1978 Kadett C 2l 8v Turbo Adventures...

[Steve!]

crazy dave

[djivesp]

Lots of progress yesterday!

Stayed up working outside till 1am the night before last, I really wanted to have the mould hardening over the night because it was nice and warm. So left it like this:


It's beardy the kadett lols


and in the morning, many hours and cuts and bruises and blood and swearing later:
..

I had everything set, the resin was going off - ready to roll, and realised I totally forgot to make the front panel to wing flanges, but it was too late so I had to do it all in one (minus the bonnet).

But anyway, even after waxing it and after PVA release agent it still melted the paint, stuck to the filler and totally ruined my plug - all these days of hard work :'( :-X.
But it's all in the mould now so hopefully it will look awesome

What was left of the front after having to forcefully remove the mould:


I destroyed it!!!
;D
...
then played about with the rear axle for a bit.

the spring seat nipples moved 2cm back and inwards:

the shaft is now very close to the spring, but doesn't catch.

I modified the tigra's springs to sit over the top rubber and gave it a trial fit. I suspected it'll bottom out since they are a lot softer than the sierra springs that I took off with the manta axle.
After measuring them they came to about 150lb's, and the sierra ones 200lb's approx.

Anyway, trial fitted the arms and lowered it onto it's wheels.

And it bottomed out :'(
but it looked awesome 8-)



check out the mad camber ;D




then got underneath to check things out:



the shaft angles are bad at this height, obviously the camber, and the exhaust - that's another problem.

but when I jecked it to the approximate ride height the camber seemed about normal, and the shafts were almost straight.

So now need to find springs. I'm thinking e30 - since I need pigtailed coils. I seem to remember picking some up with the axle but cant find them now :-/..

Also played about with one of my mirror mouldings - it actually weighs nothing, and i stood on it and it didn't break!!

[Melv]

Also played about with one of my mirror mouldings - it actually weighs nothing, and i stood on it and it didn't break!!

Non destructive testing at it's best lmao

[djivesp]

too right lmao it didnt break so therefore its non destructive lmao

Did some more on the rear end again today.

Thought i'll just go with the cossie springs on the back as i had them, and they were the sort of poundage that i wanted because imo they were ideal.

so without further mincing - chopped the seats out of the manta axle:

they were a little crusty at places but soon were welded up good

then welded them onto the bm spring seats - this sort of thing:


then welded in a support plate for the part where the manta seat overlaps the bm seat:


tight but about 10mm of clearance either side:


then shortened the cossie springs by 3/4 of a coil, loosely attached the arms and wheels on and lowered the jack:

hmmm a bit high..


shaft angles at this height:


so needs another 1/4 of a coil taken out, but the problem is that the spring will now be too short to sit in the seats when the car is raised, so i'll fab some 'mounts' to hold the spring for mot time.
the diff end of the beam needs raising 10mm or so too to reduce the camber a little too, then were almost there

[bigblueclio]

looking great keep up the work, as a matter of interest what you doing with the old axle? would be interested in the torque tube and mount if your selling

pm me

cheers

[Jack]

Pump your tyres up, you pikey. lmao

[Steve!]

awesomeness again

[mister x]

@Hi all,this is the new release code for MS1-2 extra (megatune,tunerstudio and more...) http://www.diyautotune.com/softwarelinks.htm .Enjoy yourselves and good luck.

[djivesp]

awwrite all!

Cheers jack for popping over, was good to have a chinwag! So easy to get carried away planning future engines isn't it lol!

thanks mister X - thats good info - it took me ages to find the firmware when i was updating it!
Just for anyone out there reading this with ms2-extra - 2.0.1 is WELL worth going for, has loads of extra shizzle over 1.xxxxx watever. Mappable boost control, water injection, launch control, loads of other funky stuff i've not yet played with.

Anyways, with good progress and to aid motivation, i booked an MOT yesterday for it tomorrow morning:

And now I fail.

I'm so totally beat I had to throw in the towel!. I think the last few days have totally ground me down, I think more than 12 hours a day working in my conditions lol, gets to you!!
I was grinding a bolt down when the angle grinder sliped and the blade sliced a nice neat chunk out of my knuckle, that was what made me give up lol..
It's the 2nd one now, did one in the same place yesterday, ouch :-X

So mot's cancelled and i'm going on holiday, sod it for a week.

