Rexanne - Gold s2 restoration project

[Steve-A]

haha, I imagine that repair was about a 10th the price of getting Gavin in Damn those adverts are annoying! It\'s all well and good saying \'its free if you\'ve got comprehensive insurance\' but I\'ve got no insurance on this right now, and even if I did take out a policy I can\'t see them being too pleased when I mysteriously chip my windscreen in 4 places hours after taking the policy out, hahaha.

[spoddy]

very good steve, the chip looks so much better and if thats the worst of them, it really looks good. i doubt if those windscreen chip fixing professional methods would do much better. until nano technology is available then no way to rearrange moleculs lol to repair scratches etc.

one thing i wanted to ask, what air intake are you using, is it stock?
i was on ebay tonite looking at the K&N typhoon for my rx8, but alot of reviews say that the stock is better as the K&N one sucks in hot air, so you loose power as apposed to the stock as the air pipe goes into the air box from the bumper and so colder air gets in. the K&N sounds cool noise wise, but does not give you a significant difference in hp. i have been using the K&N stock replacement air filter, now i did notice an improvement over the stock, so are you using a stock air filter or an aftermarket one for your airbox which i think look cool in the blue

[Steve-A]

Cheers mate

I\'m running a stock intake for now. I\'m lead to believe that if you do want power from your air filter, then a replacement filter element that fits inside the original air box is best.  It will draw cold air from the stock location, but flow more than the stock one. Either way I don\'t plan to have stock carb for long so its not a bit deal

[Steve-A]

Been a while since I updated on my progress. The reason for this is that there hasn\'t been thats much really A combination of working, weather and still waiting for parts to arrive in the post, has meant I can\'t actually do much.

Since last time, I got the fan controller all set-up, and checked that it cut in and out correctly. My mx5 fan had no problems keeping the coolant at a sensible temperature when I left it idling for half an hour.



Next up I painted up my windscreen trim.



And installed it. Here you can also see that the painting I did at the base of the windscreen has come out really well. I\'m very pleased.



After a week of sanding and filling and re-sanding I\'d finally got a shape I was happy with for the front wing.



So on with the colour coat.



Then the lacquer. Unfortunately for some, unknown to me, reason it reacted slightly with the colour on one section of the wing, leaving this striping.



I know it\'s only subtle, but after spending forever preping it, it was just disappointing. I have to admit I then got quite angry with it and the threw the lacquer can at the wing which left a dent :o I regained some control and started by back the top layre of lacquer, but the striping remained, so it must be how the lacquer took to the colour

So for now I\'ve got a slightly stripy wing, though to be fair it\'s not very noticeable on the car.



I never planned to build a show car, but I just want to be proud of what I\'ve done, and I\'m not happy with the zebra look!

Either way I\'ve now made a start on the shaping and filling round the boot hatch.



I\'m hoping I can get hold of my suspension parts soon and get her on the road! I\'ve still got both rear arches and the valance to start on with cosmetics, and in a couple of weeks time I\'ll be able to properly polish up my painted sections and get them looking as shiny as the rest of the car.

[David Nock (RIP)]

Spraying is an art Steve, I once sprayed an old Austin A40 Hot Mustard. I panicked when it went stripey and ran out to hire some proper spray gear. Even then I think I still had to brush paint some of it.

It did another 20,000 miles or so afterwards as a runabout for me so in the end I was well pleased. Didn\'t go in for long haul runs in those days (no motorways). codge ramble, codge ramble....

[Hobbawobba]

Im scared I may jizz my pants when I see this around malvern!

[Steve-A]

Yeah, its a real art to paint stuff right. Every time I\'ve tried it I\'ve found another mistake I was making. If I can manage 20k in Rexanne on my home spray job I\'ll be quite happy

I\'ll have to make sure I don\'t drive past you then Hobbawobba or things might get embarrassing :rollin

So what have I been upto this past week? The answer is not that much on Rexanne. I had a weekend of days out and have been working some more in the week, so only grabbed moments here and there. Today I\'ve had most of the day to work on her and this is what I\'ve achieved...

I started by jumping in at the deep end with my dodgy rear wheel arch. First step was to strip the old paint back till I get to metal, instead of rust.



With the rust killer needing a number hours to do its work, I set about painting the area near the lower edge of the hatch.



