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May 10, 2020 17:36:33 GMT
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Hello all, this is my first real post on RR having been an onlooker for many years, this thread is copied over from another forum so might appear a bit broken up, but I'm sure you willl get the jist, Cheers ![]() I have a fictitious list in my head of cars that id like to own and or modify at some time in my life, on that list among other things is a Mk2 Vauxhall Astra. ive never been in the habit of buying 'sporty models' of cars, my clio is the only car like that ive had. the majority of others have been base spec. sub £650 cars that ive swapped out with better bits etc. obviously if a GTE had come up at cheap money i wouldnt have turned my nose up, but thats never what I'm looking for when i buy cars. over the past couple of years there have been a few astras come up, mostly 5 doors, most in england, a lot of them already had work done of some sort. there was one 3 door up this way for sale for a while about 9 months ago, i looked at that one then but there wasnt a straight panel on it and the arches were not only rotten but dented at hell. i passed on that one then. a 5 door SR? maybe, came up, just a shell, tempted again but nah, too much effort for two too many doors. i passed on that one aswell. 2 weeks ago at work on sat morning, piece time comes and I'm standing eating a roll and looking through my phone, facebook market place (my Fav. haha) this pops up for sale,   3 door, 60k miles, off the road around 5 years, visible corrosion to the rear arches and front wing etc. but the car did look pretty straight panel wise it was local enough, Keith which is about 100 miles away. it was cheap, it ran which was a bonus. and the cherry it was fitted with SRI seats and bumpers. those ment that it was worth a punt being as id be able t make my money back if the shell was a write off. but, i chatted with the seller from break time over the next hour, confirmed he thought it would need sills and arches, but the bulkhead (which they are bad for) and the front panel were in good nick. i decided i was having it and took the truck home and arranged to go up for a 'Look' sunday morning. up i went fueld by coffee and greggs, arrived and met the chap selling he was a sound guy genuine enough. had a quick look around the car, confirmed there were definatley holes in the bodywork but it was workable. easily the best one ive seen for the money any time recently. and only the second 3 door ive seen for sale anywhere near me. so it was coming home. the rear chassis legs/boot floor were the bit i was most worried about, but decided i would get off this guys drive and investigate fully at home. it started and ran, and amazingly drove onto the truck as I'm pretty sure a bearing or brake caliper is siezed solid. (ive still not investigated that)  quick stop for a pee, check straps and a photo.  and on the road again, back down the road and unloaded by about half one, happy days. heres the full phots from the seller and a couple once id got it home.      and once it was home   "SRI" its a 1.4 8v astra Starlight, 1990 reg, SPI engine and i was pretty sure it would have a 5 speed. it doesn't. last weekend i decided i wanted to have a dig into the boot area of the car as i thought that area was probs going to make or break what i did wiht the car so i began digging into it and just got stuck in, overall the condition isnt terminal, probs would have been before too long though. so i proceeded to start cutting and buffing back what was there. it was pishing with rain all weekend so i had to improvise some shelter.              thats as far as ive gotten over the last two weekends, ive got a repair panel that was in the boot for the rear OS arch, so thats where I'm going next, then ill do the other arch, and look and decide if i need complete astra sills or if i can get away with 'universal' dingbro sills after that. I'm going for rough and ready with this just now, ive nothing on the road so I'm aiming to get this MOT'd as soon as i can. cheers, --------- i will upload the next section of this either later on or tomorrow. thats as much as i can bear to copy and paste over just now being that the photo hosting is a pain, I'm probs doing it wrong but i cant seem to upload any photos to RR? any input on that as well as the project please feel free to comment, haha Thanks, |
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johnthesparky
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,522
Club RR Member Number: 6
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Mk2 Astra "SRI" johnthesparky
@johnthesparky
Club Retro Rides Member 6
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May 10, 2020 18:26:18 GMT
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I think some people have issues uploading photos in the first post. Look forward to seeing photos and update  |
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danny81
Yorkshire and The Humber
Posts: 40
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May 10, 2020 18:59:26 GMT
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I cant see any pics looking forward to them
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May 10, 2020 20:54:18 GMT
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May 10, 2020 20:55:20 GMT
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i hope thats worked this time. thats about all the photos from the first post, next lot ill try and copy them in at the right time
cheers,
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johnthesparky
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,522
Club RR Member Number: 6
Member is Online
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Mk2 Astra "SRI" johnthesparky
