DieselMonte

Making a lot of progress over the last few days. Have the front radiator support and crash bar back on. Ended up giving the crash bar a quick scuff with some 120 grit and 2 coats of gloss black just to clean it up a bit. Took both front fenders off as I thought i'd need a bit more room to get the front support on, I didn't at all. On the brightside I managed to remove about 20 kg of clay from the front arches. Next day i'm out i'll take it down and pressure wash the bay and front arches and see where the car sits.

Making good progress thus far, have the interior 80% done, vRS bits et al. Also,made good progress on the front. Got the Front crash bar on and bolted and can probably get the radiator and other bits in soon. Only thing is one of the bolts holding the crashbar to the frame stripped so I need to extract it. Also have put the passat seats aside and just put the standard seat back in for the minute.

When I say clamping I mean on the rubber bit of the hose, not clamping the hardline shut naturally enough. If you're removing the whole rear beam you could take off the calipers and hang them on the body somewhere with bungee cords, would save you from bleeding them at all doing it this way.

Clamp the rear brakes off to stop you losing all your fluid. I think the abs only becomes a problem if you lose too much fluid and air gets into the pump. Then you need to get a computer to run the abs pump and bleed it iirc. atleast thats what I remember from when I had to do a caliper on an old hyundai of mine and made a mess of it.

Polished up the new grille and put my touch on it. The vRS badge has seen better days but i'll leave it for now. Got the dash in today too, massive pain in the ass trying to get the fusebox in properly but got it done in the end. Lastly I made some progress on the front end, got the vrs radiator out and my sdi one in. The bits being from a UK car are a little rusty, all of the Torx bits are covered in Crust, some of them stripped straight away and one was stuck so tight it snapped my cheapy torx wrench. I have the a/c rad from the vRS but it looks like one of the pipes were cut trying to get it all out, probably of no use to anyone now, not that my car has a/c anyways.

4 wheels on and all holding air. 2 have old but still quite decent looking maxxis tyres, they went on the front. 2 have Toledo brand tyres, One is on the wear bars and is scrubbed bare on the inside, the other is cracked around the side and is bulged all over the sidewall, It is on the car and holding 15 psi of air but I wouldnt dare drive the car on it. I have the front bumper and all sitting in place but not bolted to the car, need to straighten the chassis to be able to properly fit the front end onto my car. Finally, I put a bit of wood onto the drivers strut to make the car sit level for now.

Managed to find most of a front end from a vRS to replace my Mad Max front end on the Fabia. Not the prettiest mind, but considering I got it, a dash, Vrs steering wheel,handbrake,Gear Knob and a full set of vRS alloys for decently cheap I am over the moon. Have the plate obscured as its the one from the car I got the parts from, not my car. Not that it really matters either way but still. I can now proudly say that my car is the slowest vRS in the world!

One good thing about Irish roads is that no one ever bothers to salt half of them. My orange fabia surprisingly has minimal rust for the most part. Most of the rust that has formed is moreso due to my over-exuberance in fields and leaving the car perpetually caked in crap. the underside of My Monte Carlo is about as crusty as my orange fabia. Its funny to me how a car that spent most of its life in NI,where the roads are always salted in winter, has half the miles and is half as old is equally as crusty as the older, Irish registered car. That being said, neither of them are really rusted at all underneath, just that they are both equally as crusty.

Making moves.

That does look pretty grim, I would think the only way to properly clean that up would be to send it off to be sandblasted and powdercoated, atleast then it would be good for years to come.Probably easiest to find a cleaner rear axle and swap it out though.

If you are trying to get a standard one beware of the cheap, bottom of the barrel variants. I got a midpipe and backbox for my fabia a few months ago and it had to be cut and rewelded to fit, even though it was the one for my car. Sounds nicer mind, a little more noise from the engine without being at all obnoxious.

Snow Pics from a few days back.

I mean, mismatched axle to axle isnt too bad all things considered. If its two different tires side to side per axle and especially on the front I would agree with you. I understand that on a track the main problem would be tires heating up at different rates and what not,but if you have the same tires side to side of each axle would this not become a non issue? Besides, on a nose heavy,front wheel drive car such as the fabia wouldn't the front wheels be doing 90% of the work on a trackday, so them tyres would be the ones that would be taking the brunt of the wear and tear of hard track driving. Because of this, surely the rear tyres wouldnt necessarily need to be some mega expensive r-comp barely street legal tyre, a decent tyre should suffice for all but the very top level of racing.

I have Accelera Phi-R tyres on the Front of my Monte Carlo, one of our lovely Potholes wrecked the old front left tyre so I replaced them both. Honestly a great tyre for the price, considering they are just a summer tyre. They took the snow and non gritted, ice ridden roads like a champ over the last few days. From what I've experienced with them over the last 1000 miles, they grip well, are quiet, are comfortable and are very predictable when they do start to slip. I went for a spirited drive the other night and came across a lot of Ice, much of the road was frozen over. I did slide once or twice, but the car was remarkably predicable and stable when it slid. All things considered, for tyres that were €65 a corner I cant be dissapointed. The large rim protectors are also a nice addition, not that I am terribly prone to using my wheels as curb feelers.

I doubt it looks as bad in person, I only noticed the overhang about a month ago on my car. It wouldnt be very noticable I suspect.

Stock grille badge overhangs by a bit anyway,at least, thats how it looks on my car.

Weirdly, when my fabia was sat outside for a year, the seats,belts,headliner and steering wheel were coated in mould but the carpet atleast looked to be bone dry. My car leaks from everywhere though even on the top part of the windshield. You may want to take the interior apart to fully get rid of the mould. It'll soak into the padding under the carpet and will lie in the ducts of the climate control system. On the other pic, there should be a drain on the bottom of the door, most likely just draining onto the sill from there. Car plan upholstery shampoo and Car plan Powerful odour eliminator are both decent products for the price and I've used them with good success, you can get them in Asda for cheap.

When you put it that way it makes sense. It is nice that you have the option to change plates for personal ones in the UK. Here in Ireland the registration that car gets upon first registration sticks with it no matter what, and some registrations look funky no matter what style of number plate you put on. Makes me kind of glad my car got a decent number when I took it through.

I know Northern plates are different than Uk plates, My own Monte Carlo Was a Northern Registration. What I didn't know was that you could use them on any car regardless of the cars model year. I had figured it was just a blanket law that just wouldnt allow you to put a newer plate on an older car, never figured you could circumvent the rules by putting a northern registration on. Personally, I think the Uk plates look nicer as opposed to the NI plates but thats probably a "Grass is greener on the other side" situation. Normally most every British car near me is a NI registration considering I live minutes away from the Border.

I thought you werent allowed to put a newer plate on than the cars year for some reason?

That is clean! Hard to find fabias in that condition these days.

Got some stripes for the grille in the post today. Only cost me a few pound on amazon and I think it looks quite smart.