I didn't get any photo's of the engine removal - suffice to say it was pretty straightforward and I'll get some pics of the gearbox teardown

Photo of the inside of the car with all the bitumen removed (I've not had chance to go over it with some petrol to get rid of the residue yet)

There's also a small panel under the windscreen, on either side of the car at the front (behind the B pillar) and the rear (in front of the C pillar, behind the rear seatbelt anchoring point!!) as well as two panels in the bootlid. All gone - came to 5.1Kg's removed when I weighed it

Well, after consulting with the organisers of the stock hatch series (and going through the technical regs for both the Stock hatch series and rallying) I've decided the car will only be used for Rallying and maybe the occasional track day. The reinforcements that are pretty much necessary for rallying would result in the car being disqualified from stock hatch racing. It's also a hassle having to have two sets of spares, so I'm going to concentrate on the rallying aspect for the moment, I may go down the 16V route again for circuit racing, but I'll do it differently to how this car is going to be done

Car was moved over to the workshop at the weekend, and all the windows masked off (we don't want bits of grinder debris embedding itself in the windscreen, and we're hoping this will be enough to stop it)

Seam welding and basic shell prep are first on the menu, and now that the easy crap has been removed, the laborious task of removing all the seam sealing glue has begun.

Made a start on the front half of the car, the join at the top of the bulkhead and just in front of the windscreen has also been de-gunged, so from the bulkhead and forwards is all ready to be welded up. We're going as far as the front of the turrets so we retain the crash protection (crush zone) to take some of the energy out of an impact (just in case - it's a rally car and it's likely to happen) but still get the strength increase.

Next I'm going to start on the inside of the car, hoping that should be a bit easier as it's a lot less fiddly (getting some of the stuff around the leg joins to the bulkhead is a nightmare, as is the stuff all around the turrets in general!) then the underside of the car

very cool project! would love to do something like this, is there anywhere i could find some info? btw what you doing about brakes?

Stock brakes - the 16v has the largest brake discs on the range anyway, rear can stay drums (most of the braking force is on the front anyway) and I'm hoping that the weight isn't going to change significantly after all the work

As for info, you have to read the technical regulations for the series your going into, then ensure that everything you do is allowed by the regs. It's all in the MSA blue book (you'll have to go to www.msauk.org to order it). For road rallying, you need to keep it road legal, for the other series, there's other more to it (I'm going into the endurance series where max 1400cc, stock engine, rally preps to the shell is the order of business)

So, we started seam welding in the engine bay, already it seems a lot more solid!

Terrible lighting, so excuse the photo's quality. You should be able to compare to the previous photo and see some of the burn marks

Had a bit of a fire - Dave (the welder) said I had a fire inside the car, I opened the door and there was nothing, it was actually the plastic fuel lines in the chassis leg on fire!! Glad I ripped the fuel tank out now, minor fires are pretty common, and a dose of water down the leg was enough to extinguish it.

good work nice to see another rally car on here. keep up the good work

good work nice to see another rally car on here. keep up the good work

Cheers m'dears, I had a read of your thread earlier, looks like an interesting car

Today I finished cleaning the crud off the outside of the gearbox and I was ready to begin stripping it. After a brief stop for dinner, the disassembly began....

First out: flanges come off the diff - both taper rings were broken

Undo all the bolts and a few light taps with a mallet

Uh oh - that doesn't look good!

Yep, that bearing is shagged

Lots of swarf collected by the swarf collector. More than it can handle in fact, I did wonder why the oil was very metallic when I drained it!!

Final drive teeth look a little chipped (not enough for me to condemn the box) and the rest look slightly worn on the edges, but I think within tolerance . The car has driven on the 'box and it didn't seem to have any backlash or much noise (it whined once and looks like the selector forks have meshed with 4th gear!)

Last pic - looks like it is indeed an 084 'box with a 5th gear tacked on the end of it

Decided to replace the collapsed bearing and run it until it fails again, in the meantime I'll get another 'box and rebuild it to spec so I can just replace the 'box if/when it fails

Todays work was mainly cleaning up and prepping behind the bulkhead for seam welding

We were almost ready to start, but significant others got in the way!! I've got a bit of cleaning up to do in the engine bay, so the plan is to finish that load of welding off while I work in the engine bay (missed a bit of the seam under the windscreen and above the bulkhead)

Edited 20 June, 200917 yr by majic79

Last pic - looks like it is indeed an 084 'box with a 5th gear tacked on the end of it

making it an 085...?

Last pic - looks like it is indeed an 084 'box with a 5th gear tacked on the end of it

making it an 085...?

