Break, Bale or Bounce back?

That'll do nicely ...

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Passed with no issues and ran very cleanly which I was delighted about. Impressive given the MOT was its first drive on the road for well over a year, if not more. Drives pretty well, very well considering it's been laid up for so long. I'm sure it'll all loosen off and improve with some use.

So, new MOT, good boots all round, good starter, good driver. Webasto and stereo work well. OSS doesn't and we've got lights on the dash and no remote locking as consequence of immobiliser needing reinstating 'at the appropriate juncture'.

Car £250
Wheels: £100
Fuel: £110
Valeting materials: £10
Rear springs: £33
Key cutting (no chips, manual locking only): £25
Rear bump stops (pair) £14
Various paints / abrasives from stock: £10.
MOT £37
Air freshener £3
Parts taken from Lasi (price reduction to dealer as result of) £100

Upcoming but already bought:

Timing belt (bare, as full kit done 15K ago but belt on limit for time), Dayco: £35
Oil Filter £4
Oil let's say roughly £35.

Less value of spare 15"'s (£75)

Running total at this point: £691

Plus I'd say about 40 hours plus so far (more if we put in the travel).

Jobs still to do:

OSS (could I, would I? I hate things that are there but don't work, so probably won't be able to resist having a go).
Climate: try a bit more gas, failing that start diagnosing.
Timing belt and service.
Perhaps replace the rather tired speakers.
A full seats out wet-vac.
Oh yes, mend the broken glovebox lid.
Possibly repaint the lower console area (scratched).
Replace the missing tailgate trim / liner.
Refurb the alloys.
Sort the NSR window.
The inevitable A2 starter motor scream.
There's more, I know there is, but you get the idea. £700 and a lot of hours has got me to the starting line, not over the finish. Not yet anyway.

More to come when there's more been done ...
 
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Passed with no issues and ran very cleanly which I was delighted about. Impressive given the MOT was its first drive on the road for well over a year, if not more. Drives pretty well, very well considering it's been laid up for so long. I'm sure it'll all loosen off and improve with some use.

So, new MOT, good boots all round, good starter, good driver. Webasto and stereo work well. OSS doesn't and we've got lights on the dash and no remote locking as consequence of immobiliser needing reinstating 'at the appropriate juncture'.

Car £250
Wheels: £100
Fuel: £110
Valeting materials: £10
Rear springs: £33
Key cutting (no chips, manual locking only): £25
Rear bump stops (pair) £14
Various paints / abrasives from stock: £10.
MOT £37
Air freshener £3
Parts taken from Lasi (price reduction to dealer as result of) £100

Upcoming but already bought:

Timing belt (bare, as full kit done 15K ago but belt on limit for time), Dayco: £35
Oil Filter £4
Oil let's say roughly £35.

Less value of spare 15"'s (£75)

Running total at this point: £691

Plus I'd say about 40 hours plus so far (more if we put in the travel).

Jobs still to do:

OSS (could I, would I? I hate things that are there but don't work, so probably won't be able to resist having a go).
Climate: try a bit more gas, failing that start diagnosing.
Timing belt and service.
Perhaps replace the rather tired speakers.
A full seats out wet-vac.
Oh yes, mend the broken glovebox lid.
Possibly repaint the lower console area (scratched).
Replace the missing tailgate trim / liner.
Refurb the alloys.
Sort the NSR window.
The inevitable A2 starter motor scream.
There's more, I know there is, but you get the idea. £700 and a lot of hours has got me to the starting line, not over the finish. Not yet anyway.

More to come when there's more been done ...
An epic story so far, particularly for one so recently to the fold. It's been a pleasure to read of your travels to date and I await further developments with eager anticipation. Well done!
 
An epic story so far, particularly for one so recently to the fold. It's been a pleasure to read of your travels to date and I await further developments with eager anticipation. Well done!

Thank you Jeff, that's very nice of you to say: means a lot.
 
Cracking save and excellent work lovely colour ????

Thank you! Yes, it's the colour that's saved the car really. It's been on a knife-edge all the way through and there's almost no logic to doing it other than for the satisfaction. Even so, I've always done the cleaning first as there's no point doing all of the mechanicals (which is often where the most money is involved), only to find out later the body's all ripply or it's had bad paint. That first day of cleaning especially when the evening light hit the rejuvenated paint is what kept the project going.

