The Bandit

[Mr Funk]

And so to the update:

Well, some of you might have noticed I was absent on Sunday. But before you start pelting the shiny bodywork with stones let me explain:

My intentions were good, bordering on honourable. I'd picked up all the gear to allow me to get the tracking sorted (still got it as it happens and will be on the Planet over the weekend if anyone needs theirs sorting) and the garage was booked for Sunday daytime. We'd raise the suspension, get the tracking sorted, fit the new uprated servo and master cylinder and the shiny new Poly bushes courtesy of Dr Martin. All this depended on the rear wheels. It was a sweet deal as Miss Groove was studying hard for an exam and wouldn't mind if I buggered off for the weekend.
Like any good plan one minor detail can totally speedboat things up.

And this weekend that detail was Lepsons.

Now don't for a minute get me wrong here. their work is till head and shoulders above the competition but it's that attention to detail that trousers up my weekend. I called friday to make sure the wheel was going to be delivered only to be told that the finish wasn't perfect so they were doing it again. Excellent that they're that committed, cack that I won't get my wheel back.
I suppose I could have driven it on the fabulous Borbet/Lenzo combo but I just wasn't feeling it. I wouldn't have been able to set everything up and didn't fancy driving it the best part of 150 miles with mong suspension and no tracking.
So anyway.....

In other news tt's not been all bad. I've sold the Seat (to Gareth the Genius Bodywork guy as it goes) as the company Poon Wagon arrives this week and the money from the seat will be allowing me to do a few more bits. I know I said I wanted this project to take a while but I'm addicted! The deal is pretty sweet and I'll be getting the engine bay all nice and shiny plus money which is cracking for the pair of us if I'm honest.
The interior is progressing well. I severely doubt it'll be anywhere near finished until winter but I'm cool with that. Moomin has come up with some superb ideas and until then I'm going to bung some black Rado seats in the front and board the back. Rather chav but it'll all be one colour so people wont notice. I'm toying with the idea of a rado rear bench but I'm thinking it'll be too much work.
I also found a morning to go up to the barn and sort a few problems. I changed the indicator stalk (Si's suggestion) and while there's still a slight problem it's definitely better. Think I'll strip the whole thing back again this weekend and give it a thorough clean. I also went to work on the badly fitting indicators and fitted the original rubber surrounds (cheers Baz). The result is much better, still not perfect but definitely something I can live with.

It still looks terrible on two different sets of rims but that'll be sorted this weekend


While I'm not a betting man I'll lay good money on me actually trousers attending in June. But then I said that last month ;D

[Mr Funk]

So I won the black cloth Rado front and rear seats. The fronts'll go in fine but the rears.....

[Mr Funk]

So this is where it should have been last weekend:



The rear drums need totally rebuilding as they're shot which means it's useless changing over the servo/master cylinder which means the wilwoods aren't working as hard which means blah blah blah.
But that's really trousers minor considering the fun I had today.
Jesus it shifts.

Pick up the rado interior tomorrow. Big big fun

[Mr Funk]

So it's only wednesday and for reasons I won't go into it's been a bit of a cack week which kinda balances out the last six months.
Anyway, last weekend Adam and I attacked the interior, I class myself as technically helping as i made the tea. I think I've finally decided what I'm going to do and long term I reckon it'll be pretty special, the back seats are going to stay out and there's a small, fairly subtle install going in. I know exactly what I need but I need to shift the other two amps first so they don;t clutter up the back room.
The rear is going to be boarded and i was pissing aroud with expanding foam and rear door cards, some really nice blue material also turned up which would look superb in the front door card recesses. I've been playing around for a few days but, if I'm honest, I'm not happy with the result and would rather pay someone to do it properly rather than constantly have to look at something I wasn't completely happy with. So until the winter I think I'll just settle for a standard set up which is no bad thing as the dash is coming out at some point for rebuild so the entire interior will be something to work toward over the dark season.
Currently there's only one shelf support as well. I was speedboat eye nervous when we set about removing them but there's no question that it looks better without them, the problem is that my Dremel would appear to be complete bibble and kept snapping discs. once it's out the carpeting should be fairly simple but I have to admit that I never realised how big a 6m by 2m sheet of acoustic carpet was. Anyhoo, here's a pic of part of the boarding:

There's still so much to do and I think I need to remember that the plan was never to have it all done in one year but it gets very addictive.
Ah well.

