My Rally Project

Lopéz

Lopéz

Lopéz

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
29,309
Location
Ottakring, Vienna.
No, really - this time I'll finish it!

Let's start from the start.

As many of you know, when I joined OcUK I had a road rally Peugeot 205 GTi that a friend and I built together over a period of months. It was an excellent learning exercise for us both - we had initially considered ourselves to be competent spannermen and we soon learned this wasn't true when we came to overcoming new obstacles. Still, the car got built, we learned a hell of a lot and in the end, after a few events, I bought out Wayne's half of the car.

Here it is after we just finished it:

01.jpg


Unfortunately my Golf road car died about this time and I had to press the Peugeot into daily service - the miles took their toll, it got dented by people trying to break into it, the bonnet pins got left open by me (whoops) which sent the bonnet slamming into the screen, someone bricked one of the windows trying to steal it, I hit a sheep and tore off the valance, and then to really finish things off a lack of oil cooler plus some dubious quality oil led to the bottom end giving up. The immobiliser/alarm packing in just added insult to injury.

As you can see, it was looking a bit worse for wear by now:

02.jpg


So, thoroughly disheartened with it I parked the car up in a garage and proceeded to do odd jobs to it, kidding myself that one day I'd get it sorted properly, but it was never really going to happen. The shell was battered and I didn't have the tools or motivation to do an engine swap. So it sat there, gathered dust and went manky.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm getting itchy to do a project again - but I can't really justify starting something anew when I have all this unfinished business to sort out with the Peugeot. So after a reality check and re-evaluation of the black car I realise the only way to get it sorted is to transport the rally bits into a new car. Otherwise I'll just tread water forever.

So, I get onto Adtrader, and buy the first one I go to see. A 1 owner F reg 1.6 with no sunroof and no electric pack for £295. The car is sound apart from 4 worn tyres which I'll be replacing anyway, and a crack in the screen. So I buy it on the spot and now the fun part begins.....

03.jpg
 
Last edited:
Dear god i can't believe how good the condition of that red one is for only £295

Good look with it dude hopefully you'l be able to keep this for what its best at :)
 
So with 2 vehicles I have 2 basic jobs to do - strip what's useful out of the old car and get the new car ready to receive the donor parts.

So, I get down the garage and start ripping off anything useful from the old car. Glass, lights, bumpers, bootlid, cylinder head, bodykit, brakes, suspension - they all have to come off. Then there's the roll cage of course, but that can wait until the shell is outside so I can have room and light to work.

So, I start with the seats. These are Sparco Sprint, probably the most popular budget seat in Europe. Unfortunately, they're absolutely filthy and generally looking a bit sorry for themselves:

04.jpg


05.jpg


Moral of the story? Don't buy red seats no matter how ace they look. In the near future I might replace them with black seats, but for now these will do the job just fine, so I douse them in 1001 Stainbuster and give them a thorough jetwashing.

06.jpg


Not perfect, but a huge improvement! The pictures really don't show just how filthy they were.
 
Last edited:
Yep SgtTupac, still living down Swansea way. :)

Phil W, trust me these were not going to improve with a bit of foaming cleaner and elbow grease. They're only thin foam and so they dry out nice and fast even in this weather.

After getting the seats and mounts out of the old car I now have a bit more space to work in. You can see how surface rust has pickled up all over the cage - OMP cages are notoriously badly finished and we should have rubbed it down better before painting it in the first place - and used a heck of a lot more paint! Once it's out, it gets rubbed back to clean steel, etch primed and then given substantial coats of Diamond White which should provide a good contrast to the red paint and trim.

07.jpg


You'll notice the cage has no door bars (that's the removable diagonal on the floor) - we ran out of cash in the original build, so the cage will have them when it goes in the new car. The rusty "feet" that weld do the body will need cutting out of the old shell - best way to do this is cut a larger than necessary area out of the floor and then you can grind off the excess easily before rubbing them back down, welding them into the new shell and painting them with some nice thick hammerite.

08.jpg


The harnesses need a clean but are otherwise fine, although I'd like to upgrade to 4 points instead of 3 (we couldn't get 4's at the time and we had an event that week so had to compromise) I'm not bothering with 3" FIA belts as the car won't be RAC logbooked and well, you have to draw the line somewhere.
 
Last edited:
I must admit I'll miss the old car, but just look at it:

09.jpg


It would have taken me forever to get anywhere with this....

10.jpg


And lurking under the rear arch trim panel was this...

11.jpg


Of course, I knew it was there - the area was damaged when we got the car but we were in a rush so just bodged what had already been bodged a few years before - this was always a nightmare waiting to happen.

12.jpg
 
Last edited:
Wow Lopéz, thats more updates in 10 minutes than your old thread got in months! :p

Will be watching with great interest though!
 
Looks like your going full steam ahead with the project then! My uncle has got a 205 1.6 GTI Road Rally car, does go very well but not as fast as me GSI lol. Although he has me around the bends! When you looking to have it done mate? Would love to see it when its done :)
 
So, with 2 motorbikes blocking my exit from the garage, I left the black car alone and decided to start preparing the red car.

