Black DelSol SiR restore/build - going H2B!!!! (UPDATE 2016)

[hoppi05]

Cheers Luke

[hoppi05]

update to first page

[hoppi05]

Well it has been a long time since a worthwhile update was put on here so I thought I best pull the pictures together and update where I am with the DelSol.

Here goes I will try and keep this in order:

One of the main goals was to have a really good looking example and not too modified that it was unrecognisable when compared to the original so as you may already know this has the 5 stud ITR conversion and it is also running on the ITR grey 15” alloys. I had a full respray in the original flint black and the car was running ok of sorts…. I had an ignition issue that had plagued me since the day I got the car and this really slowed the progress down however that is now sorted, more on that later.

I got the sol to JAE which was one of the main objectives after been ill all last year and a plus point was the car did not blow up doing so I started on the interior after deciding I wanted to change the mint original seats to something a little sportier and eye catching, in order to do this and complete the look and add functionality correctly the interior was removed…

Striped and cleaned after finding 2 AA batteries that expired in 2003 under the carpet??? Can you guess which side they were in...




Seem as I had spent the brass on getting the suspension correct and all the useful mods to support it I opted to get a harness bar (can’t remember the brand) imported from the states to allow me to run proper harness belts (always wanted to have them) so belts ordered, seats ordered.



The seats turned up without brackets as I thought nearly £200 per seat was horrendous so the first job was to mock up them against the originals and work out how to do a cut and shut type transplant between the two.

After a couple of weekends work and some burnt and injured body parts this was complete Can I say without the help of Morf I would have been up monkey pile creek without the wooden bit also….



A test fit to get the car home proved the measurements were correct and the injuries were worthwhile….



Before putting the seats in I ordered up some harness plates and eyelets to fix the belts in correctly one of which I am waiting on a replacement as the nut on the plate had no threads, tits!

Anyway whilst the interior was out I have had time to check the wiring and add and remove some also, first off was to install a boot popper. The kit was self-explanatory from eBay and the install was fairly straight forward if not a little uncomfortable. I ordered a transtop delsol button and wired that in to do the on/off – open/close of the solenoid, this has kept the dash looking standard and neat.

I removed the aerial lead as this was deleted during the respray and I have fitted a front windscreen aerial which I used the passenger side pop out to run the wire via.


The ignition issue was the next challenge as this had been to professional outfits, had a new alarm & immobiliser fitted all with no luck. After years of playing and small tests it was time to contest the entire system and find the fault. We found the fault and top and bottom of it the electrical company are total prats and there shoddy workmanship cost me a fortune and a lot of time. Once fixed it now starts first time.



Also fitted the new rear strut brace and tried to not mess the original interior up too much, I think it’s a good compromise.

I also fitted the correctly fitting H4H 702K HIDs so I now do not illuminate the signs for several miles instead of the road in front of me

I have unfortunately found a crack in the exhaust manifold that has all the hall marks of a previous repair???



Had the car over to GrinSpeed and had a full fast road setup completed which has help a lot.

[solman]

Getting to be one of the best UK sols out there, good work as always and all the work you do are usually along the same lines as me!

[Kristoffer]

Great update mate really love what you've done with this

What lip is that ?

[hoppi05]

Thanks guys it has taken a while but it is coming a long finally! the lip is a Spoon replica, i have actually taken the time now to write the spec this is on the first page. hoefully the rest of the parts come this week and i can get the interior in and some better pictures of the seats on here as the current ones do not do them justice!

[hoppi05]

OK bonnet/hood struts/lifters/shocks finally ordered lets hope the Yanks send me the correct ones! plus had the postman send me my replacement harness plates. just a couple of bits left to arrive and i can finally get the interior back in....

[Kristoffer]

I never thought to check that thanks mate

[hoppi05]

It's only been on a wk or so anyway buddy

Well most of the parts are here to enable me to start putting the interior bk in, just a few loose ends that I hope come tomorrow!?!?!

Hopefully I will have some pics of piecing it bk together come Sunday....

[hoppi05]

OK spent all day yesterday on this and to be totally honest i am aching like fk this morning lol i really need to start playing football again!!!

anyway on to the car, other than the install order changing due to the harness bar all went quite well! after tightening and checking the harness bar i put the carpet in to only realise the lower seatbelt points went through the carpet so i had to remove them again and this cropped up 2 or 3 more times during the morning but finally the carpet went in spot on.

i had the repair the drivers side carpet securing points as they had been forcefully removed in the past and snapped several of the connecting points!? but the old RC toolkit came in hand with several very small screws and washers to reattach the plastic to the carpet

i cut the carpet to fit over the central harness eyelets which i think looks spot on



i tidied all the cabling and wiring up and down the car for all switches and mod's etc and the carpet has covered them perfectly which was very pleasing to see....

i haven't yet secured the windscreen aerial as there are 2 large stone chips on it and i am wanting to get them checked before hand......

the harness belts were fun!!! they came with 2 options of fitment which for some reason had me looking at them and swearing for a very long time before i realised i just removed 'cut' off the option i was not using . i removed the connection and eyelet fitment as i was not using that to secure the over shoulder harness due to using the harness bar, this meant another search online on how to wrap/fasten them around the bar correctly? in my case this meant removing the bracket and reversing it as from the online instructions you go under and around the harness bar.

once that was worked out the remaining 3 went in very easily....




Now the seats, i thought i would start with the passenger side, this was the 2nd one to have the rails modified to fit the delsol however this did not go to plan........ this being the 2nd one should have been more accurate than the previous driver side however it is not as can be seen below so for now the seat is not fixed in! we look to have been off a few mm when fabricating so i will be re drilling the hole to make this an oval so i have the extra clearance required.



i have left all the original belts in place and working and reattached the seatbelt to the modified rails so if i ever want to go back to standard or need to use the originals i can. This did however make it very tight fitting everything in! and i think i will need to redrill the front mounting hole (near centre console) also to help this fit better.



oh i have also found that the speaker covers do not fit when the harness bar is fitted well they can fit but need modification which i will have to do at some point as i want them on....

[Kristoffer]

I'll have to give this a try

[hoppi05]

Struts on no pictures though, they look o be holding the bonnet up but they do not raise it nice and slowly on there own which i was hoping for but the do not fall down so i will take that.

[hoppi05]

OK so the seats are in, they needed some adjustment once again but they are in. i have not secured them fully as i would feel more comfortable with larger washers on the bolts.

anyways on with the pictures:

adjustment tool


Seats and Harness:










Bonnet/hood struts fitted and they do lift the bonnet all be it very slowly :




H4H 702K HID's fitted and working

[HowHard]

So nice... love all of your nice touches, video of the bonnet raising needed I think heheh

[hoppi05]

thats would be an extremely long video lol as it rises very slowly lol thanks for the comments though buddy and if you do need a video ill be working on the car again later...