pete_griff

haven't had any more update pics of the spraying as yet, but it's pretty much done now - hopefully getting some pics soon... also, i've managed to get hold of a spare set of hub assemblies and a full set of brembos off an evo; so now i've got some templates to give to my (very appreciated and awesome ;) ) friend to mock up some carriers, they'll be finding their way onto the car at some point once i'm all done out here (looking at sort of mid-April for that to happen hopefully). will almost certainly make up some new solid lines while i'm at it as well as the existing ones are definitely past their best... roll-on the new year! anyway, happy Christmas everyone from afar - hope you all have a good time and don't suffer too badly at the hands of the weather :D

love it! :D

looking great there pal, if you aren't already i would replace the bolts that see all the rain and crap down by the rad support panel - especially the two M8 bolts that have already been mentioned... powder coating looks to have come out really well - will be lovely once it's all back together :D

cheers for that. in all honesty though the paint wasn't the best. there were loads swirl marks that admittedly would have come out with some work, but also there were a few patches of surface rust that would have progressed if left alone and also a fair number of carpark dents, small scratches and also a mountain of stone chips up front (hence the skim with filler). can't wait to see it when i get back now though! :) cheers pal, not as much as me though i assure you! hey pal, get this - not only is there only 4mm of metal between the bores (meaning triple-layer steel head gaskets as standard), but the compression runs at 11:1!!! there are some fine tolerences there! as for the extra cc; bmw put shorter rods in for a longer stroke, twinned with revised pistons. guessing that's how they've gone with the 3.2 as well... thanks for the suggestion on the headlight lenses - already got them doing it! they were pretty bad though, so if they don't come good then it'll just have to be some new ones. i also remembered what you said about the lense-seals on your corrado and they have some new ones waiting to go on once they've polished them. :) that's great about the braking assembly (i was hoping you'd say that) - i can square that away no problems when i get back. just keeping my eyes open now for the right set of calipers to come up cheap (wish i'd never sold my spare set now!). thanks very very much again for sorting me out like this by the way - very much appreciated. :D cheers pal. i would normally be very nervous and i'm out of the country so i won't even get to see it for a while! i'm very lucky though, in that the guys who work in the paint shop are all very good friends of mine. they always do a fantastic job; the bmw, audi and vw garages in hereford always send their work to them when their own bodyshops get too busy. plus they know how anal i am anyway, so i've no doubt they'll do a cracking job. (they painted a small bit of the 'rado for me before with great results, especially considering the age of the car and the paint). JUST CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT NOW!

^likewise^ lovely tidy install Ben 8)

as promised here are a couple of pics of the car as it stands right now... it's actually totally in primer now (hopefully getting more pics emailed across tomorrow), but these will have to suffice for the time being. it should hopefully be painted in the next couple of days. oh, and the wheels have been refurbed as well - should be the ones shown in the pics... god it's so frustrating being out here and not being able to get back and see it in the flesh/metal! only 48 more days to go!... anyway - pics...

really liking the s3 James - hadn't seen this thread until now. it looks like a lovely example, no wonder you're chuffed with it. i made the mistake of selling my evo last year just before all the snow came, then regretted that loads over that month. (m5's aren't exactly the best vehicle to use when there's snow & ice about!) 4wd and snow is ridiculously good fun! it will be awesome when you get hold of some winter tyres. i'm back around the middle of Jan, if all this snow hasn't disappeared by then, then i'll have to look into getting some snow chains; they're not cheap either - 275/35 18's isn't exactly the easiest size to get chains for! care to make/post up some sideways vids for us?!? ;)

how did you do yours by the way?... i like to flare one end then copy as much of the line as i can and then chop it to length flare the other end last. i found that if you try and get it exactly the same length to begin with and flare both ends then bend it to shape something always (inevitably) goes wrong!

glad to see you're getting there. if you want to make a good job then brake lines are such a fiddly PITA aren't they! i hate doing them! still, there more you do, the better you'll get. have fun doing the really short rear line that goes from the bias valve to the nearside of the rear beam; it's only about 100mm long and you basically have to bend it back on itself. that's a bending tool job then finish it off with hands and hope you don't kink it! that one will probably be a pig with steel lines (sorry to break the news! that said the cupro nickel aren't loads softer than steel...) let us know how you get on! oh, have you had your bias valve off before??? if you're doing the rears then i would buy a new bias valve and bolts - they are always corroded solid onto the bolts. i had to slice right up through mine with a 9" angle grinder (and cutting through ally isn't fun!), then hammer a wedge in to remove the last 5mm "slice" left on the car and even then it took some shifting... you have been warned!!! (top tip, no doubt teaching you to suck eggs, but copper grease the new bolts when you put them on with the new bias valve, then you won't have the galling and corrosion problems in future :) )

that's a fair one pal! i've got my own decent flaring tool, but i'm not sure if it will do steel... it's certainly robust enough in design - maybe i need some separate flaring keys though, hmmmmmmm..... i'll have to look into that as you've got me wondering! my flaring tool cost me about £100 and it will do the 37 degree flares too. (think mr monkey possibly has a piccie of it somewhere in his build thread from when i went to help him...) defo a useful bit of kit to have. i've done more brake lines than i care to remember now - each time i say i f*cking hate doing these and won't do any more though! i've just got a generic pipe bending tool for small pipes from a plumbing place, is yours a brake line specific jobbie? they make things look loads neater afterwards and you can be sure of nothing kinky occurring when you're bending! :norty:

that's right - the original lines are steel. this makes them very tough (tougher than the cupro-nickel lines), but also leaves them wide open to corrosion. yes the paint/sheath cures this, but it only lasts for so long, also the steel lines corrode internally as well (due to water ingress into the brake fluid and system over time). the OEM steel is good stuff but my personal preference would be towards the cupro-nickel... edit - unless i'm mistaken, i think they use copper-nickel tubing out on the rigs due to it's extreme corrosion resistance when confronted with the constant salt spray from the ocean...

