figured it was about time i got me a project thread going on here, put it off long enough lol

im a ford boy at heart, and up until now my 1 and only project has been this, my '88 Escort RS turbo

but, its been an ongoing project for about 6 years now, and after running various different daily cars, i decided to bite the bullet, and buy my 1st VAG motor

i wanted an estate, as i had just set up my own business, doing mobile car body repairs, and my car at the time was a 2.0 sri vectra hatchback, not ideal in size or economy!

so when my mate put his 99 octavia 1.9tdi glx estate up for sale, i swiftly bit his hand off and made it mine

spec when i bought it was 86k on the clock, just had cambelt kit and waterpump change, full service, new sump, FK AK coilovers, vrs interior. bodywork a bit tatty, with various scratches all over, but it was straight and mechanically sound

a week before i even picked it up, i went and bought these

bbs ch 18x8 and 18x9 et 35 with 215 35 tyres all round

so literally as soon as i got her home, i threw them on

next up was the interior

as i say, i do mobile car body repair, so i need to carry all my repair and painting gear, and biggest of all my compressor

so, out came the rear seats

threw them in the back of my rs turbo lol

then got on with boarding the back seat area

managed to get away with re-using some of the old boarding from the vectra, saved a bit of cash monies on mdf costs

had to go buy a fresh piece of 12mm mdf board for the back piece. few cardboard templates, followed by some jigsaw action and had this

then added a support piece for the base section to bolt to

wasnt a lot of places to secure the back board at the bottom, so managed to ultilise this annoying rear seat mount, and made up a mounting bracket out of some angle iron, drilled it to fit over, and then screwed it to the back board

then i managed to use the existing base section, 20mm mdf, and just had to trim the corners out to match the octy interior contours. got them snug, and then just chamferred the edges to keep the as close as poss to the slightly angled panels

then, tried to fit the compressor facing forwards, and it wudnt quite fit without fouling the backs of the front seats. not wanting to trash the leather seats, we had a play around, and decided to take the wheels off the compressor, and mount it sideways, using a block to level it up with the wheels now gone

the compressor is bolted at 4 points, with large 1.5" galv spec square washers, 5mm thick, to spread the load on them underneath. plus being 20mm mdf, its pretty chuffin strong anyways! may fab up a strap just to make sure it doesnt decide to fall forwards if i was to stop heavily, but shud be ok without tbh

got angry at the alpine tape headunit, even with the cd changer in the boot, and cudnt be arsed to spend wedge on a new cd player, so just ragged the 1 out the RS, made the wiring fit ISO connections again, and threw that in

then, after cutting all the rear boarding yesterday, i dug out these...

again, robbed from the RS, focal 6x9s, seeing as i have no working rear speakers, and no space for a sub

then i did this

cut these

and then satin black rattle can'd the rear of the panel, just so it didnt look untidy and obvious from the back

then spent a fair bit of time trimming the panel in grey acoustic type carpet, so plenty of spray adhesive, staple gun, swearing, stretching, swearing more, stabbing and slicing myself with a stanley knife....

but still, ended up with this

made up a couple of little wedges to hold the panel in place using the standard seat latch clips, just cut up some of the thick galv washers iv got. its pretty solid without anyways, as its a tight fit, and the bracket at the bottom holds it secure, but this will just stop it vibrating too

drilled and screwed the speakers into place

got the base piece trimmed, had just enough acoustic carpet left to do it!

and then, the ultimate in anti-climaxes, all finished, with the compressor securely mounted

even with the excessive bolts n washers used, i was a bit worried about it being top heavy, but iv been out for a blast and done some emergency stops, and it aint budged

i know it dont look like much, but a lot of work gone into making it look as subtle as poss, and as strong as poss

plus the speakers sounds awesome, good old focal audio gear never lets me down

lowered the back end about an inch

next up, de-wiper

before, it looked like this

1st up, the de-wiper mods

off comes the wiper arm

remove the motor

blocked the washer pipe with a nice screw lol plus folded it and cable tied it up

the bung itself is just held in with black glue/sealant, so cleaned the area up with panel degreaser, and stuck it in, and held it with tape til dry

then moved on to the octavia badge. it was filthy between the badge letters, n the badge itself wasnt great, so figured id just remove it with the heatgun and filler spreader.

