GTO Project - Part 19

Earlier in the blog, during the initial strip down, you may recall me highlighting the duct-tape engineering holding the spare tyre cover together.

As you can see above its not doing a particularly good job either.  When i pulled it all out, the drivers side (left from the front, right from the rear) black "hinge" just fell off, and the hardboard liner was split on both sides.  Replacing the board is either expensive, or difficult to source, so this needed reinforcement.

On the drivers side I constructed a metal brace to hold the hinge and remaining hardboard to the rest of the board.  On top of this i filled the splits in the boards on both sides with plenty of glue to give it some more rigidity.

If the other side fails i may repeat the metal bracing, or possibly just build a whole new boot cover.

The fixed boot cover was re-installed into the car, and everything seems to fit and function as you would expect. Excellent.

GTO Project - Part 18

Next up is the installation of the new rear fuse box.  With the addition of several new bits of kit, I needed a good way of powering everything and daisy chaining lighter socket adaptors isn't really ideal.

GTO Project - Part 17

Another problem with the GTO is that the rear seats are basically useless.  Add to that the fact that the front seats have to be shifted back a bit for it to be really comfortable for me to drive means that no-one can sit in the back, so they might as well go, and be replaced with something more useful.

GTO Project - Part 16

Something that is becoming more and more prevalent, and more and more required for everyday driving, is a dashcam.  They can quickly settle an insurance claim, but are also handy for recording both recklessness, and amusing happenings on the road.   Techmoan, a youtube channel I follow, reviewed one of the few dual-cam dash cams a few months ago, and gave it good marks so i got one for the GTO.  

GTO Project - Part 15

This episode we turn our attention to navigation and comms.  Specifically a way to mount the phone. 

GTO Project - Part 14

One of the first cosmetic issues I identified with this car, and both the previous GTOs, is the black ridge around the boot.

GTO Project - Part 13

One of the requisites for embarking on a long road trip with other cars is an efficient and cheep communication method.  For this, most car rallies recommend CB radios.  They are very cheap and easy to use, and also have the benefit of being a broadcast medium so everyone in the convoy withing range can take part.

I bought a CB for the Scumrun rally we did several years ago and have used it a few times on other cars, but now I am going to permanently install it into the GTO.

GTO Project - Part 12

As mentioned in a previous post, there were a number of spots on the internal bodywork with some corrosion.  I am expecting these to bite me in the ass at some point but for now they will get treated where I can, and then protected with primer etc.

GTO Project - Part 11

Just for completeness of documenting the changes to the GTO, I figured it was worth including my attempt at changing the spark-plugs.  I live-blogged this on facebook at the time, before I started logging everything on here. It was done a few months ago so its a little out of sync from the rest.

GTO Project - Part 10

Iron Oxide, how I despise thee...

GTO Project - Part 9

That wraps up the bulk of the external bodywork related work (for now) so time to re-assemble the car.

GTO Project - Part 8

So there's been a large break in updates recently.  This is mostly due to there being a lot to do, and not much time to get it done.  I've tried to take photos as I go but some stuff isn't documented as well as I would have liked.  Oh well.  Moving on...

GTO Project - Part 7

Time for more cosmetic updates.  This time its the wheels that will be feeling the brunt of my DIY skills.

GTO Project - Part 6

Another quick update, this time wipers,  and mudflaps (yes its an odd combo, but it seemed logical at the time).

You may recall from a previous post that I snapped 7 bolts trying to get the rear of the car off.. well 6 of those were holding the mudflaps on.  Those bolts were holding a number of components together.  Firstly they went through the rear bumper (where it joins the wheel arch), then they went through the internal plastic wheel arch splash guard, then through some metal spacers, then the mudflaps themselves, then through these metal straps that held the mudflaps in place.  These metals straps were heavily rusted so they needed a rust treatment, under coat, and respray.

Next up are the wipers.  They are a bit of a mess.  The previous owner fitted some kind of weird metal triangles to them, as wind-deflectors or something, which MitsiArt kindly removed when they first looked at it.  But now they just look a bit worse for wear.  Slightly rusting and with plenty of chipped paint, time for a re-spray too.

I got the wire-wheel on them and scrubbed all the corrosion and rust off both the wipers and the metal straps, then primed them with rust-killing primer.  Lastly I top coated them with a decent dose of enamel black.  Much better.

The end result.  I didn't think to do the rear one at the time so I will re-visit that at some point.  Although it isn't as bad as the front one were.