Project "START you viscious b*****d"

[walkinginperu]

After a few engine troubles I've spent a lot of time stripping down and rebuilding my rocco, so I thought I'd finally get round to turning this into a bit of a 'project/don't make the same mistakes I did' thread.
This is my '88 1.6 GT as I bought it in June 2008, with 111,000 miles on the clock and 11 stamps in the service book




Mechanically a bit tired, and the engine pulled like a hamstrung weasel. A good service sorted the lack of grunt out, although it's still not exactly rapid!
The paintwork is in very good nick for its age, with a few tiny surface rust spots on the doors and a few stonechips that have been badly touched up by the previous owner. More than good enough for my daily!
Next thing was to replace the old rusty steelies with some G60 wheels and fit a weber 32/34dmtl to sort the dreaded pierburg. Went with Toyo Proxes T1Rs as I've used them before and found them to be awesome value.


The little puddle of oil on the driveway was starting to annoy me, so i took off the old sump and replaced it with one of gsf's finest


The steering and handling were also a bit vague, so while it was up on the jacks i fitted some poly bushes and new wishbones to tighten up the front end, as well as a front lower brace that I made at work.




The car sailed through the MOT in 2009, only needing a CV boot gaitor with no advisories! Very pleased.

To treat it I replaced the knackered and worn out standard interior with some sportier mauritius blue seats and doorcards from another forum member.
Also had the carb properly setup, which made a huge difference. Car pulls better now, and can almost be described as 'nippy' !

[walkinginperu]

Last summer I got fed up with the GT rolling onto its doorhandles every time I went round a bend at more than 30mph. Found some ARBs on ebay going cheap, so started attacking them with this:




Then I powdercoated them black and fitted along with new bushes and ARB clamps front and rear. The rear ones are now obsolete from the stealers, so I found some on Crazy Quiff's website which is in the recommended traders section on this forum. Handling was massively improved, a lot flatter through the corners and much less tendency to understeer.
Unfortunately the 1.6 (for reasons unknown to everyone except volkswagen) has a different downpipe to every other rocco, which vibrates annoyingly against the front antiroll bar ever time you accelerate. Or brake. Or corner. The buzzing finally got too much and I bought a second hand exhaust from a 1.8 GTX, along with a new downpipe from gsf. The 1.6 downpipe doesn't fit the 1.8 exhaust, so for any of you GT drivers thinking of doing this, be warned! New downpipe around £40 from gsf, got it a lot cheaper because of all the times I've been in to my local branch for parts.

Fitting the 1.8 downpipe which has a special kink in it to clear the ARB removed the buzzing completely, and also gave the engine a slightly fruitier exhaust note
Unfortunately, the rubbing on the old downpipe removed a lot of the powdercoat from my front roll bar, so that had to come off again and be redone at work to stop it rusting away to nothing.

[andy69]

Coooooooooool
A flash silver buddy!!!
Mine's like a knackered settee when cornering
good work matey

[walkinginperu]

All that brings us up to just before Christmas 2009. The car started running lumpily and cutting out coming up to junctions. On closer inspection, cylinder 3 was misfiring most of the time, particularly at idle and low revs. Because of the amount of work I have on at the moment, I took it to my local garage who diagnosed the inlet manifold gasket and then charged me £150 to replace it which didn't come close to fixing the problem. If you want a job doing, do it yourself. The monkeys at the garage also stripped the thread on the front of my airbox and failed to bolt the carb back down properly, and then adjusted the carb to suit the leaky airbox. Nice. Result was a horrible idle and a loss of my nice idle and mixture settings. Needless to say words were exchanged with the garage and recompense was organised. I won't be using them again.
This started a long saga of trying to diagnose the problem myself, and some of the guys on here were incredibly helpful and gave some really good advice, so thanks (you know who you are!)
I had decent spark on all cylinders, with no arcing. Leads and plugs were good, as were the dizzy cap and rotor arm. Spark ruled out.
Weber carb was delivering fuel to no.3 cylinder even with the misfire, and other 3 cylinders were running fine. Fuel ruled out.
Now I started to think about the dreaded head gasket. Jay suggested that an internal gasket failure may have been letting water into no.3 and killing the combustion. This made sense so i borrowed a compression tester and gave it a try. There was a bit of difference between cylinder pressures, but not high enough to suggest a conclusive gasket failure on a 22 yr old engine. At this point I was a bit confused, but the remaining possibilities seemed to be a mechanical problem (such as a valve sticking) or a problem with the compression that I wasn't clever enough to diagnose. This meant taking the plunge and taking the head off to have a better look .
Being a trained engineer and therefore completely useless practically, I bought a second-hand head from Riscocco so that i could refurbish it and retain a spare incase of everyones favourite army officer, Major Cockup. Pics to follow! (Warning: may contain oily filth)

[walkinginperu]

Coooooooooool
A flash silver buddy!!!
Mine's like a knackered settee when cornering
good work matey

The antiroll bars make a whopping difference! Still a bit of an old shed tho .

