Lofty

Good progress there in showing the car some love - and a hoover!!

The Fabia Mk1 (non vRS) foglights generally go tatty as the coating on the reflector bowl deteriorate readily. The way i look at it is this. A new pair of non genuine ones will cost you, as you say £60. The time it will take to seperate the old units and do whatever it is you propose to do with foil, then re-seal them will easily be more than £60's worth, so buy a replacement set. To do a proper job you'll need to have the reflector bowls re-metalised, which as i know full well will cost you approx £120 for a specialist to do them. If you are hell bent on splitting them, easiest way is with a hot air gun, as you can localise the heat better than in the oven

Me again.... Just to prove I've not been totally bone idle this summer, I have completed an engine bay restoration on my 1969 Mini as well. Although the car was restored "professionally" in 2015, the engine had been simply removed and replaced in the repainted shell, so I have gone over it and replaced the following.. Radiator Waterpump Thermostat Coolant hoses Heater Hoses Fuel Hoses Full Service Painted the block and rocker cover in BMC Mid bronze green New chassis plates And she now looks like this.. Very please with the little thing! Polar opposite of the Fabia, but that's not a bad thing some times? Matt

About time we had an update. A couple of posts ago i said we had finally had the engine running, until the lift pump in the tank decided to hand it's notice in and down tools. Well, you'll be pleased to learn (if not pleased some other fun feeling), that i have fitted a new lift pump, cycled the ignition a few times to bleed the air out of the fuel lines and all is gravy again. As in she runs. Again. I celebrated this momentous task by taking things off the engine - as you do...... The boost pipes i'd lovingly repainted (probably about 4 years ago) in crackle black were no longer doing it for me, i needed some blingly colour in the bay, so I did yet another "thing".. My new local powder coating emporium - Project Powder Coating, Brierley Hill - have done me proud again, stripped and blasted, powder coated in Mint Green (RAL 6029) then coated in Gloss Lacquer Powder, they are mirror smooth, and tough too! The RAL 6029 is the exact match for the Skoda Mint green in the original Badge, and the brake caliper colour, so it ties in well with the SEAT Sport Strut brace in the bay, and the Skoda badge on the engine cover.. Et Voila .... Next jobs are to get the boost pipes connected back up, wheel arch liner in, and then fit the headlights up. It might even be off the axle stands soon and moving about under its own power - last time it did that was September 2016. Time flies when you're having fun as they say

Small update (make the most of it fellas!) Rear seats back in after 12m of being in dry dust free storage, check out the magnificence that IS the middle head restraint... Drivers seat all in on the repainted subframe.. Oh and we got the engine running.... for a bit, till the lift pump in the tank decided it quite liked retirement and handed me it's notice. Dang it! New lift pump is on it's way and i'll try and get some video of it actually running.

TPS have been in touch, the remaining piece of seat plastic side trim has now come into stock having been on back order for weeks and weeks - I can't imagine there is much call for people buying obscure bits of plastic trim for 15 yr old Fabias nowadays, so i'm collecting that over the weekend. I've decided to give the seat another going over with the upholstery cleaner and getting it as mint as possible, then it will be going back in the car next week - carefully as I don't want to scratch up the new plastics in the car and on the seat. In other news I have done a "thing".... In the correct Skoda Mint Green as well. Initial reaction on the Whatsapp group chat was a little less than complimentary, but it's not actually destined for the car. Just a hose reel for the garage wall. Pity really as it certainly is a stand out colour. More soon

I've now been over the seat twice with the following. Light spray of 1:10 dilution Bilt Hamber Surfex Good scrub with a strong mix of Autosmart Bio Brisk Then extracted with hot water in the Bissell Spot Clean Pro. Currently on my patented Drying Max 2000 Drying table on the patio.. It "should" be ok to go back in the car now, just waiting for a new seat belt buckle/stalk to come from TPS as the old one was scratched up badly. Seat runners are all painted up now and waiting to be fitted back on the seat. Plan is to get the driver seat back in, then the fully valeted rear seats and then finally we can get back onto the engine bay. I have the old engine loom removed and the new Genuine one ready to go back in, I'll do that, then change the cam sensor for a new one and go for another fire up.

