1987 mk1b 1.5 conversion

[Fozzy]

I introduced myself after a long time lurking during the week, so now it's time for my latest build thread. Technically this began back in October ish last year so I have a few bits to fill in first. The car as I bought it looked quite clean and respectable





I drove it from purchase on 7th December 2013 until the engine gave out (later diagnosed as major head gasket failure) in early Febuary 2014. It was parked down he side of the house and left for the year as I had other commitments, like getting married and honeymoon. Once I got back in August I had planned to start straight away, but beer got in the way, and it was nearer September before I pulled my finger out.

I had to start by giving myself somewhere to work. The house was equipped with a rather crap pile of gravel for a drive, not nice for working on cars, so cue 120 slabs and 2 tons of sand/ballast along with 2 weekends slaving I had my work area.



So I dragged the car out, gave it a wash and got it up on stands



The following weekend it was time to get the engine out. I started on the Saturday after work at 12. The engine sat on the floor less than 3 hours later, love these mr2's, so easy to work on





Now it was time to have a look around the car and evaluate the rust, apparently it had has arches at some point, but during it's sit down the side of the house a few patches had started to show





With the skirts off things didn't look much better











The front wings practically fell off, but I don't have any pictures of them. Nothing at the bottom where they join the sill, the side skirt was holding them on. There was also nothing under the front splitter where they overlap the wings, and the separate valences were sieves.

[Fozzy]

Next up was to drag the engine out from under the car, not the easiest, and involved jacking the car up with various lumps of wood between the jack and the car, with an old seatbelt wrapped around an engine mount I managed to manhandle it out. That's now the 5th engine I've removed without a crane. Not fun and I should really invest in one, but hey, where's the fun in that

Removing the front end was fun, lots of broken bolts than will need drilling out, and lost of lovely rust, yay. Not too many pictures of this as I was cracking on, so the after shots, showing a few questionable mot patches as the paperwork showed, these will be removed and done properly













Oh and a small hole in the passenger side floor/chassis area



The front bumper bar had seen better days

[Fozzy]

During the last year I had been stockpiling parts ready for the build, some were lucky finds, others came from the death of other mk1.5 (project outrun)
The toys include
Brand new BC coilovers
Brand new front valance pieces
Hasslebeck rear panel
Alloy radiator
Complete chargecooler setup
St165 twin pot calipers, rear rev 1 mk2 calipers and disks
New braided brake lines
Mk1.5 driveshafts











Unfortunately they will need a refurb, oh well



During the last few months I've also been cleaning up and refurbing suspension parts after work, so handy having the father inlaw as a boss, and working in a machine shop.







Rear hubs with brand new bearings and bottom ball joints

[Fozzy]

This brings it up to this weekend, where I have managed to sneak a few hours when I should have been doing housework. I decided it was time to get the interior out and check out the rest of the floors. Didn't take too long and I was left with this on the passenger side



I had a little helper while I was pulling it apart, meet Sargent Furrysides, or Sarge as he is mostly known







Little patch up the front, as I expected due to the hole underneath in the floor, and after a few pokes



The back of the passenger side was perfect though, no issues here



So time to tackle the drivers side, mostly the same story as the passengers side, small holes up front



But another rubbish patch for mot purposes, another to cut out and do properly, but nothing major



Whilst I had it apart I could remove the rather rubbish scorpion alarm, that was clearly fitted by the dealership when it was first bought. Eurgh scotch locks and crimps





I also found these in the dash while removing the glove box



Must have been tucked away back when it was resprayed back in 2008

I also took a bit more off the front end, the slam panel and radiator so I could check for any more rust. Actually pretty clean up here, just a small patch on the drives side rail. The upper rad brackets are toast and will need cutting off the front panel, the bolts won't turn, but the panel is twisting, so I need to be gentle on them







Headlight mechanisms look crusty, they should be fun

[Fozzy]

That was Saturday after work, today I managed to steal a couple of hours after the weekly shop. I attacked the old engine mounts with the angle grinder, flap wheel, power file and spot weld drill. Now I'm just ready for the engine jig. Which reminds me I was meant to call Patrick yesterday, b0ll0cks





I also attacked the stubborn bolt holding the drives side rear arm on. It didn't want to know, and the head of the bolt shared off, so I attacked the other side with the grinder and got it off finally. Now I can clean this up and polybush it to go with the rest

[pistol pete]

Good work.. I did a1.5 conversion in there winter on my drove to couple years back..
Am watching with interest

[slipping clutch]

Great project but also an excellent buyer be-a-ware. That mark 1 looks really tidy in the pictures - not saying its not solid or was a bad buy etc. its just a surprise whats going on below the 'skin' hope this project gets completed. Watching with interest.

