Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

Got a thread going on the GTi6 forum but figured id do one here too....

I had a GTi-6 back in 2002, a Nile Blue one, registration R686PHP. That gave way to a BMW 328i Cabriolet. Of all then cars I've been through since, not much has come close to the speed and handling of a 6. So I told myself, when I could afford one, I'd buy a Rallye. Always loved them, a little rarer than the 6 etc. 

Fast forward to September 2014. I've got the money, and I want a red Rallye. Except there is only one available, its in Surrey (chuffing miles from me) and its been fairly extensively modified. I wanted as close to stock as possible. I put the feelers out, see if anyone had one they had not advertised or were perhaps possibly selling. Took a while but had a message from a guy called Andy that a mate of his, Kerry, had one he might consider selling. Put me in touch with him and after plenty of email chat, I shot down to South Wales one Saturday morning to take a look.....it wasn't a wasted journey.





Was clean, very clean, and Kerry was a great guy. Clearly very passionate about his cars, he'd done  decent amount of work on it. Good long test drive left me even more impressed than I expected, and after a good long chat over a cup of tea, a deal was done, with the arrangement I'd pick it up the following weekend.

The week took an age. I sorted the insurance and shot down early Saturday morning. Kerry ewas waiting, the car had been cleaned, and he was very, very sad to see it go. One of the conditions of me buying it was that I'd continue the work he'd started. Absolutely no danger on that front.

So I drove it, hard at times, for a couple of months, remembering just how much fun they were, even more so when driven hard. The tax expired at the end of November so I took her off the road, with the plan to do something special.

I wanted a Rallye as good as the day it came out of the factory, if not better. Which is where is pretty much became something else. I won't say project because I don't believe the word conveys what I want it to be, how I feel about it, or the passion and effort that's going into it. I won't say anymore, I'll let the pictures do the talking. For now, to get up to speed, read the thread on the GTi6 forum. I'll keep updating here from now on.

http://www.306gti6.com/forum/showthread.php?id=161660

Enjoy.

[7057sam]

Kerry gibbs old rallye

Very nice one you have there mate,he allways looks after his cars,did see his 205

[Ben_w]

Yeah, that's the one....

Yeah, did see his 205 as well. Very nice. Aiming to make the Rallye just as nice, in a standard spec kinda way.

[C2K]

That looks tidy.

[Niall]

Very nice mate. Looks like its been very well looked after!
Did you by any chance sell your old Nile to a guy on here called Scott? Sure i remember him saying he had a nile 6 with PHP at the end of the reg?

[Ben_w]

No. At least I dont think so. Am certain it went to a guy called Konrad in Coventry. Saw it for sale a couple of years later. Seems to remember it was advertised having had head work and cams. Not sure if anything else.

[procta]

looks a nice one that! I am toying with the idea of getting my cyclones done in that colour too.

[Ben_w]

It is a nice one. Be even nicer by the time I've finished what I'm planning!!

Did some more on it today. Pretty much finished removing the underseal, seam sealant etc from the underside then set about removing all the trolley jack marks from the passenger side sill. Got some more deox gel onto the driver side rail that runs along the chassis next to the tunnel. Got fed up with the rain and the cold after that

[Ben_w]

So today's plan was to get a load more done. Worked yesterday (nicest day of the year it seems..) to earn a few pennies to throw at this, with the idea I'd crack on today. Clearly, the weather hadn't bothered to have a read of its lines in the script.....

Undeterred, I went out and got busy. First job was fix my inspection lamp. It died on me Saturday night. I thought the bulb had gone. Took the glass out and gave that a good clean as it was covered in underseal, which has melted on the hot glass and then set when it cool (I've had to do this several times now) Tardis made short work of it. Bulb clearly hadn't blown so reseated it, glass back in, jobs a good 'un...

Next job was to continue cleaning up the passenger side chassis where it meets the sill, and sort out the multiple marks on the sill where it had been viciously attacked by a wild trolley jack.........or errant tyre fitter who should really have known better....

More underseal and seam sealant removed and more mess made, the highlight of which was having a hot ball of recently wire brushed seam sealant find possible the only gap between my goggles and face and promtly roll slowly down it. All whilst I've got a Grinder with a wire wheel doing 10000rpm inches from my face........ interesting inst the word!!

Enough blather. Only a couple of pics from today really. Before pics of the trolley jack damage...

Poor pic i know but a good example of the twin marks you get from the raised edge of a trolley jack cup, just visible to the left of the axle stand......



Straightened out and cleaned up...



