Awesome amazing build or reconstruct , when are you going to publish a dainot (Haynes) manual are you a repairer or just bloody good at car jigsaws!

Coming on nicely

Good work.

Awesome amazing build or reconstruct , when are you going to publish a dainot (Haynes) manual are you a repairer or just bloody good at car jigsaws!

The Dai Nott manual will be in all good bookshops in the near future lol

Tbh this car has been a pleasure to work on so far mainly due to the methodical way that vag put their cars together. Also I'm yet to find a poor quality part on it and there ain't much left to check lol. Just looking forward to driving it now!

Great progress - enjoying this thread!

Top work, glad to see it's coming along nicely.

Right, quick update on the octy. No real major changes to the car, but managed the time to get the new sill fitted, welded and cleaned the welds up this week and repaired the rear arch area which did take a bit of time as was in more than i thought (hung and removed the rear door about 50 blooming times to get access and check fitting lol). Also repaired the small dent at the bottom of the bootlid where they tried to crowbar it open to release the dog which had just experienced one hell of a ride .

Its pretty much ready for paint after a skim of filler on the welds and arch and also 2 marks on the a pillar where it was dented while pulling it out of the shrubs/wooden fence (know this cos when taking it apart there was half a conifer and someones garden fence on the engine undertray lol).

Ive removed the roof rails in preperation for this job and also slackened the aerial up to fit the black vinyl roof (will take it off completely to do the job). You can remove the rear centre plactic trim on the headlining and reach in with a 22mm spanner to remove the nut holding the aerial down (bit fiddly but possible) if anyone looking to change theirs. I fancy a shark fin, but cant find a genuine VAG one for a reasonable price :(.

Also bonded 2 metal plates to the inside of the roof skin to cover the 2 small holes drilled for the police aerials (accessed from the inside through the rear interior light and front sunglasses holder).

The front spots and external temp sensor plugs were ripped off with the bumper so quick visit to the breakers i found replacements on a mk2 leon and soldered them onto the existing wiring. One thing i did notice is that on the drivers side just infront of the washer bottle i have 2 cut wires and cant think of anything else that would be connected there other than police lights (washer motor and spots are connected) so if anyone does manage to think of what it could be then please let me know.

Other than the above ive just being doing loads of fiddly little jobs with the interior plastics and removing the dark tint on the rear passenger windows. I still need a boot side panels and carpet as Hermes decide to loose the ones that i managed to get from an eBay breaker (took me ages to find aswell :'( ) so if anyone knows of any please let me know. Not sure if the hatchback carpet is the same, so if anyone can do 3 quick measurments for me (the 2 widths (back of the seat and by the tailgate) and one length) then i can check?

Also plastic primed and rubbed down the mk5 gti skirts to get rid of the grain in them but will need another coat of primer and rub down again to get smooth for painting.

Got about and inch of dust on the car from other repairs at the moment cos its in the main workshop so looking forward to giving it a bloody good clean (thought it was gonna try and jump into the bucket of water in the last pic when i drove it out )and a lick of paint now.

Looking forward to the next pics showing the car being prepped and painted in the very near future and then having the chance to drive it finally!!

Edited 20 June, 201114 yr by dainott

Yet more impressive work

Nice one

You don't need to join a book club just read these post, pictures as well!

Show and Tell!

Quick update on the Octy is that i have rebuilt the rear arch and is spot on now, also put a sliver of filler over the other welds after grinding and belt sanding them smooth, but forgot to take pictures so will have to add them later.

Ive turned my hand for the first time to window tinting as want a very light smoke on the rear passenger windows and still unsure if the dark smoke that the police had fitted will be staying or if the rear three will go a light smoke aswell. I was suprised that it aint as hard to tint as i thought if you just take your time and make sure the glass is soaked in the soapy spray. Again il have to add some pics later as forgot lol.

One thing i do have a pick of is the new BSH induction kit that i have finally been able to fit after i initially got sent the FSI intake pipe and not the TSI which is different. Thankfully BSH and Regal were super helpful in sorting this out and i didnt even buy it from Regal (they are BSH stockists so was delivered there and then i sent the FSI pipe back and received the TSI free of charge).

