| Work on the body. |
| A little history of the shell... It was originally owned by a rally company in Devon, along with some other spare shells. The rules on motorsport changed, banning sunroofs. So the comapny sold off it's small stock of 16v Mk2 Astra GTE shells in the early 90's. This one was bought by a bloke called Kevin who wanted to re-shel his D reg 1.8 8v rust-bucket. He had the shell fully sprayed in 2-pack, and poked waxoyl into every possible orifice! Good start. He spent a lot of time building it, eventually giving up and the car sat for 6 years in a farm shed in Devon. |
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| This is me and Bob in devon, just having loaded the shell onto the trailer, and ready for the hours of travelling home... (02-11-03) |
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| The other end of the journey, my dad in the photo helping to off-load. |
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| Above, removing the redundant 8v exhaust pipe, which ended up at the tip. Notice how clean the underbody is 02-01-04. |
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| The car finally made it indoors, just fitting in the garage with the engine... a bit of a squeeze! 02-01-04 |
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| To help keep warm during January, I've put some loft insulation on the back of the garage door. Photo: just stapling it to some thin plywood sheet. 05-01-04 |
| Started stripping out old 8v bits. so far, master cylinder, throttle cable, coil, and wiring loom. 05-01-04 |
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| Bonnet resting on the roof upside-down to make access to the engine bay easier. It also allows a lot more light in when indoors. 10-01-04 |
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| Dismantling... Oil cooler and pipes, brake pipes, earth straps w/wiper mech, blower. All this stripping is so I can clean and examine every part properly. 10-01-04 |
| Font members all cleaned up, magic tools used here are WD-40 and bog-roll! 10-01-04 |
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| Removed Servo unit and sound deadening sheet. Difficulty with servo, click here. 13-01-04 |
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| The dash on it's way out... through the window as I can't open the doors in the garage! Struggle. 18-01-04 |
| Dashboard / engine bay wiring loom removed, makes life easier to remove the clutch pedal (top) if working on your own, easier with two! 18-01-04 |
| Phase 1: The Stripdown |
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| Clean and tidy... Dash, heater matrix, sound deadening, ecu bracket, spiders/webs and headlining all out! And not a single trace of rust found yet! Nice. 18-01-04 |
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| Got the car outside, and really cleared it! No more carpets, underlay or trim. Removed the drivers door to make easier access. 25-01-04 |
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| Car inside out... Neighbours were wondering what was going on! 25-01-04 |
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| Steering Column out, makes a very spacious cabin! 29-01-04 |
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| Pedal plate out, steering rack also off. Fitted my rebuilt engine loom, just to check for length and shape. 19-03-04 |
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| Stripped down the V6 Cavalier rear beam, brake disks look untouched, and beam is in sound condition. Soon to be sandblasted and powder coated. 21-03-04 |
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| Stripped Calibra legs apart. Just got to remove bearings and hubs now to prep fpr powder coating. 28-03-04 |
| Other leg in bits. 28-03-04 |
| The work on the body will be split up into three phases: Phase 1: The Spripdown Phase 2: Pre-Preperation Phase 3: Assembly |