I know it has been a while but here is what has been going on.
I decided to Scrap the RWD car, i did it,i did! And i am less than impressed...I also scrapped that shell that i bought as the guy i got it from wouldnt give me the V5 etc so i was left with a dillema...What the **** do i waste my time on now?
I went and got myself yet another standard Silver Astra 3 Door except this one is MOT'D to pile all my parts onto and keep as the V6 FWD it should have been years ago but stick with me here it gets worse kind of.
I would never buy a car unseen EVER buuuuut this was only one that wasn't a fucked GSI, I didnt realise how hard it would be to find a 3 door astra these days but i clearly forgot how old they are now. I got it from a dealer in england and it has a shit ton of paperwork with it and they said it was very extremely clean, old woman had it for years,son was a mechanic bla bla bla.
I got it home and straight away set to work on it stripping it to repaint the shell and then i started to notice "things"
(This was after fitting the new arches just incase confusion arises)
This is under the airbox on the driver side
The sills didn't look bad until i removed the skirts and the inner sill ends or bits inside the arches if you like were patched with not metal but some weird material coated in underseal,infact the more underseal i took off the worse it got!
The rear damper bolt insert area wasnt even connected and fell off but thats an easy fix but surely it didnt just pass an mot in this condition! Clearly the "mechanic" son was just passing his mothers car willynilly because this was passed only a couple months previous.
Anyway i set to work taking apart the sills and weldthrough primering them up as i was doing a lap weld right across the sill as i felt more confident doing this even though i will get scolded from people here about the rights and wrongs of welding butt or lap. I actually bought a new roll of welding wire as my one ran out and it made 100% difference in the welds i love it!
Just tac tac tac and got each side done about 2 hours a side so i was happy and am much more confident about welding...i was gonna take it to a garage after i prepped it to get welded but the 2 local ones who are both 8 miles away each are not willing to weld believe it or not, so i got my Dad over to weld them and he literally butchered them and im sure he did it on purpose cos hes a nasty bastard so that's why i cleaned em up again and got new sills and did it myself and i am glad i did. I will find the pictures of his welds and show yal..Some of the bits i cleaned up that he welded blew through a few times but patience filled em up again and the passenger side he didnt do i managed to weld up no problem...oh i still have the plugwelds on the bottom to do and that inner bracing to the outer sill but thats for another day as time is a struggle weatherwise but its been getting better
I repainted all the wheels,i couldnt get the dents out the lips and they are alluminium so i will live with the dents until i can afford refurb,i did take most of the kerbs out with a file before painting
I Cleaned up all the hub carriers and callipers and painted them,got new suspension, balljoints, ARB arms, etc etc literally evrything is new including coilovers.
Wheels are now even wider as got 50mm spacers ontop off the huge offset i had before so got wider bolt on arches for ease but unsure of the look and still trying to figure out how to make the front bumper meet (maybe a splitter that comes up at the sides kinda thing?)
I don't like how the arches curve in towards the wheels at the bottom so i wanna pull em out like the last two images, more bodywork but i have plenty to do anyway,
I have welded plates behind these weird shape trim holes on the doors and i will fill em when im doing the rest of the fiberglass/filler work but just look how faded those doors were (I used most of the parts from the original car and the smooth boot from the shell i bought and yes this all confuses me too)
Last thing is can someone tell me what this box is? looks like a fuel or air line,cant see where it goes on the 1.8 engine thats currently in it waiting to be removed soon i hope...now that i have spaced the wheels even further,they have started to rub this on full lock and also the pinch weld so i have had to cut them back loads and refab a piece of the inner arch which i have started since this pic,will show later though
I hope all makes sense and yes it will be V6 FWD again and rust free and driven harder.
Still gutted about the RWD but time,money and lack of welder experience or welders fucked that right up as im sure you have read by now
I'm sure that's about everything for now and i am gonna try and be more active here again also
fizz