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Aug 11, 2020 19:45:23 GMT
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I’ve been a bit radio silent on my other threads lately, but I’ve not been sitting idle. The story starts way back in about 1998/9. I’d been racing my mk1 Escort with the Hot Rod boys from Hednesford at Pembrey Circuit for a couple of years, but it suddenly all came to an end. Having been bitten by the racing bug I bought an old Mk2 Escort class 2 Autograss car. I raced this for a couple of seasons but the rules had changed allowing FWD cars into the class and they performed much better (not as much fun though) so I sold that and bought a mk1 Fiesta class2. I raced this and even made it to the 2001 Autograss Finals. I’d not built the car, but I had built the engine. My 15 mins of fame were let down by 2 things - the wiring and the driver. In the first race I was in 3rd place and kept it flat whilst blind through the dust (just like Days of Thunder) and smacked into the car infront rupturing it’s fuel tank. I fitted a new tank in the pits but the wiring kept cutting the engine out so that was that. A rewire and the season was finished with my wife racing it and blowing up the engine. Class 2 cars were only 1300cc standard cars and I know wanted more power. I toyed with putting a bigger engine in the Fiesta and entering class 6 (FWD anything goes) but decided the easiest route would be to build a car with a big engine as standard. The best standard engine at the time was the Vauxhall Red Top so I put an add in the Adtrader (remember that) and for £250 I was the proud owner of a standard mk2 Astra GTE 16V. This was sometime in 2002. I don’t have any photos of it from when I purchased it , or from when I was building it. From what I remember it wasn’t in terrible condition. The rear arches were a bit frilly and the rear of the sills were also shot. The front toe boards were also shot, one had been badly repaired (I left it as is) and I welded a patch on the driver side. The interior was nice but I ripped it all out, sold the seats and dumped the rest. On ripping out the interior I noticed at some point it had had a roll cage fitted. The plates on the wheel arches, floors and inner sills were still there. I think there was bonnet pins on it too. I thought perhaps it had been in a one make race series or something. My brother said you’ll regret doing this to this car one day. Oh how I laughed. I paid a fellow racer to build a cage , I fitted a seat , made a new loom, cut out any metal not required including the rear chassis rails and inner panels, welded the diff, fitted carbs, a limiter set to 8000rpm and off I went. Here it is in all its racing glory.  For what it was it went really well and could beat some expensive cars. It was bigger than all the other Class 6 cars which were generally Novas or Corsa with expensive Red top engines, but I think being bigger and only having 40’s instead of 45’s helped it come out of the corners better. Anyway, I raced it for a few years and fell out of love with Autograss so stopped racing it. It sat in the old garage with a leaky roof since about 2005. Roll on about 7 years ago I bought another shell and a cage to put the engine from the grass car into to make a rally car. That never happened so a couple of years ago my nephew asked to buy them so I let them go. He then changed his mind when he found out the other shells bulkhead was rotten so I bought them back. Then last Autumn he wanted them back as long as he could build them at my house. I agreed. This is what we dragged out of the corner after all those years.   |
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Last Edit: Aug 11, 2020 19:55:38 GMT by jonsey
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Aug 11, 2020 21:03:48 GMT
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So “The Plan”. To turn the grass car into a rally car. It was pretty beat up anyway from me hitting everything on the track (but I never hit the fence) and also others hitting me. Autograss is non contact, but that’s not really the case. There was a big ding in the back where once whilst racing on the tar in Llandow, I won a race and my younger brother (the new owners father) crashed in the back of me after the chequered flag. I had lifted off the throttle and he hadn’t seen the flag. The mangled bootlid and back panel were still as left. The doors and boot lid had been skinned and welded to the shell, mesh had been welded to replace the screen and years in the corner of a tremendously leaky garage had taken its toll on the floors. So the grey shell I had bought was to become a panel donor. It would donate the bonnet, boot, doors, wings, inner and outer quarter panels, inner rear wheel tubs, rear chassis rails, spare wheel well, bumpers, rear boot latch panel and various floor sections. The only problem being that most of these were rotten too so the shell also needed sills, inner centre sill membrane (home made), inner and outer wheel arches, lower rear corners, a rear panel couldn’t be purchased and the grey one was rotten so I straightened (sort of) and welded up the cars original and various patch panels. The shell has also been strengthened and sean welded. This has not been done to the standard I did things on the Cortina ( trying to make welds invisible etc) but it’s good, strong and fit for purpose. I won’t say much else. I have taken literally hundreds and hundreds of photos but obviously it would take to long to put them all on here, so I’ll add some which covers most things. Forgot to mention, although I sold these cars as I couldn’t be arsed to rebuild them, I’ve done most of the welding and fabrication as I felt really guilty about selling my nephew them in the first place once i saw what a state they were in. Except paintwork. I mixed the paint whilst my brother and nephew sprayed and that was it.                                                                       The picture outside the garage with all the grey panels on is the first time it had been out the garage for all that time. I took it 500 yard up the lane where a guy called Owens Fabrications (builds racing Mini miglias and Goodwood cars etc) welded some extras to the cage linking the cage to the tunnel behind the seats and to the front suspension turrets. I then enclosed them to the bulkhead. |
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Aug 11, 2020 21:07:28 GMT
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Last Edit: Aug 11, 2020 21:09:04 GMT by jonsey
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Aug 11, 2020 21:20:39 GMT
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These things love to rot, you done well to get that sorted.
