I thought after lurking around here for a number of years I would start up a project thread for my 5 restoration as the work is now well and truly underway !.
First of all a bit of history.
My love of the GT Turbo started in the 90’s when a friend of mine had a Tungsten grey which was fettled by Prima Racing. Some of you older members may remember this car as it was a demonstrator / competition car for Loud Wheels in Norbury. It had a huge Phoenix Gold ‘Son of Frankampstein’ amp and USD horns etc and the sub box fitted in the scuttle area. It was featured in some of the ICE mags in the 90’s. I think the amp was like 2 grand on its own and in total it was getting on close to £10k worth of kit!. Everytime me and another friend went out in this car we both had a huge grin when it came on boost, I then knew I had to have a 5.
So in 1997 having finished Uni and having to finally get a job the hunt was on for a 5 of my own to replace the 1.3 Escort I had been driving until then. Now there’s an old adage, never buy the first car you see. However in my case the first car I went to view was a 1989 Pearl white 5 GTT with one middle aged lady owner since new, full service history and a stack of paperwork longer than the bible. The car had covered around 40’000 miles and apart from a blowing exhaust and some laquer peel to the spoiler was perfect. £3800 changed hands a week later I had my 5. I remember thinking when I pick it up I’m going to drive sensibly but the first dual carriage way I came too I couldn’t help myself and booted it. From then on it kind of gets addictive.
The first thing’s I did was get a CAT1 alarm installed. Living in Fulham it was kind of a must. Actually I remember years later coming out of my house to see some guy, quite posh looking, trying to open the rear windows. He reckoned his had been nicked and wanted so see if it was his ?. Being 6’1 and about 15 stone a quick word in his ear and he soon buggered off. Then there was the other time some drunk / druggy though my bonnet was his bed and was trying to sleep on it. Anyway after having the car for a couple of week’s I took it down to GT Tuning in Dorset for a service. The car was given a clean bill of health by David and Roland and they actually commented it was one of the best std cars they had seen. So I left Dorset happy, knowing I had bought a good un, and somehow mysteriously a GT Tuning sticker had ended up on the boot ?. Surprised as I hadn’t asked for it and these days even more surprised they didn’t charge me for it !.
At the time I was living in London but working in Surrey so was racking up around 70 miles a day. Therefore many more trips to GT Tuning entailed to have the car serviced and also some small mods such as a dump valve ( yes the posh and expensive Bosch one !) and a few other shiny bits and bobs. Apart from clear lights I never really changed the appearance of the car. To me the Skeete and later Carisma bodykits were just too much and changed one of the things I loved about the car, its boxy look.
After a few years everyone started raving about Andy Cutler at GDI. His prices were certainly more attractive (read cheaper) than GTT so I took my car to him. One of the first mods Andy did for me was to raise the boost to 1Bar. Wow what a difference it was like regaining the experience you get when you floored it for the first time.
After an issue with GDI I then switched again over to the newly started K-Tec. I had always found David Kirk to be a nice guy when he was at GT Tuning so had no problem with the journey back down to Dorset to have work done on my car by him.
After a few years the car was getting old, and fairly worthless, so as it was my main mode of transport I started thinking what the hey and doing some of the work myself. I work in IT by trade but most of the mechanics are fairly common sense. Just to point out way back when we all believed the hype about GrpA this and that which the tuners talked about. People then started to realise that most of it was just off the shelf parts you could get from GSF ( or Andy Spares, showing my age now ! ).
Jump forward about 6 years to 2007and my 5, now with 160K on the clocks was starting to look a bit tired. Must point out it was still on the original turbo and head gasket so all this nonsense you read about 5's blowing head gaskets constantly is rubbish. I started thinking about restoring it but wanted to make the car as near to new as possible. Therefore I started the daily ritual of searching Ebay for parts and buying up what new parts i could within reason.
Whislt searching for parts one day I saw a 1989 F Reg Campus advertised in Reading for £95 BIN. As I was now living in Hampshire I thought it could be worth a look. Pile of crap for that money your thinking but no this had only covered less than 25k and been in the same family from new. So I went to have a look with the old man thinking something’s not right here but the car was as good as it sounded so I bought it without a second thought. In fact I gave them £100 quid as they didnt have any change :). This now allowed me to take my GT Turbo off the road for the restoration to begin. This was back in 2007 so its taken me a while to get to where I am now.
Not having a garage to use, its full of other rubbish, the restoration would have to be done on my drive. Therefore I wanted to make sure I had 95% of the parts I wanted before starting. I didn’t see any point bolting on nice new parts for them to be rusty again 6 months later and before the car was finished.
So that brings me up to where we are now. The car’s in the body shop having new sills and any other rust removed and repaired. Then a full respray in the original Pearl white. Gearbox is also away with The Master for a full rebuild. I have more new parts than Renault France tucked away at my parents house, actually having been to Mike’s he has loads more than me it just seems like I have tons of stuff.
Pics to follow and then I will try and give regular progress updates. I need you guys to give me a kick up the arse if I am slacking !. Plan is to have it all up and running by the end of the year. There is going to be a few top secret mod’s and little 'trick' touches, you’ll have to wait until you see the car in the flesh for those as I’m not giving anything away at this stage :)
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the history of my 5 ownership.
