Saxo Super 1600 Restoration

[Dieseldave]

Coming exclusively to 106 Rallye Register this Christmas.

[westwell_22]

Subscribed.

[indigorallye]

Awesome

[mattrallye]

Please take your build threads elsewhere! I'm sick of being jealous of your builds Dave!

[infamous aidy]

Tease!

[deano_123]

Originally Posted by westwell_22

Subscribed.

This

[Dieseldave]

After the completion of 106 Maxi No.40 (http://www.106rallyeforum.com/forum2...ad.php?t=77904)
I found myself in a strange place, I was never one to be short of project cars and I always have a few VW builds on the go but I was lacking that challenge the Maxi brought.

After spending over 2 years fabricating my own suspension, making all my own composite panels and parts,
making wiring looms, mounts, brackets, gear shifters etc etc a standard strip and repaint project was no
longer going to cut the mustard, the bar was set high and I only had myself to blame.

Another aspect of that build I missed were the long nights in hotel rooms all around the globe Googling "106 Maxi" (Those 7 keys now worn off my laptop) Spending hours trawling through hundreds of pictures and old for sale adds looking for tiny little details I could add to my car to make it just like the other 39 factory built cars.

Like a prisoner released after a 30 year sentence I found myself not able to function on the outside, I needed
to re-offend, I needed to get back in and serve my time, I needed another Sentence.

A chance text message from a fellow county man reached me in Omaha Nebraska last July. He asked if I
was interested in a Citroen Works jack for my 106, of course I was, I buy all that sort of Pug/Citroen sport
stuff but a few text's later proved he had a lot more to offer than a jack and I wanted in.

I returned from my stint abroad, hooked my trailer to the van and pointed it for the other side of Sligo.
What was to follow could only be described as complete and utter madness................

[mike84]

I will be keeping an eye on this sounds interesting

[MattXT92]

Subscribed

[Joe.]

Subscribed, looking forward to photos!!

[Harv]

Ermagherd, another one! Got to be a circuit car this time?

[infamous aidy]

2 days since the last update and still no pictures?

madness!

the last blog was hugely informative dave and i hope this one lives up to it.

the maxi was a hell of an inspiration.

cheers for that

[Wayne D]

Looking forward to seeing this, and no doubt all the extra details and effort you will put into it.

[Dieseldave]

Originally Posted by infamous aidy

2 days since the last update and still no pictures?

madness!

the last blog was hugely informative dave and i hope this one lives up to it.

the maxi was a hell of an inspiration.

cheers for that

Thank you for the kind words Aidy, you won't be disappointed this time either.

Originally Posted by Wayne D

Looking forward to seeing this, and no doubt all the extra details and effort you will put into it.

Spin down over the Xmass for a look if you like.

[Wayne D]

Originally Posted by Dieseldave

Spin down over the Xmass for a look if you like.

That's not a bad idea Dave, I'll see what days I'm free between Christmas and New year and get back to you.
Thank you kindly for the offer, I appreciate that.

[infamous aidy]

Originally Posted by Dieseldave

Thank you for the kind words Aidy, you won't be disappointed this time either.

no problem mate, you showed us that wide was achieveable without mega budgets if you were clever.

now i'm both skint and obsessed with maxis lol


so from the bottom of my empty wallet, cheers lol

[Dieseldave]

Chapter 1. Car History

I have pieced together most of the history of this car using paperwork included with the car, Log books,
the gold Passport and good old late night internet research.

Saxo Super 1600 Coque No. 514 or to give it it's full title S8KC514 was assembled by Citroen Sport France in early 2001 using a Matter built shell and was used as a factory works car that year.

The car was given the French registration number "1600 XB 74"

The first man behind the wheel moving from a 306 Maxi was a Mr. Cyril Henny joined by lady navigator Aurore Brand Both pictured below with what looks to me like a brand new car.











The first event the car competed in was Rally Catalunya on 22/3/01 and ran with #60 on the door.
It failed to finish due to mechanical failure.

The second event was Acropolis Rally on 14/6/01 again running #60 and again failed to finish due to
suspension failure.















And here it is parked beside another young promising Works driver some of you may of heard of.
Sebastian Loeb or at least his car.



And I was very pleased to see there were 500 models made of the car in Acropolis trim.



The next date I can place this car is a bit closer to home at Rally GB on 22/11/01 driven by Saladin Mazlan
with UK navigator Tim Sturla (anyone know Tim?) running with #72 on the door and finished 28th Overall.

3 works car ran in that event, Northern Irish man Niall Mc Shea #55 and Loeb #53 being the other 2.
















Notice how McShea's car is white under the hood and the other 2 are silver?


2002/2003 is a little bit sketchy but I think I have it pieced together.

It did Acropolis again on 13/6/2002 but I don't know who drove it as a large number of
Saxos did that event.

I know the car went to Italy to do an Italian championship. It did the Targa Florio Rally in 2003
because this stamp is in the boot.

[Dieseldave]

Only 1 Saxo competed in that event and it was driven by Italian WRC driver Luca Rossetti running #11 and
finishing 7th overall. Rossetti did 7 Italian events in the Saxo with "Multyrama" livery that year. From looking at a few very bad quality videos I can make out the Italian registration to be "BX 476 PD"



From that registration number I can work out that Rossetti's team mate Andrea Dallavilla drove this Multyrama
car in 2002.





And guess what? That's right another model, the same model that's been sitting in the bedroom for
years.



Here is a youtube video of Rossetti in action driving many cars, the Saxo being one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuPKCeOQgi0

From Italy the car went to Willy Lux in Lux Developments Belgium and was registered "LDT 010" and I
was led to believe it was used in a German championship.

It was then sold to a Mr Bernd Casier in Belgium in 200? and registered as "KDI 585"





In 2004 it was then imported into Ireland.

A guy called Simon Love contacted me with this cool picture of the car running #3
in the Donegal International Rally in 2004 in the hands of Donegal man Shaun Gallagher.
The car was not long in the country at this stage.



Here is the entry list from that event and it shows the little Sax is surrounded by big names in WRC cars

http://results.shannonsportsit.ie/en...php?rally=DL04

Late 2004 it ended up in the hands of Sligo man Andrew Mullen and lady navigator Elaine Doherty





It was also driven in 2007 by Kyle Orr and yet another Lady Navigator Siobhan McGarry.



in 2008 it changed hands yet again and went to another Sligo man, David Leonard, but unfortunately on
its first day out No.514 met its maker.

The car was unfixable so another fresh shell (No.56) was sourced from BPS Racing in Mountpellier.
The car was re-shelled, converted to right hand drive and painted black in the process. David ran the car fault free and very competitively until it was sold in 2012 not before donating some of its spare parts to a certain 106 Maxi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI8ifGRULWo



From there the car went to Northern Ireland and was this time lady driven by a talented girl called Amy Cox
and run by Damien Donnelly until a brief encounter with a chicane/bale in 2013 left the car parked up until
present day.

Amy giving her all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtejvGvEZUE

As my navigator Gillian will be the 5th lady to sit in #514 I have decided to christen this car
"The Booby Bouncer"


Stay tuned for chapter 2.

[infamous aidy]

impressive so far mate. does the history count once its reshelled?

i was wandering this when i started reshelling my rallye.

the fact that so many bits have changed between the rallye last been on the road and now the new shell i'm unsure.

the saxo looks awesome in black BTW

it was worth waiting for the pics

[mattrallye]

Want to sell it to me!?

[Dieseldave]

Chapter 2, Let the Madness Begin

Fast forward to July 2015, I went to buy myself a Saxo S1600, the original badly
damaged shell of Coque No.514 that is.

This is where it sat, gathering dust for 8 odd years.





After closer inspection it was noted that only a complete fool would try do anything with it.

So.......













After spending pretty much a full 12 hour day looking at the shell, questioning my sanity, weighing up
my options and then some more looking I figured it was never going to just pull out, it was gone too far
and it looked like it even needed restoration before the accident. The front wheel wells were rusty and
badly patched and it had a lot of gravel rash from it hard life on the stages.

The only option was to cut my way in and weld my way back out.











I then sourced a 1.1 donor car locally minus engine, box & wheels for €170 and set about cutting it up but
before I did I made a box iron jig to pick up on the lower arm mounts, rear beam mounting holes and
clamp to the sills.













At this stage I'm sure you have all guessed whats going on here.

I called my local mobile blaster and fellow 106 rally car driver to come and blast the shell.
He used crushed glass as it is kinder to the surface and leaves a smoother finish.

[Dieseldave]

Then straight away I sprayed it with 2 coats of a weld through 2K etch primer.













Next up was the science bit, I had to mate both pieces together about 40 times, removing to trim a section
and trial fit again and so on. This was made seriously painful by the fact the S1600 shell has about 20,000
spot welds (examples pictured below) plus it was seam welded like nothing I've seen

[Dieseldave]

On the front section I left the complete chassis legs and chassis rails. This means the only NON factory
joint is on the floor pan. I can not stress enough this is NOT a cut and shut job. I also chose to join the
floor where the seat rails cross as it was the strongest point. the seat rail goes right through the tunnel
in one continuous piece.










After that I need to hang all the panels and check for gaps, this is the only way you will tell if a car is
straight, if its out of line either way the panels gaps will be totally wrong. Remember everything is still
mounted to the jig that picks up on all the suspension points so I was happy enough.













You wont get much better than that.

[Joe.]

Awesome Dave!!
Looking forward to more updates

[Dieseldave]

Chapter 3, Dead Ringer

Now, believe it or not, that was the easy bit. The next task was to make the new front end the same
in every way as the original.

First up was the LHD bulkhead. I have to thank Matt here for giving me the heads up to a LHD Saxo
for parts on Ebay, I needed bulkhead, dash, wipers, rack, pedal box etc. so I called the guy about a complete
front cut. He was based in Manchester and as luck would have it I was in North wales that week and would
be traveling to Scotland, passing within 17 mile of the car.

So this happened.





Cut out and fitted to the shell.





Filled all unwanted holes







Another feature the S1600 has are strengthener plates where the steering arms go through the inner wings.
I used genuine Peugeot/Citroen template cardboard here, I presume the same as was used in Citroen Sport.











17" wheel tubs had to be fitted









16v engine mount fitted



Plate welded around the mounting studs for throttle pedal.



The bracket for catch can was bolted to the tub with nuts on the back. The downside to this is if the
bracket needs to come off, you need to jack up the car, possibly remove the wheel and hold a spanner
on the nuts so I made a few weld on tabs with M6 tapped holes.

[Dieseldave]

All holes had to be blanked off. A very time consuming job.











Bushes were fitted for the ARB going through the floor.











1.5mm plate fitted to the inner floor, I'm not sure why but it went back in.













More strengthening plates for lower arms.

[Dieseldave]

I had to fab up some strut brace mounts as they were cut from the shell for some reason.













Front jacking points copied from the old front end.







Hole for gear shifter.







Stay tuned for more.

[jools]

Wow, fair play for seeing a way to fixing the car. Will the 106 be donating parts for this car?

[indigorallye]

Fantastic.
I was going to raise the point about the harness bars and right hand drive, but you seem to have dealt with that.

[MattXT92]

Bloody hell Dave, incredible work!! How long have you been working on this so far?

[chatie1975]

Dave, I take my hat off to you sir! Great fabrication skills as always, will watch with interest!

[Dieseldave]

Originally Posted by jools

Wow, fair play for seeing a way to fixing the car. Will the 106 be donating parts for this car?

The 106 will be staying as it is and getting used in 2016.

Originally Posted by indigorallye

Fantastic.
I was going to raise the point about the harness bars and right hand drive, but you seem to have dealt with that.

There was never a thought in my mind about RHD. The car will be restored as close to
Original as possible.

Originally Posted by MattXT92

Bloody hell Dave, incredible work!! How long have you been working on this so far?

Work started August 2015

Originally Posted by chatie1975

Dave, I take my hat off to you sir! Great fabrication skills as always, will watch with interest!

Cheers.

[Harv]

Wow, that's a hell of an update! What a fantastic job it looks so far, great work having the gall to just cut the front end off, no half measures there!

[deano_123]

Awesome work

[mike84]

Thats a hell of a project you have there , hats off to you your fabrication skills are nothing short of amazing .

This looks to be shaping upto one hell of a project keep the updates coming

[Joe.]