Todays proceedings however :

(i havent actually got many pics i've been working so hard!)

pic of my spring retainer jobbies:


works a treat, the whole arm, brakes, wheel and everything hangs off the spring and there isn't any movement (that I can see lol) so should be ok for mot.

I was going to make a couple of removable 'straps', I drilled and tapped the chassis legs to take them, and as I was drilling one, the drill bit caught and the thing went flying! Couldn't find it in the end, so decided to weld them on.

I was going to weld them in so I could twist the spring out of the retainer tabs when I have to remove it, but I ended up spending about 1 hr trying to install the spring, so just sliced the tab open in the end, stuck the spring in, hammered it shut and welded it up again!
Glad I did now!

Then the prop. Borrowed adaptorman's (on retro-rides) technique with angle iron (as the 2 props had the same outer diameter - a bit lucky lol!), then welded them together. I cut the edges in a V shape so plenty of weld penetration, I checked the inside and the weld went right through.
Great!



Then ran some additional beads side by side then filled it in the middle, then ground everything down, though left a 'hump' as this looks like it will add strength.

For a bit of mincing:

Prop Vader:



"use the force ives, use the force to press the accelerator and break the prop" KSHHHHHH..

It will fail, it's just a matter of time :.. A few hard launches will soon tell all.

It's not dead straight either. Which sucks. But its quite long - so that's my excuse - I did everything I could officer, honest! There's a small deflection when it's rotated in neutral. Looks about 1mm, maybe more, found it hard to measure lol!

When i'm back off holidays, we'll get both the back wheels up and run it in 5th, weld tabs if necessary, and balance it this way. Eventually it will balance out.
Still thinking of some sort of way to measure the imbalance and monitor the progress with hard data. Maybe a water container on the diff with lines where the water ripples ride up the wall of the container and how far?!
..

Then replaced the leaky rear gearbox seal:
This is the old one, needed a bit of persuasion till it came out!



here's a crap pic of everything in place (you can see the spring holders):


and ride height - shafts are dead straight, winnar!


and a ride height pic - still a bit lofty, but it's what it's going to be unless I start preferring coolness over going fast, maybe..
Visually, camber seems spot on. Inner tyre wear will tell lol.


managed all of today without any NOS, thinking of mounting this can on my dash where the fire extinguisher is just for giggles, then pour it over the fire if I get one :..

..

I don't like kick anymore, it gives me headaches :-X :'(

[MattJ]

dude drink relentless. the nectar of kings

[tinxy]

i think we should get a donations pot to buy this man a mig welder altho your arc is getting better mate



fair play beemer rear end looks ace and the driveshafts dead level big time bonus this is proper modifying not just a sh!t load of cash being chucked on a car top job fella

[djivesp]

dude drink relentless. the nectar of kings

lol - it's the drink of kings, but kings can afford them lmao normal people buy relentless, i buy thin cut discs lmao

i think we should get a donations pot to buy this man a mig welder altho your arc is getting better mate

fair play beemer rear end looks ace and the driveshafts dead level big time bonus this is proper modifying not just a sh!t load of cash being chucked on a car top job fella

hahaha the amount of times i've said 'right, thats it ive had enough' and started looking at mig welders lmao But i'm going to stick with it for as long as i can, i've learnt huge amounts whilst using the ****ty welder.
I did some pretty impressive ones on the prop, but my iBrick doesn't do macro well so couldn't take any decent pics ..
Bring on thin body panels
thanks though bud, i'm all about learning and think this is the best way to do it. + it's my car not the blokes at the garage

[Jack]

Where are you going on holiday? More to the point, how are you getting there? Leave your tools out, I'll have it finished by the time you get back! lmao

In all seriousness, it's looking really good, you should be proud.

[The Simps]

Great work bud as always!

[Steve!]

Damn that prop looks bad...

Yet, there is a prop place near Stafford.... that does shorten + balance for the grand sum of like £65

[djivesp]

copy&paste from retrorides thread, all the little updates into one big one.

