Mikey's WIP **56k WARNING** update 28/07/05

[mikey14sr]

As some of you may know I've had meself a little project going in my spare time. Well it's going for an mot on saturday and just needs some painting and the ice from the astra tranferring over to be ready for PVS.

I have replaced both rear arches, the rear panel, both sills, both front wings and the drivers door, welded seams in the engine bay(what I could get to without removing the lump), along with chucking the rear seats, fitting a very nice foglight kit and replacing the crappy pierburg with a webber.

The pics are mainly of the offside as I forgot to take them when I did the nearside!(muppet) Oh and there is quite a few.



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/g674side.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/nsrpanel1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/osrarch1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/osnewdoor.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/osrarch2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/ossill1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/osrarch6.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/ossill5.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/ff_3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/G674front.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/insidearse.jpg

4kilos of welding wire!

[burgo]

fair play mate, you saved it from an early death

[mikey14sr]

cheers Burgo, just can't wait to get it finished now!

[dan-hipgrave]

:o i scrapped my old 5door with less rust than that :lol:

good on you for getting it all sorted mate, hopefully be on the road for a few years yet :D

[ANDYRACER]

Looks good mate. Foglights arent my cup of tea but fair play.

[Snowface]

much rust in the engine bay? Front panel? battery tray?

looking good progress wise.

[mikey14sr]

good on you for getting it all sorted mate, hopefully be on the road for a few years yet :D

yeah but if i dont buy a house next year i'll be on the lookout for a new shell that i can spend a good year getting perfect, depends on house pices dropping enough and whether the garage is gonna be big enough!

The seams in the engine bay were only just starting to bubble, the battery tray's good enough for the next year, it aint gonna leak too soon with two coats of seam sealer on it. had to plate up the ends of the upper front panel though.

[J4MES]

looks a LOT better now lol...good effort....

[Mike.]

hey thats some good work mate

[NovaloadedAgain]

Very impressed. Good work so far mate

[mikey14sr]

took it for mot this morning. Failed on front brakes sticking and a noisy rear wheel bearing. Not bad really, the cars been stood for about 8 months in total(4 months before I got it), and I've got a set of valver brakes to go on anyway. I am a happy man with that result :D

[SRlew]

good work so far mate, looking loads better now! :lol:

[Nick]

hmm a noisy rear wheel bearing ?

i don't think they can do anything if it's just hummin, if there's visably alot of play in the wheel (mine last rear moved from side to side betfore it welded itself to the stub axle) then that's the only thin they can fail you on.

[mikey14sr]

If it's noisy it's a sign that it might be ready to seize, I've done it now and the shell of the smaller bearing was badly pitted and slightly scored, probably from moisture ingress while it's been stood for so long.

[mikey14sr]

well thank god i've had all this week off work! got all the paint sorted on monday and tuesday, used about 15 cans of flame red in total!
got the jamex shocks and springs on on sunday, first drive out was yesterday, got 50 yards down the road and thought "this don't feel too good". Turned out the top bearings were dead, luckily the local parts shop had some in and me cousin had a spare ramp at the tyre shop, feels a lot better now, but could probably do with new bushes on the lower arms and tie-bars. I had forgotten just how stiff the ride could be with half-decent suspension after two and half years of wallowing astra mk3! Also managed to get all the stereo in aswell yesterday, got it trimmed up this morning.

All she needs now is a good coating of super resin and a scrubbing session on the bumpers for tommorow.

See you all at PVS!

[mikey14sr]

how she looked yesterday
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/HPIM1504.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/HPIM1505.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/HPIM1506.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/HPIM1507.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v689/mickyd79/Project/HPIM1509.jpg

There's some more fun coming soon, whole rear quarters(cos i'm not happy with the arches), welding the rest of the engine bay, a new color and a freshly built engine.

[scott.parker]

:o

Well done i thought you wer mad when i first saw this car and you said you wer going to "re-store it" and make it look nice,but fair play it looks really good mate,i hope its not just paint on top of rot though :roll: :lol:

Well done.

Scott

[Matt2107]

Superb mate!

Although your sub looks a little lonely. lol

[mikey14sr]

The only real rust left is the downpipe!! allthough there is some surface rust where the TCA's bolt to the chassis leg which is gonna be taken care of when I do the engine bay, as the whole underside is getting stripped clean, welded and coated with some nice protection products I've come across from looking at some of those classic car mags.

[ANDYRACER]

WTF thats the same car :o Thats mint, im liking the sub build maybe mount the amp next to it though. And is that dropped 40mm or 60mm? The wheels looks spot on aswell. Big respect to u for pulling it off.

[mikey14sr]

two amps mounted just in front of sub, theres a pair of 6x9's where the rear seat base should be, but thats all coming out tonight, and never going back in. It's supposed to be 40mm, but as theres not much weight left in the back it's more like standard.

[Mike.]

thats some great progress mikey, looks real good

[r0b]

that is well tidy, lookin good mate

[Ste L]

any more pics of the ice install???

[ade]

is that the same car?!?

:o

Thats freaky. Superb job mate.

I's splash out and get her a new rear bumper - that one looks a little tatty...may just be the pics/need cleaning.

Also - make sure yoiur new wings and seams are all properly sealed and waxoyled from both inside and outsode and roll the arches rather then grind them Be a shame to trash that hard work!

8)

[dan16v]

love it m8! looks realy good!
it get a new back bumper, a gte one if it isnt all ready?

[mikey14sr]

Thanks for the comments guys. The rear bumper really has seen better days,and will be replaced when I get round to it. Sealing the welding? I used two and a half litres of brushable seam sealer wherever I could get to!! I do have to confess to grinding the rear arches though, I was so p**sed when I put the alloys on and found out they caught big time.
The car is coming back off the road to sort a few things out, you can't really see it in the pics, but the rear arches are not 100%, so two full quarters are going on, with the lips folded right up, like the way a doorskin is done at the bottom edge. The lips on the front wings will be done this way aswell, as they've been taking the odd chunk out of the front tyres when hitting large bumps under hard cornering :oops: .
Theres quite a bit to do really, and I can forsee the next stage taking up-to six months to do, but I have comeup with a cheeky idea for getting it to the bodyshop when paint-time comes. As there'll be nothing but the rear beam on when it goes in, I'm going to knock-up a bracket that bolts to the front bumper mounting points, and then hook it up to the tow-bar on the astra :lol: , should save a few quid in transporter fees :lol:

[STE Novavanman]

thats really good job mate i think you need to change ur avater

[Riggy]

looks good mikey matey

plenty more progress since pv :lol: