Davemurphy007

OK first things first YES its a Vauxhall and YES this is a Ford forum but here's the score with this one...............it's been dumped outside of one of our workshops for the last couple of months and I've been after a cheap runaround for a while now but never found anything that really says "BUY ME" and I've never really had the money to actively buy something............this one just landed itself upon me and was too good to turn down! Especially as it's a half decent car to begin with (the C16XE engines in these are easily tuneable to well over 200bhp without a turbo!!!). This is also the first kind of project I've ever undertaken so it'll be a really good experience for me to do and it'll give me the confidence to maybe do this again in the future - maybe with a hot Ford I'd much rather fuck up a Vauxhall trying things out than get lynched by you guys fucking up an old-skool Ford I might even do something like learning to weld on it or learning the art of bodywork repairs on it as well

It's never going to be the prettiest of restorations and I won't be doing a full and complete shell restoration on it either. The plan is to try and get it looking quite tidy and cleaned up and then it'll be used as my daily runner!!! I'm gonna try and see how cheaply and quickly I can do this sort of thing and I'm off to a good start by buying the car for a mere £70!!!

Here's what I've got to work with!









It looks reasonable enough but it's not without its problems.

Stonechips in the bonnet (make that THROUGH the bonnet)



Cracked windscreen (but there is a new one in the back of the car)



Rust around the spoiler on the tailgate



Rust around the rear wiper



I've had a look in the engine bay and everything seems to be in order - it's minging filthy but that's to be expected for a car that has 101k miles on it and has been abandoned for 2 months in the weather we've been having. The 2 passenger side tyres were flat as pancakes (made pushing it into the workshop REAL good fun!!!) so they'll need replacing, the alloys are in suprisingly good nick but I think I might give them a shot blast and a refurb (because I've got access to a shot blaster so why the hell not eh!).

I've since moved the car from it's resting spot out in the cold into a nice lovely warm(ish) workshop - was an absolute pig to get moving due to the flat tyres and the rear drums were seized to begin with but we managed to tow it close enough to push it into the workshop and unseized the drums at the same time! I'm going up there tomorrow with an electric compressor to pump up those 2 flat tyres and I'll whip the battery out of it as well - If I can get it over to our main site on camp I can get it into out motor club and up on a set of ramps to have a ruddy good look on the underside and see what I'm dealing with! If I can store the car in our motor club I might start stripping everything out to have a good look at the wiring and trim and so on and so forth (I'm an electrician by trade so all that 'string' stuff is second nature to me ). It's got an alarm AND an immobiliser fitted on it (anyone know anything about Scorpion alarms???) which I've no idea how that'as gonna work when the new battery is fitted so I want to have a ganders at the wiring and see what I can find.

I've decided I definitely want a new bonnet, I could probs live with the tailgate assuming I can work out how to get the rear spoiler of (If I can and it's not bonded on) and then I'll just grind the paintwork down and get it primed and prepped so it can't rust anymore (I hope). I can live with the front wing as well as I'll just pull it out as best as I can and get some filler on it or if I can find one cheap enough I'll just replace it (I'm assuming it's just a bolt on wing and it's not welded or anything).

So once I've got it stashed away safely under shelter the plan is along the lines as follows.

Get it up on stands, rip the suspension out and give it a thorough going over, rip off as many parts as I can and give them a good shot blast and then paint them with Hammerite or something

Strip the engine bay out as far as possible a) so I can see where everything goes and how the engine is all put together so I can see if any cheap improvements can be made and b) gonna clean up as much metalwork as I can (things like exhaust manifold heat shield) and maybe give them a lick of paint as well to protect them and make the engine bay look reasonably presentable.

Strip out the interior, check for anything broken and get replacement parts as necessary, give everything a bloody good clean as well and then refit everything.

There are no plans to modify the car at the moment - I just want a clean and tidy runaround with a decent reliable engine while I save some money for a house.......once I've got that out of the way then who knows My first car was a K-Plate Nova 1.2i which I absolutely loved and would have REALLY liked to have dumped a red-top engine in there

I'll keep peeps updated as I get on with things

trevCOSS

iTrader: (6)

great little car, my ex girlfriend had one a few years ago, had fun with it, wasnt quite as rusty as that one though

GazzaG

looks ok for £70 mate

good luck with it

_DAN_

Bargain for seventy quid. I'd whip the engine out and whack it in a Mini and a C20XE in the Corsa.

Davemurphy007

Some mixed news from this at the moment.

