A
ahoward87
Guest
So here we go…………..
Our first go at a track toy.
My best mate (Jimbo) and I finally bit the bullet and opted for an out right track day toy and for only a couple hundred in sterling it was ours. I’m fed up with tweaking the daily ride and as everything is against us to modify our road cars nowadays i.e. the big craters in the road, the ridiculous insurance etc. etc……, enough is enough.
Both of us have previously owned a ph2 Almera Gti so we know what we have in store for us.
So here she is.... A quick trip up the A1M to Borehamwood and we picked her up on Saturday on the 'truck' after being sat in the garage for over a year.... Starter motor has had it and the battery was duff so we had to winch her on. We tried forward but had no chance so we had to back her on and even had lift the front end by hand at one point but it was on and strapped down and a big grin on my face!
When the car was home a new battery was in and a quick push down the road to bump her and she was alive! It runs an absolute dream with only 80k (genuine) on the clocks! The big grin suddenly turned into a little celebratory dance and jig!
Here are a few pics of how she stands when we got here home. As well as the gash 17's with new Falkerns on them, the car also came with all 5 original alloys with pretty much new Dunlop rubber too.
It is not cosmetically brilliant but that does not bother me one bit nor does it matter as there is only minor surface rust that needs addressing as well the bonnet chipped and front bumper has a bad scuff on it. No rot coming through the inside and none under the skirts which was a shocker!
Now the work begins.......................
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wont go to much into detail about what the plans are as it is still early days and tbh we dont know excately what we want to achieve yet so we will take it each day as it comes.
A very good friend of mine had these sitting in his garage for a whole £20 - absolute bargain!. They came out of a local valeters impreza so they are clean and in mint condition, these will do nicely until some more appropriate seats come up.
next job was to strip out any unnecessary weight (i enjoyed this part).
the sound deadening was a bloody nightmare, we tried heating it up but found it came up best when cool as it chipped away in chunks. many moons later and its mostly gone, just need to clean it up nicely and get it smooth for a lick of paint.
next problem we came across were the seats, we wanted the racing seats to be low as possible so we are looking to bolt stright through the floor. this then envolved drilling the spot welds for mounting point where the original seat runners bolted too(seen in pic above) but we got there in the end and after getting to keen and drilling one or two holes through the floor( water drainaige ;D ) we had a nice flat surface to bolt the seats in now.
the end of the weekend was closing so we took the bonnet off and started to sand it down using a corse grade of wet and dry and working our way to a smooth, fine gri. We got is smooth and ready to be vinyl wrapped (with a little help from our 2 year old supervisor)
she is coming along nicely and very happy with it so far.
Our first go at a track toy.
My best mate (Jimbo) and I finally bit the bullet and opted for an out right track day toy and for only a couple hundred in sterling it was ours. I’m fed up with tweaking the daily ride and as everything is against us to modify our road cars nowadays i.e. the big craters in the road, the ridiculous insurance etc. etc……, enough is enough.
Both of us have previously owned a ph2 Almera Gti so we know what we have in store for us.
So here she is.... A quick trip up the A1M to Borehamwood and we picked her up on Saturday on the 'truck' after being sat in the garage for over a year.... Starter motor has had it and the battery was duff so we had to winch her on. We tried forward but had no chance so we had to back her on and even had lift the front end by hand at one point but it was on and strapped down and a big grin on my face!
When the car was home a new battery was in and a quick push down the road to bump her and she was alive! It runs an absolute dream with only 80k (genuine) on the clocks! The big grin suddenly turned into a little celebratory dance and jig!
Here are a few pics of how she stands when we got here home. As well as the gash 17's with new Falkerns on them, the car also came with all 5 original alloys with pretty much new Dunlop rubber too.
It is not cosmetically brilliant but that does not bother me one bit nor does it matter as there is only minor surface rust that needs addressing as well the bonnet chipped and front bumper has a bad scuff on it. No rot coming through the inside and none under the skirts which was a shocker!
Now the work begins.......................
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wont go to much into detail about what the plans are as it is still early days and tbh we dont know excately what we want to achieve yet so we will take it each day as it comes.
A very good friend of mine had these sitting in his garage for a whole £20 - absolute bargain!. They came out of a local valeters impreza so they are clean and in mint condition, these will do nicely until some more appropriate seats come up.
next job was to strip out any unnecessary weight (i enjoyed this part).
the sound deadening was a bloody nightmare, we tried heating it up but found it came up best when cool as it chipped away in chunks. many moons later and its mostly gone, just need to clean it up nicely and get it smooth for a lick of paint.
next problem we came across were the seats, we wanted the racing seats to be low as possible so we are looking to bolt stright through the floor. this then envolved drilling the spot welds for mounting point where the original seat runners bolted too(seen in pic above) but we got there in the end and after getting to keen and drilling one or two holes through the floor( water drainaige ;D ) we had a nice flat surface to bolt the seats in now.
the end of the weekend was closing so we took the bonnet off and started to sand it down using a corse grade of wet and dry and working our way to a smooth, fine gri. We got is smooth and ready to be vinyl wrapped (with a little help from our 2 year old supervisor)
she is coming along nicely and very happy with it so far.