If there were Briskoda awards for procrastination and lengths of projects I'd like to think I'd be in with a shout? Anyhow (insert normal excuses here.....) I'm still doing bits and bobs with the car. My not so secret plan with the interior was based around a custom trimmed Cobra Suzuka GT racing seat for the drivers seat only, but trimmed in the OE Fabia vRS material. To cut a long story short I've been dicked about by the trimmer something rotten so that plan has been shelved for now. However, this does mean that i could do some work on the original drivers seat. Now bear in mind the car is 15 yrs old, had 4 owners and has done 108k miles, the standard drivers seat had held up pretty well. There were no holes, burns or tears, and coupled with the fact that the original owner specified factory fit heated seats and side airbags, meant they are worth looking after. I could feel the metal rod from inside the bolster foam under the material so it would have only been a matter of time before it would have worn through the cloth and ruined the base material, and i felt this when i bought the car 7 years ago. For once i thought ahead and in 2015 I purchased a new seat foam base from TPS, and it's been stored in the loft ever since ( and been through two house moves!) The seat foam bases are now no longer available so I dropped lucky at the time in getting one. Using the excellent guides on here i stripped the base material from the foam, cut the hog rings off and gently eased the heated pad off as well. Quite surprising how bad the foam was when uncovered... The new foam was then offered up I gently glued the heated pad back in place at the front and back edge and then set about the tricky task of securing the fabric back over the now very firm foam with the hog rings and hog ring pliers. There is certainly a knack to doing it but once I had worked that out it went ok. I secured the seat fabric back round the edges of the seat frame and built the seat back up using new plastics on the bases, again sourced recently from TPS. The finished construction of the seat base is now complete and the original fabric is now stretched tightly over the firm foam base, exactly how the seats were new. Please be aware that the seat itself is now due a deep wet valet, where all of the dirty marks will be removed, this is just to show you how the base looks with new foam :-) I'm currently repainting the seat runners so when they are refitted and the seat has been deep cleaned I'll present the finished article.

"Stage One" - do tell us more.....

Hey my fellow Skoda people. No news from the trimmer, he said he was flat out and of course i said "no rush" so i'll be back of the queue, ho hum. In the meantime i have yet another distraction arriving in the next day or so which will no doubt delay the completion of the Yellow Fabia..... A little old British lady (51 yrs old - GILF??) is coming to live in the garage with the bright and bold teenager from the Czech Republic, lets lope there is harmony? Matt

My old Black Fabia vRS was probably the best car i've ever owned, 55 reg, had it for 3 years from 2017 to 2020 (so was already 12yrs old when i bought it on 98k miles). I did 90k miles in three years, serviced it on the exact 10k intervals using genuine parts and apart from tyres and 1 set of front pads it never wanted for anything. No rust on the body, everything worked and it just did the whole daily drive/commute thing with ease. Only reason i moved it on was the addition of a dog in the household so needed a bigger estate car.

That's a positive review, cheers for the update fella.

Work is progressing, fear not weary reader. I have had to enlist the help of a professional for the next bit of wizardry for the car, this will be unveiled when they have done the work for me, but in the meantime i have been making and adapting some things inside the car which will kind of give away what is happening. A sneak peek just to keep interest bubbling at fever pitch...

Have you noticed any difference with the thicker front ARB Trevor? I’ve got one mine but not driven it yet to see😂

I've spent the whole evening repairing the broken photobucket links through the whole thread, so ALL of the pics are now visible to all....

Bit more done.... I had the chance to buy a while ago a full set of Seat Surgeons leather trimmed door cards of a vRS the same age as mine. I'm in the minority that i only wanted the door cards, the impractical standard Fabia vRS cloth seats are part of the cars appeal to me, but the factory door cards are dull as ditchwater. Speaking of water as well, any car that has suffered from leaky rear door carrier seals will have watermarked cloth doorcards which are impossible to remove... so.... Here they are, deep cleaned and fitted. I have ordered today from TPS the drivers electric window switch surround and door pull surround as i think they are marked so new ones of those will be fitted soon. While the front door card was off i had chance to fit the door mirror that i had built up with the carbon dipped base. The carbon dipping that has been done so nicely by Bold Hydrographics will be the last carbon dipped items on the car as i'm sad to report that the man behind Bold, James Bowld died suddenly late last year, so i'm spurred on to get the car finished to show off his craftsmanship in his memory. A good friend he had become, so very much RIP James. Matt

