Dave b's VXR Powered Gsi Diary

[TMODAlpha]

Chuck one of these on your grinder if its variable:

5 Inch Rotary backing plate - Clean Your Car

 

[DavebGsi]

Chuck one of these on your grinder if its variable:

5 Inch Rotary backing plate - Clean Your Car

what does that do?? May seem like a stupid question lol

 

[Todd100]

Its a backing pad for a polishing pad, so you can use an ordinary grinder as a rotary polisher, be careful tho

 

[TMODAlpha]

Yeah, keep it moist and moving. But it's perfectly capable of doing the job. I've used mine for years now with no issues. Either that or just polish your pillar by hand with a decent compound.

 

[DavebGsi]

ahhhh i thought it was rubbing the paint back or something, i've only got a 1 speed angle grinder so not much good. i need to buy a mop really, short on time before pvs thou and want to research a really good one i think, spend a bit of money on a decent one, should be able to get a decent finish by hand with a bit of hard work, its only a small section so fingers crossed!

 

[DavebGsi]

so been doing some pvs prep this week, struggling to find time, so busting it after work each night this week!

so monday, wheels off, deep clean with iron x, savage16v recommended this and it truely is brilliant stuff, front wheels were already protected with platinum wheels, but the rear never had been and after 3 applications, scrubbing and cleaning, the rears looked brand new just like the fronts now

so lined all the wheel up and gave them a good coating of platinum wheel, stuff is amazing at protecting them, and now their all going to stay super easy to clean and mint



cleaned up all 4 wheel arches, fronts again after the other day, they didn't need much love but the rears deffo did




can see the rear tyres have been scraping a bit, paint off the arch and hammerite come off the inner arch too, should be ok now i have raised the ride height though



the sill isn't looking too cleaver thou



i think the more i look at it, the more i think she is approaching full rebuild time, under side is starting to get pretty crusty, gonna need alot of work i think, possibly may end up missing show season next year



bad times

so tonight was bath time, nice and clean, read for tomorrow which is re lacquering the A pillar. have read up alot so feeling pretty confident it will be fine



More tomorrow...

 

[DavebGsi]

so tonight was the night, need to crack on, 3 days till pvs

so first things first, car needs to be well covered



check!!!

so started by flaking off any loose lacquer, was a fair bit, ended up with basically half the A pillar missing its coating in the end!!

so started with this

flatted with some water, fairy up liquid and 1200grit wet and dry untill all the edges were completly flush and couldn't be felt
finished off by roughing up the surrounding areas with scotch brit to give a smooth flat finish



did some 'back taping' to give a feathered and bit smoother edge

and got the lacquer out, mixed up.... and then i couldn't get the lid off my gun!!!!!!!!
the ****** had glued itsself on there, a bit of violence later and the lid was off, i need a new gun lol, but it was ok for now!






Really pleased with how it has come out, did 3 coats and then 1 final coat with a bit more thinners in it to give it a slightly less orange peel on the last coat, i can imagine it will still need wet flatting so that will be tomorrow night, the garage is gettin proper hot during the day with the sun shine so should of cooked nicely, just need to buy some ultra fine wet and dry paper to wet flat and blend it in, time will tell hey!
everyone will get to see my efforts sunday anyways!

 

[Todd100]

Monks a decent finish hopefully doesn't leave an edge and polishes up mint!

 

[TMODAlpha]

Awesome Dave, looks good that

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Great work, looks good. Lacquer peel is horrible, makes a car look proper tatty so will look awesome when finished. Shame about the rust, but they do like to rust and yours is one of the very early mk3's so it's been around a long time.

 

[DavebGsi]

cor no update since june! been a busy boy thou, just not really on cars, or the astra at least!
but exciting non the less, workshop progress!
so the concrete was down, and after a few months since pvs, and saving like buggery, i had managed to get enough together for some workshop building! well, i'm not doing the building lol. i decided that for me to build a workshop, although do able, would take me ages, and i would make alot of mistakes.
so my mate that helped me lay the concrete knows 'one of them old boys', by that i mean a guy in his 50's, who has spent his entrie life building workshops and sheds. so seems like a better use of my time to get someone who can knock it up in no time, get it right first time and tbh, the money he will save on gettin wood at trade price and cheaper places will pay for him to work i should think.
so instead im working overtime and late nights at work to pay for it lol, ill stick to what i know!

so first thing first, best way to make a workshop solid and last longer, stick some metal in it lol

so got 2 uprights and a 6.2metre 6inch hardened RSJ, cut to size and i welded them together , was actualy pretty pleased with this weld too lol



stood it up, which was pretty heavy haha, thats an understatement and got them bolted down to floor!




under orders, i then drilled ALOT of holes in the top, being hardened RSJ, this took me quite a while, so i took a seat




and then i got a big delivery of wood ready for monday!

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Mega cool!

 

[DavebGsi]

so monday came, today, i went to work, and came home to this....

as said, he can certainly build a workshop quick! would of taken me days to do that looks spot on, all attached to the rsj nicely and proper strong.

the best bit is a stuck a tape measure in the back corner and it is exactly 2.50m off ground level, which is exactly level with the maximum to be under planning permission height. PERFECT!

 

[DavebGsi]

so after the excitement of that, saturday i had a look under my car on the ramp at work, tbh, i know the underneath is gettin a bit crusty and last winter i was going to give it some love, but then i moved house. but a look underneath saturday showed me the time as come for some serious under body love.

front left


front right


dip in the floor structual bit




back of door sill



rear valance



and then this one, passenger door sill outer has actually seperted from the inner :'(






looks like there is be some serious surgery for my astra over the winter!

 

[Purpledrumstick]

Workshop is looking awesome.

Poor astra though, she's not looking too healthy. Im sure you'll soon sort her out though

 

[djwilde69]

Going on his speed it will be done in no time!! But the ol Astra needs plenty of tlc I see

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Not pretty but it's an old car so come to expect these things eventually unfortunately it's something to keep you busy at least eh!

 

[DavebGsi]

so had an awesome day at snetterton, have really missed doing track time in this beast, puts a massive smile on my face that my car with its full interior can really holds its own on track with some quicker stipped out cars.
did a few videos but this one was my favourite, as u can probably tell, a full 14/15 mins of foot down driving! was running low boost all day, my friends cars are a bit slower and also gives u better battles on track, stops people just pulling of the way all the time
so turned the boost controller and just ran 1bar of boost all day, amazing how much better the car is on fuel hahaha, think its approx 300/300 ish bhp possibly, not sure to be fair. the mk2 golf i start chasing was stripped out and faster in a straight line, so was a wicked battle which i definatly held my own on! as well as keeping with a gtr for a few laps

don't turn up the volume too much, savage brake squeel as usual lol, but this was filmed with a microphone at the back bump, surrounded by a car sponge lol, sounds pretty good i though, get some good popping on overun!

enjoy!

 

[Kev_mk3]

Your brakes sound like mine Sounds bloody great the car popping away. It does look like it loves under steer though am I correct?

 

[DavebGsi]

yea it does suffer with savage amounts of understeer, I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. Thing is, and it sounds daft, but also sensible, I like, it's very controllable and very easy to find the limit, then back away from it again, it makes my pride and joy very safe on track

also my track wheels with 888's on are dead , I'll get pics soon of them, they are completely bald in the middle, but I want some slicks next so didn't want to use my road 888's