Dipper

And the Miltek is now fitted. (Its so quiet) its like a grown ups car! Lol

So I managed to sheer the stud off my rusty old Cats. And a piece of thw flange too. So while I save up for some sport cats. And As i cannot weld. Ive gone on a bit of a journey to cobble togethor a fix. Got a 2.5inch flange repair thing. Modified it to to fit behind the rusty damaged flange. And a longer bolt. And hey presto. The car it cobbled back together. (for a while at least) So hard to keep these rusty cars in our climate.

Slowly moving forward. I managed to wrestle the old exhaust off. I swear every bolt was rusted and rounded. Between snapping bolts and having to use extractor sockets. Eyes full of rust. And a pinch of claustrophobia. The old exhaust it finally off. Next step clean and fit the new Miltek.

An eBay find. Ive sourced a nice Miltek exhaust. The current exhaust is an x02 chinese rep of the hks exhaust. So I bought the back box and mid section Miltek from Ebay and I sourced a new y pipe for it through Tarmac sports. I spent some time wire wheeling and polishing the used parts and now its looking pretty sharp. I also wire wheeled my own thumb. (I dont advise it.) Anyway some pictures before fitting it. A little before and after too.

Another little addition to the car this weekend. Added a diff support brace. Il be honest. I bought it cheap of ali express. It feels strong and I figure for this sort of stuff. It's probably all manufacturered there anyway. Fitting wasn't great to be honest. Allot of these brace designs are not with the finned diff cover in mind. So took some doing and a little spacing. The final fitment isn't amazing. But my diff bush is a bit ragged so I figure I cant make it worse. Waiting for some dry weather to take it for a test drive. Here's some pics.

I had a Deep dive into my service history. I found some interesting stuff. It looks like the previous owner had replaced the opposite side for the same problem a few years back. So that's probably why one side was perfect with the oe arm. and the other was blown on me.

In the end I went for some polyurethane bushes in the original arms. After and argument with a stuck cotter pin.(had to be drilled out) And managing to break my arbour press (ffs). New bushes are in. Went with "godflex" bushes. They didnt cost much, but the quality seemed quite decent to be fair. All pressed in and refitted.

QUESTION: was lowering my coilovers adjustable touch today and noticed my passenger front lower control arm bushing is completely blown out. The other side looks perfect. What's the general consensus? Do people change the whole arm? Or is it easier to press in a polyurethane bush?

Bit of a car update on the build thread. I got accepted to display the car at the outdoor section of Dubshed in April in Northern Ireland. So figured it was time to give the car some love. Wiper Delete mod. Really simple and cheap mod. It's not one I'd considered untill recently. But the more I looked the more I grew to dislike the rear wiper. Just upsets the lines on the car. So off she came. (Its easily restored if I dont like it long term)

Simple little update next, A faux suede gear gator installed. I like the contrast between tbe black and the silver.

Camber bolts were seized on the spring rear buckets. A bit of blowtorch (and a brief scare of melting the wiring near the diff bush) I managed to get them off and wire brush them clean and refit them all loosey goosey.

It really was! It's a small miracle I got the wiring for the steering wheel controls right first time! But very happy with the results. I've never done anything more than plug and play before. But this worked well. By the way auto wire stripping tool is the best thing ever! (New favourite tool)

Got the radio fully installed. A jvc-kw-m560bt double din unit. I ended up making some metal brackets myself as the kit they sell for 30 quid only has a double din frame. (Rubbish) . My wiring had been butchered by the previous owner but after some research I was able to get the steering wheel controls working. For reference. - Yellow/green wire is swc ground - orange wire is key 1 - red with green stripes wire is key 2 The unit had direct input for each of these. And then had a function to program in each button. Which was easy once hard wired in. Ran the microphone around the headliner. And a usb port for the wired apple car play/ android auto. Really pleased with how it all turned out. It was a seige.

Finally getting round to some interior updates. Trying to get a new to me double din radio installed. As I wanted apple car play/android auto. My existing single din didn't even have Bluetooth. Fitting was very much complicated by a previous owner having been in there before and having installed an after market amp and subwoofer(the subwoofer is long gone). But the amp and dodgy wiring job remains. Also one of the oe white plugs has been completely ripped out. This explains why my steering wheel controls never worked. Anyway I got it in for a test fit and managed to get it powered up. I'm waiting on a fascia to arrive before fully installing. I'm also going to have a go at hard wiring the steering wheel controls without any handy adapter. So let's see how that mess is gonna go lol.

Thanks! Allot of effort went into it. So glad it worked out just right.