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Andy's Arctic II

Bigond

Bigond

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Hello all,

Thought I'd start a diary for my new purchase to keep track of time and money spent on it, but also as motivation to clean, maintain and improve it if I ever get bored or dissuaded.

It's a 1998 Arctic II with around 66k miles.











Nipped down to Sunderland on Saturday morning and after a look over and a quick run I picked it up for £300.

The pictures above are the condition I got it in, which was pretty good to be honest. There is some rust...









That's the worst thing about the car really, it's a 1.6 16v which runs well, although sometimes idle is a bit lumpy, and I'm convinced the cooling fan isn't working but have yet to check it out.

Short term plans are to get the rust sorted out and a partial respray, replace the discs and pads as the brakes are almost non-existent, and possibly a suspension kit to lower it a touch and improve handling. It has 4 completely different kinds of tyre so that should help too. I'd like to try and squeeze a bit more power out of the engine, but am on a modest budget.

Other than that I may invest in a Genesis cassette until I can afford to put a new head unit it.

A few questions that hopefully someone can answer:

Is the powerbox for this engine still available?
Has anyone ever successfully taken off their door mouldings and re-used them?
can anyone tell me the colour of the car? I got what I thought was the paint code from the chassis plate and got someone to check it but it didn't seem to match up. It said Lightning silver but the paint chip looked different.

Any opinions, ideas and answers to my questions much appreciated.
 
Love silver mk3's one of the colours I've always wanted and never had sadly.mdoor mouldings I've never removed and re fitted as they have metal in and bend so don't stick right again. Copy boxes pop up on eBay now and then I keep my eye out for them to lol be nice to see what you do with the car
 
Really lovely car you have there, looking forward to the updates. Arctic fan here due to my mates dad having one at the time for many years (flame red) so many happy memories of being in that car :-) Congrats and enjoy!
 
Thanks guys, it's been over 10 years since I had my first mk3 which was also my first car. Thought I might regret getting this one as I was originally looking for a 3 door but I'm very pleased with it. Mostly just been tidying up all the hidden areas where the dirt accumulates, meanwhile looking for any more rust.

Pay day can't come quickly enough so I can get some new front brakes. Does anyone have any opinions or experience with Black Diamond discs and pads? Was looking at getting a set of these rather than standard kit.
 
Bigond said:
Pay day can't come quickly enough so I can get some new front brakes. Does anyone have any opinions or experience with Black Diamond discs and pads? Was looking at getting a set of these rather than standard kit.
Click to expand...
TBH standard discs or pagid ones will do pads thats the same really
 
Black Diamond disks are awful! Please don't buy them. I warped 2 sets of disks. The pads are OK, but they're really dusty.

The colour is star silver. I've had 2 Arctic IIs in start silver and flame red.
 
In that case I might just go for standard or get a price for brembo stuff.





Been trying to get rid of all the dirt and grime from behind trims etc in the last couple of days and found a few more rust spots that will need fixed once the bodywork gets started.



Picked up a bottle of this on the way home from work the other day, wasn't expecting too much but it's not bad for under a fiver.
 
nice car mate and good work on getting stuck in! that garage is very clean by the way! is that a normal independant garage?
 
Cheers mate, I work in the motor vehicle dept of a college and that's our mechanical workshop. You might be able to make out the stripped down engines on stands and bedford rascal with the body cut off in the background.
 
Gave the car a good wash today, paint isn't in great condition when you get up close but it looks a lot better.



This is it next to my current car which Iwill go eventually. Had it a couple of years but I'm already far more attached to the Astra.
 
Last edited:
Bought a few bits for the car...



Decided to go for some EBC OEM replacement discs and Ultimax pads. Hopefully they'll have a bit more bite without being noisy and too dusty. £70 seemed reasonable for the set.



Also got some clear side repeaters and an LED kit to replace the instrument bulbs. Got the idea from someone's diary, can't remember who but they posted a link in the diary so cheers for that.

Going to start stripping the car down next week ready for doing the bodywork so these parts will get fitted while it's in the workshop. Going to try and take loads of before and after photos of the rust spots etc.
 
Was that led set off eBay for 7.99? If so then that was my diary you got the link from. The dash bulbs have worked faultlessly but the heater dial ones have all failed, luckily the t5's are peanuts to replace it's just the effort to replace them that I'm lacking right now.

Where did you get your disc and pads from? I will be needing to replace mine shortly.

Cars looking good by the way.
 
Cheers, it's been getting a wash almost once a week and goes in the garage at night so it's staying nice and clean.

Yeah I think they were £7.99, when I saw your picture with them fitted I thought they freshened up the interior nicely so thanks for the inspiration.

I got the brakes from the Demon Tweeks shop on Ebay, they were the best price I could find for what I was looking for.

EBC Front OE/OEM Replacement Brake Discs and Ultimax Pads Kit - PDKF1499 | eBay

That's the kit I got, but there are others with drilled/grooved discs or green/yellow stuff pads etc.
 
Just a wee update with some pics, seeing as I can't get into work over the weekend to work on the car this is the next best thing.















Not only did I have a great time stripping it down I was very happy to find next to no rust underneath any of the panels. Came apart so easily and think I only broke 2 or 3 clips removing the wheel arch liners.

The only thing that gave me any trouble was the rear outer door handle due to the anti theft plastic cover inside the door. Got some rust treatment for the small bits of surface rust I came across, so I'll hit the affected areas with that and some hammerite.

Fingers crossed the repairs and paintwork should be done within the next couple of weeks.
 
Quite an exciting day today, the bodywork is properly under way. There were a few dents and ripples so a bit of filler work was needed. The front of the bonnet was covered in stone chips so got taken back to bare metal.









Also managed to get the brakes changed after work, as the old discs were well past it.





Tried a bit of rust converter on a few rusty patches.

 
Very nice, with that work it's going to be a mint example of an Arctic! Silver was an unusual colour in the Mk3's day..
 
Nice work! I hope those EBC discs are better than their 'Performance' ones, as their Ultimax discs are crap!

She looks very clean and solid though. Jealous of the paintwork going on :lol:
 
I thought I'd give the EBC ones a try, surely they can't be that bad.

Can't wait till all the paintwork is done, looking forward to seeing it once it's done.
 
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