488 replies to this topic

[mandarinvx]

Cheers - good to know it's been of some use

[mandarinvx]

I've now taken the front clam off

A real PITA, all but two of the wheel arch liner fixings were rusted solid, so resulted in lots of drilling and swearing to replace with new jacknuts:



The clam mounting near the bottom of the fog light decided not to play ball, the nut was fused in place so when turning the bolt the plate behing the clam span and ripped a hole straight through the fibreglass Now repaired and ready for a rivnut; I almost left it, as I drove without it in place for a couple of days and seemed fine, but it would only play on my mind



Although the radiator had been changed a few years ago they'd re-used all the rusty fittings So started replacing a few of them:







The old tow bar was well and truly rusting away to nothing, so will be replaced with a stainless steel version



The channels in the crash box collect a lot of water as the drain hole is about 1" from the bottom of the channel. I decided to drill a 5mm hole at the bottom of this section to help it drain out in the future (I didn't want to drill into the base of the channel as this forms part of the crumple zone protection)





Potential source of rattle (not that I'd noticed one) one screw on each foglight was loose, the are only screwed into the thin metal sheet that support the light unit, and only pass through a couple of mm's so had worked quite loose - replaced with a longer heavier grade (no 10 instead of no 8) stainless screw



Gave the grill a few coats of satin black



And how it currently looks, hopefully I'll finish cleaning everything, re-fix the V in place and get it back together tomorrow

[mandarinvx]

A couple of bolts had been left out from the bonnet hinge, so these were added



The door hinges cleaned and re-greased (this car actually has the door stop plates fitted too ):



Everything under the clam area was cleaned with APC:




Then the clam replaced,

I decided to use hex nuts wherever possible (I have nightmares of the shallow allen sections of button heads rounding off!)
Managed to use them on the front bonnet supports - the rubber stoppers still fit fine on a hex



And all back together - I far prefer the V being in place

Edited by mandarinvx, 16 August 2009 - 08:02 PM.

[mandarinvx]

Cleaning a Pipercross Induction Cone

This may come as a reminder to a few of you

I haven't cleaned the filter since buying the car, so thought I'd give it a go (I did this by gaining access through the nearside wheel arch, it may be possible through the boot opening, but it will be tight!)

First off, bought some cleaner and oil from Halfords - about £11 for the set



Then disconnected the filter from the inlet pipe (it a good idea to buy a flexi jubilee wrench for jobs like this )



Then the intake pipe simply pulls off to leave you with this:



*DO NOT try to remove the foam from the housing, it is not designed to be disasembled any further*

Quite an impressive amount of crap came out the filter! (and this pic doesn't include the bits of leaves)



And onto this:



Sprayed liberally with cleaner, and then left to dry for many hours, then a light coat of oil applied



The only other thing I did was to spray the intake trumpet yellow, as I prefer it to red

[mandarinvx]

Then moved onto preparations for removing the rear clam

The liners weren't as bad as the front ones, tho I replaced the lower rear fasteners (which were the expanding rubber type) with M6 Jacknuts on both sides

Must have saved over 1kg of weight with the amount of debris retrieved (this is only from the rear part of the offside liner)



Set about changing bolts over to stainless, cant believe all the exhaust hager bolts came out - all of them were seized solid on my last car



And the clam bolts above the liner

[cheeky_chops]

terrific thread - i remember seeing it at meguires day.

[mandarinvx]

terrific thread - i remember seeing it at meguires day.

There's been a lot of TLC since then

[haggi961]

just read ever page then and best project iv seen mate brilliant and lost of pictures and how to do the jobs i take my hat too ya.

[mandarinvx]

[haggi961]

is there much involved in taking off the front v and the badge ,do you have to take the bottom of the car to undo it.

[mandarinvx]

is there much involved in taking off the front v and the badge ,do you have to take the bottom of the car to undo it.

To do it properly you have to take the whole front end of the car off (the bonnet can stay on), which can be hard work if the fasteners have seized; so it looks like this:



That's because the V is held on by screws from behind the grille


You could always cheat and hack it up with a Dremel, but be very sure you want to remove it as it'll be a real PITA to replace it, and you'll have to splash out for a new one

You could always mask/cover the car and spray yours in situ if it's looking a bit worse for wear

[haggi961]

is there much involved in taking off the front v and the badge ,do you have to take the bottom of the car to undo it.

To do it properly you have to take the whole front end of the car off (the bonnet can stay on), which can be hard work if the fasteners have seized; so it looks like this:



That's because the V is held on by screws from behind the grille


You could always cheat and hack it up with a Dremel, but be very sure you want to remove it as it'll be a real PITA to replace it, and you'll have to splash out for a new one

You could always mask/cover the car and spray yours in situ if it's looking a bit worse for wear

dam sounds hard then it is the reason why is i think it looks better debadge and degrilled so i might have to have a look at taking the clam off.

[mandarinvx]

If you just want to remove the V then you can hack away at it from the front with a Dremel and/or holesaw without having to remove the clam

[haggi961]

[/quote]

what the reason behind this mate

[mandarinvx]

what the reason behind this mate

Mainly applicable if you take the car on track - the VX has a nasty habit of throwing oil out of the gearbox breather, which then covers the engine bay, and if you're unlucky (as I was in my last car whilst going round Abingdon track) it will also go all over the nearside rear wheel

[haggi961]

right i see good idea mate and were did you get the stainless steel tow bar for the front as im going to do the same as you and take off the front clam and get a new one fitted.

[mandarinvx]

I got it from simsy, a member on here - not sure if he'll have any left now, but may be able to make you one

[haggi961]

ok cheers for that il give him a bell at some point.

[FrankenJim]

Lovely Stuff mate. Do you work on it at weekends or just a few hours a day ? Jim

[mandarinvx]

Lovely Stuff mate.
Do you work on it at weekends or just a few hours a day ?
Jim

I managed to spend most of Saturday on it last week, don't get much time outside in the evening tho (that may change when I come to do rear clam / exhaust tho!)