Rainbird's LCR

[rainbird]

Rather delayed update, apologies chaps.

Last time I posted I'd just received the 90* reducer elbows I needed for my FMIC install and was waiting on the arrival of some JCS HiGrip clamps for plumbing the system in. Well, these arrived a few days later:

I grabbed a can of matt black spray and gave the core a quick dusting. Whilst it's clear a lot of folks like these to stick out like a sore thumb with silver coolers, colourful pipework and cutting half the bumper off that's not really my thing so in keeping with the OEM+ kind of thing this suits me far better!

Step 1: Pull things off that are in the way

Step 2: Out with the old

Step 3: In with the new

Step 4: Run out of time and have to leave the car 99% done for the night

Step 5: Finish work the following day and finally get it all sorted properly

Initial impressions are good - logs show slightly cooler temps with normal driving and staying lower when pushing on a bit too. No noticeable increase in turbo lag so happy on that front too. Little bit of tidying up to do at some point just because I'm a bit of a tart like that, but that's almost solely aesthetics rather than functional.

Tyres were getting a little lower than Id like so have thrown on my spare set of R32 rims which all have 6mm+ rubber on. Will keep them on for a little while for
daily use until I can refurb the LCR wheels and get some fresh tyres on them. Having had a fairly decent chat with Prawn about his Kumhos I'm currently planning on getting hold of a set of those, but will do a little more homework when the time comes. The wheels were pretty grimy from storage, so gave them a quick scrub before fitting - just enough to get the worst of the crud off.

Gave the brakes a quick clean to assess the paintwork too. Came up fairly well but once dry it was evident that the lacquer is pretty cloudy. Will get them repainted at some point down the line. Cheers to the old man for lending a hand!

Got a few other little bits sorted recently too. First up was sorting out the centre caps on my other half's Golf as they were looking a little worse for wear. Much improved for under a fiver!

Dogbone swap on the same car too - old one was cracked and the bush mega worn - New OEM bush and bolts in a spare mount I had has made a world of difference.

Have had a bit of a play helping out with this at work. Locost track car based around a 1300 Ford powertrain etc. Not too bad but building to the regs in place for this particular class is a little frustrating to say the least...

Oh yeah, I was pretty happy with this too - 39.4mpg on a run from Devon up to Hampshire. 170mi of mixed roads. Surprising!

Hit the next mark on the journey too:

Good times. Back to enjoying the car and meeting likeminded friends to chat ****

 

[rainbird]

I did a quick lap of the base on my way back earlier. Stumbled across these things that'd been left lying around...

*

 

[rainbird]

Copypasta:

So I decided to replace the condenser in the LCR as it wasn't working. Reserved one at ECP and collected it on my way home from base this week. Ideal, happy days, got the car home and started to pull off the front end so I could get to everything (bit of a ballache but far from the end of the world)

However, having pulled off the slam panel complete with rad, condenser, fans etc it became pretty obvious why the previous owner had been having issues and throw a megaton of radweld/k-seal type stuff in the system...

Separated the radiator from the condenser and fans to see how bad things were.

Answer: Pretty nasty!

Although it wasn't leaking, there was no way I was having everything off again to do it separately down the line. Gave ECP a check, local store didn't have anything in stock, nor did the next closest (20 miles further away), nor did one in the other direction (30 miles). A check on the GSF site wasn't far behind, with nothing within a 30 mile radius again. Finally managed to track one down that I could get my hands on the following day but it was a 75 mile round trip, so reserved the stock and left the Leon looking rather sorry for itself for the night

The following morning rolled around and I pinched mum's Polo hoping all would be present and correct when I got there - I even made sure to get there for opening at 0830 today just to make sure

I also picked up some cheap rad flush and coolant so I can flush any remaining gunk from the lines a few times over the coming weeks and get rid of as much as possible.

Started to strip things down. Sensor was filthy to start with so gave that a good scrub, along with claning up the drier and slam panel which were both pretty grubby to begin with.

O rings had seen better days

Everything clean and together, the slam panel install good to go...

...here!

Fortunately I manage to remember/work out where everything went (after a slight niggle with an upside down air con drier...!)

Aaaaand then I forgot to actually take a photo with it all back together. Mong.
Flushed the coolant loop through a few times with fresh water and then threw the chemical flush in there. Went for a quick lap of the lanes to warm everything through and the car seemed to pull better than it ever has before. I can't think of any reason for this whatsoever, so I'm going to assume it's entirely placebo effect or that the car's appreciating a bit of love for a change. Either way I'm just going to keep enjoying it every time I turn the key

Shiny shiny.

 

[rainbird]

So after a pretty crazy month with no time to play cars due to buying a new house and a few other bits, I've been ordering a few bits here and there to give the LCR some love over summer leave. Still waiting on a few bits to arrive, but with any luck the remaining parts should be here early next week and I can try and work out how this mechanical jigsaw goes back together (or ram the pieces in where they're not supposed to be...). Long overdue too, passed this little milestone in the week:

Classic Gewindefahrwerke:

Solid Silver Project top mounts and a smattering of black series bushes not pictured but waiting to go on at the same time.

Spare time mini-project that doesn't require too much grime and I'm allowed to do in the new house:

Slightly unnecessary mini-project which will either be made of win, or kill the thing. Go big or go home, right?!

