Delilah the surf Wagon - 1980 245 GL

alexjellie

After a chunk of luck and frantic drive out to Bathurst from Sydney I purchased a beaut with 367ks on the clock, manual 4 speed no overdrive.

For the price it was going for all I was really interested in was that it could go from A to B and then I'd figure the rest out.

On the drive back I was pleasantly surprised that the engine had no major ticks (though I think it runs a bit rich), steering was ok (bit wobbly above 80) and the lights worked. Body was in ok condition, paint chipped around the place and a lot on the front edge of the bonnet due to country road driving, indicators cracked, left headlight lens cracked. Few dents here and there but otherwise I'm pretty bloody stoked!

The other half was quick to coin her Delilah and we're (I'm) going through the process of tidying up all the ticks and issues to get her ready for a summer of surfing along the east coast and camping.

The gent I picked her up from, saying his goodbyes to his trusty steed

investigating..

Pleasantly surprised

random shit photo

A bit of deeper investigation of some rust found the back left quarter pretty gone and the drivers side windscreen bottom corner starting to go...

Anyway things to do/fix are in the following month,

- Fix the A/C and A/C fan
- Drivers side window doesn't quite make it all the way up (easy joke there...)
- rewire the stereo and get it going (maybe a new one)
- See to rust and seal her up ( I live in Manly, cars worst nightmare...)
- Tidy up the roof racks
- Clean up the wheels
- Wheel alignment
- Thinking of some EH holden style blinds for sleeping in the back.
- Install overdrive
- Clean up the exterior trim
- peel the crappy red tape off the bumpers
- new hoses
- 1 broken windscreen wiper
- find a new replacement hub for the back left wheel
- Random ticking noise (i think from an electrical relay or similar, comes from passenger dash)
- Thinking of changing out the headlights for the round style
- Tidy the engine as fuel economy isn't amazing getting around 350 from a tankish (are they 50L tanks?)

Will post in the coming months as I dig and find, also open to suggestions!

Ex850R

iirc my '78 245 got surprisingly poor fuel economy too. maybe giving it the berries all the time for fun caused it... they do rev highly, I was forever going for another gear at 130 odd.
That windscreen rust is most common, once repaired install new screen with later full rubber seal, nil leaks after that.

Love it!

Angus242164

I should have a headlight lens and wiper arm here if needed.

In a good state of tune and with an overdrive gear they should do a little over 400km from the tank which is 55L, you often can't get quite that much into them though.

Slowbrick

alex.jellie wrote - Fix the A/C and A/C fan
- Drivers side window doesn't quite make it all the way up (easy joke there...)
- rewire the stereo and get it going (maybe a new one)
- See to rust and seal her up ( I live in Manly, cars worst nightmare...)
- Tidy up the roof racks
- Clean up the wheels
- Wheel alignment
- Thinking of some EH holden style blinds for sleeping in the back.
- Install overdrive
- Clean up the exterior trim
- peel the crappy red tape off the bumpers
- new hoses
- 1 broken windscreen wiper
- find a new replacement hub for the back left wheel
- Random ticking noise (i think from an electrical relay or similar, comes from passenger dash)
- Thinking of changing out the headlights for the round style
- Tidy the engine as fuel economy isn't amazing getting around 350 from a tankish (are they 50L tanks?)

Will post in the coming months as I dig and find, also open to suggestions!

Looks neat. Reminds me of ours when we first got it back in 2012. First up im not sure if you have worked on old cars before but I highly doubt you will get through that list in a month if you are doing things properly. Old cars are like Pandora's box. You open it thinking you know what you expect...trust me you have no idea hahaha.

First thing you need to do is get yourself onto kjet.org and download some manuals. Your car has the Kjetronic fuel injection system which is interesting but simple when you get your head around it. 350kms to a tank is pretty shitty and in a good state of tune you should be able to get about 500kms a tank on the open road. Before our 245 had its motor transplant I had it running in great shape with the Kjet injection and on the open road cruising at about 110 could get about 500kms to a tank before it was halfway in the red.