I obviously can't do a huge amount, but I like to have neat wiring, so figured I'd do a few easy and theraputic (for me) wiring jobs on the interior of the car.

The late model dash isn't very good for places to mount switches and so on. The various cubby holes and panels are not very big, so you have to think carefully about where you want to mount your switches and things. The Mk1 dash isn't very good either, and we ended up with the switches spread randomly over the dash which annoyed the hell out of me, so this time I thought I'd be a bit more methodical.

The main switches I want inside the cockpit are:

Secondary cooling fan power switch
Spotlights on/off

With the possibility to add more, so I set about looking for a slot where I could fit up to 4 small rocker switches in easy reach of the navigator.

The best spot is under the heater vent on the passenger side of the dashboard.

13.jpg


So, out comes the panel, only to reveal a huge chunk of dashboard right where I want my switches.

14.jpg


A few seconds with the trusty jigsaw and the obstacle is removed.

15.jpg


Now I have room for the body of the switch behind the panel, and room for 4 simple rocker switches.

16.jpg


I'll use a Dremel to cut out the holes in the plastic and then clip them in place.
 
Last edited:
Another essential (for me) is to have a battery master switch. This is to enable the power to be cut from inside the car - I'll also be rigging up a pull cord like you've seen on JBeck's Corsa so that someone can do the same from the outside if I'm out cold and stuck in the car with the engine running and ignition on.

Again, space is at a premium, so the best place I can find is this tiny shallow oddments tray infront of the gearstick

17.jpg


Out comes the plastic tray, revealing that there is plenty of room underneath for some 135 amp battery cable (the battery is going in the boot - this helps weight distribution and frees up space for my air filter under the bonnet

18.jpg


After drawing a template and calling on the jigsaw and orbital sander, I am left with this after a few minutes work:

19.jpg


I know carbon is a cliché, but it looks so much better than a bare panel (and I don't like bare aluminium panels inside cars)

20.jpg


Now I can mount my battery cut off switch in the carbon plate, and in the future an extinguisher pull too, if I decide to fit a plumbed in system.

Don't think there will be any more updating now until next week, so in the meantime feel free to fire away with questions or feedback :)
 
Last edited:
SgtTupac said:
Looks like your going full steam ahead with the project then! My uncle has got a 205 1.6 GTI Road Rally car, does go very well but not as fast as me GSI lol. Although he has me around the bends! When you looking to have it done mate? Would love to see it when its done :)
Click to expand...
No real timeframe to be honest :)

I'd like to have the old shell ready for scrap by next weekend if possible. The cage/seats/harnesses will be the last thing fitted - there's no point putting them in yet as they will just get filthy. I'll be using the carpet from the black car (give it a jetwash first) and storing the carpet from the red car. That way I don't have to mangle a really nice carpet, and if I ever return it to standard then the carpet can just go back in with no missing bits in every corner!

Next step is to fit the battery box in the boot and to run the new cabling for it, mount that master switch and then I really need to find a power distribution block that I can mount in the engine bay to run all my live feeds from. Looking at audio ones at the moment but I don't know if they will be big enough for my needs. I need to see them in the flesh really before I order one.

When I'm happy with the power system I can get on with wiring and relaying for the spotlights, fitting the air horns, other little fiddly bits that I usually leave to the last minute. :)
 
Holy ****, you got that for £295 and it's mechanically good?

Great buy. Either awesome hunting or awesome negotiating. :cool:
 
Nice one Leon.

I've toyed with the idea of a project of my own for a long time now.

Before you knew all the bits you know now, where did you get all your info from? There doesn't seem to be all that much about...
 
Gilly said:
Nice one Leon.

I've toyed with the idea of a project of my own for a long time now.

Before you knew all the bits you know now, where did you get all your info from? There doesn't seem to be all that much about...
Click to expand...
Well, I knew a *reasonable* amount about cars anyway, but Wayne didn't really. We could change oil, do simple jobs etc but nothing too in depth. We basically learnt by

A) Reading forums
B) Talking to mates (there are LOTS of my mates in the area who have built rally cars, it's a popular sport in Wales)
C) Getting stuck in with a manual. Don't know how something comes apart? Read the manual, look at it carefully, think about the part. Visualise how it's all attached. Then take it step by step. If it takes you ages, it doesn't matter - better than breaking something. If you really can't do a job, get someone in - whether it be to advise, help, or you can just pay them to do the job. And watch and learn while they do it. Lots of forum members will be willing to do this sort of thing - come over, chat to you, help you out, especially the one-make forums like 205GTidrivers and so on.

The rules we worked to (and still do) are set by the MSA Blue Book, you get one when you buy a competition license. Invaluable - there isn't any point spending £2000 on an Mi16 conversion then finding out the rules don't allow it (if you're competing rather than just track day stuff)

I've seen awesome cars on American forums built by total noobs who'd never even wired up a plug. They do it by absorbing information from every source they can, buying the right tools, and having a go. :)

Merlin - I didn't even haggle by a quid - I couldn't bring myself to after I saw the car. I was just looking in the right place at the right time :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom