Well, here we have my restoration thread!

I have a 1999 ink black 20vt that in all honestly, has seen better days.
its got 118k on the clock, a very large history, some of which was via a old member on here.

Its a sad tale of the last owner not looking after it as perhaps he should have, and not having the money to maintain it to a good standard. Sadly the last owner was layed of work and was no longer able to pay for its upkeep.

i could have easily waited a month and gone out and got me a sorted coupe. But i didn't want that. i wanted a coupe that i could save, save from being abused by a chav/Barry boy

more importantly, i wanted something that i could put my own touch on, and any work that needed/needs work doing. I now know its been done up to my standard by some one that i trust (or me)

ill outline the current issues, and hopefully check them off as i go

rear disks pitted corroded FIXED!!
rear breaks inefficient (passed mot however) FIXED!!
clutch slipping on boost FIXED!!
front disks possibly warped FIXED!!
headlights needs a refurb FIXED!!
Fuel cap needs a refurb FIXED!!
I suspect the front wishbones and drop links will need doing soon as the car is twitchy under very hard breaking
dents need to be removed FIXED

Thats the list of things that have to be done to the car to make it day-day drivable

the list of wants is...

widget DONE
refurbish alloys DONE!
nomad pod DONE!
narrow band lambda gauge DONE
boost gauge DONE
general tidying up of the engine bay DONE
and finally a map via flea. i only want to get to about 255bhp

So there we go, its not a epic trip (hopefully) to get this coupe back in to a condition i would be proud to show other members.
It was one i thought was well worth documenting however, if nothing else as a guide to what people can expect there going to have to do when they only pay 1k for a car!

This is as the coupe stands at the moment

1st Job (1 spanner rating for difficulty/ 2 for pain in the ass/ time cost 3 houres)

the lacker on the fuel cap had perished so it needed some elbo grease to brink it back to life

well, before



and after... but im not done yet, i didn't have fine enough sand paper

i had to put it back on as i needed to go out



I didnt have the fine paper needed to finish it how i wanted to, and the metal polish was rubbish, should be finished this weekend

2nd Job (2 spanner rating for difficulty/ 3 for pain in the ass/ time cost 3 hours)

Looking at the rear breaks and after getting a feel for the car. I have decided that the rear breaks need a overhaul

there good enough to pass the mot, but i don't think there up to par

So after a call to unipart i managed to pick up a set or rear pads and disks for less than 45 quid





New VS old



as suspected the rear slide bar on both calipers has seized. After we eventually managed to get them apart. we cleaned up all the moving parts and repacked with copper grees

Wile we were there we replaced the break fluid and had a general look at the condition of the underside of the car.

Good news, no rust of corrosion, the exhaust system is in very good condition and there are signs of the car being jacked up incorrectly

3rd Job (1 spanner rating for difficulty/ 1 for pain in the ass/ time cost .5 hours)

well this is the last update for a coupe of weeks till the clutch is done, I just want to thank Sean_C for hanging around for me at i was very nearly late for the collection of this



and this



It was picked up for a bargain basement price! it may not be to every one's taste but thats not important to me, its my opinion that counts...its my car!

Edit:

Updated this to show how it was done

The black wire was cut in to and a new wire was spliced in to the loom (very poorly for the time being) this will be soldered and insulated at some point



You should be able to see were the loom is located in this photo



The wiring was then run though this grommet



Which pops out (if you get it right) in the drivers side wing here



I then cut a little hole in to the rubber for the door wiring loom and fed it in though there

this should then pop out here



and its just a case of feeding it to were you want to go inside the car now

The unit is powered by a switched 12v feed of the car stereo, there are probably better places to pull the power from but thats were i got mine

4rd Job (2 spanner rating for difficulty/ 3 for pain in the ass/ time cost 7 hours)

Ok, well a 10min break away from the computer turned in to a hours!

i hit a wall today with the testing and am awaiting some data. so i thought as the car isn't going any were till next week, and the missis is working tonight

ill pop the plugs out and check how its running and if they need doing

well that was the mistake wile im here, i might as well check the cam lobs i thought. check there isn't anything untoward before i could wave good by to the missis i had the compete lot off the top

im glad i did as the plugs are fine, but i swear some one put them on with a air gun! plug 1 and especially 5 nearly broke me
I was on my nees with all my weight pushing on the dam thing. eventually it did turn, not with out taking the skin off all 4 of my fingers however

it was at that point a started to dance around the car park like i was on fire

so all the plugs are off the rocker cover is off. and all is looking well under there







now wile its all off, i may as well clean it!





