SRowell's Stage 1 Diablo HDi Estate

[Tom]

The 1.8 does look sexual in that picture there

[C2K]

Coming along nicely.

[Eeyore]

The 1.8 does look sexual in that picture there

D: Dont say that! It doesnt look like that any more! It does mean that all the nice bits are now on the estate or in storage! When i get another hatch then ill probably go for the same look. I can always make a car that looks the same so no real loss! Even if it was heartbreaking to take apart all my hard work it felt good to be putting it on the new car

Coming along nicely.

Thanks. Everything is weather permitting atm D: Cant wait to give the window tinting a go! Ill shortly be getting round to ordering a new set of front AND REAR wind deflectors. Also Ill need to replace the NS fog light as that doesnt work and is rusted out. Not sure if they will be flyeyed or yellow but most probably they will be yellow!

[Jonny81191]

I'll be interested in seeing how rear wind deflectors look

Plans sound good mate!

[Tom]

I WANT REAR WIND DEFLECTORS

[Eeyore]

I cant find any team heko rear deflectors so the only ones around are the Climair ones. £38 rear and £44 front! Not going to shell out that amount at the moment D: Maybe once Ive sold the 1.8 ill treat myself!

[samass]

Dude, message heko, I'm pretty sure you can get them special order

[Eeyore]

Dude, message heko, I'm pretty sure you can get them special order

Good idea. Thats a much cheaper option. I know WelshBen said he couldnt get the rears as they stopped making them. Ill give it a shot though as I really dont want to shell out £75 for some D:

[samass]

yeah, i dont its a cheaper option... but better. the other ones arent the same size

[Eeyore]

Also ive already got some 17" tyres... Just need some epic rims. Ideally £300 - 400 for a brand new staggered set. Once I leave Liverpool at Easter and never have to park on its foot high pavements Ill drop it 60mm. Ideally I want to get the front end the same height that the 1.8 was! Eventually Id like to get an air ride set up. A guy I work with has two beetles; one which is his drag beetle and the other has a narrowed beam and air ride. He says the whole airride settup cost him a few hundred and that doing it with a torsion bar was easier than springs D: Apparently range rover struts are the way forwards.

I originally looked into Citroen C5 suspension as they are height adjustable as standard. However they do take a long time to change height as its a hydraulic fluid setup which has to be pumped. Also apparently they dont have torsion bars so thats not helpful and also they use hydraulic spheres on each strut which looks like it will fowl on the bonnet of a 306 anyway. It was a brilliant thought and would have meant you could literally find a scrapped C5 and get hyrdaulics for less than £100 but sadly it looks like thats not possible!

Anyway. At 11pm I was given a parcel by my parents as they didnt know what it was! Turned out to be the boost gauge holder I ordered at 6pm last night! That suspicious £5 delivery charge was definitely worth it! Pictures now! How it arrived and just a quick test fit in the car. A few interior pics of what I did over the last few days whilst tom was busy swapping brakes as well!



Everything I need now!


Diablo dash with the smoothed clock and some stickerbombing.


Test fitting along with my colour coded speedo surround and the lockwood gauges (that came with the car)



The boost gauge came from tom who got it from Jordan iirc and I also bought his 700W amp off him. Brilliant condition and came with the box. Got both for £42 and a wiper motor.



The reason I bought toms amp over my existing one is that its about half the size AND it fits in the rear compartment of the estate which means it can be completely hidden! Today I also spent £16 on some 12mm MDF and screws. Plan is to fit the amp in the passenger side compartment and remove and build a custom enclosure where the drivers side compartment was and fit either a 10" or 12" sub. Probably the 12" as I already have one as my 10" is broken.

If tomorrow is nice it should be a good present shopping car modifying day!

[Diggers]

I've got a estate now and wanted to fit the amp in the compartment. Then sub on a quick release so can take it out easily.

[Toms306]

I've got a estate now

Doesn't everyone these days??

[Eeyore]

I've got a estate now and wanted to fit the amp in the compartment. Then sub on a quick release so can take it out easily.

Since when have you had an estate? And what happened to the green monster?

[Frosty]

Did you get the boost gauge pod from where I got mine?

[Eeyore]

Did you get the boost gauge pod from where I got mine?

Yes! Cant believe it arrived so quickly! Cost £30 after VAT and postage.

[Diggers]

I've got a estate now and wanted to fit the amp in the compartment. Then sub on a quick release so can take it out easily.

Since when have you had an estate? And what happened to the green monster?

Still got that. Got a estate too. Saw it cheep when moving house. So got to to help move lol

[Frosty]

Did you get the boost gauge pod from where I got mine?

Yes! Cant believe it arrived so quickly! Cost £30 after VAT and postage.

Ideal yeah that is pretty good really. I'm sure mine didn't come that quick.

[Diggers]

Just got rid of the walnut dash in the estate

[Eeyore]

Jesus christ. You like subtlety yeh? Now make your own thread instead of using mine haha

[WiNgNuTz]

Holy f*ck diggers, thats colourful! Looks like youve got some pretty good plans for this car Sam, just dont make me regret not buying an estate.

[Eeyore]

Anyway getting back on track! Rear lights have been fly eyed. Not sure how long they will last or how long I will keep them on. It was almost impossible to do the entire light with one sheet so I left the black bit uncovered.




and today I set about fitting the boost gauge. Needed to make the hole a bit bigger to take the gauge so got the dremmel out and sorted that. Drove to grans where the 1.8 was and tried to pipe the boost gauge. Found the grommet for the bonnet catch but that was too tight. However then i saw my interior through another hole D: Poked the pipe through and sorted!