In this case I did almost drive back from Devon with an empty trailer: it was very, very close. It was peeing with rain, there were all sorts of issues and it would have been oh so easy to have just got back into the warm truck and driven away. But ... it was in Cobalt and under the 'patina' it looked pretty straight. Plus I'd committed to it and I'm not one to back away from something I'm signed up to. Logically, it should have been broken. If someone had bought it and then needed to pay any sort of labour it would have been a write off several times over. That would have been a shame as actually, it's going to end up a pretty good car.

EDIT: I should clarify, I don't think the car was priced wrong, so much a case of sometimes even a free car doesn't make sense to do. Then again by that logic neither does going to the pub, watching Netflix or buying a pizza. What I haven't done on my sums is add back in the satisfaction content, both in saving an A2 but also the fact it's another car that's not been binned saving one more new car from being built for a while, with all the positive environmental implications that has.

Ironically, I'm not even sure what the plan is for it. I like things to be right, and this one will never be perfect. I'm not that keen on big sunroof's (too heavy / complicated / leaky). As I've just brimmed it with premium diesel and have quite a few jobs to work through I'll run it for now. The original plan was to back-to-back it against the 1.4 Petrol (Lasi) until Lasi's engine noises sudenly became intolerable. A car dealer I know was keen to show me it was a big fuss over nothing and a flush and thrash would resolve. I suggested he put his money where his mouth is and buy it, so he did, just leaving the Devon car to wave the A2 flag.

So ... I'll keep ticking jobs off the list (I thought of some more overnight), run it and see if I prefer it to the departed petrol. Then take a view: 1) keep this one as I've obviously put a lot into it personally so there's an element of friendship there (hopefully it'll be repaid). 2) Sell this and try a Sport of some flavour. 3) Sell this and try a 1.2 (quite fancy a 1.2 project actually). Or indeed keep this and try another project: ooh, what about a 1.6FSi Sport perhaps? Another 1.4 petrol? So many possibilities!

EDIT II: Just walked into the home workshop to get the heating going prior to doing the timing belt. It did make me grin: it does look quite well ?
 
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Thank you! Yes, it's the colour that's saved the car really. It's been on a knife-edge all the way through and there's almost no logic to doing it other than for the satisfaction. Even so, I've always done the cleaning first as there's no point doing all of the mechanicals (which is often where the most money is involved), only to find out later the body's all ripply or it's had bad paint. That first day of cleaning especially when the evening light hit the rejuvenated paint is what kept the project going.

In this case I did almost drive back from Devon with an empty trailer: it was very, very close. It was peeing with rain, there was issue after issue and it would have been oh so easy to have just got back into the warm truck and driven away. But ... it was in Cobalt and under the 'patina' it looked pretty straight. Plus I'd committed to it and I'm not one to back away from something I'm signed up to. Logically, it should have been broken. If someone had bought it and then needed to pay any sort of labour it would have been a write off several times over. That would have been a shame as actually, it's going to end up a pretty good car.

Ironically, I'm not even sure what the plan is for it. I like things to be right, and this one will never be perfect. I don't like big sunroof's (too heavy / complicated / leaky) either. As I've just brimmed it with premium diesel and have quite a few jobs to work through I'll run it for now. The original plan was to back-to-back it against the 1.4 Petrol (Lasi) until Lasi's engine noises sudenly became intolerable. A car dealer I know was keen to show me it was a big fuss over nothing and a flush and thrash would resolve. I suggested he put his money where his mouth is and buy it, so he did, just leaving the Devon car to wave the A2 flag.

So ... I'll keep ticking jobs off the list (I thought of some more overnight), run it and see if I prefer it to the petrol. Then take a view: 1) keep this one as I've obviously put a lot into it personally so there's an element of friendship there (hopefully it'll be repaid). 2) Sell this and try a Sport of some flavour. 3) Sell this and try a 1.2 (quite fancy a 1.2 project actually). Or indeed keep this and try another project: ooh, what about a 1.6FSi Sport perhaps?
Sounds like you have a plan of sorts...yes cobalt blue not rarely seen and not a bad spec really ...3L rare if you find one and well FSI if you have the time to strip engine down and rebuild as lots are good specs good luck going forward nice to save and not scrap.
 