You mention you want to install an overdrive. This isnt possible in the current config without a gearbox swap. Your car will have what is known as an M45 gearbox. To get an overdrive you will need either an M46 with the electronic 5th gear or an M47 with the shifter actuated 5th gear. Both are neither here nor there in their performance. If you go down the route of the M46 you will need all of the wiring, the relay and the tailshaft as it is different to the M45. Also check the bolt pattern of the tailshaft as some differed for whatever reason.

If you are keeping the car for any large amount of time I would take the time to pull the dash and swap out the heater core now while its off the road. If it hasnt been replaced before then it WILL fail. Its not if but when. We got about 4 months out of ours after putting it back on the road and I wish I had done it when it was getting put back together. People will tell you its the worst job in the world but it isnt too bad and if you budget about 6 hours then you will be in the ballpark of getting it done. Another thing is while you are in there it would be a good idea to swap the wiper spindles for the later ones. The early ones have a circlip in the wiper arm that breaks and you lose the whole arm (ask me how I know lol). These arms are hard to find as they were only used for a few years. Later they went to the threaded spindle that has a nut to hold down the arm. This is the one you want.

If you are going to be doing any sort of travelling in this thing then I would suggest pulling the gearbox to inspect the clutch fork. The pivot ball runs dry of grease and then eats a hole in the receiver. Eventually the receiver fails and the ball goes straight through it resulting in no clutch. Had this happen to both of my 240's. One had low mileage and the other was the 245 with about 300k. Taking the 3 hours to pull the box and inspect is much better than being stranded.

It would also be a good idea to refresh your front suspension while you have it off the road. Replace your tierod ends, inner tie rods and ball joints. You can go as far as doing the bushings too. This will probably set you back about $300 if doing it yourself or about $500 if a shop does it. These parts are often overlooked and make a world of difference to the way the car drives. Ball joints are also a safety item I wouldn't ignore. You should also check the state of the rubber in the strut top bearings. If they are pushed up and looking like a little cone then you need to replace them. One big pothole and that thing could launch straight through your bonnet. If you are unsure of when the wheel bearings were last done then you should also replace both of these. Any bearing shop should have them and they dont cost much. If the old ones are worn then they can do wonders for your fuel ecomony and wont try to kill you by launching your front wheels off at 100km/h.

The usual goes for brakes, just check and replace as needed. The brakes on these are pretty sturdy and benefit greatly from good quality pads.

Thats my "quick" run down of advice. I'm sure you will work the rest out. These are very forgiving cars for the learner and you will learn quite a bit from this car.

Oh and another thing, no E10. Do not put ethanol blended fuels into a Kjet car. If you want it to work properly then from now on its a diet of 95 and above. Cleanliness is the secret to a good running Kjet car.

Goodluck!

Angus242164

Any theory to back up your advice to avoid E10?

jlfents

You open it thinking you know what you expect...trust me you have no idea hahaha.

+1

It's a nice looking wagon! And I'm a fan of the colour, good buy. I'm glad you decided to make a build thread for her. I'll be following your progress. Also, what are those blue horn looking things in your engine bay? I haven't seen them before.

I'd suggest taking out the interior and inspecting the water tunnels along the sill of the car. Lots of leaves/garbage could have fallen in there over the years. Also the hot air start valve has probably failed too, making hot air its default air intake. It's inside the air box fyi.

Slowbrick

Angus242164;93692 wroteAny theory to back up your advice to avoid E10?

Without derailing and getting into an internet debate about which fuel to use. Ive found that good quality fuel (ie 95 and above) keeps things happier. Ive found that the premium fuels keep for much longer without turning into varnish. There is little performance gain by switching to premium fuels but if you tear down a motor that has been run on regular/E10 vs one that has been on premium the evidence is very hard to ignore. Kjet works best when everything is clean right from the fuel filter sock all the way to the injector nozzles. The rest is opinion. Ive always run my motors big and small on premium fuel an even with the bikes which might sit in the shed for 6 months at a time, im yet to have a problem with varnished up needles and bowls. The same cant be said for bikes ive bought that obviously had regular/e10 in them because of all of the mess.

And thats where ill leave it :)

Nice car!

