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Laurie's First Track Day Car

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  • Very arty farty :-)

    Is she ready for Blyton or you sneaking in another one first?

    Paul..
    My rallying with mk2 adventures... http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...ing-adventures

    Comment


    • Arty-farts indeed, I was getting so pissed off with this forum error that keeps popping up when it tries to auto-save and then catches me out so it looses my updates ....... 3 times in f'king a row so I just dropped some pictures and called it a day.

      So this is written in a text pad and I'll cut and paste it after .... I'd hoped I'd get to like the new vb4 forum but I can say I now hate it

      Anyway, Following 5 days in the Scottish borders (house hunting / holiday) I had the weekend free to do a couple of jobs before back to work.

      First I lowered the passengers seat so its now better head clearance and almost as low as the drivers seat which was loads better.

      I then attempted to fit my new set of Nankan NS-2R's to the 15" rims I bought, but they were just too stiff for my manual tyre changer so I had them fitted at A1 tyres on Sunday and balanced properly at the same time.

      I think they look good and not out of place as I had feared.

      The plan to modify the gear linkage was scuppered when I realised that the 8v linkage is not like the 16v so the new X linkage I bought will probably go on the 16v when I get a moment. Though I'm thinking seriously about moving the 16v on and put the funds towards the eventual house move .... as I'll be needing a 4x4 no doubt.

      I'll have to rethink what I can do to shorten the throw on the 8v linkage .... maybe just a shorter stick either a home-brew or find something that fits.

      So thats about it now and yes Paul, Blyton is my next planned outing as I may need to head north for a weekend again before Oct so no time to play.

      Laurie

      Comment


      • looking good there! cant wait to see some of your GoPro footage. I still see you have my old seats

        regarding the linkage, you can just drill through the bulkhead, & convert to the 16v version. Then you can buy them short shift kits.

        Its what ive got planned for mine, as & when i get my car back....

        Comment


        • If you want to shorten the 8v throw you have a couple of options

          1 - Mount the underside gearstick on top of the tunnel on a fabricated bracket and use it directly onto the gear selector through a new hole in the bulkhead. This raises the gearstick position and means you can shorten the actual gearstick to get less throw.

          2 - Convert to cable change system like I did on both cars :-)

          Paul..
          My rallying with mk2 adventures... http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...ing-adventures

          Comment


          • Looking good on the new wheels! I was never too sure of them on mine but they look good on yours. Be interesting to see if it's any different on 15" rims.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by The Griffin View Post
              Looking good on the new wheels! I was never too sure of them on mine but they look good on yours. Be interesting to see if it's any different on 15" rims.

              Yeah Ta .....I like them, just need to run a few heat cycles first.

              So the plan is to make this fit here and replace the big air box ....



              So bought a section of 2.5" tube and cut a section and squared off one end ......



              then set about using my spare airbox as a prototype to make a frame to hold it ....







              Welded and lanished ....





              Test fitted ........



              Now I just need to make a bracket for the air control box, strip out the old filter box and fit this in its place.

              I also too delivery of a new induction rubber hose section as I fiynd splits in the one on there so that will get fitted tomorrow ......

              Spent the morning fitting a new exhaust system to Denises MK2 SRI (another one that I ordered from Poland and delivered in 6 days now thats brilliant service ) so just ran out of time today to finish.

              Comment


              • nice job on that ! thats basically what they used to supply with k+n 57i kits

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                • Thanks Darren, I assume there must be some various mods kicking around but with these filters I bought @ £5 - £7 each and a K&N at umpteen £'s keeping to my budget build this is a good compromise

                  ....... So following on

                  this is the split induction hose Im replacing ....



                  replaced with this new one from Autovaux ....


                  Cleared the old filter box out and then made up a bracket to support the air flow meter ....





                  Finally all mounted and sorted ......



                  I was reluctant to block the old air feed hole below the filter so for now I just fastened the plastic converluted pipe inplace but if its really wet I'll need to seal it off until I make a deflector to keep water from the wheel being thrown up ....

                  Again running out of time for the list of weekend jobs so its out to the tractor and mount the hedge cutter while we have some sun ....

                  Comment


                  • So Happy Christmas to all ....

                    Father Christmas brought me something nice this year .....



                    Well I bought it myself (from Paul... Rallymarshal) but lets pretend it was Santa

                    So as you can see this afternoon I pulled the old diff out and swapped the crown wheel over, fitted new bearings and seals cleaned out the casing and slotted it all back in.















                    The bearing castellated housing went back up to one notch less than how it came out and though I was slightly confused on how to tighten it correctly having read some older posts I think it is probably okay, I actually made a tool piece of flat bar welded into a slot of a 1/2 drive socket and used the torque wrench to pull it up to about 30 nm to get as close as I could to the original setting without over tightening. I'll probably check it again after running it a bit as I'm sure it will settle over time.