So here is the start of the process






I was thinking about polishing it all up. but just to get it to a level that the paint is going to stick to has taken 4 houres

Primed :



and finally the finished product

So, before (believe it or not this was after a clean outside)



And after as it stands at the moment (may polish the fiat letters)



The paint I used:

They were all Halfords jobbys as i didn't have time to go anywhere else.

The primer

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/store...tegoryId_165495

The red paint i used

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/store...tegoryId_165495

and the lacquer

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/store...tegoryId_165495

Ill add i of course also did the rocker cover gasket and the individual plug gaskets

these were 8 quid from unipart

small job done on Friday evening,



boost gauage was added to the pod. the same path was taken as above for the power and the vacuum hosing

Right then...I have been doing some night driving recently and have once again become fed up by the candles that fiat call headlights.

I think there are a number of reasons for the poor headlights on the coupe

1)the plastic cover interferes with the beam patten
2)the low seating position of the coupe puts you right in the other cars beam patten, so your lights never seem to be strong enough
3)over the last 10 years the lacker on the outside has become pitted and milky, believe it or not this will effect beam strength
4)and lastly, the rubbish that builds up on the inside of the lights over the last 10 years

after looking though ebay for some HID kits as there are no GB's on at the moment i took the plunge and got these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=190292064301

worth a punt at the price!

So with the above in mind i see little point in putting a set of HID's in with out refurbishing the covers.

step one,

removing the headlights, an easy job...well you think it would be, but having done this in the past i wasn't taking any risks. The headlights are held in by 2 bolts and 2 nuts, the rear bolts are not usually a problem.
The front nuts are a different kettle of fish, after doing this on a 16vt in the past...the nuts sheered which is a massive pain in the ass
my coupe is S reg so i expected better. but alas, the front nuts were corroded and the lugs were not in good shape. The second longest job today was removing them 4 bolts, loosen, tighten, clean, loosen off a little more. Repeat until they come off or sheer

step 2
all 8 bolts/nuts off and cables removed its prep time! i used 4OO grit wet and dry, and then 1400 to polish it up
this takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and some nurve, because once you start there is no going back!
it starts off looking like your never going to be able to use them again

Intermittently though out the process i wiped off the dust and carried on. i would say it took about 1.5 hours a light cover. My arms were about done at this point and they both looked done

Step 3

the polishing begins! I have never used this before, but that autosol is amazing! i covered the headlights in it and then polished it off using my polishing kit. i repeated this 4 times on each lens



this is the kit and stuff i used

once i was happy with the finish again its was time for the braso. on it went again, then polished off using the drill polishing kit



finally now i used the above stuff (its all i had) to polish up the covers

happy with the final finish it was now time to install the HID's

im not going to step though this at it was a 10min job but this is the final finish (i was pointing up a hill on a very narrow lane



im very happy with the result, its a night and day difference and i think i can say the refurb has made a real difference





(note my great oil pressure even when warm )

project fix loom!

well, as you have all seen in my technical post as regards this i have had a few problems of late with the electrical side of things (bloody Italian cars!)

I thought i needed to cover the process in here as well so i have a record if the issue and the fix

it all started off about a week ago when i was off out to collect the misses at some got forsaken hour and i noticed it was cold, i went to turn on the heaters and nothing.....dead as a dodo

i remembered also hearing some clicking form some relays under the dash

so looking at the wiring diagrams i went chasing the issue though the heater/ac system first

having spent 2 days removing the...

motor in the passenger foot well
the resister packs
the heater actuator motor
the ac ECU
the stereo
all my own electrical
all the dash and the buttons

i ruled this out of the equation, wile i was here i took the time to clean all the dust out and hopefully stop some rettels and squeaks

next after taking with steve and joe and marco i desided that the issue had to be some were else,

i removed the

rehastat
fan one and fan two
and cleaned up all earthing points

still poping fuses.....

next came the bigger issue....ran out of 20amp fuses, off to maplins...
came back and put the new fuse in, thought great, no pop, issue must be with one of the above..then smoke came out of the top of the fuse box

quickly removing the battery i discovered that the fuse hadn't fused and had just melted the plastic, this is still pending with maplins at the moment



so, after some more calls to joe... the wipers were next on the hit list!

and finally found it!

the wiper power wire



the wiper loom,



the fusing on the loom



and finally the motor



so problem found, time to check for the extent of the damage
fuse box off



taking apart



and a few more hours checking everything else was ok.

next step was to cut out the effected part of the loom and re-wiring the section. i rechecked it and its no longer shorting (checked with v-meeter)

a quick drive up to joes, replacement motor, wire in, test, done

the story of my last week

project....exploding battery

battery was discharged after all the electrical problems i have had

its spent the last 3 hours charging, removed charger, turned on ignition, everything lit up, fans, everything worked as it should

went to turn over the car

BANG







some plastic of the battery exploded, hit the bonnet and ended up 10m in the wrong direction (you can just about see it at the end of the car park (not the foam thing)





so...its off up to county cruising tomorrow via brake down recovery. it was booked in to have the clutch and aux belts done but he will be taking a look at this as well.....before i manage to blow anything else up!

project RESCUE ME!

Well after the explosion, and as it was booked in at Joes any how, it was time to take a break and let the big guns sort it out.

So operation 'rescue me' was undertaken, the coupe was sent off to Joe on Tuesday morning for the clutch and aux belts to be done, as well as a general check over.

By tuesday afternoon Joe had the car running with a nice newish battery (that wont explode!) and had checked that the mini nuke that went off in the bay didnt cause any more damage......and it was good news!
no damage and a compression check of around 155 across all 5 pots.

Come today, its pretty much all done there are some odds and sods like the thermastat will need attention soon, but we have agreed that will all be sorted out next month

so, as this thread is already picture heavy, no point in stopping now

waving good buy to a unloved, unwashed, non working coupe



now....im betting this is the original clutch @ 119k





Its seen better days





So, i finally collected the coupe this evening. in typical Joe fashion, it was all washed and ready for me (it really is the little things like that that matter) and i have got to say, it feel like a new car, bair in mind this is the first time i have driven this car with out a slipping clutch

i feel a hole new world of love for it now

so, special thanks to Joe, couldn't have done it with out you mate,

Sam

heyho...another day, another problem!

list of things to sort out tomorrow,

right speaker cutting out, removal of door card needed for inspection

the very end exhaust bracket has started to sheer off the backbox (as noticed today by a rattling) so im going to have to (hopefully) weld that one up tomorrow before it falls off
its a newish looking back box, i haven't a clue why its sheered like that

solder the lambda AFM wire, and remove chockbox

hover it out

and thats about it

Well a small update on this one

The coupe is off the road now for a number of reasons

1)wiring loom still needs to be fixed, and not just patched up. Unfortunately this is a lot of work, wire, and money

2)The two front tiers are legal, but well under the tread levels i like to role with. so im stuck in a situation as regards refurb and rubber

(this has been resolved now as i have a set of 20vt alloys with rubber, although they need a refurb)

3)The suspension now needs attention, droplinks and wishbones need sorting as there causing uneven tier wear as well as squirming under heavy breaking

4)finally the real kicker, the turbo was diagnosed as dead today. The bearings are coming to the end of there life and by the sound of it, causing the blades to catch on the compressor housing.
EDIT {insert coupe paranoia here, combo of a loose manifold and normal turbo smoking]

this week....i have been mostly overhauling suspension, well...Mr joe has (im not crawling under no car fool! *snikers*)

this week i had the wishbones and droplinks done and got a new set of rubber on some soon to be refurbished wheels

Before


They were very tired. under breaking the car would "wiggle" from left to right and on general country road driving it was a bit crashy and unsure of its self

new!


with the new wishbones and drop links the car feels totally different. cornering on a fast road is much nicer and smother. no more crashing. no more pulling left and right.
to drive now its nicer than the bravo

its worth nothing that my wishbones and proplinks realy were not in great condition.

