Get on the scales

I had some free time so I went about weighing everything we have removed from the car. I only have some bathroom scales so the measurements aren’t very accurate – I had to stand on it with the items held in my hand then subtract my own weight.

The following is how much each bit weighed (in kg):

• Dash 3
• 2 seat belts 3
• 2 seats 28
• Main carpet 4
• Spare wheel 8
• Tools in boot 2
• Fan unit 2
• Centre console 2
• Car Mats 3
• Speakers 3
• Rear carpets 4
• Door cards 3
• Stereo 1
• Bits and bobs 1
• Trim 1

Total: 68kg

37kg when seats and belts put back in.

At the moment we have to use the existing seats and seat belts, but the ideal solution will be to replace with some light weight bucket seats and install some 4 point harnesses. I recon the bucket seats would be about half the weight of the current ones and the harnesses, again half the weight of the existing seat belts.

Time to look around for some bucket seats!

Strip! Part 2

Where do these go again?

Strip!

Time to remove some of the interior. We want to reduce the weight and check if everything is ok underneath the carpets. The rear bolts on the seats were very tight, but some WD40 and the car jack soon sorted that out.

Everything bar the dash and main carpet had been removed. Working out what was needed to be un-screwed to get the carpet off wasn’t obvious. I thought the bottom half of the dash could be taken out on it’s own leaving the top half intact. Unfortunately the whole lot had to come out in one go, but that enabled the carpets to be taken out easily and some of the fan units.

The only bit we couldn’t get out was the central heating/cooling unit – the rear of it was attached to some copper pipes which go into the engine bay and connect with the engine cooling system. We’ve since found out we can remove this unit by sticking one end of the pipe in the engine back into the engine bypassing the whole heater unit.

With the interior pretty much stripped out we could see the condition of the floor. Overall it looked in good condition – there is a bit of surface rust in the foot well which I guess is down to wet feet and a few small spots here and there but nothing to worry about. A quick clean to get rid of any dirt and bits of soundproofing left behind and it’s starting to look more like a race car!