@johnthesparky
Club Retro Rides Member 6
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May 10, 2020 21:13:48 GMT
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A mate had one with the lattice steel wheels and centre caps years ago, had a look as I thought that was an SRi, but google seems to suggest it was an SR Anyway, photos work looking forward to more |
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May 10, 2020 21:14:01 GMT
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Not done a great deal this weekend, started properly on the rear arch yesterday and got a bit done but today I just couldn’t be arced, I did tidy the garage but that was about it.     yesterday I finished undersealing the boot area. Then moved the car to reposition in of the garage and started cutting out the rot in the rear arch. I decided not to replace the whole Arch as a lot was still good. the inner in the same place up the topneeds repairing. the front Of the arch/back of the sill is getting left just now and I’m going to order full sills, I can repair the inner before they turn up but don’t want to chop the lot off before I’ve got the new ones in front of me. the rear tub I've patched using a bit of the arch piece and I’ll just finish it with sheet metal as it doesn’t have to be perfect behind the bumper there. I did get the outer trimmed and welded in at the top and rear, just the inner patches to do and then onto the sill.    moving round the car I popped the front bumper off to have a proper look in there and at the wing rot. I’ll just replace the wing I think. But the wing mount at the front isn’t as bad as I thought. And is still the worst part at the front end. Just a good bit of buffing back and treating at the moment and the front end will be good, with a wing! that’s all for now, off to build a shopping basket with panels for this and service parts and an aei for the5! 😎 cheers, ----- i got the sill welded on a couple of weeks ago, left it with a gaping hole in the side that the sill section didn’t include. Now.. self isolation you say.. my mrs is a High risk case, so we have been put into 12 week quarantine. I was sent home on Tuesday untill further notice anyway, but now I’m confined by this 12 week stint. I'm okay with this because I’ve plenty to do at home 🤷🏼♂️ so yesterday I continued where I had left off and finished the outer arch patch and buffed down the welds along the sill      today I went out about mid day and cracked on till tea time. I got a good bit of work done, all inner arch panels made up and welded in, rear tub finished off and all welded buffed back where needed and seam sealer applied. That’s the welding on this side done, there’s some Vauxhall flame red and black stone chip on route.     Day 2 of isolation, no coronavirus outbreak, but I do have serious welders tan on my face. It’s sore. every time with inner arch patches, can’t fit the helmet in all the time 🤣 5 has been sat outside in the elements for the first time. CC1FBA35-B696-4B99-93FA-7CDB351F7275.jpeg be good to give that a proper wash as it’s sat unwashed since it was painted. more to come as I’m essentially doing a shift a day in the garage, cheers |
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May 10, 2020 21:25:22 GMT
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Face was too sore yesterday to be arced doing anything, today I got back on it about lunch time again and stopped to come in for food at the back of 6. spun the car round first off, jacked it up and started sizing up what this side was like compared to the other. Much the same to be honest once in about it. Not as much scrap metal at the bottom of the rear arch so a smaller cut away on this side. the rear arch on this side is a bit different and I don’t have an arch panel like I did for the other side, it sure if I’m going to be able to use what’s left of the other panel or not. Rear tub is pretty curse word, and again the arch panel for the other side had a bit of that included which was handy on the other side. That all involves a bit more thinking and panel making than I fancied today so just cracked on and got the sill replaced. cut it all out, rivets included       cleaned it all up and fixed a small patch. Quick coat of primer Cut the new sill down a bit,   final fettling and acking in place.    and welded up.   Job jobbed. Cheers, |
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May 10, 2020 21:26:57 GMT
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A mate had one with the lattice steel wheels and centre caps years ago, had a look as I thought that was an SRi, but google seems to suggest it was an SR Anyway, photos work looking forward to more yea that sounds like an SR, look good in black/white two tone. glad the photos are working (Y) |
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johnthesparky
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,522
Club RR Member Number: 6
Member is Online
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Mk2 Astra "SRI" johnthesparky
@johnthesparky
Club Retro Rides Member 6
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May 10, 2020 21:34:40 GMT
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I got chapped lips and a tan on the n/s rear wing. Made sure I used the welders mask on the o/s, which meant lying in worse positions and got a lump of ow down my flame proof overalls... they are great but don’t let stuff out   (It looks better than that today, the sore bits are now full of paint  |
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danny81
Yorkshire and The Humber
Posts: 40
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May 11, 2020 18:30:00 GMT
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Nice work , Are you planning on keeping it Standard?