A_Volvo_Driver

Good guy Ryan

perko

Re: fuel, b23e has a pretty high compression ratio, mine used to ping something shocking on anything less than 95.
Also one that old may well have rubber fuel lines which will perish when in contact with ethanol.

As for fuel economy, plugs, leads and dizzy rotor/cap will probably make a big difference. Pull off the intake hose below the rubber bellow thing and get the crud that's probably in there out then give it a big of carb cleaner love and you'll probably find it goes a whole lot better.

I'm in freshie so hit me up if you need advice or parts, I have about 2 early 240's worth of parts under the house that I'll probably never use.

Angus242164

That car has a B21E, but yes all these "E" engine variants have higher compression and were designed to run on the old leaded super fuel, which had an octane rating of somewhere around 95 I think, so they do require a fuel with 95 or higher octane to run well.

I was curious about the advice to avoid E10 fuel as I have done over 100,000km in an older Volvo using almost exclusively United 95 octane E10 (No I don't work for them) with no issues at all. There are two rubber hoses in the fuel system on that model, one is between the fuel sender and the high pressure pump under the floor, it's a large thick hose and won't suffer by any detectable amount from exposure to E10.

The other is inside the tank between the low pressure pump and the sender and is pretty much always a crumbling mess, regardless of what sort of fuel it has been exposed to, and is worth checking and replacing. All other lines are steel and plastic.

Vee_Que

The car Angus talks about was efi. And turbo. Which will ping with 95, but due to a lack of fuel in boost. Not kjet, so its not comparable to a kjet vehicle. Basically advance the timing so it pings on 95 and always run 98 and you will get better economy. a Timing light is your friend.

Angus242164

The two vehicles are comparable in that they have the same rubber parts in the fuel system. A K-Jet 240 should run well and not ping on 95 octane fuel if the timing is set correctly.

Vee_Que

But the mechanical injection pump is different to having just four injectors.

And the point was, make the timing more advanced so its close to pinging and run on 98 and get.more power and better economy.

alexjellie

*Not build related*

Delilah getting her first taste of salty air with the Fam over from NZ, managed a trip to Jervis bay and back from Sydney no worries. A tyre pressure check resulted in all 4 wheels being out of whack, steering cleared up a bit afterwards.

Will do the tierod checks over this weekend before we go off for an alignment.

Ex850R

Strut top rubber too as it's a waste of alignment otherwise.

alexjellie

Rear quarter panel rust I got professionally done (didn't back myself with a welder out on the street, no garage) and the rust on the windshield has been touched up and a new black rubber seal in (not by me), though I miss the trim. Included a bit of respray as necessary and looks alright thought the colour match is frustratingly not too great, it's come out a bit paler.

Investigated the ticking noise coming from the dash and was a green box relay of some sort (will post photo) - was going to replace the fuses as a first measure but found a replacement for the green ticking box in the boot (which makes me suspect this is a regular occurrence). Turned out it was connected to the timing of the rear wiper, hence the ticking which I think was the switching for the back and forth motion?

So personally I didn't manage to do anything that important this weekend, but managed a cut, polish and wax and a few cosmetic touch ups. Figured best to get her shined and sealed up to help combat the salty sea air in Manly (losing battle I know).

@perko would be keen to pop round to see what you have, in particular I'm one hubcap down which is driving my mild OCD wild so after that, and then a few headlight parts etc. Also where does everyone buy their fuel filters and parts from?

Shined up,

Angus242164

That relay would be the intermittent rear wiper relay.

alexjellie

Is that the only thing it controls? @Angus242164

Angus242164

Yeah that is all it does, there is also a similar relay for the front intermittent wipers.

Cal

She's beautiful. The hubs look much better after a clean or did you spray them black?

Mate i imagine the majority here get most of there parts from www.ipdusa.com or www.fcpeuro.com
Shipping to Syd takes about a week albeit pricey. Ebay can be a cheap alternative. I've also had supercheap auto order me in things like gaskets if I couldn't wait.

I've got a 240 wagon as well and get around Manly everyday so might catch you at the lights hombre