Daimo B
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Registered: 20th Mar 00
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After a few messages and hints from some people, and the fact I really cannot be arsed with work today, thought I’d jot this up. This is my wifes Corsa that she has owned since early 2000. I say owned, as its now dual ownership now we’re married 
Take one white Corsa GSi with C16XE engine. Day she collected it, drove it home, just parking up and the engine on idle, BANG, snap goes the cam belt tensioners, result was 8 bent valves and a rebuilt engine from Vauxhall.
Had a Remus cat back exhaust (standard bore size), and Fuel filler cap. She was young....
Fit 16” Kosei alloys and new suspension.
Add new reg plate we waiting on redial for ages to get when the D’s came out.
Got bored, the car craze was kicking off, made new friends. Pete was doing C3, Dave had already done C4. Spoke to a local TVR dealer, spent ages going through paint examples and codes, finally chose the paint. Wanted the TVR multi flip, but at the time it was something like £1k per litre, and due to the paint, needed about 2 litres + to do the car. But she found a colour she equally loved, so we got the paint.
Went off to bodyshop to have Stienmetz mirrors, quad light conversion done. Also, had interior retrimmed in Cranberry and Vanilla leather. ABC pillars, roof lining, front and rear seats with GSI logo, top half of doorcards. Car made bang on 109bhp @ NH Motorsport. Also had a feature with MORE magazine, the teenager girly mag.
This didn’t last long. Whilst now the rage is GSi kits, back then, it wasn’t like that at all. It went back to the bodyshop. She’d been shopping, bought a new out bumper, an Irmscher rear, custom side skirts off of a R5GTT, saxo spoiler (best one I saw still to this day), smooth scuttle, single wiper, smoothed boot, colour coded lights etc. Also had the spare wheel arch cut out and a custom exhaust fitted. Also, had the dash trimmed, stearing wheel purchased and half leathered, interior plastics sprayed to match car.
Max Live 01
But the dash never looked finished. So off it went again to have the rest of the dash leathered. TV put in, heater controls moved to switches, chrome indicator stalks fitted. Boot looked empty too, so had x2 12” subs fitted (one from a famour R5GTT I may add, as the ones supplied were bloody awful and we were not happy), and also x2 sets of components fitted. One into custom curved boot build, the others put into custom door pods, and also leathered. Interior (esp the dash) looked SO much more tidy and classy.
Now it looked the part, sounded the part, but needed some slow n go to make it a more complete car. We got new calipers, 284mm discs, and some greenstuffs, and put them in the front. Also got a new out M-Tec rear beam, which had to be adjusted as no “ABS equipped” beams had been made yet (just a bigger hole for the sensor). You can see the kits all brand new by the colour of the calipers.
Hold up, where did those 17” alloys come from??? Well, ever since the kit was fitted, we knew the wheels were too small. We had got close with a car magazine staff, and they helped us with sourcing some brand new wheels, fresh from the manufactures, and not yet in the UK. These wheels become quite common, you might see them fitted to Cupras. Mille Miglia Spiders IIRC. Ironically the oldest set in the UK, and probably still in the best condition in the UK They were due to be fitted for a planned feature, but the car wasn’t finished, and it was a good advert for them to get them on early.
So now it stopped, time for some go go. Car was taken to Mantzel UK. Back then, it was one building where all Mantzel items came through from Germany. The engine was used as a development for a custom Manztel Superchip. Car had the larger exhaust, and air filter fitted, and was RR on a different RR at 114bhp. Possibly slightly over, but not far. Engien had a Lexmaul exhaust manifold fitted, Mantzel inlet flowed to head, and custom mapped Superchip. Result was 161bhp @ 7519rpm and 117lb ft. Many doubted this, many probably still will, but at worst it can be 155bhp. We didn’t care, it was a bloody heavy car with that interior, and it was still quick enough to sit right up my 2.0 16v Corsa’s backside! It was bloody nippy!
Also had the Manztel extended cover, some purple hoses, and a few custom made chrome items (washer holder, suspension caps, coolent tank, battery cover, PAS cover etc).
