Lowering the watts linkage on the axle I thought can reduce Oversteer and raising it increased under steer ?
Sent from my Bavs iPhone
Lowering the watts linkage on the axle I thought can reduce Oversteer and raising it increased under steer ?
Sent from my Bavs iPhone
Taking shape and soon be done, like the seats a lot and well done. Carpet undelay looks quality
It has been a labour of love on the whole (though certain things - most notably the paint, have been a letdown and left me really disappointed). Now that the end is in sight it's starting to feel that it's all been worth it (though it's really going to need a front-end respray before I can fit the RS stripe kit and wing badges, so it won't quite be finished - needless to say, it won't be going anywhere near Hetton Body Repair Centre again).
After some 15 years of ownership and over 10 years of being off the road, it's finally going to be how I want it
More goodies in the post today:
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OMP Corsica Rosso Nero limited edition leather wheel, and a set of Securon red front seat belts to match the rears.
Seatbelt product code 500/30, should fit without any issue to the front:
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Genuine OMP wheel, lovely quality. Most definitely not a chinese copy:
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Waiting for an auto-dimming rear view mirror kit (needed a stick-on mirror with the roll cage in the way, so thought 'what the hell' and splurged on an electronic dimming one!), as well as a set of fuel line hose clips to arrive.
Hoping to get seats and belts installed this weekend.
Auto dimming rear mirror and the boss for the new wheel to the Corsa B airbag column arrived today:
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The mirror should be simple to wire up, just a single +12v ignition live and an earth.
Got most of the interior fitted up today!
First job was fitting the rear arch vinyl trim, which was a bit tricky as I have a roll cage in the way
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Not a bad outcome though, and a bit less metalwork on show!
Next up was fitting the rear seats:
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Si's handiwork with the rear seat cover is great, it looks fantastic now. With my quarter panel trims on they don't look a bad match, not bad considering I've had them made for over a year now!
Then it was on to the front seats, which was a tricky job since I had to cut the holes out in the new carpet, as well as messing around with the seat belts... as, surprise, surprise, the roll cage is ever so slightly in the way of the seatbelt reel:
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You can see how tight the reel would be if fitted directly against the shell, and also how close it is to the seats when they're on the furthest back setting. They just touch now - with the standard mounting point they fouled the seat mechanism. So with a bit of a bend in one of the brackets supplied with the seatbelts, they're now clear.
Both front seats now fitted:
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Need to do something with the stalks - probably angle the mounting lug so that they stick up from the tunnel at an angle. The way they are now they'd have to be mounted to the side of the tunnel which wouldn't be good!
More to come...
The one bad point from today was when fitting the new boss and steering wheel to the Corsa parts:
Bolting the adapter to the Corsa horn/airbag/steering wheel control ring:
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Bolting the boss to the adapter:
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Looks okay from the side when fitted:
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But, can you spot a problem here.....
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Yep, that would be no thread showing through the boss. Something has gone wrong somewhere!
This should be a Corsa B airbag-type column, and the boss is a genuine OMP Corsa B airbag adapter. Unless someone bodged the column and wheel before I bought it, then I can't understand why it doesn't go together. I might need to take it apart again, connect the horn/airbag ring back up to the original corsa wheel and see if I've got something wrong. It's been so long since it was all together I may well have misremembered something or got a mix up between this column and the horn/airbag ring and the wheel.
If not, I'm a bit stumped!
The more I think about this, the more I think I was sold a mismatch of a non-airbag column and an airbag wheel and horn ring. With the horn ring off, the wheel (both old and new) fits perfectly and a nut will easily go on.
With the horn ring on, it pushes both the original wheel and the new boss too far up the splines, leaving no thread.
There's also the fact that the plastic fascia that holds the horn ring in place on the column still has a sprung brass pin at the top, as if it was designed to go on an old-fashioned copper ring for a horn ring. I thought it was just to locate the horn ring, as per the back of the plastic lump in the second picture, above. But why leave it in place, instead of fitting a blank, if the airbag style horn ring only uses it for location?
Which ultimately means I need to send the airbag still boss back, get a non-airbag one, as well as find a second hand non-airbag horn ring from somewhere! Argh!
Is that the original Corsa plastic wheel surround / fascia?
Only one picture from today, but quite a bit of work done.