Howdy all readers!
Back off holiday and seriously demotivated, but cracking on nonetheless as my uni house rent is up in a week, so this time it really has to be finished lol!

Finally got this out of the mould:


I have cuts everywhere, i'm itching like dash and I had to pretty much destroy the mould to get it out .. Which sucks since it has cost me a lot to make, but it looks to be worth it - the part came out really well. I used woven fabric for the outside, which is amazing - it's still in shape and in one piece after I used lots and lots of force, hammer&shisel etc to get it out! (or rather - peel the mould off the part by means of braking bits off lol).

It still needs reinforcement specially around the lip and edges of the arches as they're thin, but its solid where it has to be (due to the bracing) ;D

The bracing is just tubes of paper rolled up and sandwiched between layers of fibreglass. They're light, easy to work with and soak up the resin nicely . (just hope my engine won't get too hot :-/)..

Exactly 10kg's at the mo - after more reinforcements it should be about 12

Also, these brakes are now on:


but i'm having troubles with the brake hoses at the mo - so welding some new brackets from the tigra which will sit lower in the arch, and won't pull too much when going lock to lock.

More pics soon
___________________________________


Right, since the last update i've been battling with getting the arches, front panel and bonnet off, and being saddened by newly found bits of crusty rust behind the front panel :-[.
So going to hit that tomorrow with some reinforcement, should be all good and solid.
The triangle bits had thinned so much, I had to hack them off!.

Anyway - weight results:

Bonnet - 15kg's
Wings - 5kg's each
front panel - 3kg's
total:
28 kg's.

new front end - 12 kilos:
so a 16 kg weight saving, and a splitter. Not amazing, but not bad either . No more rust either thanks dash for that lol!

Pre - trim:


Everything lines up, a few dry spots here and there but all good in the hood

______________________________________________________

A small update from yesterday - been uncovering bodged previous repairs on the front, and more rust >.

Time's running out now, so cut off all the scabby bits, and remains of the triangle parts joining the bottom of the headlight panel to the chassis rails.
like so:


and going to weld a bit of box section to the bottom of the headlight panel and the chassis rail metal like so:


(dont know why the box looks bent, its totally straight in reality.)

and another 2 pieces like so (photoshop mockup):

this box section will also support the cossie fmic (which was hanging off the front panel before).
the triangulation should stiffen it. Though it was properly stiff before, I cant believe I didn't notice any slop ???

So to keep with the theme of "whatever comes off, has to go back on better in some way", the front will be stronger than it was originally, i'll get a chance to rust-proof everything, and there will be more metal to crumple in a crash. (well, same I guess since I no longer have metal panels lol)..

____________________________________________________________________


Finished the welding (well, most of it), and it's solid once again ;D. More solid than it was when new I swear!



Still have to join the inner wing skin to the front panel bar, and somehow join the front panel remains to it lol, it's going to be interesting joining all the skinny bits of metal :-X

________________________________________________________________________

and the last few pics

new brake pipe brackets (to hold the cav/astra flexis further towards the caliper, so the pipe isn't stretched when at full lock. Could have used longer pipes but wanted easily obtainable and cheap flexis for future maintenance) :






more strenghtening welds:




and FMIC brackets made up. Had to move the fmic and rad 2" towards the engine as the BOV takeoff won't clear my new cross member, but thankfully there was enough space . Brackets for rad in the making too ..

[The Simps]

You've been busy! Good work!

Whats the crack with the ecu and parts at the mo bud? Appreciate you've been busy.

[djivesp]

****, dude i totally forgot i had it, must have had it for ages now I'm proper sorry lol, ill get on it tonight! Got the little regulators through a while ago so that should be all that it needs .

[The Simps]

lmao no worries, appreciate you doing it

[Steve!]

awesome

[Gaz86]

Christ!!

[rc]

fantastic work mate, the next mod is going to be fitting an anchor, or the car will be blowing away lmao

[Jack]

I say, young man! This is looking very very smart! Nice pads and hoses!

[Gaz86]

P.S. did you use any gelcoat? its so much easier to remove gelcoated items froma waxed mould than just the resin itslef

[turbo gav]

Sweet