Another little update, the weather held out again today for the most part so i got the top coat on in the engine bay, quite happy with the colour
IMG_0853 by Steve Count, on Flickr
It could do with another final coat but that can wait until my top engine mount repair arrives and i've welded that in. My make shift spray booth worked a treat, that was £7.50 well spent last year

I also decided to whip the wishbones out of the subframe and remove the bushes ready for the solid roller bearing ones, thanks to cooper for the hint of a quick way of getting them out, which is to bend over the lip on the normal ones (not the P one), then just work round it with hard hits and a chiesel or something similar to slowly drive that half out. Once one side is out its easy peasy to knock the other side out with a drift.
For the P bush i gave it a quick spray with GT85, then used an adjustable spanner on the metal tab to get the actual metal centre to spin on the wishbone, once its moved its much easier to knock off with a hammer and punch or whatever you choose to use.

With the bushes out i decided to flap wheel them down and give them a lick of paint. Unfortunately it went dark by the time i had painted them so i havent got a picture of the finished item, they are currently hanging on the washing line drying along with a few other brackets which i decided to tart up
IMG_0864 by Steve Count, on Flickr

One other thing i did was to attack the top engine mount bracket with a cutting disc then hacksaw, i basically removed the bit that should hold the PAS pump, and chopped the same way that the S/C boys do it so that if i ever happen to get some spare cash i could whack a 'charger on
I got a bit anal and went round removing all the sharp edges from the casting, cleaned it up with a wire wheel then painted it.

Thats it for this weekend i think.

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Goldie the track car.

Don't worry, it wont always be blaze
I couldnt spray the bay astor as it would p*ss rob off, so i went for Peugeot steel grey which is actually quite similar, it seems quite metallic but im not sure if it is as muchly so as astor.

I think ill do the underside of mine whilst im at it, but that can wait until its back on its wheels as i darent risk painting above our new drive, my dad would go mental

Its insanely time consuming preparing it for paint but once its on its quite rewarding, i may just clean the crap off the underside and give it a couple of layers of underseal.
The paint gets quite expensive too, it took two and a bit 500ml cans of primer, three 300ml cans of top coat and i imagine two or three 500ml cans of clear lacquer to get the bay done alone, which adds up when its around £6 a can at halfords.

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Goldie the track car.

Might be sending some stuff off for anodising next month if you want the links doing.

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- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
Email me!
Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

Depends how much stuff I end up sending down, I'll get a price anyway and let you know before I send 'em.

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- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
Email me!
Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

One thing i have tried as i got p*ssed off with the normal setup is to have some little spacer sleeves on the hockey stick bolts that hold the bearing in on the o/s driveshaft. The reason behind this is that the nylocs sit slightly in the counterbore on the casting and it really p*ssed me off trying to get the nuts undone whilst under the car as its hard to get a spanner or socket onto them properly. Hopefully if this idea works out the nut will be more easily accessible

This evening after work i got my first layer of top coat on the block and head, its going to take a few coats as its weird stuff, i wont put pics up until its finished and i'm happy with it.
I also ordered my Powervamp battery this morning, and after GSF messed me about once again i sacked them off and opted to order some Zimmermann front discs online. The main reason for opting for zimmermann aside from the low cost is that i have had them on my diablo for the last few thousand miles and have been impressed, i took it round oulton at the end of last year and after about 20 mins of abuse and cooking the brakes the discs didnt warp and there was no pad material stuck on the disc so i'm still using them now, i wrecked my old brembo discs doing a similar thing last year.
The final thing that i ordered today was a cheapo sun strip from ebay, since removing the roof lining and putting the sun visors back up they just flop around and bug me, plus this vinyl will be lighter than them and will block the sun all the way along the windscreen

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Goldie the track car.

Thats the plan Karl.

My diablo has a single 19 row cooler in the centre of the grille but due to the limited height of the air openings its not getting maximum air flow so the oil can still hit 125c or so on track, which i wasnt too happy about.

Hopefully two 13 row ones will have decent enough air flow as they will also be directly infront of the two fans whereas in the middle there was part of the fan cowling which im sure wouldnt have helped air flow through it.

