Project X

[jnoiles]

After Black-tooths warm welcome in the 500 thread and request for info I thought I'd share the beginnings of what I hope will be a fun project.

The X1/9 is in a state of planning and collecting at the moment. I'm in the process of getting my hands on the Punto GT for the mechanicals. For now she's a normal Bertone 1500.

Well, I say normal. Her current state will probably offend the faithful here. We paid £200 and on reflection we paid over the odds. The accelerator cable had frayed and someone repaired it by tying a bolt to it. Yes really. Frightening. The bolt hops around and sometimes you get no throttle, sometimes it catches on random pieces of the engine bay and you get full throttle. The manual choke conversion is the least sophisticated solution I've ever seen.

I have some ideas in mind for her that we'll be exploring this year. The punto gt engine is up there, as are the brakes from the punto donor. I've got a full set of polybushes on the shelf waiting to go in, a long range fuel tank for the front and negotiating now for a set of custom coilovers that were for someone else's X project that's been abandoned.

At the moment I'm planning to strip her interior out and see how bad the rot is. Spend the next month or two cutting out crap, welding in patches, cutting the arches ready for the wide arch flares. Making a custom front nose I've got in my head and just need to make out of foam, take a mold and produce in glassfibre or carbon. Then a spray of paint. Bolt the arches on - yes, I'm going bolt ons - and stick the 14/15"s on her, mostly so I've got a decent tyre choice rather than any urge to go big wheels.

Then have some fun with her until the engine goes bang and I can head scratch enough to figure out the full punto engine swap.

Some pics of her now:

X, with my mk1 mr2 race car in the background

Note the glovebox held shut (sometimes) by packing tape

Behold the glory

Toothy grin

And oh so 70's bum

So yes, I'll update the thread as it progresses. I'm quite looking forward to it.

 

[fastx19]

Welcome!

I like the custom paint job as well. Rattle can silver on the bottom. Nice...

Post some pictures of your MR2 race car! That looks pretty neat as well.

Overall, it looks pretty straight however I can see how the random throttle would be a scary experience.

Eric.

 

[jnoiles]

The throttle is genuinely terrifying. And the current saggy/old/missing bushes in the suspension lend the handling a certain brown-trousering ability I've not experienced in any other car. This is the only car I've ever owned that has spontaneously broken traction on a long straight stretch of motorway. I'm quite looking forward to the new suspension and brakes aspect of it. But mostly the new throttle cable. The new throttle cable is a bugger of a thing to put in. I've put that aside until I pull the interior out this weekend or next and can get access to everything without needing an extra 5 elbows and 2 hands.

The shell is reasonably solid. We spent a day with a high pressure air line and a hoover blowing and sucking crud out of cavities and rust-wise she doesn't look that bad. She came with the rattle can paint job. We're thinking flat black has to stay, just tidied up a bit.

The mk1 mr2 race car. Or Yukiko as she's known, Japanese for happiness. I named her this the first night I picked her up. Had I know then what I know now she'd have been called something less friendly. But through tons of work and a big learning curve I've come to love her and her quirky Japanese ways. Last year I had her in the Red Dragon mr2 series. She's in that again this year (with fresh engine and box) and the 750 motor club MR2 Championship. Some more pics of her build here and at races here. The build thread is not as up to date as it should be since I lost my camera's USB cable. More pics of the new engine and the new seating position, exhaust etc when I find it.

 

[olerascal]

Brit-speak once heard...

...and I'll never forget:

What Brit said: "Oouu-var da buut"
What he meant: "Hoover the boot"
Yank translation: "vacuum the trunk"

Brand name "Hoover" is Brit-speak generic for "vacuum".
Like Kleenex brand name is used generically for face tissue.

Lotta colorful dialects of English language
across the pond, and down under.

Still trying to figure out what a "pommy" is...

 

[jnoiles]

I've lived all over the place but I forget how English I've become in my 8 years here.

Pommy is just an English person, usually as described by a colonial.

An Aussie would typically put 'whinging' in front of the term Pommy.

I was born in Canada, grew up in Australia and now live in England, I can make jokes about whinging Poms and colonials and get away with it

 

[mbusman]

I always liked things like

How do I get from Walshall to Wolverhampton and get a response of "go to the roundabout and turn left on the dual carriage way. Yank speak: Go to the traffic circle and turn left on the 2 lane highway.

Anyway, once we'd all gather in a pub for a couple pints of bitters, it was all the same language then.

Differences in Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese from Portugal are also interesting both in pronunciation and meanings of the same words. I guess all former colonies and the mother country are separated by a common language.

Mike

 

[eflexter]

!

If you think your X has some terrible bodgers, you should have seen my old '57 Land Rover when I got it. Lots of repairs made with bent clothes hanger. Bit's of plumbing and toilet parts on the engine, some of which I'm leaving just for entertainment value. Electronics made from very old TV or radio junk parts I still can't identify. Then a few parts bushwhacked from a Mitsubishi car.

I'm currently tryng to figure out where the brakes came from.....

