Bazmcc

I priced up enough materials to do resin infusion method on a bonnet. Not including the pump or pipework the total came to £450 to make the mould and for the carbon weave to do it. The mould for that is around £100. It's not for the light hearted and takes a big wedge of cash to make carbon panels. However...... I have found a guy who has all the gear to do it and he might be willing to 'give' me some stuff to try out making a panel. I'll enquire about it when I'm picking up my engine block which he was having powdercoated for me.

Yes i'm aware of that and pretty sure i've got it sorted. Not a workaround but just a straightforward 'fix'. I'll update with that info as soon as i've done some testing to confirm it works. Might even have time to look at that this week.

I don't think the look of the rado dash was the problem. The main problem is the crappy brittle plastic, the ever failing heater controlls, and the constant rattles and creaks of the dash just before another bit breaks. By the time this is done i'll have a nice high revving snarling 16v on throttle bodies to set in the bay to keep the old school feel.

OK so I needed to get the airbox adapter/extension done. I test fitted again and made a few minor tweaks. I cut a couple of grooves to allow the top piece to slot into the main front ducting a bit further so it wasn't crushed against the underside of the dash. I also put some new foam seals around the top part so it didn't rub plastic on plastic on the dash and squeak. I may need a little more padding here. I'll probably screw this on here so it can't more around. And I fibreglassed the parts together after I was happy enough with the fitment. This will hold it all in place and I'll finish the glassing in a couple of days when it's cured a bit. Then I'll move on to shaping it and removing excess material to make it a little more compact and lighter. And just to prove it all fits.

16vStyle - Handbrake has all been sorted more or less. Just 2 small tubes to make to extend the reach past the handbrake bracket. Gearstick, I think the engineer was looking at it this week but he was spacing a set of throttle bodies for me so he was going to do it after that. We know exactly what needs to be done. It's just getting time sort it out. Back to the grindstone. I had to sort out the issue with the airbox not lining up with the top air ducting inlet on the underside of the dash. It's a little crude so far but i'll tidy it up as I go along. So the fibreglass plates I made needed to be cut to shape to fit the airbox and the front piece of ducting. Then trimmed out the center part. Be warned, fibreglass resin is hard as nails and blunts blades very quickly. To do the 2 plates which were approximately 3 - 3.5mm thick I completely destroyed a jigsaw blade and 2 air saw blades. Thankfuly I have plenty of spares. If you think that's bad try cutting carbon fibre. lol. Ok to make the 2 parts mate up it had to come back about 2.5 inches and down about 2 inches. I had some fibreglass strips in the garage I had made previously for making some moulds and they were sort of spare. So i used them for the sides and for the top and bottom 'ramps' I used the part I cut out of the middle of one of the plates. I just have these taped together for test fitting. I'll fibreglass these together when I'm happy with fitment and the shape. And here's how it looks when it's up against the airbox. I didn't have time to screw the front on and properly test it but i'll get that done soon enough. ---------- Post added at 9:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 9:20 AM ---------- 16vStyle - Handbrake has all been sorted more or less. Just 2 small tubes to make to extend the reach past the handbrake bracket. Gearstick, I think the engineer was looking at it this week but he was spacing a set of throttle bodies for me so he was going to do it after that. We know exactly what needs to be done. It's just getting time sort it out. Back to the grindstone. I had to sort out the issue with the airbox not lining up with the top air ducting inlet on the underside of the dash. It's a little crude so far but i'll tidy it up as I go along. So the fibreglass plates I made needed to be cut to shape to fit the airbox and the front piece of ducting. Then trimmed out the center part. Be warned, fibreglass resin is hard as nails and blunts blades very quickly. To do the 2 plates which were approximately 3 - 3.5mm thick I completely destroyed a jigsaw blade and 2 air saw blades. Thankfuly I have plenty of spares. If you think that's bad try cutting carbon fibre. lol. Ok to make the 2 parts mate up it had to come back about 2.5 inches and down about 2 inches. I had some fibreglass strips in the garage I had made previously for making some moulds and they were sort of spare. So i used them for the sides and for the top and bottom 'ramps' I used the part I cut out of the middle of one of the plates. I just have these taped together for test fitting. I'll fibreglass these together when I'm happy with fitment and the shape. And here's how it looks when it's up against the airbox. I didn't have time to screw the front on and properly test it but i'll get that done soon enough.

