cheers john, thats how i like to roll lol :thumb:Quote:
Originally Posted by John H
cheers john, thats how i like to roll lol :thumb:Quote:
Originally Posted by John H
*Update.
Despite still no joy with the astra mk1 shifter/linkage i bought all those weeks ago, i need an internal shifter doing for my exhaust/ground clearance issue anyway so with the arrival of cav shifter spurred me into doing something i made a start on that today.
I have some questions too so thought ide put up what ive done, so far.
So, old shifter out.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0486.jpg
Made a start on the floor/body modification.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0494.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0498.jpg
Im cutting what will end up being, a neat narrow gap through the carpet-support bit that widens out a bit at the top where then the usual elongated hole in floor as per instructions..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/intshmod.jpg
So the couple of questions..
How do you remove the gear shifter surround bit that the old shifter bolted to; just grind away or does it have x4 spot welds that need drilling out..? -or both..? like in this pic from ad's thread..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/027ecdd9.jpg
Finally; here is my cav shifter and where i shall make the cut; to get rid of the kink (?)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../cavsshift.jpg
At this stage; with me being clueless with not seeing the astra mk1 item yet il then hold fire and see what might be possible. If i stick with the 'S' nova-linakge ill then also need to shorten this cav shifter it by a further 3 inches is it, with another cut..?
Ill just worry about that as n when i think lol.
Hopefully the astra mk1 bit will show up next week.
good work mr peester
is the engine running properly now then ? really interested to see the results
cheers draper the engine has been running ok all summer, but it isnt mapped yet. All i have planned are the exhaust manifold with lambda boss, an alloy rad and sump swap then ive yet to buy the cat-cams and piper verniers, then off the get it mapped properly.
any estimated figures (sorry if youve said it a few times but i cant be bothered trawling through your thread lol)
see here:
http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/proje...ml#post4169694
im hoping for bit more torque than mike's tho lol
Dave, its held with spot welds.
Basically, you need the make the shifter completely straight.
Be aware tho, that the shifter in your pic wont fit a nova linkage, because its got the wrong type of fitting on the end. The nova one has a clamp fitting on the shifter, the clamp bit is on the linkage itself on a cav so the shifter is just a solid rod at the end.
Get a cav (i belive there the same?), or a corsa gear linkage end and you can replace the crappy standard bush that nova linkages suffer from, and new bushs for the corsa bit are about £7 for the pair iirc.
ah cooly; will be drilling them out tommorow then, wicked..
thanks ad - yeah i noticed the ends are different; as said that'll only be an issue if i dont use the astra mk1 bit and keep the nova 'S' linkage..
Astra mk1 bit?
Tell me more
Cant say much ad, ive not received it in the post yet.. but im hoping to use this somehow - it rids of the nova 'S' linkage bit - goes direct to turret.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...er/gear003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...er/gear006.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...er/gear004.jpg
Oh right, looks like it would need a few mods it get it to fit.
Not heard of it before though.
some nice work there mate.. keep it up
Yeah it might not work lol.. Dont know if ill use all/some/any of it.. gonna try tho.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam
thanks guys
Throw a standard one and enjoy it! at least you will be able to get all 5 gears then too ;)
Managed to remove the surround part today, but it took me most of the afternoon lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0505.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0507.jpg
Hopefully make swifter progress next weekend.
*Update,bit overdue :-s
Imcurrently sat bored waiting for a mate to come get me and go finish repairing my vectra (cambelt went about a month ago now) ive spent the last few weeks without a car i can use, despite owning 2 lol. Not to mentioned remainder of nova budget now spent on fixing the daily hack. L
Ive had a few peeps asking how im getting on with the nova, why no updates in ages so ill try bring things up to speed..
Continuing from the last update in mid October, the only definite decision ide made with this shifter/linkage gig was that it was going to be internal, so ide made a start and cracked on with chopping and hacking at the floor of the car; doingthe usual prep work as we’ve all seen time again.
However,i was hoping to end up using this astra mk1 linkage bar, instead of keeping that so-far-cant get-on-with-it quickshift bracket/rosejoint o.e –sytle setup.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10213-1135.jpg
This meant when i got to the part where you drill through the middle of the floor for the elongated/slotted hole, im supposed to be drilling in the passengers footwell instead; like many quaife shifter/linkage users have done.
Anyway i spent weeks trying to work out how best to do this, and bar actually welding the plate over the old shifter hole; ide achieved this mess all by myself lol.
