rear. Used that tyre until the end of its lifetime without any issues after that.

Yup, probably a tyre issue as The Don has said. The first thing you should do is get the wheels re-balanced and aligned to see if the problem goes away. If this is a tyre issue, it will surface when balancing the rim with the defective tyre.

Sub-standard aftermarket brake pads can definitely be a reason for poor braking, so if you're going for new pads, I can only suggest going for genuines if you can afford them. Do you have disks all round? If so, 17K sounds like a reasonable price cause the front pads alone for the Lance CS3 cost me 13K a couple of years back. I'm still running on those pads and there's not a bit of brake dust or noise. The braking power is significantly better than when I was using aftermarket pads. There are of course good Japanese brake pads which are equally good. As for the rattling noise I had in the front, it was because one of the aftermarket pads not sitting properly on the caliper. On a different occasion, there was another rattling noise in the front and it was because of a missing caliper pin. Caliper pins hold the pads in place without allowing them to rattle. You can get a set of pins from UniMo and they're not that expensive. Some cars have a shim that hold the pads in place, our local mechanics get rid of the shims because they tend to rust and break into pieces when replacing pads. Go through the workshop manual for brakes and see what parts of the brakes are missing (pins/shims) and replace them to stop all these brake rattles.

jedikasun, I don't think that's the case mate. I believe you can replace just the stepper motor without replacing the entire IACV housing. If you're buying it from UniMo, you've got to buy the entire unit because the stepper motor alone is not available. (that's why it costs so much). The reason as to why the stepper motor you bought is not a match is probably because there were a few variants of the IACV unit (that fits the same throttle body). I myself was looking for a stepper motor once 'cause the one on my Lancer CS3 was busted (full story here) and I went all over Delkanda and everywhere I knew and found one finally. I even ended up stopping in front of places and trying out different stepper motors to find out that none of them worked. Some even mounted properly but didn't work cause the plunger on the motor was either shorter or longer. So do a bit of searching, I'm sure you will be able to find one because most of these parts are interchangeable with other Mitsubishi vehicles. Good luck! By the way, thanks for sharing the Workshop manual, I hope you don't mind me posting the same dropbox link on our common Workshop Manual threads so that it's easily located.

If you copy-pasted from the internet, the least you can do is add a reference to the original article.

Man that is clean! As for the tail light sequencer, check this out (should work for you): http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mustang-1996-2004-Sequential-Tail-lights-96-97-98-99-00-01-02-03-04-FREE-BONUS-/231297422508?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item35da6694ac A DIY circuit is ideal though. Because then you can get everything to work exactly as you want.

I'm sure to have mentioned before on many other threads that I got my Lancer painted back in 2012. Full paint job, To original colour code, Sikkens paint, Paint booth, 5 week duration (initially promised 3 weeks), Cost me 90,000 if I remember correctly. The job went on like this: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4IDJQMUi9GtYzRrQ3p0eVZLV1E&usp=sharing&tid=0B4IDJQMUi9GtLVpEaW9qRGY2eUk And ended like this (badges on trunk lid not pasted yet): https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4IDJQMUi9GtLVpEaW9qRGY2eUk&usp=sharing I am satisfied with the job except that the bonnet started to bubble up within 2 weeks. I went back and they re-painted the bonnet again for free. The bubbles started to re-appear after about a month and I got it re-painted (third time) from another place and now no more bubbles. Apart from that, the rest of the car perfectly done. They had a good painter/tinkerer back then. Not sure about how it is now. The place - Sha Auto Park - Kaduwela. Beware of "thousand talks" of the managers. Show 'em that you know better.

Yup, if there is no urgency, eBay would be the best bet. Just get hold of the correct part number and order. You might want to contact Mahinda and ask him too.

I'm so sensitive (or paranoid maybe) to a level where sometimes I start feeling as if a tire has gone flat (or losing air) and even stop on the side of the road, get down and check them to find four perfectly inflated tires. So I really can't understand how one can drive for 4km without noticing.

If the idle speed of the engine is poor when this happens, this could be due to a faulty IAC Valve or MAF. Whatever it is, a diagnosis is sure to give you enough info to determine the cause. Glad you decided to go to A*W and get this tested. Keep us posted on the results.