Corsa B project ... Loads of pics

[slimwadey]

Hi all
Here is our little Project corsa
We got this car for £100 and it was taxed and MOT'd .. But
Th previous owner was driving back from liverpool on the motorway (we live in surrey) when the Cam belt tensioner bolt snapped .. leading to a serious valve VS piston competition .. the piston always wins
So he sold the car to us
After a while of it sitting on the driveway i decided to tow it to work and get it fixed
Quick bit of info on me. i am a 40yr old Manager of a Mercedes Accident repair Workshop and a mechanic of 25years so i had no worries heading into the work needed
The Scariest part was towing it to work in the dark and rain.. with no Servo brakes and VERY old wipers !

The actual Shell of the car is VERY solid. i have checked everywhere underneath and can find NO ROT !! one door has a patch on it where it has had a previous body repair done badly
This car is in seriously good condition underneath

The previous owner had stripped the head off and we got the car with a bootfull of spares and broken bits
i set about removing the engine and having a good look at it . the bottom end bearings were ok and the bores looked fine too. i would have liked to have changed the bearings but in this current financial climate funds are a bit tight so they stay for now
I had to remove the oil pump and drill out the broken bolt and re tap a new thread. this was done and the engines bottom end was put back together
I had managed to source a second hand head that had been recently skimmed then left in a garden ! .. some people
Anyway the head was stripped and the valves re seated, the valve stem oil seals replaced and the whole head and cam carrier was checked over and it proved to be in good condition

The engine bay was dirty so i pushed the car round to the valet bay and had a good session with some degreaser and the steam cleaner.. it looks like new now
The parts i needed were a set of head bolts and a head gasket and cam belt so i got the local parts company to send these round they only cost £47 so the budget looks good
After engine reassembly i was time to bolt the lump in so i rounded a few guys up and we had it back in in no time
It took me while to figure out which parts went where as i had not stripped it but eventually all was well
Today i fired it up for the first time .. it took a few turns to get fuel through but now it start on a single key turn and runs well

In went some engine flush and it had a couple of hours doing its job. i then drained it and fitted a new filter and fresh oil
It drives well for a stock 1.2 . just what the boy needs for a first time car

We have a set of wheels to go on the car. these are 16" Ace 205 alloys that i got from a friend these need tyres. i would prefer a set of either Cav slabs or Cesaro's for the car so if anyone want a swap or deal let me know !
We also want to lower it but i am not sure how low to go with the 16's

It has its MOT tomorrow as the old one ran out a while back

As you can see it is the old Faded red most corsa's go .. but i work in a bodyshop so keep an eye on this post for updates on the paintwork of the car ...

Hope you like what you see
Steve

























































































Finally a net pic of the wheels he has got .. Hmm Do you like them ?

[matty589]

nice work mate. not keen on the wheels and they will probs rub if you lower it. but its a nice little car

[tychogsi]

the car is nice.. great job on the engine.. I would probably stick with vauxhall wheels.. because of the statement above.. these wheels will rub when lowered probably.. Cav slabs look nice.. or cesaro's, Softstars etc.

[slimwadey]

Its update time

The corsa Enigne is in and running
She passed the MOT with a few advisories. namely front shocks weeping . handbrake cables slightly frayed . exhaust blowing front tyres low
All of this is easy to sort as we are going to lower the car soon and replace the shocks too, we may go coilover, depends on price . new wheels and tyres to come too. the 16" ace wheels are going on Ebay to be replace with maybe a set of tigra alloys or some VW golf steels .. not sure yet
Anyway
After cleaning the underside and arches of the car i decided it was a really clean shell and it demanded some extra care and attention. its unbelievable but all the panels on the car seem to be original . fatory paint and sealer are still present in the joins !
So i thought it would be good to re paint the car . Its coming along and it is now in primer
Have a gander at some of the pics i have taken along the way, as you will see it has been stripped down almost all the way, infact if we were changing the colour all we would need to do is paint the engine bay.
We are keeping it red but will be using the latest water based paint coupled with Ceramic lacquer for a super shiny tough finish

The last few pics show the car with its first coat of Primer going on, it has now had 4 coats of primer and will be flatted down on monday then readyed for paint this coming week sometime

The car has had a New L/R 1/4 window fitted at some time and fitted poorly. this led to RUST in the panel where the water got trapped ... This and the right door are the only real rust i can find on the car

After the car is painted i need to turn my attention to the plastic bumpers and wheelarch mouldings. i think we are going to keep them standard and just re texture them. does anyone know if they were dark grey or black from factory?

I need to say a big thanks to the guys i have working for me, they have done a ton of work on the car, looks like the beer is on me at the next pub trip !

[nath2905]

some nice work there mate, not goin modify any panel?

[matty589]

looking good mate

[slimwadey]

No , just STD panels on the car ,what do you mean any way? not silly body kits please !

