'88 Bluebird LS

[garthalgar]

To add to the growing list of bluebird owners on RR heres mine.

Sold my mx5 and needed something with a long MOT, but wanted something 80s. The 80s search failed after my Laurel made it 6 miles until it died. After which it was towed back and I left with a full wallet but no car. I hadnt found anything else so bought a blue toyota MR2. That was fine but after going from a MK1 mx5 it felt very dull and boring. The next night a bluebird went up for sale close to me and yesterday, 2 days after I bought the MR2, I swapped it for this serious hunk of late 80's J scrap that I actually love. Suits me perfectly and I cant wait to have it looking fresh as a month old pear after torturing it with the Boso stick!



Just look at that exhaust. Supposedly a custom powerflow job. Its dying for a slip on boso shotgun pipe.



I also bundled these magnificent things into her tonight after seeing Overdrive. Just need to get tyres then I can get rid of the donk spec pimp wheels. 




Mmmmm 80s. Anyway, I think some spring cutting will be required here. I have a few jobs to do but nothing major. It has 97k and runs like the champion she is. I'm toying with the idea of paintjobs. I really like the look of the Zokusha police micra on here, which is tempting me to roller the bluebird something similar and go wild. I've also seen the taxi and camo ones on here which look quite interesting . 

[breadvan]

cool this sounds like its going to turn into a insane creation ha ha ha ha ha (evil laugh)

[garthalgar]

I really hope it is insane... its such a laugh having a car you can do anything to and not have a care in the world. I love it

News!

Wheels were trial fitted to check fitment. Results: Win!




Noice! Just need a set of tyres and to sort out what kind of wheel nuts/adapters I need for these. They are tapered but also have a recessed part at the top of the hole. My standard tapered nuts don't fill them properly so I'm assuming you can buy adapters/new nuts to fit this kind of wheel somewhere? Any ideas?

Also, check out this underside....



Caaaaw. Absolutely spotless 26 years on! I'm liking this car more and more.

Then I fitted something I've had for a while. My boso style windscreen banner which reads "retro heroes". It was destined for the Mazda which is why its blue and gold but since I was selling it I thought id save it for something special.

[recarouk]

i actually love the wheels its on, needs lowering and some trick bits but i think it rocks as it is!

[garthalgar]

Sept 8, 2014 19:26:30 GMT recarouk said:

i actually love the wheels its on, needs lowering and some trick bits but i think it rocks as it is!

One is leaking unfortunately. Its fixable but I like buying wheels I just don't think that they are the correct era for the car.

Sorry for spam by the way... I just cant stop taking photos of it

[recarouk]

period shmeriod dude, i love it as it is! needs the lows a bit but i think it looks the tits as it stands

if you want period correct deck it on TSW Venoms

[nisfan]

Haha, this is my old car! Bought it down in Sunderland, you will be the third owner since i had it and its good to see its getting the bozo treatment Heres some pics of when i had it and also starring in a short film with ewen bremner. (Still looking for the film though)









In a white space!





Sorry for thread hijack/pic dump, thought you might like to see some old pics of it.

[vealyyy]

I've always wanted to see one of these decked on some nice wheels

[garthalgar]

Sept 11, 2014 12:13:57 GMT nisfan said:

Haha, this is my old car! Bought it down in Sunderland, you will be the third owner since i had it and its good to see its getting the bozo treatment Heres some pics of when i had it and also starring in a short film with ewen bremner. (Still looking for the film though)






Sorry for thread hijack/pic dump, thought you might like to see some old pics of it.

Haha awesome! Its been a cracking car so far. Needing a few wee things but nothing drastic. Everyone thats been in it has loved it too. Nice to see it was well cared for at some point Cheers for those!

[garthalgar]

Right, time to get stuff done. When I picked up the Slags I also got a radio from Overdrive. I didnt get one when I bought the car and it was really doing my nut in driving everywhere in silence. Managed to find the kenwood adapter cable for it in halfords and plugged it in. To my surprise it all fired up right away! Ariel went up and radio 2 started blasting from the two front blown speakers. Quality.

When investigating the rear speaker problem I noticed that behind the radio there were two odd looking connectors pushed back down the centre console. I pulled them back up, found some female looking plugs and stuck them together. Aha working rear speakers... intermittently. I pulled the rear speakers out and was greeted with 67 metres of speaker cable for each one, and the classic home brew twisted wires which i've grown to expect on any car I buy now haha. All properly connected now however and the stereo is actually pretty good!