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May 11, 2020 19:41:06 GMT
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Nice work. That’s in a hell of a lot better conditions than the GTE I’ve just finished welding for my nephew. I had to replace every outer panel except the roof.
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May 11, 2020 22:19:04 GMT
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ive had a hole in the back on my wrist for a week now from the welder. curse word gloves. Nice work , Are you planning on keeping it Standard? its far from standard being that its a starlight with sri bits bolted too it, but basic mods and tidied up over all is the plan. and tbh as I'm writing this just now the car is "done" for the time being and mot ready at the moment. but ive naewhere to go at the moment so theres little point in MOT'ing it just now. as its only a 1.4 and a 4 speed some sort of swap is on the cards, but really that comes down mainly to what comes up for the right money at the right time. theres no concrete plan |
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May 11, 2020 22:21:30 GMT
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Nice work. That’s in a hell of a lot better conditions than the GTE I’ve just finished welding for my nephew. I had to replace every outer panel except the roof. cheers, I'm happy with how its come out. and that ive been able to crack on with it over this furlough period and get it to a usable condition. most i think are pretty knackered by now, when i saw this one compared with the few others that have come up in the past, i went for it because it wasnt going to get much better. |
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May 11, 2020 22:33:01 GMT
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Moved on to the arch today, cut out the wibblepoo bit and same on the inner at the top, cut a bit of sill off cut up and welded into place, couple inner patches and that rear tub and this side will be done.     Cheers, Apocalypse day no...? curse word knows? I think i did pretty much a week solid work on the Astra, after last update it was my fav of tasks the skim of filler to try and make it body shaped again. its such a curse word job, amazed how body guys can do it day in day out. anyway bit of juju on the outside and left to go off, mean while coated inner arch tubs with paint to tidy up/finish off Later flatted back the filler, a second skim and the same again, primed up before the end of the day. next day spend applying colour and top coat over the course of the day, bit of a wash out of a day to be honest as car had to be in the garage and lots of waiting about. That was finished up with final top coat the next day and has been left since Wednesday to harden. All just a rattle can special job but now it’s hardened up a bit Thw game plan is to go over the whole car with g3 compound, then a run round with poor boys and probs a top coat of wax. hopefully that will bring all the red/pink together and get it to stay like that for... a month? Maybe lol Red would be fine, but to be honest I’m also fine with it looking like a shed at the moment. it needs a wing, new they are £100 bucks. I’m not ready for that yet. rear tub still needs finishing, might try and weld the wing up at that time. I need gas and the quarantine situation makes that tricky. few photos to look at. Should get the service bits for it soonso over this week it should probs be both shiney and running a bit better. cheers,        |
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May 11, 2020 22:47:53 GMT
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So eBay did turn up some caliper seal kits cheap with missing end caps also, so I bought those. The front shocks were shot, and a snapped rear spring. I looked about for some second hand suspension, but nothing came up and in this current situation collecting obviously a no go. So between that and me wanting to keep cracking on with this and having something to spend my time doing I bought some cheap German suspension kit from ebay. Which turned up yesterday, gas shocks and 40mm springs all round. I don’t doubt these will ride somehwhat terribly but they will do for now, who knows how long I’ll have this anyway 🤷🏼♂️ I had a set of tyres and I’ve got a set of tsw’s in the shed I’ve had for a long time now. Went for some