[slimwadey]

Hi everyone
Just a quick update on the Corsa
The car sat around over Xmas in the workshop in primer... i managed to flat the primer last week and now its ready to Paint
Just as i was driving it into the paint booth i found a small mark near the B pillar. this turned out to be the Dreaded Corsa B post issue! After a quick cut out with an airsaw, re weld and skim of filler all is well again
The car was due to painted by my loyal paint servant Saturday morning so if all went well we should have a shiny Car tomorrow morning
I also smoothed the rear badge as we plan to tidy up the corsa a little
These are the last pics taken before it is painted, its all prepped and ready so the next pics will be in Flame red .. and NOT the rubbish GM paint either !
We have two paint booths so the car is in one and the panels in another

We are having real trouble finding reasonably priced wheels for the car . we are after any nice 15" GM wheels that are normally seen on the corsa's either slabs or cesaros or nice steels from the astra (like on munki's car) or anything suitable really
It would be a shame to have this lovely looking car rolling out of the shop on 13" STD steels
CAN YOU HELP ??

[l6tbm]

Looking good

Thats exactly what i was thinking about doing with the rear badge on mine. Just makes it diff from the rest an makes it tidy looking.

Keep the update pics coming, Good work.

[scorpiotn1]

how do you remove the rear boot grip ? i also wanted to colour code mine.

[slimwadey]

It's quite easy to remove. Just remove any clips or screws holding the inner tailgate trim panel and then there are 3 10mm nuts and a clip for the operating rod

I used a hot air gun with an iron sled attached to fill the old badge hole with plastic repair sticks, then used plastic filler to finish off
The car is painted now. But as I am at work I can't put the pics up until later

It looks great with its new coat of red
Steve

[slimwadey]

Hi all
In a couple of days I will upload a lots more pics . It's the lads 17th on Thursday and he may look on here .
Pics soon !

[tychogsi]

nice congratulations, can't wait to see how it turned out.

[actionman1088]

is she red yet mate??

[slimwadey]

Well hello everyone
I hope you have enjoyed reading this Project log and seeing another Corsa B revived from the dead !
I'm finished with the car now and its sitting on the driveway ready to be driven
Roberts 17th birthday was Thursday and he openend the front door to see the finished product of all my hard work . his face was a picture .. i think he was happy
The pictures in this section start from oven fresh to finished
With no further ado read on
Some pics are a bit naff as i used an iphone. i will get a few pics wth the camera this weekend

So the car was painted in Vauxhall Flame red. but as i previosly stated its in a quality paint scheme rather than dodgy fade paint from the 90's

The car looks great and only needed a small polish on the OSF wing due to a bit of crap that got in the paint. Thanks to Paul who painted the car for me, he is the best painter we have, top job paul
So on to fitting the car up























So the car is looking good but the bumpers were the stock faded corsa grey items and needed a good tidy up, so i started with the front where i found it had a split on the bottom edge
I figured i'd better repair the split so i cracked out the plastic repair kit
Its a good tool that lets you fix anything plastic















I wanted the car to look a little different without replacing parts (no cash either) so i decided to remove some grilles from the bumper. first off was the shield behind the upper bumper and then some fins in the lower area too, i was temted to add some mesh behind the openings too but luckily, my Anti-chav common sense kicked in
I then took off a lower spoiler from a write off Corsa C SXI in our yard and grafted that onto the bottom of the front bumper to add a bit of simple cool











When all the reapir work was done i spent a few hours cleaning and prepping all the plastics ready for paint, then raided parts dept for this lot of paint



Some of you will know that poorly prepped plastics will peel and the paint will flake making the car look bad so i did the job properly
i used the following in this order
Plastic adhesive promoter
Plastic primer
Texture coating
Plastic trim paint Dark Grey x 4 cans











The bumpers are not perfect but i am sure you will agree the overall effect looks pretty good from a can.
Home made/grafted spoiler looks cool too













With the plastics sorted i set about other items including a rear box mod.
I got an old Cherry bomb cheap and fitted it on with a bit of modding, its well fitted with both mounts on tight and no knocking either
Sounds pretty good too









Now things were coming together the car was nearly finished , but how could i roll it out the workshop on 13" steels after all this work ??
Sorry but that could not be allowed
I luckily obtained a set of old 15" TSW 'tiger' alloys, they were a disgusting looking wheel and were VERY badly kerbed, they are not corsa wheels as the offset is wrong and they stick out a little, but they are better than 13" steels for the time being
So i had to tidy these up before they were fitted
I grabbed my trusty belt sander and went to work

























I was having a think on the colour to paint and hit on white, only one other guy in the shop agreed with me, everyone else said either black or graphite grey, when they were painted and put on all the guys except one said it looked good
I figured that a dark colour with the bumper and mouldings would make the bottom of the car look too dark
What do you think of the overall effect ?





So final rebuild could go ahead and this is the finished product
it took a lot of hours and tons of rubbing down and repairing . i am a bit OCD and wanted things just right
I reckon he has a sweet looking corsa that most people would be proud of













Just valeted and ready to go home






The car still needs work, i would like different wheels in the future and have it dropped on the floor , i guess robert will want some tunes installed too, and i have a decent phoenix gold amp and some speakers with a sub sitting about at work so maybe thats a future job
He got a remote central locking kit for birthday too so reckon i will get roped into helping fit that too

I am now looking for another Corsa for my other boys 17th that is coming in Nov this year so i have more work to do soon !!

Please give me your thoughts and ideas for future mods on the corsa or another car for the other son ..

We hope to be able to show the car to all those at PVS this year

Regards
Steve