Come onnnnn!

YES! Finally

Edited 4 July, 201115 yr by Phataz1

hahaha this was my desktop at some point too!

So Many genius ides going on.

Raised turrets, narrowed beam, Carbon centercaps, damped seat mounts

Taken you like 3 hours to post this, you must be bored

Awesome mate!

So Many genius ides going on.

Raised turrets, narrowed beam, Carbon centercaps, damped seat mounts

Taken you like 3 hours to post this, you must be bored

Yep! I'm only about two thirds of the way through as well

Photobucket is an absolute knobhead

hurry up, i gotta go to bed soon!

Winter 2009/10 saw a new set of winter wheels

TSW STEALTHS BLUD!

Whilst it was off road this time I went about designing and making a rear gearbox mount that didn't idiot the floor every 2 seconds. The rear gearbox mounts are notorious for being ripped off due to the shape of them and the fact they hang much lower than everything else underneath the car. Tey are wedge shaped pointing down and forward into the ground

Found a poly bush that fitted perfectly into some steel tube I had and mocked up how it might sit;

Original on the left

Cut to shape

Tested in place, managed to keep it contained in the space

TRIANGULATIONNNNNN

2nd one done for my mates mk1

Gave about an inch more clearance underneath when fitted, and bearing in mind this pic is when it was on the 15s, back on the 13s and inch can be the difference between hitting everything or nothing

hurry up, i gotta go to bed soon!

I've had to re-start my router twice since starting this thread! My shit must be ruining the internet!

Summer 2010 and I finished university, and the after enjoying the car for a while the gearbox decided to fail on me. And by this point I had more ideas mulling around in my head that I wanted to do to the mk1. Mainly involving making it lower but making it less likely to hit the floor at the same time :-D

Out the engine came for the 7th time

Strut brace and gearbox mount still going strong!

I've taken most of the photos of this part down as I didn't want any hassle from the authorities (not that they'd have any reason to be, but you know what they're like)

But I will say that I "repaired" the wishbone mounts 2 inches higher OK, they didn't actually fail, so wasn't strictly a "repair", but lets say it was more of a preventative repair :-D

Permanent strut brace welded between the wishbone mounts meant that the engine had to be raised the same amount as the strut brace is occupying the space that the engine used to.

Twice as much clearance as before and flat wishbones. Proper geometry!

And equal Driveshaft, wishbone, and track rod angles.

Raised rear gearbox mount

Raised vs. standard height

Front engine mount cut and raised

Gearbox in place on the raised front and rear mounts.

Tight clearance between gearbox and strut brace, but poly bushed mounts meant that this aint a problem

Whilst all this was happening, I bought Gaz off here's old HH engine as I wanted to go back to solid lifters, and with Gaz being a trustworthy bloke I knew it'd be a good purchase

With the time getting very close (read; a day) to the E38 show which I planned to get to, I had to rush and make a temporary passenger and drivers side engine mount to get me to the show and back;

Please dont judge me on these, they were only temporary

No pic of the other side mount, but thats probably a good thing

Engine back in and there's just enough room under the bonnet :-D

And back its wheels, its even lower than it was, yet, it isn't :-D

Took it for a drive after setting the tracking by eye, and the thing is fucking transformed for the second time! No longer skipped about on the road, felt flat and stable rather than on its tippy-toes like previously, which is obviously down to the flat wishbones and equal angles between the arms Handled like it did when it was about 3 inches higher! I was mega chuffed because I didn't know what to expect when the work was done :-D

At the trafford centre soon after

I never made it to E38 show in the end due to time, but I didn't really give a fuck tbh, I was just glad the thing drove straight, never mind the fact it had improved!

Edited 5 July, 201115 yr by Phataz1

Couple of weeks after finishing the wishbone mounts, some idiot decided to leave half a tree scattered in the middle of a 50mph single carriageway road, over the brow of a hill.

So there I was flying over said hill rushing to get my missus to the train station on time, and then over the brow of said hill see said tree scattered in said road. Car coming the other way and gigantic verge on the other side. So in the few milliseconds I had to decide which obstacle to hit, I decided to grit my teeth and try my luck with the tree branches

BANG. Car jumps half a foot in the air, bonnet pops open, massive knocking coming from drivers side, and all manner of warning lights and buzzers sounding and flashing at me on the dash.

I pull over shitting it that all the work I have done has just given way, but luckily when I got home and had a proper look it turned out this was the only problem

Peeled back like a banana skin and rubbing against the hub knuckle. Lost all the air in the tyre too. BUT, fortunately all of the chassis work I had done remained perfectly in tact If that isn't a test of strength then I don't know what is! So I could only be happy really. Although my missus did miss her train

Managed to get the wheel fixed for £20 so not all bad really

Edited 5 July, 201115 yr by Phataz1

A few weeks after that I managed to find a new door perfect enough to get painted the correct colour and fit on the car

Age old member Rolo off here helping me prep it for paint

Then once it was painted I fitted the GTI stripes back onto the car

Sticker added for good measure, its funny cos its true.