isolation in someone else’s shed for a couple of hours and swapped some tyres/wheels over manually, it was a hot day, I was knackered. Haha 8D1C8A1A-ADCA-4004-B3CF-C8A3B2BF6740.jpeg77299B4D-2315-4483-901B-8D3AE7747318.jpeg I bought some bottom ball joints on eBay for 10.20 delivered, the caliper seat kits, I had these wheels sitting now, and the suspension kit was here. So today now at a loose end with other stuff I brought the Astra into the shed and set about the above jobs. it’s been sat for about 2 weeks I think after I serviced it, stuck a battery on it, wound over a good bit to get some fuel up. But cracked into life took a couple of revs and then settled to a nice idle. Which is a huge improvement compared to how it was. Happy days. jacked it up and set about the front suspension first. Front legs off, calipers off, realised the bal joints had the stupid Vauxhall’s riveted on fitting. Pish. Complete units are like 100 a pair and the arms are actually in pretty good shape. the ball joints are changeable it’s just a pain in the  . So I stripped the front shocks down to the hubs. Gave them a scuff back and a lick of POR15, my mate has been banging on about this stuff and to be fair is does seem pretty good. However it’s curse word dear as curse word!! When I ordered it I thought I was paying for about 10x the amount.      so wishbones are a curse word about but in we go, removed them from the car and got them in the vice. 10x recommendations for Milwaukee cobalt? I think drill bits. Absolutely curse word hot.!  ball joints off and decided I’d be as well buffing these arms back and giving them a coat too. I didn’t get to use my new spring compressor on the shocks today because I haven’t bought a new fork for it, but I did get some use out of it.  finally I took the callipers apart again and wrestled the pistons and sliders out. The pistons themselves were fine, just a rough lip stopping them from moving freely, sliders now reemed out and cleaned up. With new seals and caps will work fine I hope, I didn’t bother cleaning these up just incase they do shotnthemselves    That stuff should be dry tomorrow so should be able to get it back together and on to the rears. I do need front drop links as they were rotten through. |
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May 11, 2020 22:58:06 GMT
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My spare set of tyres are too fat. so I’ll have to find another set and put these tyres on something else again. 🙄 would have been too easy. so yesterday I assembled the front legs again with new shocks and springs. New ball joints fitted. and a cv boot re clipped. brakes fitted back on and gravity bled for the time being as my pressure bleeder bottle is cracked. But releasing and working fine as far as I can tell moved on to the rears, half an hour, job done Red and yellow means performance right?       surprisingly they actually feel alright front and back. Not solid like I thought they were bound to be. Be good to see what they are like on the road. but it looks a heap better. Just the scrubbage on the rear arches to address there. 4A9BC86B-EED3-4264-B558-1190EF217CB0.jpeg 😎 front wings are £100 a go, to dear for me, for this Had a go this morning at the front of the wing. my gas reg. was reading empty but still a wee bit left so decided to see how far I got with that. started cutting out as little as poss to keep the shape and make up a patch. started running out of gas pretty early on so just rattled on with little concern for warping the panel. Pointless really because i need to sort the lower bit out before I can paint it anyway. gas needed but lockdown makes that tricky. Hopefully can get a cylinder on monday. Cheers, |
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May 11, 2020 23:03:23 GMT