                    Anyway, that's a good afternoon's work done and dusted

                    Just need to add the oil and then is on to replacing the clutch ....

                    I bought a clutch kit as I thought with the Quiafe in there now and the fact that I found myself riding he clutch a bit out of The Wiggler at Blyton to keep the momentum up now's a good time as any to fresh it up

                    Well that's about it for today .....

                    Thanks for looking

                    Laurie.


                    Comment


                    • Me likey :-)
                      My rallying with mk2 adventures... http://www.astra-mk2.com/forum/forum...ing-adventures

                      Comment


                      • .......

                        Well to keep the momentum I dragged myself away from the laptop and doing virginwines work (I must try and break the habit of doing work work out of hours on my own time grrrrrr) got out into the barn and swapped the clutch...

                        This little circlip could be a nasty one if care wasn't careful as there a little gap where it could drop into the box ! ... All these years and I've never done a in-situ clutch change I've always had to drop the box but then again historically (well 60's 70's and 80's) I'd usually worked on RWD motors



                        So anyway, on removing the clutch I found it had a broken spring so good job I opted to do it now ...

                        The spring at 2 O-clock is loose and the outer spring is broke into 2 pieces ..



                        Cover plate was fine but pointless not putting the new one in, same for release bearing .....





                        There really ain't that much room and as one of the locking clips managed to vanish into thin air between taking them off the old cover plate and putting them onto the new one I had to make one that was not as good as the supplied ones but I managed with the help of a a trusty tool .....



                        Finally I filled with oil through the top breathe until it ran out of the level plug and took it for a spin up and down the drive ,,,,,, Well actually it did not spin I expected 2 scrab marks where I stuffed my foot down but it just sat up and took off

                        When's the next trackday I ask myself

                        One more job I think before then is look at rolling those arches as they were just brushing my new tyres at Blyton >>>>>

                        Oh and on the mention of handy tools I bought a pair of small "automatic" mole grips to do the Matiz heater pipes a month or so ago (to get to those horrid spring hose clips at the back of teh engine) and they proved to be good for nipping the pressure plate up when my home-made clip was not enough. I'd recommend a pair for any tool kit.......



                        They auto adjust to any size within range and you can adjust the nip.

                        Anyway thanks again for looking ...

                        Laurie.

                        Comment


                        • Some good work there Laurie. Looks like you have been keeping yourself busy and keeping out of trouble over the Christmas break!!
                          In the last but one picture the sump gasket looks like it may be one of those to do jobs in the not too distant future:wink:

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Clive View Post
                            Some good work there Laurie. Looks like you have been keeping yourself busy and keeping out of trouble over the Christmas break!!
                            In the last but one picture the sump gasket looks like it may be one of those to do jobs in the not too distant future:wink:
                            Yeah its good to have something other than "work work" to do for a change and thanks for the comments .....

                            Yes though your probably right there Clive, I'm not too worried that she weeps a bit as she does get a good thrashing on track Its on the list of to-do's at some point but start pulling them about and we all know where that ends up going with sumps

                            I have remembered another job I need to do though, ... that's to drop a false floor in the drivers side as last outing on track, by the end of the day my feet were so sore as the pedals are a bit high with the interior stripped out and the faster I get the more I seem to be working the old foot digits on the pedals ....

                            Should be and easy job either a section of chequer plate stepped up +- 25mm or maybe a mild steel section, depends on what I can find laying about

                            Maybe something for next weekend and over the new year....

                            Laurie.

                            Comment


                            • Spent an hour or so this afternoon while the rain was thrashing down making up the raised drivers floor well,

                              Started with a basic piece of plate ....



                              Then a small template with a piece of wire to get the floor profile:



                              Marked out for a section ....



                              And cut out roughly shaped welded and then braced .....









                              Pedal height now about the same as the 16v with carpets and all in @ 5" +- to bottom of pedal rubber.



                              I'll just need to pick up a small bracket onto the cage front mounting bolt and a couple of rivnuts in the tunnel and it should do ....



                              Then maybe I'll drill it to lighten it a little and apply some paint .....

                              The nesting Blue Tits that have taken refuge in the barn were getting agitated as I had my space heater on so I called it a day for today ...

                              Next update likely in a fortnight

                              Thanks for looking

                              L.

                              Comment


                              • its taken me 2 days to post this reply credit to the forum it was still in the "saved" button lol!

                                cracking !

                                the castle nut adjustment is basically like taper wheel bearings, nipped up to take out the play, not so tight to cause pre-load and drag. i think there is a crazy bit in the haynes manual with string round the crown wheel and a spring gauge (hmm !)

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