And all back into shape. Had to do this with at least 4 different points on this sill....



More of the same thing.....you get the idea



Slapped a bit more Deox gel on the drivers side rail that runs next to the exhaust tunnel on the chassis and decided at this point, being cold and wet, as well as having a hangover from wearing the cider visor a little too much last night, that it wasn't much fun and a cold beer in a hot shower sounded far more appealing. So thats what i did!

[Ben_w]

About time for an update. Been working on this every night when I get home from work for a couple of hours. Get home about 17:30. I live on a pretty quiet estate with a lot of young children, including my daughter and grand daughter so working any later, unless its a quiet job, just isn't happening.

So, its taken many hours of ploughing through horrid underseal, stone chip, seam sealant but the underside of the chassis is now pretty much done. I've bare metalled the lot and have already started on the zinc primer as I've gone to make sure i don't get any more surface rust. Its been an awful job and, looking back, I'm not sure if I'd do it again.... The only part left is the front of the exhaust tunnel where I'm yet to remove the forward heat shield as I think the cat needs to come off (and possibly drop the subframe) and the cxat bolts are a nasty, rusty affair that don't want to play right now. But anyhow...

So, the chassis and some pics, as that's what we are all here for..... This is the front passenger side, the last real bit i had to do. The floorpan is now much flatter here as I've mostly cured it of the 'blind trolley jacker' disease it had contracted. A large rubber mallet to the inside of the passenger side front foot well worked wonders. Still a little to do but its much better.



I'm toying with the idea of drilling the spot welds in the bracket you can see and removing it and getting it back into shape and then have it rewelded. Only 5 or 6 spot welds per bracket. Very difficult to try and reshape on the car as you need to come from the side that's against the chassis.....

More pics.........



Chassis leg is plenty pitted but wire brushed off pretty much all the surface rust. It still got a good old layer of deox gel which I will remove tomorrow.

Hole in the cross member. Again, its been jacked here (FFS! grrrrrr!!) and the cross member is pushed in. Not sure if the hole has been made on purpose or what. Edges are very clean, almost looks like a section has cracked out. Couple of other little pin holes so might have it looked at when it goes in for the sill work.



Clean....



I ended up having to jack the car up again so I could move the axle stands to get to the bits behind them. Again, fun.......not.

I bought a drill wire brush set from Screwfix this afternoon as the one I had for my drill was worn out and I had some tight spots to get into which the grinder brushes were too big for. £3.99 for a set of 3, surprisingly good actually. It was these....

http://www.screwfix.com/p/drill-carbon-s...-3pc/13734

Going back for another set tomorrow as I hammered them this afternoon and have worn down the wire wheel!!

Enabled me to get into some tight spots on the rear sill.....





So that was that. Just need to pick up some panel wipes tomorrow on my way home and I can wipe down and get it primed. I also noticed a few spot of the zinc primer where is had gone white. On inspection, I could remove the primer with a finger nail. This is no fault of the Electrox primer, its where I hadn't prepped the surface properly. Mainly a very few small corners where id missed surface rust or underseal....All bits taken back to bare metal, surface prepped properly and read for more primer tomorrow. Need to get some Xylene thinners too as I want to thin down some of the primer and do all the chassis joints, so it gets as far inside as I can get it. The Electrox is pretty thick out of the tin so thinning it should allow it to run into the joints better. I'll do the same with the Epoxy mastic but I'll do it before I start painting properly. Again, the more I can get into the cleaned seams the better.

I then moved back onto the bump stop area. There are two rectangular sections either inside of the boot floor. Right in line to pick up all the crap from the road wheels. Again, covered in under seal, which, when removed revealed this....



Yuk. More chuffing rust. Stuck a cup wheel on the grinder as that had more access and it did improve a bit....



Still work to do though.

So that's where I am at the moment. If I can get the cat/heat shield off, I aim to have the whole chassis in primer by Sunday night. Then it will be time to stick the rear beam back on for now and drag it off somewhere to have the sill repaired. Once that's done, I'll start thinking about the Epoxy mastic.....

[Ben_w]

So today was about as much fun as working on an old French car, outside on a cold windy March day.........oh, hang on....

So today wasn't the greatest day. High hopes of achieving lots, countered by the actual doing of not a huge amount. Bugger.

So job number one was pick up the Xylene I needed to thin down the Electrox so I could go over all the chassis seams and get it to flow into them as much as possible. Toolstatioin stock it, one in Nuneaton, off I went.



