Race Engine Forum UK

So as promised i have uploaded a few pictures of the 3 piece rims being split apart into their respective components ready for machining and painting.

I have also added a few pictures of the 4 post ramps being moved into position in the garage. The photos make it look easy, but it was anything but.

Last night i picked up the wheel centre's from Alan a local machine guy. If you ask Guy i am sure he will also recommend.
The inner centre's have now been machined out to 63.5mm as per Fords hub diameter requires, i also made sure that a step was left in them, just in case i change the hubs or sell the wheels on spigot rings could be made to fit and lock in.
Please see attached pictures, i also put a partly assembled wheel on the back axle to see how it fits. I have to say wow it looks a bit wide and i may need to roll the rear arches but they are going to look great on the finished car.
The rear wheels i think will be taking a 225or 230 width (9inch)tyre compared to the standard 165's so quite a step up. I may get away with folding the inner lip upwards in the arch. I not too worried about this as i did have wider Wheller wheels planned in the past which were 12inch wide with slicks.
After trying the Whellers however i thought it would be sensible not to use them as the fronts would require massive spacers to clear the strut, i don't like using big spacers. Also the Whellers are 13" which won't clear the front or rear discs i am planning to use.

I also took a picture of the 3 piece split rim side by side the RS 4spokes that were on the car to give everyone an idea of the colour scheme i will be using.

Just a small quick update, after splitting the wheels unfortunately a few of the bolts were found to have stripped heads, i can only imagine at somepoint in the past someone had tried to take them apart.
The bolts were actually quite soft especially since i was expecting them to be a high grade tensile bolt.
I phoned a wheel specialist up who will remain nameless and was quoted £1 per bolt which is ridiculous since there are 20 odd bolts per wheel. Luckily a local fastener supplier has just got back to me and has quoted just over £5 for 100 bolts, so funnily enough i think i will be using them.
For those of you that are interested the bolts that are used to fix the wheels together are M6x40 with 1mm thread pitch(the bolts have a shoulder and a thread length of 20mm). They will also be High Tensile Grade 12.9 Socket Head Bolts.
The only other thing i am considering for these wheels is to try and get hold of some Porsche centre caps

The weekend that has just passed was great fun, although not much was done in the way of the Capri as Saturday was spent servicing the other Classic projects ready for a run on Sunday.
However after the run and the rain disappearing i did manage to get a little work carried out on separating the second hand chassis leg with the floor section it came with.
I cannot believe how long it took (2hrs!) Endlessly trying to find and then drill out spot welds, was particularly tricky. I not really looking forward to removing from the car but hey ho.

I also took the opportunity to split the hubs from the Struts on the old Front suspension legs i have (these came from my old white Capri).
The reason being is i have 283mm Cosworth front discs and Mondeo calipers that i wish to mount onto the standard hubs. The face that bolts flush to the back of the wheel has a small lip which will require turning down in order to allow fitment of the disc on the front face instead of its standard position behind the hub.
These will again be machined locally where i normally get everything else sorted.
This is more or less a trial at this point as i really intend to run aluminium hubs with big brake conversion to help free up a little weight.

The hub modifications are mostly part of the Stage 2 build, as i intend to get the car running with 13"wheels first (Stage1) running 2.8i Bilstein and vented discs and calipers and 9inch rear drums.
The Stage 2 build will give me an option for 15" wheels and 283mm Front Discs and Mondeo Calipers and 253mm Rear Discs and Granada Calipers (CapriSport conversion).
Eventually when funds permit this will be changed for lightweight calipers and a 2 piece disc arrangement will be used to help prevent pad knock-back once a more powerful engine is fitted.

Quite a challenging project.

Lots of rust/chassis work. All effort to remove / replace strengthen the rust weakened elements are really worth doing thoroughly and completely. Any corner cutting here will come back to haunt you.

I had to re do it , as we tried to make it easier - it proved t be harder.

Great job !

Miro

Standard front hubs are now with Alan for machining, the outer front face lip will be machined down to 135mm to allow the bigger discs to fit properly.
If the fitting trials go to plan i may also machine the disc mounting lugs off the hub and try to lighten them up a bit with weight saving holes.
Normally it is recommended to extend the top of the hub than the wheel sits on, however after having the wheel centre's machined i am not to sure i will need to do this. I suppose i will find out when i get the hubs back and try them on the car. The only thing next for those brakes will be to make up or buy a spacer to allow fitment of the Mondeo calipers on the strut/hub assembly.
I will also need to purchase some Braided hoses, although i may acquire the tools so i can make these myself as they will need re-done when i replace the brake system for Stage 2.

