Post Xmas progress...

...which is slim to nil on the MR2 front. Been a bit of a mojo depletion again recently. I guess weather, life and festivities have left me a bit empty. I have actually started focusing more on the MR2 than on the Camaro in fact. might be something to do with an increase in potholes or something, but it just feels rougher... or clunkier even... on rough ground. Some inspection underneath has unearthed worn bushes on the rear tie bars. Naturally, this is a mega rare and expensive part, so some of my musings have been on a method of getting around this...

In other MR2 news, i have bought new wheels. Clearly, this does not mean i have done anything remotely sensible. Far from it, i have went balls out as usual:

16 inch split rim Image wheels. Staggered too so should look a bit mean. 

Heres how they look trial fitted:

(Its all a bit Carlos Fandango at the moment though)

Fronts look ok fron this angle, but there is a good inch and a half of outwards poke here, and the rubber catches the arches with the slightest of steering turn. I might get away with changing to stretched rubber here... I hope. The other option is going to be coilovers to set the rideheight bang on. See here:

Not legal. Oh, and thats the good end. Heres the back:

 

Will need some wide arches here, as thats 2 inches of outward poke:

I have some rivet on goodness up my sleeve for this solution, but it will need to wait. The rear tie bars are absolutely destroyed at the moment, giving me the fear over every bump in the road. Need the inner bushes AND the outer balljoints changed. Currently concocting something better than the 200+ quid toyota only option, and it will look better too. Other advances in this are:

...clear side repeaters, and...

...clear front repeaters, and...

...a bloody good scrub. That white stripe has been painted proper since the pic, I just primered it to keep the winter rust out.

The winter is attacking other areas though... my window wipers are giving me grief again. As before the rod keeps popping off from the balljoint where it attaches to the motor. I have a proper beefy solution in the post, but for the moment I have no wipers...

Yea, so I had to bodge it today so I can use the wipers until the new parts arrive for my homebrew solution. I'll let the pics do the talking:

Have tried some various modified clips but they ultimately pop off. Todays ultra-bodge: a cable tie noosed around the base of the ball, and through it another cable tie looped around the rod. Essentially "handcuffing" the parts together. No idea how long it will last, but with nothing to lose its a worthy bodge!

Camaro gets boxing clever!

OK, new update.

That test fit with the seat was fun, but a proper fit was needed. Cue these:

Got them welded in but I still need to sort out a rear bracket.

In other news I finally got my rebuilt Getrag 290 back. Well, not rebuilt exactly, but fudged up as best it could be. Time to wrestle it in!

Believe it or not its actually perfectly balanced on the jack like that. Strange weight distribution... Anyway, I don't have any more pictures of the instal, but it went in fairly event free. I did have to drop the car back on the deck and push it half a foot back into the garage to get the doors sut though! Must have shuffled a bit what with going up and down so often. Took the opportunity to prove that it does live on 4 wheels from time to time!!

So now the box is in, I can crack on with all the other things that have been holding me up! First off, get the manifolds torqued now the engine is properly level:

...and now that it is level I can see for sure that this bulge I put in the bonnet is neccesary!

..ahh, looking good now its all level! Getting close now!

Next up, need to grease some UJs:

So I can get the prop back on:

Yes... That is an exhaust in front of it. Another knock on effect of having the box back on is I can now properly fit the second hand true duals I got for the car a while ago!

Thats looking from the front to the rear. Just held in place with cable ties for the moment till I get some new hangers welded in...

...but it does hug the underside reasonably well. Got a H pipe just at the rear axle, and picked up a pair of these for the back:

The unfortunately named Thrush Welded box. Basically a Flowmaster style rep. Look pretty decent but will soon find out how they sound (i hope).

One thing I did find during my under car travels is this:

Great big missing bolt! This is one of the subframe mounting bolts too, so I reckon it should be there! Will need to dig about and see in I can find a replacement.... The joys.

One last progress shot:

Yay, a functioning gear stick again!

Camaro gets a heap of work!

The box issue has dragged on. At present it is still at Neils Engineering in Glengarnock having a mild rebuild. I've had no luck whatsoever sourcing new shafts for it, so they are polishing up the teeth and are going to put it back together as best they can. What I have managed to conjour up though is a Muncie NV3500 box:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Venture_Gear_3500_transmission

Not quite on par with the 290, but it is a lot stronger than the traditional T5, and should bolt in with little trauma. Not seen the box yet so cannot say if it will be perfect or not, but it is a potential solution! Fella is selling me it for £350 though, which is a massive saving over the thousands a Getrag was starting to look like! Will have it paid and up here next month... fingers crossed.

Other than that, another development has been the purchase of a pair of 265/50R15 Cooper Cobra radials for the new wheels. Heres a pic:

Tires fitted....

Test fitted. I stuck the other front one on the rear just to get an idea of how they will look...

The tire fitting fun has gave me a wee mojo boost. Decided to pop down the other day and have a quick wrench on it before I go away on work...

Need to get some serious coinage back to continue on this. Gearbox will be paid and delivered for the return from this job. Thats £300 outstanding. Then? Fit it and sort out an invariable clutch hurdle (Hydro to cable I bet)

after that.... Welding this:

Coin sized rust hole I managed to find in the drivers floor. Quite clearly from wet boot syndrome due to its location. Took the decision to cut it out the other day. Well..... kind of:

Those eagle eyed amongst us may notice that I have cut out the entire floorpan. Those with keener eyes may notice I have missed the rust hole altogether. Thats due to the rust hole sitting within the underside chassis leg. Time to get a bit extreme, and drop some floor height in the process....

