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 :( )

Yep, well happy its all back together and running :D its now parked nicely outside my house :) The running issue is still not sorted, me and Olly sill have some more things to check :D

Woo, went out again last night and played with the Rado again, Put all the front back on again, lights, bumpers etc. Oliver finished off the exhaust, but had more fun cutting and welding to get it to fit :) Me and Ash whipped all the wheels off and raised the suspension up 10mm so we could get the car out of the drive lol. after Oliver finished the exhaust, we ran the car up to temp, then dropped all the oil out and changed the filter and put new oil back in. heres some pics, Me looking nervous Engine pics Back on her wheels Oliver then took her out for a quick drive, scrapped his way up the drive and down the lane. He came back and said the car was running crap under load while hot. So he came back and played with the timing a bit, but it wasn't time to fault hunt. so we will have to have a go another time. The engine idles perfectly though, and shoulds awesome :D Might need a clean though lol.

Should be driving it out of the garage tonight :D Woo

Update, Went out Cotley once again last night to crack on with the Rado. Me and Olly firstly played around get ting the last bits of the engine work finished, including fitting the Rad, the oil cooler, connecting the rest of the wiring, fitting the battery, and checking all the pipes etc were secure. We then filled the beast with some juice :) . Oliver also primed the oil pump to make sure the oil was flowing before strat up. After she was sorted for Oil and water Oliver went through some last checks and came across a problem. The oil warning light wasn't coming on when the key was turned. after some playing and checking Oliver isulated the problem to the top oil pressure sender, and after some trail and error found a working sender to go in :D . Then the time came, i took the king lead off the top of the dizzy and earthed it on the block and oliver turned the key, turning it over on the started motor perfectly. we then put the king lead back on and crossed our fingers... then... the key was turned... and... first turn the engine fired into life, perfectly, and sounded, well, loud as hell lol. The lack of exhaust meant the engine was only run for half a min, no where near the time needed to warn the oil up before the first oil change. but we now its runs :D Heres a quick video of it going (very loud) you need quicktime. With that massive weight off our minds Oliver could carry on and work out exactly what needed to be done to the exhaust to get it to work, and i could get on and mount the oil cooler, and replace the front pannel etc. So i mounted the new oil cooler, modifing the front pannel to make it fit, and the mounted the front pannel itself, finished pics, While i was mincing around with that, Oliver had a fight with the crediton powerfolw exhaust and worked out where and how much he needed to cut off and how he was going to make a "S" section out of nothing. heres the chopped doen corner section Oliver playing with the center silencer, Finaly working his magic welding it back together and creating the "S" piece to get the center silencer to sit in the middle of the tunnel. All the exhaust needs is a pipe of smaller diameter pipe to connect it to the cat bypass pipe. Painted a couple more bits i missed before to keep everything looking tidy. that was it for one night, pretty eventfull in the end, bt now we're only a stones throw away from finishing :) Stay tuned...

update: Didn't get it started last night, but got a load of work done, and it should only be one more nights worth of work (fingers crossed). First Olly had a good look at the exhaust to work out what needed to be done to mate the old Powerflow system to the new cat bypass i bought. It turns out that the center section is going to have to be chopped up and the silencer moved back so it all fits together nicely. We're doing this so when i have a few £'s spare i can buy a new back box and centre section and it will fit straight onto the cat bypass. Heres the exhast after its been taken off. Centre section, Derv style back box, While Oliver was fighting with the exhaust i was attacting all the water pipes to the engine. I have a set of venair hoses on order, but they will go on later, give me a perfect excuse to flush the water system at the same time. Then Olly joined in adn we reconnected all the wiring loom to the engine :) . Then i bolted up the IC and boost pipes :) Standard IC A couple with all the boost hoses connected One last one of the car flying :) and thats how it stayed until next time :) lol. Stay tuned...

