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thought I had better start a progress page as I've had alot of facebook friends telling me to do so as I've dedicated the next 6 months to completely rebuilding my 205 rally car which has a bit of a history! It all started in 2004 when my brother (who might post on this username occasionally) was attempting to make a career from rallying and came 2nd in a scholarship to find the next 'star' of uk rallying. In mid 2004 the car was built and finished by Christmas 2004. It was build for Ed to do the 205 challenge. He had a good year but 2 results not quite going his way cost the championship and he ended up 3rd after missing the final round. That was the end of the career hunting stage of his rallying and he went out to do 'for fun' events. 2007 saw Ed compete on our local single venue at Down Ampney, Cirencester. He clipped a bale at arouund 60mph on the wing mirror which came in and his his 1st time navigator Dan in the face! 20 odd stitches and lots of blood later and the car was dragged home and left in the state it was in, blood, glass and a football sized dent in the quarter panel from another incident! The car was put behind a barn in a field and left to rot. Come 2010 and Ed decided he fancied getting the car out for a bit of a play and maybe one last rip round Down Ampney. Not surprisingly Dan wasn't too keen on navigating! We got the car out of the field and set about prepping it in 3 weeks for the event. when it came out of the field it looked like this: within 3 weeks it looked immaculate but i can't find the shots so a shot from a week later taking an unconventional line round the first hairpin at pugfest I've taken over the car at this point and started doing most of the work and using it most. To date i've done 2 rallies, 2 rallysprints and about 5 trackdays at Combe, mainly due to a distinct lack of funds (my other hobby which demands cash is photography!) some pics from events i've done: the car cut out after a fast watersplash at sweetlamb which produced this entertaining shot of me being pushed... then this hampered me 2 weeks before my first event of 2012: so the decision was taken to pull the entry and look into engine options as until then the engine and box had been standard and whilst i got some good results in the car the risks i was taking to keep up were getting a little daft, even only on airfield events! more power and better gearbox were needed but unfortunately my summer job of pratting about in over £100k's worth of below got in the way: On my return from the farm in late october 2012 a Chance phone call to Dan (nav mentioned above) revealed that there might be a space to turn into a workshop for rent on his farm near stroud. I went to see it at the first chance and the decision was made! Hello double car workshop: then time to move my donor car in next to the rally car: The space needed lots of work to turn into a workshop so on we went with kitting it out: crawler board... old womans trolley converted to welder trolley I took the engine from the car which is an ex Marcus Dodd (british rally champion) 106 cup car engine giving around 145 bhp. This engine mated to a be4r from a xsara picasso with a choice gearset should woork nicely so onwards we went: along with taking the engine out the wiring was labelled and salvaged. everything else from the car is/was being/sold. some pics: saxo wiring: i'll be needing this: 205 wiring: shiney new billies: so basically I've decided to fit a tu5j4 (106 cup car) engine with a be4r gearbox. However!!! As i've been stripping bits off the car to do the swap i've carried on stripping bits and have been thinking more and more that it's worth giving the whole thing a massive complete rebuild! So in 2 weeks i've gone from facing a tricky engine swap to doing a bare shell rebuild. This progress blog will cover as much of the work as i remember to photograph but basically i'd quite like it done in 6 months. plans are: rebuild every component. renew anything that needs renewing inc: paint inside, outside and underneath welding to rust proof and sort out rust patches tidy bodywork fit tu5j4 and be4r run billies front and rear rebuild all brakes and renew copper lines with aeroquip lines rebuild beam chop out drivers seat rails and fit new but lower add to cage (x door bars) Today was rubbing down internally and investigating/looking for rust patches along with a spot of welding with my gopro hd 2 mounted to the welding lance... That's it for now and probably this week but i'll be doing a bit each week and with the help of the missus, marcus my navigator and my brother this should be done in no time atall (yeah right!) Cheers Charlie