Small report; new hubs arrived. Went Febi-Bilstein. Look good quality.





I've some SKF bearings to go with these, so have given my uprights a bit of spit and polish. Will be hoping to get the old bearings pressed out by my local garage on Monday and the new ones fitted.

This afternoon I returned to underneath the boot floor to do the top coats. Ideally I should have done this a couple of hours after the POR15 first coat, but as I was out of time, it mean't I had to give it a very light sand today to key it for the top coat. It proved to be a pretty hard and resistant paint to sand which looks promising for future protection.

I gave it two layers of POR Top Coat, (aerosol), and did a bit more into the rear arches as well, and I'm very pleased how it came out. It's good stuff. It's not show quality by any means, but now it's rust free and painted so I'm happy!





(The colours you can see is just the reflection of things below i.e. red rear callipers)







I also spent a good few hours this morning sorting my brake fittings and brake lines out. Spent a small fortune, so for the moment my cost neutrality concept has gone out of the window! I need to sell those three Revs that turned out to be Es Cos not Pug to get myself back on track.. Still will be nice when the postman turns up with that little lot. Then it's interior out and brake lines and battery cable routed inside..

Off to Cetus stages at Three Sisters tomorrow to watch with my little lad, so that's all my progress for the week.

Cheers
Iain

YEP know that feeling after £20k

Looking great Iain keep the updates coming

Update time (told you progress would slow down after going back to work!)

Been mostly fiddling around with brakes the last week or two. Found a spot to bosh in a bulkhead adaptor. Went 45deg with this to clear the chassis box above it.



Mocked up the hydraulic handbrake, and set about measuring up the spacers/mounts required to position it at the right height. I'm only allowed 4degree variance in the push rod angle of the master cylinder.



Also started messing about with the 25mm Transporter master cylinder. This has M12 ports as I discovered (advertised as being M10) so that caused me a bit of hassle trying to sort fittings but got there in the end. I was aware the GTI reservoir doesn't fit well for clearance on these, as you can see..



The banjo fittings are big, but the reservoir is a good half an inch from sitting fully home. I tried warming it and molding it a bit but it wasn't enough. Had a trawl through my local breaker and found a Focus one that fitted as well as a 106.

The 106 one got the nod as clearance is excellent to the banjo bolts, it offers a fighting chance of actually squeezing somewhere under scuttle panel (ish..)



More on that in a moment. Onto the handbrake. My mate had made me some alloy pillars. I used the holes in the floor where the rear ashtray plastic bolts down for the front pillars. An M6 bolt squeezes between the skins where the handbrake cables go and up through the holes and inside the pillars. For the rear pillars I welded the bolts down to the floor and made them captive with a large washer over.

I welded the 5mm steel offered up to the handbrake in the place I figured was the place to make the bracket for the pushrod clevis.



Think it's in the right place!

Then started doing some brake lines. I'm using a mix of Goodridge fittings and Earls fittings depending on the function of the fitting. I've also covered them in Raychem DR25 heat shrink for a bit of extra protection.

Here's a pic of the handbrake finished (it works!) and some of the lines fitted..



One of the other benefits of the Raychem covering is than when it's heated the shape you created for the line is held nicely in position.

Back to the master cylinder up front. Bit of surgery for the scuttle panel to get everything fitting. Will need to tidy this up and look after the drainage situation here so water doesn't flow into the engine bay from this point.



You'll also see I'm covering the lines in the bay with thermal insulation, as no doubt it will be a hot place to occupy. And finishing off back down to the bulkhead.



Getting to this point has taken most of the car time I had this past week or so. I've also been chasing up a few suppliers or contacts to keep things moving on.

Hopefully I've been able to progress my turret top plates this weekend. My trailing arms have been blasted and are with Allan at Bridgecraft for maxi-track width and will go direct to Andy who's waiting on them to complete my beam refurb. My front brake calipers are nearly ready from refurb, and my widened driveshafts should be ready for collection this weekend after having my CV's checked out.

Hopefully the next week or two will see a flurry of parts and work getting completed so I can start to tick off some big chunks. The only remaining battle I'm having (in my mind) is do I sort a diff, so I can get my box rebuilt with the new CWP and slot the new box straight in, or just go with what I've got for now...

Apart from a bit more brake line activity, I'll be back to body prep and looking to get some painting done shortly

Cheers
Iain

Cheers maestro! Likewise

Mirrors just arrived today; carbon ones. Bit of a mix up on the order. Thought I was getting the normal maxi type and ended up with these. Same as Dave West runs on his Maxi I think, and tends to be the mirror some of the 'modern' maxis that are still active in France opt to run, especially the F2000 cars. Certainly they'll be a lot less vulnerable than the other type.

Nice and light, look reasonably well made, although one of the mirrors is a bit mis-shaped near the top edge, but hey, such things don't trouble me too much. They sit on a ball and socket joint for adjustability.

