Red Rallye resto

[Ben_w]

Today, having watched the last half hour of Le Mans (really got into that this year….watched it late into the night last night, loved it!) and having done all the fathers day stuff (including going to see my dad, who wasn't in, and landing sunday dinner cooking duties!!), i got to play a bit with the Rallye.

Started out by doing a test section on the underside where i wet sanded the zinc primer. Like the small section of Epoxy mastic, im not happy with the brush marks in the finish. BHs guide say it can be wet sanded to a point. Im planning on wet sanding and then asking my mate if he can spray the new 1ltr tin i have (again, can be sprayed if thinned correctly). I'd like a really decent finish on the underside too. Not sure if i'll have to wet sand too much of the original coat to the point it wont protect properly so as i've got some more, i'll get it sprayed on. Didn't get any pics of this although i'm sure you've all got an imagination

Next step was to get rid of some more of the blast media that still seems to in there. This inside the inner wing.



A slight opening up of the panel and out it came.

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So with that done, i decided to move onto the heater fan….thanks to Mr Blaster who just seemed to shove the nozzle anywhere, including fan air intake, the fan was full of media. Joy. So i started by popping out the glovebox (pain as the hinges have two plastic pins needing removal, one of which you need to be a contortionist with the hands of a 5 year old to get to. Removed eventually. Popped the rubber cover off the power & earth wires and media is peeing out already. Not good.



Wires removed. You can see around the joint line on the fan unit and on the bracket i removed the evidence of the matrix failure.



What has someone been doing to the wiring? I need to chase this back further and see what is what...



The fan innards…..yuck.








This is what came out of it….



Evidence of the previous (known about) matrix failure



Then, the piece de resistance…. I had a look at the bulkhead and though hmmmm, sound deadening looks a bit odd. Because it is. Someone has been at it with a stanley knife.



Couldn't figure out why, until i pulled the carpet forward. WTF is that i thought? Very quickly dawned on me that someone has drilled the bulkhead. Ill guess to run a power cable to the boot for some stereo gear, i can't think why else, unless its had a battery relocation done at some point in its past (i know it was stripped to be a track car) but havent found anything else to suggest this is the case



The offending bulkhead hole.



So a little more welding to do and more parts on the shopping list. Ill test the fan motor on the bench but might put a new one in for good measure. The housing it sits in has clearly been prised open as the two halves don't go together properly and clips are broken. Pain to change that and i may well yet have the dash out completely. Need to chase back that fan wiring and see whats what and im half tempted to chuck another matrix in it while the dash is out.