Monzadave

The rado look lovely mate. How much were to weitec's?

Thought it was about time for an update. The Rado's had a wheel change since the last time i posted here, and i've descided to get my ass in gear and sort out all the little bits and pieces so i can get the car ready to sell sometime in the next few months. Had some more starter problems recently, and after some to'ing and fro'ing from GSF all is working again. fianlly made it down to save-on and got John to swap the rears on the Avez's, and i got some 3mm longer bolts for the fronts coz i'm using 3mm shims on the front. Anyway, heres some pics of how the car looks at the moment.

Haha, nah, beam bushes all done in the same day, wasn't too bad, but now the cars called the vintage because the beam looked like it was off a car from the 50's lol. We did get to have another look at the hessitation problem the Rado has a few weeks ago before a Rooling Road day at TSR. Oliver came round and replaced the Jabba Chip in the ECU for a SNS one that he had laying around, and it seemed to sort the problem :) The Rado produced 174bhp at the flywheel, with 161bls/ft. Which i was a bit dissapointed with tbh, i was hoping for more bhp and torque. but the timing is still to be tweeked fully, and the current exhaust and startard IC wouldn't have helped. So the next mods on the list will be a new 2.5 inch exhaust, and a front mount :) . Quick pic from the day :) But now a couple of weeks later the problem is back, but only at half gas?? What is happening is if you build the revs when warm to about 3k the car starts hesstating, but if you put you foot down a bit more then half throttle the car accelerates fine again :confused4: The air fuel gauge is reading that the car is running very lean at half gas, but richens up correctly on more throttle. could this be something as simple as a fuel blockage?? i have a new filter to go on. Any one have any suggestions??

The bays looking great Neil, love the matt black :) 8) We managed to sort the running problem on my Rado by swapping the Jabba chip for a SNS one, not sure if you have tried this but might be worth a go if your still having problems :) Cheers Dave

I think Riley has already replaced that. What immobiliser/alarm have you got??

Good work neil. Looks like its coming along nicely :). I'm guessing you've still got that running problem?? you must have replaced everything in the bay by now :S

The problem with rear beam bushes is that you have to take the whole rear beam off really. Which can be a pain in the ass if you have a low car (the strut bolt on the drivers side fouls on the petrol tank), and chances are that you'll snap or twist all or most of the brake lines too :? Once the beams off its still a bit of an ass if you don't have a 9" grinder coz you need to cut off both sides of each bush and either knock out or burn out the rest of the bush. I wish i had remembered to take my camera now too, would have made a handy how-to :)

More work done on the Rado over the weekend :) Took TFC out to Olivers to sort out my stupidly noisey front wheel bearing, and some other bits and pieces, Things to do were, rear bushes, all wheel bearings, brake lines. Heres some pics of what happened :) Oliver playing with the front bearings, we took the whole strut off with the hub so that i didn't need to get the camber done again :) . Oliver pushing in the new bearing, With Oliver playing with the front, Nath Elworthy was helping for the day, and took the rear beam off and we whipped off the rear brakes and bushes. Beam off, Nath heating up the rear carriers to undo the bolts :) The state of the rear bushes :? No pics of the rear beam all bushed up coz my phone ran out of batterey :( But after a long day, and having to go and get a new front passenger side hub from GSF because the one on the car was fucked from the screwed wheel bearing, we were all done, and the car handles and goes like new :) Big thanks to Oliver and Nath for working on the car all Sat. And now there's someone else that hates the car (Nath lol).

Boost gauge now wired in, and only 50 miles left :D

Cheers dude :) it has indeed been a busy last 6 months. Only 70 mile to go before its all run in and i can use full throttle and more then 3k revs :D WOO!

Haha, I was feeling lazy when i posted that, heres the work behind it (lots of pics :) ) Got some board and measured up where i wanted them, and got to work :D long story short thsi is what i ended up with :D Then, first took out the ash tray and cig lighter and then cut the crap out of the plastic behind, making sure that the gauges and surrounds could fit in the new space. Then me and Olly had to work out a way of fitting the pod in there. We decided to attach another piece of wood on the back of the pod, on the bottom sticking into the dash that sites on the plastic left at the bottom, and we are then going to use some self tapping screw to secure it in. That may not have made much sense, but all will become clearer in these pics, As you can see, we have glued a piece of wood to the bottom that will site in the new hole. The tape is for some spacers that we attatched to the top to space the whole thing out too. We just need to make sure it all fits ok now (after the glue has set) and then trim it :D . Then, I trimmed off some excess glue with a sharp knife, and the used the material DUB sent me to trim the pod :) Heres how it turned out :) :D

Cheers people. Should be making it to a couple shows this year, but will have to wait and see :) I have now fitted the 3 autometer gauges :) pics... Only the air/fuel is wired in though. Nee to pull my finger out and wire up the other too :) .

update: Went over tp the parents house early this morning to get stuck into the front wishbone bushes so i can get the trackig done and sort out the shit handling :D Jacked the car up and whipped out the two wishbones that were in the rado (sorry, no pics, i was greasey :( ). I then went about getting the old bushes out to insert the new polybushes :) I knocked one bush out coz it was fucked, and went onto the next wishbone, cutting out the rear bush on the other wishbone and sawing the metal sleave in two places and knocking the crap out of it to get it out :) I then went to cut out the other sleave on the wishbone and noticed that this one was different fom the one before :? so i lined them up next to each other and the rear bush hole was in a completely different place on either wishbone :? I stood back and thought... OMG!!! the muppet that i bought the car off had used one Rado wishbone, and one GOLF wishbone, the muppet!!! So, i went down to GSF and bought two new wishbones, and two new drop links too, as the old ones were from a Golf too, GRRRRRRR. I then went into over drive and fitted all the new bits and dropped the Rado down and went home. As for the drive home, the car drives like the stearing wheel is not connected to the wheels lol. The two from wheels are pointing at each other now lol. So i phoned up protyre and booked it in for a tracking sort out :) Its been a long day, but i have a beer now :) .

The saga continues, Took friday off and did some more work on the Rado :) , took the whole front off again and changed all the water hoses for brand new venair ones :D No mid-work pics as i was in a right rage for a large portion of the day trying to get the new pipes on lol. Anyway, got the new hoses on and decided it was time i washed the dirty slag, so i gave her a good going over and washed off the three months of garage dust that was all over :) The milage count now stands at 100 miles, so i will be doing an oil and filter change tonight so i can do some more :D . Heres some pics of the car now :) seats need a good clean, and theres still a list the size of me of things that still need to be done. My bad luck continued over the weekend too when i was driving up the outter bypass on Sat (just past Devon Hotel) and a massive stone flicked up and put a nice crack in my windscreen... which is now the size of my arm and growing :( Time for a new screen :( Not sure if you can see it too well in this pick, but its where te dry line is :( Will keep you all updated :) Cheers Dave

Just changed this pipe on mine while fault hunting, the pipe i took off was the original one and was 1m long, so i cut the new pipe to the same length and threw it on (still didn't fix the problem though :( )