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The Chronicles Of Area 34, formerly 55


Johann

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This is a sad reality for many modern cars in the last couple of year.  I was visiting with one of the inventors of Slime (which provides the primary pump and repair kit for most auto manufacturers) earlier this week and he extolled the benefits of not having to get in the mud, jack up a car and swap on the spare as well as the improved gas mileage of not carrying 30 lbs of wheel and jack in the trunk.  That's when it hit me, the auto manufacturers are chasing improved gas mileage wherever they can find it.

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  • 1 month later...

A small update of what is going on at Area 34,

A while ago a friend bought an old 850 rally car and dismantled it. The shell remained and the question was what to do with it. 

The shell is welded through and there's a roll cage in it but all other it looked like a huge mess. Still a pity to crush it so I took it over to save it from destruction. I received the car without the subframe and front suspension. Used some shelved parts to get it on it's wheels again but the rear brakes, converted to hydraulic parking brake, were sticking.. This is where a crane comes in handy,

 

first.jpg

Next up was clearing the mess and removing the stickers,

sticker-removal.jpg

Which revealed a body still being in pretty good shape,

cleaner.jpg

Then there was the engine bay .. A bit more of a mess. 

bay1.jpg

Before proceeding I decided to remove everything from the car. Tried to keep the wiring intact as much as possible so a minimal loom can be put together later on.

speghetti.jpg

Also the dash,

out1.jpg

cabin1.jpg

After cleaning and some welding to the firewall I painted the engine bay in a darker grey colour. 

bay-ral.jpg

Next up is the interior which takes a bit longer.. 

After removing the dash,

cabin1.jpg

And heater,

cabin2.jpg

I'm at this point at the moment,

cabin3.jpg

There is a lot of paint in the interior which can't be repainted because it will dissolve in new paint and start to crackle...

Lot of cleaning to do. 

Future plans for this car are not that thrilling. A bare bones car. Engine bay will receive a 2006 B5244S engine using an older GLT header to fit the 850. Haven't decided on intake yet. The ex SD11 5 speed gearbox will be used. No fancy stuff like LSD for now. Need to source driveshafts. The car came with a dual piston boosterless brake setup with a balancer bar fabricated on the stock brake pedal but it was a sloppy setup so I removed it all and welded back in a mounting plate for a stock brake booster with master cylinder. Stock pedal box will go in. No ABS.

All other a radiator and a coolant reservoir and that will basically be it. Will try to tuck the wiring as mush as possible. 

Interior,

Driver seat. Passenger seat only on donation basis.. :)

Minimal dash. RPM, Speed, Fuel level. 

All other,

Stock fuel system. 

Stock brakes preferable 302's. Maybe try some Big Red knockoffs in the future. 

17" wheels. 

Suspension I think will be BC-Racing. 

Power output estimate somewhere 170-190 HP. 

 

 

 

Edited by Johann
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  • 2 weeks later...

Some progress,

Decided to paint the interior satin black,

black-paint-cabin.jpg

No picture but halfway painted by now. 

Also cleaned the ex SD11 M56,

M56-1.jpg

M56-2.jpg

And made an attempt stripping the very bad shape R bumper from lots of paint layers,

bumper-1.jpg

 

 

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Took a while because of all the cleaning but the interior is all black now except for the roof,

 

cabin4.jpg

 

cabin6.jpg

There was an "850 racing" sticker on the rear panel/firewall which I left in place.... Volvo used a carbon panel with embossed Volvo logo in their BTCC racer and I thought painting the sticker would somewhat mimic that idea .. 

 

cabin5.jpg

Wonder if the sticker has been activated by the paint again and wants to shrink. In that case there will be a CY outline in the future. :)

 

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Why the increased height over stock?

Well..  I don't know.. Because I can? :D

I am thinking about lengthening the shifter arm to shorten the throw. I have driven cars with the short shifter on top of the gearbox and I don't really like it. I think lengthening the arm will give a different en better feel.  Maybe will do so later on and thought it would clear some space. 

Received a steering wheel today. Also added the Stack dash in the partially mounted dashboard. Bought the Stack 7 or so years ago to install in the SDM car but it never happened. 

 

steeringwheel-stack.jpg

Edited by Johann
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I am thinking about lengthening the shifter arm to shorten the throw. I have driven cars with the short shifter on top of the gearbox and I don't really like it. I think lengthening the arm will give a different en better feel.

I've been thinking about this also, I've always found it curious why you would want to stress the cables more, changing the pivot-point on the shifterassembly in the interior seemed smarter to me. I'll be looking forward to this modification, because after installing some alluminium shiftercable bushings I would possibly like to shorten the throw aswell. Good luck!

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Cool project so far. I'm surprised you went with a black interior but I suppose it doesn't get too hot over there!

Mainly for the reflection. The CY of course is terrible to look at all the time. White could be done but needs more care to make it look good. The satin black was the easiest option. I wanted to paint it RAL 7011 like the engine bay at first but once the bay was done I found it to be to shiny. 

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