Job number two was get the Mothers day present for the wife from the daughter. Done on route home. Thirsty work that lot, had to stop for a brew...

First job on the car was to remove the Deox gel I'd put on on Thursday! Came off easily though and did its usual great job. Next job was to remove the cat. Now i knew getting the cat off was going to be an ar$e. And it was. It needed to come off, I thought, so i could remove the final heatshield and finish the underside of the chassis. I'd tried undoing the nuts, only to have the whole nuts/bolt assembly turn. Tried to get a spanner on the top nut. I'd have done better trying to get Leicester City to win a game.....no room for the grinder, couldn't find the cutting bit for my dremel, b0llocks to doing it with a hack saw blade so I got out the metal drill bits and eventually got the nuts off. Hurrah. Ben wins. Then promptly looses by realising the subframe needs dropping to get the heat shield off. I very nearly called it a day at that point.

Ummmed and arrred for a bit, had another cup of tea and some lunch, then decided I better see if I could undo all the subframe bolts. Given the propensity of things on this car to shear, I wasnt particularly hopeful.... As it went, I got all of them undone except one. The front mount 18mm bolt in the drivers side front wheel arch didn't want to play. Gave it as much as I dare, still nowt. The 2 13mm bolts holding the subframe mount to the chassis however, did, so thats a result. I shall just undo those to get it off the car i hope, cant remember if the big bolt that wont undo is threaded into the chassis leg as well....It was tea time again.

Got busy then mixing up a batch of thinned down Electrox and went over every chassis seam and a few other bits I wasn't happy with and had bare metalled again. Nasty horrid job as once thinned, it runs down the brush, your arm etc. Flowed well into the seams though. Painted up all the bits I finished the other night too, just to get some protection on it. Xylene must dehydrate you as I had to have another cup of tea.

Wondering what else I could do, I remembered the nasty box sections by the bump stops, and the sheared bolt when I removed the bump stop cup. A selection of wire brushes on the drill, and a little judicious screwdriver wielding for the tight corners and one side is now ready for deoxing....





Having also bought some new metal drill bits, I fancied my chances with the sheared bump stop cup bolt. Working up through the sizes, I managed to drill it out enough that I could get the remnants out. I *think* I might be able to get away without having to retap a size bigger as well.....quite pleased with that.



So tonight, being March 14th, will consist of Chill Con Carne for dinner, (to be fair, I had a 48oz steak last the local pub last night), followed by lots of cider, and reading up on how to remove the front subframe whilst the wife sleeps in the chair.......awesome.

[Ben_w]

Cold. Very cold. Too damn cold. Today was a 2 jacket day. And a hat day. I don't wear hats. Unless I'm robbing banks or its cold. It was cold, and windy. A combination as friendly as Charles Bronson out for a walk with his pet Lion.....

I digress. I'm still not fully educated as to how to remove the subframe. I've looked at lowering it enough to give the clearance needed to remove the heat shield. I still need to disconnect the steering column to drop the subframe just a bit. Means undoing a pinch bolt and them column should just slide out. A good soaking in WD40 was as far as I got with that particular job today. Might need the gear linkage undoing as well. I'll attempt that later this week once I've read a bit more on the ins and outs. This is the bolt....



I found the rest of the bolt I drilled out too. Impressed with the accuracy of my drilling but you can see from the thread how rusted up it was. Not surprised it sheared.





Moved onto the bits by the bump stops that did yesterday. First thing this morning, I deox gelled the area I'd cleaned up. After an hour and a half (and another cup of tea), I went back and cleaned off the gel. It had removed most of the rust but I noticed there's were a few bits of underseal in corners I'd missed and not noticed. Teach me to work in the dark...anyhow, removed the underseal and there was some more surface rust. Move on.

So I got busy with the wire brush in the drill. Section at the very back of the chassis where the bumper sits had some peeling paint. Not any more. Was time for lunch and another brew at this point....



Next, it was time for the passenger skirt to come off.



Until I stick the rear beam back on and the wheels, I can't do the drivers side as the car is too tight up against the side of the house to open the door wide enough to get to the two rivets nearest the A pillar. The rivets are a complete pain as I'd get half way through drilling them out and they started rotating. A smaller drill bit down the middle, followed by a bigger one sorted it but they are a proper pain. Pretty clean underneath with no real bits of rust other than where the paint was peeling where it had been lifted in the wrong place on the sill. It also gave me better access to another mashed section of sill. Managed to get it opened out, cleaned up and reshaped ok.





