Darren's Build

[mrjingles705]

Sods law! literally just picked up the hoist and stand... oh well, one of those things

What have you done about your subframe etc? I'm tossing up between trying to save money and painting them up myself, and spending a bit to get them powdercoated.

[mrjingles705]

Also - thanks for the offer of help - may yet take you up on that same applies in reverse if you need a second pair of hands....

[murfeey]

up to you, I had all mine done locally in crowthorne,not far,was about 250.00 all in, i had all the arms done, both frames anti roll bars, ppf, brackets,gearbox starter bracket,washers,they do shot blasting as well,depends on how much money you want to spend ,and the chassis as well, cost me 200.00 last week!!!!,just picked up the rear hubs ,came out wkd, now all old bolts look carap ,so dremel and hammerite time.
with the powder coating they come as new.also theres an engineering shop on same site for sheet metalwork, ecu tray etc.I was quoted 60.00 for tray, done there 20.00 folded,also made me a battery tray to put battery in front 20.00,i was going to buy a folder thats 50.00 on its own.cheers shaun.
got to get my build photos up havent done that yet.alot of good info on here, part suppliers etc.
if you decide to powder coat good to take all in one go, got a small van if you need, as minimum charge is 30.00.for items blast and paint

[mrjingles705]

That's not a bad price considering all of the aggro that goes into it - I'd figured at least a week of evenings for me to prep and then a weekend to paint, so it might be money well spent. which outfit was that?

[murfeey]

molecular coatings ,ask for les, tell him shaun with the mx5 parts told you about them.not far from jennets pk off the 329m.take all the stuff down and cash is king,haggles as well,as he can do the chassis as well!!.

[mrjingles705]

Cool, cheers!

[mrjingles705]

30/09/2013 & 01/10/2013 - a few hours here, a few hours there...

Having spent a week fighting man flu I finally got stuck back in for a few hours on Sunday, and then a few more tonight (well, technically last night).

First I removed the pop off lights so my eldest two could build a kit car of their own



then I started to strip the doors. (HINT: Again, it's important to get the glass in the right position before you start disconnecting swtiches!)



Soon after that the doors where just so many bits waiting for ebay (the door skins themselves aren't really worth a light, all dented and rusty).




That was the sum of Sunday.

Tonight I started stripping the dash down, firstly starting with the wiring - between the foglight, the rodents, the poor immobiliser job and other misc hacks the loom is in a very sorry state. For now I'll just label the heck out of it and I'll sort when I have the whole thing out.



At least I now know why the fuel gauge doesn't work! Both the sensor and the wiring come back OK, so figured it'd be a dash issue. Sure enough a break in the circuit on the back... the white and red leads here aren't on my wiring diagram and looked sliced in - I've moved them to the right but you can see how they have snagged (and torn) the path for the Fuel gauge. Should be able to bypass and repair.

[mrjingles705]

02/10/2013 & 08/11/2013 - Slow going....

Apologies for the tardy updates to thie build - between my work (manic), family (frantic) and a few other commitments I only got an hour or two a week to work on the car for the whole of last month, which dragged the build to a crawl.

First up came removing the dash (fairly straightforward providing you take your time to unplug absolutely everything you can - the Haynes manual came in handy as a mental checklist here as the last thing I wanted was to be stuck half-on, half off). Next was the stripping out of the loom... and what a loom it was.... genuinely surprised at the amount of stuff jammed up under the dash.

I got the whole of the loom out, the top half of the steering column and the aircon (at some point it had degassed, so no dramas) but I left the heater matrix in until I'd drained down the radiator and stripped out the bay.



I did find another nasty in the engine bay - again, from where it was ... less of a rub and more of a nibble!



After that I stripped the PAS and Air-con out and removed the belt as I didn't need/want either (note the bracket, still on in this shot, is going too):



I removed the rest of the engine bay loom (marking as I went), the radiator (drained), drained the oil too, carpets, clips, a whole lot of little bits.... just the brakes and clutch still connected, and anything I couldn't remove until it was in the air. Covered all the ports and bits to keep crud out of the engine.