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Managed to get gas on Monday so that meant I had a bit of work to do on the Astra. first thing I did was finish that front wing so I could get some primer on it and put some filler on. roughed out a bottom lip for it, trimmed it down to meet and welded it up. Primer on followed by 2 layers of filler and some paint thrown at it. 51BC174F-5EB8-474D-ADB2-559C5AE53584.jpeg9E4A313C-3CB6-4C75-BF72-7851A429E9B4.jpeg8488705C-36DC-4260-9475-06072703A91E.jpeg1A55F444-42B4-4935-994E-53DBCCB41CEF.jpeg I stress again that I’m fine with this car not looking great. Rough and ready is fine. I’ve decided that any chance of this car looking good in it’s current paint (or me polishing a full car in one day ever) I’m going to have to buy both a da sander and a machine polisher. the bonnet on this car was the worst, It was pink white orange all sorts, and to be fair it’s not brilliant now. But I wet sanded cut back and polished both the bonnet and the NS wing yesterday. 8332BEF5-4F24-4A34-A45B-744EB06DDD2B.jpeg the rear tub was the main bit of welding still needing done to the shell so I got that done. With bits from the off cut bin so it’s got a funny shape in it but it’s there, and it’s hidden by the bumper so it’s all good. Welded and sealed up. Got some paint on it the following day. 7873CE3D-B4A3-4542-980A-F43E301BA7A6.jpeg141709BD-CDCA-4AD9-B1BC-F07B86A31E03.jpegB9EEB1AA-203B-4659-8992-05F89CD4827A.jpeg the tyres on the tsws were catching the arch on the rear OS, I was keeping an eye out for a set of 45 profile to see if that would be enough difference. And luckily enough the ideal solution, gumtree, “4 bolt alloys with tyres” £40 6 miles away, spot on. went and picked them up, different offset wheel, I’m not sure if the tsws would fit with the 45’s even tbh looking at it all now. but these don’t scrub, and they look alright 🤷🏼♂️ I mean.. they need a rub back and a paint. But they are round and spokey and hold air and don’t scrub so what more could I want? wheels that aren’t black.. I suppose would be nice D2A14CE0-E640-4636-B5B8-B0CEE11090F9.jpeg final bit of welding, very small patch needed on the front inner arch. No photo just a half hour job. did that and then fitted the new drop links and track rod ends I got for it. Ball joints, track rod ends and links comes to about £26 all in I think. Front end is in pretty good shape now, mechanically anyway 1CC38398-C324-4C8C-9333-777EE36C1506.jpeg once I had fitted those today I set about mounting the rear bumper and compounding the boot ready for polish. It was while doing this really, comparing the rear arch/side and how faded that had become after I think 2 weeks since the same treatment, that I decided I really needed a machine polisher etc. For it to have a chance. Ah well, it’s good enough for me just now. I fixed my compressor so I might paint it who knows. C2B428D4-F3CC-4FE7-80E8-A85862810472.jpegF01F26D7-1394-44B4-9DCD-9203F559D608.jpeg only panel left is the roof and that wing I’ve repaired, I’ll probs have a go at those tomorrow and see if I can get the front end back together. I need maybe a ft. Of suitable pipe and I can fit a twin exit backbox I’ve got laying about. then hoover it haha it needs a good clean cheers,        |
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May 11, 2020 23:07:49 GMT
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Final jobs on this thing for the time being was seal up the inner sill/floor sections. Check all the lights, fix the washer jets and fit wiper blades. Taken care of all that stuff, I needed to refit the back box I’d taken off before fixing the floor. but the box that came off it was sorry looking. And the parts bin held a very SRI-esk twin exit box that would just about fit whipped the hanger off and on, the box is just long enough to work with the mount as far back as poss. 2727EB59-47A7-42D4-926B-1C64C4D15E84.jpeg off cut bit of pipe and away we go. its got a bit of noise about it. But it’s quieter than it was moving it about for 4 months without a back box 😂 5C55AA3A-FBD8-498F-9302-030BF6FB5E40.jpeg looks like it’s meant to be 99FC69C3-42B5-4FDB-B6D8-0B9DB5ACA98A.jpeg got a pair of orange indicator lenses coming for the wings, then it’s MOT ready    ------- thats about the lot for this thing at the moment, it will get mot'd in the coming weeks. I'm busy running in my Renault campus turbo just now, i might start copying that thread across too. Cheers |
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Davenger
Club Retro Rides Member
It's only metal
Posts: 7,272
Club RR Member Number: 140
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Mk2 Astra "SRI" Davenger
@dminifreak
Club Retro Rides Member 140
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May 11, 2020 23:16:21 GMT
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Love it.
Fond memories of hooning around in my mates 1400 MK2.
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