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The Car Thread


MadManMike

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Another week has passed with no progress. Lovely.

Managed to find a couple of hours earlier before heading out to watch some rugby, so pulled the car in front of the garage to do a few little bits.

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First task, pull out the seats so I could get in and give the carpets a clean. With the previous owner being a smoker who’d converted to vaping, there was a slight hint of smoke and an overwhelming stench of chemical nastiness that was supposedly cherry/strawberry. Not pleasant either way.

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Plenty of dirt/dust accumulated throughout in all the usual crevices.

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Gave the car a good vacuum to pick up as much of the crud as possible, followed by a wet vac (kindly borrowed from a colleague). Picked up plenty of dirt, and the smell has been largely eliminated.My parents have a cheap steam cleaner so I’ll pinch that at some point to give the interior plastics/leather a once over, and I’ll try and run something through the HVAC system because there’s obviously some residual ming in there too.

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Mats came out pretty well too. They still need replacing, but they’re acceptable enough that it’s not a major priority.

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I popped a small portable heater in the car to help dry it out fully prior to refitting seats. Seemed as good a time as any to move the Corbeaus across, although when I pulled the passenger seat from the old car I realised I never got around to sorting out a resistor the airbag system. Wasn’t able to find my solder, so had to get a little creative using some hacked up solder-shrink stuff. Not overly happy with it so I might revisit this at some point - no biggy as I need to redo the driver’s one anyway to shorten the pigtail, which I left long previously until I knew it was going to work.

In case anyone finds this thread searching for info, I used a connector from a Polo (not sure on year) which is part number 6X0 972 783, and whatever the resistor below is (I'm too lazy to get a colour chart and check). Lop the end off, solder in resistor, heatshrink to protect a little, done. Worth noting that you don’t want to turn the ignition on between taking seats out and refitting, as if the system detects an open circuit it’ll throw a code/light and you’ll need VCDS to reset it.

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That done, seats could go in.

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Point of note with the seats - because the seatbelt needs to pass through the harness hole on the seat, it needs unbolting at the bottom of the B pillar. To gain access you either need to pull the carpet out (no thanks), or do as I did and simply make a vertical slice with a sharp blade through the carpet and matting. This all sits back neatly and is virtually undetectable after refitting, though it’d be easy to throw in a small patch of double sided tape to close the join fully if you wanted to.

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Also moved my aero wipers across from the old car too. The setup on before was ugly and ineffective, so it was a win:win really. Gave the arms a quick squirt with some satin black paint as they had a few little dinks. Much improved.

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Oh, I also had a 10 second check under the car earlier. When I’d picked it up, I gave it a cursory glance as he mentioned the cats were replaced 18 months ago. He claimed they were a stock setup, but I remembered seeing a small plaque on there which isn’t present form factory. I’d not given it any real thought, but figured I’d see what the score was. Turns out they’re a pattern part (no issue with that at all) from “Euroflo”. Seem to be pretty generic, and not the world’s best quality, but will do the trick just fine until it’s upgrade time at some point in the future

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Need to make some time to move across necessities - AC control unit, lambda sensor, VSS, jacking cover (once I have paint) etc - but it’s in an almost acceptable state now. Exterior deep clean and protection needed, but that’ll likely be after the interior has seen a little more love.

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Got a friendly neighbour to trailer the Mx over to my mums place with a nice double garage, requisitioned one bay of it and parked up.

 

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Had to drag the car in with a lawnmower of all things due to not having a drivshaft of diff in place  :whistle:  Was an interesting few minutes

 

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So couple of weekends ago I managed to get a mate to give a hand pulling the engine and box from the mx. You can see the pretty prodigious coolant leak onto my gearbox from the bulkhead coolant pipes  :yuk:

 

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Pulled the bumper and the rest of the front end off too ready for chassis rail replacement and mk2.5 NBFL upgrade.

 

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Dropped the subframe off ready for blasting, had one casualty in the form of a snapped subframe stud  :rant:

 

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General detritus boxed for blasting

 

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Took the subframe over to a friends for blasting; gave it a quick pressure wash off first. Seems to be far better nick than the rear!

 

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Moody sandblast shed shot: interior.....

 

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Got it all sandblasted, cleaned up really nice.... shame its not alu as would look so good polished  :whistle:

 

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Sneak peek of what lies ahead.... :drool:

 

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Had a fun distraction in the form of every bolt for my disc shields / abs sensors in the front hub snapping. Cue some inventive fixturing, a couple of carbide endmills and an m8 tap and I had all the threads recovered.

 

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Started the job of cutting the old rails out to see what I was working with. Used the drivers side that hadn't been previously repaired.

 

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Turns out the rail had blown out so far it was unreal. You can see on the side where its rotted right the way through.

