Andys '03 Europa Coupe Turbo Project.....

[andy318is]

Some of you might have seen my introduction thread (others may not) a few weeks ago I bought Spainishfly's old Coupe Turbo. Now I've shot of my old daily I can crack on with the coupe

I gave the old girl a wash on Saturday morning and decided to go and get a few snaps to have a record of 'how it stood' before I started to tinker with it















Even while the car was being stored at my mates I had started stock piling a few bits a pieces for it. The wing mirrors were pretty badly stone chipped so I was going to respray those but it worked out cheaper to but a new secondhand pair, the dented bootlid again, cheaper to buy a straight secondhand one and an unscratched bumper were all sourced and I drove up to Nemesis place to pick everything up

After the Saturday afternoon inbetween rain showers I started fitting all the parts...

Mirrors.....





Rear Bumper



Now this was a unexpected suprise ......(new bumper on the bottom)



Alittle work later....



Fitting...



And the bootlid...



I've no 'during' pictures because it was looking like it was going to piss down so I had to get in done super quick!!

Afters.... looking much better and new numberplates.... sorry shonkeyopals... LOL

[dewismotorsport]

All the cool kids have Europa blue coupes

I want your centre console, is it in alcantara or is it just painted can't tell as I'm on my phone?

[andy318is]

Damn right they do! LOL

Its flocked dude, tbh it'll be for sale soon as I've got other plans for the centre console :-D

[Kev_G]

glad its gone to a good home

[dewismotorsport]

Damn right they do! LOL

Its flocked dude, tbh it'll be for sale soon as I've got other plans for the centre console :-D

I want first dibs on it then please

[spanishfly]

Glad you got the bits sorted I told you spending money on it will get addictive lol.

Glad to see it being looked after well

[andy318is]

glad its gone to a good home

Only time well tell!! lmao

I want first dibs on it then please

No worries dude, I'll let you know when its out the car

Glad you got the bits sorted I told you spending money on it will get addictive lol.

Glad to see it being looked after well

Its getting there mate, still plenty on the 'to do' list

[andy318is]

Right time for abit of an update

Since owning the car theres always been a horrible spring binding noise coming from the frontend of the car, I've had 'overs on pretty much all my cars and knew something was up so I got the old girl up in the air to have a butchers. Guessing the suspension has been on the car for a while because the alloy cups and adjusters were looking pretty corroded, I thought the adjusters were so corroded it wasn't allowing the helper springs to move and that was coursing the noise, so I dropped both legs off and gave them a really good clean and greased everything up and got everything moving as it should :-D

Wrestling trying to get the springs out of the adjusters LOL



Copper greasing everything up



Gave the arches a quick clean, will do for over the winter...



I didn't take any after pictures because I wanted to get them back on to see if that'd solved the problem :-D

Chuffed to say it did! :-D Again since having the car, the tracking / camber & toe out was alittle all over the shop so I then went to my local place to get everything dialled in :-D

Its now running 2.5 degress of neg on the front with a standard 1.5 on the back, zero toe in/out Gotta say it now drives pin straight and the turn in is SAVAGE!! LMAO Passengers hate roundabouts and twistes! LOL



Thats all for the minute......

[spanishfly]

Good work dude

[GaryVaux]

Great car, and looks like its gone to a good home! Nice work so far

[andy318is]

Time for an update, finally managed to get a day to work on the car and tackle a couple more little jobs

Since I bought the car the headlights had been looking pretty tired, scratched pitted so before jumping the gun and buying another set I thought I'd have a good at wet sanding and polishing them

So heres what they looked like.....





During wet sanding...



And after cutting compound on my rotary polisher...



And a few afters of both sides







Next was with the inter cooler fouling the bonnet and not allowing the bonnet & wing shut lines to meet properly. So.....

Before





After.... angle grinder FTW!



