Wrigley's Mk1 Rebuild

Hey guys, been asked by a few people now to do a Re-build thread of the Mk1. so thought i'd take the time to share what i've been up to this winter.

where to start. last year was such a good year for me. i was genuinely amazed at just how well the Mk1 was received when i brought it out to play. i've had some amazing experiences and met some truly amazing people too. owning a mk1 rules! lol
managed to pick up a couple of awards along the way and also got a feature in PVW magazine too. couldn't be happier!! but with every project you are never truly completely happy. so at the end of the season i decided i wanted to make a 'few' changes. and those few changes ended up turning into a full rebuild. not what i had in mind originally lol




So basically i wanted to rebuild the engine from the ground up, re do the interior and "smooth" some of the engine bay. a lot of work for someone who is not the most certainly not that good with a spanner. a few of my friends did warn me of the work involved but i'd made up my mind and that was that. after the Ultimate Stance show up in telford, i pulled the car off the road and proceeded to rip the car apart again. first the engine came out along with everything else. back to an empty engine bay.



my main priority was to get shot of that hideous brake bar system and relocate the brake servo and master cylinder. i considered  going down the route of a remote servo but then decided against that as i wanted to keep the bay looking 'useable' and kind of standard. so i opted to go for moving the servo onto the drivers side so it had direct contact with the brake pedal.

first off i had to cut into the chassis leg and inner wing to accommodate the servo.




i then started re building the chassis leg and inner wing around the brake servo. i reenforced the bulk head using 3mm steel to stop flex in the bulk head whilst under breaking. i then modified the pedal box and welded a replica of the brake servo stud pattern on the feet of the pedal box the spread the pressure whilst under breaking. (i have big feet and am know to be a but lead footed lol)





with the engine bay, i wanted to smooth off all the unused holes and re organise some of the bits that sit in the bay. i.e expansion tank, washer bottle, that kind of stuff. it took me a long while to weld up all the unused holes, grind them down and filler the whole bay. getting the bay ready for paint was such a long process. all done by hand.



as i was warned by a good friend of mine, mr Carl Levy, he told me that when i start to smooth the engine bay, you'll get carried away and will just want to keep smoothing bits…..which is exactly what i did. i decided once i'd pretty much finished working on the bay that i didn't want to run a heater unit or blowers. so i welded a plate into the whole where the blower would sit and then spent then next two weeks trying to get the panel smooth and sitting pretty







so with the brake servo relocated and all working properly, the seam sealer all stripped off and all the filler sanded down and everything smooth. it was now ready to get the bay in primer. something i'd been waiting for for a long time. it was also something i wanted to do myself as i've never done something like that before and i always want to learn new skills. so a friend of mine came round to the garage with his compressor in the van. got some 2 pack primer and started masking the rest of the car up ready to start lapping it on.
once the car was masked up, seam sealer applied and all the panels cleaned, i started laying on the coats. (i did a lot better that i thought i would lol)







as you can imagine, getting the engine bay in primer made me feel rather happy. all that hard work getting everything just how i wanted it, staring at a messy engine bay for weeks upon weeks finally started looking like something. i was over the moon and was ready to tackle the next part of the project.

but it's getting late now. so will update this tomorrow night after work.

Dan.
 

Great car i love the rally replicas I remember seeing this in pvw magazine it has a callaway turbo g60 lump if i remember right. Im also re locating my servo but using the mk3 one instead. I got away without chopping the chassis and wing by using parts of the original linkage system and fitting it to the pedal assembly and rack not as direct as yours but still works fine. What are your plans on interior if you go for a weld in cage i want first dibs on your bolt on 1 .

James Green said

Great car i love the rally replicas I remember seeing this in pvw magazine it has a callaway turbo g60 lump if i remember right. Im also re locating my servo but using the mk3 one instead. I got away without chopping the chassis and wing by using parts of the original linkage system and fitting it to the pedal assembly and rack not as direct as yours but still works fine. What are your plans on interior if you go for a weld in cage i want first dibs on your bolt on 1 .

