[car_restoration] Saved From The Chavs! Cherry Red Restoration

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Chaps,

 

Thanks for this, there's some really good advice here. Welshpug, at your recommendation I am now going to drop the tank (taking care not to break the studs - which are well rusted by the look of it!) and do the whole job properly!

 

Vtifan, I looked into your epoxy mastic suggestion. Seems like a very good system. I was planning on spraying the underside with Finnegan's number 1, which was recommended to me as an undercoat, but your suggestion might be another option. For anyone who's interested, the details are here http://www.rust.co.uk/content/6/epoxy-mastic/

 

As far as the bumper mount brackets go, I have been waiting on a quote back from my place of work. But they aren't half dragging their heels! I think I'll give them until the end of the week before I start looking at other places to get the work done. I will keep you posted as things progress.

 

Mike

[Leon 24]

Epoxy mastic is a very good choice. I've dropped a couple of 205 tanks, the studs have always looked horrendously corroded but I've not managed to snap one yet

[vtifan 26]

Epoxy mastic is a very good choice. I've dropped a couple of 205 tanks, the studs have always looked horrendously corroded but I've not managed to snap one yet

wire brush and wd40 helps usually

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Good weather this weekend, and therefore good progress!

 

First things first, last weekend I promised you some pictures of how I resolved the damage to the tailgate caused by the ridiculous spoiler. As you know, the first thing was to strip the sikaflex off (which took the paint and everything else with it). I was then left with a hole with a raised lip, as sheet metal self tappers had been used. In order to fill these holes, it was first necessary to remove the lips. Now I could have done this by grinding the lips off, but this would have left me with a bigger hole. I therefore decided to indent each of the holes using a ball headed hammer. I then treated and primed each hole, before inserting a pop rivet. This left me with a normal ordinary hole, and the isopon did the rest:

 

 

 

 

No sarky comments about the crummy priming please, it's a work in progress!

 

So moving on to this weekend. Purely down to convenience, I decided to go with the Hammerite No1 for the coating for the boot floor. I'm fairly convinced that the epoxy would have been a better solution, but I would have had to order that in, and I'm fast running out of weekends like the one we've just had. I therefore decided to stop fannying around, and just get on with it. I will therefore be using two (or more) coats of this, followed by several coats of waxoyl.

 

 

As before, I strongly recommend working in sections, as this is just the never ending job!

 

At welshpug's suggestion, I decided to drop the fuel tank to inspect the metalwork above. This was a pig of a job; the studs fought me all the way (as did the jubilee clips, breather hoses and everything else!) Still, one pretty good mouth-full of BP's finest, and lots of colourful language later, and I finally had the tank off!

 

And I am glad I did!

 

 

 

So, as predicted by Welshpug et. al. the tank hid a multitude of sins! So thanks for the advice, I'm glad I took it! Unfortunately, I now have a hell of a lot more work to do!

 

While waiting for the No.1 to dry, I was hunting around the bodywork for patches of rust. Noticed a couple of the trim holes were showing some very slight signs of bubbling underneath the paint. Investigated one or two, and two hours later I had uncovered rust on every single fixing hole. So, my advice for the day, take good care of your holes. Inspect them for nasties and give them a jolly good clean if necessary!

 

 

 

That's about it for this update. I'll leave you with this image of my alternative use for the washing line. The girlfriend was not impressed!

 

 

More to follow.

 

Cheers,

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Just to let you know that work have now come back to me with prices on the bumper mounting brackets. I'll weight them and work out how much they're going to cost to post, then I'll start a topic in the 'Group Buys' forum. If you're still interested, keep your eyes peeled over there..

 

Mike

[cybernck 402 1 Cars]

Bumper Mounting Brackets Group Buy Topic:

 

http://forum.205gtidrivers.com/index.php?showtopic=144204

 

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Progress this weekend!

 

Borrowed a hoist from a work friend (thanks to Malcolm), and enlisted the help of my father (hey, you're never too old to beg for help from the old man!), and managed to get the engine out.

 

 

 

Word to the wise, there are between 4 and 1.48 million electrical connections from the engine wiring loom into the block. It took me nearly four hours to disconnect and label all of them! Oh, that's another hot tip actually; get one of those electricians' labelling machines and label everything! I'm pretty sure I still have no chance of getting everything back in the right place, but at least I've tried.

 

Of course, it doesn't help when you don't know exactly what things are called in the first place. I ended up with some pretty stupid names for things ('RH water sensor below distributor cap' to name just one!)

 

It turns out that even the heavy lump that is a 1.9 engine block, can be slid fairly easily over concrete (two people) using a piece of hardboard, such as the ex Ikea cupboard back shown in this picture.

 

 

The car sure does look a little empty now!