This time I managed to get the lacquer right I think before I went on too heavy with the first coat of lacquer, instead of doing a \'fog\' coat. I borrowed a copy of the Haynes guide to bodywork a while ago, from a friend, but had only really skimmed it. It was there it suggested the super light coat, then give it just a couple of minutes before going in with a proper coat. Seemed to work.



You\'ll notice by the time I\'d taken the picture I\'d got the spoiler back on, and that I\'ve ditched the rear wiper. My Alfa hasn\'t got a rear wiper, and TBH I never wish I had one. So by removing the wiper and washer assembly thats saved me a little weight. It also means the old gas struts are strong enough to hold the hatch open now

With the rust killer now dry I made a start on smoothing the wheel arch out.



So far so good, and hopefully this isn\'t going to take me as long as the front arch did.

Finally the postman came!



Woooo! Finally. Just waiting on my coilovers now, and I got an email from GAZ this morning saying they should be just a couple of days away.

Lastly for today I got the dual alternator pulley on. I\'m going to wait till I\'ve finished the arch work before I fit the lower arms.

[re japi]

Those 6 spoke rims, i really like them. What are they?

And that engine looks simply stunning!

[Steve-A]

Cheers mate.

The 6 spoke wheels are SSR Longchamp XR4. As far as retro/vintage japanese wheels go they seem one of the more common designs, for good reason! I think they look great.

[rossonza]

Hi, Im Ross and i approve of this thread update!...
 
Looking good now mate, cant wait for the weekend so i can pop by :-)

[12at]

mate what awesome work you have done to the s2 well done!!
 
i wish i had the time and space to do something similar to mine!!

[Steve-A]

Cheer mates

Exciting times are afoot!

Yesterday evening I carried on smoothing out my rear passengers arch. It\'s by no means perfect, but it\'ll do for now. It\'s primed and ready to be wet sanded and have colour applied.



And then much more excitingly a big box was delivered today containing these....



They look awesome and were well worth the wait. The fronts dropped in just fine, as I thought they would. The only issue is that the adjustable top mounts don\'t offer any castor adjustment, and are set slightly less than standard, so I guess I\'ll have to have a think about that.




The rears were always going to be 50/50 whether they\'d fit. GAZ said I\'d need a 3.5" diameter turret to fit the shocks into, and that last 4" of turret on the s2 is 4.5" x 3". To try and help this problem David at GAZ put an extension at the top of the shock as long as he dared, to try and bring it out to sit under the turret. As it stands now the extension has helped but the upper spring perch and last 1/2" inch of spring sits in the turret and rubs.



It does \'fit\' but rubbing against the chassis wont be good for the shock and will make a terrible noise! So the first thing I did was stretch the inner arch side of the turret out a little. It\'s only thin and basically cosmetic.



But its still rubbing on the other side, closer to the centre of the car.



Tim mentioned to me before that someone else with these shocks had to box out the shock turrets to get them to fit, and that is one option. On the other hand with the small stretch to the inner arch I\'ve made if I were to move the lower shock mount, on the axel, back and outwards by 10mm or so each way then it should clear the turret just fine.

Modifying the axel is way way way easier than boxing out that shock tower, and while I\'m at it I can make the damper mount a little more substantial now its taking the weight of the car.

I\'ve got some steel box section thats perfect for the job and some time tomorrow so watch this space!

[Steve-A]

Update time. This is whats I got upto over the weekend and a little from today.

As I said before the plan was to reposition the lower rear shock mount, just by a few mm to gain the clearance I needed at the top. In the end I went 10mm outwards and 25mm backwards. Here\'s my new mounts just tacked up.



It\'s made from some 3mm wall 40mm box section, so pretty damn burly and I added some more material to the general area.

After that photo I rechecked my measurements,seam welded it and gave it a splash of paint.



While the paint dried I got the front brakes on and hooked up.



That kinda took a whole day. With fresh light I got the axel back in place, and we have clearance, just! There\'s more than it seems in that photo but hard place to get a camera upto!




With the axel back in I could bleed the brakes and then drop the car on its wheels...



She\'s sitting a bit high!  :confused:  Right now the coilovers are set to the spring it just under a fraction of tension at full extension, so as low as they safely go. That said they are brand new coilovers and spring so should settle in quite a bit. If they don\'t settle as I\'d like then I guess I\'ll have to look into helper springs, so I can safely wind the collars down without the spring becoming loose at full extension.

Going to try and book an MOT for friday! I best get back to the cosmetics now

[johnnyboy]

Brilliant....

[Ian65]

great work Steve... that mot is so close now... awesome!