gtisid
Post #1
After doing a few more car shows this summer, and winning best standard concourse in show at Pugfest 08 i have kind of got into the concourse scene. I have always thought my car was in pretty good nick when cleaned and polished but as with every car there are always areas you wish you could improve on.I was inspired by a couple of cars at the shows and a couple of posts on this forum, and in particular the attention to detail that the concourse guys have in the RS scene. every job i do on this car is pretty much a first attempt and a massive learning curve is learned on every job.
Now with a car that is pretty clean on top the next step is to have a clean car underneath. It has virtually become a sunny day car anyway as i can no longer afford to tax insure and run 3 vehicles at the same time. so for around 300 days of the year the gti6 lays in darkest Essex in a lock up and every now and then i give it a loook , start it up and plan the next job on the car. I have toyed with the idea of selling it , scrapping it , breaking it or keeping it. i am keeping it at the moment with a view of showing it again next year.
list of jobs to do over Autumn and winter 08:
refurb and paint beam and underside of car
powdercoat suspension brackets ,rear beam mounts
upgrade solid rear beam mounts
powder coat brake calipers.
renew compensator
racing brake fluid
not much work there ......or so i thought.
Turned out every bleed nipple and brake pipe is seized into the brake compensator or calipers so after removing the rear beam it has turned into a project rather than a few bits being painted up
but any way here we go : rear beam removed and taken home to derust and paint. A tip for anyone thinking of doing this. Avoid hammerite, it is a pain in the asse to work with , sticky and reacts with just about every thing, acryllic paint cellulose paint and if you want a good finish it needs to be sprayed rather than dobbed on with a paint brush. so after doing it the first time in hammerite and being very dissapointed, i set about rubbing it down again
priming it in red oxide and then repainting it in signal yellow, radiant red and satin black:
this does not take long but i would avoid trying to do it all in a day, give each colour a night to dry or more as it makes it easier to mask up. alternatively strip the whole beam down into sections and paint seperately. i didnt have the time patients or gumption to do that and once i had about 30 different bits sitting on the garage floor i started to take pictures of everything so i could remember how to put it all back together. this camera phone has saved me a few times now doing stuff like this as i have the memory of a goldfish.
so with the rear beam painted it was time to move onto the underside of the car, although clean there are a few rust spots. so if you are going to do a job always do the whole thing or you will end disappointed when it is done. I stopped at removing the petrol tank as it is virtually full.( a bit of a contradiction but where do you stop calling it a small job and it becomes a full on restoration!!!) so cleaning it up and touching up the support is as much as that will get this year:
a little bit closer to getting it back together. turned into a nightmare after realising i need new calipers , a couple of new brake lines and several new clips and brackets. ho hum ....no pain no gain i suppose.
Managed to get a few bits back from the powder coaters today and set about putting it back together. still a way to go yet though
few more bits put back on this week , just waiting for my disc shields to be chromed and my calipers to dry and i will be able to change the brake fluid and get it running again
every M6 bolt has been changed to stainless steel ones, just started to use this site for shiney nuts , you can even get titanium ones if you are weight conscious tasty nuts . com and the heatshield has been chromed . although it would have been better to buy a new one i think as having my original sandblasted had a detrimental effect on the surface and made the chroming look like zinc plating.
after pondering on having the calipers nickel plated the plater talked me out of it after saying it may not look to clever on this sort of surface, so i settled for sandblasting and gold hammerite smooth. i really like the gold brakes with the chrome and silver wheels. not sure weather to go with a spare cyclone in the powder coated spare wheel holder or have the standard steely blasted and powder coated in black ? opinions please
Got the last few things back from the platers this week and went about bolting the final bits back on, renewing all the brake nipples to stainless ones and checking all the bolts and brake lines before putting new fluid through the system
My work is done here now and it is decision time on what to do next
thanks for reading i hope this helps someone and avoids doing everything twice which i seem to be good at!!
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puglessPhase 1 GTI 6 1996-1997
Subaru Impreza GB270 2007-2008
rare spiderman comics
same day international courier
Posted 21st Oct 2008 at 15:50
Excellent thread 
