After looking into buying a kit car for about a year and visiting several shows I decided to buy a Robin Hood 3a
I ordered the kit about a week before the collection date and sent my £3113.75.
On the collection day July 26th 1997 I borrowed the transporter from work and set out to collect the kit
I made room in the garage and the house for the kit and then set about watching all 8 hours of the build videos
I quite quickly found a good donor car, a Sierra 20 GL. The Sierra had only three owners from new and been originally sold by the Ford Dealer where I worked, It had been maintained by a work colleague of mine who knew the history of the car from new. I set about striping the car and labeling all the parts.
I striped all the suspension parts to bare metal, then primed and painted them. The drive shafts were striped and checked and fitted with new gaiters. The diff was checked and cleaned and then painted. The suspension was then fitted to the car.
The next step was to rebuild the engine and gearbox before fitting them to the car. The engine was striped completely and then honed out, it was rebuilt with new rings, shells, high pressure oil pump, core plugs, water pump, cam belt, thermostat, etc. The head was striped and checked, then ported out and rebuilt. The gearbox was striped and checked (broken bearing found). The gearbox was then rebuilt with new bearings, blocker rings, new gaskets and seals, new gear stick and fitted with a quick shift kit.
I started to fit the body panels, nose cone, rear arches, bonnet, etc. The car then got left for a while in September (lack of interest). In December after hearing that the start of SVA testing had been put back again (was due to start in January) I decided to get a move on and finish the car before testing started. The body panels were not easy to fit, nothing fitted simply and the bonnet was terrible. After reworking many of the panels cutting off parts and molding new bits on, the panels started to look ok. The windscreen was another badly fitting part. All the panels were then taken off and sanded down ready to be sprayed. I arranged to have the car sprayed by one of the body shop lads (£50 for a full spray in a booth, not bad).
After the car was sprayed in January I took it back home to refit all the panels and start on the wiring, brakes and trim. The brakes all fitted reasonably well although the flexi hoses are a bit long. I started to do the wiring the instructions with the kit were poor and I kept receiving new improved wiring instruction from robin hood so I ditched the supplied instructions and set about to wire it up. I got hold of the wiring diagrams for a 93 model Ford Escort, which is what the fuse box is from and started to wire up the car correctly. The wiring loom was in some places to short with the wrong connectors other than that it fitted quite well. I decided to not use the supplied instrument cluster which was from a Ford Escort, and brought some Stewart Warner gauges, I had to make a new dash to fit these in to. The interior trim was not bad to fit but the seats were very poor.
The car was now ready for a chassis number so I applied to the local vehicle registration office and got a date to take the car March 12th 1998. On the day of inspection it all went very smoothly after a very quick look at the car and the documents I received the chassis number, next the MOT. The MOT was easy I am a MOT tester myself but thought I better get someone else to do the test for me (just to make sure I had not missed anything), so I took the car to work and the MOT was done.
With the MOT and chassis number and insurance and £155 it was back to the VRO to get registered. All done and legal on the 1st of April
With the car now ready for the road it was back to work to correctly set up the suspension with a 4-wheel alignment. Only minor adjustments were needed to the castor, camber and tracking.
The first trip down the road was a very different experience.
The car will never be finished there is always something which could be better or needs changing.
On my to do list for this winter is to remove the front anti roll bar, get a quite exhaust, modify the sump and get some better seats.
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