First step was to tidy up the cut out I made:

...and the area around the sill on the opposite side:

Now that space-intruding chassis leg needed re-profiled:

Job done!

Time for a bit of strength to be added. With this bar I can kill 2 birds with one stone...

Welded in place above...

...and below.

With that basic frame in I could now move on to adding metal back in. Time for some folding fun, starting with the rear "seat" section. Plain sheet:

Foldy...

More foldy...

...and tacked in place. Starting to come together a bit now.

Same story for the front "feet" section

...and that gets tacked in too. Note the penetrating burn marks along the middle., Thats the chassis leg now re-welded to the new floor.

A few more welds, this time seamed and with the rear section dressed back...

...and the front seamed too. Job done!

And with the new floor in I couldnt resist a wee tester with the replacement seat. Much lower! Magic.

Midweek musings...

So after a rather frantic month or two, chasing my tail and stressing about a car situation, i seem to have reached a place whereby i can relax a bit. As those who know me will testify, i was at 3 cars for a while. These were as follows:

MR2:

..running quite well, no issues here. Primarily a backup/fiances car, or "something for the weekend" if you prefer. There was also:

Camaro:

...which has been discussed in great detail previously, so we wont dwell on that. Lastly there was:

Mercedes C180

This was the "reliable" sensible daily plugger. Purchased as a rather unfortunate and if im being honest, misjudged eBay splurge, it needed a full respray, radiator, wings and a wealth of other stuff before it even reached a road. The £500 budet for a cheap car soon doubled, but it went well for a period of time and gave me little grief. At least, it felt that way. It was a hurried resto to get it running and i probably overlooked a few things i shouldnt have. As such, last month a front wheel bearing collapsed on me 100 miles from home. Not ideal, and to be honest put me right off the car. The solution was painful, arduous, and reminded me where my panic mechanic skills were honed from: Cars like these...

                   (yes that is the wheel bearing being changed at the roadside of the A9)

After i sorted that around a week later the NSF brake pad lining dislodged causing the brake pedal to hit the floor on a downhill stretch, and that was it for the car. Time for a better, more reliable model. Enter this:

Saab 9-3 turbo

It felt like the steal of the century. 50k, all the toys, FSH for a little over 2k. Everyone advised a Saab would be reliable. Long story short: It wasnt. In fact, i actually ended up getting my money back after 3 solid weeks of garage time with the car. I literally drove it home once in all that time, the day i bought it.

So in the 3 week downtime i was essentially down to one car. The Camaro is in no way near finished as my previous update testifies, and the Merc was still dodge after the brakes issue. The MR2 took a pounding, ferrying me to Aberdeen a good few times and performing duties it really wasnt bought for. Needless to say at breaking point i shrugged off my doubts, pulled the Merc in and assessed the brake issues. Once fixed with new pads, and a sticky caliper loosened (with the gentle persuader), it was safe for backup duties. To be fair, once i got the money back from the Saab it did much more than that, ferrying me from dodgy dealer to backstreet dump to view all manner of dross. Its safe to say that 3k is now a budget for a decent motor. I once managed to maintain the same rule for 1k. Sad times!

That said, i always rise to a challenge (eventually) so after 2 weeks of solid hunting, and thoroughly proving out the Merc in the process, i found the Saabs replacement:

BMW E46 318Ci

Located in Edinburgh, with 2 months ticket, no tax and dodgy tires and brakes, it wasnt my most confident purchase. However, unlike the Saab my gut feeling was positive with this one... and you always go with the gut feeling! If i look at the positives, it had FSH, 56k miles, full leather (unlike the Saab), cruise, AC and all the coupe toys. Everything worked, and it pulled well. I took the plunge, got it back to the garage and proceeded sort the negatives, which was to throw on new tires, a years tax and rip the offending worn brakes off...

Now when i say rip off, im not joking:

Thats the outer body of the disc after beating it off the hub. Sheared completely, with the centre section firmly welded to the hub. I would think that this set of brakes were well overdue a bloody good refurb. 

Nonetheless its all good now. BMW is so far (touch wood) performing well, and the MR2 is soon to get repaired from its stint of overuse (wheel bearing and handbrake cables have presented themselves as needing repaired... age related no doubt). This all has left me in a bit fo a quandary now. The BMW has taken the reliability reigns, the MR2 will be doing the weekend diddle rounds once again, and the Camaro is ticking along at its own pace. This sort of leaves the Merc as the third thumb... I have options on this front, such as swap it for something interesting and putting it on the back burner until the Camaro is done. I could weigh it in and sell off the nice bits to get some coin back on it, or i could keep the car itself as a back up. It has after all performed great this past few weeks, and seems to keep plugging on with the air of an indestructable squib. 

I guess i'm quite glad at the moment that i have the ability to sit back and ponder this pleasant situation, as opposed to my usual sitting back and frantically pondering how the hell to get out of my latest car nightmare. The Merc has 3 months of tax and lots of ticket still on it. Whatever happens i can see it plodding on in the background on garage duties for the rest of the year at least!

Tommy off.