Murrays - ph1 astra gsi project

[MurrayM_]

Good afternoon troops

Long time since I’ve posted on here.. I have been lurking on from time to time and as always the forum has been an excellent help to my project by looking back at some old threads

I should’ve started this at the beginning of my project and after posting some updates on the mk3 groups on Facebook I was meaning too.. so almost a year in here we are!

I’ve owned my fair share of mk3s over the years more so when they were cheap.. sometimes breaking gsi’ for an 3dr astra merit project. As they became less about and prices started to go up I decided to move on from my old project and get a gsi.

At the end 2019 I bought ph2 astra gsi from Bristol. Very clean car, low owners, low mileage. Completely standard but not for long. Over the course of my ownership I done a few bolt on mods - lexmual 421 manifold, piper cross air filter, spax springs, comp mo5s. I did end up having to put a new head gasket on; and while head was off had it port and polished. Also fitted a vxr inlet manifold from a z20leh. Had it a friends dyno and it made about 137hp iirc. Not ground breaking but ok for a 20 odd year old car with 66k miles.

In 2021 I decided to sell the ph2 gsi as I was paying for it to be sat in storage, and had another couple cars at the time which I was using more frequent. I did regret letting it go as it was a superb example but hoped to replace it with a ph1 astra gsi when one came up.

 

[MurrayM_]

I had been active and keeping an eye on groups, eBay, marketplace and had an idea of what I wanted but not many mk3s were coming up. Sometimes the odd one would and it could be sold before I’d even seen the ad, or others I’d be checking the mot history and be put off by seeing things and then seeing the price.


Fast forward to January 2025 on new years day.. relatively hungover sat on the couch I clocked a ph1 astra gsi on fb marketplace. It was going to need some work and wasn’t the example I had in mind but it was going to be something I could work with.

Living on the Isle of Lewis, and the car being just outside Glasgow logistically was going to be about as close as I could find one. After a few messages and video walk around of the car I rolled the dice and a deal was done.

 

[MurrayM_]

Being a 30+ year old car it was going to have some history but not that I could find too much on it pre buying it. Post buying it and making a few posts I was able to speak to some previous owners - but best of all I could see what I was dealing with once I got the car onto the ramp.

I learned at some point it had a c20let fitted, and it had a centre exit exhaust which was going through the spare wheel well then out the back panel and through the bumper. It then ended up having the let removed and was sold as a rolling shell, and then sold again with a 20xe engine but not running. Then it passed hands again having the rear valance changed and engine was running to Craig who I bought it from, who had got a nice exhaust system made for it.

My original plan was to get it mechanically driving well, and then try have it motd for summer 2025. Get some use out of it then look into having it painted etc over the winter… this is not how things have gone

 

[MurrayM_]

Although I wasn’t going to have it mechanically driving for summer 2025 the overall plan was still much the same with an oem+ look.

I began to remove bits from the car - things I wouldn’t be using like morettes and 5 stud. Then removed bumpers, wings.. side skirts. This is when things started to snowball. Neither sills were great so it was going to need a set of them. It was also going to need a cut from a spare wheel well as there was still a hole from the centre exit exhaust. Other than that it was hard to see as there was so much black undercoat over the car I had to set about removing that.

Got a shot of a hot wash and with various products.. tardus worked particularly well. The black undercoat was coming off. As much as a hassle this was to remove - it had mostly done its job and protected the car from elements that being said there was still a few areas needing attention.

 

[Joycey]

Nice to see a new project on here!

 

[Kev_mk3]

Ahhh man I'd kill for another phase 2 GSI. I am looking all the time for one.

Good to see you in another and loving the thread so far.

 

[j1sgo]

Great work, Welcome to the PH1 revival club

 

[MurrayM_]

Will carry on updating this.. would've been much easier to do as I was doing it!

Once I was able to get the majority of black underseal of from the underside could make a start on cleaning up the underside. I had a shot of a shot blaster (was a sealey but much the same as your ebay ones). Used this on 4x inner arches, was working well but when doing them in the evening I had a couple of the boys round who were able to tend the blaster. Keeping it topped up with shot blast, and sorting any blockages while I could concentrate on doing the blasting.

The following day I got more shot blast in the morning thinking with the machine dialed in it would've been a walk in the park.. it wasnt. Back to old tricks - a lot of wire wheeling, needle gun and general tidy up. For the most of the underneath given the age of the car it was pretty good. Once I had assistance that evening I could carry on with shot blasting, as it was really a 2 man operation.. Possibly the nozzle of the blaster was worn out. Was having to constantly un block the feed hose from the blaster to the nozzle. In the end I had a machine mart special blaster id bought so tried the gun from that on the sealey unit and it worked more consistent, less blockages and could get some done.

As soon as it was back to clean metal I sprayed on a coat of epoxy mastic from rust buster. Excellent product although there is plenty of good products around these days I was fair impressed with this, only issue was the gloss red I'd chosen was more of a orange but this wouldnt matter too much as i took a bit of a backwards approach to this project. More on that later.