Stef's bit on the side... Ruby

[Stef205]

As some of you know ive got a bit on the side atm Shes called ruby and weve owned her for about 4 years now. Shes a phase 2 106 gti in cherry red. We found her locally and the other half fell in love straight away and there was no mistaking that she was the one. She wasnt brilliant and knew that she was going to need some work, I had to use my best negotiating skills to secure a good deal on her with the current owner so after a thrill ride in the 205 the owner agreed to come down to my price.
This is how she stood
 


It was noticeable that she hadnt had any care in awhile but we were along for the ride.

We got it back to the workshop where we could begin going over it.

Max insisted that he helped.

 

Over the next few months i got stuck in, first job was to repair both rear inner wings as they were about to go a common place on the 106. I decided to remove the rear beam and give that a full refurb while it was off.



 


Got it all welded up within a few hours






Refitted the axle and got it back on the floor. I then fitted and new belt kit and gave it a full service, we also managed to find a brand new magnex system for it and got that fitted along with a new cat.
Got it through mot with ease and then let the other half drive it around and enjoy it for while.

It wasnt long before more modification came along such as new tinted rear lights, angle eye headlights, repainted cyclones and a good detail from a friend.





We had been having issues with the cam covers leaking oil despite resealing it and id finally had enough of it so i snapped up some later jp4 covers which sorted it.




She was getting abit fed up of the cyclones so i managed to snap up some fairly new speedline chronos and i had some 6 calipers in the shed that we fitted with some new discs and pads at the same time.



We took her to pugfest for the first time and got a fair bit of attention which was nice but after we decided that we would do something about the 50 shades of red. Luckily i had a friend that was a sprayer and wanted abit of extra cash before he moved and started his job at mc claren.

Over the next few weeks i got pictures of his progress.



She turned out amazing and couldnt of wished for a better job! I had also surprised the other half with some morette headlights that she had been looking for for ages. I fitted them with some new lamps and painted them black.


She was over the moon with them and with the paint job.

This really brings me upto date with her shes not amazingly fast or anything but is all it needs to be, she enjoys going to shows and enjoys cleaning it normally once a week   keeps me busy and her happy.

Stef

[Iceman299]

I love it! Such brilliant looking little things the gti, always turns my head when i see one

[Dum-Dum]

drop dead gorgeous mate.

[7057sam]

Car looks stunning

Needs bodies

[Stef205]

Thanks for the kind comments

[lolsteve]

Stunning!
Looked quite rotten though, glad you saved it. Really wish I got on better with the pedals in these as would have probably gone the 106gti/vts route then

[Nathan1305]

Love this GTi  and Steve they aren't to bad when stripped out  I'm size 10/11 and coped fine on the track day

[Stef205]

Stunning!
Looked quite rotten though, glad you saved it. Really wish I got on better with the pedals in these as would have probably gone the 106gti/vts route then

yeah luckily it was only that rear section that was, pedals i get on with them fine once you used to it you dont notice it. The only issue i have with it is getting in and turning the igniton on and then getting blasted with loud music! bloody women! i must be getting old.

[Poodle]

I find that in the girlfriends car, i can only assume she does it to cover the noise of crunching gears, kerbed alloys and the blaring horns of other road users.

Looks like a little stunner though mate, done a beautiful job of bringing her back up to scratch.

[lolsteve]

Ive only driven a 106/saxo a few times and every time I never found the pedal positions to be very comfortable but each to their own
Would still love to have this to look at it on a sunny day

[Eeyore]

So amazing. Looks great buddy! Was it a full repsray or just outer?

[Stef205]

Just the outer as the rest was good, it was more the fade than bad paint work

[Stef205]

Sadly it blew a heat matrix hose last week the engine was switched off before the temperature climbed. I investigated the issue to find the hose had previously been off and wasnt full put over the matrix inlet allowing the hose to fall off. Got it refitted and filled with water and bled out. Seemed to run and perform ok. The next day i checked the water level out of concern to find it almost empty, looked over the hoses to find no leaks we now suspect head gasket. Not the end of the world as the current engine was leaking oil from every possible place it seemed so i jumped on the phone and spoke to a old friend and got a newer jp4 engine with 38k on it for £150! so we now await delivery of that.
Stef

[kee616]

Good luck with the engine swap keep it up!

