Well this weekend has been a long time in the coming, I've been collecting bits for what seems an absolute age now.
I've been squirreling them away after cleaning, sand blasting and painting them various shades of the rainbow, well to tell the truth, most colours I've chosen half at random and others are whats been on my shelves.

Steve arrived friday night after work, we all popped up the curry house for some scran then an earlish noght was had.

Bright and early the next morning we shifted the cars around in the garden and set about clearing the decks in the work shop, after sweeping the floor with the air broom and tucking stuff away we brought the patient in.

Normal stuff, front off, rad out, disconnect, loom, throttle , clutch, top mounts, steering rack, fuel lines, vacuum pipes blah blah blah,
SNAG..... barsteward bloody exhaust wont come undone, it wants to fight as it likes it in there and its quite cosy and not up for moving, 1 out of six of the feckers came undone. It even hung on to one of my sockets and wouldn't give it back.
Power tools......... angle grinder at the ready , steve slid under the car and cut it only to be thwarted by the gaurd, hacksaw, that did it but, it did fight tooth and nail to the last mm.
So now we were ready to undo the subframe bolts. Jack was slid under with la arge piece of very sturdy timber between subframe and sump.
Pumped up the jack and took the strain, buzzed off the bolts, let her down gently, buzzed off the legs and out she came in one deft move.
Dumped it on the floor seperated the engine and box from the subframe, dragging both clear to free up the working space.

Popping the front crossmember and rear wheels back on we were able to push the car back out of the workshop to the door where we could get the chemicals and steam cleaner and jet wash in to clean and repair the bay without soaking our space and all the crap just go outside on the gravel driveway.

Steve and I set about cleaning it vigourously and got a good result fairly quickly , I had to shoot off to pick up a customer and returned nearly 3 hours later to find and almost immaculately spotless bay, and some onlookers, who didnt want to help, so out came the sand blaster and all the rust was given the treatment.
We dried the bay with the air line and brake cleaner. Out came the acid etch filler primer and bloody hell after about 5 minutes it was looking better than new.

Roast chicken dinner, glass or two of wine, well deserved break.

Upon entering the workshop you could see the bay really really looked good, so out with the white can this time and about four coats later we ended up with something that I though had acceptabley covered well enough.

Left to dry for the night.

So now the engine.

Off the stand, clutch on (after digging in the bucket of bolts for three lifetime trying to find them all) Gear box down on the floor and lightly greased up the input shaft and slipped the two together, two big top bolts and there you have it thats where about got to.

I/we filled in alot of time by getting the servo out of the car, oh and yes steve it is actually connected to the pedal and no amount of vigourous pulling and yanking will release it until you take the pin out !!
The new servo and master cylinder were treated to a new lick of paint, well to be honest they were flashed with the can everytime we walked past as they both needed lots of thin coats.

Retire to the house to have a large glass of Isle of Jura with ice and retire and sleep like the dead as we were fecked.

LOTS and LOTS of bits have been missed and skipped over like three hours of steam cleaning and washing to remnove the copious amount of wax from the legs and firewall. This has not been a two hour in and out job.

Now we just have to put the rack on the subframe and buzz that up in place fling the engine mounts back on and roll the engine and box back in, this is the aim for today.
Hopefully by the end of the day it should resemble a proper car again, not running but definately a car.

The pictures..as we went in chronological order....


























Do you think I should wear some safety glasses mate ?




Look chic dont you think ?















































And now just a little something for the ladies out there........


A little change of foot attire....



Out with the old.....




And in with the new !!!!!

Cracking start Matey.
I am going to enjoy this thread

Not alot happened today really, we assesd what we had done and what we had left to do and what we had to do to achieve it.

We sorted out the servo and the master cylinder, bunging up the master hole that wasnot needed, using the bolt from a clutch that fitted perfectly.

