1988 Vauxhall astra GTE 16v, project track day, Jan '16

welded the lugs onto the feet rails (only welded one side in this picture) this is where your hobby mig struggles, welding 2mm thick box to 6mm lugs. so root gap requred on the thicker stuff, wire speed down slightly, linger a bit longer to get super heat into the area.



repeat x3



after that i welded the drop arms onto the main swivel



the locking ring will be welded on at the last minute, once the A frame is assembled. this is so that the swivel (and thus the car) is dead level once the offset locking pin is engaged.

i didnt do anything over the weekend at all, so no big update.

today i carried on with the rottiserie, namely the mounting bar that connects the pivot/drop arms to the actual vehicle. ordinarilly youd bolt the swivel to the "bumper irons" which older cars had running up inside the chassis rails. mk2 doesnt have this, although the kit did come with come 6mm bar to make some. main issue on the astra is that access to the chassis rails is abruptly uphill from the front panel and i didnt want to mess around. second mounting method is to the front panel, basically using the bumper mountings.

i welded on some lugs to the mounting box section, used some preheat like ant said (but with a butane torch) the welds took lovely to the 6mm lugs.



as allot of cars arent flat fronted, or rear, which the mk2 isnt either, so they supply some 6mm angle as spacers. here is one bolted to the standard bumper mounting hole. i put one each end of the car, laid the bar across it and tacked it on



the angle didnt overlap the box section as much as i liked due to way the mk2 nose panel curves out, so it was seam welded both sides. then i triangulated it to the end of the tube so the weight of the car isnt twisting the welded joint but passes some of the force down the box tube too (as it wouldve with allot more overlap)



here it is test mounted to the car



i knew before i started that the bumper mounts arent terribly sturdy, not enough to support half the cars weight anyway. i doubled up the mounting pounts to the front cross member. so it has 4 bolts, 2 just either side of the open end of the chassis rail



like this



finaly i loosely assembled the front A frame. the legs are splayed further apart than they would when everything is together, but obviously the car isnt high enough yet. when it is, a link bar is bolted between the bottom of the legs

Really nice build Looks like it'll make a bit of a weapon when it's done.

Triangulating the rear beam's a good plan, but will be less important on the Astra's beam than on the Golf ones it's often seen on, the Astra beam's a better design from the factory and less likely to flex in the wrong directions like the Golf ones do.


A good friend of mine's got a mk2 Astra Rally car. It was built in the 80's by Safety devices and I believe it was originally Dave Metcalfe's car, then my friends dad rallied it for a while before sticking it in storage when he had kids. We pulled it out after 19 years laid up and have got it going again. The story of that's here, but if you want any better shots of parts or close-ups of any of the work done to the shell/suspension then I'm sure I could get some.

[clarkson] sit-rep [/clarkson]

pulled the tarp back for the first time since october 2012 (yes really!).

spotted allot of dirt, silver birch seeds and clematis growing round the front wishbone. decided that if i knew what all three of those things were called, is probably the reason i've not done any work on this gte for months.

had a sweep up underneath, spotted some surface rust on wheel arch. that's surface rust as in 20 seconds with wire wheel, rather than the ebay version, 20 days with a mig welder.



crawled underneath to drain the fuel tank so i could use it for the mower. found fuel tank completely empty (bonus) but now need to buy some for the mower (poo).



fuel pump assembly raised from the bismarck, no problem its all being deleted for in-tank mk3 version



had another chuckle at the vintage aftermarket exhaust. whilst i remember it being gas tight, i see most of the pipe lengths are a bit end of life



purchased "correct for age of vehicle" scorpion stainless exhaust from clive just down the road (thanks clive )



other observations, next doors bengal has been coming in through the engine bay/pedal box hole and sleeping in the drivers seat.

trump !



p.s, retro carpet subforum ?

an actual update ! i put a steel order in...

16 meters of 40mm OD, 2mm wall thickness, CDS mild steel roll cage tube (crazy i know, but surprising how the lengths add up, plus there's 2 of everything)
2x 3 meter lengths of 8mm OD, 1mm wall thickness, 316 stainless CDS tube, for the fuel lines (sounds thin, but rated to 4000psi!!)
2by1 meter sheet of 2mm mild for various work

ive got one for small bore tube (as in brake hoses/fuel lines) but the CDS for roll cage are all straight geometrical additions to a pre purchased OMP cage.

roll cage tube, too long to photograph!



heavy box turned up from hi-spec today



containing 285x24mm disks, relocating bracket for calliper + hardware (next to standard 256x24mm disk for comparison) i bought a spare pair of rotors to stick on the shelf for future. i know its a bit extravagant but it could be years and years before i need another set and you never know what will happen to small independent company, or these cars more importantly !



i was a bit worried that the deeper bells might foul the group A mods to the strut, but not even close so thats cool





apart from paint and consumables this pretty much concludes the buying up of "stuff", which is good as natwest will stop flagging my heavy withdrawals as possible account fraud, but also bad as it means i'll have to actually do something

been mulling over a few missed opportunities in the last few months, the main one is caster. more years ago than i can work out Lee (lee303 on mig) sliced the top off of his nova turrets and oval'd them rearwards so he could move the top of the coilover towards the windscreen, in the process canting the strut backwards. he also has rose jointed and adjustable trailing arms so the bottom of the strut is moved much forward compared to standard.

more recently vinci has done something similar on an actual mk2 astra/kadett-E, turret moved rearward, bottom balljoint clocked forward and wishbone strengthened (as seen on sbd16vastra gte many years ago and BenH car more recently).

i cant remember the actual details but mk2 astra doesnt have any caster, or it goes into negative with the suspension loaded up.

the end result of the mods is allot (more than standard) of positive caster. this has a few benefits 1) it makes the steering self centre more. 2) when the steering goes off centre it adds negative camber to the outside wheel, increasing as you add more lock, and also adds positive camber to the inside wheel with much benefit to grip while cornering at speed. 3) it leaves camber standard when driving straight line 4) increase in wheel base 5) less tendency for the nose to dive under hard braking.

there are eccentric top mounts which can add a bit of positive caster, but the pillowball setup available for mk2 astra is terrible for allowing the strut to rotate (with 600 kilos on it) and there's still not an elegant off the shelf solution to sort this out. so i spent this afternoon removing my turret. bit of a pain because i'd already stitch welded it and reinforced in the wheel arch, so it was way harder to do that a standard astra. the drivers side i've not yet done any reinforcing so should be a bit easier to do next.



spot welds drilled, stitch welds slit and generally mauled around



mocked up final position. like vinci the turret is also angled slight backwards to remove an nasty top-mount-to-strut angles. iirc he calculated this would have between 4 and 5 degrees positive with the balljoint clocked too.