Manifold to suit ordered today, just need to get my primeval hunter-gather steez on and get some gaskets from the stealer.

Bearing in mind that 6 months ago I'd barely set spanner to a car, this may not end well...

 

[rainbird]

Gave my grandfather a hand sorting out his garage earlier and he ended up giving me a load of tools and bits for the new place. Good job I didn't order a new jack yesterday when I was considering it really; quick lick of paint and this one will be good as new!

 

[rainbird]

Turns out my new Silver Project top mounts took a weekend break in Italy. That'll explain the delay then...

 

[rainbird]

Was nice weather this weekend so instead of making car progress I went here:

Drank a few bottles of this:

Joined this mob:

and watched a bit of this:

https://scontent-bru2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11800357_10154069852470639_9085492657237609681_n.jpg?oh=c8b1f6df1a2393fb75df07f0c342642f&oe=563B985B]

Bought these:

[img]http://i1333.photobucket.com/albums/w633/lukerainbird/Mobile%20Uploads/20150814_134308_zpsoktucsjv.jpg

This morning, with the weather being utterly rubbish, I took these out:

Opened these:

Fitted these (plus some springs):

Rears done, fronts will have to wait until I've been to pick up a decent hammer as I forgot to grab one yesterday. Not having dad's garage on hand to raid is proving to be annoying already

Received this:

Good times. Car currently looks much the same as it did before:

 

[rainbird]

So suspension, droplinks, brakes etc all back on.

Brakes are in dire need of fresh paint, but shall address that once everything is running properly again.

Set the adjustable top mounts up as neutral as possible for now. Once I've got everything together properly I'll get it all aligned properly of course.

I have new wishbone bushes to go on tomorrow, all being well, however the only bolt I've not been able to remove is one rear wishbone bolt. Typical! Not too sure how to go ahead from here as I don't have a dremel with me and there's next to no room above to get to the top nut, other than just enough space to squeeeeeze a small socket in to hold things while you try and undo the bolt from below (which is beginning to round and firmly seized).

Any suggestions as to how to get the ******* out? Don't have access to a welder and if I grind off the head of the bolt it can't go upward for removal anyway.

 

[Matty589]

Have you tried a big breaker bar on it with a 6 sided socket?

 

[rainbird]

Unfortunately so - stopped when things started to round off corners as opposed to cracking the seized bolt loose

 

[J.B.]

Is the car driveble? Then you can go to your align specialist and heat it up. Or do you have a blow torch?

 

[Jcrosskey]

Some great progress. Shame about that last bolt but there's always one. With regards to painting ur breaks Iv noticed a lot of people just sand/peel the laquer off and re laquer them rather than repaintig them

 

[rainbird]

That bolt is not going anywhere. An entire can of penetrant, a blowtorch, a 1000W mains powered impact gun and a whole load of swearing have achieved the grand sum of FA so that thing is well and truly stuck in there.

The way I see it is that I have 2 options:
1. Try and squeeze a grinder in there to cut through the existing bush/bolt, though I'm not sure there's room.
2. Drop the subframe.

The latter seems the most logical, but I've never dropped a subframe before so not too sure how much I can **** it up. That said, I've never pulled all the suspension etc to bits before either. There's nothing like the deep end to teach you to swim, right?

@Jcrosskey - Cheers. Yeah, I'll sand back through to the original paint so the fresh load has something to key into and build it up from there. I'm going to be changing the colour of them while I'm at it, so needs to go back far enough to act as a base primer without showing through, but I'm probably too lazy to strip them fully. We'll see.

 

[Jcrosskey]

Wow that bolt really wants to do its job doesn't it lol subframe shouldn't be too bad. Iv never done it on a seat but have on a couple other cars. Ah ok didn't know if u were changing colour aswell. you guna put new brembo stickers back on?

 

[rainbird]

Yeah will do eventually - this is being enough of a nightmare that I'll probably leave it a month or so before bothering with the brakes now though

Looks as though the SF is going to have to come down. Oh the joys.

 

[Jcrosskey]

Haha fair enough Could always do them if u get too frustrated with that bolt. so u can feel like ur getting somewhere and something's done lol

 

[rainbird]

Ha, yeah I suppose so. Unfortunately my week off is coming to an end so I'd quite like to get the car back together again really. If it hadn't been for the bad weather and having to run around like a headless chicken here and there (new house errands) then I'd have been at this point yesterday morning rather than today and had a touch more time to play. Shame!

 

[Matty589]

What about if you grind the head of the bolt off then u can push it up and cut the nut off. U might need to use a hacksaw blade to cut the nut tho.

 

[rainbird]

Too late, subframe dropped

Other end of the offending bolt which will be ground off:

Original vs replacement ARB:

Far easier than reading forums/my general impressions of the job had led me to believe

Just to reiterate in case it's not come across clearly in this thread - I've gone into this with next to no real mechanical knowledge (at least in a car sense, I used to work on bicycles...). Other than oil and filters I'd not really done anything at all until I bought this car in December. Throwing myself in at the deep end is making me learn fast, but also opening my eyes to just how simple a lot of things really are when you get down to it. Other than operating a nut and bolt, that it.

 

[Jcrosskey]

Well done glad u managed it and seemed to be quite simple. Did say I didn't think it would be too bad as on the cars Iv done it to were simple. Hopefully u can get it all sorted now