skoda_cat

I want to pop the rocker cover off for a bit of a look and to check the lash and whatnot. I've got a new gasket for the bottom edge but I don't know what search term to use for the two seals for the bolts. Are they anything special, or just a rubber washer? I've not lifted the cover yet because it doesn't currently leak so why rock THAT boat before I have new seals in hand... I've tried searching this forum and have come up short. Any tips?

hmm, I have three identical ones, you'd think the passenger side would be different. If it comes to it I can get some underlay and cut it to SOME shape that fits more or less. This stuff is the last soft fabric that still has smoke in it, so tracing it onto new underlay is probably the best idea.

IS this the underlay that goes under the carpets in this truck, or what? And if it IS, then which way round do they even go? I love how much this car is a complete puzzle to me :P

I’m a wee bit confused, are the drains at the lowest points because the windscreen arches up a bit at the centre lines of the car? Couldn’t work out why there’s not a central drain and this is the best I can come up with. Do they rust out because meh or because they get blocked? Used to have to rod the drains on mx5s like..

Yeh I was going to redrill, but that's a great tip on making them bigger, thanks!

I pressed a pin out of the broken version of my side light switch, cleaned it up with a brass wire wheel and soldered a wire onto it. Lots of heat shrink after clipping off that sharp bit Stuck it back into the correct socket hole to match up with the white wire on the heated window feed (the truck does NOT have a heated rear screen so this is cool) Works great, powers up and goes to sleep on the key, third position not second, but it looks like NOTHING on this car is connected to second position. That's a relief, I'll be able to use apple maps so I won't get lost all the time. Heh. It's too cold for doing metalwork, but I'm thinking about what and where I'm going to cut the original car and my repair panel to blend them together. I'm planning to use factory holes in each panel to align the panels so i can cut through both at the same time and get a good fit-up with just the blade kerf to fill with weld. I think the rusty hole is where an original drain hole is situated, I'm going to tig weld a bit of plate in there before doing anything else. Finally, proof of windscreen, filthy but all tucked up in its duvet:

Oh yay, the wiring on the headunit is clever so I can plug red into yellow and and get the real red signal on it's own direct feed. baller. I wish it wasn't so COLD. Sunday might be tolerable to work outside. heh.

so looking sternly at the haynes book of lies (I'd post pictures but I don't know if it's allowable to post wiring pages from manuals on here) and it looks like everything goes through the X relay in the fuse board. When the key goes to the accessory position it powers up a feed through that relay. As we're a truck that would send power to the heater rear window switch, which I do have present, but i don't know why because i'm SURE that's not a heated rear screen. I think it must have come in from one of the donor vehicles. Anyway I think that's where I'm going to look for an ignition switched live next. Of course the iso connector is wired backwards so switched live is jumpered across to main live rather than the other way round so I still need to repin SOMETHING. sob.

Ah, sadly the cigar lighter is actually a permanent live, the 'switched' but is on the lighting circuit. I want a switched on the key. I shall have to go spelunking. I kind of plan to do away with the sidelight switch and make THEM come on with the key, so I don't need the buzzer nag and whatnot. so in that case i could use the lighting feed from the cigar lighter wiring. I'll have a think.

I’m knackered, I find renting vehicles way more stressful than I should. I have a windscreen!!! Does this look remotely legit: https://www.icor.uk/product-page/skoda-favorit-felicia-windscreen-rubber I fancy a nice fresh flexible seal to give me the best chances of getting it installed without fracture and of actually keeping the wet out.

Any bits and bobs would be appreciated but I think you’re closer to Norway than to the central belt! I’ll have to work out a wee scenic holiday to come get stuff ;p Thanks for the positivity, this is the first car restoration I’ve attempted and it’s been great and horrible so far and bloody expensive :/

Any idea where I could pinch a switched live from behind the dash before it gets installed and i can't get at the loom so easy? It's new stereo day and I'd like it to go to sleep on the key...

Hoovered the head liner a bit: Started shampooing: Nearly done: This hero: I wonder if I should have kept all the run off and distilled it, lol. Found the left rear light was full of water and this guy, sadly is GONE: Of course I can't find a trace of that part anywhere so I think it's irreplaceable. I'm going to get some other kind of bulb holder and modify the bracket to take it. All the other lights are working after I got this socket open and emptied about a whole can of electrical cleaner into it. It was so 'electrical fire impending' in there that the side light was only getting 8V, it's a lot more like 'battery voltage now' heh. It's pretty exciting to be working on the back end of the truck now, the interior is mostly ready to reinstall now, but it has to stay out till the scuttle is welded, with any luck I'm picking up the metal and windscreen on Wednesday so in the next couple of weeks we might be able to start reassembly of this 'heap'.

Hauled it off the ramps because the service is done and I was starting to feel like it was a lifted truck so I need to get used to how low down it really is. made massive progress cleaning all the glue goop off the back wall, it's not quite as perfect as I want, but WOW it's 99.9% done. the sense of 'smellyness' is really hard to sense any more which is kind of mind-blowing. It doesn't yet smell 'good' but it doesn't smell bad hardly at all! Started checking the lights and we found the rear passenger side cluster was full of water. yay. so the connections very need cleaning up and I need to figure out how water is getting in. This involves working out how to undo the mental connector on the bottom of the lighting unit so I can liberate it and do leak tests on it. I found the plastic scuttle panel so I tested the washer jets work and they do.. so I mean basically I'm doing MOT checks already. Hahahaha I am not mad. Best news yet, the breaker got in touch to day the windscreen will be out and the body of the donor car cut early next week. I'll need to get a day off work and a van rented to go pick it all up. Woooooo.

