'86 Capri Turbo

[Rusted Pistons]

Cheers Fred

So today was pretty productive again, I had a rough outline plan when I headed into the garage with a cuppa... put it all back together again! I'd already painted the light surrounds and fittings so they were ready to go back in. Roughly, I needed to:

Prep and paint the wiper arms and door handles,
Repair a bracket on the front spoiler (stood on it after taking it off the other day - )
trim the front indicator plastic (I had just lobbed them in the valance and not worried about the aesthetics first time round)
sand the bonnet pin plates,
make a bracket for my peep mirror,
refit front and rear lights,
put the interior back together,
various other bits and bobs...

[bstardchild]

Aug 14, 2014 21:18:11 GMT Rusted Pistons said:

I took all the paper off and shoved it outside to get a better look at it..





Job's a goodun!

Looks excellent - liking the more satin than matt

[Rusted Pistons]

Cheers mate, when i spayed a test piece i was a bit worried about the satin but reckon it's come out well. Pretty much looks like this now then! Managed to work through the list pretty effectively and managed to charge the battery up too. When I left the garage it was reading 12.55v so I'll check in the morning and make sure it's still a decent battery. Must be 6 years old now and hasn't exactly had regular charges so could well be goosed, we shall see in the morning.

Shaped my indicator binnicles and Tcut the lenses, I also spent a while polishing the intercooler and it came up much better. The supplied bracket with the peep mirror was no way near wide enough to fit the Capri door frame so I scoured the garage for something suitable. Settled on a left over bracket from building my workbench a few weeks back. Measured up and marked it, lobbed it in the vice and very carefully smacker it with a massive mallet. Fit like a glove!

Anyway, enough yakking. Pics!















Also hoovered the interior and took all the rubbish out! Passenger seat has a few marks on the base which is a bit annoying, might have a go at them tomorrow. First thing I'll do is organize the workshop as it's a right mess and I can't think straight in there! Then I'll check the voltage on the battery and if all's good shove it on and check the electrics. Need to torque up the exhaust manifold nuts and refit the exhaust and the MAF and filter. They're the main jobs but there'll be loads more. I think I'll pop to Halfords and get some paint to tidy up under the bonnet too. Looking forward to another day in the garage!

[jayvoa]

Ace! Looks spot on. Running vids next then!

[wu11ie]

That looks spot on, bet it turns a lot of heads, very Mad Max looking

[madmatttcustoms]

the refresh is looking great so glad this thread is back

[Rusted Pistons]

Cheers man! Well, it was full steam ahead and I was making nice fast progress until the other day. I was just torquing up the exhaust manifold bolts when something caught my eye. Where the floor meets the sill on the passenger side looked a little dubious. It's normally hidden by the cherry bomb side exit and so I clearly hadn't noticed that the metal had begun to be replaced by rust! Doh!

Well annoyed, it stopped progress instantly as I clearly needed to sort it out before the exhaust went back on.



This was the state of affairs after I yanked the seat out and pulled back the carpets

Poked about and broke old mr Whizzy out to find solid metal.. This is it sans rust and with copious amounts of Kurust applied.



Unfortunately, I don't currently have a welder to hand so progress was halted for a day or two till my mate was free to come round with his mig. In the meantime I charged the battery up and tested the electrics. Dash and dials all good, power to ignition and starter - excellent! wipers - check, indicators - check, brake lights - fail, side lights - fail, headlights - fail, mainbeams check!

So - some electrical gremlins to work through!

Whilst I was unable to make real progress I tidied it up under the bonnet. I went for muscle car engine bay look with some actual satin black (more satin than the body). It's not mint under the bonnet - far from it - but it's tidy enough.

[Rusted Pistons]

Over spray on overflow bottle and other bits removed:




Didn't touch it on Sunday - went to Tatton Park to a classic car show with my better half and a couple of mates. Good show, plenty of tasty motors to spur on the mojo!




So this morning we set about sorting out the Flintstones floor. Pushed the car out for about 8:30 and ground back to fresh steel through the Kurust. Then it started raining again! All over my fresh paint. It was gonna happen anyway, but it was still annoying!



Welding done, painted over, waxoyled in the sill and undersealed from below:



Solid again

[Rusted Pistons]

Once the paint was dry I stuck the carpets back down and fitted the Cobra subframe again. If only it was that easy! There are captive nuts welded inside little 'cages' under the floor for the seats to bolt in to. I managed to get the first one to bite through the thick carpet and slowly began cranking it up. Until the captive nut broke loose inside the little cage.. So Mr Whizzy came out again and sorted that problem, new nut and bolt - jobs a goodun.

I also cracked on with the electics. I managed to get the sidelights working easy enough, the contents on the cheap eBay sidelight units had decided to go a nice shade of brown so I sanded them clean and refitted - we have sidelights The headlights were also relatively easy to fix. Turns out my modified headlight relay had become a bit loose. The steel top had lifted and the contacts weakened - only took ten minutes to fix so now I had all the lights working.