[Stef205]

Bit of a update on ruby,
ive spent saturday morning dragging the old engine out and started to swap over the bits i needed to the new jp4 engine. Sunday i got everything swapped over including a new cambelt kit and alternator belt. Tidied up the whole engine and the bay and tidied the loom. Today i got the engine back in and everything refitted. Started up first turn seems to run alot smoother and very quiet! Out on the road it performs alot better compared to the old engine. I am considering fitting my spare oil cooler kit to it as the oil has no cooling which im not to keen on. All in all completely worth all the work and the other half seems very happy which is a bonus.
Stef

[Stef205]

id thought id quickly update the progress on ruby. The new engine has settled in well and not one issue to report. She now has a fresh mot but struggled real bad on emissions even after a new cat but they all struggle. We decided to have a change in wheels and colour, when i say we i mean sam and i did as instructed

Id bought some speedline corse wheels ages ago but due to my calipers they wouldnt fit on the 205 so some how i had donated them to ruby. They were powdered coated in a bright blue and was just horrific so i took them down to my good friends in cornwall and we blasted them. Blasted up real nice after carefully deciding on blasting media. Over the next few weeks i rubbed them back and got a good few coats of etch primer on them followed by a good coat of high build. Then after looking a paint samples we came to the colour shade we were looking for. This is the first time id ever touch and used 2 pac paints and i can honestly say ill never go back again its absolutely brilliant paint!










so this was the out come, i dont normally praise my own work but i was extremely pleased with the out come.

Stef

[MY95]

Car looks good! Are you not using the original J4 Cams in the JP4 for some more bhp?

[Eeyore]

oh man that looks sick.

[Jonny81191]

Mm shiny. Love the attention to detail and general cleanliness.

[G6 NRB]

Those wheels look very cool!

[Stef205]

Thanks for the comments muchly appreciated

[7057sam]

Look bloody epic

White on red WIN

[Stef205]

Havent updated this in ages it seems.

We have been having some real bad luck with her lately rought 9 weeks ago it developed a misfire and what started off as a small and intermitant misfire has now turned into big! With me having started a new job i havent been able to spend as much time as i used to be able to.

So we traced it down to number 1 and 4 cylinder changing parts as we thought was the issue but also finding underlying faults along the way such as a completely disintegrated lambda sensor lol 

In this time we have changed

coil pack
plugs
cps
tps
lambda
ecu professionally tested and immobilizer removed
loom fully stripped and tested.
inlet gaskets
compression test

We have managed to trace it down to the injectors so we tested them with the ohm tester to discover 3 injectors had gone down reading all of 3 ohms each! autodata state 14ohms minimum and having some jp4 injectors to hand they proved they were faulty.

Anyway i await some from a mate hes kindly sending up 8 for me to choose from.

I hope to have better updates soon rather than repairs!

Stef

[Stef205]

Thought i would update this as its been awhile.
Ruby has been running faultlessly again. But i decided to tackle some engine bay rot. So engine is out again   Some places had been repaired before and before our ownership but repaired badly. I got stuck in and as always its worse than first thought :

Ill let the next couple of pictures do the talking. 



As you can see i have to remove the engine mount carefully and spend many hours drilling spot welds! haha Folded some steel up and reciprocated the chassis rails as it was all gone along with under the ecu tray.




Managed to get the mount back in and to fully line up with the old spot weld marks.





So thats the drivers side done! Passenger side next!




Wasnt happy about doing this side in sections but with the gearbox mount, abs pump mounts and pas motor mounts it was the easiest solution.



Im nearly done with the welding now. Hope to start putting things back together soon.

Prior to this i had to remove the tank and beam to repair the tank cross member and a rear cross member. Didnt believe in refitting the old beam so took one from stock and set it slightly higher so we could use 50 series tyres instead of 45s for a better ride.





This really takes me up to where i am with the car atm. I want to try and add as many goodies as i can to it while the engine is out.
I appreciate some people would have binned it or reshelled it but we have to much money in the shell to consider that. Sentimental value comes in to play for most of this.

Stef

[Frosty]

Looks like some decent work there stef. Is it quite common for the 106s to have the corrosion issue in the engine bay?

[bashbarnard]

Looks like some decent work there stef. Is it quite common for the 106s to have the corrosion issue in the engine bay?

second this. also 106s are the bloody worse for rust same as saxos and axs! they go bloody everywhere. 

fair play for saving it and not just ditiching it. when you get attached to a car its the right way to go imo. my wife loves her kingfisher to bits but it needs a good bloody clean up over this winter.

[Stef205]

they go nearly everywhere build quality is far worse than the 205 and 306. Problem is all the pannels and cross members are just spot welded together with a thin bead of seam sealer over it.

[allye]

Done a decent job there Stef, garage costs would have killed it off a while ago.

When's it all back together?

Girlfriend driving the 205 whilst this is off the road?!

[Stef205]

Im still finishing off the welding but wont be long now. Took me and Jake all of 15mins to get the engine out

Yeah she has been but shes not sure on the diff and she often thinks 5th is 3rd as she said theres no difference in acceleration   Had to move the seat forward and up abit haha.

[Stef205]

I have now finished all the welding! hurray!! fully seamsealed all the welds and joins and primed and painted the bay and chassis. Treated it to a set of baker hoses aswell makes doing the heater hoses real ease. Now to reassemble everything.



Stef