This morning the car was collected to have the last bit of bulkhead rust removed and some new metal let in to replace it.



I'd given up on Sean. Last contact was 9th June when I followed up on my previous conversation about getting this done on 2nd April. No doubt his work is top notch but I can't wait any longer as I need the car for the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The guy's that did the work are local, they called me when they said they would, picked the car up on time and returned it within a day!



A functinal repair that'll spend the rest of its life behind the dash following some Zinc primer, seam sealer and a top coat of something. The wheel well side of things will get the same + some stone chip.

In other news, driveshafts have been de-rusted, treated and painted. N/S is actually back on the car but I thought I'd leave the O/S out as the welder may have needed the hub etc out of the way. Whilst the car was out today I replaced the intermediate bearing and the ring that you hammer to release the shaft from the carrier (the old one was a bit mashed-up).





On to re-assembly!

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It's been a bit of a week working on the Rallye.

Brakes have been a nightmare to bleed, probably because of all the new pipes in the engine bay and those running to the front wheels. Took 3 attempts to get the ABS pump bled and have everything working.

Noticed a small fuel leak from the supply line at the fuel rail. Replaced the section, and all of the cubes, with a single length of hose. Whilst the line was 'open' I managed to spill a significant amount of fuel in to the engine bay. I washed it all down with plenty of water but the paint has dulled in some places.

Possibly due to the fuel spill and water, my alternator died on a test drive. The battery was obviously low as well so I was left stranded until the RAC showed up. At least it wasn't as bad as the poor sod who'd broken down just around the corner from me. He'd ruptured his sump after smashing through a pothole!

I've had a modified fuel rail sitting around for a while and the leak + less than ideal fix prompted me to order some hose and AN-6 fittings to get the rail on and plumbed in.



Mocked it up today. Rail needs painting and injectors need putting in but it's looking tidy!

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I spent the bank holiday weekend with Southdowns French Car Club in North Wales. We were camped at the foot of Cadir Idris at the southern end of Snowdonia National Park.



Amongst other things we had a drive out to Snowdonia and found some epic roads on the way back.





Car managed the 800ish miles but...

A few days before leaving for Wales I went to see Kris Bradshaw to get my Cyclones balanced as I'd had a set of Michelin PS3's fitted. I left quite a puddle of oil on his workshop floor after the 50 mile trip to see him.
I concluded that the cam covers and sump weren't sealed so off they came and out came the goop to re-do them. All good I thought...

Got to the rendezvous point just over the Severn Bridge and checked the oil, 2 litres down! Oh Sh1t. Oil everywhere and it looked like it was coming from the dipstick. Topped it up, cable-tied the dip-stick down and carried on. I had a few top-ups over the weekend (small amounts) and the car got me round and home but she's breathing heavily. I'm praying it's just blocked breathers but, that's alot of oil being pumped out. Maybe a piston ring or two had got sticky in the 4-5 months of not being used? We'll see.

It was a bit of a rush to get the car ready for Wales as I had to postpone the MOT twice due to delays in getting more welding done. Since March I've had the bulkhead welded on both driver and passenger side (was more wheel well on driver side) and I had to have the driver side front jacking point sorted as well as the chassis stiffner. Bloody expensive lot of work, almost paid out for welding what I paid for the initial purchase price of the car



Aside from that, I've fitted the stainless heatshield...



slapped on a forum sticker...



and given her a bloody good clean and polish




I'm going to be removing the inlet etc so that I can clean all of the oil from the front of the block and clean-out the breather pipes etc. If that doesn't sort things I'll have to look at a compression test and go from there. History I've got with the car suggests valve stem seals have been replaced relatively recently.

Edit: found the dealer invoice for 16 valve stem seals from 2012

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Ah man that sucks, sorry to hear bout this after all that had work you've done.

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Ph2 Black GTI 6!

EX black 6 owner
But now a Black caged rallye owner

Hunting for Go faster bits!


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Cheers buddy. Yeah, bit of a kick in the teeth but, nature of the beast I guess; it's the sort of car that'll have been driven hard + they were worth bugger all at one point so bought cheap and not maintained well.



I don't think so but who knows? The car was running fine before I took the engine out 5 months ago and, to be honest it's running fine now as they do even with low compression. I'm guessing that 5 months of being laid up has just highlighted the issue. I did turn the engine over (fuel/spark relay removed) to get oil circulating before I fired her up but maybe not enough - rings maybe a bit dry and that polished off an oil ring? I'll find out when it come apart.

Going to see the XSi tomorrow; it'll yield plenty of spares and raise a bit of cash as a breaker (Hovis16, it's black ). The block will go to a machine shop to assess bore wear. If I can get away with a hone great, if not at least I'll have a block that can be worked over before I start tearing down the Rallye engine.

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Totally gutted for you

Incoming vulture.........

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Ph2 Black GTI 6!

EX black 6 owner
But now a Black caged rallye owner

Hunting for Go faster bits!


SEARCH

click here

oh im chatting to you about a few bits off that didn't realise it was black! my 6 is black

Cawwww cawww lol

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Ph2 Black GTI 6!

EX black 6 owner
But now a Black caged rallye owner

Hunting for Go faster bits!


SEARCH

click here

Tear-down of the breaker is almost complete and the engine is out and stripped down. Cylinder bore cross-hatching looks good and there's no ridge evident at the top. Hoping some measurements will confirm that this block's good to go.






I was a bit concerned by the amount of straw in the air intake but it hadn't even got as far as the air box.



Had a bit of a result with the cat. Looks to be the original one and worth £105 to the local cat man. He took the exhaust mid-section and seat frames too, saves me a trip to the tip!




Had these in my eBay watchlist and was sent an offer by the seller so picked them up now for when the rebuild commences, don't want to be fannying about with goop anymore. I'll get the cam cover ridges removed when the block goes for work.

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Hi Can you explain more about what the white gaskets is and cam cover ridges mean,

I read somewhere that you can't get replacement seals for the cam covers I wanted to get mine stripped and painted but don't fancy trying to seal them again with instant gasket,

Thanks

Thanks for the reply strange design that the gasket was integral, did the think no one would ever be opening the engine

Just been and collected the replacement block from Sussex Engine Supplies. It's been honed and the block's been decked.





Went with these guys as they knew/had experience of the engine, were local + they're really friendly and helpful. Recommended

I'd also spoken to another firm in Portsmouth and also to Brett Simms in the New Forest. I'd asked Brett about transferring the piston spray bars from the RFS block to this one but he wasn't keen which is fair enough. He did tell me that he thought the XU10J4R deck height was about 1mm taller than the RFS, this is something that might work in my favour depending on what the head measures-up at...

I thought I'd put something here in relation to costs and part numbers as it might be useful for anyone else doing this. Here's where I'm at so far on parts:



Hone and deck cost me £133

I had looked at an overbore and larger (not forged) pistons. Peugeot prices are about £1K for the 4 oversize pistons but I found that Mahle do a couple of over sizes as follows:



Mahle alternatives @ £90+VAT each are considerably more cost effective than the OE items + I think the 1st oversize is NLA from Pug. Machine work would've been £150+VAT

With the recent cost of all of the welding and engine bay tidying I'm not in a position to go with the larger pistons. There'd probably be further cost & risk involved with transferring the stupid press fit gudgeon pins too

Also, I chucked this on from the breaker. The tabs on my original one had long since disappeared and it drove me mad that it wouldn't stay put. The leather's also much better on this one.



Still grass and crap in the passenger footwell from the Wales camping trip

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