those seats are looking fantastic pal. 8) if you've got a day or two off work i would pay for your help to re-do mine at some point!!! hope all is well back there buddy - any news on the move etc? by the way, with this progress does this mean the car will actually have a ticket and tax when i get back?!? (oh - hopefully going to update my thread on here shortly - not got pics yet, but the M5 is in primer and getting the paint in the next day or two... :) )

looking great so far Judith - bet you can't wait to see the finished product (and get back to buffing!) best of luck, really looking forward to the results :)

you could consider copper-nickel lines (or cupro-nickel as they call them in the shops) the cupro-nickel stuff is much more sturdy than the copper stuff and it's also much more corrosion resiststant than the original lines. i need to replace the lines on the M5 at some point - i'll defo be using cupro-nickel... if you've already bought the stuff then the deal is done, but i would look into cupro-nickel if you get the chance. by the way, the wheels and tyres are looking great. i heard on the news (when we get it...) that there's been a nice "dump" of snow in the UK - bet you're praying to see some down south eh Kev?!?

Dave your car is ridiculously clean - exactly what you can do to further it's cleanliness is beyond me! it looks absoluetly fantastic in the photos though pal - a real credit to you and your efforts :D what have you got planned next after the zink plating - surely you must be running out of things to do by now...

if you can get the new bushes in with a hammer then please send me your old knackered ones and i'll take a video of myself eating them!!! best of luck all the same :lol:

sounds like a bit of an odd one... strange things can happen to carswhen they sit still for a while. you shouldn't get airlocks per-say for more than a couple of seconds in the oil system. however, when people have rebuilt engines etc, they have sometimes had issues with the tappets taking quite a while to quieten down. if it's been sat stationary for a while without a good hard run out with the oil sloshing around everywhere as it's designed to, then you could possibly be suffering from the same issue. i would say give it an oil and filter change and carefully inspect the old filter. then run it properly on the road for a while and monitor the situation. chances are (hopefully) that it will just "go away" i would sy that's the best course of action for you right now. if the symptoms persist or your old oil filter looks like a glitter factory then you know it's something more sinister

defo replace the bolts at the same time - mine were rusted to buggery when they came out and my car was one of the least rusty examples i've seen. be warmed the new bushes are a real swine to get in - i gave up and took mine to be pressed in by a garage - you have been warned! good luck sorting it all - it's much nicer putting the front back together and knowing there's nothing sinister hidden behind your bumper.

hey Mic - looking great matey, raelly pleased for you :D i'll also be interested to hear how you get on with the yellowstuffs; i've totally cooked the redstuffs on my car. i recon when i get back i'll be swapping out all my solid lines for braided flexi right from the abs unit, going for AP racing fluid and yellowstuff pads. the wheels and brakes look great against your paint and really offset the whole car. so how long before we see a rotary silencer finding it's way into your exhaust system?!? ;)

howdy Kev - glad to hear it's all sorted once again. not surprised you're (FINALLY!) getting round to the 24v job. if it was me, i would get some good support "butresses" going from the bend in the manifold to support the extra weight. you could also put some support straps in on the top going on to the top of the head bolts... i would also look at getting the newly made manifolds and downpipe ceramic treated so they pass the heat through as quickly as possible and don't retain the heat themselves. as for the inlet - bin the plastic item if you're going boost. they even crack in OEM N/A form and are generally not very robust. they're obviously well designed for flow, but i wouldn't even consider it when running F/I. if you speak nicely to the Crazy one - him and Graham are most of the way to knocking up a 24v shortrunner (or so i believe...). that'll sort you out! :wink:

quality post Kev - cheers for sharing. :D was yours making the horrible "cracking" noise where the exhaust gasses are just escaping past the gasket? my mate's celica gt-4 had that problem - sounded like something much more serious. we traced it in the end as he was getting strange intermittent boost with spikes etc.

goodridge braided are probably the best hoses around - get the ones with stainless fittings rather than the zink plated as they last lots longer. also i would go for OEM bushes over poly personally, but it's up to you... as for the brakes you're better off spending your money on a g60 brake setup - even if you've got drilled/gooved items already - the g60 setup is bigger and better! don't bother with drilled discs, then can be grooved if you really like, but you're better off spending the money on a g60 setup and some decent pads. personally on a valver i would go with redstuff, but i drive my cars very very hard (having to upgrade to yellow stuff myself before long as i've totally cooked my redstuffs!)

it does sound like the friction plate is being contaminated somehow... could oil and/or clutch fluid be getting into the bellhousing? it's crap, but now you cleaned it up a bit, it would probably be best to get it all off again and have another look...

fair play the paint looks fantastic i can't believe how well that's come out considering you don't have an oven! - hats off to you. bodywork is something i'd really like to learn more about someday; i've always seen it as a bit of a dark art and it doesn't help that i have friends who are amazing at it and will sort me out on the cheap! car is looking great :D

hey pal, mk2 is looking great. bet you had fun getting the subframe out on your own, and putting the headliner back in for that matter - did you get pic before it went back in as i'd obviously be very interested to see what it turned out like... and more importantly - how long until the 'rado goes in for it's MOT?!? i expect it to be on the road by the time i get back!!!