Hi James. Yeah that's what I was running before the rebuild. Had a genuine callaway turbo set up on a g60 engine and Ecu. That's now been sold on to someone else with a mk1 project. I'm now going for another 8v turbo setup. But going for bigger power running a more modern gearbox and a modern Ecu. And I'm sorry to say but the bolt in cage was sold about a month ago on the mk1 parts Facebook page 😞 

Yay, glad you've made a start on a thread! Interesting little read for me this morning haha! 

Looking good!

Quick question; where are you going to put your VIN plate?

I have a smoothed bay and I'm trying to think of somewhere to put/hide it where MOT man can still see it if he wants.

Good work, nice to see you on here mate!

absolutely loving this car

Hi Dan, absolutely love your car, you did a very nice job man!!!

What I like is the "stance" it's got, would it be possible to share us your wheel and tire specs?

I live in Belgium, so can't hop in to ask you on one of the shows

Cheers mate!

Woop Woop DannY Boy ! Great so far bro !!

Cant believe you put down the doughnuts and picked up a primer gun lol hurry hurry mk1 cruise nite 25th July !! !

MrCash said

Hi Dan, absolutely love your car, you did a very nice job man!!!

What I like is the "stance" it's got, would it be possible to share us your wheel and tire specs?

I live in Belgium, so can't hop in to ask you on one of the shows

Cheers mate!

hi mate. sorry for the late reply. the wheels are 15x8's all round. and not entirely sure on what the tyre sizes are. can't remember i'f i'm honest.

sorry for the lack of updates recently. i've been rather busy trying to get the car done for certain shows and have been pretty much pulling my hair out with stress. so over the last few weeks i have made the decision not to rush the car to get it out for this year. i am going to get the car ready with a complete overhaul for the very first show in 2016.

so….where i left off…the engine bay. the bane of my life lol so the next step was to smooth the primer down in the bay ready for paint. i opted to go down the route of painting  the car in my garage. (something people recommended i shouldn't do) but as it turns out, it went rather well





then the bottom end goes it with the new 02J gearbox. bolted to the g60 block. along with a lightened and balanced alloy flywheel and racing clutch.




everything down there seems to fit perfectly! hydro clutch line all run with a pigs tail thrown in for good measure. all new brake lines run from front to back.

now…the hard part. finally got hold of the engine parts for the new 8v turbo set up  now to see if they'll fit with no modifications…..do you really think it would be that easy? ha

custom inlet manifold…nope

bigger rear mounted turbo….nope 




now i'm in the process of having a custom exhaust manifold made up. top mounted turbo for me it is then the interior:

custom dash board.
new full bolt in roll cage. custom fitted to my car.
custom alloy fuel tank made by Forge Motorsport that goes in the spare wheel well.
all custom door cards.
new CAE shifter.
hydro handbrake
tunnel stripped of sound deadening and painted to match the car.
full custom dash panel.
few other bits and bobs too.










and that's it for now at the moment. i've kind of come to a grinding halt at the moment. waiting on things that are out of my hands.

so until then this is gonna have to do hope you enjoy the brief read lol

Dan G

wrigleysdan said

MrCash said

Hi Dan, absolutely love your car, you did a very nice job man!!!

What I like is the "stance" it's got, would it be possible to share us your wheel and tire specs?

I live in Belgium, so can't hop in to ask you on one of the shows

Cheers mate!

hi mate. sorry for the late reply. the wheels are 15x8's all round. and not entirely sure on what the tyre sizes are. can't remember i'f i'm honest.

Hi there mate, thx for your quick reply!
Do you happen to know the et size? And if you run spacers or not? I've seen a set 15x7 et12 and i'm wondering if it could give me the same cool look!?

Btw, your update is coming along nice, thing is going to be rad!

Lovely car you have there, with some great work going into it, good job  

Matt

You need to update this man, I'm sure you have no end of pics now!