Rallye Project

Before I scrapped the silver GTI I chopped this out:

This was because I had realised the I’d was going to put the EW back in the Maxi so I’d need to repair the cut out I’d put into the chassis and I’d need a donor section. Now when I’ve been working on the Rallye, I’d come to need to buy a pair of the chassis reinforcement plates.

Turns out this is the last one that 106 Parts had for sale:

By sheer luck I have a pair:

Drilled the four spot welds and with some careful work with the slit disc on the welds and we have two ready to fit…

So suspensions on, steering is connected up. Question has anyone else had any issues with getting the tracking right with Tommy’s steering arm kits? I’ve basically zero’d all of the adjustment out of them and I still have quite a bit of toe in. Without shortening the arms I’m going to have to use thinner lock nuts or something similar to make these work Any one else have any issues?

Chucked the wheels back on and rolled it outside for a wash, it was very dirty but it’s given me a chance to clean up some of the mud off the bits I need to tidy up. It’s clearly been run without wheel arch liners for quite a long time and now the dirt is gone, it’s clear that there is tar residue all over the place.

Rear beam on this car has been properly slammed, too low for my liking…

Any way the reason for getting it rolling was to turn it around so I can do the engine swap out of the Maxi into the Rallye more simply. Once the engine and box are in I can letterbox the bulkhead into the scuttle.

Finally managed to get the paperwork sorted and it arrived back from the DVLA this week.

14(!) registered previous keepers which means that there’s some significant gaps in my knowledge…

Bought some Motamec pedal covers, but they weren’t a great fit and being thinner alloy that say a set of Sparco’s decided that they needed to be modified:

Bit of time shaping them:

Did all three:

Drilled the pedals and welded nuts onto the back to simplify fitting. Bit of matt black to tidy them up…

Mounted

Back in 2012(!) when I bought Danny’s Quaife’d BE box off him it came with a Satchshift. At which point I sold my MA version and cracked on with the then project car which was the 16v White S2 Rallye. The thing was that in doing this car, I’d welded in a trimmed down version of the stick gator mounting plate so I didn’t have one and I’d forgotten that. So the starting point for fitting the Satchshift to this car was to make a bit of tube.

I’d not made a tube out of flat sheet before but I found a paint tin that was the right diameter so used that as a form to bend the steel around. Ended up with this – it’s pretty much round.

Did the necessary prep, which included blanking the original gear lever hole and welded bit of formed tube in.

Now having fitted a number of Satchshifts over the years any one who has also done it will know that it is enough of a faff to bolt the bits onto the bulkhead with the interior stripped and an empty bay, but it’s really a two person job with the car assembled. To remedy that I welded nuts onto the bulkhead so no spanners are needed – just a hex key

I also don’t know how the shell was used previously as it had the cutout and drilled holes for the upper pushrod gator, but the other holes weren’t drilled which was a bit weird

All fitted: