Ok so between J4F an myself we have finally found something useful to do with Golf's.
VW aficionados look away now...
You cut them up for their fender flares...
I always envisioned the car to have, what the old people called spats, or as we call it, fender flares. J4F had this brilliant idea of ridding the world of a few Golf parts, so I went ahead and bought 4 brand new Golf fenders. (EDIT: Taiwan, if it doesn't work, try another one
)
Take one grinder and cut like you'd cut a fillet steak, with abandon... unfortunately we had to damage some Datsun goods in the process, but being Datsun it can only enhance the Golf donor parts...
Naaice!!! Now I'll be able to use those Skyline Compomotives in the front, if they fit over the brake conversion though...
Comparison old vs new.
Of course the rear was rolled out, but it wouldn't look good with the front now professionally done front arches
Looks fat :mrgreen:
Oh and a certain Mr Pomp found me the radio I was looking for, not the exact model, but just as good if not better. Still in perfect condition.
Dankie Pomp!!!
Here's a bit of an update, I'm full up at work, so I'm not getting round to the car's stuff to much, though I have made some progress.
After some fiddly business with paper I managed to make this template bracket to hold the caliper in place. It's a Nissan Almera caliper btw.
Still some space to move it closer
The pads weren't completely over the disk, but I was happy some changes would be made at the cutters.
Took it to the laser cutters who scan it in and draws it up in CAD. Had him bring the caliper slightly inwards and also center it on the other holes and so on. From paper to rough template to final prototype cut from galvanised plate.
As close as it is going to get.
Pads now properly over the disk
For these brackets you have to file the strut away a small amount in two places for them to bolt down. It's very little material you remove, so it's not going to weaken it at all.
Nice and snug fit.
The caliper is much more beefier than the old one and the disk size has gone up from 12x209mm solid to 22x256mm vented. Can't see me running out of brakes with this anytime soon. Also keep in mind that the caliper mounted like I did is still perfectly in it's range of movement, as the mounting faces line up perfectly distance wise with what it did on an actual Almera strut, I measured that before removing them and was amazed to see that it was perfect when I started the first prototype bracket. Also with the Almera disk you only have to machine the hub down on the outside to fit inside the disk, and either the hub where it goes through the disk or the disk itself, otherwise the stud holes are already the right PCD, so no extra holes and crap. These weight substantially less then Caravelle or BMW disks too, I think as much as 2kg, though they are smaller, but seriously, you are only stopping like 800kg...
Then on towards the carcass this lot will eventually be bolted to.
Jackie is doing an outstanding job with paying attention to each and every little detail. He's plugged up all the holes I asked for and more. He keeps apologising for it taking so long, but I'm only to happy, since I'm busy with the brake conversion and the diff and stuff in the background, more on that after the pictures.
This car is finally going to be exactly what I wanted it to be when I first started building it in 2006/7. Unfortunately Jackie has told me that a few people has seen it and more Golfs will be cut up for their fenders int he feature...
Ok otherwise what have I done, I've designed a very nice center cover for the tappet cover which will be cut from stainless, I hope it looks ok, otherwise I'll just revert back to the OE one.
I'm having a stainless exhaust manifold flange cut, since that will be built in stainless, as well as a set of stainless flanges to again build the exhaust in 3 pieces from the manifold collector backwards. I've decided to go with 50mm from the manifold to the first straight through box, after which I'm still a bit undecided if I should keep it 50 or maybe go up a size to 57 for the pipe over the diff and the back box. The deciding factor will be if they have 57mm bends and pipe at the stainless shop. Otherwise it'll go up to 63mm, but what I will do is to make a baffle with a conical reducer that can slide in and out of the back box that brings it down to 50mm, that should keep it quiet enough for when just pottering around.
Also having a 60-2 wheel cut, these damn Opel ones are very hard to come by lately, though we have made one with a Hyundai gear the last time we did.
What else, o ja, I though while I'm building the car and everything is out, I'll also fit and measure up everything for a turbo manifold, for just incase... :twisted:
The Alfa diff I've also stripped open, the last news was the sideshaft that broke. That was gladly the only thing wrong. I opened the portion completely and put the spider gears, clutches and cones under a magnifying glass and there's absolutely no cracks, chips or anything to be worried about on them. While I was at it I also fitted the 3.3:1 crown wheel and pinion. Before it was running on a 4.3:1 and 1st was all but useless. My best times, including the 12.3, I did when launching in 2nd, every time something broke was when I launched in 1st. So my guess without using a calculator is that it'll bring 1st up by a bunch and make it a nice top end cruiser. It used to hover around 4500rpm at around 100km/h in 5th, which is way to high.
Anyway I also found another set of spider gears, shafts and cones and only need two more clutches to be able to finish another LSD center portion for the other Alfa diff I have. Standard they only have 2, so I could finish it if I wanted, but I don't need it right now so I'll keep it in pieces until I can find more clutch plates for it. Then all I need to do is have 2 shafts made up for it, I recon using 2 M75 shafts and having them machined will do the job just fine. Once that's done, then I'll have a spare diff albeit with a 4.3:1 ratio, but it can just be stuck in and I'm going again.
Phew...