375 replies to this topic

[mike.]

I bought them for £300 from somebody on the forum who bought them for his hillclimb racer but then found the regulations only allowed steel doors.

To buy new from minidoorcompany they're £400!

Yeah my dad would have prefered to get some late doors with the side impact bars but its just finding some rust free ones.

[mike.]

Just a little update on how the car is at the moment:



Pretty much stripped down ready for work. Going to be having the inner/outer drivers sill and passenger outer sill done, rear valance, battery box replaced and having a load of other little bits of welding done. Bit of patching here and there on any dodgy bits i find.

Then the shells going to be stripped to bare metal all over and primed and painted from scratch. Just going to be gloss black again but this time its going to be done right. Then its going to be wet sanded and lacquered, so the finish will be like glass!

So thats all good. Minisport still have my engine, i rang them last week and they said they've got no flywheel ring gears in and haven't had for ages now and don't know when they'll be getting some in. So i just got all my clutch bits and a ring gear from minispares and took it to them on thursday. So hopefully they'll get on with that now and it should be ready early next week. Also ordered my cam kit from morspeed, so that should be coming next week too. So then i can crack on with the rebuild.

I found some vibe 345 watt vibe kevlar components for £17 from work, brand new! So pretty chuffed with that, so they'll go in on a new parcel shelf build. I'm also looking at installing a 12" sub in the boot, so that'll be nice.

I've also decided on some other interior changes. I'm going for a cream headlining and possibly some new doorcards encorperating cream somewhere. So hopefully will look pretty classy after that

Will have another update next week when my engines ready!

[miniallsort]

wow looking great mate

[Saxo-Fiesta-Mini]

great work your project shows a real eye for attention lol

i wish i wasnt going into uni to be skint for 4 years but at least ur cars looking up

Edited by Saxo-Fiesta-Mini, 16 May 2009 - 07:53 PM.

[mike.]

haha I've not had the money to do all this till i got my student loan

I've got more money than ever!

I do work weekends though so do have some income and i've got money saved to pay for alot of it.

[carboy001]

Looking good Mike.

Engine sounds like good progress, what are you expecting from it? or will a rolling road determine that?

The doors look tasty and the weight loss is quite outstanding really, good buy!

Would be good to see your build sometime as your in Manchester as well, need any help, give me a shout.

[mike.]

Thanks

I'm hoping for about 90bhp from the engine. It should be really smooth and responcive with the ultralight flywheel and balancing work too!

I'm thinking i might get glass cut for the new doors, rather than get perspex that can get damaged easily. Not sure yet though...

[daveeeeee]

Hi Mike,
Isn't Lexan the weapon of choice? (polycarbonate)
There's lots of mixed opinions on windows!

[mike.]

Yeah i think its lexan that they use. He said unless its scratch proof lexan it'll get scratched really easily. The scratch proof stuff is about three times the price though.

[daveeeeee]

Ah pants, best to go for glass then I guess, I hear perspex can do some real damage when smashed.

[mike.]

Well another bit of an update. Been working on the car abit tonight.

The old door hinge nuts were rounded off and rusted solid, so the mini air grinder had to come out for those! Sounds like a dentist drill and they came off easy enough. So i mocked up one of my new doors:



Also found some more evidence of the extremly poor prep work done for the last respray. I got a stanley knife blade and simply stripped half the topcoat from the roof in a few minutes. The paint peeled off in foot long ribbons, leaving just primer underneath! So if i had of got a chip or scratch in that topcoat, i dred to think what the car would look like after time! Here you can see half the roof stripped of its topcoat with just a stanley blade! This shouldn't be possible:



Sooo annoying when the finish itself is pretty good!

Anyway, i whipped the caliper off so i could sling a spare 10 inch wheel on there for now. Meaning i can take an alloy home to start polsihing it, whilst still leaving the car mobile around the workshop:



Also hunted down a dodgy past bodge. This area looked weired to say the least, so sanded and poked about abit to find this hole, full of some sort of rubbery filler:



Also, i had to take this pic of the workshop. The place the cars in specilises in lorrys and things. Dwarfs my mates mini and mine in the background! Poor quality pic:




So apart from that. Latest news is:

My engines ready at minisport, so i'm off to pick that up tommorow
My cam kit came from morspeed
I got an alpine mono amp from work for £12, which i tested and it works
I'll be purchasing a full megajolt ignition setup, so i can bin the distributor


So all going pretty well so far. Will update again after i've picked the block up tommorow....

[mike.]

Well went and got my engine from minisport. Really happy with it all, they've cleaned everything up for me and just generally looks really good.

So i ordered all my bearings and things today, all the last bits i need really. Only thing i cant get hold of is a centre main strap! Minisport or minispares don't have them in! So that'll hold me back if i can't get one soon.

The other intresting thing that turned up today is this:





Dads new car

Really pleased with it, loads of gadgets and stuff, in car adjustments to the brakes, suspension and steering etc All sorts. Stunning car to look at too IMO!

Hopefully tommorow i'll get on with getting the engine/garage ready for rebuilding and get some pics up.

Edited by minimadmike, 29 May 2009 - 09:39 AM.

[LankyJames]

Best looking vw you can buy, that thing is gorgeous!

Keep up the work mate! my engines almost complete

[mike.]

Cheers!

So your rebuild went ok then?


Got some pictures of my engine atm:

Machined centre main strap and new cam bearings:



Pistons on balanced rods:



Balanced up crank:



Ultralight flywheel, lightened backplate, orange diaphragm and AP bonded rally clutch plate:



Really happy with how it all came out and chuffed how well the pistons came out after they cleaned them.

Might start trying to polish the wheels up tonight....

[carboy001]

Yep definetely the best VW going at the moment, would love one, VW's drive so well.

The lorry place your having your spray done, is it in Trafford Park?