She then went to Doncaster car show and won car of the show. She didn’t enter, in fact, didn’t even know about it until the editor of the mag called her and told her to get her arse back to the car. Some Indian “cool dudes” decided that they didn’t like a girl winning, and shouted a load of abuse and threats how they would smash the car up. Nice people then. Security was called, and she was escorted back to the stand and had security around the car area for the rest of the day. Good news, yes, until she left to go home. BANG, Scooby sounding engine running on 3. Pete (Dennis) was a star. He’d drove home from Doncaster to Northampton, drove back up to Doncaster, used his recovery, found out he wasn’t covered, paid lots of money to have the car taken back to Kent, followed it to Kent, then drove back to Northampton. I know he pissed people off when PVD went under, but theres a lot about Pete that many people wouldn’t have seen. This was one of his shining moments. He helped Donna out a lot with this car! We will never forget that. RIP Fonzy! Engine was given new rings and got back working again. Was never the same engine again though.
Summer came though, and D5 got her feature. Posted in Oc 2002 issue.
Eeek, her little brother is like 12/13 here. Can’t believe he’s about 22 now!!
Had a few more shows, won some more trophies for various awards. Then Total Vauxhall wanted a feature, oooo go on then.
Fog lights did work, and official Irmscher foggies as well at £70 each. Owch.
Note the comment in the middle of the page. People never did seem to realise that it was her car, not their car. What they would do, she would not, she done what she wanted to do to it. That’s why we’ve still got the car, 12 years later!!!
We then went to Belgium for an Opel show.
So, we’re done, features, engine, brakes, suspension, interior, audio, what else??? Show it. So we did, in fact, we were on our way to a show, when it all went wrong, again. Just left home, spotted a VX220.. OOO new car out, lets chase. VX220 wanted to play too, so off we went flat out, 220, 2.0 Corsa, 1.6 Corsa, through the revs, weeeeeeee this is fun, im keeping up, *checks mirror expecting to see bright purple corsa up my ass* nope, its gone, ahhh bugger. I brake, slow to 20mph, hard shoulder, nothing, so I go to the next fuel station on the motorway a few miles up the road and call her. It doesn’t sound healthy. 20 min or so later, she pulls in, the engine sounds very Scooby ish again, very flat 4. No compression in cylinder 4 again, bores are scored, not looking good. Turns out that it didn’t have rod bolts fitted, shes rev’d up to the 7500rpm limiter, and it just went pop and lost all power. Harsh, yet more money, but she’d always wanted a dump valve. Not the power, just a dump valve. What to do? Buy a Calibra Turbo, strip it for parts to sell, and put the engine in. Queue Lee Mitchells services.
Hello floor.
Removed sound deadening from engine bay, rub downed engine bay, sprayed black. Painted gearbox, designed custom intercooler, fitted engine.
Had a new exhaust fitted as well, letterbox tailpipe. Loud when at full throttle, rocket sounding. Not bad at all for normal driving.
So the car was nearly done, but she wanted to adjust the front bumper and a few other bits. Went back to the bodyshop. Whilst there, we “asked” about a custom wide arch kit for front and rear end, but we’d only want a quote at the moment, no work should be carried out. We were told we would be sent a quote. We got the quote, it was VERY expensive, so we called to say not to worry and to carry out the other work we’d wanted. We later found out from another employee we got on with (Greg for the old lot) that not only had he already made a wing, he’d fitted it to the car without consent. He’d then thrown a rage as we didn’t want to go ahead, kicked the wing in on the car, ripped it off, threw across bodyshop etc. We’d never said we’d wanted it though?? We had the expensive bonnet fitted and extended at the bodyshops paint shop (external company called Fulfords had done all bodywork). Jamie done the A pillar holder. We collected the car, something was wrong. Clutch slipped all the way home, by the time we got from Colchester to Kent, it was nearly un-drivable. We were due to go to Germany on the Friday. A quick call to Dave at V-Tuning, and he got us in, stripped the box off, fitted a lightened flywheel, a new clutch and some other bits and we were good to go again. Clutch looked like this, bearing in mind we had this all apart when the engine went in, the clutch did NOT look like this. Love affair with that company ended, and he blamed it all on us, it wasn’t him, must have been us, spoke to us like trash. Now, we cannot stand the perm haired ginger Essex tosser called Jamie Shaw.