We fitted up the sub frame and bolted it together and put the rack on it finding that I had bought the wrong bushes ie manual rack ones not pas ones...DOH ! then just for good measure I discovered the short knuckle bar that connect the column to the rack has a different size end when it conects to a pas rack double DOH !

This stunted work for a bit while I had a think about how to resolve this issue. sorted use a m3 one.

We put the frame into the car pop on the hubs and front shocks so we could put the wheels back on and make the car mobile again.

I decided not to put the engine in as the paint isnt hard enough to be around at the moment and a day or twos drying wont hurt it.

Other issues I discovered were witht he engine mount for the gearbox, in so much that its a mk1 1.6 5 speed one and it doesnt have the correct holes to accept the mount/gear linkage but with a few bolts and washers we circumvented the need of bolting it up and think it should be strong enough once its in and hung up and bolted tight.

Tomorrow I will fit the servo back into the car and order up some correct rack rubbers, hopefully the linkage kit should be here and I can drop the heat sheild and replace the complete linkage bushes into the linkages, I shall cllean the linkages up whilst doing this and put them to one side ready for the fitting.

The drop links and anti roll bar bushes should also come tomoorow so I can pop the arb on, that'll be another job jobbed.

The rear beam has a litlle work left to do on it as yet before i drop that end off and throw that on, I have some refurbed calipers for the rear.

I have braided hoses for the whole lot and all new brake line fittings and lines. I am going to polish all the brake lines then laquer them before fitting so they should be good for some time to come.

I've fitted new top mounts on the front and new bump stops to suit.

Still lots to do and the heads not back from the machine shop, I can see this taking another two weeks worth of nights before even getting close.

I have some more pics from today but cant be arsed as I need to go to bed but watch this space,



tbc

coming along nicely guy

Heres the pics from yesterday, when we threw the subframe back in and popped the shocks and hubs on so we could move it in and out.

A few bits arrived today, the anti roll bar rubbers and the drop links and the gear linkages.
So tomorrow night its back into the workshop and putting the arb back on.
Hopefully the rack rubber will arrive in the morning so I can do it all in one hit.

Well I got home today to find this on my door step !!





Much joy !

So I went to the workshop and checked out the wrong rubber I had on there.... look how slack it is and how stupid I was.




So I took out this old one, compared the two side by side,



and then fitted the correct one..




Like that.......

SO I now have a pair of poly rack bushes for a mk2 non powersteered rack for sale. £8.

Look exactly like these ones....



Oh thats right they are those ones !!

lol. one more job jobbed !!

Well, I've been down to the workshop again and had a little fiddle with a few bits and heres the pics to prove it !!
I got the starter motor and taped up the apertures and blasted the bugger clean....






I also did some of the mounts while I was there and also the bottle bracket too !!
then fitted them along with the servo and master cylinder in lemon grun !!




















A little progress but it's progress, hubs and are brakes next.

Watch this space........

looking good guy, more progress in the last two weeks than i'd have done in 2 decades lol

fair play mate, have you had a lookey on edition for one?
what sort of figures are you expecting from it when its done?
also you have pm

pm replied..

Call me 07791001385 to sort out getting the bits.

Bloody hooray !!!!

I finally found a steering knuckle for a power steering rack, god it was hard work, I looked everywhere I knew to and it finally turned up in the post today, hoo bloody ray I can now get on with it a bit more.

Still waiting for the head to come back so I can press new guides in and skim the head to within one skim of certain death.

So I've done some more blasting and polishing, I polished up the four branch I bought from Philip with the vr6 vento, been looking on the bay for a stainless system even bid on a few but I've ben beaten to the finish a couple of times. So if anyone has a stainless system for a mk2 8 or 16v I'd be very interested.

I'll post some pics later in the week when i finish off.

looks like your doing a good job here.

i did this a few months ago and it does make a nice torquey motor but ive never got round to having mine set up properly.

Is that a 9in servo with vr m/c guy?

good work fella. oh and nice williams snap on rollcab! i have one of them. rare ass!!!!