Scrapheapchallenge 2: the GLSRi

or: what do you get when you cross the following: mk3 astra merit, GSi, SRi, and LS, throw in some cavalier, calibra and vectra, mix thoroughly (for about 6 months), then paint and polish!

So... those of you in the know may remember the "Scrapheapchallenge" - my category C write-off P reg blue mk3 5 door LS 1.4i, a bit bent, full of filler, had a lot of love and effort thrown at her in a somewhat ... "optimistic" attempt to create some semblance of a tidy car. 

... it didn't really work did it?  We had a lot of good times together, including being on the stand at Astra Owners Club's first appearance at the VBOA rally at Billing in 2006 as the token mk3 - my attempts to hide the wonkiness and filler with lashings of washing and polishing were somewhat a falied effort to be honest but yes I loved that car (mostly) but hated the lack of power, and the amount of money that was going to have to be thrown at it if I was ever going to turn it 100% into what I wanted her to be - realistically it wasn't viable.  However, as she was my only mode of transport I persevered. 

In early 2006 my good friend Chris Gray (mr_chris on astra sport) for reasons best known to himself, randomly bought me an engine for "scrappy" - a 2.0i 8v (C20NE) from a mk3 SRi with 67k on it.  Not being able to afford to have the engine transplanted in straight away, or uprating suspension/brakes etc (and lacking the knowledge, skill, tools and workshop to be able to achieve it myself) I decided to save up and wait till later in the year.  I did uprate the front discs to vented vectra discs with calibra calipers in anticipation of the engine swap mid-year as my old discs had had it, but before I got round to the engine swap a good friend of mine Robert, from http://www.aucksidemotorsltd.com came up with a better plan.  He had my engine stored at his garage, and when I went to get a different brake issue sorted, he took me to the yard at the back and showed me another blue mk3 astra 1.4i 5 door - a merit I had seen at Auckside before getting serviced, only now it had been put sideways into a kerb and the front wishbones needed replacing, plus a dint or two where the wheels caught the arches during it's sideways adventure.

The owner decided to sell it to Robert rather than pay to fix it, and get himself something different instead.  Rob asked me what I thought of it - so had a wander round - straight to the wheel arches for a feel of course! (mk3 owners know what I mean - the wheel arches tend to rot first!) - smooth as a baby's behind! ok so no central locking, electric windows or sunroof but she had a mint shell which wasn't bent and wasn't full of filler, an M reg with a mileage of only 67k.

... hang on - 67k? isn't that exactly the same mileage as my 2 litre engine? spooky...

Anyway, Rob's idea was not to bother doing the transplant with scrappy, but instead to drop the engine into the merit shell.  After a bit of thought it was decided that that was the best plan.  That was at the end of August 2006, over the following months, as well as jacking in my old job (overworked, underpaid, and very unappreciated) and taking up my dream job at last, a move of house (twice - first into my boyfriend Brian's, then both of us to my lovely new flat which came with my new job) the car was worked on by the Auckside lads, Brian and even myself (shock horror! - yes Kirsty got her hands dirty, look!) :

Learning as I went along with help from Robert, Chris, Paul, Brian and of course the wonderful Mr. Haynes Manual lol.  Many many thanks go out at this point to Robert and Chris for putting up with Brian and me for so long, for letting us use the workshop, ramps and tools, answering stupid questions, and putting so much energy into my car in between the rest of your customer's cars.

All the good bits were swapped off Scrappy 1 and onto project Scrappy 2: GLSRi, downgrading the original Scrappy from an LS into a merit spec (black bumpers, mirrors, no rev counter on the speedo) but with the added glitz of central locking and a sunroof.  Swapped over were the GSi front bumper, LS back bumper, lights, white dial blue LED speedo (I did that!), pedals (that too), the vectra discs and calibra calipers (me again! although whilst helping Brian managed to drop one of my calipers on the floor)...

...That would be the bleed nipple snapped off a calibra caliper.  (oops!)  lucky day though - Rob just happened to have a calibra on the recovery truck in the back yard waiting to go to get weighed in for scrap, so a quick salvage provided a replacement caliper (phew!)  Brian removed all the ICE and is reorganising, expanding and improving it for insertion into the GLSRi as I type.  Alloys swapped for steelies, then came the attempt by Brian and myself to install electric windows and central locking to a merit shell.