Bare metalled and I mixed up another batch of thinned down Electrox and got busy painting the sill and the bit at the back I'd done. Also redid a few bits I did yesterday as I'd missed a couple of bits.







Apologies for the rubbish pics, don't know what's up with my phone.....

[Ben_w]

Not updated this for a while....

Finally got the whole underside bare metalled. Straightened out all the bent bits on the sills bar one section which is going to need to be cut out and replaced. Then got the whole underside zinc primed.

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Once that was on, I got busy with the Epoxy mastic...

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So everything from the very rear of the chassis to the front of the area where the fuel tank sits is now mastic'd. First batch I think I had a bit too much hardener and it went off before having the chance to really 'flow' and left some brush marks. Second batch was much better. Mixed with less hardener and some thinners I got it to flow into all the seams very nicely. And down the brush, my arm, drip onto my face....I think there was as much on me and the drive as the car......

Been experimenting with stone chip too.

I hate the normal wavy stone chip finish you get. Looking around, 3M do a flat finish stone chip. Exactly what I'm after.

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The plan with the chassis was bare metal it, zinc prime, seal with epoxy mastic, redo the seam sealant, stone chip the whole thing, then paint cherry red.

The stone chip turned out to go on very well indeed. A very flat finish, hard as nails , just a little fussy with application. Give it enough time between coats (3M say 7 minutes between coats and 2-3 coats if using a heavier coat). Takes about 24 hours to go off fully. I attacked this bit with a key pretty hard on the bit of box section I did the test on and this was all I managed to do.



In combination with the other protection layers, this chassis isn't going to rot again....

[Ben_w]

Right, time I updated this....

So the trial with the stone chip went very well, so sloped the rest of the can onto the car.

This was the finish the stone chip left. Really happy with how flat it is,and how hard it sets went applied properly. Hate the wavey finish of normal stone chip....



A couple more...





So the trial was successful. All the prep work had taken a physical toll on me with my back and shoulder letting me know exactly how pissed they were at me for what I'd done. About this time, we had some other fairly major stuff going on which reached a peak and unfortunately broke me. Have been off work since mid April and had lost the love for anything really. Only started coming back in the last couple of weeks and I've still not done a huge amount.

A while ago, a complete set of blasted and powder coated heat shields came up on the GTi6 forum for a very reasonable price. They were 5 minutes from my sister in Gosport so the seller dropped them off for me. Finally got down there last weekend for a long weekend away and picked them up.





They will go very nice with a properly prepped underside. Whilst I was away, a Rallye interior and a beam came up for sale in Guildford, collection only. A cheeky offer with the promise I'd pick up the next day on the way home was accepted. Quite howmon earth I got a complete rear beam, 2 front seats and two rear seats, a wife, a daughter, 4 heat shields and all the gear for a long weekend away in a Mondeo saloon, I'll never, ever know. But we did.

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Beam a bit crusty but I expected that.



Stripped the rear seats down (turned into a bit of a job...) and chucked the covers into the washing machine. Then had to put them back together. Turned out very well. Seats in very good condition with just a couple of marks. Importantly, the patterned material is unmarked. A useful set of spares...

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Started stripping the rear beam. One torsion bar came out dead easily having had a soak in releasing fluid for 36 hours. Other one just waved two fingers at everything I threw at it. Until I threw the 20 ton press at it. Ben wins. Need a new cap for the torsion bar in the end of the beam and one of the threaded bolts that goes into the end but other than that, all good. Beam will be getting new bearings and shafts as well as brake disc back plates. Started blasting parts clean today.



All the stuff on the right will be getting yellow zinc plated. The two brackets on the right, along with the beam tube and trailing arms will be getting powder coated.

And that's about where I'm up to. Shortly, the car will be being dragged off to my mates unit so I can finish the underside prep and then remove the engine and do the engine bay. Have a guy who is going to spray the entire underside and engine bay in 2k and then lacquer it.

[Ben_w]

Forgot this pic.....picked up a rattle can of cherry red, just as a test.....looks pretty good. You get the idea..

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And I just may(I hasten to add may again) have located the original engine for this car via a previous owner, 3 owners back...

Would be ace to drop the original block back in at some point!?

[ozonehostile]

Real nice work mate, all very familiar jobs from doing my 6 recently haha

[Eeyore]

Super work. Will have to use this as a guide for when i get mine sorted out.

[RetroPug]

Super work. Will have to use this as a guide for when i get mine sorted out.

Check out his thread on the 306gti6 forum, it goes into more detail and the amount of effort that's gone into this so far is impressive!

