Give me some more bloody pictures! You told me to get coffee and now it’s gone cold! 
Put some ice cubes in it and be trendy.
Anyway, I was out of action last year for a little while, after an accident with a dog and losing some close family after a struggle that took 24 hour care, so I stopped working for a long time - I’ll quote the old stuff as it’s easier:
[quote]Well, I’ve been out of action for a while with family health issues, and some of my own - dog decided to try to claw my eyeball out of my face recently, in fact, I’m posting this from the comfort of my bed… - but the fairies have been doing all those time consuming finished touches whilst I’ve been MIA. Clutch pedal and mountings are finished and the hydraulics piped up, fuel pump and filters remounted, and they’ve just finished a nice little cover for the dry sump belt.
Not something that’s much of an issue for the tarmac boys, but I’m not sure I want to see what happens with 9000rpm’s and an engine bay full of mud and rocks…
Anyway, nice tap fit bosses with seals for the pump casing, and there’s a Lexan cover to be sealed over the front so we can inspect the belt without having to break any seals if not required:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Drysumpbeltcover2.jpg
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Drysumpbeltcover1.jpg[/quote]
Then everything fell back to pieces again:
[quote]You leave the fairies to their own devices for a while and everything falls to bits…
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/BacktotheFloorboardsPart2.jpg[/quote]
Then we got our shiny new driveshafts back, but unfortunately, they’d been made 10mm too short, so I ended up turning an old CV joint down in the lathe to make some spacers, in case you’ve never done lathe work, CV joints are hard material, with harder races. I’ve got a lathe that can spin 16" wheels and it was still flexing 2mm trying to cut the things, orange glowing metal chips all over and the floor vibrating job…good fun!. 
Sandblasted all the suspension and mounting brackets:
Then had them yellow zinc plated:
And, if the steelwork is shiny, the aluminium needs to match it, no?
Bit more to come, will post it later 
Then whilst everything was out being coated and measured up to get correct bolts, etc, rather than random ones - Ed started chopping the front out now the rear’s going back together. May as well have built a new car…
New front cross going in that mates to the beam stiffening bars we added a few years back, and is higher to clear the new pedals and fuel tank/battery/PAS which have been shifted backwards for better weight distribution:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/NewFrontCross.jpg
New mounts for pedal box going on:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/NewPedalMounts.jpg
And some new floor bars, to mount the seat belts clear of the new bulkhead and help prevent anal insertion of the various large rocks we always seem to land on.
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Newfloorbars.jpg
The flywheel fell into the lathe and we couldn’t reach it in time, it was viscously attacked by a passing boring bore, and when we eventually got it out, has lost a considerable amount of flesh. He’s resting on the bench now under a sheet, but I fear he may never be the same again…
And…then things stopped as I took my grandad away on a holiday and he had another heart attack whilst there (he’s had 6 already), they didn’t know the cause and he was having issues for weeks after so I ended up staying with him to keep an eye on things for a long time, and just top it off, I got an inner ear infection shortly after that gave me dizzy spells and migraines to the point where I couldn’t drive (Oh, and the 306 is gone, new daily driver now!).
Soooo, it ain’t running yet, but we’re close, this was the last week or so’s work, completely new floorpan, new skidplates, new bulkheads, new pedals and hydraulics, new front bonnet, some more wiring added to the dash (Launch control switches with different settings depending on wet/dry or tarmac/gravel/loose surface/mud):
[quote]switched idiot lights out for LED’s (which then required ripping them to bits and trying to add diodes and ballast resistors in the case of the alternator charging light…good fun trying to solder them in a space about 8mm x 4mm…lots of swearing, some burnt fingers.
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/DashWiring1.jpg
Anyway, kettle went on, coffee came out, shiny lights:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/DashWiring2.jpg
As promised, new front bonnet, ignore the steel box section, it was just there to hold the front square whilst welding as it’s fairly thin aluminium, it’s on hinges now and will get a gas ram lifter fitted to secure it, much easier to work on if you break down away from the service area then.