As funds allow, track rod ends and engine bushes next month!

well, finaly got around to something else, work has got to come first so play has gone out of the window of late (im still working)

any how....as my mate is now unemployed and has rather a lot of spare time on his hands, he has been refurbishing the alloys for me. I did have ago at this. It seems however i lack the time, skill, and most importantly, Patience!

this is what i started off with (part way though stripping)



any how, i thought it was easy, and i did get a good finish on one wheel



but.. after putting it up against the car, the color was just wrong, it was far far to dark



so over the last 4 days, my mate has spent a lot of time sanding and bringing the alloy to a very smooth finish. I went up to the local paint supplier who was happy to mix it there and then and to my requirements
(perfect color match across all the cans used)

the missus was then a kill joy, she said we were not alloude to spray inside the house. We had nothing but the most basic tools available. I however feel that our constructed spray shop would rival even the most professional setup

so, now the bugs and rain were kept at bay in our air tight, heated, rain proof spray bay. We started afresh. Here is one alloy nearing the end of the spray work



finally...the misses went to work...this of course left the kitchen fair game!
We moved inside for the final work.

this is probably the most critical part of the work, because if a bug or hair lands on the alloy when your spraying, your going to be waiting about 3 days for the lacker to harden before you can pull it out, sand it back down and restart all your hard work.
This is why its simply not a option to do this outside



above is the final finish with it lackerd. it made a unbelievable difference to the color of the paint, texture and finish.

now there not factory finished. there is the odd tiny mark were a spec of dust has got in, or a low flying insect had to be removed. I will say for me, there a 100% improvement to whats already on the car. with out getting on your hands and crawling around..well they look mint

time? I would say easely a day for each wheel by hand. the spray work alone took two days (i say days, 2-6pm )

worth it? yep

part 2

Well now there on the car,finally got some more photos sorted (it needed a wash for tomorrow any how

Before




After




Wheels



Wheels



total time? about a week in all honesty

another update

i'm getting though my list slowly!





great bit of kit, although its currently refusing to talk to my laptop

UPDATE

firstly, i finally got it to talk with the laptop, as expected, windows was useless
I booted in to ubuntu and used the packages manager to pull down a hyperterminal style application,

so here is the USB lead that i hacked up (required modification to allow the closure of the side of the dash with out catching the cable



This is routed around the back of the dash and rests behind the stereo for easy access now, means i can sit in the passengers seat and get my diagnostics (i know, i need to hover my car!)

here are the settings that seemed to work correctly



talking to the widget




and after that i decided it was high time the ICV was given a good clean so it was removed



and washed out with wd40 (be that the right or wrong thing to use, it worked)

its now much better and smoother on tick over, so there you have it, that's what i have been doing with the day

First and foremost a massive thanks to Flea, As per norm...I was late cry traffic was a nightmare.

So what happened?

I turned up at Flea's and passed him my keys, He asked me if there were any known issues with the car, We then had a quick chat about what I actually wanted out of the map.

I explained that I'm not a number chaser and that my coupe spends a fair chunk of its life on motorways, I explained that I had always been a little disappointed with the car off boost. The plan? Map it and focus on the off boost performance, mid range, and I wanted to air on the safer side. Essentially I didn't want power at the expense of reliability.

What happened then?

Well, I took my mum, yes my mum! for a walk around Bristol (she doesn't get out much and needed a day out)
I found a place with drinks, seats, and wifi. And set up camp laugh

What happened then?

I collected the car from flea laugh we had a chat about the map, he said I was getting minor boost spiking in 4-5 and that he could put a PVR on it, but didn't think that was the right move for me (I want a nice smooth power delivery) He said he could put a upgraded replacement boost thingy...which I will be doing. pointed out a few things with the car front disks have started to warp! and the occasional puff of blue smoke. He also said that on the last map my car was running lean, he gave me some numbers...but i wont lie, they didn't mean a lot to me.

Results?!

one of the first things to come to my attention was the throttle response, massively improved, the second thing, off boost performance. Both of these combined make the car feel so much nicer to drive around town with.
I then got on the motorway, the car was still VERY hot so I didn't want to put my foot down, again, the part throttle map was just what I wanted, with the Gtec on my car I was having issues with it all just kind of accelerating, accelerating, and then it tailing off with a bit of a jerk. Its very difficult to explane. The current map is a hell of a lot smother on my car.