(if you're thinking of trying it folks here's a word of advice.... DON'T!)  it didn't really work - we got the doorcards off, removed a window, windy mechanism, and having got some electric window door cards (with no holes for winders) with the electric motors and door looms, once the door cards were off I chucked them in one of my other astras (I "owned" a few during the project - donor cars Rob bought for the bits!) which was on the recovery truck on it's way to get weighed in.  Off it trundled down the road as we carried on struggling to get the motors in the right place, glass back in etc...  Fitted the door loom then went to plug it into the main loom...  OOPS.  an LS (like the donor car) has about 9 pins on the car plug going to the door plug, a GSi has about 13.  A merit has, erm, 2 BUGGER!  problem 1 - we have no car loom, problem 2 - even if we did there's no way we're going to strip the entire blooming thing back and install an entire car loom just for the sake of electric windows (oh and central locking) problem 3 - I'd just chucked away my manual windy door cards. *DOH!*  Needless to say the plan was scrapped, the manual winders reinstated and holes duly punched in the previously hole-less new door cards to take windy handles again.

Anyway - progress: bumper swaps (note essential tools include Mr. Haynes!) 

Above right - while the back bumper was off the GLSRi I thought I'd take a pic showing the rear arch and under the bumper - the favourite "rot spots" on mk3 astras - as you can see she's pretty clean for an M reg!

Above: Scrappy gets down-specced to merit bumpers - she doesn't look happy does she?

As at this point the 2 litre was in Scrappy2 but not yet running (incompatible belt with the bottom pulley and the power steering pump delayed it by about a month!) so the goodies didn't have to go on her straight away - it was only Scrappy1 we had to have driveable again at the end of evey day as she continued to be my daily driver whilst work progressed.  I only had to sell her before the new car was ready as her MOT, tax and insurance were about to run out and I wasn't about to renew them for the sake of a couple of weeks while I had a buyer already lined up and waiting to take her as soon as she was ready to go.  I spent the last few weeks after she sold driving around in my beloved Brian's micra until my new car was on the road (just after Christmas)

With some time before the goodies had to be fitted I took the opportunity to get Rob to respray the GSi bumper as the original respray job on it was awful - they had just sprayed straight over the top of the old paintwork (and dirt) without even using any primer.  Rob's apprentice did the preparation and respray properly - rubbed it down, primered, sprayed and lacquered and did a lovely job.

Above: GSi bumper in primer, being sprayed, drying and finally finished - it was dark and at the end of a long day swapping discs and calipers (I put uprated diesel discs and suspension onto Scrappy1 before selling her) but seeing my bumper all shiny cheered me up and I just had to take a photo.

Above: me getting my hands dirty again, Paul showed me how to strip out the speedo binnacle and remove it, I then repeated it on the 2nd car and swapped the speedos over so I could have the rev counter (plus nice white dials and blue LED's) on my new car - and Scrappy1 would down spec to merit from LS and loose the rev counter. 

You're probably thinking mileage now - scrappy's mileage was messed up when the white dials went in as they were accidentally set 10k forward in the process so they read 100k when they should have read 90k, so it was inaccurate anyway.  Of course I didn't want my new car whose reading was an honest 67k (matching, coincedentally that of the engine - so it is a genuine mileage all round) tto appear to have 100k on it, likewise scrappy was going to end up reading 67k which the new owner could potentially use to fraudulently present the car should he decide to resell it.  With this in mind the white dial speedo was reset to 67k, whilst the buyer of scrappy had the mileage situation clearly printed out in the condition of sale/reciept and had to sign that he understood that 67k was not the correct mileage for the car, that it was actually 90 odd.  Complicated or what?

Above: we ended up with a bit of a mini astra meet outside Rob's whilst doing the window mess-up.  The black GSi was being swapped to a V6 for a customer.  On the left is the GLSRi (a non-runner at that point) and on the right is the distinctive livery of the original Scrapheapchallenge, before we started stripping her of all the nice bits.

above: the money picture - the engine finally IN (not running at that point, but getting closer - yes there is a radiator missing, and an airbox I know - we do at least now have a radiator... oh and half an airbox *oops* thanks to the wonderfulness of Astra Owners Club I now also have a K&N air filter but it's not yet fitted at time of writing - we're running with no air filter and no cat, a 1.4i exhaust system (hopefully a stainless GSi system will be coming my way shortly thanks to Brian's cousin swapping his redtop for a Calibra turbo) and I'm also still running on a 1.4i fuel pump.

above: discs and calipers Brian does the first one to show me how it's done, yes I did the rest!

