Arosa 1.4 16v Sport - My Trackday Project

[Särås]

Realy like this car!

Nice done!

/Jimmy

[driveforward]

Realy like this car!

Nice done!

/Jimmy

Back at the 'ring this weekend folks.. There's a rather large update to be posted to this thread when I get around to it too.. I'm also 1 ring trip report behind (most of it's written, I just need to finish it off and sort the pics).

[driveforward]

The Green Hell Bites Back - Unscheduled Rebuild July 2008

My third trip to the 'ring of the year at the end of June 2008 turned out to be a rather costly and stressful one and almost prevented my return at the start of August for my 4th trip. Given the tight timescales between the two trips I haven't had a chance to update the progress thread during this time, but at last, here's a breakdown of events:

Saturday 28th June 2008

The Saturday (28th June) all went to plan and above is one of the last pics of my car before re-constructive surgery.

Sunday 29th June 2008

..was a bloomin' hot day, but nevertheless the car was going well right up to the end of my 99th lap of the year. Unfortunately, the 100-lap milestone for the little Arosa proved to be a tricky one to conquer. At about 18:00 I headed out for this would-be milestone lap. Unfortunately I didn't get far and coming out of the old pits complex before Hatzenbach I ended up drifting out wide (hot track/hot tyres/me not reacting quick enough), running up a high kerb, bottoming out the car, and finally taking a trip across the track into the armco on the other side

The drivers door wouldn't open and the radiator was damaged.. I needed recovery

As you can see, other than radiator the damage wasn't too bad: headlight/front panel/wheel arch linings and lower valance of front bumper. The font panel is just plastic so this and lower valance simply crumpled, however the crash bar seemed to take most of the impact and the car simply bounced off the barrier. The recovery to UK process was handled with German efficiency by ADAC I was quoted a return time of 2-3 weeks.

Saturday 5th July 2008

Whilst waiting for the car to turn up, I scouted out a scrappy with a red 1.0 MK2 Arosa (heads up from m0rksport), and collected a new headlight, front bumper, front panel, radiator and front crash bar from them on the 5th July - all for £140.

Tuesday 8th July 2008

German efficiency returns the car to the UK and it is unloaded at a local garage. Unfortunately I get a call stating that oil was leaking from the car when it was being unloaded (there was no oil at the scene of the accident, just rapidly draining coolant!). A bit odd given it's just travelled over 550 miles to get back to the UK..

Saturday 12th July 2008

I go to the garage in order to get the car on a ramp, and I then proceeded to get the front end stripped down.

It's at this point where the oil story starts to make sense:

A quick chat with the garage owner soon concludes that a forklift truck has been involved in moving my car around at some point, unfortunately it was operated by (most probably given there wouldn't have been any oil left to escape if this had have happened on the continent) a lazy British workman who was in too much of a rush to get back to reading the Sun and eating his fry up than to take care with his work. Great.

Damage report: Power steering pump/power steering pipes/bracket for alternator and power steering pump/oil sump. Yup, more damage caused by recovery muppets than the accident itself.

Finally, here's a pic of the drivers door and sill: a bit of jig work required to straighten it all out:

Tuesday 15th July 2008

More great news: All the parts damaged during recovery are on back order with both VW and SEAT. Joy of joys.

Saturday 26th July 2008

With the parts finally onsite, I turned up to assist the fitting of the new sump/power steering pump and all supporting parts.

Given the one downpipe on the manifold had sustained a bit too much damage (down to 1/2 volume), I took this away with me to get the section cut out and replaced:

Monday 28th July 2008

Before work I drop off the repaired manifold for refitting. A colossal effort by the bodyshop sees the Arosa's front end rebuilt (bar front bumper as I had been repairing this by fitting my 'new' lower valance onto the old upper part of the bumper) and the necessary jigging done to get the door closing again and the side of the car looking mildly less mangled. After work I then collected it and drove it back home, where I then spend the evening in darkness refitting the front bumper in the midst of a thunderstorm. Nice. The end result is that although the front end needs aligning properly, the car can be driven to and from work for the remainder of the week before I head back to Germany in order to make sure it is all straight and OK.

Tuesday-Wednesday 29-30th July 2008

With the car driving perfectly, I spend the evenings of these two days prepping/cleaning/checking the car for the coming weekend.

Friday 1st August 2008 at 03:30AM

The Arosa and I leave home and head to Germany for some more maximum pasty attack.. Talk about a dash to the finish!

Success

A fantastic weekend was had by all, the car performed well and impressed many non-believers as always. 29 laps were racked up in total by the Arosa, virtually all with various passengers. Here's the tough little beast sporting the new (temporary) front end look with gaffer tape and battle scars:

The only problem arose on the morning of departure, when I discovered that my front pads no longer existed! It was time for an impromptu disc and pad change in the hotel car park, and with the experienced Chris Eyre on hand the job was done in 45 mins.

One more trip this year? We will have to see..

One thing is for sure, the end of season rebuild will now be a bit more extensive!

Many thanks for reading! I know I'm now 2 ring trip reports behind, but you can kind of understand why now!

Edited December 22, 2008 by driveforward

[Jowey]

epic thread.

[driveforward]

epic thread.

