Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Hello,

I'm afraid the old seats, belts and mounts have gone to a new home already.

If anyone is interested, I'll probably be selling the following soon:

GEMS tubular crossmember with Retro motorsport strengthening
Tarmac-spec tension struts and brackets
Gp4 Fabrications heavy duty adjustable Track Control Arms
Quaife heavy duty, quick ratio steering rack
Gp4 Fabrications rose jointed track rod end kit
Tarmac-spec roll bar and drop mounts
Next generation two-way adjustable top mounts
Gp4 Fabrications 15" strut bodies

Effectively I'll be selling the entire front suspension minus the dampers, or including the tarmac dampers if the price is right. Ideally I'd like to sell the whole setup as a set, although may consider offers on individual components if I have no interest in the whole lot.

Cheers,

Paul

[105Ian]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

You going for the full Gucci group 4 fabrication front suspension set up now Paul ?

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

I'm considering it Ian (have been for years tbh ) but as always it's never that straightforward. I run an excellent Alcon brake kit on the car and the suspension kit comes with a choice of brackets for AP callipers - so it'll be yet another upgrade that doesn't just bolt on lol

In the meantime, I've had a box of bits arrive this week so will hopefully have the next improvement here after the long weekend next week....

Cheers,

Paul.

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Hello,

I'm afraid the old seats, belts and mounts have gone to a new home already.

If anyone is interested, I'll probably be selling the following soon:

GEMS tubular crossmember with Retro motorsport strengthening
Tarmac-spec tension struts and brackets
Gp4 Fabrications heavy duty adjustable Track Control Arms
Quaife heavy duty, quick ratio steering rack
Gp4 Fabrications rose jointed track rod end kit
Tarmac-spec roll bar and drop mounts
Next generation two-way adjustable top mounts
Gp4 Fabrications 15" strut bodies

Effectively I'll be selling the entire front suspension minus the dampers, or including the tarmac dampers if the price is right. Ideally I'd like to sell the whole setup as a set, although may consider offers on individual components if I have no interest in the whole lot.

Cheers,

Paul

I forgot to add, the Grp4 ally front hubs with Grp4 wheels studs will also be available if I upgrade....

cheers,

Paul

[Paul C]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Looking forward to the upgrades Paul. This is a stunning car, i might be interested in some of the bits if you end up splitting them.

[cr500dom]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Hi Paul,

Just a thought.
If you are going for a full damper upgrade on the car (proflex / reiger etc) to go with the WRC front end. and your thoughts were to sell the front end minus dampers, then sell your existing dampers as a whole kit ?

If you were prepared to split them then I`d possibly be interested in the rears for my Kadett if that makes sense ?

(So you could sell the entire front end including dampers, sell the rears to me and fit your choice of ubertrick dampers all round ?)
If that's of interest, then drop me some details either on here or FB
Cheers
Dom

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

After what I've spent on the Escort over the past 4-5 weeks I think I'd be shot if I ordered Reigers now

It looks like I won't have parts required to keep me busy this weekend so no updates for a bit I'm afraid..... I'll maybe just wash and polish a years worth of dust off of her. Can't believe it's that long since Lydden

Cheers,

Paul.

[Moisty]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Learn how to dodge bullets and get the reigers

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

I still don't have the new harnesses yet (long story) but the new seats are fitted now. I know I was properly cheesed off to be forced to spend so much on replacing perfectly good seats and belts, but the new ones are certainly a step forward. Lighter, more comfortable and safer.......and maybe a bit more Gucci too



Another view. Ignore the squint logos, this is down to a shaky hand on landscape mode and not dodgy stitching



I'm hoping we'll have more upgrades soon.

Cheers,

Paul.

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Well, it fair to say that since the car behaved itself and allowed us to fit the new seats without too much hassle, its been fighting back!

My next upgrade was a single wiper kit from Gp4 Fabrications. The reasoning behind this was that it means I get to use a brand new motor instead of a 40-year old one, plus there's no linkage to break, plus its another little weight saved. Everything fits beautifully, but I still have a slight wiring problem to cure the lack of wiper parking....

Next up, another piece of proper Gucci carbon fibre from Paul at Carbon Nuts. You'd imagine that it couldn't be that difficult to fit a Mk2 pod to a mk2 bonnet, but rest assured my car played hard-ball on this one!! My (obviously too deep) spotlights meant that the pod mounting kit didn't work, and left the rear of the lights fouling the bonnet. Having already spent a lot of time/effort measuring and drilling the 64 holes that the pod needs, its fair to say that the stress levels were up, and lots of swearing and toys were thrown out of the pram. Having gone away and drank beer for a day or two, some new springs and bolts were ordered and, together with a central stay (not shown on picture), its now given up and fits

Picture of the pod and single wiper conversion:



The next upgrade is one that I've been promising myself for a year or two now - as I've always thought there was something not quite right about the steering/suspension setup. As you'll all know there are 101 suspension options for the Escort, but after a lot of investigation I narrowed it down to a "RIX" setup or a Gp4 Fabrications "Modular WRC" kit. To cut a long story short, the Gp4 Fabrications kit trumps the RIX setup in a couple of key areas, so I dived-in at the deep end and bought this lot:



As always with my car, it wasn't a straightforward bolt-on-in-a-day job, but we beat her into submission again and the front end now looks like this



I still have to fit the front anti-roll bar, lengthen my steering column by 10mm, and need to tweak the Tension struts so that we can get more castor dialled into it - but its already looking like a good step forward The kit is beautifully manufactured, looks stronger than the traditional Bilstein setup, uses bigger bearings, and also has nice features such a pre-made shims to adjust camber angles and a revised scrub radius.

I have to complete the front end over the next week or two, then have one more upgrade on order as an early birthday present myself. At that point, I'm locking my wallet away and going to get the car dirty!!

More soon,

Paul

[muckerbarry]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

My next upgrade was a single wiper kit from Gp4 Fabrications. The reasoning behind this was that it means I get to use a brand new motor instead of a 40-year old one, plus there's no linkage to break, plus its another little weight saved. Everything fits beautifully, but I still have a slight wiring problem to cure the lack of wiper parking....

Paul

Paul, take a look at my post about the 5-pin relay in this thread, you're probably using a different switch, but the theory is the same.
That suspension looks lush!

[livewire514]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

those new lamps would looks lovely at the challenger stages in october on bovington tank range with its night stages

[Paul C]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

It looks absolutely amazing Paul! Love the suspension set up, and the lamp pod looks fantastic!

I like the idea of Bovington in October too!

[MegatronUK]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

That front axle setup looks the dogs danglies!

[PaulAlex]

Re: Paul Alex's character building, pain-in-the-ar5e, bufty money pit

Have this lot and a few other bits going on eBay this week guys.....



The legs are the proper 15" Tarmac legs from Grp4 Fabrications and retail at £212 each. The adjustable TCAs are the strongest you can buy, and used on most of the top Irish rally cars. They retail from Grp4 Fabrications at £515 a pair. The next gen adjustable top mounts retails around £110 each. So, worth well over £1150 new - I'm after £650 for the lot. I'll throw in some Gp4 ally hubs for free if someone takes the lot.

Cheers, Paul.