Bookmarked.
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Aug 11, 2020 22:11:01 GMT
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These things love to rot, you done well to get that sorted. Bookmarked. Thanks mr Duncan. It’s only taken since the end of November to do so not taken long at all. I had done another long winded explanation on things but my phone just swallowed it 😩. I’ll give it another go tomorrow. |
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Just WOW!! This is awesome. You have really great skills mate!!
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And I thought that my starting points were a pile of rusty junk  |
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Last Edit: Aug 12, 2020 5:59:26 GMT by Deleted
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Just WOW!! This is awesome. You have really great skills mate!! Cheers mr Blote, but not really skillage. I just plonked it all together and zipped it up with the Rtech. I only used a tape measure twice to check the rear side windows we’re the right size 😁 |
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And I thought that my starting points were a pile of rusty junk Not just you Grumpy. My Cortina was worse than this. |
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So, we started that late November last year, and as of now Sean has got the engine in, all plumbed, whole car wired (from the grey car), all brakes plumbed and it’s running. It’s not driving yet as he has to space the discs calipers over as the discs are touching the rose joints on his new fancy front suspension arms- that should be sorted today. Perspex side and rear windows are ready to go in and it needs a new windscreen.
The engine is not the one I raced. It used to live in his fathers mk2 Escort road rally/stage car until a couple of seasons ago. The Escort has done countless road / stage rallies in my brother’s hands until he hit the barrier at 90mph at Pembrey circuit and wrote it off. So as probably a worlds first, this may be the only Vauxhall Red top pulled from an Escort and put into an Astra!
One problem we did have was the registration. Being 18 years since I first bought the car my memory told me that I’d sent the logbook back to the dvla as scrapped so I didn’t have to fill in a SORN every year. That didn’t really bother me as I new you could reregister a scrapped car as we’d spoken to a dvla lady online. But the problem was I couldn’t find the number plates to get the reg number. I new it ended in RO but that was it. By last November I’d had the garage roof replaced and gone through the garage with a fine tooth comb and come to the conclusion that as I’d moved house since building the car, the plates had been left in the old garage. I told Sean to knock the door and ask if they’re still on the girder above the door (if the new owners hadn’t binned them as the house had changed owners again). That was November and he didn’t ask.
We had the chassis number though. It was still welded in the floor next to the driver seat and the vin plates were still on the very bent front panel. He tried a guy on ebay who said he could get a reg number from the chassis number, but he refunded saying he couldn’t get it. 😩
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Now Sean’s parents own a garage and mot station. A couple of months ago his mother put the chassis number into the computer at work. I don’t know if it was the mot or the technical data package they have, but it gave a vehicle registration for the car!! Ending RO as I thought. We filled in a v62 to apply for a new log book and sent it off, stating I didn’t have the original logbook as I’d sent it off as scrapped. It was only after this point we noticed on the .GOV tax checker it said last ownership change was 1999 and the vehicle was untaxed. Not the last ownership change was 2002 and the vehicle was scrapped. I expected the application to be refused. Check out my van thread for my luck with the dvla and registrations. What must have happened was that I told the PO to send the logbook off as scrapped and he hadn’t bothered.
Anyway, about 3 weeks ago Sean was driving past my old house when he saw the owner in the garden. He stopped and asked if the original plates were in the garage above the door. She said her husband would look and if they were there she’d pop them into his parents garage as it’s only 500 yard up the road. Fast forward to Monday and his mother gats a call from lady wanting to book an mot and drop off some old number plates.
Then yesterday when I got home from work there was a letter from the dvla. It had been over 2 months since applying so this was the refusal. Well that’s what I thought anyway, but in fact it was the V5!!!!!!!!!!! With all the hassle I’d had with the van reg with multiple refusals when everything was correct I couldn’t belief they’d accepted this application when everything I told them was wrong. They must have such a backlog after lockdown that they can’t be arsed to refuse and have applications resubmitted.
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teaboy
Posted a lot
Make tea, not war.
Posts: 2,126
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Aug 12, 2020 13:09:37 GMT
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That’s quite an impressive amount of work.
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Aug 12, 2020 13:30:16 GMT
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Top work love these I had a 8v one years ago which needed arches and sills I sold it on due lack of space and time.