Cheers

It's not over yet.. this coming weekend the Arosa gets back on track for the first time since the early August 'ring trip, this time at the Curborough Sprint course for CGTI's event. There should also be one more event in the bag before the year's out and the big rebuild commences

[cardaft]

Great thread, really enjoy reading your reports!

Its still battling on, nice to see

[akbarirfan]

Saw this in person a couple of weeks back, this is the bizzle!

Did you get round to getting a straight pipe backbox thing?

[driveforward]

Saw this in person a couple of weeks back, this is the bizzle!

Did you get round to getting a straight pipe backbox thing?

Hehe, cheers mate - it's been parked up since then so not yet.. I'll start investigating once it's off the road mid-late November

[MattyA]

Such a good thread.

Nice to see the Arosa is still putting in the laps.

[simpo]

Awesome read, im off to the ring in June next year.

[Jon]

Just found this car on Facebook whilst looking through some of a friend of mine's photos! He's in the Lotus behind you!

[driveforward]

Just found this car on Facebook whilst looking through some of a friend of mine's photos! He's in the Lotus behind you!

Hehe I've seen that pic elsewhere!

In the last two weeks the Arosa has taken on Cadwell Park (superb circuit - will def be back there in the future) and Donington last weekend (cold, wet, but a nice ending to the year!)

Next up is the Winter rebuild.. watch this space

[driveforward]

The 2008/2009 round of improvements and repairs have begun!

It's that time of year again, and I've been threatening it for a while.. the Arosa is now in the garage and in bits (once again!), but more of that in a sec. Things should be a bit less pressured this year, however there's still a fair amount of work to be done, so let me begin by compiling a list :

• IMP: Relocate battery - never got around to this last year
  
• IMP: Fit oil pressure/temp guages - didn't have time last year
  
• IMP: Remove more weight - best way to improve power/weight ratio!
  
• IMP: Fit lightweight alloys and new R888 boots
  
• IMP: Fit bonnet pins
  
• IMP: Fit rear pop-out windows to provide much needed in-car ventilation
  
• IMP: Source a full-size passenger wing mirror to improve cage-restricted visibility
  
• IMP: Investigate a LSD
  
• FIX: Damaged drivers-side sill
  
• FIX: Wonky front end and dodgy looking bumper
  
• FIX: Repaint interior floor-pan
  
• FIX: Re-underseal
  
• FIX: Rear crash bar after a muppet drove into me in a queue of traffic
  
• FIX: Visit a bodyshop!
  

IMP = Improvement

FIX = Wear/tear/mishap from 2008

First up, I have already been collecting a few parts..

• Lightweight Odyssey PC625 battery
  
• Mount for said battery
  
• Cable to relocate said battery
  
• Section of driver-side door sill cut out from a Lupo with much angle-grinding!
  
• Rear pop-out windows from a Lupo to provide much needed summer cooling whilst on-track
  
• New upper front-bumper
  

Right, time to begin! This weekend I have wrapped up my MKIII Escort so that I can free up the garage to work on the Arosa, so once it was in the garage, the front end was jacked up and the work commenced.

First I removed the rear bumper and crash bar, then the front bumper, headlights, crash bar and front panel including radiator..

Then the standard battery and mount were removed, before giving all of the visible chassis areas now exposed a good clean up to remove the wax and oil grime. At this point I decided to tackle the messy wiring in the engine bay, removing bits that were defunct and re-routing various parts of it. I also removed the CDA so that I could tackle the next task..

At this point I had created a nice void within the bay where the battery once was, this is going to be my distribution point for all positive feeds originating from the relocated battery:

Although hard to see, I have now removed the thick, heavy and given this is the muddiest Arosa known to man thanks to previous owners, dirty sound deadening from the back of the engine bay:

Below is a pic of the other side of the cleaned up engine bay, and the almost undone-wing (which is need of some beating!):

I'm off to screwfix tomorrow to obtain some much needed supplies.. .. however, below is a pic of the standard battery and my boxed up new one (the new one weighs less than half of the standard unit and is under a third of it's size!). In the background is the sill panel:

The removed CDA system, front panel and rad, and the sill panel - it's getting messy already..

Finally, here's a pic of my safely wrapped up new rear quarter windows - I doubt I'll fit these for quite some time to make sure they don't get messed up with the various cutting/grinding/painting that lies ahead:

That's it for now, but not long to wait until the next update - I'm planning on making some serious progress over the next 7 days

Thanks for reading!

[Tigz™]

Dude, I'd love to move this into the projects section of Tuning?

[driveforward]

Dude, I'd love to move this into the projects section of Tuning?

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!

[driveforward]

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!

[Tigz™]

How did you do remove the airbag?

I took mine out but the light will be on.

I know the 'kit' VW sell is just a resistor but I've not been able to find out the size to avoid being ripped off by the Germans LOL

[driveforward]

How did you do remove the airbag?

I took mine out but the light will be on.

I know the 'kit' VW sell is just a resistor but I've not been able to find out the size to avoid being ripped off by the Germans LOL

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!

[ArosaMike]

You could always do something really adventurous and unplug the light!

[MattTDI]

i wonder where your side airbags are

[driveforward]

i wonder where your side airbags are

I think I know...!

[driveforward]

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!)

[driveforward]

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!

[driveforward]

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

[christian]

read all this just ,its great to see the excitement throughout the thread ,have you thought about lowering the side bars so acess is easier