Anyone note the front end mods? Bumper fully smoothed, indicators mounted on the back behind teardrops etc.
So, Germany, Dave at V-Tuning worked wonders to get the car done. Friday morning, started it up, thermostate stopped working. We were driving to VX garage to get another one, brake line burst on front end. We fixed both these issues (bumper off, IC off etc to get to thermostate so pain in the arse), then my car decided to catch fire. We were never destined to go to Germany then.
So, engine fitted, time for some more bling.
Gauges
Bonnet
Engine had been in a matter of weeks. Went to PVS, first time EVER on the drag stip. 1st opponent. Twin 350bhp LET Nova. Bugger. He gave the stares “your so going to loose girly”. Lights went green off when Donna, Boost Beast went off in chase, pop went his driveshaft, the crowed jeered, Donna went on to win. Slow time at 15.0, but then it weighs about 1300kg, but the terminal of 100mph was good, just the time was not so good Still, bless her, first time on strip ever.
Also attended TOTB3 as a display car for a mag.
Last show was Trax 2005, then it went into storage.
Some trophies.
So, fast forward 7 years. Life, house, marriage, pets, holidays etc all take over. The cars no longer that important, we never intended to stop using it, its just one day it happened. However, change of house for her mother meant we had to move the car, we needed it legal anyway to take the reg plate off. So we contacted some folk on here, spoke to Warren at WG Motorworks (Warren G on here, HIGHLY recommended), and arranged to ship the car down to him. Whilst it was there, we had some legal issues sorted, the Reyland 4 pots we’d got 7 years earlier but never fitted, and generally got Warren to get the car working and drivable. We used Just MOTs, based around Kent and Sussex, again, recommended for sure as they carried out a full MOT, but had kept us in the loop with the updated laws and what we needed doing to get the car legal.
It is now taxed, insured, MOT’d, has got its new home. We still need to sort bits out on it, the plates coming off, and a few other bits need doing, but hopefully the ball is rolling on the car. We had thought we needed x4 17” tyres due to sitting on flatties for 7 years, but at the moment the shudder seems to have evened itself out, so hopefully that’ll save us a considerable amount on tyres which have hardly done any mileage.
It does need some work, electrics, a sensor or so, but we are hoping to send the car back to WG Motorworks and let Warren sort it all out. Old and lazy and not in touch with cars anymore. When we got in the car, it had show passes from PVS 2004, and a tax disc from 2005 Despite 11 years of the interior, it still stinks when you open the door. Needs a bloody good clean though.
En-route to WG Motorworks.
Awaiting MOT
Reflectors are tempory last minute thing. Will get smaller ones and put on the mesh of rear bumper.
I have videos on youtube, but once its working to our standard again, I’ll be doing better more detailed pictures of all the little un-noticeable bits, and also some new videos.
Hope you enjoyed.
[Edited on 11-05-2012 by Daimo B]
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kennySRi
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Registered: 12th Nov 10
Location: Lancashire
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Great write up daimo, as said previously i have always loved this car. It is probably in my top 3 corsas of all time. Great to see it peeping out of the garage after all these years, hopefully the plate is the only thing to come off and Donna enjoys driving it, but my guess is that it's going to go into hiding again soon. Just don't scrap it
I must say that the front bumper, lights and bonnet is the finest corsa front end out there and will never be beaten imo.
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Darryl H
Organiser: South Central
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Registered: 19th Nov 09
Location: Camberley Drives: Porsche 944
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Great read! Completely appreciate the time and effort gone in to this car! It's not overly my thing but the amount of effort and times it's broken would have made me think twice about doing it all again!
I hope you get all the little niggles sorted 
Are you doing any shows this year?
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M Sutton
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Registered: 11th Jan 03
Location: Northamptonshire
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Stunning car! I always remember seeing this parked at PVD when it was located in Higham Ferris and thinking it was awesome and its great to see it up and running again after all these years! Will you be at any shows this year like PVS and Billing??