here it is debadged and dewipered

slight issue tho, a lot of the **** between the badge pieces was actually lacquer that had lifted. this is due to the boot being resprayed at some point, and the badge just being lacquered over, which is annoying. tried to save it by losing the hard edges with 1500 and a mop, hoping i cud cut back the top lacquer coat, and pray there was enough lacquer underneath, but no, it went straight through...

not a major issue as the boot needs paint anyways due to numerous scratches, so will just cover with a sticker or sumthin for the time being

next up, the towbar

now i need a towbar, but i hate having a towbar lol. so wanted to just make it as subtle as poss. also the current sockets are stacked above each other, and the lower 1 hangs quite low and iv caught it a couple of times. so the plan was to remove it all, switch to sockets either side, and satin black the bumper protector

off came the old set up

bumper protector was stainless, so needed rubbing down and then etch primer

threw some satin black on it, did a bit of messing around with the wiring to move a socket over to the other side, and ended up with...

so now the arse end currently looks like this...

much cleaner looking tailgate, and a little bit more subtle in the towbar region, plus a bit more ground clearance

Edited 16 June, 201214 yr by RSandy

new mudflaps due to getting fed up of the side of the car constantly getting filthy! yes they drag constantly, but i can live with that!

oh, and bought this as a temporary fix for the dodgy lacquer where the rear badge was removed

Edited 16 June, 201214 yr by RSandy

after deciding to sell the speedboat, i no longer have a need for a towbar, so figured i might aswel remove it until a day where its needed again

so, out rolled the escort, and the skoda went into the garage over the pit. the 1st time a car other than the RS has ever been in my garage lol

we only wanted to remove the swan neck section of the towbar, as the main structure is integral, with a replacement bumper reinforcer, and bars tieing into the chassis etc. but just to get the swan neck off and the wiring isolated and tucked away, the bumper had to come off

and whilst it was off, some bits fell off of it too

and then the trim and spoiler fell off the front bumper too and joined the rear bumper trims

and then my grille fell off and the chrome section of that fell off and joined the bumper trims

oh and some smoked side repeaters arrived today too

and by the end of the day, the poor skoda was left rollin like this

i looks like i parked it in aston! bad times lol

the trims had been flatted back, having damage taken out with 80 and 180grit, and then all over rubbed down with 320 grit to take down the texture slightly and key it up for primer

set up on stands as best as poss

got my trusty old devilbiss gti on primer duty once again

then got to giving them a few heavy coats of high build to bury the texture

dropped guide coat on them, ready for wet flatting to smooth them, ready for base and clear

the tedious matter of wet flatting the trims to smooth them, using 800 wet n dry, and copious maounts of rubbing down!

next up, base coat

decided to go with something a bit better than my original gloss black idea, so went with vw magic black pearl

i set everything up, and had to make a little jig to hold the grille in place as the air pressure from the gun just blew it away lol

the grille was keyed with grey scotch, and then etch primered

all set up and base coating

and then in clearcoat

and then the front grille, trim and splitter fitted back up

next up, the tailgate

my rear numberplate light trim was cracked in half and falling to bits, the lacquer was ruined where the badge had been removed, and the whole tailgate had had some dodgy respray so it was generally in a bad way

so, got a facelift spec trim off a vrs my mate was breaking

then set to work prepping the tailgate to remove any damage

got her masked up

in high build

and then basecoat for the tailgate and the new trim

and then, all finished in clearcoat, with the trim refitted, and the plate back on etc

rear bumper was my next port of call

various scuffs at the corners, plus deep scratches in the centre from towbar use i guess, was just looking tatty basically

