Recent jobs and update - bit of a big one this so take your time
Sub frame bolts
First on the list was the sub frame bolts, due to the front panel cavity filling with water the bolts passing through to the sub frame were so rusty that drilling the heads off was the only option to remove them, so first job was to get them out
Then to find the replacements, here I decided to go for titanium and saved a few quid since these aren’t the fancy polished ones you see in most places, they are however a direct replacement for 8.8 grades in terms of strength, which I figure is perfectly acceptable since the bolts only go into fiberglass anyway, I’ve not chosen these for weight reduction just corrosion resistance since from above they literally sit in a bath of road water.
The bolts inside the car didn’t look much better
Second problem, both inside the car on the rear mounts and at the front mounts was the surface for the bolt head to sit against was far from flat,
I estimate some of those bolt heads on the front were literally at 45 degrees in relation to the fiberglass surface and as a result the subframe bolts were only clamping down on point contacts on all 4 corner sub frame mounts.
The options considered to rectify this was to file the bolt heads to match – tricky and a bit of a bodge.
Make tapered washers – again tricky to match the angles perfectly but will also put a side load on the bolt head as the 2 tapers force together again not ideal,
So I opted to machine the fiberglass instead by counter boring the top surface, now before you all recoil in horror I did take many measurements beforehand to check this was the best option and made the following points
The fiberglass in this area is massively thick anyway – over 12mm
The underside of each hole (gelcoat side) is flat to at least a 30mm diameter round each hole, it’s the top face that has become blurred due to multiple layers of matting so all I have done is reduce the excess matting down to the same thickness as that of the thinnest (remember still over 12mm) portions of the fiberglass and I’m only cutting a 20mm diameter counter bore.
so just technically truing up the uneven surface removing out the minimum of material, I did this by mounting a 20mm O.D grinding bit in to a 10mm bolt cut down with a 6mm hole drilled down its length then cut down
with this passed through from the top and fitted in the drill chuck from underneath and pulled down the grinder gently removed the top surface just enough to flatten it off
All done including the anti roll bar mounts
then for the front bolts where the cut-outs were deeper I used 10mm thick stainless spacers instead of washers
since they won’t dish in and raise the bolt heads up enough to grip with a socket, and for the inside on the floor where the discrepancy wasn’t as bad I got some 4mm thick 20mm O.D M8 stainless washers and reamed the hole out 10mm, these will do fine and wont lift the carpet as much in the footwells.
For the underside of all mounts I got some M10 titanium flange nuts which did come in a shiny finish which I suppose won’t hurt,
So although the car has lasted nearly 20 years, now I know the bolts won’t rust away like the old ones did. So if I ever have to remove the subframes it won’t take a week to unbolt
Engine earths and wiring
An ongoing job that is getting better and better as the weeks roll by is the general state of the engine bay wiring.
The 2 branches or loom that ran down each front inner wing had multiple issues ranging from crappy soldered joins – crappy un-soldered joins(?!) lengths of loom that were far too long and had excess loom taped up and stuffed into corners and a total lack of any cable supports whatsoever resulting in the loom branch running down the driver’s side wing being only supported by resting on the (very rusty and rough) hydragas unit causing the outer loom tape and strand insulation to wear through
About a few months use away from a short and potentially a fire…
So all excess loom was removed including the redundant rear screen washer pump and its associated plug and wiring from the fuse box, the plug came in handy to replace the front indicator plug that had been cut and taped into position,
All joins now soldered and 2 layers of heat shrink, I even removed this thing
Dim dip resistor thingy, ive read about 4 descriptions of what it should do and to be honest non make sense, if I want my side lights on ill put my side lights on, If I want my dip beam on ill put my dip beam on, If I want my dip beam bulbs to look dim and dirty and like they are burned out I would fit some duff ones, but id rather keep the 2 separate thank you so that’s gone in the bin too with no ill effects.
I also decided to amalgamate the earth connection points on the rover loom to just terminate at a loop tag rather than a block connector and then a loop tag, the less joins the less chance of failure
The entire loom now spiral wrapped and P clipped into place
The whole effect is much neater and inspires more confidence. Especially considering the mess that was there before
I even found a chock block connector coming from the main fuse board in the engine bay, a little shocked at this discovery I thought id find out what it was powering before repairing, thankfully it wasn’t anything too important just the main feed to the ECU and associated engine bay sensors……
That taken care of I even gave the washer bottle a clean out as it was rather manky inside and out,
I know you can clean things like this out with rice and soap by giving it a good shake but we had no rice so I used pasta twists instead, well pasta is the same as rice anyway in as much is its what you eat when there’s nothing better to eat left in the house, so on that basis and a dash of bleach inside (and all over my jumper) the bottle came up like new, a good tip there
The earths were a cause for concern, there appeared to be no logic or reason as to what got earthed where and how, for example there was a total of 3 separate wires running from the Neg of the battery to the passenger headlight mount bolt (used as the only earth point for that side of the car?) and yet each took a different route round the engine and engine bay to get there, the slightly bigger cable sending the earth wire from the passenger (battery) side to the driver’s side was not supported in any way just wrapped around various hoses and pipes on its way, something had to be done so I ripped it all out
Assembled a collection of new earth cables
I bought some of the best cables I could find
http://www.klaceycables.co.uk/shop/prod ... las-efglas
5 in total, the 4 thinnest are as thick as the original and the 1 thickest is twice as thick still, earths are very important as I’m sure you all appreciate, the 4 smaller cables feed the bulkhead where I’ve made an earth stud to feed all the rear of the car power and 2 go down each inner front wing, and lastly the 4th goes round to a convenient tapped hole on the far side of the cylinder head,
the 5th and largest goes to the gearbox as per the original, all 5 cables were soldered into a new battery clamp making one solid connection
All cables tucked up neatly
I hate the thought using of fixing bolts as earth points with 4 or more loop tags on being used, just looks like trouble waiting to happen, so I made some bus bars out of 4mm thick brass with M6 csk brass bolts silver soldered in, once riveted and bonded to the inner wings the result looks neater and has a spare stud on each for future use.
I even treated the new distributer low tension cables to a new distributor
All the smoke now stays in the wires here it should
Front grill
Ever since I bought the car I wanted to change the front end somehow since it tends to look a little “pouty” and the front end too narrow overall.
I had to pull out the mesh anyway while I was tending to the sub frame bolts so now was the chance, after much thinking around and doodling I figured my best option would be to fit a horizontally slatted grill in all orifices to unify the look and hopefully blend the 3 separate small grills within one bumper to look more like one larger grill broken up slightly with bits of bumper, if that makes sense?
After eyeing up many front ends in car parks (I looked at front grills on cars too) I came to the conclusion that mk5 Vauxhall Astra facelift lower bumper grills would do nicely, mainly because its slats run horizontally and the front goes to a point down the centreline a bit like the Midas so hopefully they will match.
(I really have got to stop bolting bits of Vauxhall on my car because one day it may just turn into a…….
…..I cant say it – the thought is too scary.)
I I ordered a plain cheap copy grill off ebay to butcher to see
Works a treat but these need to be chrome to provide more definition to the linier effect I require so 3 brand new genuine Vauxhall grills were ordered (£ = don’t ask) and each one butchered to provide me with the grill of my dreams,
the standard Vauxhall grill has 3 slats and I did try it in that configuration but it didn’t quite look right so I chopped up 2 grills to make a 4 slatted grill, the sections were bonded to some angle profile plastic.
And I made some ally brackets bonded on inside the nose cone with M6 tapped holes so the grill can be removed again without it being bonded on – nice
The side grills were done in the same way with angle plastic and ally brackets bonded to the nose cone,
And careful positioning got their slats to line perfectly with the centre grill slats giving a more integrated look.
While mentioning the side grills, I could see that they technically do nothing much to cool the rad just send road water and dirt directly at the coil and alternator which is less than ideal,
so using an offcut from my Quantum mud flaps I made I knocked up 2 blanking strips that once bonded to the rear of the ally angle brackets block off most of the opening just leaving a small opening in front of the only exposed portion of the rad, this may even increase airflow through the rad since the easier path for the air to take is now removed and should force air through, anyway no issues so far,
and the finished grills look spot on.
As for the angle at the front
It was almost made for the job.
Statistics: Posted by Jin — Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:54 am