With it fitted im very happy with the engine note and be nice when i can actually boot it up the road lol (i know the engine bay is dusty, but filler is umm well dusty so dont judge me lol ).

A decent update to come soon and getting the car finished now as starting to annoy me not having it on the drive now :(

PS the rear badge has been removed and will be going for good. Ive decided and thats that lol

Edited 7 July, 201114 yr by dainott

You're gonna be super satisfied when all this is done

BSH looks good. Quality is nice on those, and sounds like aftersales is decent too :yes:

Sounds good on the tints - any pics? Like you say, just seems to be a patience thing... and using good quality film.

Yea il get some pics of the tints when im back up on the car which looks like friday at the momment. It was simple to tint the drivers side rear as glass is removed from the door but a little harder doing it with the passenger windows as still in place, but not rocket science like some tinters would have you believe by the prices lol.

Looks like you have an RS8 oil filler cap too,

Only just spotted this thread, what an amazing amount of work. I applaud you!

Did the FL dash come in some of the pre-FL cars around the over lap perios, or did you put that in?

They were fitting FL interiors around that period

and Tsi engines from the looks of it.

Yea it's 09 plate and inbetween the pre and facelift so had the Fl interior and tsi engine. Did have the new mirrors but dont like them so got the pre Fl ones. The rs8 oil cap was on my leon but thought I would transfer it over to the octavia. The tsi engine cover got cracked when the bonnet got pushed down so I've been rebuilding it with fiberglass and gonna have a muck about to try and make it a bit different

Edited 7 July, 201114 yr by dainott

Well it feels like its been an age but finally we got the car painted night before last I was like a kid grinning from ear to ear watching it get painted by my mate and 4 coats of silver followed by 2 coats of blue pearl and then finally 2 coats of lacquer took him until midnight to finish with all the masking required prior.

Pics below of the last few weeks of prep and then painting.

Then time to add the pearl and so the paint job is a 3 stage pearl (base then pearl then lacquer).

Just the small matter of putting it back together now , but not a job that i dislike tbh. One thing i will be doing is changing the front speakers to Infinity components (will still be run of the head unit at the moment) and also will be running speaker cable and RCA's (will be converting the Bolero speak outputs to low level RCA outputs) to and from the speakers and head unit ready for me to link up to an amplifier when funds allow. As much sound deadening will also be put in each door as possible!

After originally not wanting to swap the Bolero unit i really want to get the new Pioneer SatNav which has full integration with climate control display and also will give me much improved control of sound settings (so much for leaving it standard lol).

Not quite sure what im going to do with myself once its done, mmm but i dont think it will ever be done really always something else to mod (without the missus knowing lol).

Hope you like and will update when the papers off and its back together

PS What do you all think of the smooth tailgate then? Was mixed opinions before.

Edited 14 October, 201114 yr by dainott

The missus just popped up to my mates to see the car in the day/normal light and took a few pics. It in one of the storage units until i can get up Monday to get cracking at putting it together so will get it in the open and hopefully the sun will be shining to see the effect. But so far i am liking the colour change.

Can see the blue appear in the paint at a different angle in this one

Incredible stuff as always!

Cant wait to see it finished and in the sunshine( cough , whats that ) labour of love, still waiting for the Dainott manual to be in bookshops or a pdf file, get it as an app, or on kindle!

Looks really good, From memory this is the 1st mk2 Octavia to be sprayed a non standard colour and I'm liking it

In 1997 I had a back to bare metal respray of my project 309 mi-16v, that was done in an experimental white base with blue pearl, in natural light it looked amazing, but under artificial lighting (on a garage forecourt at night for example) it look utterly incredible......

You can kinda make out the pearl in a couple of pictures but I would sooooo love to see this paint work in the flesh, coming along really nice mate.

Cheers for the positive comments lads (so far anyway ) and cant wait to get it all finished now. Not really the show season now is it so will have to wait to bring it to some shows in the new year and hopefully be a few more mods on it by then!

Just seen this thread now and read it from the beginning.

That must become an über-Skoda with the built quality of a Bentley!

Also sorry I didnt read this before, because I could have supplied the pics you wanted. (love that naked a*s...)