It being crappy makes me less scared to work on than a pristine expensive car. Being in pieces lets me learn loads about it and how it’s built and how to do stuff. I bought a very cheap motorbike at the start of the pandemic lockdown that was easily as broken as this and although I sold it today I did get it to pass an mot and it taught me so much about engines, welding, brakes, forks and all sorts and being cheap **** and disposable was what gave me the courage to just do the things. If it takes a polish, it’s probably not a turd. Anyway, this heap has a strong heart as it’s a low mileage engine and I’m only the second idiot to own it. Thanks for letting me know I’m not just writing a private diary anyway ;D

This sticky disgusting what even IS that down in the mouldings is not a bunch cleaner. I dismantled it as far as I dared and cleaned it as deeply as fear would allow me. I didn't want to get and wetness down in the fuse or relay holes. I have not rebooted the car since it went in, 1) to stop it going on fire in case of wet 2) just having a think about if I plugged it back in right. The answer was Zep sticky stuff remover. This needs another go over or two but it kind of turns the full panel glue into a kind of gel which just scrapes off with a bit of elbow application. The other side still needs doing in earnest and it will all need redoing to get CLEAN CLEAN. Otherwise for a giggle I got an after-market head-unit wired in, and I terminated and hooked up the sub and amp. It sounds like complete trash, glorious trash, 90's kind of car audio bump. Nothing as good as a modern car but it's sure got a vibe. Should be even more bass when the windscreen is in, but I'm happy enough. So much to do, but it's getting done, gradually. Just curious, does anyone read this thread, or is it just for me?

Adventures in wd40 get much of the stuff off, but still leaves a tacky residue which isn't for wiping away. I wonder what else I can try :/ It's quite crumbly under that lower edge, I don't know if that's where the bed gets joined in or something. how is water getting to that bit to rust it? hmmm. In other labour intensive rubbish after that vacuum full of brown I've been experimenting with 'being a door' in which I have no idea how to get the top rubber correctly situated and whether it goes on the door before or after the card. This is where we start to need to find bolts for things, most of which have been lost over the decade it was standing in a hoarder's pit. I experimented a little with dashboards, because that will need to be sorted out and boxed off before the windscreen is installed getting that lot done with glass in isn't something i really want to try. Again... no bolts, sigh. In the main, I'm glad I have this thread to convince myself I've actually achieved ANYTHING since this piece of junk is still so far from being either drivable or enjoyable to be around :D Oh p.s. apparently the tonneau cover does still exist and we may get hold of it in the next few days, that would be super fun to see.

it continues, although slowly because today is SO COLD. this is what we're getting out of the door cards. My question for the forum is: what would you use to get THIS off the back wall?

This kind of epic abuse, even though this was previously a work truck for a professional gardener, was making me quite despondent and wondering how to make the interior tolerable. If you'd TOLD me to squirt it with a heat gun CAREFULLY I would probably have laughed at you, but: With just a few mins work it's almost LIVABLE! I can probably get a bit more improvement from here even. Gosh.

New main light switch arrived, plugged in and everything instantly works perfectly! Awesome. The cap on it is kind of grey where the original is more black so I might see if I can swap them over. Got an ozone generator to try and knock down some of the stink I can’t reach which I’ll have a go with on the weekend. I’ve got some dust sheet plastic stuff I can use to cover the windscreen hole and run the ozone with the blower on for ten mins and see how it gets on. I’m so excited for this summer I can’t even.

deal made, just waiting for when I can collect but we got a windscreen! MOT failure this summer!

Such a good day. Sunny, warm. At lunch I wired up an ISO adaptor to bridge the audio connectors, the radio and car will not connect but just using a male and female loom connector in the middle makes all the connections happy and I get music out of the door speakers. That’s a win. Yesterday I messaged just about every breaker in the UK about windscreens and I might have a line on both a windscreen and some of the metal that surrounds it. I’ll know more soon, and hopefully will be renting a van to go collect it. I also blagged some auto glym interior shampoo which is doing an amazing job on the door cards. Things seem on the up for this truck!!

Well I was wrong, I’m used to the audio wiring being in same colour pairs, everything is already in the right places. Weirdly the original stereo connects and plays fine but my alpine unit powers up perfectly but struggles to get a connection to the speakers. I wonder if it has slimmer pins or if there’s muck in a pattern that aligns with the original radio in a way that blocks the alpine connector. I’ve sprayed it liberally with contact cleaner to no avail. I’m loath to cut and re terminate the connector but I may need to go a bit more extreme with deoxit or very very small files. I am confused.

Antifreeze-coolant topped up and we started the car, ran the heating to check it was warm; no leaks. Came up to temp smoothly, we felt the upper and lower radiator hose get hot as the thermostat opened. Revved it a bit and shut off the heating to let it soak and the fan came on… Then went off… Then came back on… Oil isn’t milky, I think the engine is done! I’ve ordered some pin ejection tools as the iso wiring in the car is bull****. I’m going to re pin the connectors car side to suit modern radios. The switches and permanent live seem to be jumped together though which is a bit special so I think I’ll need to relocate the permanent live to the correct pin for modernity and locate a switched live elsewhere and bring it into the connector. Otherwise I just carried on getting more stench out of interior plastics with spendy degreaser and gloves. A good day all round.

Oil changed, we'll see how that goes. New thermostat housing arrived with no gasket. Had to sneak into a trade place to get a thermostat. checked it opened in a nice boiling pan of water. we tried using o-rings to seal it in but it leaked, so we used rtv!!!! hahahah maximum effort. That stuff is setting up for the next 24 hours and then we'll pop fluid back in and see if it can do engine things without breaking. I really am going to weld the windscreen soon. This WILL go back on the road.