My GTE 16V Restoration Thread.

[Dave Dempsey]

Looking very nice there mate, loving the retro-ness of the radio etc. superb, nice to see one being preserved.

[Astra Dan]

Thanks

[Benn]

have been in the car with it all inthere...
its very cool,proper old skool.

[duff]

with that phone why didnt you just fit a bluetooth kit and hide the button


as far as i know you can buy the nokia lead to convert pop port to jack plug anyway


now if you could find a way to utilise car speakers with the phone kit you could use phone kit to pump mp3's through radio, eliminating the tape deck

[Benn]

dan has changed it all now....

[CortraGTE]

Looking very good mate!

[Astra Dan]

with that phone why didnt you just fit a bluetooth kit and hide the button


as far as i know you can buy the nokia lead to convert pop port to jack plug anyway


now if you could find a way to utilise car speakers with the phone kit you could use phone kit to pump mp3's through radio, eliminating the tape deck

Your are correct, but Bluetooth kits are upwards of £50 and don't charge the phone.

You probably can get adaptors, making my own cost me nothing.

I think Tom said the car kit only controls the front speakers, it cuts into them with a relay box, so it's not amplified at all.

[Astra Dan]

Little update. I've cut and soldered Vauxhall style connectors to the phone loom, so a bluetooth kit can now be fitted invisibly to the car.

Also bought some new, plain number plates and a little treat for the shows:



Back plate has been stuck on and threatens to wreck the vinyl, so will try to remove that some time.

[Benn]

very nice.

[Astra Dan]

Bit more mincing on the beast:

Fuel pump mounts weren't in terrible nick, only one was broken and reinforced with a cable tie. But browsing on eBay found me a set of 3 new ones for £6 delivered. So I snapped them up. Of course, dismantling it all was a nightmare, none of them unscrewed easily. Thank god for the bench vice.





The funny twist lock things into the chassis rail were nearly seized and ripped their little spring clips to bits, but I found I could insert them into the keyed holes, turn 90 degrees then pull down on the pump assembly then tighten them up. With stainless bolts where I could, naturally.



Also fitted 'equal length' shaft froma Calibra:



And Tom fitted a nice discreet Bluetooth phone kit:

[Benn]

get it back on the road...

[Brett]

those fuel pump mounts are pure evil. Horrible job.

[MSG]

Nice work there Dan on the restoration of the arches, those fuel mounts break when undoing rusty nuts, same happened on my Manta and I just discarded them altogether and used thick nylon ties to hold the fuel pump in position, MOT man passed it. I have actually driven one of these Astras back in 1990 or 91 and it was only a 1.6 and it flew! one of the first Astras from Vauxhall I think.

[SammyP]

Lovely Astra GTE

[SammyP]

Any updated recent pics of this?

[Benn]

theres a few bits comming.....

[Tom Williams]

be a bit rude to spoil dans hard work before billing

[Benn]

1, What hard work?
2, Who has?

[Tom Williams]

for dan to post updates this close to billing

[Benn]

If you say so...

[SammyP]

I'll wait until Billing then I guess lol

[Astra Dan]

Yep, a few pre-Billing resto pics coming up!

[Astra Dan]

Right. With Billing fast approaching, I decided the GTE needed to look damn fine. It didn't make last year due to the body shop's rammed time table.
So the main area letting it down is the bonnet. It's got a nice hole, probably from an untreated stone chip, and a big old dent. One of the vents, although clearly fitted from the factory, has faded.









The bonnet is clearly the original, and fits perfectly, so I was not willing to disturb it to replace it with another. So Benn and I had a go to see what we could achieve with good old elbow grease and Halfords rattle cans.

So I first ground out as much of the rust and crap I could without losing the edge:



Then sealed it with some primer:



Whilst that was drying, I got on with cleaning the rocker cover up. It had the factory finish under a few layers of Star Silver, and I didn't have any paint stripper handy, so out came the drill/ wire wheel combo. About 2 hours later I had this:





Back to the bonnet, I sqidged some fibregalss in the hole:



Left it like that for a few days. Then it was sanded down and filled with normal filler and then finally painted and flattened and polished to match the rest of the bonnet. I'm pretty pleased with the finish, the shine is superb, and the colour match is great.





Big thanks to Benn.
Rocker cover and vent are drying, pics comng up.

[Benn]

god i'm good...lol

[CraigGreen]

Looks good so far.

Its more the technique & skill with Rattle cans tbh. Cue the onslaught of bonnet scrutineers at billing next week.