Having bought a TIG welder a few months previously, I was confident to try and re-make my inlet manifold in alloy, because with alloy its possible to weld and smooth the insides of the runners for the perfect transition of the air and fuel from carb to port

Flange and tubes cut and angled to suit

Welded

Bit of a polish

Fitted

Lol at your internegz breaking thread. Sick work blood. Ill be up at the unit this week int evenin if u wanna get involved!

Vibring make track rod ends hah well dodge explainin that one to work colleugues!

Next, I was fed up of the stretch on the rear tyres. It just looked silly from some angles so I went about making the wheels narrower to have less stretch. I didn't want to change the outer dishes so the only option was to get narrower inner rims, plus it'd mean I could make full use of the narrowed beam and be more confident pushing the car round corners.

Found some more PLS Hocks in Rover fitment with what I thought were the perfect sized barrels so I bought em. I planned for them to decrease the wheels width by an inch, therefore making them 9J wide as I like the stretch of 195/45s on them, but not knowing that PLS made Hockenheims came with different face designs to suit the specific offsets and widths required by whoever bought them new. My original PLSs were bolted together dish-barrel-face, whereas the newly bought ones were bolted together dish-face-barrel. So if I was to fit he new inner rims to my face and outer dish, I would lose the thickness of the face from the overall width of the wheel.

My 10J PLS next to new 6J PLS with desired barrels

Swapping over

Original 10J next to previous 10J wheel with replaced barrel

So it turned out the wheels would work out 8.5J rather than 9J. With the new faces being Rover fitment, the only option I had to gain more girth would be to machine the backs of my original faces to accept the barrel, in turn making it bolt together dish-face-barrel.

This is how they sat on the car

I thought seeing as I had recently purchased a lathe, that I'd see if it was big enough for the wheel centres to be mounted up on so I could do the work myself. Turns out it was big enough! But I couldn't find a way of securely clamping the faces so they spun true, without them coming loose and flying off at the sight of the cutting tool.

Until one night whilst lying in bed I thought of a way of clamping it securely :-D Had to wait til the morning to try it out though

Got an old brake drum and knocked the outer bearing out.

Got some steel tube slightly larger than the bearing diameter and turned it down so that it fitted tightly in place of the bearing race.

YES. Span fucking perfectly

Step created for the barrel to locate on

Gave the outer dishes a polish and bolted them up to the newly machined face and new barrel

Sealed up, tyres fitted back on, and wheels bolted back onto car without stub axle spacers

Me being a fussy bitch decided that there wasn't enough poke this time, so I made up some 6mm stub axle spacers

Sat how I wanted then, so was chuffed.

But then I was thinking more and more about those notches I had cut out of the trailing arms when I narrowed the beam. Was worried about them giving way if I'm pushing the car harder, and how I could go about strengthening it.

Then I though fuck it, I'll rose joint it! Did a bit of research on Club GTI and bought 4 M12 rose joints and 2 metres of stainless bar.

Made a bracket for the braces inner mounts

My MIG welder gave up halfway through welding it to the centre of the beam, so I had to continue with the TIG

Didn't do too badly considering I was usng a footpedal too, the whole process being like tapping your head, rubbing your stomach and pushing down your foot, all at the same time whilst being upside down, in severely limited space, and blind

Braces made up

Outer brace mounts made up and welded on

Finished and painted

Made a floating centre badge for the middle of the steering wheel. Had the badge water cut and made a little collapsable mount so that I would have a metal crest wedged in my face in the event of an accident

Made a stainless water pipe to replace my rusty original steel one

mmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm lovely...

Cut and spread a section of the stainless pipe, slid it over and welded it to echo the beading of the original pipe

Welded and smooved

Next one

Smooved

Cut and angled in the middle

Flange cut and drilled

Fitted in a lil jig to keep it all in place

Welded

Outlet for thermostat housing turned up on the lathe

Welded

No pics of it fitted though cos its not really visible and I can't be arsed

Next up is the gearbox mount I recently made to replace the temporary one I made to get me to Edition38, about 6 months earlier

After mocking up the parts in cardboard I had a design sorted, having been inspired by a mount I'd seen on a berg cup mk1 Golf.

Bought some stainless plate and tube to fit the poly bushes I'd used previously, and after some measuring, cuttin and drilling I had this

Welded

Mounts on the bellhousing bolts on one end, and the chassis on the other

Mocked up the secondary part of the mount which would support the end of the gearbox

Copied over into stainless plate. Used a spare gearbox as a jig.

Tacked in place

Removed for welding, little gussets added, then polished

Refitted

Btw the lower coolant hose has now been relocated so its no longer touching the mount

Edited 5 July, 201115 yr by Phataz1

New page please.

New page please?

New page you bastard.

No?

FFS

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