[Mr Funk]

So at the moment I'm buzzing like a skag addict on a good hit. Just been to Hothfield to see these guys:
http://www.powerspeed.co.uk/
It came out of a conversation with Gareth the bodywork guy and has reaped its own rewards. While their prices aren't cheap the exhausts these guys do are all tailor made to the car ensuring a perfect fit using 304 grade stainless steel with everything made to measure. The beauty of it is that you can pretty much pick the engine tone you want, which back box you want and even where you want the thing coming out, my plan was to get a quote for a complete 421 back. I wish I had the camera as it's in the middle of nowhere and when I turned up there was a E Type up on the ramps next to a kit AC Cobra, make no mistake I'll get pics the next time I'm down there.
As it turned out Andy, the owner of the business had already seen the car and was dead interested in what's already been done. it's worked for everyone as Gareth should be getting some work out of it and I've got myself a lovely deal.
Obviously in an ideal world I'd be getting the manifold and the exhaust at the same time but the other engine is still being plyed with and wont be ready for a while but it really needs a different exhaust as the rest of the car is nice and shiny shiny while it's still got the bog standard pipe. So it's booked in for the exhaust early July meaning it'll be ready for Volksfest. Result.
The conversation then turned to strut braces. With no rears I'm a little more choosey about what I want and once again a few ideas were thrown about resulting in the possibility of a custom made show cage! God knows how it happened and I'm not entirely convinced that I need one but you never know, I've got until the end of this month to think about it.

[Mr Funk]

[Mr Funk]

I have sounds!
This week has been a bit funny, a touch up and down but to be honest I'm my own worst enemy. I knew I'd never get the build done in a year and I never wanted to. But like all the best crack and ladies I got kinda hooked. You know how it goes: "Oh, I'll just do this, but then I need to do this, and that'll need sorting."
And it gets worse as you have the menial things to think about, like a trousers job and a house and a waf.
So in the run up to a few major events I've been sprinting round like Carl johnson on some of the best and papping and flapping as I'll never get it sorted.
But then a small epiphany. it's the same one I get every few months when I get wound up as it's not all finished.
If I finish it all now then what the speedboat do I have to look forward to?
So as it stands the stereo install has been severly reduced which I reckon is a good thing. I need to invest in a good four channel amp that run both the components and the sub, a nice simple install that'll easily do what I need to. At the moment I have two aftermarket shite boxes running off the head unit and the (frankly superb) dual channel Alpine runnung the sub. it needs properly setting up but it's really good even without a tweeking. until it goes back into storage it'll go back to a standard dash as, for a multitude of reasons, things have got in the way.
It gets it's new exhaust next week thanks to powerspeed. it was meant to get a strut brace as well until, half way down to the Magic Planet it suddenly occured to me that the brace'll be fixed into the rear. A proper pain in the arse considering the work I still have to do.
What the pic don't show you is that the parcel shelf supports are also gone. This opens up a fairly big area that needs sorting but I'm on that, it may not get orted by the shows and means I probably won't go for the show and/or shine but I'm keeping this one for the long term so there's also time.

[Mr Funk]

So there was a problem.

Called thursday to check on the car as I was going to grab it Friday morning only to find they were a man down, that wasn't too bad.
What was pretty terrible was the news that the manifold was completely shagged. At 20 years old it's no big surprise and there was no point in mating a lovely new exhaust to a crap, holey and rusty manifold.
So I blew the budget and as of wednesday it'll have a complete manifold back system.
The timing is tight. The last minute decision to go to Bug jam means I'm properly up against it. It was meant to zip down to Gareths this week to get a few things done but that's out of the window so the plan is to grab it Wednesday evening and get a late night at the work shop.
God I'm excited.

[Mr Funk]

So anyway.....

I'd forgotten I hadn't updated this.
The exhaust was fitted and everything was very very cool. The sound is quite simply ball achingly big. Potter round town and it's fairly normal, open the taps however and it sounds like the sky is on fire. Not so loud that it chavvy and a bit offensive but definitely where it needs to be.
So witht hat fitted I made some hasty repairs and bidged the interior back together and scooted off to Bug Jam for what turned out to be a brilliant weekend, if a little muddy.
Everything was then supposed to go on hold until the winter when I'd start again.
But, as always, plans always go out the window. Gareth, the guy that did such a superb job with the bodywork informed me that he was closing down for financial reasons. This presented a problem as part of our deal was that he was going to spray paint the engine bay for me when I got the engine changed over but with a little discussion we've come to an agreement which may actually work out better in the long run for me.
Next up came the National Meet. For those wh weren't there this is the Register's annual meet, fifty cars of all mk's at Cosford Airfield somewhere in the midlands. A cracking weekend and a chance to see some of the country's best rocco all in one place.
The quality was utterly obscene and with a half baked interior and cack ridden engine bay I didn't stand a chance but it did fuel the fire. I know what I'm up against next year and, if anything, I'll have to work a little harder. Don't get me wrong here, I didn't build the car so people would throw praise at it, if that ahd been the plan I could have easily blown the original budget on a ready made show stopper, but given what I'm doing it's bound to be a bit Marmite.
So with a day off I decided to start taking a look at the front speaker build.

