tuffty
-
Content Count
109 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
VR6OC News
Website Content
Profiles
Forums
Calendar
Gallery
Store
Collections
Community Map
Everything posted by tuffty
-
I bought some doors that were supposed to be in decent enough condition... turns out that the drivers side had a similar issue as mine although not quite as bad... Wire wheeling this lot off revealed a pinhole... disappointing as I was kinda hoping not to do any remedial work on the doors other than a bit of surface rust removal... will clean up the rust as the door itself is in ok condition... has one small dent I have seen so far (PDR should sort that) and a few scratches but it would be painted anyway so not a drama... the main issue is that pinhole and pitting around that
-
Weather was better (ish) for long enough to get some work done on the car... I removed the drivers seat... mainly to be able to make a start on cleaning the interior as its dusty AF but also to try an minimise the amount of dirt/dust that gets on the alcantara as its a beatch to clean... F$%k me S3 Recaros are heavy!!!... it was not the most fun in the world I have had getting that up into my loft office!!!... one thing I did find though was... Appears to be a limit switch for the electrics... I never adjust the seat
-
While the weather has been a bit variable of late I cracked on with some other work... some on the A2 as she needed a little TLC and a bit on some parts for the S3.. I have a spare set of front cast arms to refurb... borrowed a bush smasher (fnarr) kit from a mate... ...and removed the old bushes... The kit won't always remove the alloy bush surround though... ...so a hammer and cold chisel made short work of those Wire wheeled and aqua blasted the arms before masking the relevant machined surfaces
-
Jacking the car up gave me better access to the door... so made a small plate to fill the large hole on the corner of the door Tacked that in and then decided it would be easier to remove the window frame to get to the inside of the door... I also removed the lower crash bar to be able to see what I was doing a bit better Not pretty I know but never said I could weld While the door was this dismantled I took the opportunity to swap out the door lock...
-
Decided to take advantage of the nice weather to start sorting the bottoms of the doors... went in heavy with the wire wheel to reveal what I already knew was there... Out came the MIG and I threw some metal at them... The metal was getting quite thin and was blowing holes left right and centre... trying to get a decent angle to grind back the welds was proving to be interesting too... so I will try getting her back up on stands to see if it helps... fail
-
Sooooo.... I have been driving the car Front wings are fully bolted up and all relevant plastic parts are on... feels nice to be driving the old girl again... Not a massive fan of the drivers wing overall finish... in the sunlight its really difficult to tell the "blend" but in shadow its quite obvious... the paint appears to be a darker tone overall which in itself is fine but I think I may actually revisit both wings and just repaint them all over... at the end of the day they are silver, the rust has been removed and future corrosion issues mitigated (hopefully)...
-
Finally a dry day!!!... weather has been a bit of a challenge of late but the sun was out and so was the compressor!! Drivers wing was already prepped and ready... been watching a few vids on you of tube on painting and blending stuff... so thought I would give it a go... Base coat went on a bit better after faffing with the gun settings a bit... Clear coat was aerosol though, HB Body 496 2K HS Clear... its one of the nicest clears I have used and compatible with the 2k base coat I am using... it was a bit of a challenge to
-
While the weather is being all weathery as per usual I haven't been able to get the other wing painted... so just cracked on with a few jobs that are weather agnostic... Essentially cleaning things and getting trim etc refitted... first up was refitting the rear bumper... Unfortunately the top trim for these appears to have "warped" and is not fitting as it should... its held on by two screws at the side and held to the bumper by the heavy duty velcro VAG are so fond of... only problem seems to be that the warping is applying tension stronger than the double sided
-
Bl**dy showers and other unforeseen wibble has given me a hard time on the passenger side... Mostly inexperience too tbh... Colour match on the wing is not great but... This was to be expected as this wing has been painted before and I gave my factory painted wing to the paint shop so is a better match to that... Granted I think I could have blended it better but I haven't really got a clue what I am doing sooooo... There is that! 🙂 Had some reactions with the tough liner on the sill... Thinking maybe a sealing primer would have been usefu
-
The weather is seriously getting in the way of progress which is a little annoying as I am close to having the car drivable again... Sunday was mostly a bust... I managed to fit the new fixings for the sill cover... I used a little RTV too to help seal and prevent them moving around potentially damaging the paint which I think will be tougher than ever now... ...then it rained... so played games for a few hours... but it cleared up for a while and ran out to sort the rear valance out so I could get the rear bumper on properly... there were a few little spots of ru
-
More progress... home stretch now Prepped and painted the rear bumper mounting hardware... Used PPF where hardware fixings were used to mitigate potential metal to metal rubbage... ...and replaced the rusty bolts with stainless ones... Next task was to work on the wings.... both had the usual stone chip damage at the lower part of the return... So much wire wheel action later... Getting into the lower area on the inside of the wing wasn't th
-
Busy day doing all the things..... The A3 sill doesn't have the holes for the sill cover fixings so had to add a couple like I did on the drivers side... Pilot hole followed by a 7mm drill... ...a bit of fettling later using a flat needle file and... With that out of the way I could crack on with the giving the car a good waxing!!! Basically went mental applying this stuff mostly everywhere... in the sills, in the wheel wells and the floorpan/inside lip of the pinch rail...