Went over to the site/workshop where I've been stashing the Corsa with a buddy last night to try and get it moved over to our main site so I can get it jacked up and start stripping the bugger apart, the 2 tyres that I pumped up at the tail end of last week were flat as pancakes again so I had to pump those up again which was a pig as the car's right in the corner of the workshop and we blew a fuse for the ciggy lighter in my mate's car trying to pump it up (had to borrow one out of a motorsport Cossie being stored there ).

Took over the battery to my Focus in the hope that it would just slot in there and it would fire up first time...................................well....... ..doesn't hurt to be optimistic lmao

Not a chance of it happening though, managed to get the alarm working by connecting up the battery which was promptly silenced with the use of some snips (I'm a lecky by trade so they'll be easy to properly splice back together once I get to that stage). Whatever we did we just couldn't get the thing to fire up though, turning the key to position 2 got the fuel pump working and some of the lights on the dash (I got a quarter tank of fuel included in the £70 purchase price - bargain ) but trying to actully crank the car brought absolutely nothing. We had a fiddle with the instaled immobiliser but couldn't work out what the seemingly random sequence of flashing red lights, solid red lights and momentary green lights meant regarding trying to fire it up!

So we pushed it out of the workshop and got it hookd up to the back of my mates car and began towing it, me driving the tow car and my mate in the Corsa (he didn't trust me in a car with little or no brakes which is fair enough I guess), started towing it and I was a bit shocked to look in the mirror to see lights flashing it me!!!

He'd fired it up!!!

And it sounded rough as a badgers arsehole and billowing huge plumes of blue smoke lmao

He took it for a spin around the 'estate' and kept the revs up a bit, we were worried at first it sounded so rough that if he stopped it would stall so we agreed he'd drive it back and I'd drive his car back to camp (it's only a mile away).

Got the car back to camp with only a single cautionary stop (because it was peeing down with rain and the front wiper arms are in the boot with the scuttle panel :doh: ) and by the time we got back to camp it was beginning to sound alright (misfiring though) and the huge plumes of blue smoke had reduced to a hint of blue smoke which was a big bonus!

The car is currently stored outside of our station's motor club awaiting a space to become available for me to get the car in and up on axle stands at which point I will begin stripping the thing down for further inspection, that'll happen at the beginning of next week until I can get hold of a Haynes manual and then the real fun will begin! I had a cursory check of everything in the engine bay after I'd switched the car off and there don't appear to be any huge leaks coming from anywhere and the floor was bone dry underneath the car in the storage shed so I'm pretty chuffed with that, I also found out why it might be kicking out blue smoke - the previous owner said he'd done an oil change..............whoever did it needs slapping as the oil level was DOUBLE the maximum level on the dipstick (the cans in the car are also pants quality oil) :doh: . I also had a go at trying to restart the car after I'd switched it off and I couldn't even get the starter motor to do anything (clicked but wouldn't turn) however given I have no idea how to use the immobiliser fitted on the car I'm not going to get too wound up about that at the mo - worst case scenario I'll pull the starter motor off and try it against a battery off the car to see if it does anything

So just gotta get the weekend out of the way with (taking the Focus to a motor show in Hull if anybody is up that way) and then I'll pinch the misses camera, get the car up and begin stripping and take loooooaaaads of photos to show what I'm dealing with.

Plans for next week

- Get it up on axle stands
- Strip wheels and (flat) tyres off
- Strip interior
- Strip any 'easy/obvious to remove' body parts (checking for rust)
- Start cleaning up the engine bay (and other minging filthy areas such as the suspension areas) to see if there's any obvious damage/leaks covered by dirst at the mo!
- Find out from the previous owner how the damned immobiliser works! :doh: (anyone know anything about 'Scorpion' alarms and immobilisers???)
- GET A HAYNES MANUAL
- Take lots of photos
- Depending on how I get on with those I might drain ALL the fluids out of the car as well as I'll want to replace them as well.

Will update next week guys (with a few photos)

A real bargain as it's now a runner (well, once I work out how to use the immobiliser). The misses has made it VERY clear that I'm NOT touching/modifying/tuning this one though ("You've got the Focus for that"..........yes babe )..............however she keeps joking that she wants a mini to restore and play about with so I wouldn't rule it out in the future - I wanted to dump a 2.0 litre into my old Nova but the shell was in Southampton and I'm in Lincolnshire and had no way of getting the car moved/towed/trailered from A->B.........you never know

patch

£70 bargin resto

Staffi

iTrader: (1)

paul16v

£70 bargain! the front bumpers fetch £200+ on evilbay

ram

iTrader: (4)

sounds like its gonna be a fun project

CliffRS4

iTrader: (1)

If the bumpers sell for £200 on E Bay ; then break it after all it's only a vauxhaul

Then you could buy the mini that your missus wants and have an excuse to go all out

Davemurphy007

Right update time!!!