Next onto the brake lights..

[Rusted Pistons]

Every time I pressed the brake pedal it'd pop the 8amp fuse. Took the rear lights off and checked for shorts - nothing wrong. Tried again with another fuse. 'Pop'



Then I remembered that the lights earth through the bolts that hold the units in place and I had painted over the holes. A bit of sanding and a refit and I tried again - great success! (#Borat)

So now the only electical bit I need to sort is the washer motor, as it's currently none responsive.

Tomorrow's plan involves attempting to torque up the 2 most impossible-to-get-to nuts ever (below manifold/above turbo...) another quick coat of underseal on the floor, refit the exhaust and attempt a little fault finding on the washer motor.

After that lot's done it'll be time to attempt to fire it up! Looking forward to that as I'm sure you'll imagine - Although I'm slightly nervous about our rebuilt turbo. I'm just hoping it'll fire up with no issues! Just before it broke the last time I think I fixed the light throttle misfire by replacing the IACV (for the 3rd time) as it was driving beautifully for a good 20 mins before it broke down due to a short on the ignition barrel sending a live down to an earth track in the ECU and popping it. That had happened a few times but I diagnosed it incorrectly each time! Sorted it finally (think it's further back in the thread somewhere) so theoretically it should be running pretty darn well. We shall see!

[ramirez]

Great to hear that this is back. Never really liked Capri's but love this one, something about the muscle car aesthetic!

[Rusted Pistons]

Went well today, got the exhaust back on first thing then started to fault find the washer motor issue. Had 12v at the motor no problem so took the motor out and tapped it a bit, reversed the polarity to see if I could in seize it but no dice. Shame as it was a nice neat little motor from a 60s Merc from my old job.

Not to worry, quick call to Jim Barrows and I had a nice new compact external washer motor ready to be picked up.

With that back I tried to take the pipes off the old one but they were well stuck, gave it some beans and it suddenly shot off, smashing my nail against the engine block! Now, I've never given birth to a child, but I have broken bones and petrol-hedge-cut my thigh to shreds amongst other ridiculous painful experiences - but my god, that bloody hurt! Nice black throbbing nail still now :/

Ah well, back on topic... jets were a bit blocked at first but the motor worked. unblocked and re aimed them. We now have a full quota of electrics working!

Didn't have time to try and start it today but I'll be having a go tomorrow - can't wait! Really hope the turbo is ok - new gutted if I manage to get it running and it smokes like Dot Cotton again! Fingers and indeed toes crossed...

[mazza]

Good luck, absolutely love this car, very talented bloke.

[Rusted Pistons]

[Rusted Pistons]

[jonomisfit]

Car looks freaking amazing.

Love it.

You need this.

[MrSpeedy]

I still fecking love this car.

Please tell me you'll be at RRG14, cos I know my kids will also love to see this!

[rob86]

Looks amazing bud!



Similar style to my Tina,






What wheels are they?



Rob

[Rusted Pistons]

Thanks for the comments fellas, made up your kids are into it too Mr Speedy! - unfortunately I'm not at The Gathering and I'm pretty gutted about it! Kinda lucky I didn't sort the tickets in time as I've had yet another set back just before I was going to MoT it. Unfortunately, I knocked the wires out of my fan relay under the bonnet, following the crude wiring diagram on the back of the relay I replaced the wires and thought nothing of it..

Got it running and was checking for leaks/smoke etc.. and it just cut out. There appeared to be something amiss in the bay fusebox as lifting it to inspect the fuses caused the EGI relay to click. Not happy with this I took the battery off and began to root through the fusebox loom to see what the problem could be. Finding a damaged boxfuse that was intermittently connecting up (wobbly filament) I thought I'd fixed it and replaced the battery.

My brother-in-law, Sam, was in the workshop looking at the car, I was underneath replacing the fuel line. The conversation went something like this:

Sam: "what's going on there?"
Me: (from under the car) "what do you mean?"
Sam: "the cars filling up with smoke!"

Quick look up from under the car to see plumes of smoke billowing from behind the dash panels

Me: curse word, lots and lots of curse words!

Within the space of about 10 seconds I'd disconnected the battery, grabbed the fire extinguisher and literally ripped the whole dash out with my hands! Yep, smashed the bloomin lot to pieces with panicking Hulk powers.

It turns out, after lots of investigation, that I had stupidly connected a live to an earth point on the fan relay and not realised. It didn't cause an immediate problem but was clearly heating up the wires all the way back to the ignition until the wires decided they couldn't hold on anymore.

IT WAS READY FOR MOT!! Permission to use the fox of frustration:

[Rusted Pistons]

From this:



To this:



In 10 seconds.

once again