-
Rotting sill saga update!... Spent some time digging out the factory sealer from the inside of the pinch rail... it was partially separated from the return so made sense to clean this up and re-seal ...etch primed the bare metal followed by high zinc primer then splooged a load of brush on seam sealer to top it off... Dealt with the rust around the fixings for the sill cover... Flatted, rust converted and etch primed... A few bits left to sort before masking up to do the main painting...
-
Cleaning is a complete PITA tbh... use normal thinners (not expensive 2k stuff) and just fire some through before stripping the gun down and basically using thinners and brushes etc to clean where ever the paint is.... I would have a read up about using the gun if you can... I didn't realise I could adjust the size of the fan!... also get yourself a water trap for the airline if you haven't got one... you don't really need an oiler for the tools as you can pre-oil before use but water in the airline for painting is not a good idea... I also got some paint mixing cups an
-
Posting latest progress as rain has stopped play Passenger side is generally 'rustier' in terms of surface and general scabbiness... the hole in the sill was about the same as the drivers side but this time the floor pan faired much better... As per the drivers side I added in a 3mm thick to add a bit of strength Not sure if I will add the extra angled bit of steel like I did to the drivers side but that was more to make up for the state of the floor pan than anything (and also my dodgy welding!) Cut a section from the A3 sill
-
Managed to grab some 2k thinners so game on! Went on nicely.... Painting under the car was as always a mahoosive challenge... I did get quite a bit of coverage but I think I might just go over the trickier to get areas with a brush at a later date then I will be waxing the flip out of everywhere That signalled the end of the main work on the drivers side... I have fitted anything back yet and still need to wax things but will do that after I have finished the rust repairs and paint work on the passeng
-
Bit more progress... Added seam sealer where it was needed... I also wire wheeled all the factory sealer from the inside edge of the pinch rail too and seam sealed the cr*p out of that... On to the rear wheel well and cleaned up corrosion in several areas of it... Decided that not all the wheel well needed to be painted as it was mostly ok so tried the wax product I have instead as a test... I think I will go to town with the wax anyway but its
-
Been a few weeks but I have made some progress... was having a fair few issues with gas... the little bottles are a bit of a pain and don't seem to last very well welding outside so I man'd up and got a proper bottle... Added a 3mm thick piece of bar to replace the rotten part of the floor pan lip... Welding underneath the car is a royal pain in the rear too especially as I don't have much room to work with and I don't bend like I used to in my younger days.. Not pretty but its solid and actual metal now...
-
Cracked on with operation rusty POS today..... cut some more metal out... Started cleaning up the floor pan area by the jacking point damage... Then pulled the rear arch liner out and cleaned up the end of the sill to see if I was going to be doing work there too... thankfully it was just surface rust with minor pitting... So cleaned up a few other obvious areas while I was there... I have wire wheeled the cr@p out of the rusty bits and used rust treatment (Bilt Hamber H
-
Decided it was about time to level up my man status and acquired the following items... A 50ltr, 9.6cfm air compressor.... A MIG welder... ...and a cool welding mask to at least give the impression I know what I am doing.... First job was to fabricobble a stand for the gas bottle.... The broken spring from my A2 and a 1.8t cam pulley will do the job.... ...tada!!!!! So... filled with confidence and looking cool in my awesome helmet (fnarr!) I undertook the job
-
Had a few days off to get some little jobs sorted on the car... First job was the aircon... I have a new pump and dryer as the old pump is leaking PAG oil and makes sense to change the dryer too... Not the most fun job ever but easy enough tbh... I have also had an issue with the low oil pressure warning popping up randomly at any rpm or time it felt like... I know I have pressure as Ignitron picks that up and all the times the three beeps of death have popped up the pressure is over 2bar minimum... (IECU als
-
So this happened! ...which resulted in... The difference in the boost plots looks quite a bit... but other than I have brought the spool/mid range in sooner the actual difference top end is around 0.1bar which is about 1.5psi and the spool/mid range is a lift of 0.9bar to 1.1bar below 5k rising to 1.2bar request up to redline... I am happy with the top end power figure... not really interested in chasing figures but the OCD in me would like to tackle the slight wobblyness after 5.5k purely to smooth it out a bit... This
-
As the weather has been reasonably nice I took a trip to Mexico so I could set up the boost control now that the wastegate is dual ported... Ignitron is such a breeze to use and didn't take long to get the PID control dialled in... Overall I am hitting the 220kpa I am asking for in the specified boost map for 10% less duty than when in the single port setup which never quite made 220kpa top end... happy days I have next week off to do some more bits to the car such as the aircon pump and DSG wiring... I am also replacing the
-
Have had the dreaded raised top of the strut for a little while which is typically the sign of the rubber top bush sagging... as I have LCR top mounts I was a little surprised they had gone as bad being harder rubber but I have had them a while now so in anticipation I bought poly replacements with new bearings and spring cups Finally got around to swapping out the rear calipers... Just as well I changed the lines as they were looking pretty scabby... Bought myself a fancy pressure bleeder as Bill uses a similar one
-
Have put the car on stands.... there is a decent reason for this... it stops me driving the car and gives me a reason to crack on with the current list of things I need to do... First up... I need to replace the top mounts as mine appear to have started to collapse... these Billy B8's are the first mod I did to the car when I first bought it and while they are still working fine they are showing signs of age (13yrs of age)... So while they are off I am going to clean them up and give them a fresh coat of paint... hopefully keep them decent for a