 

[jnoiles]

Your brakes couldn't be worse than what I found on the back of the mr2 when I bought it:

 

[Black-Tooth]

HA! I think you win...

Welcome again...

What can we call you, BTW... I find your login a bit hard to pronounce or swallow!

 

[jnoiles]

Ahh, sorry, I'm Jason

 

[jvandyke]

Looks pretty good to me.
I always thought the stock brakes on the X were pretty decent, for spirited street driving at least.
I bought a '70 Opel GT and when it arrived (via shipper) only 1 of 4 brakes were operational and that 1 only barely. Seller told me he drove it daily. If so, he was either brave, stupid or a liar. Bit of all three perhaps.
Similar deal with the '63 Midget, rears hadn't been operation in a long long long time. Scary thing is, you couldn't really tell before or after I fixed 'em!

 

[mx5rush]

I bought a '70 Opel GT and when it arrived (via shipper) only 1 of 4 brakes were operational and that 1 only barely. Seller told me he drove it daily. If so, he was either brave, stupid or a liar. Bit of all three perhaps.

I test drove a car like that once. As the wife handed the keys to me on a old 66 bug with drums on all corners, she said "The brakes aren't very good." I tossed the keys to my friend Danny who had a 68 Bug at the time and was there to offer his expert opinion. A few car lengths down the road he calmly stated... "The brakes are pretty weak." Around the block and we traded places. I motored down the street to see how much grunt she had. Danny suddenly screamed at me "DUDE!!!" I stepped on the brakes (first time) and felt nothing. I pumped furiously for a few car lengths and had to make a 90degree turn at speed in a neighborhood. Kids on bikes and rollerskates were bailing for yards to get out of the way.:doh:

Apparently 'brakes aren't very good' means different things to different people.


And Jason, your X looks much more solid than the two 1983 X's I bought last summer/fall with the intention of getting one running. Hopefully I'll have some extra good parts left over, but I envy the condition of your car as it stands.

 

[Black-Tooth]

Welcome Jason.... looking forward to...

hearing and seeing more from you and your project!

 

[jnoiles]

Today I dropped by my mate Jai's place. Jai is the other half of the 'we' I mentioned above when I was talking about how we paid £200 for her. By way of background Jai (who will be joining shortly) is an Uno Turbo obsessive, alloy wheel whore and parts hoarder extraordinaire. He'll also be posting a video of him Autotesting X at last years Retro Car Show.

Recently a friend of Jai's abandoned his X1/9 project which is a bit sad. But after seeing the state of the project at the hands of the incompetent car builder who was butchering it, it was for the best. The car was really beyond salvage. On the plus side this has provided a wealth of parts for our X build.

We fired up X and took her for a run up some country lanes. An excellent way to waste an afternoon. I've forgotten how much fun X is to drive.

When the throttle works as expected.

And I remember to brake well in advance of the need to actually stop.

I also took some more pictures of the current state of X for your amusement:

Mmm, stylin'

Yeah, puzzles me too:

Look at the state of that heat shield

Mmm, professional hose joining:

Engine bay:

Under the passenger mats. This isn't as bad as it looks, it's mostly surface rust. Media blasting and zinc undercoat will sort this:

And some of the spare parts goodies:

Boot and spare targa top (Uno bits in the background)

Potential steering wheel candidate:

Superflex polybushes, same make and spec as I use on my race car:

Centre console, fuse boxes and electrics:

Rear suspension spares:

Couple of spare gearboxes, some X, some Uno:

New headlight surrounds and panels:

And some of the aforementioned wheel-whoring in Jai's back shed

 

[jai]

good evening, i am the other half of "we" as refered to by jason, i'll put up a noob intro thread...somewhere....soon.

anyway as mentioned by jason, here's a video of me making a total arse of myself at the retro cars show last year:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj19dUiEqXQ"]YouTube - retro cars 2010 autotest[/ame]

in my defence......actually there isn't one, i was about as delicate and mechanically sympathetic as a rhino in a china shop....:thumbsup:

btw: just to clarify, when we say "we", you all do understand it's meant in a hetro cool mate kind of way, right?

i'm talking too much too soon, aren't i?
ps: in english english "mate" is the equivilent of the american english "buddy"......

 

[Black-Tooth]

Welcome Jai...

Ya really didn't haveta post that video... I imagine that ya had to back into the space to complete the course also???

Not much of a course, I'd say... but how did ya do as compared to others?

Thanks for joining us, can't wait ta see what you guys do with your new project and the Turbo!

 

[Black-Tooth]

Thanks for all the fotos...

I believe you are now NUMBER 1 newbie on the site... and as I said to Jai, can't wait to see what ya do with all that stuff!

The PO was really some kinda craftsman also... if those were "roadside" repairs! HA!

 

[manalishi]

Ah - penny drops. So it's Jai and Jason sharing this X project. Will almost certainly get you guys mixed up in future posts; apologies in advance. :doh:

 

[jai]

jason on the left with mistertwo, me on the right with tippex