This is just a tester door card, the screwed storm ones from the car that we carved up not long ago, and the component speakers. These, combined with the sub should give me exactly what I want. The kit contains the Speaker, a cracking little tweeter and the box. All very slim and with all the bits you need for swivel mount or (as in my case) a stealth build.
The big problem is that the main speaker is just too damn large. I could just hack part of the inner door and the plastic tray and be done with it but I wouldn't be happy and these things have to be done properly. Plus that tray always annoyed me. I positioned the speaker than married everything up:

Luckily however there's more than enough room for the tweeter to be mounted. I mark everything out and I'm currently waiting for my carpenter neighbour to get home so we can cut some holes. the tweeter first then everything else. We may just carve the bottom part off and rebuild it with fibre glass. This should give us what we need.
Once it's all done it should look like it came out of the factory but it'll take some work.
More to follow

[Mr Funk]

So recently there's been a lot of two things that I neither understand nor fancy doing.
Welding and fibre glassing.
First up the speaker build. Actually it's coming along quite nicely. I cut the parts I needed and did everything slowly and carefully and got the result I was looking for.
The school boy error however was not taking enough care.
I figured that working in my back yard would be ventilated enough and the thought that I should probably use a respirator didn't really cross my mind so I cheerfully spent the net few hours build up the speaker compartment.
The advice I got from Enigma was superb, another local firm that I've been talking to alot recently and they supplied everything I'd need and guided me on what I needed to do without being patronising.
Ironically I've got a good quality respirator from where I was sand blasting last year so I have no-one else to blame but myself and I'm pretty sure you can all see where this is going?
The net day I felt like my lungs were on fire. I've done things like this before (by accident) and emphasise just how nasty solvents are.
Oh well, lesson learned.

The second fun part is the welding.

As anyone that's been in the bandit since the exhaust was fitted will tell you it can get EXTREMELY LOUD. This was down to a lack of sound deadening (soon to be solved with a bulk pack of Dynamat), and a couple of rattles. There was also a small hole on one of the suspension towers where I'd ground away some rust.
Welding is one of those things that i find fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I'm amazed at what it could accomplish but don't think I could ever do it. Rewiring yes, playing with flames and metal I'll leave to the experts.
The hole, it turned out, was where the filler neck attaches to the tower and being right behind the filler neck there was the risk of fumes and fire. So I spent a very nervous ten minutes with a fire blanket packed into the wheel arch putting out any flames while the hole was welded out and ground down.
With that down we sealed a couple of other parts and made sure the rear seat belt attachment points in the body wouldn't rattle anymore.
The difference is nothing short of remarkable. There's still the usual rattle from the boot but I can live with that but the sound inside is much much better.
It still needs a bloody good tune but it's coming off the road again soon for Stage 2 of the build.
Until then...
Bring it on.

[Mr Funk]

Bank holiday weekends rock. Fact.

My current decision to leave the heavy drinking until next weekend certainly pays for itself in the long run...

With Groove at work last night I did my usual and had a few cans and was sparco fairly early. This meant I was up at about half 6 this morning (which is classed as a lie in) and set to work again.

But hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday, with all the welding and whatnot done I decided to take the plunge and invest in some sound deadening. A bulk pack of Dynamat extreme covers about 20 square feet and comes in at a pretty good price. 20 sqaure feet doesn't sound like all that much but there's a couple of things you need to remember:
1: You don't need to be all that accurate. It's designed so that gaps are perfectly okay, as long as it blocks the big bits of sound it's doing it's job.
2: It's not at all bulky. Very very thin in fact. Put it on the wheel arches and you can carpet over it and be none the iser what's under there.
3: 20 square feet is A LOT. In the realms of "6m by 2m of acoustic carpet is a lot.

So cut it up, heat it up with a hair drier and away you go. It's quite satisfying:

Once it's done it'll be covered by carpet:

This'll only be tacked down. This means the dyna mat is hidden but the carpet can easily be removed when I'm fitting the new rear panels on the inside.

So this morning I thought I'd do a bit more. Only you can't really start using a hair drier at 7am on a Bank Holiday Sunday.
It's occured to me while I was doing all this that the carpet in the rear had seen some abuse. Sparks from the grinding had pitted part of it and there were boot marks where I'd been sitting in the back and wiring so it came out and got stripped. It was while doing this that I thought about fitting the components in the rear for the time being. This is great but, due to the 2 channel amp, means that i'll either have a sub or the components running. I can live with that until I get a four channel sorted. It'll look a bit like this only everything will be resessed like the sub:

Luckily there's the perfect space for the components just behind the seats:

I have no idea what it'll sound like but I'm not overly bothered at the moment. Action and the September vagingit look like the last time I'll use it as the tax and mot both run out at the end of the month and after that it's back to the barn and the garage for the engine fun.
But while I'm at it here's a very rough mock up of the front door cards:

And all of this before half eight on a bank holiday sunday!