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Jed D
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Registered: 15th Mar 11
Location: Durham
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thats had some great work gone into it. very well done 
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BeetleGav
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Registered: 27th Jun 10
Location: lancashire, nelson
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Looked really nice in the first pic!
loads of work gone into it, shame that its era has died!
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Daimo B
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Registered: 20th Mar 00
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Yeah, plates to valuable to keep on the car, so thats coming off.
Was looking to do PVS, but wont be around. In reality, if there are any shows it'll be towards the end of the year at the earliest.
M Sutton, yeah, that was a LOOOONNNNG time ago now. She was up there a lot doing the accounts.
Its small things, water temp ahs decided to stop working, needs a few new bits as some have just broken up (clips and such). Get the bumper raised so it fits well again, change some of the chrome in the engine bay as its not in good condition anymore. Also camb belt, PAS rack needs attention etc. All niggly issues really.
But yeah, every time she gets in it, the grin goes from ear to ear. Now it has a new home, its much easier to get in/out so will be used more, when we get round to having the bits finished off.
We'll decide within the next year whether to keep it, sell it, or strip and scrap it. Don't really want to as the shell is in great condition, but theres not really a market for some of the parts anymore, plus theres the though of someone else ruining the car. We'll see, it depends how the car behaves over the next year really.
The scene has moved on, but you can either follow everyone else, or do your own thing 
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gidged500
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Registered: 18th Aug 09
Location: Lancashire
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Great build remeber seeing a video on you tube of the build "castles in the sky Ian van Dahl" ? Really high finish of quality
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grigglet33
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Registered: 23rd Mar 01
Location: East Sussex
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Daimo, good write up mate! I remember that Total Vauxhall shoot when me and Ollie came up, bloody freezing!!!!
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Daimo B
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Registered: 20th Mar 00
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Gidged, yeah it did have that music, but Youtube removed it (the music) quite a few years ago now, which wound me up as I can't put that video on revenue earning now, and its got like 170,000 hits  I'll do another one, a better one, but it means it'll be at the back end of Corsa Turbo so will never get anywhere the number of hits 
Johny boy, yes, VERY cold day, you and poor Ollie froze your nuts off whilst we went round and round and round and round that roundabout
[Edited on 11-05-2012 by Daimo B]
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andys sxi
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Registered: 19th Jan 06
Location: Chester Drives:Scirocco tdi bluemotion
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looking at the pictures you wouldnt think it has been stored for 7 years it looks good as it did 7 years ago,
alot of time and money has been spent on it and would be a shame to strip and scrap it, wouldn't you think about changing the outside of it to make it more suitable and use it as a weekend car?
April 08 feature car
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Daimo B
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Registered: 20th Mar 00
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Thought about changing the front bumper, but requires a new IC, more pipework routing, and the paints hard to match (starts off with a green basecoat and local TVR dealer has gone).
The biggest pain was its old location, needed 2 people to get it out.
It drives ok still, its more heating issues. Put my old hoses on, but need to source some "hard" pipes as the black stuff looks nasty, remove some chromem getting rid of more heat, possibly turbo heat wrap etc.
Wouldn't mind sourcing a purple Turbo - Air filter hose but unsure who will do a LET one in purple these days.
Also Warren put on the polished rear boot lifters too (same as fronts, but on the boot).
Not even checked the audio yet either. Head units all crusty and minging Unsure if that'll work yet, and if not, new head unit plus screen etc.
All about money really. Spend it on an old corsa, or go somewhere decent on holiday, or as us oldies are thinking, new kitchen/bathroom etc
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deanmcreynolds26
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Registered: 15th Sep 03
Location: E46 //M3
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Good write up, remember this from the beginning
Those wheels are they not ht3's
Spiders were the chunky 5 spokes?
What a loser if I'm actually correct pmsl
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connollygt30
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Registered: 16th Nov 08
Location: West Lothian
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Really good story behind this,still looks good today imo for a kitted car!