What a cracking job you have done so far and in a short period of time. Some very nice tips in there as well. Very impressed with the way you recovered the bad paint. Car is already worth far more than your costs. It is definitely now a keeper!
 
This is what you end up after all the slurry (literally) has been blasted out. Works a treat on floor mats as well. Just don't turn on the stereo for a few days in case the speakers are damp! I'm careful to avoid actually blasting the speakers or switches but the odd drop is fine: after all, a car is designed to have a door opened briefly in a rain storm:

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Looking great, Barry, well done. It’s certainly looking a whole lot better than the sorry looking beast you appeared with the other weekend. Very impressive work, can I just clarify though, you actually jet washed the door cards?! And no immediate side effects to the upholstery?

if you get round to looking at the OSS, I’d be interested to see how you get on. @Kleynie does a service/repair which sounds amazing and I’m sure is well worth it, but at £600-£800 it’s pretty much what I paid for for my car, so I’m struggling with the economics. I recently watched a German chap on YouTube repair his and it was most enlightening, but I imagine you need a big pair of cajuns plus a garage to tackle it in confidence. The video also shows the metal plates which need replacing which are to my limited understanding the main issue and cost, however I’m more than happy to be corrected on this point.

I’d love for my OSS to work but sadly my pockets are quite shallow, so for the foreseeable I’ll just have to enjoy the lighter cabin and view of the sky through the glass!
 
Kleynie offers two options on the OSS. Circa £400 sorted mine last year. Got to admit though that the OSS is not the quietest sunroof when open. Personally I think the closed panoramic aspect of it is the best part.

Very nice job and nice looking car!

l see you are just up the road from me (albeit a long way in present circumstances!!) Another East Sussex member.......
 
Looking great, Barry, well done. It’s certainly looking a whole lot better than the sorry looking beast you appeared with the other weekend. Very impressive work, can I just clarify though, you actually jet washed the door cards?! And no immediate side effects to the upholstery?

if you get round to looking at the OSS, I’d be interested to see how you get on. @Kleynie does a service/repair which sounds amazing and I’m sure is well worth it, but at £600-£800 it’s pretty much what I paid for for my car, so I’m struggling with the economics. I recently watched a German chap on YouTube repair his and it was most enlightening, but I imagine you need a big pair of cajuns plus a garage to tackle it in confidence. The video also shows the metal plates which need replacing which are to my limited understanding the main issue and cost, however I’m more than happy to be corrected on this point.

I’d love for my OSS to work but sadly my pockets are quite shallow, so for the foreseeable I’ll just have to enjoy the lighter cabin and view of the sky through the glass!

Thank you.

Yes, those door cards, and particularly that soft grained finish of the door top, respond very well to jet-washing. You wouldn't want to do it in the middle of a wet winter (on the off-chance we had one of those :rolleyes:), but on a warm dry day the cards are dry again by the end of play. Either that or I'd pop the car in the garage with heater / dehumidifier. If I end up doing another A2, I'll make sure I take more 'before' photos.

As for the roof, yes I started to watch the same video, realised it's an hour long so have 'saved' it for now. Looking forward to seeing what he gets up to. My pockets aren't massively shallow but they are very well protected by a strong sense of value and independence :D. I'll always try to sort things myself and do have a lathe / milling machine etc if needed. I like things to be as right as possible, but always keep a weather eye on where costs are going to end up. I don't mind losing all of my hours on a project but I'm not normally very happy about also losing money as well. Therefore DIY is the only option for me.

Will definitely keep you in the loop if I have any joy. If I don't have any joy, I may pop by again, this time to borrow a brolly :eek:
 
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Kleynie offers two options on the OSS. Circa £400 sorted mine last year. Got to admit though that the OSS is not the quietest sunroof when open. Personally I think the closed panoramic aspect of it is the best part.

Very nice job and nice looking car!

l see you are just up the road from me (albeit a long way in present circumstances!!) Another East Sussex member.......