Cheers guys :) It has been trying at times, but i'm lucky that i have such good friends. especially Oliver, how without i wouldn't have a rado at all, i would have broken it into piece as soon as it started.

Update lol, Once again me and Oliver drive out to the countryside for some more greasey action, this time i drive Olivers Bora due to Oliver drinking far too much the night before and still being half cut in the morning lol. the nice guy i am i even made him a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea to get him out of bed lol. anyway, theres loads of pics, so site back and watch you computer struggle to load them all lol. First of all we moved the car out and jacked it right up so Oliver could have a good look at the exhaust, and what needed to be done, after a little bit of hammering and wiggling we got the old down pipe off. This down pipe has been fully bodged, welded up and messed around with more times the Jordan lol. quick pic of how the engine was left over night Oliver wasted no time in climbing into the bay to sort out the lamba wiring, i bought a water proof connector block to sort out the stevey wonder wiring, so we wouldn't have to worry about that again. We whipped the old lamba out of the bodged down pipe and screwed it into the new cat bypass pipe i bought :) While Oliver was playing with the wiring i went down and finished cleaning the gearbox, it was pretty clean, but i wasn't completely happy with it. so after some Jizzer and a pressure washer the results were Then we whipped the engine crane out again and tided the engine up and took it off the engine stand so we could get at the gearbox end Heres Olivers finished wiring job, clutch bolted on, Oliver changing the bearing in the gearbox Gearbox on Me doing yet more cleaning New second hand downpipe in place Me and Olly playing around getting the engine in, Some goodies that will go on in the near future :) ass shot Me sorting out the gearbox mount I was then sent under the car to do the dirty job of doing up the drive shaft bolts, And its all in :D Woo I'm thinking of getting one of these next... lol. Still loads to do, but we'll crack on during the week with all the wiring, sorting out the crediton bodgetastic powerflow exhaust, the ic, rad etc. Shoudn't be too long though :D To be continued (again)

Update: well well well, the time has come once again to get dirty in a garage in the middle of the country side :) Me and Oliver vetured out to cotley on Saturday morning hungover again and carried on where we left off before the ring trip. Here comes pics :) We strated off with bolting up the auxiliaries onto the lump, Water pump some brackets pulleys dizzy cam belt exhaust mani on with new studs and nuts injectors Changing the belt on the charger Bolting up the charger inlet mani on with all new bolts Alt on and all the pulleys throttle body on new water flanges and some old hoses (my new ones aren't here yet :( Olly and Al playing russian rulet with the charger belt tensioner (it has to be compressed to get it on) Tensioner and isv on oil filter and cooler sandwich plate on And thats how we left it, everything on and ready to go in :D To be continued...

update, well me and Oliver took another trip out to Cotley last night to get some more bits on the Rado done :) The head was the task of the night, to build it and get it on the block. Heres a couple pics of the underside of the head, as you can see its just a standard one, new seals and guides, reseated valves, like new :) next we got the head gaskets out to check the clearence with the new 82.5mm pistons, and we were presently suprised to find the gasket was the exact same size as the bored out bores :D Then we threw the head onto the block, and bolted it down it some new head bolts We then put tappets in that had been soaked in oil for the last mounth, then the cam and cam end caps went on and were bolted down in sequence So much easier then building a 16v head lol. chucked the rocker cover on and we were done Then we went down the gym for an hour and gave it death :D Woo lol.

Update. Just spent half an hour typing out a detail description of the weekends events, but firefox crashed and i lost it all, grrrrrr so heres a cut down version. The bottom end was built up over the weekend, Sunday me and Oliver got up hungover and went out to start on the car. We started by stripping the crank out of the old block and transfering it and the bearings etc over to the new one With the crank in Oliver stared fitting the pistons to the rods, after that he stipped the rings on and we fitted them into the ready and waiting block. We then flipped it over and fitted the windage tray (cheers Jim) and VAG oil pump Screwed the baffeled sump on (cheers again Jim) and it was finished :D heres the money shot :D