[Ben_w]

Thanks for the compliments guys. Firm believer of that if you are going tom do something, do it once and do it well. Nothing less than the Rallye deserves to be honest. Plan is to make it one of the best there is.

Bit of today's progress then.

Still had one torsion bar stuck in a trailing arm. Didnt mess about with this one and got it in the press. A few tonnes of pressure and eventually she gave in and popped out. Good. Straight into the sand blaster with that. In between doing some other bits and bobs, I also managed to get the bearings out of the beam tube and also get the beam tube blasted as well. Was fun doing that as half of it had to hang out of the door of the blasting cabinet. On top of that, it was VERY rusty in the middle, with perhaps 1/8" of crusty rust. Not any more. By the end of tomorrow I should have all the bits ready for powder coating. That's gonna have to wit until next month though as been an expensive month this month so far with daughters birthday and party etc.....

So, the pics....

Blasted trailing arm from the other day...



Beam and torsion bar...



The stuff of dreams....non crusty, non rusty splines......they now slide together beautifully......gonna get a shed load of copper grease during rebuild!





Old outer bearing, still in reasonable shape and hasn't worn through..



Non worn bearing seat in the tube is always nice...

[Ben_w]

Going out of my mind with boredom. Been diagnosed with Supra Ventricular tachycardia so shouldn't be doing anything strenuous all at the mo. Sitting at home doing nothing gave my brain far, far too much time to focus on stuff it shouldn't be so.....

Got out and got the sandblasting finished on the beam. Roughly mocked back up together on the bench. A long way from where it was...



Got to get that off to the powder coaters now...

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This is how it looked before..

[Dum-Dum]

That's a huge amount of work mate, really need to carry on with tidying mine up.

[Ben_w]

Cheers fella. Yeah, kinda bigger than I first thought.

Next stage is engine out and strip the engine bay to do the same

[chiefton]

Wow can't believe that's my old beam lol. Very good effort and the difference you will feel when fitted,so so much better than knackered old beam!!! Keep it up bud!!

[Ben_w]

It is a fair way from how I picked it up Mark!!! To be fair, I guess its typical of a beam that's been under the back end of a Peugeot all its life....

The blasting did its job pretty well. Hopefully have it off for powder coating soon although I think I'm going to paint the beam tube as the pitting left by the rust won't get covered by the powder coat. Probably skim with filler, zinc prime then paint the tube.

[chiefton]

I bought a refurbished beam with powder coated beam tube and bar's and it looks awesome and is incredible!!

[7057sam]

Great work mate

Your attention to detail is crazy definitely going to be one of the mintiss rallye about when done

[Ben_w]

Cheers Sam. Might as well do it properly

I'm in the fortunate position where the Rallye isn't a daily driver. I can afford to take my time and get it right. I really can't be arsed having to do it all again in a few years either so makes sense to do it properly once!

[Ben_w]

Cleaned up a couple more bits tonight.

Been meaning to do these for a while and at 9pm the wife put celebrity master chef on the TV (why do you want to watch a load of celebs, fresh from cookery lessons, cook something they've been trying to remember the recipe...)

So outside I went to clean up the fuel tank and the fuel filler neck. Both were properly crusty having been in an exposed location under the car for all their lives so got busy with the Autosmart G101 and a good stiff detailing brush. No before pics I'm afraid as my phone was flat.

The filler neck:





That came up very very well. Happy with that. Onto the fuel tank. Apologies for some of the pics:



The marks you can see on this pic are not dirt but the rub marks where it had been rubbing the body. I also removed the pump unit so I could clean that properly. That also gave me access to the tank to fill it with some water and give it damn good clean inside. Bit difficult trying to shake something that size with some water in it but I managed it!



There is no way these clips are going back on in this state. Might look at blasting and zinc plating, or buying new from Peugeot and going from there. Seem to think they changed the design of these.



Tonight, however, did see the return of an old nemesis......that horrible black underseal stuff.....aaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhh!!



It's on the edges of the tank and despite me scrubbing with a nylon bristled floor scrubbing brush, it didn't want to move. I'm going to attack it with some green scouring pads tomorrow, see if that shifts it. Grinder and a brush might be a bit heavy duty and the physiological has only just finished sorting my back and still working on my neck and shoulder......

[C2K]

Just put a decent pair of stainless jubilee clips on the filler elbow. I binned off those wank clips on mine.

[Ben_w]

As I said, I think Peugeot changed them. Going.to have a look. If not, I'll blast and zinc plate them. Going a bit OEM mental on this now....