[trackday_prep] White Gti Mini-restoration

[Rob Turbo 3]

There's a couple of photo's of the flocking a few pages back, I'll get a couple more of the latest bits of flocking and get them uploaded along with the photo of the cracked valve!

[SurGie 54]

Flocking??? what is it>?

[Rob Turbo 3]

Making your dash fluffy!!!

 

It's used in rally cars to stop the sun shining off the dash and apparently doesn't reflect in the windscreen?

[Rob Turbo 3]

Here's a couple of photos of the latest flocking attempts, the dials surround isn't too bad afterall, still not perfect though!

 

 

 

And one of the cracks in the valve, one at the bottom and one on the right,

 

 

Also got the pipe for the manifold today, just need a flange for the turbo, they can be had cheap enough but I haven't 100% decided on which turbo I'll be using, even though I know I'll end up sticking with my modified t25!

[Rob Turbo 3]

My harnesses came yesterday, 3" 4 point sparco, came with 4 eyelets, 2 fit into the standard seatbelt mounting points on the sills, the other 2 I assume will need a plate welding into the exhaust tunnel with nuts welded onto the other side?

 

 

I lapped all the valves over the weekend as well, except for the cracked one, a replacement has been ordered from QEP, along with a set of valve stem oil seals. I'm not sure if I should get the head skimmed while it's in bits, would probably be a good idea, it doesn't look too bad though so I might just be wasting money!

 

 

I'm planning on taking a few hours off work sometime this week so I can take the crank to get some bearings, would be a good time to drop the head off for a skim if I decide to get it done.

[bensonmi 4 2 Cars]

My harnesses came yesterday, 3" 4 point sparco, came with 4 eyelets, 2 fit into the standard seatbelt mounting points on the sills, the other 2 I assume will need a plate welding into the exhaust tunnel with nuts welded onto the other side?

 

just fitted mine today. all i did was driled a hole big enough for the eyelet, then used 2 sandwich plates,one in car and one under neath. normally use one but i used one top and bottom for extra strength.can tack them too for extra security but i dont have a welder so have'nt!

love this project btw

if you need some of those sandwich plates i have a couple spare you could have.

[Rob Turbo 3]

Bit of bad news today, I found out why the cage I bought a couple of weeks ago still hasn't turned up, apparently it's been lost by parcelforce I mean how the f**k do you loose a roll cage, more like it's been stolen, so the lad I bought it off is filling in a claim form and in the mean time parcelforce are trying to find it after being given a full description of what they are looking for.

 

That gives me two options for spraying the car now, I can either leave it until I source another cage, or paint it all anyway, then when I get a cage I can just paint the mounting points.

 

I'm at a point now where I can't do anything, waiting for parts to be delivered and waiting to get the shell painted before I can carry on!

[Rob Turbo 3]

Had a bit of a surprise today, I went home for my dinner and as I pulled up, so did parcelforce, with my roll cage, all good! When I finished work I went and unwrapped it, which is when I found the damage, the main hoop has been bent

 

I'm not sure if it could be straightened out or not, but I'm not even going to try yet, I've taken photos of it to see if parcelforce are going to cough up for a replacement first

 

What do you reakon?

 

 

 

 

On a better note, I had a couple of (undamaged) deliverys yesterday, first was a laser cut T25 flange for my manifold, second was an s16 crank, pistons and rods, still waiting for the valve and valve stem oil seals from qep though!

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

Wow. They did a good job at that!

 

Have you got your captive nuts yet?

[Rob Turbo 3]

Yeah the captive nuts came the end of last week, cheers I'm going to weld them in when I weld in some box section to mount the seats on and the roll cage mounting points.

[welshpug 1,626]

erm, that's donald ducked! DOH!

[Rob Turbo 3]

I decided not to bother putting a claim in for the damage to the cage, will work out too much hastle IMO, so, did this instead,

 

 

I'm not sure if it's 100% straight, haven't tried it in the car yet, will hopefuly be trial fitting it over the weekend, I still need to order a pair of door bars and a length of CDS to make a harness bar with, plus some box section for the seat mounts, but I might be able to get some of that from work for free, we have a couple of bits that have been sat doing nothing for a few years so I can't see the boss not letting me have a lenght or two!

 

I've priced up the bearings and rings for my engine, around £130 for big ends, mains, thrust and rings, I'm a bit short at the minute so I'll hopefuly be ordering them next week. The valve and seals still haven't turned up from QEP, I asked where they were and was told they have been sent out today, over a week since I paid for them (nearly two weeks infact) and they've just been sent today? Last time I use them thats for sure

[EdCherry 34 1 Cars]

Id be a bit worried to the strength of the cage now... id have definatly gone for the claim as now its bent its not going to be as strong, specially since you bent it back out again!

[Rob Turbo 3]

Well it's too late for a claim now, today was 14 days since they collected it, which is the deadline for a damage claim, and it would have been pushing it getting a claim in even if I had reported it as soon as I noticed the damage because of their rules on making a claim saying it has to be "filed" as a claim within 14 days of collection, and the claim has to be posted to them, it's not classed as filed until they have all the documents they want.

 

But it's not like it's going to snap, even if it flipped completely off the ground and landed square on the bit that was bent, and even if it did, I think I'd be fairly screwed even if it was a brand new cage.

[Rob Turbo 3]

Fitted the cage today, got a bit carried away with myself and forgot to take photos! My rough straightening was more or less spot on, the front part on the other hand, when I tried to straighten it it was bending the good bit! I've managed to bend it to almost normal, but the drivers side is still about an inch too far in, but not too much of a problem, I'll strap it to something to pull it into place when I weld the feet in.

