DieselMonte

Practical cars these Started making progress on the vRS spyders today, Had them broken down to the bare rim for starters. Got some supplies, primer, paint and clear. And some Isopon of course. After a lot of consideration I decided to paint them normal "Alloy wheel silver". I've used that particular tin of paint before and liked it so may as well stick with it. Considered Gunmetal and even gold (Like a certain Orange 2l fabia) but the gunmetal wouldnt fit the wheels well imo, and the gold wouldnt fit the car at all. Damage was pretty bad, this ones the worst by far. Pic of it scuffed down ready for some primer. And heres how it sits now. Letting that set overnight. I think i'll go and get some filler primer too, need more sandpaper come to think of it also. I got the 4 wheels for 80 euros with Tyres on them, currently 65 euro into supplies. I expect to be 100 euro in supplies by the end of it. In my head that works out as 45 euro per wheel and another maybe 70 euro fitted for some winters in 195/50 R16 size. A fair bit of money BUT they should look decent at the end and when they go back on the mk1 come summer, make it look much smarter too. On the topic of the mk1, I'm debating stripping it back down over winter and refreshing the bushes and suspension arms. Maybe even do a bit of painting on it? You never know, might finally be one colour again

Back on Steelies for a bit, Wheels taken off in order for me to do a bit of a refurb on the rims. The spyders will be going onto the Monte for Winter so naturally i'll use that thread to detail whats happening to them.

Mines Stripped in the back so it rides high because of that, but since your cars also stripped it would also ride a bit higher. Reckon you could get away with it if you needed to. Surprisingly great offroad these are I must say. Just attached a pic of my car bog standard because that might be of some help to you.

I don't know if this is much help but this is how high my mk1 sat on standard suspension. Bear in mind its partially stripped. Don't have any measurements of how it sat but it was quite high indeed.

Looking at it from a mileage standpoint I reckon that filters been on for 8500 miles so its held up ok considering. Hardly do crazy miles in the car but over the summer its been on a few trips out and around the country, over to Galway down to Wicklow etc. Within a week of me getting it back from being serviced I had another 1k miles on it! Atleast I know now to check and replace the filter more often than I had thought.

Well, finally have the ride height as I wanted it so may as well throw up some pics. Before and after, very little difference but I set the front to be about 20mm lower. Well 20mm on the passengers and 15 on the drivers as the old suspension bushes made the drivers side sag a bit. Initially I had the perches in the rear but ditched them in favour of the older stiffer springs I had already. Bit much of a faff to get it sitting how I wanted. Steepish rake to the car now which is whatever to me. It rides well, doesnt come close to catching on our terrible roads and is much more stable in a corner. If you hit one of our many really bad potholes theres a slight clunk from the passengers side, otherwise perfect. I reckon its a droplink again. Also, I put in a new airfilter in April, thats it on top. Bugs and bird feathers ingrained into it. Went and got another filter and fitted it. Instantly more pep. I had fettled with the airbox and intake pipe early in the summer in a bit to reduce intake temps, basically mounted the intake trumpet lower and hacked away at the grille to aid in getting cold air into the engine easier. It did seem to keep intake temps down when you were moving but it seems a consequence of that is the filter gets clogged up much quicker.

One more for the road.

Not sure, some of these might have been uploaded before.

Found a few pics I took when I first got the car, and a few more from me putting it back together. Felt I may as well upload them here. For a 100 euro junker its proven itself to be as tough as a brick wall, rather a concrete drinker given thats what I hit. Trust me, the drinker lost that fight.

Fronts are now on. Annoyingly I couldnt for the life of me find a 21mm spanner that would work to get the caps off. Meant that I had to go and take the wiper scuttle and all off the car to get access to put a spark plug socket on the top. Which meant I had to go out and get a wiper arm puller, as mine had seized on badly. All 4 wheels off the ground. Was going to replace the rear springs if I finished the fronts quick, that didnt happen. Struts were such a PITA to get out, drivers side was the worst overall by far. Got very thick and cut the spring to remove the shock assembly. Not very Happy I had to resort to that but at this point I was at the point of no return. Needless to say the old shocks were FAR past their prime. Both sides went on eventually. As ever the drivers was a massive pita to get back on. Strangely, the passengers came out smooth as butter, and went back in smoother still. Back on the ground now, all tightened up. Caps sitting flush with the turret now. Not a great picture, but it represents how the top mount was sitting before. Back on the ground and its sitting nearly the same as before, which I like! Passengers seems a bit higher than the drivers by a hair so I'll adjust that next day, no biggie. Driving it its a lot nicer. More comfortable AND more responsive. It even tracks dead straight! So far it seems well worth the hassle, but by god it was not an easy job. Heres hoping the front doesnt fall off.

I'd reckon you could swap the seat cushions between the seats, from when I did my passat seats the cushions for both sides looked identical. Bottoms arent hard to swap out. Seat backs are a pita. Plenty of people have put in seats from ibizas and polos of the same generation. Mk2 fabia seats would fit also.

Rears are in! What should have took me maybe 90 minutes took near 4 hours. Took the plastic guards off and found, (you guessed it) more rust! Bright side is there was easier access to it so I just went with a wire brush on a drill and knocked all as far back as I could. No after pics, after I washed the arches there was even more rust lurking. Sorted every spot I could see. These shocks were honestly worse than the mk1s, amazed there was no leaks or anything from them. Neat picture I took, from top to bottom is: New Supersport rear spring Mystery stiffer spring from the mk1's stuff OEM Fabia "sport" spring OEM Fabia "normal" spring. I reckon I may put back the stiffer spring I was running, and run it on the new adjustable perches to give it a couple extra mm of height. All fitted and ready to go. Happily no broken bolts. Also painted the drums "Peugeot Cossack grey" because why not. They were dry enough at the end of it that I could put some copper grease on the mating surface of them to stop my wheels seizing on come winter. Quick and poorly lit picture of the finished product. Sitting much the same as before albeit the perches are wound right up. Overall, from the short drive I've done in it its much improved over the original stuff! Really its just made me even more eager to get the fronts in!