so flatted all the damage out and put it in high build

then base and clear

not entirely happy with the finish as my compressor decided to trip just as i put my drop coat of lacquer on, so by the time i had the thing going again, a fair bit of dust had landed in the drop coat on 1 corner. can always redo it at a later date if it doesnt all polish out ok tho

and refitted

door trims

usually, id just drop these off and do them nice and easily off the car

but, just as i was about to remove the 1st 1, i noticed a lacquer edge. then, upon further inspection, it appears this car has had a lot of previous paintwork, and rather stupidly it seems to have been relacquered without removing the trims and without 1st sorting any scratches in the paint! stupidest thing iv ever seen!

but, nothing i can do without blowing both sides in which i dont really want to do right now, so to avoid removing the trims and disturbing any potential flakey lacquer edges, i decided to paint them on the car. hassle yes, but the safest option i figured

masked up

texture flatted, damage removed, and then put in high build and flatted with 800 until smooth, as per the other trims

basecoat

and then finished

still need to get round to machine polishing these tbh, pure lazyness on my behalf lol

finally, paint wise anyways, my rear bumper trims

again, flatted, high build, wet flatted etc

basecoated

clearcoat

and refitted

overall, proper chuffed with how the magic black smoothed trims have transformed the look of the car. wasnt keen on fully colour coding, but this has freshened it right up

then, i came upon a cheap universal fmic kit off a mate

so, off came the front end

offered the fmic up

noticed the crashbar lip restricted how far forward i could bring the fmic, so i set about cutting the offending lip off. i got bored of getting burnt with sparks at about half way, so got my old man to help out lol

the bumper slats obviously needed to be removed, but also a fair amount of the rest of the bumper in the area too

and then thrown back together

not piped up yet, and infact its going to still need a fair bit of hacking about at the bumper and the splitter, as soon as it went back together it was clear the pipework needs lots more clearance still!

whilst it was apart and the headlights were out, would have been rude not to lamin-x them

and then the front end all back in 1 piece

Wow nice work mate.. What a lovely colour that is as well! love the RS and the pit!

Shame your so far away or you would most deffo be asked to attack my tailgate. Is your mate still braking a Estate?

and just a few very recent pics, at dc12 and modified nationals etc. iv wound the front coilovers down another 15mm, still doesnt look low enough to me, but judging by the fact that my plastic undertray is now in tatters and even my arch liners have split, id say its all i can do for the time being!

excuse the big black bumper ****** in some of the pics, sadly they have now subsequently been stolen by some jealous light fingered person lol typical!

Wow nice work mate.. What a lovely colour that is as well! love the RS and the pit!

Shame your so far away or you would most deffo be asked to attack my tailgate. Is your mate still braking a Estate?

cheers dude

the car being broken was a hatchback, i just took a chance and test fitted the tailgate trim and its the same hatchback and estate. the shell is long gone and scrapped now due to heavy crash damage, but all the parts of value are still there ready for ebay. u after something in particular?

Nice work!

Very very nice work. I was undecided whether or not to paint my front grille black or not but your car made up my mind on that one. Top job.

certainly given me some ideas

Really like this and love the colour

cheers for the positive comments lads

i shud emphasise this really was only supposed to be a work horse, so iv already kind of done more than i shud have haha

sadly today, the inevitable clock issue occured :(

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/542454_10151829724655707_1787935702_n.jpg

clocks out, and packaged up to send off for repair

annoyingly, that has kind of put the brakes on my next major mods, both time wise and financially, as iv kind of just decided to bite the bullet and go for an airbag set up. will get some pics of my air kit, or the bits of the kit iv got so far. calling in favours from my mates who have yank lowriders and contacts in the scene, and trying to buy up bargain n used bits where possible. hopefully she will be doing uppy downy action this year though

Edited 18 June, 201214 yr by RSandy

Really good work, love the colour!

nice work pal ..... nice to see something different that vrs's

good job !! looking nice