Well I've been without the use of my beloved Focus for over 2 months now and being stuck on camp with no way of getting around anywhere has been absolutely killing me (not to mention cheesing off the misses somewhat ) so I've had to go out and buy a THIRD car in order to get me around. So it is my pleasure to introduce to you..........

my 'Runny Shedabout'!!!











A 1.1 (carb'd) base model Peugeot 106 with 78,000 miles on the clock and a 4 speed gearbox! The car runs sweet as a nut, the bodywork is clean and straight (although the paintwork won't win any concourse contests ), there's NO rust on the damned thing, it had a months tax and MoT till the end of January and cost me the grand sum of.................£190

Proof that bargains CAN be found if you look hard enough and all credit goes to Leo for finding this little gem in the local freeads!

Anyways, this has now given me the freedom to go round getting Corsa parts so I can carry on with restoring/fixing 'Project Shed'.

The car has moved spots in my motor club, it was sat right in the middle of the club in everybody's way but someone has moved their project out so I've now moved both the car AND my ever increasing collection of spare parts into the bay now and I've slowly been stripping parts off of it as well

















Unfortunately it's when you start stripping stuff off you begin to find out how much stuff is broken and needs replacing. This was case in point with the sump as the previous owner had used silicone sealer all over the sump plug. I removed all of this with a screwdriver and then came back the next day to find a big puddle of oil on the floor . A new sump plug and washer didn't cure the problem so I was left with no choice but to take the sump off the car (after draining out the oil obviously ). This revealed that the sump nut was next to useless as the thread for it in the sump was completed stripped so the oil was able to flow past it pretty easily! You could PUSH the sump nut into place

However £30 later sees the delivery of a baffled race/track day sump on eBay which is overkill for what I need but a lot cheaper than I was able to get on owners forums (it's pretty difficult to get hold of them!!!)



To go with that is another set of near mint front seats to replace the current ones (which aren't in that bad a nick so I can flog those and get my money back), a FULL front suspension and brake setup including all the lower arms, bushes, roll bars and other suchlike and a complete exhaust system (with catalytic convertor - more money back as mine's pre-cat ). This was all obtained locally by someone breaking another GSi and was all chucked in as part of the deal for the seats as I did a bit of couriering for him (he won a set of magnesium Dymag racing wheels on eBay and the seller was 5 minutes down the road from my parents in Southampton and the misses and I were down there that weekend ).

All these suspension parts will be cleaned up with wirebrushes, Hammerited black and refitted to the car and this has already begun in preperation! :twisted:





Unfortunately it's not all good news. I already knew the car was quite rusty however it's not until you actually get the thing up in the air and get underneath it with a good light source that you realise just HOW bad it is. There is no way in hell the car will pass an MoT as it is as the front chassis rails are both rotten so they are going to need a fair bit of work. The pictures do make it look a lot worse than it is however I'm not gonna kid myself into thinking it's a 5 minute fix.

Passenger side chassis rail









Unfortunately this is the better of the 2 sides...........here's the driver's side











The rest of the car looks in pretty bad condition as well.













I'm determined that I'm going to fix this though and I have already begun to do exactly that. I have already started ripping out the front suspension setup and am cleaning up the stuff I already have. This will certainly make the front of the car look much better as most of the rusty stuff in these photos is suspension related and it being removed!

Tonight I removed the front anti-roll bar which, it's fair to say, was pretty damned minging!







This also allowed me to remove the car's exhaust manifold and downpipe which I had half removed a few weeks ago but couldn't remove the rest of it as I rounded off one of the poxy bolts holding the 2 together so couldn't seperate them



Unfortunately that wasn't all good news either as the downpipe has a sizeable hole at the flange connecting it to the rest of the exhaust system................oh and it's been welded up a couple of times before by the looks of it





An angle grinder soon seperated the downpipe from the manifold :twisted: but I'm going to need to get hold of a new downpipe from somewhere which is a pain in the backside. I have the rest of the exhaust system waiting to be built up, I just need to get hold of the manifold -> block + manifold -> downpipe gaskets and some exhaust hangars and the system can be put back on along with my nice shiney bargain Irmscher twin backbox.