Got the hose clamps on the petrol pipes under the car, so they're now secure. Painted the handbrake cable bracket that we fitted for the cossie calipers. Fitted rubber bungs in all of the remaining chassis rail holes, so hopefully it won't get water in.
Also bolted up the steering column, as it was only friction fitted to the rack until now. Also refitted all the ally jacking plates we made, so no excuses in the future when jacking/lifting the car up and damaging paintwork underneath!
One of the biggest jobs was measure up for the exhaust system. We think we're going to go for Jetex stainless parts, mainly because they're all flanged to push on to the next piece in the system, so not a great deal of welding or cutting to do. The idea is for a twin box system; keep it 3" all the way from the downpipe to the tail, with a short silencer before the axle, run the pipe under the axle to a larger silencer running sideways under the boot floor with a tail pipe exiting approximately at the standard location.
Last job before packing up for the night was putting the heater and air intake pipes/blowers back in the car. My god, what a bloody nightmare that was! As you can see below, there's not a lot of room now!
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So little room in fact, that I've been forced to take out my heater flow valve that controls the amount of water entering from the engine, and instead just have it unrestricted. There's simply nowhere for the valve to go. One side effect is that I'll now have to take out the control knob from the centre of the console, otherwise it will bug me sitting there not doing anything.... I guess I can put a Ford or RS badge in its place....
Heater / blower ductwork all in today. It was like battling with an octopus!
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Wiring for the auto dimming rear view mirror spliced in to the interior light, so no drama threading wires back down the windscreen pillar:
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Mirror base bonded to the screen and new fancy mirror now in place!
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Dash vents connected up the new hot/cold mixer from the heater and blower... in hindsight smaller diameter ducting would have been easier, but the Escort dash outlets are mad-huge diameter compared to new pipework:
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Seatbelt stalks now bolted up and working nicely!
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Some other stuff happening as well:
- Ordered most of the pipework for the exhaust system.
- Got a K&N air filter coming that I hope will fit between the turbo and radiator, it's tight, so fingers crossed!!!
- Need to get the bonnet fitted next weekend to make sure everything is going to clear it.
- Missing 2 relays - one for the horn (Corsa non-airbag horn ring is just a single circuit, so it earths, so it needs to earth a relay which energises the horn instead. Another to earth the fan circuit when the manual override button is energised (the MSD loom provides a manual override, so it would be rude not to use it).
Interior is virtually complete - just the door mirrors to fit, then the door cards, handles etc can be refitted.
Last edited by MegatronUK; 09-10-2016 at 19:59.
That's looking bloody lovely mate!
Got an airfilter sorted and now fitted - there's not a lot of space!
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Made a rubber panel to go over the gear lever and the cutout we made for the top of the T5 lever housing. Hopefully it should stop the majority of road crap and moisture making its way in to the car:
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More bad news on the steering wheel though - I got the Corsa airbag boss replaced with a non-airbag on, and although the horn rings sits perfectly it STILL doesn't fit far enough on to get a nut on. I'm going out of my mind trying to work out what is wrong!
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Is the column shaft all the way through the outer column? ie its slipped down and you cant push the shaft from the engine bay?
Really getting there now
Not without a fair share of problems, Paul! Latest one is that the centre console now won't fit under the dash as the carpet and insulation are stopping it from sitting at the correct height on the tunnel. I think a new centre console is probably on the cards - making the console isn't the problem though, it's transferring all the electrics and wiring from it to any new one
You are kidding!!
If you really do have to go to all the trouble of making an entirely new console, maybe carpet it with the extra you bought for the floor? So it ties in properly with everything?
I'll pop over at some point and have a look at your headlining too, as promised.
Cheers Si. We've made the decision to make a new one as it was such a pain to do anything with the old one. Even taking it on and off just a couple of times it ended up snapping a few wires on the back of the panel. So, the new one is in progress and we've decided to move all of the controls to the upright section, rather than have any on the base, which was what was causing the most grief. Also doing that means the panel which runs over the tunnel can be much lower and less intrusive. Downside is that the layout of the instruments and controls on that upright section is going to be tighter.
Long job, but it needs doing.