So it went in here...


Which came out here...


and ended up here!


The gauge mount needs a bit of trimming to fit the dash a bit better so Ill break out the dremmel tomorrow. Still unsure how to tap the manifold as I now have two nipple/outlet things to put in the pipe but i dont have a tapper big enough to make the threads D: Work stopped there and then I moved onto the strut brace. Unbolted it from the 1.8 and swapped the bolts over from car to car. of course the struts moved so I had to jack it up to realign the struts. One of the bolts just span on the estate but I managed to pull it out 2mm with molegrips and then hacksawed that off. Hopefully it will run fine with 2 bolts for a few months until i get new top mounts and coilovers

Anyway here is how it finished up.


Tonights plans are just to chillax doing a bit of stickerbombing on the steering coweling. Tomorrow Ill finish off fitting the boost gauge to the pillar and hopefully wire that up!

[Eeyore]

Got bored tonight so I finished up the last of my sticker bomb book! Completely finished the book as I had completely covered the steering wheel coweling. Not to some peoples taste but I already have some stickerbombed bits. Hopefully itll look alright once fitted!

[ben87]

Be interesting to see it on with all the other SB parts as its deffo a minority who like it

[Toms306]

Eww, stickerbomb!

The rear lights look good though, fitted pics?

[cwspellowe]

How did you not cover the lights in one sheet? Mine went on fine!

I do like them without the white covered though, fair play

[Tyronnster]

Not a fan of sticker bombing but fair play

[Seid']

to much sticker bomb. only in the dash was nice.

[Eeyore]

I have 3 steering wheel cowelings so doesnt matter. Just wanted to do something different for once. And to use up the rest of my sticker book!

I could easily have covered the entire light in the sheet I got but it kept creasing. Needed me and my dad to get it on without it creasing. Dad holding the sheet so it didnt stick and me slowly pressing it down.

Just ordering pressed plates and nearer the show season Ill get some custom ones made up.

Tomorrow Ill wake up early (earlier) and try to get the boost gauge wired up and fitted to the pillar. Then I can put the speedo back in (3 days without it ), fit the components, sand my custom tweeter pods, lay the amp wiring and build my custom sub enclosure! Busy few days ahead D:

[Eeyore]

My massive day of car wiring and sub enclosure making went well... I left all the solder at my grans so I had to drive there to get it and that involved going through a massive flood both ways.

Firstly I put the 12V+ cable for the amp through the same grommet as the boost pipe.


and then fed that down to the passenger footwell where it will live until I take out the centre console and put the wiring under the floor!


I then put the wires for the boost gauge through the dash and drilled a hole for them to go through the A pillar.


Cut the wires and soldered them to the red 12V live from the headlight adjuster and the earth to the green/yellow earth.


and then dremmeled the gauge holder so it was flush with the curve of the dash. Drilled a hole in the A pillar for the securing screw and put that in! Sorted!


and the moment of truth when I put the side lights on!


After feeling very happy with what I had done I fitted the speedo, speedo surround and sticker bombed steering wheel coweling. Took forever to put the coweling on by which time it was getting dark. I also took off the centre dash to sort out some wiring and the steering remote. Remote didnt work so I just removed all the wiring. Took the heater controls apart but found my spare bulb didnt work so that was pointless. All back together again!

Also My massive box of screws an other interior fixings was too big and impossible to find the black torx screws. So i sorted all of those out and now have a bag of black screws. The previous owner had obviously lost loads of screws and replaced them with actual screws. Needless to say I fitted all the correct original ones! So yes! Dash is pretty much perfect now!

Pitch black now so... I may go out again in a bit and start sanding my custom tweeter pods!

edit: Whilst being at uni dad has moved things in the shed... including my tweeter pods... so no work on those until I find them!

[Eeyore]

Grey sky today and it only got worse

Started off by removing all the seats apart from the drivers and having a good vacuum under the passenger seat. Its absolutely rank so much better having done that!



Then I started feeding the amp cables to the boot. Now normally I would put the 12V cable down the side of the car but I needed all the length I could get to get it to the back of the car seeing as I had taken it through the speedo grommet.



Then I mounted my newly acquired amp from Toms306 into the Storage cupboard. Drilled holes for the cables and dremmeled some of the other plastics to accommodate the cables. For some reason there was a spark when connecting the live cable even though it wasnt connected to the battery. Must have had some power stored in the amp.





Put the storage compartment back in the side. Sandpaper wasnt working so got the dremmel to take the paint off for a good earth. Connected the power lead to the battery and cable tied the cable and fuse holder securely.



Gave it a test and it all worked! I never knew how powerful my old amp was and I think the answer is a lot more powerful than this one. However after a quick tune it wasnt sounding too bad. Its a small hidden install so I guess Ill have to compromise more boot space for a less powerful setup. Will need a bit more tuning but it all works!

The rain was pretty heavy by this point so I put everything under cover and Ill do more vacuuming and put the interior plastics and seats back in tomorrow!

ALSO...


dun dun dun..... never had a 306 without a NSR arch liner before so I was expecting it to be honest. It seemed pretty sound so when the weather is nicer in the summer Ill get some antirust stuff on it. Clean out the entire arch and seal it and spray the inside.