Jays Blackberry VR6 project & 16v Recaro donor car...

[Hofmiester 10]

I'd be a little wary about the outer door window scraper seals. They are almost impossible to get off without damage and if you try to paint around them, you can't lift them enough and inevitably get paint shrinkage that leaves a line at the top. The seals are about £50 each from vow classic and I would remove the originals before paint and put new ones on.

 

Rear quarters should be ok, last respray I had on the C, we left them is and lifted the edges, worked fine.

Same for the windscreen.

 

Rear hatch seal may be tight to lift, only a couple of mm on it.

 

I would also remove the bumpers before hand to see hoe much rust, if any, you have under them as some of the other C owners found some horrors under there. Luckily mine was good.

 

Looking forward to seeing the pics :)

[j_s14a 0]

Today was finally the big day, got started on swapping the interiors. For those who haven't attempted this before, it's not a particularly difficult task, but is a very time consuming one.

 

Essentially, it is to be a straight swap, but also comparing the condition of all interior parts, and swapping the best condition ones into the VR6 where necessary.

 

Passenger seat removed. Not the wiring for the electric seats. The 2 wire loom is for movement, the 6 wire for the heater elements.

 

Full Leather Recaro interior out of the 16v

 

The fusebox wiring. Always fills me with dread. :D

 

Factory fuse holder for seat electrics & heating.

 

Got the Leather doorcards into the VR6.

Doing this properly IS a time consuming task. There's a lot of things to get lined up correctly. Also, one of the door locking pins had dropped out on the VR6. On closer inspection, the plastic bracket that holds the rods together had snapped. Rather than removing all the mechanism (which looks like it would be a nightmare!), I used small cable ties in an 'X' to secure the rods to the braket. It works perfectly, and seems like it should last.

 

Those fantastic seats

 

Will pull the interior out of my VR6 tomorrow, and hopefully have all of this fitted by tomorrow night. :)

Edited May 18, 2014 by j_s14a

[GlosterOx 0]

Good job so far, love my Recaro's too!

 

Ian.

[Sean_Jaymo 0]

Perfect combination of parts for a Corrado. My favourite colour definitely!

[j_s14a 0]

Day two.

 

Today was spent stripping the cloth interior from the Blackberry VR6, and fitting the leather interior.

 

As I started removing the interior from the VR6, I noticed a stark contrast to the 16v. The car had insulation on almost every interior panel, where as the 16v didn't. Is this normal?

 

Under rear seat

 

Behind rear quarter card

 

Transmission tunnel

 

While the carpet out, I decided to give it a good clean and vacuum

Thankfully, it's in very good condition. :)

 

As per another thread on here, I bought a Sonic Scrubber from Aldi. Brilliant bit of kit for cleaning intricate parts like this.

 

 

And this is the end result

 

 

A huge improvement over the black cloth. Sadly, I don't think the seat heaters are working, but the seats operate perfectly otherwise.

 

It's been like working in a greenhouse over the last two days! :D

[j_s14a 0]

Managed to reverse it into a bollard earlier...

 

It was a half height one, saw a line of them, but didn't realise there was one near me .

 

Thankfully, the damage is pretty superficial, and will be gone in 3 weeks :) SO glad I got this wakeup call before the respray! :D

[j_s14a 0]

Today, I was mostly removing the leaky sunroof from the 16v.

 

 

For those of you who haven't removed a sunroof yet, it's pretty easy. Just drop the roof lining, disconnect the motor, and then there's just a series of bolts to undo around the outside.

 

 

 

And just to stop any rain from coming in, I removed the gutter strips from the roof, then tucked a large bin liner in the gaps, in the windscreen seal, and the bootlid. Should hold up okay (I hope :D )

 

Having looked at the parts in the sunroof mechanism, I think it's going to be best to get a complete sunroof from another car. More on that to follow.

 

Having been stumped with the sunroof for now, I decided to start looking at removing the aircon from the 16v. I started by removing the switch from the drivers side of the dash. Then i pushed the loom back though the dash, noting any connections that I'll need to make on the VR6.

 

Connectors from dash switch

 

Some form of resistor?

 

Connections to stock blower loom

 

Illumination?

 

A preview of the air con boxes under the dash

 

Next job will be to remove the dash...

[fla 9]

When you remove the unit from the car make sure you clean up the air intake on the engine side and also check it is square. Its an awkward area to seal up after refitment if you do develop a slight leak! Looks like you're making good progress.

[j_s14a 0]

A couple of pictures taken at the Yorkshire Air Museum at the weekend. :)

 

 

[j_s14a 0]

Well, today I took her to the painters for her full paint refresh. To be honest, this is a little OTT, as the car is generally very presentable. However, there are quite a few small marks around the car, and getting it all sorted at once seems like better value in the long run.

 

Anyways, so I negotiated a discounted rate if I went and helped him strip some of the parts from the car. I started this morning by removing the side bump strips. I did this by pouring boiling water down the length of the strip, and then using a plastic Bojo scraper tool to cut through the self adhesive backing.

 

At the paintshop, I dropped the headlining so that I could remove the complete sunroof cartridge, and the bee sting aerial. I then removed the door cards, so that I could unplug the wiring for the electric mirrors. The screws for the mirrors are accessed from the outside, by twisting the top of the mirror by 45deg.

 

Residue left from the bump strips.

 

This metal brace has seen better days! He's going to clean it up and paint it again. It won't be perfect, but it's being hidden by the headlight and the grill.

 

The paint has just started bubbling around the side repeaters.

 

I had noticed some bubbling around the drivers handle. It looks like the car has been broken into at some point, and the standard of the repair hasn't been great. Plenty of filler.

 

A little bit of rust in the fuel filler area

 

And quite a bit of rust around the number plate light recess. Glad I've caught this now, as it was getting pretty bad by the look of it. I would recommend that everyone check for this, as I'm guessing the factory rust proofing has been inadequate in this area.

 

The rear number plate plinth is ruined. :( It had gone completely brittle, and just came apart. I was being very careful and using a heat gun, but it made no difference sadly.

 

She should be ready in about a week. Looking forward to getting her back with her fresh paint.

[Jim Bowen 1]

If you sorting the rust on the tailgate there its worth looking inside if you remove spoiler mech etc, mine had started to rust inside.

[j_s14a 0]

Yeah, I had noticed some rust there. But, my near future plans include getting it fully undersealed and cavity waxed, so I'll get the hidden parts of it done then. :)