Cut carpet support, offered plate over hole:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0520.jpg
Welded plate over..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0563.jpg
..from underneath:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0561.jpg
Made hole in bulkhead. Hope its right lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...01212-1435.jpg
Offered Astra linkage bar up through the hole, connected it loosely to gearbox..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...01228-1212.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...01228-1214.jpg
Result was the astra bar is a tad too long. Needed shortning. Plus the floor , to mount it to; is too low down or the steering rack gets in the way. So when attaching it to the box selector – the whole bar sat up off the floor as in the above pic. To get it to sit on the floor of the car; it needed disconnecting from the box; so was at the wrong angle.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...01228-1219.jpg
But i was hopeful it would work and my guess work seems close enough. But In the end, for me without decent fabrication skills and tools; this was as far as i got. Went about getting it booked in for someone to do for me. Ended up being in 4 months time(!)
In the meantime i tried to get on with other jobs, fitted a vent hole in the firewall, behind the ITB’s to draw colder air through the scuttle panel area.Plus i thought it may extract some heat and more noiize lol..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0572.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0580.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0583.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../Photo0584.jpg
I also de-rusted, partly-cleaned and painted the battery tray area; and fitted a tray as ide never had one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10306-1648.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10311-1459.jpg
Good enough. Also at that same time, ide been umming and arring about with what, how and where to replace my ageing oasis bottle catch tank, making templates n everything!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10213-1530.jpg
Then i turned my attention to the cooling side of things.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...hoto0190-1.jpg
I wanted to replace this ugly looking 2into1return that ive put up with for ages and we’de all been about TX alloy rads onthe forums alot at the time. So the chain of events with that:
Took old header and pipes out:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10220-1446.jpg
Offered new bailey header up:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10220-1547.jpg
New rad vs old:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10221-1706.jpg
New rad fitted:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10228-1439.jpg
Fitted up new pipes arrangement:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10228-1551.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10302-1738.jpg
New fan, 11” Spal, suction; onto brackets:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10304-1648.jpg
During fitting:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10304-1724.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10304-1724.jpg
Finished:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10306-1647.jpg
Fan brackets a bit visible through grille/panel gaps.. oh well:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10313-1316.jpg
However,as seen in technical rooms; have experienced some leakage from the radweld/joins:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10313-1551.jpg
So with the date of linkage fabricating now looming, i thought it would be an ideal time to get the ground clearance issue i have sorted. As hopefully these parts could get fitted at the same time. So i got them prepared. For this i took the (shallower than existing z18xe) x16xe sump i sourced:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10115-1032.jpg
And got it slightly modified, just had the deepest part trimmed back a tad; to be sure lol:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10207-1703.jpg
Then i needed to get my BTB manifold re-flanged, as again theyre for x16xe only; so i managed to get a piper z18xe flange on its own, got the swap done. A lambda hole and boss was drilled, fitted and bunged. I then heat wrapped it; all in a bit of a last minute rush-photos missing would you believe.
I then prepped the car for the trip to fabricators; stripping out the interior,raising ride height etc.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10313-1317.jpg
Then it went off to retropower.
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j4...1_04110012.jpg
In a nutshell they had a pig of a time with the car; the shifter part of the work not really causing any problems, perhaps helped by my earlier prep work lol..?
They removed the carpet support completely, nicely, painted the floor and fitted what can only be described as a pretty professional looking quaife/race carstyle shifter using the astra linkage part i supplied. And using the hole imade; as mentioned earlier and as expected – raising the floor mounting so itcleared the steering rack.
During fitting:
Cut out support, raising floor, enlarged my original hole:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/IMG_4774.jpg
Fitted astra linkage bar, custom shifter:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...r/IMG_6460.jpg
Finished:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110010.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110011.jpg
Bolted to supplied connector at selector:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10421-2000.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...1_04110009.jpg
Main thing is it works, nice and direct feeling – as it of course goes straight to the box selector itself.
Still a little to get used to it though.
So to the trouble-some bits. They struggled with the sump and manifold.
The sump first, successful with the pickup pipe (was shortened 20mm) they couldn’t work out how to avoid the top scraper baffle coming into contact with the crank counterweights. So in the end they just removed the top baffle, further modifying the other baffles so it all fit on. Seems the 1.6 sump is a very tricky to job to do to the 1.8; on top of that they did it still with engine insitu, in the ‘bay, overhead :-s
Then the manifold: basically with the new flange being fitted elsewhere, with no engine/template as a reference – it naturally got fitted a few mm ‘out’ so they needed to find those few ‘mm’ here n there; bodywork and amongst other jiggery pokery. Also took them a few attempts to get it on.