These radiators were cheap enough, about £33 each IIRC, they are from a british company who specialise in cooling solutions, they came with a 1 year warranty and have been tested to 170psi which i believe is the same as mocal's test pressure (but much cheaper than the £60 ea that i found the equivalent mocals for).

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Goldie the track car.

Mine caved in and cracked in the end

I got it sorted now though, Birk supplied a pump with the inlet pipe already removed so i cleaned it all down, painted it up, applied some loctite retaining compound on the pipe and gently tapped it in at the angle i wanted it at. Hopefully there will be no leaks now

I'm not happy with the high pressure hose on mine though, it says 3/8" ID on it so i bought a 10mm hose tail banjo fitting for the outlet, this is quite loose in the bore of the hose and no jubilee clip has been strong enough to clamp it down (proper jubilee ones not cheapo other brands). I think i may have to try an exhaust style T clamp but the one i bought is slightly too large (20-22mm, so i want to try a 17-19mm one).

If that fails i may just get a custom section made up to take it to the pressure sensor, or even leave that out and get a custom hose made up to take it back to the ram.

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Goldie the track car.

Mocal do heavy duty as well as standard pressure rated coolers.

Dunno what my Setrab is rated to, its not blown all the oil out yet though!

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Bang'in 7 gram rocks!
I have one gear, GO!

Well i have cracked on a bit more today but got utterly p*ssed off right at the end of the day.

I was about to bleed the brakes and decided to myself to double check that all the bleed nipples were still ok and werent going to snap on me (I had cracked them all off a few weeks ago to make sure they werent seized when it first went onto axle stands, they were all free). Anyway, i managed to snap both the bloody rears, before i tried to undo them i went round them with a wire brush, gave them a quick spray with GT85, gave each one a nice love tap with a hammer square on then went on with my 3/8" ratchet, holding it right above the socket to make sure it was being held on square. Each one simply snapped so i'm not sure whether i allowed a small amount of moisture in when i cracked them off previously and they corroded together or what.

After i had broken them off i decided to take the calipers off so i could take them into work tomorrow and drill the remaining bits of the nipple out, and whilst undoing the n/s one the bloody brake line decided to snag on the union and twist itself around, despite the plentiful GT85 being applied. I decided not to try and grip the brake line with pliers or mole grips or anything so i couldnt crush it but it just kept on rotating with the union and eventually snapped so it looks like im either going to have to buy a new section pre-made or buy myself another roll of brake line, some more unions and see if i can borrow a flaring kit again to make up my own

Another fail in a way is trying to seal the 3/8" ID high pressure PAS hose to the 10mm hose tail on the banjo fitting that i am now using on the outlet of my PAS pump, the hose itself is slack on the hose tail so i bought an exhaust style T clamp to clamp it down but i ordered one a little too large, and since they only close up a little bit its not enough to crush it on
I tried a jubilee clip but that simply destroys the threading before it clamps the hose enough (proper jubilee branded too, not cheapo s**te).
So its looking like i need to find somewhere local tomorrow that stock the T clamps and get the next size down which i believe is 17-19mm.
I may also wrap the hose tail with a lot of PTFE tape to help bulk it up a bit before clamping the hose.

I have also somehow lost the small left handed countersunk bolts which hold the fan blades onto the motors and the top radiator hose clip which holds it into the plastic elbow, so i need to source new ones of them


Progress wise i have now put my standard exhaust back on diablo and put the magnex on goldie, but the centre box has cracked (not magnex, i believe it was made by proflow) so i could do with getting it welded up once its up and running, it cracked on the actual face of the box about 15mm away from where the pipe leaves for the backbox, a bit displeased about that as i paid a lot for the centre section to be made up and its cracked after about 18 months, although i did like to make the car backfire a lot so i must have put it under some stress though its time
Fitting the exhaust to goldie was a pain in the ass as it had all been welded together, so was long and awkward, and because i had goldies back end on the driveway and the front end over the pavement on axle stands the angles basically meant that my nose would touch the subframe if i looked straight up, so trying to manouver my arms to get the fiddly nut onto the bolt from the new manifold to cat fitting kit was a nightmare, filled with lots of foul language as the spring kept pinging the nut and cup plate straight at my face

I fitted nice 'n shiny lower strut brace, it was a bit of a pain trying to get the bolt through the washer after rich's solid roller bearings but i got there after a bit of fiddling around.

