Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

QGiven the weather was pretty decent when I woke up, I decided today I'd do a bit more in the Rallye. Bit groggy after a wedding yesterday, I had to drop off the wife to pick her car up as she was taking our daughter to a party. Ace, place to myself for a while...and I needed something to do as was waaaay to nervous to watch the Leicester game!

So first job was have the front wheels off and go and put some air into them as they had gone flat...with that done I could push the car up the drive into the sunshine..

First job was get the front wings off. Not a particularly difficult affair, apart from one bolt right up in the top corner of the wing, by the bottom of the windscreen. Proper pain to get to but luckily the bolts only need loosening to release the wing. They both came off relatively easily.









Generally pretty clean underneath, with the exception of the bracket in picture two (more in that in a mo, and this little crud trap at the bottom of the wing. Usually hidden by the arch liner, I'll make sure the bottoms of the wings are properly protected when they go back in..



Now, that bracket….

Bit odd this one. There's one either side. Just holds wiring on the passenger side but in the drivers side, it holds this fuel filter thing. Now the odd bit is that the inner wing strengthener panel is immaculate and this bracket is crap. All part of the same panel so I don't get why just this bit rusts...I'm getting to find someone breaking one they can cut me some good ones off. The drivers side is so bad, its nearly rusted through and deformed as I undid the very rusty bolt holding the fuel filter in. Deffo needing replacement.



Managed to get the two water hoses off. Doesn't look nice in here….might flush the matrix before it all goes back together..



Then it was time to get the loom out. Took me a while to get the fuse box innards through the hole in the inner wing but did so. There's a wiring loom holder bracket that runs down the inner wing on the passenger side. There's a nut and bolt at one end….that sheared…..oh well, can replace that. Then it was about getting these rings off.



Again, an uber pain. Needed a blunt chisel and a hammer to drift them round. They are messy and have paint on them so will try to replace those with new. Getting them out meant I could then release the loom from scores the bottom of the cross member and pretty much empty the engine bay. Bit crappy round here with surface rust…



Which left me like this…..



Neighbour has his jet wash out so covered all the loom plugs and the hole in the servo, gave it a bloody good spray of G101 and attacked with a brush…..came out OK. Clutch cable out (no wonder the clutch felt heavy, cable is shot although I've a brand new in the packet pug one that came with the car to go on) fuel lines out completely, power steering pipes out of the way and all the engine bay pipe/wiring brackets removed. Took lots of pics to remember what went where..!!!

That was pretty much it for the day. I had a quick look at the wings. The drivers side one has a very slight ding in the arch section. Can get a NOS wing for £30 so ill just replace. Noticed on the passenger side it's been painted several times and the last time, its been painted, Rallye stickers applied and clear coated over the top!!! Most odd! You can just see a little lacquer lift around the edges of the top and bottom stripe…



Next steps will be to get the front end up in the air, take the subframe and suspension off and bare metal as much as I can before having it blasted. It's going to be awkward to have some areas blasted with the subframe on but it needs the frame on to be mobile…..can't win sometime!

I did stand back several times today and wonder if all this effort will really ever be worth it…..

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Forgot the mention, I got a brand new, still in the box, Valeo headlight. Correct part number for a twin optic unit for a Rallye too...