driveforward

A bit of VIN decoding tells me that my gearbox is an 085C.. it has the part number 085 301 107 stamped on it. Has anyone fitted the Quaife ATB differential to one of these boxes? Cheers, Ian

Most certainly am

Hard Work with Hammerite This weekend the progress has continued, focussing on the interior. Firstly I had a number of gaps and a few holes in the floor to fill and did a bit of touch-up spray painting on the cage. I also treated a number of places internally, mostly where the cage had been welded in, with rust eating compound. Then I started the not to be underestimated task of repainting the entire floorpan, from the front footwells and centre tunnel through to the rear wheel well. The aim of this was to complete the rust and weather proofing task I had started with the re-undersealing. Last year, only select parts of the interior had been sprayed and throughout the year a large amount of filings had appeared and started to rust in crevasses etc. on top of rust developing around the areas where the cage was fixed, not to mention that with the tar removal it all looked a bit cack. Here are the finished results: Once this has dried it clears the way for me to start re-running cables, including adding cabling for guages and the battery relocation. It's hard to believe I've almost been working on the car for a month already, there's so much still to be done! Until next week...!

Seal 'n' Service Today I got on with finishing the re-undersealing of the car, which took about 1.5 hours to complete: should be OK for a while now! Next up, I changed the pollen filter (essential in all trackday hacks don't ya know!?) as the old one had a hole in it (and looked rather manky): Given the belts were all renewed last year (some more recent than others.... ), I decided to take advantage of having the front end off and perform an oil and filter change. Two bloody hours later, and it was done... the reason for this was that the filter refused to budge, the socket on the end of it even tore off whilst trying! In the end I resorted to my trusty Dremel to cut the filter off, then used the old screwdriver and hammer technique to shift the gasket and threaded section I was so chuffed to get the new one on, I took a photo: It's a good job I decided to do this now, rather than when the front end was put back on - I'd have had to take the front end back off! Anyway, 3 litres of undrinkable Pepsi replaced: Finally, I removed the drivers door once again in readyness for the next stage of the rebuild: Tidying up and then re-painting the interior floorpan, but that'll be next time

Returned from Bodyshop Yesterday the little one returned from the the bodyshop looking much more like an Arosa. The work took a little longer than expected as more work was required and the snow didn't help - the place filled up with damaged cars on Monday! The Arosa has once again been jigged, as the drivers side still needed some attention (it was a little on the short side!), and the substructure beneath the outer skin of the sill has been strengthened following its crumpling She's now back in my garage, with a nicely finished sill/quarter/under section, with new seal all down the underside of the sill, all ready for painting around March time (yes - it will take that long from now!). So, here's the handy-work - none of it mine! Another update should follow tomorrow, but alas, I had to work today

The 1.4 twincharger will be in the next Ibiza Cupra, so it's a firm bet it will the the engine in the next Polo GTI

More Preparation! Today, with the cars impending trip into the outside world I gave the rust-treated sections of the underside an initial layer of protection. The front and rear ARBs (and my face) were painted with black Hammerite, as was the now straight rear crash bar (paint had come off whilst bashing it back into shape). I also gave the sections of the underside that I had cleaned up an initial coat of underseal. Next up, I fixed the rear crash bar back onto the car and rolled the little one out of the garage ready for collection tomorrow: As you can see, it's still lacking one of its two doors, so a bit of tarp and trusty duck tape sorted a bit of protection out for the pending freezing cold overnight stay on the drive: Now I just need to tidy up the garage for when it returns - I haven't got long so'd better get on with it!

Thanks John, there's a lot of 'options' there! My glass isn't heated (as far as I'm aware), just leccy.. Confused!

Lol.. Doh! Take it easy, learn the track and you'll be fine

Yup

That must've been quite a read! Sidebars are fine, but they couldn't got any higher that's for sure.. You get used to it after a while!!

The majority of mirrors on german ebay are manuals.. if I could swap the internals from my stubby mirror into it and simply attach the wider galss that'd be great.. but not sure if that's possible!

That's when I saw you! Think I parked behind you in the car park

This year I need to change my stubby passenger wing mirror to a full-size EU one, I simply can't see much in it as my roll-cage block half of the mirror out! I have electric mirrors, can I buy a manual full-size mirror housing and glass and transfer the mechanicals over? ..or where can I get a leccy full-size EU mirror from? Any ideas? Cheers, Ian.

