My Series 1's Transformation and Modernisation

[Dereksjoint]

I've been putting this post off for way too long now due to not making much progress, but thought I better make a start lol. I've finally managed to get some spare time and enthusiasm to make a decent start on the car.

For those of you who are not familiar with my car this is how it looked the day I banished it too my mates unit














A tidy looking car for sure but I have had the worst luck in the world with this car ever since I bought it. It would run great for a few weeks then something would break, I'd spend a few quid and it would be fine again for a another few weeks and this cycle went on for about a year. These pics were taken the day I was supposed to be on the West Stand at Kames 2009 but it broke down after 800 yards of leaving my house. This was the straw the broke my back with the car and it was duely banished to live in the dark confines of my mate unit.

I gave the car a year to reflect on it's appalling behaviour before digging it back out into the light of day








Time had definately helped me come to terms with the cars betrayal and lack of respect and by the looks of it the S1 was ready to repent My mate Rab had just taken over the unit to run his valeting/detailing business (Shine&Show) so he treated his new live in resident to a good clean and a bit of machine polishing.








I had decided the car was not only staying under my ownership by this point but it was going to be transformed into some thing very special. The scale of works planned for the car is vast but a rough layout would be

4x4 Cosworth engine, box and running gear
A complete rewire of all the cars electrics including battery, fuse box and relay circuits all repositioned
A full bare shell respray with lote of newly powder coated bits etc

Basically I'm looking for as close to a brand new old car as you can get with a concourse level of finish so not asking for much lol

The engine bay was the first part to be canabolised and sold off bit by bit so there was no chance of going back the way once my mind was made up lol.








Soon after these pics the engine and gearbox were lifted out and sold on leaving a vacant engine bay. At this point I was starting to work away from home more and more 5 days a week so was unable to get near the car much with weekends becoming family time instead of play time. Thankfully thought I've started to strip out the existing wiring loom from the car and I've ordered enough auto electric cable to rewire a bus or 2 lol











I've got a bit more left to strip out from the interior but 90% of the loom is now disconnected and tagged to make rewiring a tiny bit easier. About 20 minutes after staring to strip the loom out I was thinking to myself what the F**k are you doing Derek lol. By 50% the way through it became apparent by the amount of scabby cable joints I had came across along with bad/loose connections and brital wiring which had been baked to the point you could snap it. The wiring is honestly nothing short of a disgrace and rewiring is about the only option available to garentee future trouble free electrics.

I'll update the progress with the loom next week as I'm back to working away from home again this week lol

[boeb]

nice 1 mate its gonna be something special when you are fininshed

fook your further forward than me and ah strripped mine months ago fancy another loom job

[mikeymikeyp]

best doin the loom when its out I know your the man for the job

[Dereksjoint]

[jimmyson]

got to take my hat(if i wore one) of to you mate
if it's done right it will be something very special...............

[Ade]

This is going to be a good one! Look forward to seeing how it turns out

[napier]

good luck way the rebuild derek, al b keepin a eye on this thread.

[Dereksjoint]

Cheers troops, I must admit I was half avoiding this part of the web site as it only every reminded me what I hadn't really started . But since I gave up the smokes a week ago I've been a lot more focused on things and I'm making a lot more effort to get things moving.

That said this is going to be a huge long term project with hopefully, no scratch that definately no compromises when it comes to how I see the finished article. If it take that bit longer to do the job the way I want then so be it

All will become a bit clearer as the project moves forward, don't want to give to much away at these early stages

[SHIFTY]

Going to be some machine mate, all the best with what you have in mind

[Goafer]

Thinking it could be a mistake on your part letting peeps know you can rebuilt an escort loom and thinking the 100metre of wiring will not be enough to do everyones escort

I need to take a leaf out of your book and get my finger out too

good luck m8

[peterRST]

Good start there Derek, its going to be awesome when it comes together!

[Miss Emma_RS]

Good luck with it all Derek, its a lovely car

[Dereksjoint]

Well my Electrical gear arrived in the post during the week while I was up north so I swung by the couriers depot yesterday and picked it up. I must admit I was a bit miffed when I seen the size of the box, I was expecting something a bit bigger for what I'd ordered. All became a bit clearer when I opened it up though, it's like toy electrics compaired to what I'm used too





I've got nearly 500 metres of modern thin walled electrical cable as well as 10 metres of semi rigid 170amp battery cable so should be plenty to do the job





I also got some electrical contact sealant which will be applied to every cable end and connector in the car, 2 new relay boxes and a 16 way fuse box which will be put in behind the glove box. I'm thinking about going for MCB's instead of fuses but it's about 200 quid for all the circuit breakers





Since there are only 4 different colours of cable I thought it would be a good idea to tag the ends of all cables so I got myself some coloured ferrels to number every cable end. I purchased a box of steel/nylon P clips to refix all the new wiring inplace and they should come in handy for fixing other things like brake pipes and fuel lines later in the project.






Last thing I got was 40 metres of modern expandable braided sleeving instead of using insulating tape as it's far more durable and it's good from -70oc to +150oc. It comes in 10metre rolls so I got 4 various sizes from 3mm upto 30mm, I gave it the 2 finger test just to make sure it did what it says on the box


I had to take the kids out today for a few hours to give the wife some piece and time to herself so hopefully thats earned me enough browny points to get down the garage tomorow to get the rest of the loom out, then the fun can really begin

[swordfish]

yeeha m8 ... bet its a good feeling that your finnaly gonna get rid of the elctrical gremlins !!! ..

MCB's would defo be a trick bit to show off .. not sure you could hide them behind the glove box tho .. cos youd want to show case them behind a perspex pannel etc

unless your gonna try get the sleeper scheme going ..

[Zander Saph 4x4]

Minted !

[Dereksjoint]

Managed to escape from the wife and kids for a bit so set about getting the last of the loom disconnected and stripped out.

I must admit I almost fainted when I saw how much wiring there was and the amount of different connectors





Now that the loom is home I'll have a lot more time to work on building the new one. I purchased an A4 lined notepad today so I can detail every connection, terminal to terminal before I start putting the new loom together.


Here's a wee pic with her guts now ripped out

[SHIFTY]

spot on ma man!

[rosco]

great work mate, looking forward to seeing this one progress

[cuprabob]

the car looked mint mate before you started but will be nothing short of brand new when your done if your attention to detail is anything to go on great work so far and awe the best for the rest of the build i will defo keep a eye on this

[Dereksjoint]

Well I've been spending most of my spare time making a map of the S1's existing loom to help me in building the new one. I have all the schematic diagrams for the car but would feel more comfortable making sure and double checking everything before any of the old wiring gets chopped up.

I got myself an A4 notepad and I'm currently locating every cable within the loom and noting them down along with it's final point of termination. It's a painstaking and time consuming proccess but it'll be worth it in the end as the rewire will be so much easier once I've made up a new set of electrical drawings.

I've started computersing some of my work too so I've allways got a back up from my rough sketches and writing