Not going to give it its own rear beam back off the 106 then!

[Dieseldave]

Chapter 4, Donor Car

At this stage I'm at a bit of a cross roads with the build. I had known from day one that sourcing
original Super 1600 parts was never going to be possible and I was fine with that. I had my old
106 engine to use, I had priced a Sadev 'box and the plan was to make all my own suspension components
like I had done with the Maxi, in fact I had made a spare pair of lower arms for that car already.

The main thing that was bugging me was I would have to source glass fiber wings and bumpers in France,
pay silly shipping fee's to have them sent to Ireland, make moulds of them and then finally make my own
Kevlar parts. That was going to be very time consuming.

I knew the black car mentioned in Chapter 1 was sold with lots of spares including moulds so I made a
call to Damien to ask if he would sell, his reply was one I still have nightmares about,
"I wont sell the moulds but I'll sell the whole car" not a reply I wanted only 6 weeks after buying an
Integrale.

In the following weeks I did some number crunching and what it would cost to buy all the parts to build
a replica car against what I was offered the real deal for and using my man maths I made the right decision.

I sold a twin charged Golf Rallye 20v track project I was building,



I sold my beautiful Mk1 Scirocco,



And I bought myself this,





The engine and box had been removed to pull the leg and paint the bay but it was all present and correct.







It also came with a few spares.













And what started it all, the moulds,

[indigorallye]

Spend a lot to save a little.
��

[Dieseldave]

Originally Posted by indigorallye

Spend a lot to save a little.
��

No, the other way around.

[Cris B]

Ha ha ha. Brilliant work Dave, I see that you are keeping yourself busy

[mattrallye]

Amazing Dave! Great to see this come together.

[infamous aidy]

its fair to say, whilst i didnt expect so much progress on the build straight away i definately didnt expect you to be buying the second one.

are you planning to repair the black one too?


also i now feel like i gave up on my rallye too early

[mattrallye]

Daves building the second one for me!

[Gunther]

nice work!!!
I'm also building one from shell on. Bought it a year ago in France. Sadly enough not a real s1600.

keep up that nice work

[Dieseldave]

Chapter 5, Dry Build

The black donor car had been modified quite a bit since its homologation ran out, it was fitted with a pedal box, lexan windows, lightened panels ect but I decided I was going totally original with the car as much as possible.

So now that I know what direction this is going I can crack on.

The first job was fit the rad and oil coolers.







More tabs made to weld on, this allows me to remove the coolers without jacking up the car, removing
the sump guard and getting to the nuts.





New holes to mount the rad.















Engine and 'Box hanging





Loom fitted and routed to my liking









Dash cut and fitted.



Everything is labeled in French

[Dieseldave]

This bracket carries the fuel pumps and filter under the car.



2 holes slide in on 2 pegs but there was some wear and ovaling (is that a word) of the holes
and it rattled around.



So.......









The navigator foot rest was mounted in both cars with M6 nutserts, fine to hold a bit of trim or cable
but not for a person to push against in the event of an accident so I made up some M8 weld in inserts.





The car was originally fitted with and electric kill switch but the wiring was very
messy and the control box itself didnt look the best. It was also fitted with an electric extinguisher
system but when I traced the wiring there was NO loom going to the control box/switch so that
was going to be a big help if the worst happened.

Because of that I decided to fit 2 standard pull cables, less wiring, less mess, less weight and easy to
fault find.





Another thing I didnt like were the bracket's to mount the jack, they looked like an add on after thought.





So I made up these pieces.















Everything on the car was pretty much fitted down to the horns and the brake lines to the 4 wheels. This
is a serious time consuming job and I was often tempted to move on and get the car in paint but I know
it will stand to me when it comes to final assembly.

[mattrallye]

What gearbox is that Dave? Work as usual is excellent, along with the attention to detail.

[Dieseldave]

ST75-16. It will get a guest appearance when the time comes.

Originally Posted by Gunther

nice work!!!
I'm also building one from shell on. Bought it a year ago in France. Sadly enough not a real s1600.

keep up that nice work

Have you a genuine shell?

[Timberland]

My kind of man maths

This is looking great Dave.

[infamous aidy]

i take it that the jack is designed to go into sill stand holes?