I've not been lazy.. From the lack of recent updates, you may think I've done nothing... well, wrong! Problem is, most of the things I have been doing are not stuff worth any pics.. However, I have a few worth showing First up, I finished the fitment of the sill panel off by trimming some of the edges and removing all burr etc. It's now ready to be welded into place: The car should be shipped off to my local bodyshop on Monday - on the back of a truck as it's far from drivable at present! I'll be glad to get this done, as it's holding up a number of other things. I've also been removing more tar from the floor-pan along with more mud and leaves from the underside and other nooks, and have shortened/re-routed a fair bit of the wiring loom around the centre console and lower dash. The interior is pretty much prepped for re-painting now: Another job I've been tackling is straightening out the rear crash bar after the muppet bumped me in a queue of traffic last year - it wasn't too bad but is near straight now, so once I've painted it to prevent rusting, it can go back on. Also, I've prepped the underside of the car for re-undersealing by stripping off any original seal that was damaged/missing/poor - mostly around where the cage was mounted. I then treated all of the effected areas including rusting sections of the front and rear ARBs with rust-eating compound to stem the damage. Next up is to re-seal the treated areas/paint the sections of affected ARB; prior to giving the entire underside a full underseal once all welding has been completed. Whilst the front end is dismantled I'm also going to give the car a quick service and complete battery relocation and guage fitting.. so next up I'll be ordering some new bits and once the panel is in place things can start coming together

I'm heading out in 09 with the A2OC lot, we're staying in a hotel though so had to get booked up a few months ago.. Never been before so thought it was time, just ironing out other parts of the trip at the moment as we're gonna take in the south coast of France and Millau at the same time. Will be at Le Mans from the Friday then leaving on the Monday

I doubt you'll get anywhere near that without getting plenty of laps under your belt, no amount of playstation 'practice' will prepare you for how different it is in real life. Go out, take it easy, bag a load of passenger laps and learn the track before you start giving it beans I'm at around the 9.10 mark in my track-prepped 1.4 16v, next year a LSD and some stickier rubber should see me break into the sub 9's, and I've had a fair bit of practice at over 160 laps.. Take it easy, too many n00bs with playstation experience strike up a very quick relationship with armco. Even the experienced bin it, I did last year.. it's not called the green hell for nothing! Ahh.. yours is the French red GTI I saw a few times in 2008

Download Adium

Welcome to the light Is your new MacBook aluminium with the large trackpad? If so, you can 'right-click' by clicking with 2 fingers on the pad, otherwise, hold CTRL whilst you click. Copying and pasting is virtually identical - use the CMD key with either X, C or V (or use the menus). Your Mac won't slow down like a PC, get your pics into iPhoto and your music into iTunes

Bumpin', bangin' and grindin'..! Today my primary tool has been an angle grinder! With the drivers door removed, I marked out the damaged section of sill with a marker before setting to it with an angle grinder! With the damaged section of panel removed, I started to bash the crumpled sections behind the skin back into shape, including the floor area inside near the b-pillar and also the main 'beam' that runs along just behind the sill. With things as good as they were ever going to be, I cleaned up all old spot-welds so that the 'new' panel could be refitted along standard joins. Then I had to cut the section of sill panel I had salvaged from a Lupo down to size so that it married up to the damaged area on my car. Once things were pretty close, I then had to remove all of the old spot welds and other panel joins from the new panel (where I had simply chopped everything out of the donor car). Finally I was ready to start fitting the new, but red section to my Arosa.. the pics below show everything clamped into place, with only minimal grinding/trimming required tomorrow to complete the panel-substitution! Tomorrow, I will pick up where I left off! ...now for a beer!

Not got as much done today as I planned..! Other than cleaning out the muck from behind the scuttle panel before refitting and hoovering out the bits from the floor pan, all I've managed to do is remove the drivers door! Blimey is it heavy!!! All set now for a monster day tomorrow (motivation dependant!)

I think I know...!

Once I had the lower section of dash removed I could (just about) reach the 4 nuts holding it in place.. once they were free i wriggled it out Mine was previously disabled in vag-com, but the light was on (given the side airbags don't exist either), so I fully expect the light to remain!

Tough but Boring Day No pics today as there really isn't much to see.. unfortunately! Today I have removed the sound deadening from behind the dash (that was hard work!), the passenger airbag (surprisingly easy), more sound deadening from behind the scuttle panel and finally all of the tar matting from the floorpan of the interior. Tomorrow, the work continues!

You can do if you wish, it's quieter in there tho and there's no charger or turbo going on this little one anytime soon! It's up to you The Stripping Continues.. Given I had a 1/2 day at work today, I decided to continue removing stuff from the little one when I got home.. First up, I finished removing the front wing as the sill part of it has taken a knock and there is a crease caused during vehicle recovery above the wheel arch (visible on second pic): Next up I set about removing the bucket seats and subframes along with the aluminium footplates, before moving onto the centre console and lower section of dashboard: Ahh.. this takes me back With the lower section of dash removed I next hope to move onto removing the air recirculation unit and passenger airbag along with the sound deadening that runs along behind the dash: That's all for now, tune in next time folks to see more stuff being ripped off!