Here we go, looks like i'm only updating every 3 months or so........ Struggling for any enthusiasm at the moment for messing with the car, working from home for the last 12 months has seen me getting less and less bothered about it. I know it needs finishing but with not being able to drop things at suppliers, firms being closed, it's seen it sit yet again for months on end. Still, keeps the mileage down i guess.. But, i have been doing the odd bit here and there, continuing with the interior. The rear seats are still out of the car, all clean and wrapped up ready to go back in, so i've been focusing on the drivers side floor/plastics. The carpet was given a prolonged cleaning session, wet cleaned with Chemical Guys carpet solution and then extracted, looks much nicer in there. While the drivers seat is out, it was chance to address the knocked about plastic sill trim that bugged me everytime i opened the door. Various bits of damage after 15 years is to be expected. I sourced a replacement trim for both this piece and the panel underneath the seatbelt buckle, still available from TPS. Look how long it'd been on a dusty shelf in Czech Republic...... Yip, that's right, been on the shelf for nigh on 15 years... same as the other piece i bought. Needless to say was a tricky bugger to fit, but looks loads better now. Pedals have been steam cleaned and the used mat given a light hoover. I have got a new set of mats in the loft if i even need to change them in the future. The seat fixing bolts have all been cleaned up and are being painted satin black as we speak. Speaking of seats..... i have now built a bespoke adjustable subframe for a single Cobra Suzuka GT Width racing seat. The seat subframe is now being broken down into the component parts to be painted up, and the seat is going away to my trimmers next week. The plan is to have the seat covered in vRS Fabia material, in the same style as the factory road seats, so light grey outer, onyx grey inner with the VRS logo in the right place. So it will look similar but different at the same time. Time will tell if i can live with it long term but it's something i've not seen done on a Fabia before and keeps it OEM+ instead of just throwing in a black bucket seat. The seat material has been a mission to get hold of but i'm confident it'll look stunning when done. I'm toying with the idea of getting the trimmer to make an elasticated waterproof cover to fit snug over the seat to keep mucky hands off it in the garage etc. I'll get more pics up soon, promise... :-)

Looks like a nice fit, i love a good rivnut!

Rear brace looks just the job! How is it bolted to the shell Trevor?

You don't see many advertised on here these days so i would suggest a better bet is eBay or very much last resort one of the many Fabia vRS groups on Facebook. The rate at which these cars are being broken for spares at the minute at least means parts are cheap and there should be someone reasonably local. When i ran standard sized winter tyres on my vRS (205/45/16) i utilised 4 x steel spare wheels of the Fabia vRS as they were peanuts to buy (normally £10-£20 per wheel) and they looked ok for winter use. Plus if you have moderately upgraded brakes (I'm thinking Octavia vRS 312's) they'll fit nicely behind, AND they use the same radius shouldered wheel bolts as the standard alloys

A tidy little collection of upgrades there Trevor. The diff will make the world of difference (pardon the pun).

Would certainly appear to be the original bonding holding the screen in that is failing and letting water in. Any type of external sealant will do the job I imagine, just won't look overly pretty

It's the little things that matter. I plan on fitting the show plate whenever we can actually attend car shows again!

Thanks Martin, much appreciated. I have found what looks like a code printed on the back of all of the lighter material, it reads.... <BZ30410627 Try as I might I cannot find any reference to that online, there is a different code printed on the darker material so it would imply it's a reference to the lighter type. Any ideas anyone??

Hey, As many of you know i'm still upside down in the refresh of my Fabia vRS, and I've reached a dead end. The extremely practical original factory finish cloth interior, is as you know, finished in a useful shade of silver (almost white) cloth with the darker grey centres, and whilst replacement seat covers USED to be available from TPS/Skoda these are now well and truly NLA (no longer available) I have currently a Cobra Suzuka GT race seat which I am endeavouring to trim in the original factory cloth and pattern, and while I've been able to collate a number of good condition seat cover to harvest the material from, I could ideally do with a good couple of square meters of the lighter cloth to do the larger panels properly. Here is the question - do any of the helpful Briskoda people know anyone in the car trimming trade who could do some digging on this? I have fired out loads of emails to UK and European suppliers but I think as it's such an oddball request it gets deleted and ignored. What I need is a geek who's in the trade who could help? I have even emailed Seat Surgeons in York who have retrimmed loads of the cloth vRS into leather to see If they could help. My local trimmer and I have spent ages going through the sample books he has and theres nothing that is an exact match, hence having to find a supply of the original material. Any help you can give me would be hugely appreciated! Cheers Matt