Those must be a rarity these days.

Well no short shifter but the centre caps I ordered came in, look pretty good I must say compared to the originals. Also, since I got the car back its been non stop on the roads, must be near 600 miles on it already so the brakes are well run in by now. Confident to give my thoughts on them so, may as well do it in this post. I can't get over how much of an improvement they are, much more confidence in the car now. I'm liking the feel now they've bedded in, definately a BIG improvement over the standard 288mms. As silly as it sounds, I kept stopping short and braking too early into corners for the first few days, couldnt blip the throttle easily either. Now the pedals softened a bit more I can manage it again. Much quieter too, old brakes squeaked and made way too much noise just crawling around town, now its dead quiet. Granted, I can't say whether or not getting better pads and discs on my 288s would have gotten me the same results, seems to me the discs and pads that were on the car weren't fit for purpose, they were pretty new when I got the car and the old stuff has lots of meat on them still though so who knows. Also, I went out and tried to get abs to kick in, when it did it acted exactly how i'd hoped. Before I had one or 2 times where it would kick in when it really shouldnt have, from what i've felt so far its much more subtle and way more controlled. Can't ask for better really, especially considering i've just got normal Mintex pads and blanks on. I cannot wait to get the suspension on and sorted, just need the time to do it really but should get a chance this weekend.

Last thing that I ordered was a short shifter from creationmotorsport. Ordered it end of august and its still not here, worse is that its been shipped under royal mail standard delivery, no tracking number so I don't know where it even is.

Right, so most of the stuff i've ordered has come in may as well post it up. So I had ordered coilovers and Powerflex top mounts, both came in today. Coilovers are supersports, probably don't hold a candle to h&r coilovers or the likes, but I got enough of a deal on them to give them a shot. Better than whats in it at the minute anyway, saying that i'm impressed they actually look decent enough. I intend on keeping as much height as possible in the car, trying to avoid going low if I can help it. I got powerflex top mounts to go in place of the original rubber ones, they offer a shorter bush that drops the front of the car 10mm lower, I didnt go for those. New bearings also. Rears can go on straight away. Fronts, I'll need to hunt down a swan neck 21mm or 22mm spanner. And I'm not sure if I'll need to run Mondeo drop links or not (apparantly these can be set between 30-60mm lower than standard). Again, if anyone could chime in there I'd appreciate it. Wonder how these new rear springs fair against the old ones I swapped over a few weeks ago. These coilovers come with adjustable rear perches which is nice.

From my understanding, return lines are usually gravity fed back into the engine, so there wouldnt be as much pressure as the feed line. When you say its squealing, is it "just" making noise? Does it come on to boost like normal? Any blue smoke? Checked for play in the turbo itself?

Added a pic of 312mms under my 17s just for reference. They do fit under 16s apparantly, if only just.

Car got dropped off Thursday evening, back this morning all done. Good job I sent it off, seemingly there was a lot of trouble with stuck bolts, stripped bolts etc. Mechanic wasnt happy with the heatshields I got, too small for the new brakes. Apparantly he got ones for a passat that fit the 312mms better. Brakes seem much nicer now, but I want to wait and see how they feel after a few days, and after I bed them in proper.

Small update to this thread. I removed the springs I got with the coilovers and put back the apex ones from before. Sitting better now again. Took those springs I removed and put them onto the mk2 for the hell of it. Anyhow, got around to putting this in my name. On the logbook it was first registered on Friday 13th of July 2001. I put down the date that I got the car as the13th of July 2021. 20 years to the day from when it was first registered. Bit of useless information there, but I think its cool.

This is a RARB, rear anti roll bar. Really its just a brace for the rear torsion beam. I think mine was £150 or so, whiteline one. Its adjustable to 3 settings, soft, middle and stiff. Had mine on the middle setting for a while, then put it on the hard setting and have it their since. Easy to fit and makes such an improvement to these cars its unreal! Mine somehow slackened off and the car was not wanting to handle right at all, was so bad I thought it was the tyres being junk. Was under the car doing some other bits and took a notion to check the rarb, loose. Tightened the hell out of it and the cars back to being great again.

vRS struts and springs are an improvement, but might not be worth the cost of upgrading to. Eibach pro springs are meant to be a big gain over standard springs. I got a set of (albeit used) coilovers for my mk1 for 70 euro, had to give them a clean but they went on with little fuss and work a treat at improving the handling. Only thing is the arb is fouling on the driveshaft so I have to get shorter droplinks (Strange cause my cars not low at all). Again, with the amount of vRS' being broken it wouldnt be hard to find a set of "pre-owned) coilovers at a decent price and just set them how you want.

Even still, they are a tight squeeze on a 16. Rarbs are generally the go to "brace" on fabias, thats where you'll see the biggest gains from. You probably do have 256mm brakes, look at the front calipers, if they have FSIII stamped on them they're 256mm. Second pic has 288mm brakes, albeit thats on a mk2 fabia. I'll get up a pic of 312mm brakes soon as my cars just after being fitted with some. With the amount of mk1 vRS' being broken you wont have trouble finding bits if you're serious.

Dont forget the rally flaps!

Those look great! Love the meaty tyres too.