 

 

In other news, my sheet metal bumper mounting brackets are now fitted. Head on over to the 'Group Purchase' forum which Cybernck has created for me if you would like more info.

 

 

While the weather has been poor, I have been stripping down and refurbishing my brake callipers. This wasn't as difficult as I was expecting, so try it yourselves. Gloves and goggles when working around brake fluid though; get it in your eyes, and you'll genuinely consider popping them out with the screwdriver..

 

 

 

Red calliper paint obtained from ebay.

 

I now have to finish the clean-up of the underside and the welding in the boot floor. I also have some bodywork to do before thoroughly cleaning and keying the body prior to paint. The sunroof will certainly come off, but I haven't decided about the front and rear windscreens yet. I'm so worried about damaging them that I'm putting off deciding whether to remove them or not. How difficult are they to remove, should I get them taken out professionally?

 

Many thanks, and more to come soon,

 

Mike

[vtifan 26]

front screen is pretty easy 2 man job as its just a rubber,but rear is bonded so really needs a pro to remove it

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Right, time I updated you guys on progress!

 

I have now finally gotten to grips with the welder, and therefore the various holes in my boot floor. You may recall that it looked like this:

 

 

In all cases, my first step was to brush and grind out as much of the rust as possible. The angle grinder and wire brush was good here, but I found an abrasive rust/paint removal wheel in Halfrauds (black and sort of fibrous) which worked excellently. Obviously, there's a bit of a trade off here between removing rust and how much welding you want to have to do. You need to get back to good metal, but don't be too anal, or you'll end up scrapping the entire car!

 

For very small holes, I simply drilled out the hole, and rebuild it using spots of weld. This takes a bit of angle griding back, but saves too much hassle! With medium sized holes (anything over 5mm), I decided to use a patch on the underside, puddle welded from above. The patch was held in place using a magnet, so that I could weld it from above. After puddle welding, I removed the magnet, and added a few stitches on the underside.

 

Note, welding upside down is apparently a fire hazard. I have an excellent pair of ex-MoD army coveralls which appear to be significantly more flammable than expected. Be warned!

 

 

 

In a couple of places, I had larger, particularly nasty regions. In these areas there's nothing for it but to cut out all of the sh1te. Clean it right back hard with the grinder, and then cut out a patch 10mm larger all round. Cut the patch first, and then use it as a pattern to cut the aperture in the panel. I found that the skinny griding disk on the angle grinder was far to big and cumbersome for this job. The dremel on the other hand was perfect. Buy yourself a set of the grinding ('cut-off') discs and they work like a charm.

 

http://www.dremel.co...il.aspx?pid=541

 

My nastiest patch of rust was in the rear RH corner of the boot, immediately above the lateral chassis flange which runs longitudinally below the boot. Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with the flange below, and it was only the boot floor which had rusted. I was therefore careful not to cut through the flange below with the dremel, such that I could puddle weld the patch onto it.

 

 

 

 

As before, please excuse the messy welding! With some creative grinding (dremel helped!) it didn't look too bad.

 

 

Nothing there that a little bit of body filler won't hide forever!

 

With this out of the way, I was also able to make good progress on cleaning, treating and painting the underside.

 

 

The patch plates on the underside, which looked horrendous after welding, you can barely even see after one coat of No1. There are obviously several more coats to go on, followed by topcoat and then waxoyl, so I'm actually quite pleased with that little repair.

 

Obviously the weather is starting to turn, but I do have to get this sprayed before it starts to snow. I therefore have deployed a new weapon in my arsenal, my £80 amazon pop-up gazebo.

 

Your move Mother Nature, your move.

 

 

I'll be continuing the strip down of the engine bay area next, while finishing the underside of the boot floor. More to follow.

 

Mike

[Kezzer30 40 1 Cars]

This is a great effort pal and i wish i new how to do all that , looks like its a long but worth it plan should be great once finished glad to see one thats been saved and kept for the long haul annoys me slighly when people break them when someone out there could save them as they are truly worth it. Once again great effort hope the rest goes perfectly for you .

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Could someone please clue me in on how you remove these effin' loom bulkhead pass-through grommets (if that's even what they are!)?

 

 

I have tried gentle encouragement, followed by firm wiggling, followed by losing my temper and repeated heavy yanking, all to no avail! Can I get them off without getting at the other side (i.e. removing the dash)? Advice greatly appreciated.

 

In other news, I had a phonecall from my girlfriend while I was at work today, to tell me that my gazebo had blown away and my car cover was currently attached to someone else's car! Damn you mother nature! Another genius idea foiled by the weather.

 

@ Kezzer, many thanks for your kind words. Agree entirely on the shameful level of scrapping.