 

I'm going to add some extra bracing between the legs of the main hoop when I put the harness bar in. Am I correct in thinking the harness bar needs to be about level with the bottom of the rear side windows?

[welshpug 1,626]

you need to check the height of the holes in your Bucket seats, the harnesses ideally should be within 10 degrees either way of horizontal, here's a drawing from the MSA book.

 

[Rob Turbo 3]

Been busy today! I made this,

 

 

To mount my pistons on for machining, like this,

 

 

That was just a test fit to make sure it was a good fit, I then removed the rings and gudgeon pins and mounted them with a draw bar and a bit of thick walled tube with tape wrapped around the ends so it didn't mark the bearing surface in the piston,

 

 

Then set the cutter to remove 1mm from the crown, locked everything off bar the cross slide and machined away!!

 

 

Next job is to clean them all up and weigh them to make sure they are all the same, if not I'll get the dremel out!

[Rob Turbo 3]

The valve and seals finally turned up on tuesday, so lapped the valve in, fitted the seals then refitted the valves, I've spent ages cleaning the sealent off the head where the top half of the cam bearings sits and I've cleaned the other mating surfaces already, so the head is ready when the block is! I've been cleaning the block up as well, I think I'm going to give it a coat of black hammerite smooth, I think I've got half a tin of it down the shed, just need to find a brush!

 

I still haven't ordered the shells and rings for the engine, I'm still skint! Might be able to get them ordered tomorrow with a bit of luck!

 

I also got some good thick 1" box section from work today so providing the weather is ok I should be able to weld in some seat mounts and get some plates made for the roll cage to bolt to at the weekend.

[CosKev 16]

Good read this thread

 

Love the ups and downs before you finally decided to sort it

 

Engine bay and front panel look very good,alot of rust in there to start with

[Rob Turbo 3]

The weather isn't on my side today so I've been playing with the engine again, I've started painting the block, I hate hammerite but I already had it so it's getting used! I'm trying to put lots of thin coats on to stop it making puddles!

 

This morning I polished the pistons and weighed them, all exactly 413g!

 

 

Shiny!!

 

 

I'll be off up the shed to machine the hubs later, then I'll be all out of stuff to do that doesn't involve emptying my pockets or getting soaked!

[calvinhorse 870]

keep up the good work rob!

 

if you were worried about the safety of the cage you could always brace the damaged area up abit more (if there is room?)

 

what was your final verdict on machiningthe top of the pistons? is there plenty of meat to cut off?

[Rob Turbo 3]

The crown is 6.5mm thick after removing 1mm (so was 7.5mm thick originally). I found a website that calculated the C/R, I put in the details for a gti6 engine then lowered the piston by 1mm and it came back as about 9.5:1, which will do me, so that's all I took off. I haven't measured the thickness of a standard turbo piston yet, I still need to press the gudgeon pin out of one so I can get a decent measurement.

[Rob Turbo 3]

It was nice and sunny when I finished work so I had a play with the angle grinder! Spot the missing bit,

 

 

Most of the brown stuff isn't rust, it's mainly dust from the grinder and what's left of the seam sealer that I attacked with the wire wheel on the angle grinder, although I have found more rusty bits, nothing serious though. The dash isn't fitted, it's just thrown up there out of the way and the steering wheel is only back in for lining the seat up, the length of box section is what I'm going to be making the seat mounts from, that bit is more or less cut to size and has the marks on for where the original seat subframe bolted to so I can get the seat holes in the right place.

 

You can see the cage is still a bit bent, the bit that goes down the front drivers side isn't on the sill, but I have nowhere to store the cage at the minute so it's staying like that for the time being!

[Rob Turbo 3]

Picked the new shells and rings up yesterday, they couldn't get any seals for no1 main bearing cap though, told me they must be a dealer only item, which I don't believe really, I'll see if I can finish work early tomorrow to try a few places for some, are they likely to be kept in stock at a pug dealers with them not being engine specific?

 

I put the bearings in anyway, got the crank and pistons in, I'll just need to take no1 bearing cap off again when I get some seals. I got carried away again and didn't take any photos though

 

The turbo I bought off ebay came today as well, I bought it just for the standard t25 exhaust housing to use on the turbo off the 8v engine but I took it apart and it's in pretty good condition, the bearings have a little bit of play but no end float, I think I have some new bearings somewhere as well, so might just replace them, and buy some new oil seals for it then keep it as a spare, only cost £40! And, it has a bigger compressor than the standard pug turbo, so will be a bit of an upgrade for an 8v turbo engine if I put the pug exhaust housing on it, I can see a 1.6 turbo engine being built here! I have most of the parts laying around now, and it will give the other half something to do! (She wants to rebuild the old 1.6 engine just for something to do, have I struck gold there or what!)

[Rob Turbo 3]

Tried peugeot for some bearing cap seals, as I thought, special order item, have to pay before they order them, the bloke on the parts desk is a kn*b as well, so I didn't bother, phoned around a few places, no joy, then had an idea (few and far between lately!!) there's a citroen dealers not too far from me, and they had them in stock. So I went to a local bearing place for some oil seals for the crank and cams, then off to citroen for the main bearing cap seals, just need some head bolts and a timing belt kit and I can get it all together and get cracking with the manifolds.

 

I'll be building the engine as far as I can later so I'll try to remember to get some photos!