My 2002's resurrection - 56k go die

[Justin B]

The car is still considerably complete. The rest will be taken apart once it gets inside, or once I can find someone to take the parts away, ORR, I have enough room to put it...............perhaps in a dumpster! I'll be taking some measurements though shortly so I can build a dolly with some 6" swivel castor wheels. Maybe I'll make it simple and just do it so it holds the car up along the length of the rocker panels so I can keep one of the two front sub frames in to allow mock-up's. Suspension is getting torn off probably the first day it's in the garage, and stripping down the bottom will begin. The estimated time frame for that will be just a couple of weeks, I'm trying to light a fire under this project to get it DONE. Any day off and most days after work you can count on me working on it. I absolutely cant stand stuff that just drags on forever, and this already has.

[Justin B]

Some more progress today, enough to take some pictures of-

Decided to tear out all the wiring out today, it went a lot faster than I thought it would. Could be because there was barely more wires in the whole car than what I took out of my e30 when I removed the premium sound to redo it.

Not much left, just a little left on a couple of switches-


The trailer-




You can see the ramps, they'll be covered in aluminum tread plate. One side is put up entirely and square, but the sliding piece needs the ears spread out a little though so it can slide. We have eight 8' pieces of plastic for the ears to slide on, and need to bolt on the winches and figure how we're going to route the cable.

[PiercedE30]

What kind of race car is that?
NICE effing trailer too.

[SchnellerVert]

Very cool, there have been quite a few finished 02 projects this year. Ian Powell got his back finally.

[Justin B]

The car is my dad's VanDiemen, his car, his trailer, the formula car that will be going up top we went in together to buy.

Anyway, regardless-
Here's at least one pic for now of it when we first got the car a while ago, its been a PITA to get running. First the sequential tranny overheated and one of the shafts and welded itself to a fork sticking it in 1st gear. Unfortunately its one of the only transmission of its kind in the world, so no parts. It was built by VanDiemen to get homologated by SCCA, but basically got rejected and there were only a couple of them. When it was finally back together it got one lap till the friction plate of the clutch was stripped out via the input shaft to the tranny. Just got that back together. Powered by a ford cosworth engine.

The back end torn apart and stripped clutch-





Heres the formula continental. A '88 Swift SE-3 with newer bodywork-

[golde30]

JB, i wanna drive that formula car BAD.

[Justin B]

So do I. LOL! Ive driven it around the block...
Still gotta nut/bolt it, then I'm going to try to get it to a track day on Dec 29 or something at Thunder Hill. I dont know if they'll let me drive it unless I can get my boss to give me my SCCA comp. license =( It's run by the track though, which is owned by SCCA, and there's been an instance where a friend of mine would have been allowed to run his friends formula mazda with his karting license, but under higher scrutiny. That's what I'm hoping for if I cant get my SCCA license between now and then.

[AlarmedBread]

Damn, I come in expecting an 02 and see a pair of formulas. I can't decide which I like more.

[Justin B]

The swift was a lot cheaper :) I came into work today too just to make sure we weren't working. Shit. We are. One out of 3 of us didnt show up though, but whatever. Maybe I'll be able to finish putting the rack together tonight. I was kind of hoping to work on it for a couple hours then have the rest of the day free to go look at a buddies shop where he's redoing all of his wiring in his 02 too to get some ideas. :dot: I guess that wont be happening unless he stays late and I dont work on the rack tonight. We'll see.

[vlad]

amazing project ! Having gone thru a bunch of complete restorations myself, I know what it takes and how difficuilt and time consuming it can become! Good luck and post more pics ! :up:

[Justin B]

This weekend I have 3 days off so my plan is to take out the engine and tranny, scrap the exhaust, cut out a relief in the core support for my scirocco radiator to sit forward a little, and finish building the rack in the trailer.

I'll try to cut out the front divider panel of the rear seat, and same with the heaterbox clean-air box in the engine bay since it's not going back in as far as I care so far. To retain the usage of my TEP brace, washer nozzles and hood latch mech. I'm going to put in a 1x1 or 1x1/2 bar across the bay at the original forward lip height of the box (makes more sense if you see a picture I think) and running a couple tidy 2" strings to the firewall for the hood latch to bolt up to. If I didnt have the TEP brace and didn't care about the whole functonality of my hood latch, I wouldnt put anything back in its place but I want it gone to expand on rearward space, but with the same functionality minus clean air. Then I can mount stuff further back on the firewall itself where it starts angling up and back. That's my idea so far. I know I'm going to take it out, but what to do with it is up in the air till it's actually done.

I may use the remaining piece of stock to run a piece between the B pillars across at the height of the top of the rear seat front divider so I can box it in.

Certainly no perfect resto, but it's a lot of work. Brainstorming always ends up with more ideas and more sideways progress than forward ;)

Oh, and I'm getting some 1/8" black ABS sheet to start making my gauge cluster backing today.

[Justin B]

Yesterday I got a 2x2' piece of 1/8" thick ABS plastic with some texture on one side good to be a gauge face. I found my scrap gauge cluster housing and removed everything but the three sided hood and transfered it to a small piece of the ABS. It's close, some gaps but that will fill with the epoxy. I'm going to mount it to the stock locations, so I'll have to measure the mounting studs on the good gauge set I have for now.

The two green LED's (panel mount and already ready for 12v) in the middle will be turn signal indicators, and I'll put a dummy light somewhere for either oil level or just a generic one for several problems. I haven't drilled for that one yet because I'm not 100% sure on it yet.



Yeah, 120mph speedo is "low" :P I can always replace it with a sport-comp 160mph one if I find one for a good deal, or feel a need.

[Justin B]

[BenM]

Fucking subscribed. I'm really diggin' the gauge cluster. Mind if I copy yours for my 2002?

Ben

[Justin B]

Since you asked, sure, I dont mind. It's pretty expensive to build though (that is if you already have a cluster that works fine). If you want specifics, PM me.

Crappy weekend here, I have to work Monday again, I thought it was going to be a 3 day'er. I usually have Sundays and Mondays off.