[Mr Funk]

Bank holiday still kick arse.
Spent saturday and sunday doing nice things and stacking up the Karma and spent most of today like a pig in poo playing.
Wether knowingly sarcastic or not Big Will's comment about the cross over made me take anther look at the rear build. Ultimately I decided to rebuild the rear and leave the components out, they'd be pointless. At the moment the two channel could either run those or the sub, not both so there seemed little point in fitting them so they went back in the garage until the front door cards are finished.
A small but smashing hangover this morning delayed the fun while I watch Mythbusters but then I cracked on in earnest. Both sides, front doors and the floor of the boot have been dyna matted and the difference is almost immediate. Okay so it's a bit weighty but speed has never been a massive issue and the upgrades over the winter should negate that easily.
Once that was don I cut new carpet for the floor, refitted it and rewired the whole set up.
At this point the sound quality was surprisingly good. But only when I wasn't going anywhere. Most of the bass from the rear was still dissipating into the cavities when I was on the move BUT the noise from the exhaust was quieter.
So I set back to work and came up with a temporary fix until the rear get refitted. The rear door cards got stripped and recovered and the wheel arches got covered. It isn't perfect by any means and it's got that glorious honk of something half baked but it works and it'll get me through. If I get time this week I'll knock up some board for the back so everything is covered.

So the big question is: Is it ready for the 'shun?

Answer: Hmmm, Maybe. I'm still incredibly proud of it but there's little things that could be better but I've got to step back and have a serious chat with myself about it. I've got a car that I fall in love with every single time I drive and I'm lucky enough to have been able to have the time, resources and, most importantly, the contacts to have built it.
After today and after taking it out with Fun for me by Moloko blaring out I couldn't give a toss if it doesn't pick up an award. I'll still feel very cool* getting there.
Obligatory cacky pic:



*the term "cool" is merely subjective. If you find under powered '80's coupes cool and stereo hard drives crammed full of clit rock then you'll know where I'm coming from

[Mr Funk]

Okay so just becuase I haven't been updating doesn't mean that I haven't been doing anything.

Those bloody bastard fappin' doorcards have been the bane of my life. You really wouldn't believe how much work I've done to them and I'm still not 100% happy. Basically the sub is way to big to fit properly into the door cards without some serious modifying.
So cue 2 sheets of hardboard, 50 foot of duck tape, a saw, an electric saw and frayed tempers.
I can't be bothered to go into the minute detail of what I did but I can definately live with the end result until I get round to perfecting what I've done and starting work on the ones that are in the car.
Oh yeah, didn't I tell you? These are only the mock ups. 40+ hrs I reckon have gone into them and they aren't even the feckin' ones that'll permanently be on the car!
I may grill over the subs but they can stay exposed for the time being and the tweeters will probably end up being flush mounted as they hit the window winders. Oops.
Still, as an Idea it works and overall I'm pretty pleased with it, especially as the new 4 channel arrived this week (wrapped in some particularly fectching pink wrapping paper of all things). Heading up to the barn tomorrow for a play

The carpet isn't tacked down yet so it doesn't really give a good impression but you get the idea.

[Mr Funk]

So with the Groove away for a week and me up silly early I decided to crack on with the door cards.
Tese have been quite a fun little project, hopefully you won't be able to notice once the they're all built and on but that's the whole point.
The one down side has been the difference in quality of the carpet. I thought I'd got the same stuff as the rear is done in but I didn't. The earlier stuff is slightly fluffier if that makes sense and while the new stuff isn't terrible in feels more than an office carpet.
But I'm not bothered, it was nice to work with and these are only the mock ups.
So with all the boards and new pieces fitted the first thing was to lay the carpet, not as easy as it sounds as the curve where the Jesus handle goes can be a proper gimp. But careful stretching and glueing soon pays off.


In the new ones i'm hoping that the plastic tray will be covered in a gorgeous electric blue.
with everything stuck down I cut the holes for the other bits. the tweeters will now be mounted in the dash, a bigger job but much more in keeping with what I want and better sound quality and while I'm at it I may bin the hole for the cross over.


Right, had brekkie. best I get back to it.

[Mr Funk]

So today didn't go all that abdly at all. The door cards not only fit but work!
The sound quality is exactly how I wanted it, those components are worth their weight in gold. Buzzed around the A-Town with a big bassy mix and utterly loved it.

But it's not all good. The door release on the drivers side is being a bit of a bell end, it's an easy fix but I'm farr too knackered from all the other bits I've been doing. Proper fiddly piece of work and it means taking the door cards off again and I can't really be arsed at this time on a Saturday. Decided that I'll bin the crossover holes and mount them somewhere hidden, most probably the glove box and grill the speaker.



Once that's all finished I'll crack on with the rear:


Then the dash board then....