Few updates from the last month.

My car took a heavy beating from the torrential down pours a few weeks back, and I was left with a 4 inch deep puddle in my footwell! Luckily the rear offside didn't leak, otherwise it would've been goodbye amp.

The car was stripped bare (that white powder is absorbant crystals)

And I rocked around like this for a few days. The car sounded awesome!

3 days off drying out the underlay. When I bought the car, there was a 50p sized hole in the carpet where it meets the rest plate. So I thought whilst out I'd sort that out. I bought a new carpet, which literally could've been new, amazing condition

Looks great in the car

After a few recommendations on here I bought plumbers gold and sealed the **** out of the two remaining leaky doors.

We've since had some horrendous down pours and all doors have held up great. So I'm hoping that's job done!

LED plates lights:

I also managed to find some time to do a little autumn prep. Wash, clay, glaze, wax.

I used Poorboys Black Hole Glaze, and Megs stage 3 (just run out of collinite 476s)

She's in a good state, for now....

Just bought a spare EGR which I'll look at getting gutted, and fitted alongside some form of OEM looking 'elephant mod'.

oh plumbers gold i think i will give that a try. im liking the buff up very clean.

i just got home from doing mine at work and it was exactly the same everywhere was soaked other than the O/S/R haha god i hate taking interiors out! haha hope yours went well!

Awesome car mate!

silly question maybe, is the black hole glaze only suitable for black cars? Mine being dark metallic grey?

Thanks.

It's only recommended for dark cars, so should be fine on yours.

It's my single most recommended car product! Amazing stuff.

does this basically replace the polish stage? I been trying to use megs ultimate polish but it's quite hard to work with and requires hard buffing.

In effect yes it does...

But you need a good base to start on, e.g a machine polish. Get a good corrective polish done (either buy a dual action or get on DW and find someone local), then keep the shine topped up with this.

If you glaze it often enough, you wont need to polish. With my Polo GTi, I machine polished after a year of ownership, then went around 3-4 years of just glazing (not longer than 3 weeks between glazes). Then wax quarterly.

Advantages over polish - It's much much easier to get on and off. It masks holograming better than polish, it gives a deeper shine.

EDIT: here's testament to Black hole glaze (my old car)

The lower right hand lighter section is the paintwork after machine polish.

The upper and left hand quarter is the paintwork after black hole glaze has been applied.

Looks amazing out of interest how much do people charge for a good machine polish session?

Get yourself onto Detailing World and find out!

Great work Tim, your car is georgous in the flesh, some brilliant touches and attention to detail.

Didn't realise you were on detailingworld also! (Although I've not been on there for blinkin ages)

Thanks mate! I'm not a regular by any means. I used to lurk a fair bit on there back in the day when learning about car cleaning. Havent been on in ages though!

Just read this start to finish after seeing it on ED38. Love this mate!

Will have to have a south Wales meet soon.

How do you rate the AP Coilovers?

Thanks mate!

Yeh I'm always up for a local meet.

Yes I'm very happy with my APs.

I Owned a cheap unbranded set on my old polo, and more expensive Konigsport set on my previous polo, and the APs way exceed the cheap set, and match the more expensive easily, recommended!

I have saved this thread to my internet favourites.

:love:

Any more plans for your Fabia Tim?

Yes, just slow with the new flat and my work!

I've got a list as long as my arm of oem little bits and bobs to buy, plus some work in the bodyshop, followed by a much overdue machine polish!

Not sure if to wait until after the winter for the latter though.

Hiya Tim, out of interest...is there a specific bodyshop that you go to?? I'm looking for someone to do my spoiler but I'm always dubious about taking it to some random garage without knowing if they're any good.

I've heard there's a decent one near the old Thompson & Thompson garage in Caldicot but wouldn't mind finding out if there are any other options near by!

Cheers fella... keep up the good thread! Oh yeah... Did the plumbers gold sort the water ingress through you back door after??

Yeh plumbers gold sorted it out!

Yes, I only go to one place. Found them through a friend, top work and well priced.

They're in Ponthir, just last Monmouth, let me know if you want details.

The place by Thompson and Thompson is probably Mustoe's, they're a damage repair shop. Haven't been there for bodywork.

You on about ponthir next to carleon? I know a bodyshop there ceejays its not the place you go by any chance?

Also did you get your plumbers gold online?

Yes by Caerleon. Not actually sure what their called, ceejays doesn't ring a bell though.

You have to drive through a farm shop to get to them?

Yeh mate, I couldnt find it anywhere local. I bought from the cheapest I could find via Google Shopping.

Things have been very slow on the car front. Wedding season is now over though, so I get a bit of a life back meaning I may have time to spend on the car! ( new camera and new flat says otherwise though :think: )

I'm now sporting a nice new arm rest. My non genuine Golf 4 one was creaky, so I was looking for a replacement genuine one. But I never quite liked the process of self tapping the arm rest into the existing plastic of the centre console. So I looked elsewhere

The fabia mark ii ones are similiar, and with a bit of modding you can bolt them onto the car.

First I have to attach my golf 4 top. The golf and fabia ones are different enough that they dont clip right in, I had to shave the golf 4 lugs off and get some heavy duty adhesive to attach it.

Fits a charm though

Next was fitting it to the car. It's not easy but does work. In order to bolt it to the car, get a snug fit in existing centre console, and keeping the plastic trims looking clean cut and OEM, you have to elevate the armrest. If you dont do this, you can't get access to the bolt to attach the rest without compromising the look of the plastic trim and/or centre console.

I used two pre-drilled wooden blocks to do this. I chose these over metal as it gave me margin for error with the location of the pilot holes in the car in respect to the mouting holes on the arm rest mount.

I used M8 coach screws to attach it. It's now solid as a brick, I now reckon I could drop kick my arm rest and it wouldn't budge. The golf 4 one never felt as solid.

Took ages to get my head around, and looks pretty much exactly the same as my Golf 4 one, but so much better. the higher position improves driving stance now also. I can set the arm rest pointing down and it offers a nice resting place for my are whilst retaining the ability to change gears.

This is what all the fuss was about, I now have finger tip access to my iPod, rather than it being half a foot away in the glovebox; god I'm lazy.

I also (thought I) finished my sub box. I'm fairly sure I started this back in January? :wonder:

I had a moment of triumph as I put the last layer of carpet on, like a huge weight had lifted from my head.... it was finished.

Went to fit the next day and tweak audio levels, and it now doesnt fit... Great. Seems with the added thickness of the carpet it's too much of a snug fit and the rear seat wont close. Looks like I'm going to have to rip all the carpet off, cut 5mm off the size, and re-fibreglass the end on. PITA!

Looks nice though

Also got these from the recent GB

Pics fitted when I've cleaned and finished the engine bay.

Also just picked up an OEM SACHs clutch kit, mine has been slipping since the remap and gradually getting worse. Will keep an eye on the DMF also..

cars looking awesome

was thinking of doing this mod with the mk2 fabia arm rest the alloy bracket that u have fitted did it come with the golf 1 or with the fabia mk2 rest cheers

and again top class work

Cheers Tim, Ponthir isn't too far from where my folks live so that could be a possibility. Got to get it done soon... it's getting embarrassing!

Glad you were able to sort your leak mate... That Plumbers Gold sounds like good stuff! I've just noticed mine doing it a bit now too :-( so that's another job to add to my list LOL!

Look forward to more posts soon

cheers!!!

Thanks mate.

It came from the fabia mark 2.

You dont need anything from the Golf 4. I only used the top cover from the gold one as I'd already had it done in custom leather.