[walkinginperu]

Success! After 3.5 months of taking the bus, the rocco fired up last weekend and has just got another 12 months ticket!
Felt so nice to go for a blast today and blow out the cobwebs, the old beast fells a lot sharper with the injection cam fitted and idles beautifully now.

Cheers to everyone who has offered help and advice over the last few months, wouldn't have been able to sort it without the help of you guys on here

[go-for-it1]

The steering and handling were also a bit vague, so while it was up on the jacks i fitted some poly bushes and new wishbones to tighten up the front end, as well as a front lower brace that I made at work. !

Hi matey, have you got any dimensions for making up the lower brace, e.g. length between centres and hole sizes, tube used etc? I have the facilities to get it made up but the dimensions would help to get it right first time.
Thanks
Rob

[Risocco]

Nice one Ben, chuffed for you mate

Any time you fancy fitting ARBs to my car gimmie a shout

Alex

[walkinginperu]

The steering and handling were also a bit vague, so while it was up on the jacks i fitted some poly bushes and new wishbones to tighten up the front end, as well as a front lower brace that I made at work. !

Hi matey, have you got any dimensions for making up the lower brace, e.g. length between centres and hole sizes, tube used etc? I have the facilities to get it made up but the dimensions would help to get it right first time.
Thanks
Rob

Can send you the engineering drawings if you want buddy, assuming i've still got them. It's only really 3 bits of tube at the end of the day! Can you use CAD software or do you want paper copies? If not i'll try and describe it on here but might be tricky!

[walkinginperu]

Nice one Ben, chuffed for you mate

Any time you fancy fitting ARBs to my car gimmie a shout

Alex

Any time mate! Piece of cake really, as long as you have all the right bits?

[Risocco]

Nice one Ben, chuffed for you mate

Any time you fancy fitting ARBs to my car gimmie a shout

Alex

Any time mate! Piece of cake really, as long as you have all the right bits?

Somewhere........................ Cheers mate, I'll be intouch, I'll sort your car out with a bit of detailing in return

Alex

[go-for-it1]

The steering and handling were also a bit vague, so while it was up on the jacks i fitted some poly bushes and new wishbones to tighten up the front end, as well as a front lower brace that I made at work. !

Hi matey, have you got any dimensions for making up the lower brace, e.g. length between centres and hole sizes, tube used etc? I have the facilities to get it made up but the dimensions would help to get it right first time.
Thanks
Rob

Can send you the engineering drawings if you want buddy, assuming i've still got them. It's only really 3 bits of tube at the end of the day! Can you use CAD software or do you want paper copies? If not i'll try and describe it on here but might be tricky!

I can give you an email address for a drawing if you have it electronically or a postal address. I have use of Visio at work if that is any use but if not a description of the dimensions of tube, drilling sizes and distance between boltholes on here may help. Not bothered about the weld spec as I can work that out from the tube sizes. Is any bending required for clearance on a GT2 with standard sump?
Rob

[walkinginperu]

The steering and handling were also a bit vague, so while it was up on the jacks i fitted some poly bushes and new wishbones to tighten up the front end, as well as a front lower brace that I made at work. !

Hi matey, have you got any dimensions for making up the lower brace, e.g. length between centres and hole sizes, tube used etc? I have the facilities to get it made up but the dimensions would help to get it right first time.
Thanks
Rob

Can send you the engineering drawings if you want buddy, assuming i've still got them. It's only really 3 bits of tube at the end of the day! Can you use CAD software or do you want paper copies? If not i'll try and describe it on here but might be tricky!

I can give you an email address for a drawing if you have it electronically or a postal address. I have use of Visio at work if that is any use but if not a description of the dimensions of tube, drilling sizes and distance between boltholes on here may help. Not bothered about the weld spec as I can work that out from the tube sizes. Is any bending required for clearance on a GT2 with standard sump?
Rob

No bending necessary buddy, not on my GT anyway which has the same block and sump. I made mine to the length of the bolt holes on my chassis - I figured all cars will have sagged a different amount over the years, and didn't really fancy trying to "pull" my chassis legs together by fitting a lower brace mass-produced by someone miles away, hence making my own.
I'll dig the drawings out on Monday for you, they're on my PC at work. I'd measure the distance between bolts on your chassis and then make your brace to fit. It will then stiffen up the front end by reducing flex without applying a stress on any members. I'll also post a pic of the drawing on here so anyone else who fancies a go can build their own too!

[go-for-it1]

Cheers.

[walkinginperu]

Unfortunately mt 'rocco has started to live up to the project title again, after losing all compression on cylinders 2-4. After three months refurbing the cylinder head and completely overhauling the top of the engine, it looks like the bottom end has decided to let me down. Funky Diver looks like he may have a suitable engine for swapping in, but its something I could really do without when i haven't got a garage or even a driveway
I've given the car so much love and spent so much time and effort getting it running and looking sweet, and its kicked me in the nuts again.