The next day (this Saturday just gone) was the lift!

[mrjingles705]

09/11/2013 - Lift off!

The first big milestone arrived.... a month later than planned, but hey

I drafted my Dad and two best mates in - none of them are car people really but extra hands are always helpful (the racing crowd, who would have been ideal, are all up Castle Combe way so it would have been a big ask for them to come down). Whilst 3 helpers sounds plenty one had to knock off at lunchtime to drive up to Bristol and my Dad is getting on for retirement age So really 2 and a bit. Still, really appreciated the help and it definately came in handy having that extra person (so you could have 2 people working on the car and the 3rd gophering).

As is typical when you are trying to work outside, it was absolutely chucking it down.... so the gazebo was pressed into service:



Whilst it was on the ground all nuts loosened including hub nuts (god knows what bellend worked on this car previously; 2 dustcaps missing, front left had no grease in at all - not even a spit - whereas the right one was packed so full of grease the cap couldn't even locate properly), pedals removed, brake cylider removed and lines disonnected, clutch cylinder freed from bulkhead (but left connected).

Then it was time to go wheels up.



Now I've seen lots of ways of doing this - here is mine (Not saying it's right or wrong)

FRONT: Jacked from under the front subframe (in the middle) sat nice on the saddle, could get a good lift. Stands under the 'lumps' behind the pinch points on the sills.

REAR: Jacked from each side simulatiously with two jacks.... I know people say you can jack from the Diff, and we do this on the FF1600's.... but I wasn't 100% convinced I could get a stable lift without slipping and poddibly hitting the drain plug. Stands under the lumps again.

Then wheels off, and my willing assistants started giving me a hand



Cut the front brake lines off (brackets & hard pipes) after clamping the hoses, unbolted the exhaust hangers, freed off the cat sensor wiring, released the handbrake from each side, pushed the battery wiring through, cut the rear brake line (the crushed the pipe shut).

After that every single subframe bolt we could reach was cracked with a breaker bar, sometimes with a scaffold extension. Every single one had been repeatedly soaked with WD40 for the last few days and I'd run some wire brush and wire wool over the threads to clean them up, so nearly all went OK with gentle persuasion. All 4 front suframe bolts in line with the wheels refused to budge though so needed direct application of heat (hand torch) to free them off.

We wanted to remove the subframes with the wheels on the ground, but there were some bolts we couldn't reach with wheels on... so we made the call to *very carefully* remove these with the car in the air - these were the middle of the 3 bolts on each side of the rear subframe, plus the two bolts on each shock tower on the front subframe (to do these last ones we used the jack to support the subframe).

That done, the car was back on the ground, jacks under diff and front suframe crossmember taking jut a little weight, subframe bolts off from and rear (my rear had an extra two bolts, from two bars that went forward to the chassis... some additional bracing on import models?) and then we were ready for the lift.

Hook up the chains, bolted to the seat mount points (note: that lock isn't holding the chain together, it was just locked to it and I couldn't find the key at the time!)





I missed one thing (there will always be one) - I'd removed the top end of the steering but in all the excitment I'd forgotten the bottom half! gently lowered the chassis down just enough and managed to unbolt and remove it, mindful I still had metal in midair over my head.

And off!



Sorry for the shakeycam.... was far too excited

After that we policed up the tools and rolled the drivetrain into the garage, dropped the shell (gently), rolled it over (to allow the handbrake and fuel tank to be removed) and then placed it on wood to be collected at a later date (the guy who was going to be collecting it didn't answer his calls, which is a tad annoying).

Still, hard to be upset when you have this in the garage!