ICE removed from Scrappy - two subs (one on top of the other so you can't see it) CD changer, head unit, faceplate and wiring.  I now also have a bigger sub and amp sitting in the boot of the GLSRi, the head unit in the front, but they're not connected yet LOL The pic on the right is when Brian decided to manufacture me some new door speakers (after we found that Scrappy 2's were fried)

above: random cars!  I was considering doing a spoof post on Astra Owners Club pretending I was swapping the Lotus engine into a mk3 LOL  By the way folks, don't buy a Lotus - they seem to spend most of their lives at the garage being put right.

above: random progress pics 1 is Scrappy, 2 is GLSRi (that was brakes swapping day) the next 3 are the GLSRi while her GSi bumper was still off being painted.

De-rub-stripping: step one, get a heat gun - play it over the rub strip until the bllack plastic "glazes" being careful not to blister the paint, once it goes shiny, pull gently at that section, heat the next few inches and pull away, continue all the way along.  Some Strips have a strip of aluminium behind them too - once the black stuff is off, repeat the heating on the metal strip to soften the glue underneath so that the metal pulls off in a similar way to the plastic.  You will now be left with lines of glue as seen on the photo on the left.  Continue running the heat gun lightly over the strips of glue whilst pulling/rubbing it off with your fingers (old welding gloves help prevent burns and friction blisters!)  Once all the glue is off (it is foam like rubberish glue) then wash, t-cut and polish to remove all traces. 

By the way in the pic on the right you can see the GSi on fanblades parked next to scrappy2 and scrappy1 behind it in the reflection - that was on purpose!

above: the GLSRi in the paint shop, masked off so her sides could be resprayed after the little dings and scratches were sorted out. Her bonnet, roof and tailgate didn't really need a respray though.

above: pedals (yes I did all of this) - but Paul did it last time fitting them to Scrappy, I did the transfer to Scrappy2.  Remove the factory fit rubber bits from standard pedals and you see pic 1 - with big lumps of weld on the top face.  Remove the nice pedals in Scrappy and you see how they need to look - the lumps ground smooth and holes drilled (pic 2) in pic 3 is the results of what happens when you let a Kirsty loose with an angle grinder (cue maniacal grin...), then a block of wood and a drill in pic 4, and finally, after a bit of messing about with allen keys and spanners, the finished result!  (little things please little minds)

above: alloys getting swapped.

finally - the driveable result (I won't say finished as we've still got work to do)  The 2 litre is such a grin machine after owning two 1.4's (my first was a phase 1 L reg 3 door merit in a colour scheme of rust and white) Even with the 1.4 exhaust and fuel pump she is a beast so I can't wait until she has all the correct running gear, as she has some serious oomph and I'd like to get her on a rolling road when she's done.  She tends to take people by surprise - particularly chavs in corsas and small French cars with stupidly huge exhausts, as except for the GSi bumper she still looks decidedly merit-ish and a bit of a wannabe, they don't seriously expect to be left standing.  Neither for that matter do the drivers of big German cars on the motorway lol.

above: how Scrappy2 looked before I bought her and before the previous owner stuffed her into a kerb - it is sheer coincedence I have this photo, taken before Billing 2006 when Scrappy1 was getting some work done at Auckside - I spotted another mk3 outside waiting for work, and took a photo, it was only a few months later when Rob presented me with the same car (without the alloys) as a possible replacement to Scrappy1 that I thought I'd seen it somewhere before and found this photo lurking on my phone of how she used to look.

above: Scrappy2 all t-cut and polished at last!

above: some arty shots at a local abbey ruin.

Post Script

Chris kept texting me throughout the project asking how it was going, but he never got to see her completed - the car was on the road just after new year, and I intended to take her up to Newcastle for him to see as soon as she was ready, unfortunatley Chris Gray died form leukaemia on the 8th of December 2006, just 3 days after his 21st birthday, a devastating blow to his family just before Christmas and a real shock.  Chris - this one's for you.