The end result though is a great deal more ground clearance. Not to mention i now have a better 4-2-1 design manifold thats 2.5” bore; they had to cone down to the 2” magnex system the car has so a bigger exhaust is on the cards one day. Also the car is now lambda-ready for mapping.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...SP_A1650-1.jpg
Retropower were going to MOT and TAX the car for me but the old rarely used ATE capliers on the car had seized. To keep costs down and not waste anymore of they’re time i got the car recovered back again, and after one or two hiccups (again as mentioned in technical thread of recent) with sourcing some used actual 256mm ATE callipers. Was incorrectly send smaller ones; ended up with a right plie of callipers now lol
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...10507-1514.jpg
Eventually won some off ebay for £1, collected and theyre correct, in good nick; but not yellow.. yet lol. Fitted them anyway, just to be able to get the car driven round nearby, for the first time in almost a year :-s Which of course was great fun.
Im now left with fuelling to sort. A basic mapping session. MOT/TAX. Then fit these newcam cams and verniers. Then one final full map session.
Oh also one or two styling tweeks on the cards.
However,i am also moving out of parents home again, into my own flat soon – and as a co-incidence my mate has done too and in addition is getting married this year;so with that in mind we’ve now moved out of the unit we’ve been in, back into cheap poxy ex. Council garages.. Feel like im 21 again lol. Kind of. So for the time being we have lost the space and excuses (lol) to do much of this remaining work ourselves (these garages have no power, no light). Hopefully the car will be at least legal for PV.
Really like this car :) engine bay really is a work of art :thumb:
Really liking that shifter arrangement! Pretty damn cool idea that!
Top work on the shifter mate :thumb:
well, thanks lol but i cant take much of the credit at all - barely did any of the work; was all them @ retropower.
Facking amazing work!
ahh that shifter arrangement is ace, plus that dash is nom nom nom nom :wisewood:
They've done an awesome job of that! You had blue carpets in it before didn't you, are you going to attempt to keep those somehow?
thanks for the replies; it is a relief with the end result, as it was a bit unknown what alternative there is to the o.e style linkage and the full blown quaife stuff.
But tbh ide seen a few astra mk1 setups fitted into novas and corsas so..
Iain, the carpets and seats are actually back in now. The under carpet sound proofing was easy to just cut around it all, but i was a bit more reserved with the carpet - all ive done for now is cut down the joins that normally live under the console/around the old gear stick handbrake area into two then tucked the excess under itself, if that makes sense. Its not super tidy but for now it will do; ill no doubt return to that issue in time and work something out. Probably just take my time cutting it around that new shifter setup.
wow - Retro have really worked their magic, that shifter looks ruddy awesome, very hard-core DTM styleeee!!
Gonna have to come over and have a nose soon!
Is/Was there anything wrong with your old rad????
That shifter setup looks fooking awesome :cool:
I want a look at that because looking at the pics its hard see how it works/how theyve down it. The bottom is fixed to the floor? (or is it the angle of the pic?)
I take it your gears are in the right place? (standard linkage flips the shifter movement at the gearbox end)
Standard Nova/Cav shifter pivots at the bottom doesn't it, this looks like it pivots in the middle and the bottom is attached to the shifter rod, fixing the issue of up/down gear selection correctnessQuote:
Originally Posted by Adam
Yeah that would explain things.
Yeah the "S" on the standard linkage "flips" the shifter movement.
that is well cool love that shifter say it makes it nice and direct
Thanks again, for the replies.
The alloy radiator was just for peace of mind really; existing one was old, though didnt appear to be leaking - but i have been hoping for lower running temps. Same goes for the fan- theres about 4 or 5 blades on the old GM one; this spal has 12 or 13 i think.
The astra linkage bar and shifter is a more simple system in my opinion to understand and get on with, that the o.e nova S bracket.. it was just arkward to install internally, in a nova- as its actually externally fitted to astra mk1 and some mk2's. So a second 'floor'/mounting needs making. I did for ease, choose a mk1 astra GTE shifter assembly as they have the 5 speed, 1st for reverse identical layout. Doesnt make any difference of course that the GTE used a big block engine and 'box. Forgot to add the only difference, is the retropower shifter design means pull the whole thing up, and over for reverse..
Nice update, the ground clearance issue well sorted.
what size tyres are on that? As they look spot on for 14's!
Love the shifter! Are you going to billing?
Tyres on the steelies are 175/50x14. Am going billing yes, pv hopefully too..
Dave thats looking amazing mate! didn't expect that extrema shifter Assembly! mental... looks top stuff mate, must have a good look at it over the year etc.
And i was going to ask the same on them sr steels, must get some of them tyres for mine and plonk them on the mk1!
Let us know how you get on a Dave's.
Scott