[ashley]

Wo...that's a lot of rot!! Good effort in attempting to keep it alive- watching with interest

[Nails]

Good luck with it mate.

As said it goes to show what you find when you start stripping and gets far worse once the flap and knot wheels are out. Annoyed me on outruns threads where people where like mines really clean etc. When you look at yours its the same exact places apart from the front where his had been butchered in the past.

[outrun]

Good luck with it mate.

As said it goes to show what you find when you start stripping and gets far worse once the flap and knot wheels are out. Annoyed me on outruns threads where people where like mines really clean etc. When you look at yours its the same exact places apart from the front where his had been butchered in the past.

All very true.

I was going to reply to this anyway, then noticed Nails was the last to comment.
Looks like you are doing a proper job on it, at any rate.

Good luck! These really do rot with the best of them.

[Fozzy]

They do like to rot, but I started out with old vauxhalls, which like to rot just as well. I had a cavalier that had worse sills and rear arches, plus the rear chassis rails had to be made from scratch, that lived on for another 4 years until I wrecked it

It was a shame your car was too bad to be worth continuing with, but some of it will live on in mine!

[outrun]

Yeah, I guess parts will live on.
I never realised that was my old CC and rad etc, at first.

Nice find on the NOS valance panels. You renewing the front bumper reinforcer, or repairing?

[JD]

Watching with interest - I love seeing good cars brought back from what might to others look like the end of the road, 2s especially

[Fozzy]

Yeah, I guess parts will live on.
I never realised that was my old CC and rad etc, at first.

Nice find on the NOS valance panels. You renewing the front bumper reinforcer, or repairing?

I managed to get a very good condition bumper bar from Ollie @ pacific works, as new really, so I'm happy with that. There wasn't enough left of the old one to repair, the entire underside was gone, I pulled it off the car, didn't need to unbolt it

[Fozzy]

Not a huge amount achieved this week, I'm saving up for the required repair panels, sills and sill connectors. I did buy myself another chargecooler setup, this time the correct unit for the rev3 engine rather than the rev1 unit I currently have. I also managed to acquire myself a lump of 4mm steel plate, so afterwork this morning I did this.





I had a little more time to kill before the wife dragged me to mothercare, so with the help of a fly press I stripped down the rear suspension arms ready for a clean up. It's so nice having the correct tools for the job, this took me about half an hour to get it all unbolted and the bushes pressed out





For those that were interested in the front bumper bar, it was definitely beyond repairing!

[ashley]

Wo- those are some strong scissors!!

Good work

[craig]

Great work on the restoration!

[pistol pete]

Image Replaced With URL For Quote http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh10 ... xn0fsw.jpg

Wo- those are some strong scissors!!

Good work

superman scissors

[Fozzy]

Not a massive amount of progress over the last couple of weeks, I've been suffering from a little man-flu, plus some decorating thrown the mix. Anyway, I decided to tackle the crusty front calipers. With a little work and some gentle persuasion on one seized piston I got the calipers stripped down. The seals were pretty tired and split, but luckily all the sliders were in good condition. 3 of the pistons are reusable, but one has corroded a bit, so I need to replace that.





I gave the calipers a quick wire rush and a degrease and put them in a tub of bilt hamber deox-c for a couple of days.



I don't have any pictures of how they came out the solution, but after a blast of caliper paint they are looking a hell of a lot better





I the meantime while the cleaning and painting took place I got ordering a seal kit from bigg red, and onto brakes international for a replacement piston, pad fitting kit, bleed nipples and red grease. All I need now is a couple of hours and I'll have functioning front calipers again.

The rear calipers look a bit cruddy, but they seem to move freely, so I'm avoiding a rebuild, I'll just give them a clean and a coat of silver to match the fronts. If they prove to be troublesome I'll just opt for some replacements from brakes international, of maybe a bigg red refurb. That's if I choose to keep them, as they are rev 1 16v calipers, I do have some rev 3 22v ones in need of a refurb

[Fozzy]

So, I'm not entirely sure where the last 6 or so weeks have disappeared, but I have been doing bits and pieces, mostly rust removal. As such I've had to wait for the weather to be nice for me to crack out the welder.

Anyway a few pictures to show the mess of the front passenger chassis rail and inner arch






Soooo, quite a mess in there, so I got happy with the grinder and cut some more out. This took me several hours to get back to clean metal







So I started to patch things back in. You can see a couple of my angle pieces as I made them above. I forgot to take too many pictures as I worked through the repair, but here are a few. The captive nuts for the ARB and the crossmember were replaced with new ones before it was all sealed up











Not the neatest bit of seam sealing, but they are covered, I will blast the lot with gravitex once I've finished all the repairs