Joe's track car revival

[TriggerFish]

Great write up . Did you use the separate crossovers and if so where did you position them . I still haven't got round to fitting mine and there seems to be two schools of thought on how to wire them up ( with or without crossovers ) and best placement if you do use them . Would be good to know

I did use the crossovers as it's just running off the stock head unit, until I fit some rear subs/DSP. It's easy enough to undo/remove the crossover that as all the wiring into the door would be unchanged.

I fitted the driver's one to a bracket behind the LCM (see terrible photo). The passenger's side is cable tied to a couple of brackets that hold the GM5 in place.

On the driver's side, this is looking through the slot where the cupholder goes, for reference. There is a bar behind this too, so it's secured in both vertical/horizonal planes.


On the passenger side, I don't have a photo, but the GM5 is here:

This was harder to access/get secure, but there is room, and it isn't going anywhere.

I removed the air vents and the under glovebox/under dash panels to make cable tying them easier.

 

[GavStrong]

I was thinking of the focals as I have a musway M6v3 amp/dsp from my last vehicle — lovely piece of kit as can run everything active - how do you find the focals ?

 

[TriggerFish]

Honestly, couldn't tell you. I've sat in the car to test they work (it's not on the road yet), but only driven from the stock HU.

They don't sound terrible, but struggle to shine down low with the standard head unit, and almost felt a little flat compared to the stock 6 speaker woofer/tweeter combo (from memory). I am sure it's not the speakers at fault though. I should probably hook them up to a home amplifier at some point to drive them properly to really see what they're like.

They do go nice and loud, without distortion, which the standard ones didn't do, so I suspect there's good promise there, if you've got the right source to drive them

 

[TriggerFish]

Time for a long overdue on update on this, I feel! At the end of last summer, I took the front wings off to replace one I dented, and to make sure there was no rust underneath. There were a couple of surface scabs, but nothing bad. The most odd thing is that the same weird marks _under_ the paint were present at the front of the car as under the rear wings. These aren't bad bits of rust, but are almost like it was left outside at the factory before being painted (which I'm sure it wasn't). They clearly aren't growing, but I still buzzed them back and protected the inner wings regardless.

There outer wings were rust free externally, but had a couple of small scabs forming inside, so I ground those back, and treated those too. Both inner and outer wings were treated with Bilt Hamber wax before refitting with all new clips/guides etc.

The rust scabs, and what it's like with the paint semi removed



All ground back, and painted with Hydrate 80



And then painted, and covered in wax (hence the yellow-y colour)



The outer wings I only have these after-photos off



Now this is done, I'm confident in the bodywork all being solid/protected for years to come!

 

[TriggerFish]

Once the weather this year started to warm up (I am working outside, but undercover) I wanted to finish off the mechanical side of things before getting it on the road. I'd done all of the front suspension arms/brakes/bodywork already, so now turned to tackle the rear end and the shocks/springs.

Stripping it down was quite easy - took a couple of hours to get everything off and the bushes extracted.



Everything was solid underneath - diff/subframe arms etc, but I still stripped it down and planned to paint it all myself with some 2-part epoxy paint, as tested here on the RARB. However, one of my dad's friends runs a classic car restoration place, and has offered to powder coat it for me, so I'm going to opt for that instead! I'll be getting the following done:
- front hubs/sprindles
- rear subframe
- rear trailing arms
- possibly FARB + RARB and the exhaust bracket/holder (if I can be bothered to remove/strip them)

(Here's some parts in different stages of stirp down/repaint)



This, I'll update later on, as I've got about a month's delay under they're coated.

 

[TriggerFish]

And the biiiiig body of work - the one I wish I'd not started sooooo many times - treating the chassis with the fuel tank/subframe etc removed.

It wasn't bad under there, but I suspect that it's going to be rust that kills off these cars in the future, and I wanted to nip that in the bud while it was just a case of painting, rather than fabricating.

Here is the car stripped down, and what I was left with. Ironically - the square-ish patches of rust behind the seats are where the fuel tank has anti-rub foam pads fitted!

Previous owner's crap attempt at undersealing/protecting stuff.



Fuel tank/back of rear seats



Rear-rear subframe mount



Front-rear subframe mount




Now, the nightmare of cleaning this up... I went through 4 or 5 wire wheels, and maybe 8 nylon paint flap wheels? They're really soft, don't damage the metal, but remove the paint wonderfully, leaving the wire wheel for any rust and underseal.

I think I took more paint/underseal off than I showed in the photos, but here's a taster

-

More of those weird rust bubbles, which is why I took so much back to bare metal - they were everywhere!



Then, I treated it all with Hydrate 80, before grinding _that_ back, to use a zinc-rich primer (Bilt Hamber Electrox). The hydrate 80 gets into any pitting to neutralise rust. The primer... primers/protects the metal.



And that brings us up to now, where it's had brush-on seam sealer reapplied, and then two coats of Bilt Hamber epoxy mastic. I wish the colour match was closer to OEM, but hey, at least it's protected.

Yes, my seam sealer is more messy than OEM. Yes, I will tidy up the overspray.

 

[TriggerFish]

Now, the burning question - was it worth it?

Good question. Probably not in the short term, but it was something to do, and pushed me to do new things/find some new limits/skills. I regret doing it on axle stands. I'm not old, but damn - it is a miserable work environment!

Next up is to wax the paint, before refitting the fuel tank, and then it's waiting on the powder coating.

Purchased and ready to fit:
- new front + rear shocks/springs/top mounts/hardware
- new bushes/ball joints for everything at the rear
- braided hoses
- 4x new ABS sensors
- complete gear shift bush overhaul
- diff input/output seals
- propshaft bearing + guibo
- 4x new wheel bearings
- 4x new brake backing disks
- new hand brake cables
- probably more I've forgotten!

I also did the inner sills too, as there were a couple of small scabs on those, and I wanted to check what was under the factory underseal/stone chip. Luckily, they were solid despite the lifting factory protection, but now I know/have piece of mind. Not photo'd, but these were also seam sealed/epoxied

 

[Micke]

Fabulous job on the coupe, must have taken hours to do the underside.
One step closer to getting it back on the road

 

[TriggerFish]

Thanks - it's getting there! I didn't actually track time, but I'd guess 20-40h worth of cleaning, prepping and painting.

I'm sure a professional on a lift would be faster, but you can see how the costs of a restoration add up!

 

[Vanne]

Holy hell!!! Every time is see you guys from the UK do this I shudder at the pics of the rust.. omg.. those rear shocks.. bloody hell, that subframe..

Excellent work mate, and good on ya for tackling that car. Keep it up and enjoy the ride.. subbed to see what you get up to next.