A better way to stick the plate recess would be to stick the filler piece in with LORD Fusor. I use it for bumper repair or modification and it hardens just like plastic and is dead easy to work with and can be filed, sanded, drilled, and even threaded.

I could leave the locking as it is in the original wiring. But I'd be able to basically make it like a MK4 where it's always locked and closed unless you press the button to release it where it would spring open slightly.

ok so I have been tinkering. Well, more wasting time and getting sod all done. I need to make a extension so the airbox front ducting fits to the ducting in the dash. The airbox in a mk4 would normally sit about 4 inches or so closer to the dash. So i just need to make 2 plates to fit to each part and then i'll basically make a tube to connect the 2. I was going to do this from ABS plastic but as I didn't have any laying about I decided i'll just use fibreglass for now and it should be fine. I'll coat it and paint it when I'm finished. So first things first. Make 2 flat pieces of fibreglass for the airbox and the other piece of ducting to fit to. I'm using a sheet of glass to build it on. It's had the edges taped as they were rough and the glass waxed. This acts as a release so the fibreglass and resin just peels off after it's cured. Works every time. I layered about 7-8 layers of fairly heavy chopped strand matt. It'll be more than strong enough for what I need and can be drilled and sanded and trimmed to shape. You can see from the bottom pic how flat you can get fibreglass sheets when you have a proper set of fibreglass rollers. With these everything gets saturated right through and you don't get any lumps pulled up like a brush does. I've made 2 of these. Next update hopefully I'll be able to show the rest of it with the central part in place.

Sorry, I would say £650 for that is mental (some of that sellers prices are crazy for basic trim parts). The last couple of sets of black leather interiors I've seen have sold for about £400 to £450. I would say beige is harder to shift. Your best bet would be to stick it up at £400 buy it now or best offer and see what sort of offers you get.

Yes I'll probably just use a mk4 solenoid if it'll fit. I have the wiring left so it can be done. It's not essential to the dash swap though so I think it might be an additional mod which I can add at a later date.

OK so onto the real work of fitting the handbrake and sussing out the offset. First thing was to drill the new plates and bolt it up. This was partly guesswork. The plates, even though they were huge compared to the standard feet were pretty close to being too small. But still worked and work perfectly. I'm not even sure I'll need the 3rd foot bolted down as it's very very stable. As you can see the original corrado cables are centered compared to the MK4 cable tubes and pull bar which is about 1.5" or so offset. Simple solution. Remove the bar and clip from the MK4 handbrake, then fit a bolt as a spacer and use the original corrado pull which I drilled out of the old handbrake as it's rivetted in. Obviously this means I can use the original fitting on the cables too. Then you can see it fits and lines up perfectly. You'll notice there's about an inch gap where the bar is too long and also if I was to pull it up tight to the nuts on the lines it would foul the mk4 handbrake bracket. Easily fixed. I'm going to fit 2 machined tubes onto the cables to act like spacers and it'll operate like normal. That should clamp the MK4 calipers I have for it pretty well. Doesn't look too bad when it's lined up.

I presume it's still working fine. The box has been out of the car for a while as i'm rebuilding the engine. It was fine before it was removed. I found that the remaining piece of rubber is just held in with a sprung clip. It was easily removed. If i got another boot i could slot it back on within a few seconds. Just need to find one. I'd like to keep my almost new oem cylinder if possible.

Amyone any suggestions on what to do here? Rubber boot is ripped. Is it essential to the clutch slave. This one is nearly new but was on and in the bay while i was working at the dash swap and pedals so obviously it got pushed out and ripped the boot. What's the price of another? Can it be bought? Can i swap it for a mk4 one? Can the rubber boot be replaced?

The handbrake fitting is slightly experimental. I'll need to reshape a bit of the center console pieces to get it all to fit together nicely but it's not too far away. This is just a quick mock up of how it sits. ---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 AM ---------- The handbrake fitting is slightly experimental. I'll need to reshape a bit of the center console pieces to get it all to fit together nicely but it's not too far away. This is just a quick mock up of how it sits.

