My GTA V6 Turbo Project

[phildini]

Finally nice to see what it's all about, so many gta owners have had this done but never posted the pic's, I guess it was top secret as some are charging good £££££££££ for this work.

Finally nice to see what it's all about, so many gta owners have had this done but never posted the pic's, I guess it was top secret as some are charging good £££££££££ for this work.

I was told its a four figure sum at some places, to be honest thats a p@.ss take. Ok, its time consuming, if you bargain on £40 - £60 an hour labour then the actual replacement work would be 3 hours tops per side (and i mean tops, that includes that like me you've had a cup of rosey lea every 25 minutes!). The steel is £20 all in for the box section and hinge plates.. I'll let you do the maths. Maybe allow an extra half hour for the cutting/drilling of hinge plates.

When i've finished mine, I intend to post a proper how to guide with photo's, sizes of box section to buy etc

You need to bond the GRP section back on and of course get the pillar etc painted, but lets face it, having this work done, your probably like me and undergoing a resto anyway so going to have the car painted.

Good stuff, great to see some real things going on and being put up here; as you say gives owners the chance to see what's involved and learn how to judge a good job if they don't do it themselves.

Too much polish 'n' shiny wheels otherwise...

Not much of an update. Waiting for my box section to be delivered (3mm thick) to reconstruct the door pillar, but have today made all the hinge plates and door stay plates ready to weld on.

To be honest there is no reason why you can't reuse the original hinge and door stay plates but I had some plate knocking about so have made new ready.

I will put all the sizes up and a drawing for the plates with hole centres for anyone who wishes to make new ones when remanufacturing the posts.

You can see in the first picture just how rotten the original post was!

top work ma friend keep going

Well my box section was delivered this morning - excellent service, ordered over the bank holiday weekend and it arrived at 8.15am this morning so a quick plug for BEJ Engineering (steel2go is the ebay username). Only £19.90 delivered, 80x40x3mm thick and 1 metre long. I dare say you will save a few pounds going up your local steel stockholder but i figured as I was at work yesterday and off today and the next 8 it'd be here and I don't need to drive about

Its Long enough to do both sides (have cut passenger side ready), 1/2 hour later its all ready for me to weld the hinge plates on it tomorrow.

Needs a little tidy up with the grinder and deburring then a good spray with zinc weld thru primer and its ready to fit. Just got to cut the last bit of existing pillar away from the roll bar

Keep it up fella, your going like a train. Cool.

[phildini]

Keep it up fella, your going like a train. Cool.

I agree!!

Just a wee update of todays antics, not done much as been waiting for bits etc. I had ordered some weld nuts for the box section, typically they didn't come this morning so I thought stuff it I'll just weld the hinge plates etc on, then after I'd packed away the postie knocked the door and had my weld nuts

Have unpicked the remainder of the old box section from around the roll tube and removed this, have got to knock all the old adhesive off and have also noticed during an attempted trial fit that with the roll tube in place I am going to have cut lower down on the GRP at fornt of sill only way round it is do what a lot do and slice through roll tube and sleeve it back in place - to me this is taking strength out though so I'm going to recut the GRP lower down - I know for when I do the passenger side now!

I Will have to cut an aperture out the front of box section so I can get in to stitch the roll tube to inside of box section, will then seam this back up.

Learnt a few bits doing this side so far so the Passenger side should in theory (touch wood) be a lot quicker! In all I reckon I've just under spent two and half hours on this side so far (maybe a few minutes longer) including fabricating the box and plates and I'm nearly there with this - I hope.

Still got a fair bit of cleaning up to do with the sander but I'll get there!

Looking good
I hope you're keeping a log of the total hours ,chop to re-glass and paint
Somehow I think your estimate of 3 hrs tops a side might be a tad optimistic

Looking good
I hope you're keeping a log of the total hours ,chop to re-glass and paint
Somehow I think your estimate of 3 hrs tops a side might be a tad optimistic

I don't think I'll be far out Mate to be honest, the passenger side I reckon I'll do it easier as I know now what tools etc I need out - bear in mind I've never done the door post work before.

My point of 3 hours a side on an earlier post was one for if you have a workshop and the tools ready (compressor fired up etc) and have done it before then 3 hours a side would still leave time for a quick half at lunch and a bag of pork scratchings.. most of my time lost has been looking for my tools etc ok painting time at the end would add another hour, but like I said earlier, if your having this done your probably having teh whole car painted anyway so I dare say that painting time can get "lost" into the bigger job.

From what I have seen so far its definetely not a four figure job unless Dick Turpin has started doing car restoration

Great stuff!!! Keep it coming.....

Just a quick update from todays antics (please let me know if I'm boring you )

The passenger side Door Pillar felt solid with the door on, but I thought for the sake of a few bolts I'll drop the door off to have a better looksy, it looks worse than the drivers side did and feels a lot crustier when poked inside with a screwdriver!! So off with the wing and I'll be cutting this side off the weekend - weather permitting Just clocked up 20 minutes tonight, am going to see how quick I can do the passenger side start to finish!!

Have to say I am enjoying this car, normally you hit a low on a resto project and can't see a way forward but with this you just have to look at the car (whats left of it!!) and you know its worth carrying on.

Don't worry you are not boring! This is great, please keep at it as it adds to the body of knowledge in the community, and should help preserve and improve cars out there. Even if other owners don't do it themselves, it will be de-mystified. I'm sure you have many avid readers

Not done much today (got cabbaged on Peroni last night) so having an easy one

The original Cassette player came to me in a bag as bits, have put this back together and tried it on a battery and it powers on! Have lost two knobs though as can be seen in picture so will have to make two (unless anyone has any spares!)

Now I just need to find the display unit that sits above this as the car never came with one - has any one got one? I'd like to keep the car original, although it did come with a nice Alpine CD Stereo so worst case I can put that in place of the missing display unit and have the cassette player in its original place so it looks half original