Briefly, I have owned my Clubman Estate for 13 years. I bought it for £100 in 1996 in need of a couple of patches and a new brake master cylinder, but started its first rebuild. The bodywork and paint were completed about a year after I bought it but I didn't get it finished until about 5 1/2 years ago. It has been in daily use since then as my only car, so it's in need of some TLC now - 5 winters worth of salt and about 56,000 miles have taken their toll!
In all honesty it's not that bad - there are quite a few scabs around the body, particularly at the front and I know it needs a pair of sills and some repairs to the driver's floor pan, so when the MoT ran out in August, I took it off the road. Today I have started the strip-down.
This pic is about 18 months or so ago, I think:
Started today looking like this:
And ended up looking like this:
Sorry about the rubbish photo - my phone does a reasonable job when there's plenty of light but when it's dark the flash isn't up to much!
Tomorrow I'm going to be packing up all the bit's I've removed today and labelling everything - I didn't do that last time and it was a pain in the rear trying to find all the little bits (and it cost an arm and a leg for the missing bits too!).
Luckily all 24 trim panels came out OK, although the dash liners will need sorting out (new backing). The carpets are also in good shape and will be fine with a good brush and vacuum. I'll need to replace some of the sound-deadening felt as some of the glue I used was a bit too good!
I also took a video of it starting for the first time since August (fired up first time after a little charge of the battery!) as the 1380 A-series has to go to fund buying the panels and getting them welded on. I'm keeping it in a running state for a little longer too so any potential purchaser can hear it running, although I want it back to a bare shell by Christmas so I can have a look at getting the Allspeed subframe fitted up while I'm off over the Christmas/New Year break.
I'm going to be keeping a fixed steel front end on it with as little of the inner wings removed as possible - probably not the easiest way to go, but I'm not a fan of GRP or removable fronts on road cars. I'm also going to be putting the bulkhead back to standard as it currently has a turbo box in there - when I first started the first rebuild I had planned to go turbo but ended up using the N/A 1380 instead.
The plan is to use an X18XE1 engine from a Vectra or Astra (will buy a whole car and strip - that way I know I'll have all the bits I need!) in the Allspeed subframe. I want to try using the lower manifold from an X16XE Corsa which I've already got with a fabricated plenum chamber and single throttle body. Hopefully this will mean I can use a standard dual circuit brake master cylinder (no servo).
I'm going to be keeping 10" wheels so will either use a Corsa 1.5TD wide ratio gearbox or may look at making a hybrid CR box with the 3.55FD from the Corsa 'box if possible. I'm also going to have a go at converting the 'box to cable change to avoid having to modify the lower bulkhead and so I don't have the pig ugly plastic gearchange and rod going right through where my CD player currently lives. I have seen a couple of Vectra C F17 boxes on eBay which look like they are cable change, so this should be possible - need to get hold of a Vauxhall EPC to check parts diagrams!
I'll add updates as and when I get more done on the car,
JR