Even in the missus is less than impressed with this on the drive

---

A Few thanks:

My Dad, Ben & Craig for help on the day - I owe you one
Vicki & Caz for keeping us fed and watered throughout
My neighbours for graciously letting me use their side of the shared drive for a few hours so I could have some more room to use the hoist .... and for putting up with a scrappile on my drive in good humour

[mrjingles705]

11/11/2013 to 19/11/2013 - An hour here, an hour there.... lots of parts, everywhere

Same as always - grabbing an hour here and there; progress slow as everything is siezed up and my impact wrench has died a death (down with Sealey for repair) so it's breaker bar, spanner, WD40, heat, working it back and forth etc times a million. SLLLLLOOOOOWWWW.

Highlights:

Front and rear seperated with only one a few casualties (a snapped exhaust bolt shown, and two wrecked tie rod ends where the balljoint splitter damaged the threads - didn't care as both are shot anyway....)




Engine mounted to the stand - awfully iffy with that amount of spacing but I run the numbers on the bolts with double shear and plasticity, ridiculous excess capacity so it's safe even if it looks well dodge. Couldn't find long enough M12 bolts in 1.5 pitch so got some threaded rod and locknuts.... could have cut them down but don't need to, plus they are handy to hang rag/tools on



Inside of the bell housing isn't looking very clever.... assuming I'm dealing with an oil seal leak athough the clutch/flywheel itself is completely clean.



slowly breaking it down to parts...



Finally.... left a message on the MEV voicemail, hoping to go and pick up my kit next Fri (29th).... garage should be clear by then, well, mostly.

[mrjingles705]

KIT PICKUP DATE CONFIRMED - FRIDAY 29TH NOV - CHEERS STUART!

[mrjingles705]

20/11/2013 - Bye Bye Shell

Scrappie picked up the shell tonight - so we have a free drive again

[mrjingles705]

21/11/2013 - 24/11/2013 - Doing battle with the PPF....

Front stripped down easily (well, relatively easily... everything rusted, but everything came out) - the rear PPF sleve was a multi-day effort though!

The bolts (and the spacer) were unbolted and pried out respectively, leaving just the sleeve to remove in order to release the rear PPF. Please note the rear subframe is upside down for access here




The manual says you take it with an M14 and pull until the sleeve releases, and then use an M6 to hold the sleeve whilst you unthread the M14. However I couldn't pull the sleeve out of the diff with the M14... even with a helper keeping the PPF aligned, and even taking the two weight of the diff on the bolt and wiggling.... no joy.

I tried heat, I tried gentle tapping, I tried soaking it with WD40 over several days.... no joy.

Googling showed I wasn't alone, and it looks like many people end up knocking out the lower spacer and pressing/bonding it back in later. I figured there must be a better way given the dire warnings about damaging the PPF alignment so I created... The Puller.

The Puller is just the long bolt from the front arm (the M14), the big fat washer it used, plus a 20CM long piece of scaffold tube (the same one I used to prop the chassis suspension). Assembled like so:



A few turns on the ratchet and the sleeve was pulled up!



I'm so money supermarket

So with that off, prop off, wheels off.... I'm just working through the final subframe bits. Spoke to Mr Mills and he's said the two 'legs' coming forward on the subframe (part of the bracebars) don't have pickup points on the mevester chassis.... so I'll cut them back to the subframe bolthole + a little clearance before removing.

[gwnwar]

FYI when you remove the AC mount from the engine you have to install a shorter bolt in the front lower spot don't forget..
The drive shaft and propellent shaft bolts and nuts are graded and special so bag them and mark.. Nice work so far..

[mrjingles705]

Cheers for the advice - I've been pretty good about tagging and bagging and have been trying to keep notes to make sure they right bolts go back in the right places (famous last words!). Saying that, I did lose the lower arm nut for an hour until I found it in my coat pocket

MASSIVE THANKS about the bolt at the front... I'd noticed it when removing but in all the fun and games completely forgot to write myself a note to source a bolt for it.... saved me alot of massle, appreciate it.