Some good news now though; we've been scratching our heads for weeks now, trying to figure out what was wrong with the Corsa column, causing the boss not to fit. Following Duffer's suggestion above, we took the bottom UJ's off this afternoon to see if the column had been pushed down any. Nope. All sitting nice and flush with the motor housing. So instead we had a look at the top... nothing to be seen and no sign of movement, but I thought for the sake of a few belts with a hammer, it would be worth trying to hit the column up. We put the original Corsa wheel on, tightened up the nut and give the wheel a really hard pull... nothing at first and then a little bit of give and a bit of a jump. I'd guess it came up 1/2" to 3/4". The upper column must be splined and run inside the tube which enters the motor housing. THe only thing we can think of is that when taking the original wheel off, someone has given the column shaft a proper whack with a hammer, possibly to try and shock the nut loose.
Anyway, it's now got plenty of length to get the boss on and the nut to secure it.
Probably should have tried brute force a few weeks ago, but you sometimes tend to overthink these things!
Good news on the steering boss front... did you fit the spring behind the boss as well??
Yay, glad you got the steering boss on, sometimes what should be the fastest jobs (ie one nut) take the longest time! But where are the pictures with that lovely looking OMP wheel on???
Just a suggestion, and you may find it fine, but I fitted the same Securon seat belts, and the seat belt stalk that comes with them is a nightmare digging into you as it is alot longer than the standard stalk as it is designed to sit low down on the tunnel. The solution I found was that I bought the very cheap lap belt kit, and just used the lap belt buckle part from the kit, this was nice and short, and bolted nicely to the tunnel. Far far more comfortable and looked far more suited to the age of the car (they looked weird in mine).
Hahaha! You guys!
Not got the boss bolted up yet, just a trial fit - yes, I'm short the spring that goes behind the horn boss and a new nut for the corsa column, so it was just a trial fit at the moment.
That's a really good idea on the belt stalk - they are indeed quite long. I'll have to see if I can find the lap belt stalks; did you use the short fabric ones?
We're on with building up the new centre console at the moment - it's smaller, shorter and the upright section is more angled to give me more room to move more buttons from the horizontal section in front of the gear lever to the upright section instead. Hopefully that will make it easier to fit and remove. I'm really gutted that work went down the drain, but it really wasn't going to work with the seats, carpet and heater hoses on.
any updates fella ? really interested on what you think of the brake servo's your using.
just read this from start to finish great car would love to see it done good work
Sorry, no, it's not finished yet.
Haven't really been in the garage much since about the middle of November. Too bloody cold!
Got the replacement centre console built though, and spent a bit of time over the last couple of days getting it covered in carpet and the alcantara-type material again:
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You can tell it's shorter than the original one and that the upright section is longer, so that we can get more of the controls on that part.
I'm not looking forward to redoing all of the wiring on the console again though.
Bit more progress on the centre console - got it almost completely wired up again. What a pain this has been!
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Just did a last bit of a trial fit this afternoon. It all fits rather snug now - all the cables clear and I've made the gear surround removable so that we can put the console in, bolt it down and then fit the gear surround without fear of the gear lever pulling on wires while we're manoeuvring things.
A couple of wires left to terminate, then it will go in for good and we can finally finish up the electrical work.
Very quick update, but we got all of the remaining wiring sorted today - including all of the wires that were snapped or damaged by fitting/refitting the old centre console. All the switchgear is working correctly again from the Corsa stalks, so if everything goes okay, we should have the centre console in and fitted up tomorrow.
That's good news.
Keep up the good work mate.
Cheering for you here.
Mário Santos.
Ran out of time fitting the console today - virtually complete though; just a couple of brackets to fit to the dash and tunnel to fix it in place. It's all in though and everything works:
Corsa indicator stalk
- Indicators
- High beam flash
- High/dip beam
Corsa wiper stalk
- Low speed wipe
- High speed wipe
- Washer motor
Centre Console
- Sidelights (including automatic gauge and switch backlight illumination)
- Headlights
- Automatic headlights (turns sidelights and headlights on/off with a light sensor mounted on the dash)
- Hazards
- Engine Cooling Fan override
- Demister
- Cool-air fans on/off
- Cool-air fan speed
- Heater on/off
- Heater speed
All the gauges work, just the centre console ones to connect up with their sensor wires. Dashboard warning lights (indicators, oil pressure, alternator charging) all working - haven't tested ECU diagnostic light yet, as the ECU isn't in the car at the moment.
Oh, and the engine turns over beautifully - the far east starter motor is proving to be a real gem for £45!