They're actually very similar to the Impreza carbon fibre ones I have for my other project, only they cost three times as much (for some reason..)

Good idea covering the lines in thermal protection in the engine bay. I didn't do it originally on the race car and it made it a nightmare trying to undo some of the connectors afterwards!

________________________________________

Rallye Race Car

Hi Damo these only go 40mm per side (80mm overall) but obviously the wishbones have scope to go wider just through using the adjusters. I'm aiming to go 35mm wider on the top mount so I have a fraction more camber automatically and the rest will be taken care of with the wishbones.

Still trucking on with this fellas, will have an update soon!

Cheers
Iain

I've not got there yet mate. Am procrastinating to say the least.. One place was basically a tenner a side, another £50.. Decided today I'd plump for the original Dimma top mounts only to find they're NLA, so unless anyone has any spare they'll sell me I'm back round to the turret top re-enforcement again.

The problem is Damien that I pretty much sorted a template from 3mm steel that I wanted to have laser cut in 5mm steel, but it then struck me being a bit daft to do that then use the OEM mount underneath. However not being a race car, I didn't want to do the whole solid mount bearing thing. (Been there before) hence my to-ing and fro-ing.

I think 3mm welded underneath the turret top would probably be sufficient and I could do that myself to use an OEM top mount so I might end up there as well..

Ok on to other things, what's been going on I hear you cry..?

I've revisited the rear qtr panels again, attempting to improve further the finish before painting. Having passed them each day back and forth walking past the car allowed me to spot little areas I felt I could improve, so on the back end of the decent weather the other week (remember that; the Summer of '17) I cracked on with a bit more bodywork.

So up went the EZ up again, lots of rubbing down, Dolphin Glaze, filler primer, and final primer ensued..





















(Forgive the two-tone primer effect!)
Anyway, pretty darn pleased with how that turned out, you'll have to trust me I haven't re-posted the pics from a few pages back!

In the meantime I gave my Bilsteins a lick of paint.. turned out well.



I also scored some brand new AP rotors 330x28mm exact same spec as I needed for basically half price



Somewhere down the line I sourced an ATL filler for a bargain price then found an equally bargain-ous matching fuel neck - just need to re-drill the bolt holes. (Dave - Car builder solutions #FN2 if you're interested!)





Also stumbled upon a little used steering wheel - this is a fraction smaller than my current one, and a bit deeper. The net effect is that I now have more clearance between the bottom of the wheel and the sides of my seat, so I can get into my seat easier and have a better position as well.



Next up, thought I'd tackle the remaining inner arch, the OSF. Out came the grinder and oops, found some rust which became a hole..Cut it right back to do a repair. Oddly this little bit was far worse than any other bit; the rest of the inner arch was pretty good. Thought I might find more lurking under the stone chip but thankfully not.





Patch being sized up..



And home..



Proper anti-rust treatment and paint etc to come. May be tomorrow if the weather is kind..

Now then, what do we think of this little fellow? Wasn't expecting it to come with the bronze bush which was a bonus (pic showed plastic one), but the ball end of the lever looks a fraction longer than the one that came off it.



What do you think? Will it be ok?

That's about all from me right now. Chasing up parts and jobs still.. becomes a bit of a weekly chore, but hopefully getting there. Poor Andy has had most of my beam ready to go for ages, and we're waiting on a part which will hopefully come soon so the beam will be completed.

I also bought all my paint last week, so slowly but surely getting there..
Thanks for all your contributions and positive comments guys, keeps me going!

Cheers
Iain

What's going on there? Were there last night...

Gonna start reposting pics with Flickr.. bear with me!

Edit: done the last three posts with Flickr links. Taken a while but getting there. Hopefully everything in the right order!

A little bit of progress to report today as well. Thought I might have a sniff of a chance of getting the main body of the car fully in primer and ready to paint, but fell a bit short. Nonetheless by the time I twigged I wasn't going to be able to do it, mean't that I spent more time in prep and that's probably more important.

Wasted a bit of time figuring out how to lift the rear hatch out, and doors off etc, but now I've done it it'll be easier next time. Enabled me to do the last bit of sanding, rust killing in the spot welds etc.





Hopefully if the weather will be kind (warm-ish, dry-ish) I can put the EZ up up tomorrow and mask up and get going. The aim is to get all of the main body and roof, door apertures, and hatch opening in primer and follow up a week later in paint (or sooner if I get impatient!)

Cheers
Iain

And fitted up for the night..

Cheers Wayne!
Had (literally) 10mins to give it a quick flat tonight. Tried 2000 but it barely touched it, so went 1200 and made some decent headway. Looks pretty promising. A good polish with the G3 should do the trick



My two sets of dual rate springs are ready now so will collect from my supplier on Friday.

Some excellent work and finishing going on there, well done, its good the weather has been kind to you too.

Wow, absolutely brilliant for a DIY job, it looks great!