8v Mega Update

Had a very frustrating few days. Finished painting and rebuilt the brakes:

Went to remove the old discs and only one of the torx bits came out. Two sheared at the threads. One sheared at the torx head! Bastard things. I had applied heat to them as well and tried impact driving them. So in the process of drilling them out.

Unbolted the old calipers but then couldn’t separate the flexihose from the rigid line. If I recall correctly the flexihose is pressed into the metal bracket that is bolted to the chassis rail. The flexihose end then doesn’t move. So in theory you should just need to undo the 11mm brake union nut to separate the two. Of course it is seized solid and won’t come undone. I am scratching my head on this at the moment and I may go and try and get a proper brake union spanner to get more grip on the nut.

Chopped the remainder of the drop links off the struts. Top nuts were also stuck on the threads so wouldn’t come all the way off. Managed to undo them a bit and then get a slit disc in behind them to chop the thread in half to release them.

The N/S rear arch was sellotaped on – nice bodge! Took it off and spend ages cleaning the residue off the arch and body panels. Refixed the arch properly with rubber washers and stainless washers and screws. It’s not going anywhere now.

Removed the heater matrix and heater from the 16v car. Another 4.5kg taken out of that which is good and will definitely be going down the heated windscreen route. Investigated the footwells in the 8v and discovered that the bulkhead sound proofing is only wet in the bottom of the footwells. Therefore I suspect the interior was very water logged at some point and was never allowed to dry out. I felt some relief on discovering this as changing the matrix with the engine in was a job I was not looking forward to.

Also applied two coats of the tie coat primer yesterday. I will be able to put the gravitex on the gusset repairs tomorrow once the paint has fully cured.

Finally changed the air filter and stuck a K&N in. Spent the rest of the time cleaning up the garage a bit as it was a right state from lots of work.

Remaining jobs are:

• Fit the brake calipers and discs and bleed the entire system with new fluid.
• Oil and filter change.
• Fuel filter change.
• Sheared torsion beam bolt drilled out and replaced.
• Then MOT