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Well seeing as I never made a diary for my GTE I thought I'd do one for the mk3 before I ended up rebuilding that and never taking any pics again. 
Plan was to get this Astra mk3 which needed a bit of tidying up, nothing much really, and run it while I decided what to do with the GTE. Also to practice a few things like painting on before/if I got stuck in with the GTE. It was supposed to be a bit of easy-fix motoring without having to constantly worry about rust.
As it turned out, it's a project in itself and is nowhere near being able to pass an MOT.
So I've retaxed the GTE while this gets sorted.
So here it is. P reg 5 door CDX.
The previous owner said another car had rolled back into it and damaged the foglight and bumper on the driver side front corner, and included another bumper with the car. So at the moment it has no bumper fitted. Needed a bit of straightening out, but took 30 secs by hand so no big issue.
But here the problems begin. The car was bought with no MOT, but I was assured it would go through.
First spot was the volcanic top mounts, full of water and about to erupt the strut top through into the engine bay.
On removing the strut brace to change the top mounts, it was discovered it had been put on back to front. Now any person with half a brain would have noticed it would not go on due to the screw for the coolant header tank being in the way. Not whoever fitted this, whose method seems to be "let's just smash up anything in the way".
And look at the state of the strut brace. And it was still jammed against the top of the engine.
The car has also been jacked up. What's unusual about that I hear you say? Well whereas normal people use the jacking points, chimp features decided to use the sill edge, in several random places for good measure. Here's some of it being straightened back.
The centre box of the exhaust has also been flattened a bit, I'm guessing from being dragged onto a recovery truck as there are also scrape marks underneath. Fortunately nothing more serious than a bit of underseal scraped off.
The car has also been resprayed. Chimp features strikes again and this time his star turn is getting the colour wrong. It should be 29L Ceramic Blue Mica (spoiler colour), but is some kind of metallic blue (bootlid colour).
Also take note of the quality painting employed which has really withstood the test of time on the rear bumper. And why bother trimming the double-sided tape round the badges, surely nobody will ever notice?...
And yes that hideous exhaust is coming off as it sounds almost as bad as it looks.
But, hopefully it is all going to be worth it in the end as it does come with a few goodies.
There is a V6 nestling in there with all the other bits that would make my ideal conversion:
- 3.0 engine from Omega converted to FWD
- Cav 2.5 intake system which looks so much better than the Vectra setup
- F20 box (looking out for an F18 wide 5th cog to put in)
- equal length drive shafts
- 2.0 Sport/GSI spring and damper setup
I've got a few bits on order then it's more poking around to sort what's needed to pass MOT, then on with the painting. Once those jobs are done I'll start tidying up wiring and general conversion bodges etc.
Plan was to get this Astra mk3 which needed a bit of tidying up, nothing much really, and run it while I decided what to do with the GTE. Also to practice a few things like painting on before/if I got stuck in with the GTE. It was supposed to be a bit of easy-fix motoring without having to constantly worry about rust.
As it turned out, it's a project in itself and is nowhere near being able to pass an MOT.
So I've retaxed the GTE while this gets sorted.So here it is. P reg 5 door CDX.
The previous owner said another car had rolled back into it and damaged the foglight and bumper on the driver side front corner, and included another bumper with the car. So at the moment it has no bumper fitted. Needed a bit of straightening out, but took 30 secs by hand so no big issue.
But here the problems begin. The car was bought with no MOT, but I was assured it would go through.
First spot was the volcanic top mounts, full of water and about to erupt the strut top through into the engine bay.
On removing the strut brace to change the top mounts, it was discovered it had been put on back to front. Now any person with half a brain would have noticed it would not go on due to the screw for the coolant header tank being in the way. Not whoever fitted this, whose method seems to be "let's just smash up anything in the way".
And look at the state of the strut brace. And it was still jammed against the top of the engine.
The car has also been jacked up. What's unusual about that I hear you say? Well whereas normal people use the jacking points, chimp features decided to use the sill edge, in several random places for good measure. Here's some of it being straightened back.
The centre box of the exhaust has also been flattened a bit, I'm guessing from being dragged onto a recovery truck as there are also scrape marks underneath. Fortunately nothing more serious than a bit of underseal scraped off.
The car has also been resprayed. Chimp features strikes again and this time his star turn is getting the colour wrong. It should be 29L Ceramic Blue Mica (spoiler colour), but is some kind of metallic blue (bootlid colour).
Also take note of the quality painting employed which has really withstood the test of time on the rear bumper. And why bother trimming the double-sided tape round the badges, surely nobody will ever notice?...
And yes that hideous exhaust is coming off as it sounds almost as bad as it looks.
But, hopefully it is all going to be worth it in the end as it does come with a few goodies.
There is a V6 nestling in there with all the other bits that would make my ideal conversion:
- 3.0 engine from Omega converted to FWD
- Cav 2.5 intake system which looks so much better than the Vectra setup
- F20 box (looking out for an F18 wide 5th cog to put in)
- equal length drive shafts
- 2.0 Sport/GSI spring and damper setup
I've got a few bits on order then it's more poking around to sort what's needed to pass MOT, then on with the painting. Once those jobs are done I'll start tidying up wiring and general conversion bodges etc.
and some people should not be allowed near a car 
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