Matts rallye project. operation derust

[Matt]

Right so massive update.

Firstly a few shots of the car and how it stands









Updates to the car as follows, full mint condition rally's interior. This took me about a year to find. And found them in complete different locations. The front seats were bought separate to the rear bench. I headed to the mainland after search high and low for an interior and then these fronts came up for sale. Came out of a 73k rallye iirc. Absolutely mint, only down side is reclining function doesn't work due to a Bowen leaver but a blob of weld will sort that.

And then in the same week a mint rear bench came up for sale! Couldn't believe my luck! Had to get that posted to me as it was so far. But was well and truly worth it.

In all the interior plus shipping costs cost me £200 but for a mint interior that is well worth it in my eyes!




Next stop engine bay, I posted a few photos of this, but nothing that really sets it off. I've made a start of cleaning down the bay, there is a lot of surface rust on there which accessible areas have been sanded and white hammerite. Looks terrible but does the job until I can get the engine back out and strip it down and do it properly.
I started my cleaning with a polished manifold. My old one was gross. So striped down a manifold I got from dumdum which turned out to be the one I sold him a few years back :rolf:
It started there. Now all black covers have been painted pipe work has been cleaned of grease and I'm starting to look into routing of a decent induction so I can rid of the puddle sucker.
I've been looking at braided fuel lines as I have a slow weep from the return, or what looks like it comes from the return.
So they will be next to go on in the engine bay, shortly followed by polished cam covers, once I manage to get my hands on a spare set

Onto transition. After a recent car meet I developed the worst scraping grinding I've ever heard( bar the scrape on a dry block after loosing a rod) coaxed home and under investigation found I had 350ml of oil in the gearbox. Bloody driveshaft seal had given up and let it all go. So off to Peugeot, bungee some oil in there and drove it to a mates so he could fix it while I was at work. Seal replaced and £35 later she's mint.
Apart from the occasional grind from second that is

Exhaust work, so I wanted this too be loud, offensive and rude. It's the route all my other cars have gone. So out came the lash up.
I have the exhaust from my dt left from when I broke it for spares so seemed right to use it. Straight pipe 2.5" straight pipe middle section to a big empty power flow back box. Sounds great but wasn't enough, I had a spare cat so cut that open, removed the guts and welded it back up. I wanted it to look like a normal exhaust underneath in case I ever had to show anyone
But I've now decided I'm too old. This sounds absolutely mental. Limiter sounds crazy and it screams through gears. But I want something less boomy, so currently on the lookout for a cat back stainless system something less cut and weld haha

I'm really happy with how the car looks at the moment. I've touched up the bumpers after the got scraped either side by previous owner. I've even touched up the scratches and the stone chips to make it less obvious. Just a temporary fix until I can afford a respray.









And don't worry number plate is back on today.

Few shots from a local meet







Got a massive to do list for myself before show Season begins for me

To do

Finish buying braided fuel line parts and fit
Refurb coil overs and fit
Attack arches and respray/under seal
Finish engine bay
Repaint chassis legs
Correctly fit from bumper
Buy and fit weather strips
Attack the boot and paint
Buy and fit new exhaust or swap out the back box for a less offensive one
Polish cam covers
Put engine bay back together
Sort induction pipe work


It's not to much of a list and certainly doable in a few weekends. This weekend will see the engine bay done I hope
Apart from the cam covers as I'm still yet to get some

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So wheels, previous post shows last few pics having different wheels. Well, on my birthday I embarked on an adventure! Headed to Southampton to pick up some pro race 1.2s with falkens all round from Colin at pug performance. They were black, mint condition apart from one which had slight curbing, and with at least 6mm of thread!

Got them home and didn't take long for me to decide I wanted to refurb them. The keening would bug me so, sanded two wheels down

Cleaned in the bath as you do, and left to dry over night



The misses wasn't happy with the bath being covered in brake dust and sanded wheel grime

Made myself a spray booth in the spare room as it was far to cold and windy outside for paint
The misses wasn't happy to come home to the smell of paint



The wheels were filthy. The centres were worse! So used the ultrasonic cleaner to free up the grime



Perfect

Left 24hours after spraying and then gave them a helping hand to getting ready to be fitted



Dried on full heat for 24 hours, house was roasting but wheels feel good

And the finished product,

I'm over the moon with how the turned out, so will be getting them powder coated at the end of the year

[Piggy]

Looking good... Guess the coilies will sort the odd stance?

[Matt]

Yeah haha, will bring it down level. It was either that or raise the rear. And my rear beam was very seines I don't even want to tackle that!!

[bashbarnard]

Looks awesome dude. Love the fact you lovingly bathed the wheels

[Matt]

Cheers dude, yeah it was fun trying to explain to the misses why she couldn't have a shower

[Toms306]

Lol, interesting way to paint them as well in the spare room... Hope the windows were open at least.

They do look good though, wish I could paint without it ending up both patchy and runny lol.

[Matt]

Haha windows were open! Don't worry about that! I covered the walls and floor so I deemed it safe

Well I finished early today so front bumper is coming off to paint the chassis legs

[Matt]

Right so tonight I made a start on defusing the chassis legs and soon gave up as I didn't have the time to do what I wanted

So pictures





It's mainly under the abs pump that needs attention from first inspection. So Saturday on my day off I will take it off and get under there as much as possible



Took a wire brush to the cam cover and block to get most of the built up crap off of there, it's pretty clean so that will come off for polishing at the weekend too


And new bits turned up today!! These turned up from piggy



Will get these fitted at some point over the next week with my mintex 1155 and 5.1 fluid some should be good at stopping again! It already has braided on the rears

May strip down the brakes for a lick of paint while I'm at it.

Might go gold with the calipers or just silver to keep it nice and simple

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Behind the abs

[Piggy]

Whats with the red chassis leg?!

