dr_broon Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 Coming along nicely - the new shifter looks like a nice bit of kit 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 (edited) Stripped the rear arms down (photo half way through the job, lots of swearing and removing of extremely rusty bolts later). One of the attachment points for the handbrake cable totally stripped so I had to drill it out and use a helicoil on it, which wasn't a brilliant idea as the insert was deeper than the hole and I had to cut the helicoil down to size with a pair of snips, hopefully it'll be ok, i'm sure I've done worse in the past... 🤪 Scrap metal anyone? Wire brushed as much of the loose rust as I could and gave them a few coats of Hammerite "direct to metal" paint, looking much better. In an ideal world the hubs could do with coming off and the whole arm being sandblasted but it's good enough for underneath the car i'm sure Next job is to press out the bushes once I have access to a press Cleaned up the brake callipers and brackets (which under the terrible paint job seemed almost brand new!) and gave them a coat of Jenolite silver brake calliper paint which came out really well Edited February 3 by btjtaylor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_broon Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 Arms look much better mate.. Should keep them right for years to come 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 13 Author Share Posted February 13 (edited) Ended up with a spare pair of headlights so thought I would have a go at making some EK9-style ones (like this) Melted the glue and opened the lights (10 mins in the oven at 120c) Removed the chrome surround and the orange lenses for the indicators Scuffed up the chrome with a scotchbrite pad to key it for paint Gave it a few coats of high temp graphite paint Went to put the lights back together and found the amber bulbs I bought don't fit. Apparently this is a common issue as they're "keyed" differently to the white ones, so I filed off one of the pins which actually seems to work... Quick sand and polish and here's the finished result! I will probably give it a more agressive sand and apply some clear coat at some point but happy for now, it looks 100x better than the stock ones imo Edited February 13 by btjtaylor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 15 Author Share Posted February 15 (edited) Managed to spend a good day on the car for the first time in a while Fitted a Leoch XR600 lightweight AGM battery in a custom made battery holder from Alloy Race Fabrications. Drilled into the factory battery tray and used some rivnuts to bolt it down. I will probably end up relocating the battery eventually but the stock battery was completely knackered so it made sense to upgrade to a lightweight one. Also fitted a twist-style battery isolator to prevent the battery from running down when the car isnt being driven Took off the entire front suspension to start refreshing everything with new upgraded parts Fitted hardrace compliance bushes and lower control arms Installed roll centre correction lower ball joints Edited February 15 by btjtaylor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 19 Author Share Posted February 19 Looking at these photos again it felt like a shame to put rusty parts back on the car As I'd already installed the ball joints and I didn't really fancy pressing out the wheel bearings I masked up the arms and knuckles as best I could and gave them a few coats of the same Hammerite paint i've used on the rear arms Pretty happy with the results all things considered. It's not a full strip down and restoration of course but it looks a lot better and should protect it for the next few years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 21 Author Share Posted February 21 Made a custom EK9 style grille to go with the headlights Dismantled the grille, scuffed the chrome surround and rattle can painted it the same as the body (Titan Silver NH614M) Here's it drying, I didn't paint it on the dining table, i'd not be alive to tell the tale! Removed the inside of the grille with a dremel and then painstakingly cut some black mesh from ebay (as close to the EK9 mesh as I could see from photos) to size and sandwiched it in between the grille pieces Hopefully it fits on the car properly as I had to remove a lot of material... will find out tomorrow! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 22 Author Share Posted February 22 Got the grille fitted to the car, that was the easy bit as the rest of the day turned into a bit of a nightmare! Could probably do with painting the metal behind black (its not quite as obvious in real life) but other than that im happy with it for a DIY job We then tried to swap in the MG ZS 180 steering rack that I bought... what a pig of a job Once we've eventually wrestled it into place after removing engine mount and subframe bolts, we found it didnt fit because these pipes are shaped differently, meaning it fouls on the engine mount bracket (the factory MB one so I can't even blame this on it being a k swap!) MB pipe: So I had to remove the rack from the car again and then remove the pipes from the MB rack and swap them to the ZS one. I've never seen that mentioned before but it's worth knowing if you are attempting this... Didn't get as much done as i'd like but onwards and upwards 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr_broon Posted February 25 Share Posted February 25 The grille looks cool, nice one. Shame that there was the hassle with the steering rack though, at least there was a fix for it, but definitely good to mention it. At least you had the old pipes intact too do the swap 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btjtaylor Posted February 25 Author Share Posted February 25 Yeah was a bit unexpected but got there in the end. The pipes were not the easiest to get off - after a bit of heat and loads of wd40 they did eventually shift but they're a little chewed up. I managed to get them on tight but if there are any leaks I fear I will have to remake them which won't be the easiest as there's quite a lot of tight bends. Potentially I could also use some kind of flexible PTFE pipe and AN fittings to make the routing a bit easier. Apparently on other hondas (eg/ek/etc) you can just swap the pinion shaft piece across rather than changing the entire rack as it seems like the racks are all the same it's just the teeth on the pinion that affects the ratio so I would probably try to get another MB2 rack (they're a lot cheaper!) and swap the pinion over from the ZS one rather than another attempt at removing the pipes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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