I have also been in touch with a suspension supplier to get prices and info for new coilover front struts and what to use on the rear. They have also let me know that they do some nice camber/castor adjustable sliding top mounts, so these will be mated up also. However there is no rush for this at the moment.
For Stage 1 however the Bilstein Struts and hubs will be stripped cleaned and put back together with a fresh lick of paint, these will be tied up with Polybushed Track Control Arms and i will source a 2.8i thicker front Anti-roll bar.
Stage 2 will use adjustable rose-jointed TCA's which i will tie into compression struts and droplink converted front ARB.

So my hubs have now been machined at Alan's and i will be trial fitting these on the car to see how they will work.
Other good news is that my new Spot weld cutters have been delivered just on time for the weekend, so hopefully i may be able to crack on with the shell repairs now.
I will just keep my fingers crossed it is not pouring down with rain.

If your struggling with your spot weld drills Will. My top tip is to have a Aerosol lid at hand with a little engine oil in. dip it in every time you drill one out, they last 10 times longer.

Thanks very much for the advice. With the amount of drilling I going to need to do, it will come in very handy.

This weekend was a great weekend for restoration projects, i finished having a play with my modified wheels and hubs and trial fitting them on an old strut.
See pictures
I also gave the front wheel a try out on the front of the car with a wing re-fitted, its close bu i reckon the wheels will just fit without modification but time will tell.
As for the brakes being fitted on the front face of the hub, i still need to modify the split rims slightly as there is a small amount of contact between the Bolt and caliper slider. To rectify this i will need to cut down the bolts manually and the caliper may require a slight amount of machining to give a cutout relief.
I hope you agree though that these discs look good behind the wheel centre and nicely fill the available space.
Please ignore wheel colour as that will be changing to what i previously documented (silver/black).

Apart from the fun i had with the wheels, i also managed to make a little progress with repairing of the shell. The passenger side front sill section was cut back to remove the rust, at this time i also took the opportunity to have a good look at the inner sill. I also ran an airline down the sill to blow out all the poor that has accumulated over the years.
I used one of the repair panels purchased and made up a few small repair panels myself to repair the chassis structure and floor.
The panel was trial fitted with wing to make sure fitment was acceptable, wings will be converted in due time to allow quick removal as they will become bolt on.

I also took some time to clean up the second hand chassis rail which i purchased to remove all the welds and some damage. This will however be fitted as the last panel on the car due to its location.

Had a good day of restoration activities yesterday with my wife lending a hand.
I left her to her own devices and she started to strip all the under-seal, paint and little rust from front passenger inner wing. This area has started to clean up nicely and it is great to see it is in good condition.

I started to get working on the drivers side front sill area and actually found myself removing the entire sill as curiosity got the better part of me. In some ways i wish i hadn't but at least now i know how much work is going to be needed to repair the rot.
When the sill was eventually removed from the rear section i really felt bad as it was a lot worse than i was expecting. It just means now i have a lot more work to do to get the shell solid again.
I will have to keep cutting back the rot until i have some clean metal, then i will re-fabricate new inner panels to build up this structural area maybe even buy repair panels(we will see).

At least i know now how bad it is and is the worse part on the car, wish me luck.
As long as we keep going though we will finish and it is really great to see a smile on my wife's face even after having a hard dirty job.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated on repair of this area.

VERY absorbing Will thank you!!!

I reckon a few folk around the globe are watching this incredible work,

G

Still trying to work out what i am going to do with this?
Do i buy in repair section panels from the Capri Club or do i try and make my own? I know the other side is ok as it is visible, but should i maybe remove the other sill aswell and replace?
If i do carry out all this repair work what is the best way forward, obviously i will spray all internal parts with underseal, but will this stop the rusting of the parts i cannot reach? hmmm?

MEMBERS!!

Can we have some FEEDBACK on this OUTSTANDING THREAD please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


FAR TOO MANY MEMBERS DWELLING ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THEIR 'OWN' THREAD and ignoring anything else.

Good grief!!

If I was like that there would not be a forum at all.


Buck your ideas up please!!

GC