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