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Thread: Project: Gold Snowplough Turbo

  1. #1081
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    Howdy all, hope everyone is well. It's been a few months I know, but I deliberately left updates to be done in bulk otherwise they'd be one photo posts and a bit boring!

    A few things have been done over the last few months to progress the project forward. First up was the block. There was plenty of signs of rusty crustiness in it, so I had to try make it better. It started out in this way:



    It was pretty much like this all over



    You can see the crust around the top of the waterways as well as get a glimpse of the rusty material in the block itself. Some might say leave it as is, but I'm likely to opt for waterless coolant seeing as the there is no trace of water in the system at all, it's a perfect time. Granted, it'll need a proper flush out but it's worth getting as much out whilst dry.

    This is how it looked after a going over it with a sanding cone and the dremmel, didn't want no harsh grinding which the grinding stone would've done. Tried to get in there as deep as possible... it eventually looked like this:







    Far better.

    Turned the block over to get and loose bits out


    Having seen all this I had to clean it out with something, so I decided to get the block flushed with some distilled white vinegar, which most of us will know has some rust clearing abilities.

    Got the block plugged up and sealed:


    Who knew that Cavalier mk3 rear shock rubber mounts are a perfect fit to plug the block?


    Then filled it up with the vinegar


    I actually left it for a couple days and emptied the block, ran some more vinegar through it allowing it to come out from the water pump aperture. Thought I snapped more pics but this was the only one I actually took... none-the-less from starting off very crusty, the vinegar dissolved most of the crust


    After allowing the block to dry off with the help of a hairdryer, there was a fair bit of residue on the silver paint. Seeing as it was already masked up, I thought I'd recoat it in high temp block paint, but this time in gloss black.




    Certainly prefer it in black...

  2. #1082
    Senior User The Simps's Avatar
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    All clean and shiny

    What?s next?

  3. #1083
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    The following day, once the paint had properly dried, it was time to fit the new core plugs on the rear of the block.



    Opted to smear them with some Loctite 5940 sealant

    Less than a 5 min job


    After going through all the bits for the project out from storage, aka my parents garage, I came across the new offside engine mount and thought I'd give them the Polyurethane sealant treatment and stiffen them up a little bit.





    Stiff as funk once cured


    Then I focused my attention on the gearbox, which was still in place. After a lot of faffing about, I got it out


    This gave me a chance to get the rear and nearside gearbox mount out to benefit from some the stiffening up treatment. I was pleasantly surprised at their condition, they barely look used aside from some dust and dirt.


    Now that the gearbox was out, had a good look underneath to see if there was any rot... everything looks sound! Really happy with the condition. This made me think about sealing any vulnerable areas i.e. the entire car : After a few mins of deliberation, I decided that it'd be worth going round everywhere which had a seam or overlapping panel and properly seal it. I'll likely only use the Nova in the dry, but even then, prevention is better than cure.

    I started off with the drivers front wheel well. Lots of overlapping panels, gaps and holes which mud, dirt, water will love. So out came the seam sealer:




    Let this dry as is and will re-visit and apply liberal amounts of stonechip/waxoyl or like protective coating. Of course there's a ton of other areas like this that need the same treatment, but given how cold the weather is I'll wait until its not as cold and humid.

    In the meantime, I contacted Steveboyslim and had a good long chat over the phone, and then face to face. Top bloke, says it how it is which is what I prefer to hear. Fortunately, he lives a 10min walk from me. So with the block in one hand and the head in the other, I walked over to his.... no I didn't! Drove there in the daily and discussed what was going to get done.

    Block is having the oil jets put in as all else is a-ok.

    The head on the other hand was going to get a once over to ensure it's all good, and this was what was on the to-do list:
    - remove snapped heat shield studs
    - repair thread on one exhaust stud (last firm 10 years ago replaced a broken stud with an oversized one)
    - GM head porous mod
    - Head skim
    - uprated single valve springs

    Handed the bits to Steve to start the work, during which I got a call to say that the valves currently fitted were not sodium filled or GM items. This made some sense... for those that remember, the old pistons had some visible surface damage from valve interference, so it seems that last owner had replaced the many bent valves with an incorrect set. Fortunately, Steve had a set of proper GM sodium filled LET valves to hand, which were re-lapped and fitted (the set which were removed were originally re-lapped and the head had new valve seats fitted 10 years ago).

    Eventually, picked up the head and will be picking up the block in the new year (Cheers Steve!).


    Only things needed to source are the turbo, rods, fastenings, and also need to think about what oil pump route to take.

    Steve recommended a zLET/H pump with a modded pickup pipe for better oil pressure, only issue is getting a good 2nd hand original pump, as aftermarket ones are poor quality.

    Either that or opt for a LET pump with both internal pump gears replaced with strengthened items. Apparently oil pressures still won't be much improved.

    So some thinking to do, but will get there.

  4. #1084
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    My time was then consumed by the daily which kept bugging me as the front bumper was peppered with stone chips, I couldn't take it anymore, so I decided to sort it out.

    As it took much of my time, I'll post it up

    Looks good from far


    But the bumper was far from good












    Over many weeks that followed it slowly got better. It took a while to get done as I was doing it bit by bit during lunch breaks from work, the odd couple hours I had over a weekend etc...








  5. #1085
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    Despite all this rubbing down, there remained many stone chips still, so I had a bit of a brainwave and decided to blob on some filler primer on to remaining chips...





    This worked well and cut down the time on rubbing down. Then it was down to the deep scratches with some proper filler










    After lots of hand action, dropped some filler primer which was white, rubbed that down and dropped some further high build primer



    Then came some stopper (fine filler) for the small imperfections and the stubborn stone chips that still hadn't disappeared (which were still a lot )




    Then came some final coat of filler primer, rubbed down smooth and then plastic primer



    [IMG]



    Far too cold in the garage to lay the top coat and clear coat, so for the time being it'll stay like this until the weather becomes milder.

  6. #1086
    Club Member Club Member nova_niek's Avatar
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    Oooh lots of elbow grease here! Impressive work.

    Word of warning: I've always been told primer is hygroscopic. You might want to check into this before laying down any base coat and clear coat.

    Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A505FN met Tapatalk
    One day I'll start a build thread. One day...

  7. #1087
    Senior User The Simps's Avatar
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    I replied too soon! You have been busy!

    So what's next?

  8. #1088
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nova_niek View Post
    Oooh lots of elbow grease here! Impressive work.

    Word of warning: I've always been told primer is hygroscopic. You might want to check into this before laying down any base coat and clear coat.

    Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A505FN met Tapatalk
    Cheers fella!

    Checked the can for any info, no warnings were given. It's been on for a couple months with no ill effects. If it goes Pete Tong no biggie, won't take long to reapply. Trust me, I spent so much time perfecting that bumper that I'll doubly make sure everything is top notch before doing the top coat Really don't want to have to re-do everything after the time it took.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Simps View Post
    I replied too soon! You have been busy!

    So what's next?
    Next up Simps, is to return everything I bought for Christmas so I can get the rods, turbo and fastenings lmao.

    On a serious note, I've got to get the rest of the underside/wheel wells etc seam sealed, get the bottom track control arms over to someone to weld the strengthening plates in, final parts - Headgasket, headbolts, rods, in order to be able to start putting the motor together, and also need to consider getting an LSD and get it fitted while the gearbox is free.

  9. #1089
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    Looking good love a gsi mk4. Engine looking sweet too.

  10. #1090
    Gold Club Member# 001 Club Member Nova_Tek's Avatar
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    Cheers Torquey, you wouldn't think she's done 169k miles! They're great motors.

    Yeah it's getting there slowly but surely.

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