Yeah - I should have added that I was looking for some info on the 085 boxes, and it was amazingly thin for a 'box with such a common problem. So I bought a Haynes gearbox repair manual that covers the 084 after someone suggested it was the 084 with a 5th gear whacked on the end of it. This was just to confirm

Made some good progress tonight - got all inside the car at the front welded up, plus a bit around the joins of the firewall to the inner wings (pics to follow) - all the seam welding should be done by wednesday evening (possibly even tomorrow night - depends on how distracted I am )

Ordered cambelt kit and water pump, getting the pinion bearing measured up tomorrow evening and should be able to find a decent bearing to fit the spec

So today I went to Lincolnshire show, this left me somewhat red, with embarassing white bits under my t-shirt which I discovered when I got changed into my grotty clothes!

When I got back from the show, I had a few hours to kill before I headed off to the workshop, so I did the cam-belt and water pump as I had the engine out and nothing else better to do. Wasn't as straightforward as I hoped, but not too bad either (no pics). I decided to leave the clutch until I had the gearbox ready, parts to collect from VW Tomorrow should allow me to complete that job, then I need to ship the engine across to the workshop so it can hang in the bay (need it there to put baffles in the sump as well as getting the sump guard fabricated)

Some pics of the completely seam welded interior (it will be painted once the underside has been finished and the roll cage fitted) - poor lighting as someone (and I'm not saying it was me here....) broke the bulb on the inspection lamp....

fair play this is coming on quickly. impressed. keep up the good work.

When there's nothing else better to do and all the tools are available, I don't see any point in taking my time over it

Roll cage gets shipped tomorrow, so the jigsaw puzzle can commence soon! So far most of the work involved has been plain old hard graft, I'm really chuffed that the interior has been done, apparently the underside is easier (most of the underseal has already burnt off from welding on the inside!) just attacking the seams with wire brush to expose the bare metal.

Shopping list (left to buy)

Steering wheel and Boss

Bucket Seats

Harnesses

Oil Pressure/Temp gauge + voltmeter

(If anyone has any of the above secondhand, let me know, I'm interested!)

Rally Lights (one spot, one driving light)

Fire extinguisher (hand held, not going for a plumbed in yet)

Bonnet catches

Boot catches

Jobs left to do:

Install roll cage (longest job)

Paint interior and engine bay (gloss white from B&Q!)

Rebuild gearbox (today? - parts arrive today, might be able to finish this job off as well)

Install clutch, refit gearbox to engine, refit engine into car

re-install wiring loom - add wires for cooling fan override, add wires for fog lights, add FIA electrical cutout switch

Fabricate patch for sunroof, replace sunroof mechanism with patch

Fabricate sump/tank guard

Fit bonnet/boot catches

There's a lad on British Rally that runs a Polo challenge car. He won the Beaver last year too. I'll dig out some details for you.

Awesome yeha, looking forward to seeing it

There I was, minding my own business trying to sell small mexican midgets to innocent russians, when there was a knock at the door

Mysterious package from the delivery man...

I wonder what this could be! I had to open it up....

My Roll Cage has arrived!

No pics recently, but there has been progress! Nearside underneathe of the car has been mostly seam welded, as has the inside of the front wheel well. Half the rear one is done, but we ran out of time for tonight.

If we get a clear run at it, there's a good chance that all the underside seam welding will be completed this weekend, and some painting/sealing can be done

that roll cage looks like its gonna be a giggle lol

There I was, minding my own business trying to sell small mexican midgets to innocent russians, when there was a knock at the door

love reading this thread :) keep up the great work.

Latest update: I've been getting the underside of the car tidied up and seam welded. Tonight we applied paint to the welded areas to prevent excessive rust build up

Unfortunately the light's so crap under the car, all you can see in the photo's is dark splodges everywhere. I need a decent camera with a proper flash if I want to get photos underneath

I did manage to get a photo of the engine bay showing the right hand side has been painted. that's one half of the car completely seam welded now

Struts and wheels on the right hand side (NS) have been replaced and the car is back on it's wheels on that side. Wheels and struts from the left hand side (OS) have been removed and the car is ready for the last bit of prep on that side. With a good run tomorrow, we should be able to complete most of the work before the weekend (but I've got a wedding to go to on Saturday, so it'll probably be next monday by the time it's complete

Just read the whole thing, will have to keep popping back to see updates looks good

nice work

The last bit of seam welding is progressing quite quickly now! Got the inside of the OSF wheel arch de-glued and mostly welded up last night.

Had a bit of a moment....

Think I need a new steering wheel now!