 

Mike

[welshpug 1,661]

push it into the car

[GLPoomobile 958]

You also don't need to remove any dash to access that grommet. It's accesible in the footwell above the pedals.

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

FINALLY finished painting the underside! What a mission that was! Two litres of Jenolite and four cans of No1 later, I now finally have a tidy looking boot floor.

 

I have also stripped the doors and tailgate ready for my respray, which I have provisionally booked in for a fortnight from now! Lots of work to do over the next two weekends then!

 

Many thanks to welshpug for solving my grommet issue, and making my look like a muppet at the same time!

 

GLPoomobile, found it, thanks! I also need to do the headlight wiring loom, shame that one isn't as easy. It's hidden behind the fuseboard, which doesn't want to move in a hurry! I can't believe how many wires go into a GTI, there must be twice as many as my GTX!

 

I have a four day weekend booked for the final push next weekend; I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Mike

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Made good progress this weekend. Engine bay is completely stripped, treated and undercoated, so that's good. Pictures to follow shortly.

 

Unfortunately, I did have some fun and games with the weather, so I didn't get quite as far as I had hoped. I may therefore decide to put back my spray job so that I have time to do some fine tuning!

 

Cheers,

 

Mike

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

I've been putting off an update for too long! Too many nights spent out in the cold working on the blasted car; you just don't feel like typing an essay with cold fingers!

 

Anyway, things are coming along. I've very nearly run out of things to take off, and the bodywork is getting close to good enough for the respray. Fortunately the boys at work who will be doing the respray are going to give her the once over before prepping her properly, so they'll be able to undo any faux pas I have included!

 

 

Making good use of my gazebo!

 

 

As you can see, I've stripped the bay right back (except the brake servo, which I couldn't work out how to get off!) I had to treat several patches of rust, but on the whole, it wasn't too untidy. I don't think they were originally sealed along the seams underneath the washer bottle (and the opposite side), but maybe that's why they rust, so I've added that myself.

 

My refurbished rear beam about to go on:

 

 

For anyone struggling to find them, the nuts with the integral (but free rotating) washer are quite tricky to find. It took me a while to find them, as I tried 'spinning flange nut,' 'rotating flange nut' and 'washer nut' all to no avail, before my old man pointed out that they're called 'combi-nuts!' But I'm sure you all knew that anyway. Anyway, just in case you didn't, you can buy them from these guys. Don't bother with AP motorstore, or PRP motorstore on eBay, because they pretend to sell them, but don't actually have any. I still haven't been able to find these in M10 though, only 6 & 8; so if anyone knows where to go to get M10 Combi-nuts, please enlighten me.

 

 

The biggest difficulty with fitting the rear beam is not scratching the damned thing after you've painstakingly painted it. The picture shows the third and final attempt, after two resprays..

 

Hopefully it'll go to the spray shop this weekend. Then all I have to do is strip the suspension front and rear, and it will soon be a lovely shiny red once more!

 

Moving on, here's my recommendation of the week. For removing flaking paint and rust, without trashing the thing metal underneath, I absolutely recommend you get some of these for the angle grinder:

 

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Power+Tool+Accessories/Wire+Abrasives/Poly+Abrasive+Disc+115mm/d80/sd1920/p18114

 

It's not as abusive as a wire brush or flap wheel, and so strips back to bare metal beautifully, without going too far. The only downside is it's durability. Run one off the edge of a sheet, or over a large hole, and it will become high velocity shrapnel very quickly, so get some good goggles!

 

More on this soon,

 

Mike,

 

Oh, and thanks for still reading this. It's got a lot more views than I was expecting!

[jonXS 30 1 Cars]

its looking good mate keep up the good work i been following this since ou started it

[welshpug 1,661]

if you still need a few of those beam nuts that are accessed from the boot, get to a scrappy and nab a few from xsara 306 or zx.

[Lowercase 56]

look behind your steering column and you'll see 8-10 nuts, undo them and give it a wiggle and the brake servo will come off. nice and straight forward from there. worth taking it off as they look so tatty after 20 years.

[johniban 59 1 Cars]

Where do you keep all the bits youve taken off? thats the trouble im having with my strip down in my garage is finding places to put everything

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

John,

 

I invested in a couple of these:

 

http://www.diy.com/nav/rooms/storage-shelving/utility-storage-shelving/shelving___cabinets/B-and-Q-Value-5-Tier-Bolted-Shelf-White-10687549?skuId=11188255

 

Pretty good for the metalwork and bulky items.

 

All trims and interior pieces are shoved in the garden shed (much to the girlfriends dismay), and the really large stuff (engine, exhaust and fuel tank) are under a tarp in the garden. Not ideal, but it'll do for the short term.

 

My 1.4 GTX is also getting used quite extensively as a shed. It has 4 front seats in it (not included the ones fitted to it), plus a whole lot of other junk.