Got a new set of feet welded to the MK4 handbrake. I just need to test fit this, drill it and trim any excess. The 3rd bolt on the passengers side will need a bracket made for it because of the amount of offset in the MK4 handbrake. It'll be more experimenting with that I think.

A rotary can do damage in the wrong hands but like anything it's fine with practice although with a rotary it's good to have a bit of experince and if possible access to a paint depth gauge especially if you plan on using any heavy cutting pads or polishes. As for equipment. How long is a piece of string. Essentials for normal maintenance I would say is: 2 buckets with grit guards wash mitt seperate mitt for wheels and sills (really dirty bits). Good shampoo All pupose cleaner Possibly tar remover Claybar and clay lube Loads of microfibre cloths for wiping, buffing, and general use. polish or prewax cleanser Applicator pads for hand polishing or applying glaze. Good Glaze Good Wax Glass cleaner Interior plastics product like poorboys natural look. That would be a good base to start from. Adding to that you could get loads of different polishes and various pads, different wheel cleaners, fallout removers..... and the list is endless.

Hello I actually own a company which sells detailing products and accessories. There are plenty of polishers and plenty of backing plates and pads to use. My advice for a first timer would be to go for a Dodo Juice Buff Daddy, aka a DAS6 dual action polisher. Then get a range of 3 polishes. Poorboys SSR1 - light, SSR2 or 2.5 - medium, and SSR3 - coarse. And get a heavy polishing pad, a medium polishing pad, a finishing pad, and a very soft light finishing pad for glazing. Then you can apply a glaze with a pad like the poorboys black hole glaze. Start with the lightest polish and pad first, if it doesn't remove the swirls, go up to the medium stuff, if that doesn't work go to the heavy ones. Then after you get the swirls sorted you go to a very fine polish like ssr1 or even dodo juice lime prime and refine the finish to remove light marks or buffer trails. Then to get rid of anything left and to add a bit of gloss you put your glaze on, let it haze, buff off. Then wax. If I'm being totally honest I would tell you to look out for detailing days in your area and get some training from a professional. Alternatively watch loads of videos on youtube and get a spare panel or 2 and give it a go. P.S don't even attempt machine polishing without washing, detarring, and clay barring first.

Anyone got any pics of the following? Rear seat deletes. Flat rear floors or floor builds. Rear cages with no rear seats. Rear cages with harness mounting bars. Rear seat deletes with 3, 4, or 5 point harnesses mounted. Thanks Baz

Thank you very much. I hope I can keep it going at a steady pace. The last week or so has been a bit of a right off with getting other work done. But i'll try and get back to it this week again.

Very useful resource. I didn't know about them. I'll get a couple of those and compare prices against VW trade prices. Then again I have a very useful breaker who allows me to get the odd spare loom from him when i need one.

Thank you very much but I'd maybe draw the line at calling them skills. Stubbornness might be more appropriate. :) When it's this far in there's nothing else to do but plough on.

OK so I've got a bit of a list now of what's left to sort out. It's pretty much what was left plugged into the rado fuse box. I want to see if I can get it all gone and maybe integrated into the MK4 fuse box but it might not be possible. The ABS list and controller goes through it so I need to see exactly where each wire is coming from and going to and see if I can ween it off the old setup. I also need to order some junior power timer plugs today. I'll probably get some 10 pin ones. Maybe I can use MK4 headlight plugs. On a side note. I got some of my powdercoated stuff back.

Where abouts are you? There will be an FIA approved rollcage maker in your area or at least somewhere not too far fro you. One of the best I've seen at coming up with custom ones is RNJ near silverstone. http://www.rnjmotorsport.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=7

The C pillars and speaker bits on the sides of the parcel shelf squeak like hell. They need a bit of new felt tape on all the parts that touch each other on most rados.

Got my plastic brackets sorted out and got the wiring routed pretty well. I just need to sort out the connections to the corrado wiring at the back of the fuse box now. There seems to be lots of unneccessary crap in here which I'll try to get rid of as much as possible. This is what is left plugged into the existing fuse box as it sits.