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/NewFrontBonnet.jpg
And new floorpan is on, new bulkhead, seat mounts, pedals, etc:
img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/NewFrontBulkheadFloor.jpg
[/quote]
Whilst having a coffee we decided to create even more work for ourselves, and decided to change the front wheels to some nice light Mitsubishi alloys we’d found, since it’s on alloys at the rear now - unfortunately what we hoped would be a simple spacer job turned out to require a complete new hub, otherwise the car would have been 6 inches wider up front - anyway, we decided that wasn’t much more work than making new front wheels anyway (old ones were pretty tired by now), so 2 lumps of ally billet later…
The bearing cap is rather large but it goes through the wheel centre and acts as the cap to stop dirt sitting in the void (plastic caps don’t last long), and being tapered help centre the wheel for easier/faster changes:
Bells required to mount the brake discs to, due to the stud pattern for the alloys requiring much more clearance at the rear to get the studs in:
…annnnnd then we sat back, drank more coffee, decided the postage stamp sized front pads might struggle with the heat with another 100bhp, and decided to swap to some old dynalite 4-pots we’d been given, broken, but nothing we can’t fix
But they need bigger discs to suit the pad shape.
So…
Could have just made the discs to start with without bells, doh!
THE MOST VITAL, GROUNDBREAKING PERFORMANCE MOD EVER!
Knocks 10 seconds off the Zero-to-StrongEnoughToTarnishTheSpoon time for most good* teabags:
*Yorkshire tea, obviously
Anyway, hub got anodised, fitted, and the new calipers mounted after fabricating a new bracket:
Engine loom got modified for a better main connector that has removable pins and is rated to work under 6ft of water:
Thousands of miles and plenty of trophies to it’s name, but that abused old Peugeot 106 steering wheel is finally retiring from it’s life of misery and pain (Ed’s taking around the back and having it shot*).
Of course, that means an adaptor is required for the new one. The remains of my 306 got butchered for a column spline to use for spinning a new adaptor up in the lathe - thankfully it hasn’t been disconnected to sell yet!
Lightening scallops courtesy of a Mr A.Grinder…
Due to having to TIG the old centre spline in it’s all in steel, so no shiny anodised ally things today for you all. Terrible, I know - I’m sorry.
I think that’s -5bhp for lack of anodising and -8bhp for not being able to say ‘Billet Ally!’ when talking about it.
(*KIDS! I’m joking, the wheel has gone to a home for retired steering wheels, it’s getting leather food every day and frollicking in fields with other wheels, it’s in a caring, happy place - and definately hasn’t been violently butchered by an angle grinder wielding maniac requiring the steel spline out of the centre.)
A wild barn door appears:
And the spars are being 3d printed at the moment:
Roughly what it should end up like when it gets made and mounted:
The final parts are back from the zinc platers, so things are finally going together with proper seals, bearings and greased up ready to go!
New, bigger header tank with prettier welding:
Oooh, shiny…
Holy shit, you’re Project Binky grade crazy these days…
I’ve always been weapons-grade batshit crazy. I’m just a good actor. Sometimes I pass for a normal human being.
1 step forwards and 96 steps back today with a load more issues discovered whilst reassembling - but working through them, and the front is finally together on shiny new alloys. We’ve even got a Christmas theme going as it looks like someone based the wheel/centre cap design on Rudolf…
Can’t wait to see this finished.
Turn the volume up and COVER YOUR EARS! 
youtube.com/watch?v=KHcZFQ_ … e=youtu.be
…no, I’m not sorry I did that to you
Whyyyy 
Quick snapshot as was just ticking over for 20s at a time to find leaks - haven’t even tried to dial n the timing or fuel yet, just on my base map, as the throttle pot is duff so couldn’t see the point, will order another tommorow - found plenty of leaks mind, as you can hear from the various whistling noises. Anyway, it’s alive!
The whistling… Oh my
Hate when that happens.