My other red rallye resto......

[Ben_w]

Update from today…..

Got quite a lot done. First and foremost the welding work has begun and is about 50% complete. The cuts I got from the scrap 306 have come in very handy and have definitely sped up the repair. Sill now looks like this…



The inner arch section like this…



A fair bit of tidying to do but we are getting there…..mate who's welding it for me reckons perhaps another half day and it will be done.

Cracked on then with some other bits. The MOT failure said the brakes on the drivers side were binding. Had already fixed the front so set about the rear. Same issue really. Carrier properly gummed up. Removed, stripped, blasted, rebuild and voila! One more free whunions

Next job was to prepare for removal of the rear beam. The spare wheel hook was properly crusty and was expecting a proper battle. Managed to loosen it enough to drop the cage off of it but it won't go any more. That's getting cut off and I'll source another. Spare wheel still has a brand new Pirelli P6000 from the 8th week of 2000…...never been used!

Moved onto cracking off the brake pipe unions. Two under the boot floor didn't offer too much resistance to two pairs of mole grips….the ones at the front are an utter pain in the arse and in such a difficult spot at the bottom of the bulk head. I'll undo the pipes at the abs pump and and go from there. The good news is it looks like I can replace the main brake pipes without removing the fuel tank. Result. Then managed to undo the flexible brake pipes at the front on both sides to replace those tomorrow. Again, an MOT failure point and it does appear they are splitting etc.

I've also possibly figured what's up with the emissions. Whilst faffing about with the brake pipe unions at the front of the car, I noticed two out of the 4 wires were hanging out of the plug joining the lambda sensor to the loom. That won't be helping. Will see if I can repair otherwise I'll cut it off and wire a new one on.

Feeling pleased with today's progress…….