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lee mitchell
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Registered: 26th Jan 01
Location: kent...drive's: eveyones conversion cars hard lol
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quote:
Originally posted by Daimo B
A quick call to Dave at V-Tuning, and he got us in, stripped the box off, fitted a lightened flywheel, a new clutch and some other bits and we were good to go again. Clutch looked like this, bearing in mind we had this all apart when the engine went in, the clutch did NOT look like this. Love affair with that company ended, and he blamed it all on us, it wasn’t him, must have been us, spoke to us like trash. Now, we cannot stand the perm haired ginger Essex tosser called Jamie Shaw.
you have a bad memory. you picked the flywheel up from dave but i done the box in donnas garage till around 12 at night
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BeArDy
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Registered: 7th Aug 00
Location: Manchester
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Nice to see another one of the old corsas are still alive 
Carisma Interiors where always stunning.
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Warren G
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Registered: 14th May 06
Location: Kent
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Needs a flocked rocker cover
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SteveoBC
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Feb 07
Location: Bucks
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Always saw pictures at diff stages but always wondered how it came to be, great read before bed
Loved that front bumper and still do, glad you left it in Warrens hands (being a customer myself i know that boy knows his stuff)
Will keep and eye on this thread would be great to see it come back out to some shows, I remember seeing at trax all those years ago lol
[Edited on 11-05-2012 by SteveoBC]
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corsa_sean
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Registered: 11th Mar 08
Location: aberdeen
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My favourite corsa of all time prob glad to see its still alive and in the same guise never sell it !!
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Christopher
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Registered: 14th Oct 10
Location: Eastbourne
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i remember i saw the video on youtube for this a fair few years back and it was amazing! Such hard work gone into it
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connollygt30
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Registered: 16th Nov 08
Location: West Lothian
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Whats Carisma upto these days anyway? still going?
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Daimo B
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Registered: 20th Mar 00
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quote:
Originally posted by lee mitchell
you have a bad memory. you picked the flywheel up from dave but i done the box in donnas garage till around 12 at night
I do... Sorry fella
I do remember the women whinging as the wratchet made a noise "could you be more quiet please"
Yeah I'll just turn the wratchet volume down shall I?
You done the clutch, so was it Dave that done the Flywheel and the speedo ring on the gearbox?
I also remember getting caught for speeding whilst you were doing the conversion as well 
quote:
Originally posted by deanmcreynolds26
Good write up, remember this from the beginning
Those wheels are they not ht3's
Spiders were the chunky 5 spokes?
What a loser if I'm actually correct pmsl
Yeah your right, im wrong, HT3's indeed. Had to pull out the tech spec, not actually seen the spec in donkies years. But a loser I think the Spiders were the 5 spoke twin spokes that were more rounded (early versions of C13RSA alloys).
Warren, in time. That said, clearing out Donnas old garage we've found a spare cam cover. In fact i've still got a chromed one but that needs re-chroming or a hard buff up. I got sh1t I really need to bin or sell or something for corsas and redtops
Was eyeing up the chrome dipstick case, and polished hard-pipes from IC to top-hat, but i'd rather get purple hoses as the hard pipes are usually stainless and not good for inlet temps in the bay. Thats what we're trying to reduce (had as many hoses from my purple 2.0 hose kit fitted as possible). Chrome cam cover deffo needs to go for a flocked item though.
Oh yeah, and 4 pots...
[Edited on 14-05-2012 by Daimo B]
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lee mitchell
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Registered: 26th Jan 01
Location: kent...drive's: eveyones conversion cars hard lol
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quote:
Originally posted by Daimo B
I do... Sorry fella
I do remember the women whinging as the wratchet made a noise "could you be more quiet please"
Yeah I'll just turn the wratchet volume down shall I?
You done the clutch, so was it Dave that done the Flywheel and the speedo ring on the gearbox?
I also remember getting caught for speeding whilst you were doing the conversion as well
quote:
yea dave done the speedo gear.but u drove round there one evening to pick the fly up for me fit with new clutch. and forgot about the noisy ratchet
[Edited on 15-05-2012 by lee mitchell]
[Edited on 15-05-2012 by lee mitchell]
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deanmcreynolds26
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Registered: 15th Sep 03
Location: E46 //M3
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spiders
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deanmcreynolds26
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Registered: 15th Sep 03
Location: E46 //M3
User status: Offline
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that the other ones your talking about?
cant mind the name though...actions maybe?
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