Thank you and yes, we seem to have our own little band: another one in Uckfield that I know about :cool:
 
Agreed, I love reading threads like this on forums where someone has bought a "wreck" and breathed life into it on a budget.
 
Thank you. More to come on this one as per the list that threatens to grow faster than I can do the work ...
 
I have been pottering along.

As well as a service I've replaced the timing belt. The car had a full kit about 15K miles ago, but that was also six years hence. I ordered a bare belt on the basis that I could upgrade that to a full kit if anything untoward was revealed. Luckily, no, everything was just as you'd hope and expect including the water pump: bare belt is was.

Only thing of note was I quickly made up an engine support beam using some 40x60mm, some off-cuts of 20x20mm and a ladder roof-rack clamp. This was as adjustable as I needed and meant I wasn't trying to jack the engine from underneath.

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Luckily I already had a VW timing belt tool-set, but I was missing the T10008 tool as my Passat doesn't need it.

It was 21:00 and the Easter weekend but my stores had some as-new steel ( :rolleyes: ) so was able to fabricate something that would do ...

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One of the many (many) things on my list was to fix the droopy nearside rear window.

If you had the window fully up, the motor would drive it down, but not power it back up. If you manually lifted it, it would soon wander back down again. Motor sounded alright and a grope about once door trim and internal sheet metal cover removed suggested the cable was fine.

I stripped out the door (no photo's annoyingly) and removed the window frame with window and lifter mechanism. What had happened was that the crimped-to-cable nipple had ripped out of the top of the nylon window carrier. Therefore when going down it would take the carrier down fine but could no longer lift it.

Well, it seemed to me that if I could introduce some sort of element that could clamp to the cable from below and simply lift the underside of the window carrier, I'd be in the clear.

My first thought was to turn a new nipple with a flange to give a decent surface area to push against the underside of the carrier. If this was slotted, perhaps I could just crimp it over the cable:

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It didn't work though: after four different attempts using steel and brass I just couldn't get it to clamp.

Then, by chance my eye alighted on a flat cross-headed M6 screw. The head was about 15-17mm across. I was able to thin out the head in the lathe, nutted on a flat washer and filed a flat onto the side of both which gave a surface to press onto the underside of the above carrier. A little groove was cut in the underside of the head to take the cable.

No pics I'm afraid, but bottom line is the screw (with groove in underside of head) pointed thread upwards with cable resting in the groove. The washer (now almost D-shaped, like the screw-head) went on with nut above. I could stop the screw head from turning by pressing the flat onto the underside of the carrier and was able to do the nut up very hard.

Success! Works perfectly. Only downside, such as it is, is the window has no sort of soft-landing when going down. That's fine, it'll rarely get used and it's only me that'll drive it. It works and that's good enough.

Reassembly was a doddle. I'd say the whole operation was about three-four hours including coming up with the various fix attempts.

Naturally I re-greased cable and runners and I did spray-silicon the glass channels as well. Window fair shoots up and down now so I'm sure that fitting's not having to work too hard.
 
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In other news:

Full service done.
A Depronman driver's door check-strap fitted (really excellent job, thank you Paul).
A Depronman wiper arm assembly fitted (ditto!).
Set generic mudflaps altered and fitted. No idea what these will look like outside, but indoors? Promising, I think.
Replaced corroded fittings to Webasto exhaust outlet with new P-clips and screws.
Painted (badly) the top inter-cooler pipe and satin-blacked the rather grey engine sound deadening cover.
Cleaned and painted (badly again) the last corner (front offside) suspension.
Drained mystery plastic bag in RHF wheel arch: yes it was full of water, but absolutely clean and there was foam in the bag. I now wonder if the water was as result of all of my jet-washing.
Adjusted handbrake.

Oh yes, took the AC up to nearer 42-43 psi and still no joy: I have got cars to cut in by sending the pressure to the upper end, at which point they'll then accept a decent charge. I was hoping to get some signs of life in order to see what does and doesn't work. I'll try to access the hidden menu and see if I can find any odd readings.

Still plenty to do including fix the glove-box but that OSS is getting higher up the list. I did try it earlier and it does try to raise the front panel but brrrs as though either the motor cable drive is worn or possibly the teeth on the drive plates? We'll see.
 
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