That was as far as I got tonight, tomorrow will be cleaning up more of the suspension stuff and over the weekend I will try and pop into a Vauxhall Stealer and get hold of a sump gasket so I can fit that on next week, I'll be scouring eBay to try and get hold of a downpipe as well so the exhaust system can go back together.

I have no idea when this car is going to be finished. Suffice to say I want it to be sooner rather than later as it'll be a LOT better at cross county motoring than the 'ickle Pug is (as nice a car as that is like) but the biggest issue is the welding on the underside, that's the big thing preventing this car becoming roadworthy. I have access to plenty of welding gear and a rollover cage so I'm practising my welding skills with a view to carrying out the repair myself which could prove to be a LOT of fun and will give me no end of satisfaction when the job is finally finished! Could come in handy fabricating stuff for the Focus (or future Ford restorations ) ya never know

Enjoy for now!

danny_boy699

iTrader: (5)

chassie legs on corsa b's normaly crack and u have to weld them every year for a mot.

looks nice like, same as my mate, they good fun when moving

Benni

Absolutely love it mate, I cannot wait to see how this progresses.

CliffRS4

iTrader: (1)

Having a motor club on camp is so cool
Don't get anything like that where I am

You've got your work cut out on the underside. Having access to all that equipment is a massive bonus

Davemurphy007

I'll get my practice in now then!!!

No pressure to get it done and keep regular updates then

I can't disagree with that one! I've got access to all the welding gear I need, a rollover cage, 2 big toolkits (all recently purchased), storage and workspace which is reasonably secure (we're all on the same team so there's no incidents of pikeyness which is reassuring!) and a heater in there as well so even when there's an inch of frost on top of the damned shed we are nice and toasty inside!!! Only thing I don't have at the moment is the skill to use some of the stuff I'm going to need on this badboy but I shall learn! There's absolutely no way in hell I could do half of this if I didn't have access to this club though so I fully intend to make best use of it!!! Get this one done and then I'm getting my Focus in there to strip that apart for a major overhaul..........but that's for a different thread

Isn't all fun though as I run the books for the club which has its moments accounting for some of the kit we have in there and anything that needs buying normally comes out of my pocket first and I have to wait to clear it off the books unless we've accounted for it well in advance!

Thanks for all the positive comments guys

CliffRS4

iTrader: (1)

So you get money towards the tools etc from the forces?

Maybe it's just the army being tight as fuck as usual

Davemurphy007

God no!!!

We all pay a membership fee for use of the club (which I have to keep track of) and we use that, along with a couple of other small income sources, to keep the club running. No public money goes into the club at all in the way of grants or bursaries, it's all 'privately run' as such.

Don't worry, the Air Force are tight as fuck as well but that's a whole different discussion

R5COS

you have your hands full there mate hope it all goes well will keep an eye on this resto

1.9 xr2 on 40's

strip it, scrap it, looks fooked

if it was a horse it'd be in the glue factory, prob more money in breakin too

3i_gaz

fuck me mate thats in a bad state, stick with it though

harrisp

Prove it,

I have heard of one incident where a chassis leg cracked on a corsa and I am on several corsa forums .

1.9 xr2 on 40's

you signed up just to whinge on here :blub:

you'll fit right in

Davemurphy007

Haven't done any more on this this year as the stupid fucking french piece of shit 106 failed it's MoT and I've been busting my bollocks on that instead Fucking french cars!

This is the second case then as these ones are rotten to fuck with holes in them. Easy fix seeing as I've got access to all the welding gear and a lot of time. My MoT man told me to look out for the chassis legs and the B-Pillars as these are notorious on (early) Corsas...........he was dead right as both chassis legs are split and both b-pillars are cracked!!!

It is fooked There's no 2 ways about it but it's like a S1 in that they are almost all fucked but most will agree they are worth saving...............if nothing else I'm learning and practising to weld on the thing and I'dd rather do all my shitty welding on a Vauxhall where I can fuck it up and do it again and get better....................than try and learn on an old Ford. I'll save my good welding skills for Fords so I can do the best possible job!

I appreciate what you're saying though.

Big Will_

For fucks sake dinlow - am i going to have to come and beat this with the persuasion stick for you?

Whats the long term plan then?

My offer still stands to come and sort your focus out?

In fact - i have 2 2.0 Zetec engine mounts in my toolbox if that helps?