Outright flat out? its all good wink However, its not savage bite your arms off and kick you in the balls. Its most likely producing more power than the gtec did on my car. But its going about it in a different way. Its exactly what I wanted, smooth and refined.

Things I noticed, I *think* the car ticks over differently. It does sound differnt

And that's it to be fair, please note at no point do I intend to, or want to slag off the gtec, pound for pound its a cracking plug and play chip. It did not however suite how I wanted to drive the car. You pays you money, you takes you choice. And its cost me today to have a car that suites my needs. For me its the way the coupe should have always been mapped, but I understand every one has different needs.

So a thanks to Flea for his time, skill, and product, for the money its a steal in my opinion

Finally I find my self in a funny position where I have done everything I needed/wanted to my coupe....and on that bomb shell. Good night?!

Its never over! I should have known I couldn't stop, not even if I wanted to!

Todays fun was swapping over a rear bumper I got from county (Joe). Its a inky black bumper with the zender bottom bit...and its not melted!

So, I made use of some updated clothing, Fed up of destroying my jeans and t-shirts. I now have Fccuk overalls.



The main reason for changing the bumper was because some one had done a VERY poor spray job and the paint had reacted and, well fallen off in places

example :



Getting the bumper of was a reasonably easy, but fiddly and dirty job.

1) Get the car up on some ramps. Make sure you chock the front wheels, leave it in gear, and for what its worth, apply the handbrake.
Being a bit of a girl, when working with ramps I never work with out a phone, and some one in screaming range.

2) Slide your self under the car and look at the tank straps. You will see two bolts towards the bottom of the car (10mm) wd40 them, and come back in 20 mins. If your luck is like mine...they WILL sheer



As above, The two bolts you need to worry about are at the top of the picture. This should now leave the rear undertray flapping down.

(note one, Please insert the word "cable tie" if some one else has had the please of removing this before)

The next step was to open up the boot and start undoing nuts.

3)As you look in to the boot pull out both the left and right carpets covering the light cluster.

Look left and you will see two nuts under the rear light. (10mm)



Do NOT remove these, just slacken then off so the nuts are at the top of the bolt/lug

Look right now, and do exactly the same again to the two bolts under the lights :



4) Now we have some more nuts to remove, not slacken. Look left to the nuts we have already dealt with, and follow the body work up and right. You will see two more nuts, there slightly more difficult to get access to.



Again, these are 10mm, remove them completely.

5) Look right now, again, same place as step 4 but to the right, there are two 10mm nuts. One you will see. The other is a complete "£$£"$% to get too. You need tiny hands. or broken hands, which is what I now have



6) I don't have any photos for this bit as it started to rain...and I got dirt in my eyes, There will now be two screw/bolts connecting the bottom half of the bumper to the chassis legs. Take these out

7) Now this is personal preference, but this is the simple way to do it IMOP There are two 10mm bolts connecting a......not sure what its is to be fair. Its a bit of metal that sits flush with the bumper and the number plates lugs go though the bumper in to this bit of metal.

Any how, its easier to remove from the body than it is from the bumper in that position





8) now, If you have done this right.... You should be able to pull down on each corner of the bumper (by the wheel arch)
And pull the hole thing out



but done run off with it yet! you still will have to remove the two connections for the rear number plate lights!

Putting it back on, well its the reverse....but much much more of a pain in the ass

Finished!





(and yes, I know it looks a different color at the moment, but thats because the bumper was washed and polished and the rest of the car...isn't )

Not much is going on with the coupe at the moment. The turbo had once again decided it would like to smoke, It gave up for quite some time, buts back on them now. Them patches are bloody useless!

It will be up at CC's next month for a turbo replacement and in all honestly. I think thats as far as ill be going. From this point its just a case of keeping it on the road, well serviced and reliable

I have been busy with work over the last month and sorting out other odds and sods

emms car, Thats been put back together now and awaiting its MOT



Still needs some tidying but not bad for a home repair job

I picked up the mr2 for a car emm can use while hers is getting sorted out, then a track car for me









and finally the line up! were taking more than our fair share of space up