Gave it a shot of primer and refitted the grille

After... not perfect but its not hitting anywhere so might give the bonnet abit of a 'tweak' lmao



Then gave the old girl a wash and snapped a couple quick pics

[spanishfly]

Looking good mate! I got the lights back like that, but they went funny again over the hot weather period (also had HIDs) hopefully they'll stay like that! Still looking nice and shiny too

[andy318is]

I've been looking out and most mk4 astras I see have misting / hazing on the headlights, bloody things! LOL

[spanishfly]

I've been looking out and most mk4 astras I see have misting / hazing on the headlights, bloody things! LOL

My dads and missis' one have

[andy318is]

Time for an update!

Firstly if you've seen the thread in the other section of the forum you'll have seen I've made myself a carbon fibre console to replace the blue flocked one that came with the car I do alot of carbon fibre work (overlay work) so I thought it'd be rude not to make this for the coupe the full thread is here: My Astra Coupe Carbon Fibre Centre Console...

also......

I've had an aftermarket steering wheel sitting in the spare room since I got rid of my last daily I don't like the bus like standard coupe steering wheel so I decided to swap out that for the smaller aftermarket one, I picked up an airbag steering wheel boss off ebay for a bargin and also had the Snap-off steering wheel boss kicking about so I've used that as well to bring the wheel abit closer to me to get the driving position bang on for me.





Chav-tastic ebay special! LOL


and after some carbon & satin black......





and fitted pictures of the console.... with my Apine headunit fitted

[Kev_G]

awesome work. Btw - break light check

[andy318is]

Btw - break light check

LOL as its been telling me since I bought the car! LMAO

[thedjse]

Very smart Astra matey any other plans??

Good work on the lights btw

[spanishfly]

they always check brake lights when you switch them on...
Looking good, the original steering wheel should go for decent ebay money

[andy318is]

Very smart Astra matey any other plans??

Good work on the lights btw

I've bought a set of nice 6.5" components and want to put together a simple 12" sub & amp install in the boot. I wasnt to refurb the wheels and also swap out the front bumpers as its seen better days the lists endless really but I've a more serious BMW project car I need to get back on to

they always check brake lights when you switch them on...
Looking good, the original steering wheel should go for decent ebay money

Thats what I thought about the light check dude

Ahh will be keeping the steering wheel & blue consoles for when / if I sell it in the future

[andy318is]

The old girl has started using some oil (not burning any though!) as the car needed some working doing to the frontend in terms of securing everything a little better than it was (I'm not a fan of zip ties to hold radiators and intercoolers in place LOL) I stripped everything down to take a look at the situation.

Taking off the lower intercooler hose it leaked out a fair old bit of oil :-(.... ****ery, I'm thinking oil seals are shot!! You can see the patch of oil in the picture below

Before:








I've no 'afters' just yet as this will take me abit of time to put right but saturday I managed to:

- Mount the rad higher on some brackets so it no longer sits on the sub-frame - Relocated the heater resitor as it was zip tied to the bottom of the rad
- Retapped the bottom mounting hole on the intercooler as it was threaded and got that mounted properly
- Rewrapped a load of exposed wiring
- Tidied up the metal bumper frame around the intercooler.

I've still got to sort mounting the AC rad properly, address the turbo issue :-( and finally get a new(er) front bumper because this ones knackered, the side mounting tabs are shot and currently held together with zip ties LOL

[andy318is]

Got Saturday working on the car after suspecting shot oil seals in the turbo I took the decision to whip it off and rebuild the turbo, stripping the rads out to get better access to the manifold bolts it uncovered a very sad and beaten up radiator :-(

So after a couple hours we ended up here.....



During the week I'd bought a rebuild kit from ebay, so armed with a 'how to' I'd found online I got busy...



Rebuilding it (touch wood) seemed to go ok. I got that finished up and have posted it off to Turbo Technics to get it balanced :-D

In the mean time I've got new mani studs (I noticed was a sheered in the block before I started work! :-() and nuts on order, new radiator, coolant, oil and filter ready to go in when I hopefully get the turbo back late this week!!