 

I dread the moment when I need to find something at the bottom of the pile!

 

Mike

[johniban 59 1 Cars]

Ive been looking for some shelving for a while for my garage but cant find and decent ones that arnt 3 foot tall

[johniban 59 1 Cars]

Not sure if i missed it on here but did you refurb the beam yourself?

[ALEX 98 1 Cars]

Looking good, keep it up.

 

Id remove the servo to get a better finish in the engine bay.

The dash is easy enough to remove and It should give you an idea of how the servo is fitted. You can leave the wiring in place with the dash out, if your worried about that as it sits around the heater matrix.

It is possible to unbolt the servo with the dash in place, If your agile enough to get your hands in.

 

I pulled the engine bay wiring through into the car when I did the engine bay respray for my GTi.

The rubber gromits you have left pop in and out easy enough too.

I see it as a bodge when the rubber has an edge painted on it, and the amount of door panels I've seen where the bodyshop mask up side trim panels just points out how lazy they are.

Unless they do it because they don't want to risk breaking any clips or something. But it takes less time to remove most parts than it does to mask them up.

Also you get to clean them up before you put them back on making the finish so much more satisfiying.

 

Use this on all your rubber parts after washing them to bring them up like new.

http://www.demon-twe...CFebLtAod0V0AoA

Edited November 21, 2012 by ALEX

[SkyQuake 70 1 Cars]

Dear All,

 

Progress has been made!

 

Firstly @ Johniban, I did what I would call a 'partial' refurb on the beam. i.e, I stripped it down as far as I dared (didn't attempt the bearings) and cleaned up and painted everything I could get to. I replaced the all bushes and front mounts and then reassembled.

 

@ Alex, many thanks for the advice. I did manage to get the servo off with the dash in, but that upper LH nut was an absolute b1tCh! Lost several patches of skin on my knuckles shifting it. In the end I had to come in on the LHS of the steering column, through the little access hole, using two universal joints and an extension bar! Didn't half make me swear!

 

Anyway, here's the update. After a bit more fannying about doing jobs I didn't really need to do, I finally managed to get the car to work, where it's going to be sprayed. I left the suspension on to get it there using a twin axle trailer, and then stripped it off again once there.

 

 

Looks pretty tiny when compared to a spray booth more usually intended for painting 8x8 military trucks! I'd have got an even better discount if I had wanted it painted in NATO green (which, thinking about it, would be quite cool! There can't be many GTIs with that colour scheme about!)

 

After arrival, I stripped the front and rear suspension off. The rear beam had obviously been off before recently, but the front hadn't been touched, and actually came off without much of a fuss. It was surprisingly easy to do with two people. For anyone else who is thinking about it, this is the method I used:

1. Check all cables and hoses have been disconnected from the body, including the power steering cooling loop, if you've got one.
   
2. Remove clamping screw from bottom of wheel hubs, and hammer a flathead screwdriver into the gap, spreading the clamp.
   
3. Draw out the wishbone ball joint spigot. This will require a decent lever. I found the best place to get purchase was to put a crow bar vertically down through the aperture between the wishbone and the subframe. I then pulled this towards me, and the wishbones popped right out.
   
4. Remove clamping screw from steering linkage. I marked the position before doing this with a marker pen, to make sure it goes back in the right place.
   
5. Undo 4 rearwards subframe bolts underneath front footwells. You may need a good long breaker bar, or piece of tube to extend your ratchet for this.
   
6. Undo 2 front subframe bolts from. Obviously the subframe is now essentially free to drop, so don't drop it on your head.
   

Which left me with this:

 

 

As discussed earlier, I then removed the brake servo and tidied up the last couple of patches of rust. The chaps at work will now remove the front & rear windscreens and do the final prep. She will then be sprayed up in beautiful shiny P3KB!

 

This weekend, between numerous cups of tea and humping the radiator, I managed to get to grips with the subframe.

 

 

It's quite amazing just how much oily sh1te can accumulate in 21 years! Anyway, the anti roll bar and bushes were in a bit of a state. A severe wire brushing, plastidip and new bushed needed I think!

 

 

The wishbone bushes don't look to bad, but it would be silly not to renew these while I've got the whole lot stripped off. I've seen the part number for the replacement kit listed on other topics in this forum, so I'll try to source that from pug, along with the ARB bushes. While I'm at it, I'll get the subframe and wishbones shot blasted, and painted up in something tough.

 

The steering rack looks fairly tidy. The gaitors are in good condition on the rack itself, but the plastic cover for the PAS rack is furbar. Anyone know where I can source another one of those from?

 

 

Stay tuned in, there'll be some lovely cherry red pictures coming soon!

 

Mike