[Ben_w]

Must have started life as a red one

[Piggy]

But the bit behind the abs pump is white(ish)

[Toms306]

Red oxide to stop rust maybe?

[Matt]

Basically when the engine came out the first time, the rust in there on the sides of the chassis legs was just surface, but I wanted to make sure it didn't go no further, I had a can of red hammerite donated to me, and I was very strapped for cash at the time so it went red. Most of the engine bay then went red to match

[ginge191]

Must say, in person, this is looking properly nice!

A few niggly bits to sort out but a few nice weekends and some hard graft, this'll look the dogs!

[Matt]

Cheers mate, that's the plan going to spend the next few weeks working my Arse off to sort it out

[ginge191]

Cheers mate, that's the plan going to spend the next few weeks working my Arse off to sort it out

Plan!

Do let me know if you want a hand with anything!

[Matt]

Yeah will do! Might end up fitting the coilies this Sunday if it's nice. But mainly this weekend is all about the engine bay

[ginge191]

Yeah will do! Might end up fitting the coilies this Sunday if it's nice. But mainly this weekend is all about the engine bay

I'm around on Sunday; let me know

[Matt]

Well it was attacked over the weekend both chassis legs wire brushed rust treated and painted
Not the best but it's temporary fix and looks alright in my eyes

Here's how it looked





Now









Also gave the slam panel a quick lick of paint with some Matt black I had lying around to tidy that up




How it looked sat outside mine for the weekend



Slam panel correctly fitted. Some plonker put the nuts on before they fitted the slam panel so was only held in by the top bolts, and sat about 10mm out due to the bolt spacing

And a correctly fitted bumper, also wasn't held on properly haha







Almost there



Headlights held correctly, had not bolts before and were held in with hope and faith

Now secured with top and side bolts



Also gave this a clean up



Just need to fit my fuel lines and induction kit and I'll be happy with the way the engine bay looks for now

[Piggy]

Wow, makes huge difference!

[Day666]

Looking Brilliant ...fair play to you ...keep the updates coming & your a legend doing that in the bathroom with your wheels

[Matt]

Wow, makes huge difference!

Looks so much tidier now tbh, I've done a few more little things around the bay so will update later

Looking Brilliant ...fair play to you ...keep the updates coming & your a legend doing that in the bathroom with your wheels

Thanks mate! Haha yeah try telling the misses that.. She wasn't too pleased when she wanted a shower

[Toms306]

Looking really good under there now tbh!!

[Matt]

Cheers Tom! I feel like I don't mind popping the bonnet at meets now haha

[Ben_w]

Did I sell you the rear seat? Seem to remember sending a rather minty Rallye rear seat to the IOW!

[Matt]

Right so few more pictures to update!

Cam cover all fitted



Engine mount was rusty as f*ck so stripped it back and gave it a spray



Then I took the strut brace off as it was a bit gammy in places, realised when I last painted it I didn't do a very good job, I must have trapped some water under it too :/

So will have to tackle that tomorrow after work, shouldn't be hard, it looks like the brace is rusting and this should come off with a clean up tbh





Brace will be stripped right down over the next week removing all traces of rust and then ends painted and the centre bar polished

Ordered the last bits for my fuel hose today and some bolts for the coil pack cover so that will be on next week when they arrive. Just got to find time to take the struts off and fit the coil overs.

Between working and having a misses it's not leaving me with much time before fcs

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Did I sell you the rear seat? Seem to remember sending a rather minty Rallye rear seat to the IOW!

Yes Ben! That's me! I didn't realise it was you till the other day haha

[Ben_w]

Lol, yeah, was me. Had no end of fun wrapping them up in cardboard! Glad they went to a decent home. Had a right run on Rallye interior parts after that. Luke pretty much then cleaned me out of all the bits I had left and the two rough seats I have will likely go this weekend.....

Just leaves my absolute minter interior which is bounty for my Rallye!

[Poodle]

Fair play man, you're really cracking on with this. Look forward to seeing it this year!

[Matt]

Lol, yeah, was me. Had no end of fun wrapping them up in cardboard! Glad they went to a decent home. Had a right run on Rallye interior parts after that. Luke pretty much then cleaned me out of all the bits I had left and the two rough seats I have will likely go this weekend.....

Just leaves my absolute minter interior which is bounty for my Rallye!

Haha yeah I bet! Was just as much fun when they turned up! Delivery driver wasn't impressed haha
Took me 20 mins to unwrap them!

Seriously mint interior? I wanna see

Fair play man, you're really cracking on with this. Look forward to seeing it this year!

Yeah man properly doing it. I was so half arsed last time it deserves it after it all

[Matt]

Few photos of what's happened

Tidied up the strut brace again, choose red as needed to break up the polished/black






New front sticker. Old one was tired and faded

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Few photos out and about with mates

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Had a bit of work done to the car recently.

I got really tired of the loud boomy exhaust so I set about a change. I bought the sportex straight through centre section and fitted that along with the standard back box. Wasn't great.

Luckily I have a mate who has a garage and happened to have a backbox lying around. 2 hours later and a full exhaust was on.
It now consists of a dummy cat straight through to backbox. Sounds great in my opinion and not raspy in the slightest!

***Pics to follow***

Also anyone remeber those coil overs I bought? That were rusty and rounded?
Well I sent one of them of to a local company to have it looked at. And it came back almost as new. Reburbed threads, so now everything turns freely and as it should.

I have them on the car now, and it's sits so much better. Handling is a little off, and abit bouncy. But cheap coilies, what do you expect.
They will do for now for what I need

Currently sitting like this



The front either needs to come down more, or the rear up more. I'm not touching it at the moment. As its a weekend job to sort it and I really Cba with it at the moment