 

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Picked up some box section £11 for both sides, over length by 100mm! Chopped one to size and did a trial fit. Unfortunately when speccing the box section I measured it at 90mm on the width ( I'd measured a section that was blown out clearly ) so cut 85mm up from the bottom.

 

When I remeasured the internal width and added the wall thickness I realized it was actually only 80mm square! Leaving me with a small gap at the top to fill  :unsure: What a bellend.

 

I decided to take out the maximum amount of material easily possible, and went from the very edge of the subframe mounting plate ( So I could weld into this thicker circa 6mm material ) right along to the gusset that reinforces the slam bar at the front ( cut off the spot welded tabs and welded directly onto this ) Rail length was around 570mm each side.

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Drilled all the holes on both pieces of box on a mill at work using the old rails as a guide; remembering of course that the passengers is the mirror image of the drivers +/- a few mounting holes.

 

I needed to shape the box into more of a Vee shape, so chopped the top and used a car jack to widen the top width ( |__| to \__/ )

 

Rot inside the passenger side.

 

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Chopped the passenger and found an even more delightful sight, with some lovely previous repairs.

 

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Proper abortion of a repair, plates and angle iron here there and everywhere with the ARB bracket welded on every face possible

 

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Out with the old and in with the new. Originally planned on replicating all the holes, bolting nuts to the inside and welding these into position. Got convinced to give rivnuts a try and can say I'm converted ! They look super clean. After welding the OEM brackets back, and drilling the ARB brackets to accept the larger rivnuts it all looks proper.

 

Got busy with the melty stick:

 

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Smoothed all the welds off ready for paint with a 40grit flap wheel.

 

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Didn’t plan on doing anything to the car today as we were out and about sorting other things out. Managed to find 20 mins this afternoon though so decided instead of getting started on anything on the daily, I’dd start pulling a few bits apart on the black car instead.

Removed head unit and climate control unit, which will both be moving across to replace the original kit in the grey car which has seen better days. Also removed a few bits of trim, steering wheel and the clocks which are the roughest of the 3 sets I have, so will be ideal for playing with down the line. A few of the chaps on UK-MkIVs are currently experimenting with some cluster mods (ColourMFA type stuff) so once they have it all figured out for me to shamelessly copy I might get involved! 

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With the car having been sat and getting a little damp, the leather wheel and gear gaiter had started to get a touch furry. Only early stages, but given the car won’t be going anywhere soon it’d only get worse. The gaiter I’m not too concerned about - so a wipe down with a baby wipe has cleared it up fairly well, however I’m not yet ruling out putting the wheel into the new car and as a result wanted it properly cleaned up. Cue a fairly brutal routine (I won’t be winning any awards for leather care on DetailingWorld any time soon…) of carb cleaner, bathroom bleach, boiling water, hot APC solution and another boiling water rinse. Should kill off anything that was planning on taking up residence!

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I made a point of getting in to all the stitching, joins and pores as best I could with a stiff brush and I’m relatively content with it being as organism-free as it’s likely been in years, so that’ll do for now. Currently drying between a radiator and big static dehumidifier to draw out any moisture from within. 

You can see above that the perforated side panels are quite red - this seems to be common with age/wear on these, and a lot of people recolour them with Cherry Blossom shoe polish but IMHO it gives as poor a result on steering wheels as it does on shoes, so I don’t really fancy that. I’d like to have it retrimmed with yellow stitching and band (which, incidentally, looks much better for a clean too!) but that’s waaaaaaay down the priority list so for now this’ll get dried out and put away in the garage for future use/sale.

Wasn’t expecting to touch the cars today, so even a few minutes to pull bits off was good. I’d like to get the vehicle speed sensor replaced on the new car soon to stop the incessant beeping round corners, but it seems the one on my old standard box which is in the garage is cracked so not much point moving it across. OM part is about £60 from memory, so if it comes to it I’ll just pop one in rather than an unknown used item but I’d rather not have to drop that cash so will give the wiring a thorough inspection prior to buying one, just in case.

I’m also conscious that there still aren’t any real photos of the new car in here. The honest answer is that it’ embarrassingly filthy at present and I’ve not yet given the exterior a proper seeing to. Will see how this week goes and figure something out on that front soon.

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20180217_123055.thumb.jpg.719a316656df9e8651c2e6bd2e337024.jpg

Feel the power, bitches.

Joking aside for the money we've paid it's a storming car and will be a perfect stop gap for Jenny while we figure out what she wants next.

6 months mot and 25k from new :lol:.

I'm just pleased my folks.still have some cassettes she can listen to on her blaupunkt tape deck B)

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Took part in a competition on Saturday. Got out the gopro because this girl really wanted some footage to remember the event. Captured some of the dumbest facial expressions ever. Might post some footage from the comp itself later on. We ended up taking 1st place overall.  