I have cut the old battery section off the ecu housing and made some aluminium brackets to hold it in position, im not sure if i will need to make another to hold it to the bulkhead or something as there is a small amount of flex in these brackets and i dont want it to vibrate and fatigue the wires, maybe i'm just being anal about that
IMG_0960 by Steve Count, on Flickr

Inlet manifold and fuel rail are now back on with fresh o-rings, they are 14.5mm ones from Mr Injector, and came with new fuel filter cup things, i think they cost about £13 or so delivered but arrived nice and quick and well wrapped so a big to him from me.

My idea that i had of using little spacers on the driveshaft hockey sticks worked out quite well, much easier to tighten as they dont go into the slight counterbore and there isnt loads of thread sticking out so can use a regular 11mm socket.

I also gave the new discs a quick blast with brake cleaner and painted the centres black with the VHT stuff i have, should help a little with corrosion resistance and look nicer for longer as i hate looking through the spokes at rusty discs

I have a nice long shopping list now for stuff i want to pick up tomorrow ready to put it all back together. In a way i dont want to get it ready tomrorrow as it will kill me waiting for may so i can tax it, as being a tight yorkshire man i wont start my tax this month for it to only last a few days

If any of you local people (phil, cooper, birk etc) know of somewhere that will sell a 17-19mm T clamp locally and have it in stock i would appreciate you letting me know, i dont want to have to wait round ages for one to be delivered from ebay

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Goldie the track car.

Cheers, i got the inspiration from yours, thanks for the advice

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Goldie the track car.

I think i've got it covered Matt, bullseye said they will knock me one up in the morning if i take my old line there for them to copy from, sounded quite reasonably priced too.

I managed to drill out the old bleed nipples today, was a bloody pain in the arse though and took about 2 hours of faffing round to do the first one, by then i had learned the knack of doing it so did the other one in about 30 mins.
I got a nice new set of M7x1 taps and ran each one down to clean up the thread and have put new nipples in them. The calipers are now back on the car ready for the new brake line which i'll get made tomorrow.

I didnt get anything else done on the car today really, just spent the day pottering about picking up bits and bobs that i needed, i now have the metal clip that holds the top radiator hose into the plastic elbow, many thanks to Birk
Also bought some air ducting for cooling the brakes, i think its about 60 or 62mm bore, 2 metres was enough to do both sides, i havent completed the setup yet but its getting there, i will put pictures up tomorrow if i get chance as i need to fabricate some brackets for it, and eventually could do with getting some trumpets to fit where the fogs were and attach the hose to them.
I got some stainless braided fuel line to go between the fuel rail and the plastic connectors down at the side of the cambelt cover, i don't like the idea of having a fuel leak with all the normal connectors etc.
For some reason i also bought a load of jubilee clips to replace the clips peugeot use to secure the various hoses (the type which i use nail pincers to do up and undo). I didnt like the mis match of all the various types of fasteners that previous owners have used so tomorrow i will simply go round changing them all to these mikalor branded jubilee style clips

I also sourced a mikalor T clamp thing which has secured the high pressure PAS pipe to the banjo hose tail, no more movement down there
And finally i got some 5/8" ID hose for the supply to the PAS pump.

I got the hose and clips etc from Hose Depot Direct Ltd which is just down the road, they really knew their stuff and had everything in stock, i would really recommend them

All being well i can crack on tomorrow once i have the new brake pipe and get most of the front end back together

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Goldie the track car.

how about getting rid of the cowling and running a slimline fan clipped onto the radiator?

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230 hp 2.1 16v XU 205 rallye on jenveys Project thread here
309 3dr K20 Type R