Couple of things to sort this week - the turn signal relays don't beep or click, so I want to replace them with beeping/clicking ones so I don't end up several miles down the road after a junction with my indicators still one. Also the fuse box is wired to have the sidelights and headlights turned on even with the ignition off - I forgot this used to be possible! So I'll add a headlamp warning buzzer so that I don't let the battery go flat (easy to wire in: +ve to sidelight or headlight feed, -ve to door switch earth).
Feeling quite positive about progress now!
Pictures of the finished gear stick surround, as I've now got the gaiter fastened on:
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The rotary dials, from left to right, are:
Switch backlighting dimmer
Gauge backlighting dimmer
Corsa EPS assistance dial
The switch to the back of the panel is a master on/off for the Corsa EPS, and to the right hand side of the gaiter is a tell-tale LED for the EPS when the relay is on and the power steering is receiving power (which is controlled by the master switch, behind it).
Console now in!
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And a spiffy video, too :-)
Next week we fit the ECU, tidy up the remaining wires and start testing the fuel pump and demist relays. Getting very close now - biggest job remaining is probably now the exhaust system.
Car back out again today....
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Time to tidy up the final bits of dash wiring, they're, erm, all over the place:
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Wiring tidied up, Corsa steering cowl fitted and TVR/Lotus alloy stalks back in place:
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Fitted a new set of foot well kick panels, they had to be modified a little bit, since we have the Cossie L8 ecu in the passenger footwell and the Corsa EPS ecu in the drivers footwell. Not much needed changing, but a couple of inches off the top was enough:
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Mounted the automatic headlight sensor in the lower right hand corner of the screen:
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Next weekend we plan to finish the fuel system (clips, mainly), along with testing that the fuel pump relays and fuses are all working. If we get time, then we'll also do the engine breathers and top the engine up with coolant - it's bee left dry so far.
Looking good and looks like you will be ready for the summer.
Fantastic build m8 - that wiring looks a total head fuk....
Full credit for cracking it
Yep, apart from the engine loom it's all wired from scratch. The original mk1 dash and lighting loom was chopped to bits when I got the car, so I decided it was best to do it all new. The best option really as apart from the rear lights there are no original mk1 electrics on the car - it's all brand new.
Quite happy with the way it has turned out. The only real stumbling block with the wiring was working out the colours for the two-speed mk1 wiper motor and figuring out how to connect it in to the Corsa wiper stalk. I haven't got the intermediate wiper setting yet, as I need to find a relay with delay in order to get that to work, but it should be an easy add-on.
The automatic headlights are pretty slick, I have to admit
Definitely a summer 2017 finish!
This seems to be a recurring theme, but several steps forward this weekend, but also several back.
The good news is that the Corsa power steering electrics are all complete and I've tested the system - it works brilliantly!
The Valeo auto headlight system is also now all connected up and is working great!
Cossie ecu is connected up and fastened in place in the passenger footwell, all wired up apart from the engine cooling fan over-ride and the diagnostic output, but nothing that will stop it working. It activates the bank of relays from MSD correctly on ignition live, works the Amal valve solenoid, turns the fuel pump relay on, everything it should do. I'm well chuffed.
Also got the rear screen demister working, so every switch and button is now connected and working. Considering it was all from scratch and I did it myself, I'm really pleased!
Fuel system is fully complete - all clips tightened and ready to fill with some fuel probably next weekend, but for now the car can be cranked, and we get sparks but no fuel. That's fine, all good so far.
Bad news, however, is that I seemingly get no oil pressure at all. Nothing. The oil pressure warning light stills lit during cranking and nothing registers on the pressure gauge. Surely cranking should show at least a couple of psi, right?
We resorted to taking the pressure switch out of the side of the block and see if anything squirted out under cranking - nothing. It definitely has enough oil in, but I'm seeing no pressure and with the filler cap removed, nothing seemingly getting up to the head. Does the cossie need priming specially or something?
re oil pressure, it might just be that the engine has sat around so long that oil has drained back and teh pump is pretty dry, but you are in a good place, in that you can remove the dizzy and spin the oil pump drive with a 6mm quarter drive socket on an extension in a drill, a battery drill should spin fast enough to get you upto 60psi on cold oil, might take a while but you wont be harming the engine
Last edited by Graham; 26-02-2017 at 21:50.
Should see pressure just cranking it over though I do on mine 🤔
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