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On 19/02/2018 at 11:46 AM, Tom Booth said:

20180217_123055.thumb.jpg.719a316656df9e8651c2e6bd2e337024.jpg

Feel the power, bitches.

Joking aside for the money we've paid it's a storming car and will be a perfect stop gap for Jenny while we figure out what she wants next.

6 months mot and 25k from new :lol:.

I'm just pleased my folks.still have some cassettes she can listen to on her blaupunkt tape deck B)

How much did you pay? I need to sell my corsa

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Seems it’s the week of awful cars. My Dads just bought a new car and given me his 2004 Renault Laguna 1.9DCi. It’s been 100% reliable in the near 10 years or more he’s had it in fairness.. tempted to flog the 306 and run the Renault instead. Working heaters, working A/C, cruise control.. French luxury or what! 

One of them has to go. Two Civics, a 306 and a Laguna take up space I don’t have haha 

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5 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Have you not seen Euan's VXR? It's the best car ever! Check out his Facebook page for 18947 photos a day :P 

In fairness, it's a tidy little car, but if you want a good giggle wait for Joe Maher to point out "it's just a Corsa" and watch the entertainment unfold.

Unfollowed him ages ago. He was going down the same needy 'look at me' route as Jordan leigh. Plus all that Euan Beaden official or whatever it was shit became boring 

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Had planned to run some seats down to hull tomorrow but I’ve been let down on the sale.. so a productive day on the civic sounds in order. 

Inner wing to finish, all old brake lines off along with the master cylinder/booster and get all the interior out. I want to get it ready to accept an engine next weekend if possible! 

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So got a few hours in on the weekend ; wire brushed the subframe and gave it a couple of coats of raptor.

 

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Also cleaned up the entire length of the chassis rails, some small patches of corrosion near the brake lines / front subframe mounts and gave it all 2 layers of raptor.

 

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I REALLY don't understand how anyone can repair the chassis rails without taking the engine out!

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I've had a manic week of cars. I'll start with what I discovered earlier in the week. It's exciting news. I was always wondering about whether my car had a boost leak as that's what was suggested at mapping and why I only made 256bhp when the turbo and everything else was easily ready for 300bhp/300ftlb. So I got a boost leak detector and noticed this...

25534956147_38b2787aca_b.jpg20180221_192332 by dann2707, on Flickr

 

I tightened it further but no joy, still pissing out so there must be something up... more investigation required.

I shouldn't actually have this on as this is the OEM recirc valve, I already have a forged dump valve so not sure what the turbo would be doing...

 

39696154184_5e87968065_b.jpg20180221_194819 by dann2707, on Flickr

 

The angle of this makes it look less than what it is, it's actually a huge split

 

38595842740_a509e5492e_b.jpg20180221_195149 by dann2707, on Flickr

 

I'm really hoping that was causing me to lose all my power when mapping so when I get the car remapped I will be where I want to be...

 

Next carry thing. I have had loads of people nagging me to see if I will make them some engine tables so I thought screw it, let me source some dead blocks and i'll do exactly that. I haven't properly advertised them at all really and already got reservations on 3 out of 5 so that's cool. 

 

Dropping them off for sandblasting on thursday. Stripped them down today.

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all the pistons

 

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I'm taking the Corsa for its MOT on Friday, changed the plates and it's made a huge difference. Hopefully this will sell easily but i'm sure it will do as it's on 44k miles, 2 owners, excellent condition all around.

39769319624_63a75dfbaa_b.jpg20180224_150026 by dann2707, on Flickr

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Then finally... i've bought another 182 and got an absolute bargain. It's tatty in places as the picture shows, it needs a respray on the side where it's been scuffed and the bumpers need a respray. I'm not sure how much that's going to set me back though but I can do it in due time. The idea on this one is to keep it completely and utterly standard. Factory fresh standard.

 

It's done 106k miles, belts and dephaser done 3,000 miles/3 years ago so it's not due for another 2 years. Loads and loads of mechnical work done to it throughout. The owner went through everything he has done to it which has filled me with confidence.

It's the full cup packed version (wider track, spoiler etc) and has a few other little mods such as Honda s2000 aerial, blue interior LED conversion and a subtle kenwood under seat sub, rs200 rear badge.

40479757951_f5de528551_b.jpg20180223_153755 by dann2707, on Flickr

 

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La scuff

 

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Needs a new door ideally

 

25608679287_1a8eee443b_b.jpg20180223_150504 by dann2707, on Flickr

40436450112_8eba6b8395_b.jpg20180223_150437 by dann2707, on Flickr

This will be me secondary daily driver / car for blasting around at on weekends when i'm not in the Lupo.

 

 

Talking of the Lupo, I had a bump in that and that's been written off so I will be buying that back soon when I hear back from the guy who crashed into me's insurance. Exciting things are happening

 

 

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