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Aug 12, 2020 13:55:34 GMT
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That’s quite an impressive amount of work. Thanks mr Teaboy. It has been helped along considerably by the country’s situation over the last few months. |
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Aug 12, 2020 13:58:24 GMT
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Top work love these I had a 8v one years ago which needed arches and sills I sold it on due lack of space and time. Thanks mr Dash. Get another. They’re still not worth anywhere near old Ford prices |
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Aug 12, 2020 14:35:32 GMT
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Haha too busy with my nova pal.
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Aug 15, 2020 16:33:33 GMT
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So does anyone to now the spec? Well it’s got the red top engine. This has high compression pistons, cams, ARP bolts and a ecu that has group N written on ( In felt tip pen). Don’t know if it is group N but it does apparently make a big difference in the performance and the Rev limit is higher the standard. It is a very tired engine though. It’s done umpteen road and stage rallies over the years and has even boiled its brains out on one road rally as the fan was running backwards and then dumped in a river. My brother states it made some weird noises whilst in the river. There is also a straight cut close ratio box with a Gripper diff and low ratio final drive. There’s Bilstein suspension all round, works type front arms and huge Girling front brakes. The interior will be stripped out with just the carpet and front door cards remaining. Those paying attention will remember that back in 2002 when I bought the car, when the interior was ripped out, all the plates for a roll cage were present. The Safety Devices roll cage I bought about 5 years ago lined up other the remaining plates. The bolt holes had little plugs siliconed in them. I think there were bonnet pins too but can’t remember. I thought perhaps it had been used in a one make race series. It also had not sunroof fitted and I’d not ever seen another GTE without one. My older brother said “You’ll regret doing this to this car one day” as we were ripping it apart. Oh how we laughed. A few months ago Sean put some build photos of the car on an Astra page on FB. Some guy commented that he’d bought a red GTE years ago and when he pulled some carpets up to weld sills or something, he’d found rollcage plates too and his also had no sunroof. He’d heard that some guy had bought 8 of these spec cars as a special order from Vauxhall to use in a rally team. The body on my car was really straight when I bought it and was still in original paint. In fact I never painted before racing, I just aerosoled the welds on the hinges panels. The only damage this car had was where the passenger front suspension arm bolts on had been shunted and someone had repaired with some really shonky welding. Then a while later someone else put some photos of some Astras on the same FB page.     These Astra’s were used at the Jim Russel race school at Donington Park back in the late 80’s. This Astra didn’t have all the stickers on when I bought it, but it did have 2 small ones. One was a Harry Hockley sticker and the other was Roadrunner Motor sport. I think this Astra is one of these cars. The registration in F39 NRO which I believe is a Luton number. Does anyone here know anything about these cars? It’s nice to think that this car has possibly spent its early life Being thrashed around a race circuit, then retired and became a road car then left on a driveway in Cardiff. Then I bought it, kicked the windows out and raced for another few years. Then retired again and left to rot in a wet garage in West Wales for donkeys years and is now having a third life as a rally car. It’s a nice bit of history. |
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Last Edit: Aug 15, 2020 17:16:48 GMT by jonsey
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Aug 15, 2020 17:56:58 GMT
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Wow bookmarked. I’m reading this on my phone. Scrolled down, kept scrolling... kept scrolling. Car complete!
When you did the rear wheel arch lips, did you joggle the edge of lap or butt weld? And how did you stop the distortion? Was it just patience? Looks perfect.
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Aug 15, 2020 18:51:10 GMT
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Wow bookmarked. I’m reading this on my phone. Scrolled down, kept scrolling... kept scrolling. Car complete! When you did the rear wheel arch lips, did you joggle the edge of lap or butt weld? And how did you stop the distortion? Was it just patience? Looks perfect. Mr sd1. Yep didn’t take that long in time, but a lot of hours gone into it. Mainly the welding. The arches are butt welded on. I had to use a fair aamount of the arch as the originals were so rotten. But the shape of the arch as it went higher up the panel was nothing like the original. I didn’t have the tools to reshape it properly (or the skillage to use them if I did😁), so I just bent it into a better shape in the vice. Filler was made to rectify as it’s just a rally car. The way my nephew drives it will be stoved in after the first rally anyway. |
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Aug 15, 2020 20:10:31 GMT
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Good save on the GTE ,years ago I used to service for a mate of mine with a GTE and that had no sunroof but was on a E reg,I remember the cage where it goes through the bulkhead was triangulated to the bottom of the front leg of the cage,car hadn’t been reshelled as far as we knew,and the rear beam had some bracing on it to stop toe changes,if I remember we only done a year with it before it was replaced with an ex Tony Pond Cossie,this brings back a few memories.Excellent work enabling it to fight another day.
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