And its becoming a theme with things that I buy from Tommy that I get a free CD...



Onto the Slags however. 

When I bought them I was just going to stick them on but due to them being roughly 40 years old and kerbed/chipped all over I thought a new look might be in order. Tried doing the centres plasti-dip... Which failed because the plastidip stuck the the masking taped and peeled itself off



Then nitromorsed them to get the thick silver paint off and it wouldnt budge. Decided this was clearly homer potential so I took them to work to blast



And the paint still didnt come off. Managed to key it all however so there went my plans of polishing the alloy. Unfortunately also there were loads of chips in the paint which I was hoping would be filled after a few coats of primer. Back to halfords for paint. And set up an expert professional spraybooth, in my shed.



It did the trick, so onto the "aluminium" colour paint.



It made them look atrocious. Way too bling bling for me and to make matters worse the silver made all of the chips 10 times more obvious.

Then went lacquer. As soon as I started spraying it it made the paint look dull. Initially I thought the worst but by christ they look bloomin lovely. Made all of the chips and dings hardly even noticeable and the finish is ace



Heres a comparison. The SAME wheel. First with the silver paint on, and then with the lacquer on top. You can see what I mean about the silver paint haha.




Bought some Slotmag wheel nuts from a bloke who owns a place called raceways and he's been top notch in helping me get the right ones. Also have some tyres to go on this weekend and the spigots are here too... so hopefully by Sunday/Monday I should be wide! 

[THE_Liam]

They should look great. I'd have been tempted by bronze or gold on silver I think...

[JohnK]

What happened to all the Bluebirds??

I remember seeing loads of them around when I was a youngster, but you just don't see them anymore. I think the last one I saw was around 2010 and that was a black G reg hatch in Leeds. There is something strangely appealing about them ...

[grizz]

I never knew about Bluebirds ti I came back to the UK in 2002.

Have to say they are growing on me all the time.

Yours looks great from here.

[xbo11ox]

This looks great!!! Painting it up like a taxi with a roller sounds horrendous though, smacks a bit of 'desperate modder syndrome'.

[qwerty]

Leave the bodywork as is! In fact If it were me I would keep the 17's and drop it on some Golf coilovers. Already been a couple of Bluebirds on slots.

[THE_Liam]

Sept 19, 2014 10:01:53 GMT JohnK said:

What happened to all the Bluebirds??

I remember seeing loads of them around when I was a youngster, but you just don't see them anymore. I think the last one I saw was around 2010 and that was a black G reg hatch in Leeds. There is something strangely appealing about them ...

Funny enough if you see a white G reg 1.8 GS around Leeds its my uncle. He got it new as a company car and then bought it after 3 years when they replaced it. Last time I saw it it had not long since rolled over 200k!

[stevecrx]

Sept 19, 2014 10:01:53 GMT JohnK said:

What happened to all the Bluebirds??

I remember seeing loads of them around when I was a youngster, but you just don't see them anymore. I think the last one I saw was around 2010 and that was a black G reg hatch in Leeds. There is something strangely appealing about them ...

Like Sierra's, they all got bangered. Quite solid apparently...

[garthalgar]

Sept 20, 2014 7:13:49 GMT xbo11ox said:

This looks great!!! Painting it up like a taxi with a roller sounds horrendous though, smacks a bit of 'desperate modder syndrome'.

Cheers And no if I went taxi the paint would be staying as is. It was just when I was considering a J police car it would obviously need to be vaguely rollered in black and white haha. For now it will be staying the same dull beige/silver its been for the last 26 years until I can figure out what to do with it

And yeah I think a lot of bluebirds went to the banger racers because they are so tough. Either that or they are sitting in a farmers field somewhere with grass growing from them. Shame really as they are a good fun solid every day car!

Went and got the tyres put on the slags today so I had all the pieces to the puzzle. Rears went on fine but stuck the fronts on and they wouldnt budge. Tits. Used the age old method of the grinder to take a couple mm from the calliper bracket and then painted them black to hide the marks. Look awesome and don't catch so I'm chuffed  






Fitment is absolutely sexual but it is in obvious need of some lowerage. Parked her up to pick up a curry and had to take this when walking to pick up the car because it just looks awesome  also notice that sweet mr2....

[garthalgar]

Oh, and it will be mk2 golf coilovers i'll use! I was going to attack the springs but because the shocks are shot it'd probably be best to replace them anyway. Better get practising my welding again!

[Deleted]

looks great on the slots.