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Back home again and slow progress is better than no progress.. picked up the repaired bracket this morning. I've got a couple of weeks leave coming up so hopefully I'll be able to get the front subframe, bottom arms, hubs etc off and away for powder coating before the bad weather sets in

Lovely work, did you bare metal the underside?

New dephaser pulley fitted today, timing belt re-fitted and the odd clicking noise is gone, thankfully! Also got the cam pulley cover, lower inlet manifold, alt/pas brackets and new engine sensors fitted. Annoyingly I've found that the alternator pivot bolt bracket it cracked So that's...

Yeah I did, It was all timed up properly with the horseshoe, pulley locking tool etc..

Had an unexpected weekend at home so carried on building the engine up, Got the head on, new lifters, rockers, cams in, cam cover on, timed up with OEM timing tools. Unfortunately when turning over the engine by hand it's free to turn but the (new OEM) dephaser was making a weird...

Picked my brake calipers up from the parcelforce depot on Saturday too.. I'd had them cerakoted last year but when I took them out of the box a few weeks back they'd started to rust through, mustn't have been blasted enough prior to coating. Thankfully the guy was apologetic and re did them at...

New bench grinder and zinc plating kit was delivered this week so I've started stripping all of the old fasteners and had a go at plating, never done it before but it's pretty easy, if time consuming. Buzzing with the results, everything that comes off the car is getting re-plated, I'm away...

Started building the engine up this afternoon, Got the block jet washed, scrubbed, brushed out the oil ways etc and blew it all dry with an air line Cleaned the crank, brushed through and sprayed out the oil ways with loctite degreaser, cleaned the journals with IPA and measured them...

Round two of engine painting today, it's a pain getting the garage set up for spraying 2k but the results are worth it, I'm mega happy with it, exactly what I wanted first time round. I've just cleaned my guns and shut the garage door, next time I'm home I'll unmask it, scrub the inside of the...

After rage quitting yesterday I've ordered half a litre of RAL 7001 in 2k, and some 2k epoxy primer, hopefully this is much closer to what I had in mind in the first place

Got the block properly cleaned inside and out today, masked up and prepped for painting. All was fine until the paint started to dry and it was Matt.. I'd assumed the high temp engine enamel I'd bought would be gloss but it's not. It dried looking like primer. I absolutely hate it so I've just...

Sills don't look too bad, mine are similar inside the rear quarters.. I'm giving it a stiff ignoring at the minute though

Yeah it'll all get a jet wash, bottle brushing and blow through with an air line before it's fitted 👍

No, I didn't really want it getting wet, I'll clean that with a brass wire brush. It was done by a place called Durham Vapour Blast, he charged me £300 for the lot.

Collected all of the engine bay aluminium parts from vapour blasting this morning, they've come up like new so happy with the results, going to give them a coat of XCP clear coat to stop them corroding again, I'd enquired about getting them clear cerakoted but the quotes were ridiculous.

Spent the day in the car today picking up parts of the Clio The block has just been decked, honed and new oil squirters, ready for a new coat of paint next. The head has been refaced, new guides, some port work, wossner valves and cat cams springs, I've got a set of 421 profile cams to go...

Got the bottom end stripped today, no horror stories, the bearings show minimal wear and other than a bit of oil varnish it's all pretty clean, got the crank polished and pistons and rods cleaned.. annoyingly I've managed to lose a gudgeon pin circlip so if anyone has a dead 1*2 bottom end they...

Dropped my gearbox off for a refresh this morning, then took the head off this afternoon.. I'm fairly happy with how it looks, there's a couple of light vertical scratches in the bores but you can't feel them with a finger/nail, I'll measure the cylinders once I've stripped the bottom end...

I've used platers before on other projects, there's a lot of fasteners, brackets etc I'd like plated for my 172 but I don't really fancy sending the plater a load of stuff and getting it back in one box all mixed up to sort out, so I'm thinking of doing it myself this time.. anyone got any...

Got the gearbox off, engine onto the stand and tidied the garage this morning, I've arranged to drop the gearbox and new diff off to @NorthloopCup next time I'm home. Ideally I'd like to get some use out of the car this year so I'll try to progress things as fast as possible with limited time...

Progress on this has been slower than glacial drift, due to being at sea for nearly 200 days last year, then back straight into winter.. I've run out of excuses and with four days at home for Easter I've got the engine and gearbox out Took about 5hrs all in, first time taking the engine out...

Makes little difference really, a few mm protruding to hold the nut in place is ideal, then you can fill the nut with weld and get plenty of heat into what's left of a bolt/stud/etc

Welding a nut on has never failed for me, getting this exhaust stud out of my old CBR600 did cause a minor garage fire though 😂

Get it hot and try an easy-out and/or a left handed drill bit first, failing that it'll want a nut welding on and the thread chasing out.

I've seen a few of that Josh Gresswell's videos, he seems a likeable guy and looks like he does alright work. Alex on the other hand comes across as a smug, smarmy little c**t and is immensely unlikeable, to the point where the sight of him is irritating, he's like a poverty Shmee... You...

I find them infuriating, it's like they deliberately go out of their way to ignore the plethora of off the shelf solutions and make things hard for themselves. Yeah feeding solder through a 3d printer and fannying around with Arduinos makes for watchable content but it's proper Heath Robinson...

Spotted on the slip road off the A1 in traffic today, really clean looking 197 on Cup 2 tyres, anyone on here?

I'm really not a fan of those fire stick extinguishers, you have to get pretty close to the fire to smother them and there's no cooling effect either. For occasional track use I'd want a 2.4L AFFF extinguisher as a minimum, for something that's dedicated track use then I'd go plumbed in and...

Got my wheels back from powder coat yesterday, gave them a coat of Gtechniq C5 today so I can get them back on and get the car off axle stands over the weekend. Spare calipers are back from Cerakote too, so I'll get them built back up at some point I've ordered some more new parts too, wheel...

Maybe another 5-10 years? Maybe never.. the 205 is a much better known car, pretty much anyone remotely interested in cars knows what one is, lots of people have no idea what a 172 Cup is.