Jono_Misfit goes rallying - Long studs

Despite offering an opinion on the should I, shouldn't I post I've missed this progress until now.

Good for you for making a decision and then actually commiting to it.
Many don't.

I"m sure with your attitude to being prepared you'll do well.

Good luck with it.

Exciting stuff, along for the ride !
James

Well done !

The guy I bought the transit from got the driveshaft sorted, although with the cold spell its now shown the battery is weak and needs replaced.

The car went for its MoT and other than a few minor points it went through ok.

Right.. get it back out the garage

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Battery was flat, so gave it a charge for a bit

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Then took it for a shakedown.

Went from my place over to the next village and back a couple of time to warm the car through. I didnt go as i was just sussing it out.

My thought.

Its loud, unsurprisingly so with no interior and a full rally exhaust. How loud.... well mrs_misfit commented that she could hear me from inside the house with house windows closed going over the hill and back.... pretty loud then.

Steering is very light, but when I got used to it a bit there was a reasonable feel

The tyres are toasted. They are mediums so are too hard really for the temp, but also feel old.

Brakes have no feeling to them whatsoever. They are very soft, have a lot of travel, and a lot of dead zone. One of the calipers is dragging a bit so needs looked at. I need to give them a bleed and see if that improves them a bit or not. Pads work from cold which I was surprised about. But even though they don't feel great they work well and stop the car nicely.

Handbrake is fun and works really well. it is however a bit too close to the wheel for me so I may tweak it a bit

Seat is too far back. I need to move it forward another 50-100mm I think.

Car is surprisingly soft. I felt less rattled about in it than I do in the road C2 VTS i bought.

Gear shifter is woeful. Utterly lacking in precission, so I suspect most of the joints in it are past their best.

Gearbox is nice and low ratio so the car pulls hard, but engine doesnt have much go till about 4000rpm

Diff pulls hard.


I took the car on a longer shake down, again not going hard, but I just wanted to check how things were on it. Did about 5 - 7 miles round the lanes pootling about and occassioanlly giving it some beans on the straights. There were a fair few rattles I need to look into coming from the front suspension and the middle of the car.

Put the car back in the garage and jacked it up and put on stands.

A look round shows the brakes are in reasonable condition standard C2 VTS so i'm guessin the brakes issue is sticky sliders.

Drivers
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passenger

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Strengthened wishbones, but the bushes look like they've seen better days

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Struts are AST5100 series single way adjustable, but still some pretty decent ones. A look shows they would have been about £3k new for the car set. I need to have a good look at them to see if they need a rebuild. Receipt in the file is from 2018 for a full rebuild so may well need a full re-do.

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All the joints seem good, however there is movement in something. Eventually tracked it down to this. The top mount spherical bearing has slop in it, a coupe of mm. Passenger side is the same, but a little less bad. Will need to replace.

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Passenger side

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Rear all looks in good condition, although have found the noise coming from the middle of the car. The fuel filter appears to have come away from whatever mount it was on, so will need to sort that.

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Exhaust also has a massive flat spot in it from where something hit it, hard. I may see about cutting it out and replacing it.

There are a few other bits to sort, notably where some cables are rubbing, bushes are getting a bit old. etc.

Oh, and some seats and belts..

And need to get the extinguishers serviced as well.

All in all, i'm pretty happy with the car. Should do me well.

today was only short on the escort and rally car as I needed to sort some things on the road car... which I did, but only to find the topmounts are away and I need to replace them.

Anyway, i've been ordering bits up and crying at the further expense.

I bought some seats so fitted them.

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loads of room

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I've pushed the codrive seat back about as far as I can. I can maybe get it a hole lower in the mounts by canting it back a bit but then i'll be up against how far back you head can be v's the roll cage hoop

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Extinguishers are out and boxed ready for sending for a service.

I'm awaiting a few more bits then will be on with prepping the car for use.

I still need to sort the wheels, so have contacted a refurb place to see what the costs like for a strip, straighten, and re-paint.

The car runs on all standard bushing as far as I can tell, and much of it isnt in good condition.

I was going to drop the wishbones and swap the bushes out on them, however this is a french car..... it has got what I consider to be.... unusual bolt / nut sizes throughout and it turns out I don't have all the tools to remove.

I.e the ARB drop links are 17mm, the damper pinch bolt on the upright is 16mm, the bottom ball joint are 17mm, the pinch bolt for the bottom ball join I think are 15mm, the hub nut is 35mm. I have some buying to do.

The front ARB bolt was 19mm.. .which seems utter overkill for the loads in it,

state of the bushes

P1080421 by jono_misfit, on Flickr

Blasted and ready for rust killer

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treated and primed with etch primer

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baked, painted black, baked again

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new bushes

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Fitted

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I was going to replace the bushes in the rear beam as they are equally toasted.

dropped the rear dampers out, which are in good condition (top bolt 16mm in double shear, bottom bolt 22mm in single shear)

P1080426 by jono_misfit, on Flickr

then onto the rear beam

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except this needs a deep 18mm socket on to get off, which i don't have

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so that scuppered that job

impact marks on the exhaust

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free floating fuel filter, which I managed to re-secure to a bracket above it

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so onto another job.

The front cam cover gasket is leaking so need to replace it. Which was fine until.... one re-fitting one of the bolts went slack suddenly, and on trying to wind it back out again.

P1080435 by jono_misfit, on Flickr

Joys. So next time I need to take it back out and extract the broken bolt.

I went in at this point.

I have double roll pins on the selector shaft on my type 9 gearbox as they do like to snap when there is only one. I think you’re supposed to fit them with the splits 180° opposing each other.

After much swearing I got the roll pin in.

I ended up taking the arm off again, getting the pin partly in, re-fitting it, then drivign it in the rest of the way with the air hammer set on low impact. A right pain for access to it.

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difficult to see, but i also got the second roll pin i, this time using a welding clamp. Taking care to anti align it to the first roll pin.

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connected the linkages and started greasing it up, but decided I didnt like the angle on the cross gate ball joints, so flipped the upper middle one after this pic. Put it at a much better angle and nothing fouls on it.

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set the gearshift up. What a difference. very positive engagement feels great!

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Sorted all the things I'd moved / disconnected

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extinguishers came back from service so fitted them

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I need to sort a bracket for the bias adjuster, plus I don't like the handbrake position so may well re-make the handle on it

P1080481 by jono_misfit, on Flickr

I've been playing about in the livery editor in EA WRC game to try out that may be close to what I go for. Its based on the colour scheme the car is already in, and sort of based on some graphics I found on I can get from Ebay.

I used the C2 S1600.



Thoughts?