My Project Combi

[Kassie]

This is my first skoda that I'm currently rebuilding for the second time. Just thought I'd share. Don't really see alot of the felicias or felicia combis on this website. Didn't realize how old this car was until I browsed the classic skoda owners section.

[Kassie]

Sorry....had some trouble attaching the pics.

 

Here we go.......

 

 

 

 

 

These are some pics of the car I took over a year ago after it came back from the body shop. Couldn't afford to paint it at the time so I drove it around like this for quite a while.

Edited 11 July, 2013 by Kassie

[nu99et18]

What are your plans?

[Kassie]

Well the car was in a lil incident where 70% of the interior got damaged......so my plan initially was just to restore it. But in this country parts are starting to get scarce for this model, the dealership barely have any parts left for it and they're not re-stocking anymore.....so sourcing parts is a bit of a challenge. I'm just gonna improvise as I go along. I am currently the second owner. The first owner had changed the engine because he didn't want to face the dealership for parts. So I bought the car with a nissan CD17 diesel engine in it. It worked fine so I didn't want to change it until it completely gave out on me. Which it eventually did about a year ago. I now have a nissan GA15DE engine. I wanted a GA16DE but couldn't get my hands on one at the time. So this will have to do for now.

[Kassie]

These pics were taken from a phone..sorry about that. This is what the front of the engine bay looked like before the cross-bar was removed and replaced with a stronger length of steel which was also fabricated take the custom aluminium radiator.

 

 

 

[Kassie]

Here is a pic of the old nissan CD17 engine I got it with.

 

 

 

 

 

[nu99et18]

What model is that nissan engine from? Never seen one in a fel before. Decent power more of a eco engine?

[Kassie]

The engine is from a second generation nissan sunny/sentra or tsuru. That model has quite a few names in other contries. It is also known as the B12 here. Diesel is very affordable here.....that's one of the reasons why I left the engine in. It was easy on my pocket.....fuel wise.

[Kassie]

These are some pics of the engine bay after the engine was taken out.

 

 

 

 

These were taken after it was cleaned and the right side repaired

 

 

 

 

[Kassie]

This is what the engine bay looked like after it was painted with 3 spray cans of rustoleum paint. Again at the time I couldn't afford to have it painted professionally at a paint shop......so I improvised. And I'm okay with it.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kassie]

So with the engine bay in a much better condition, my brother, my dad and I dropped this engine in. Its a nissan GA15DE petrol engine. We didn't have to do much modifications to the engine mounts cause the CD17 and the GA15 mounts line up almost the same way. The rear engine mount needed to shift just a tiny bit though.

 

 

 

Sorry about the first pic being blurry.

[Kassie]

Replaced the windshield and back fender glasses. Also sold the 15" x 6 1/2" rims and 205/55 series tyres and replaced them with some used 17" x 7" rims and new 205/40 series tyres.

 

Edited 23 July, 2013 by Kassie

[Kassie]

Bought a used B13 radiator and decided to take out the plastic tanks from the core and had them rebuilt out of aluminium. Cause those plastic tanks crack after a while and usually you either find yourself purchasing a new one or replacing the tanks out of metal. In order to accommodate the radiator, I had to cut out the crossbar in the front and replace it with a 90 degree angle iron, and welded 2 rings (and placed circular rubbers with holes in them) so the studs of the radiator can fit snug at the base, and welded 2 nuts at the top so that 2 10mm bolts with aluminium L brackets and grummets in them, can hold the radiator in place at the top. Will take a pic of the rad soon to show what I was typing about.

 

These pics however were taken a few months ago when everything was complete. Had to purchase a transmission cooler and strap that on to the bumper since we couldn't build one into one of the aluminium tanks itself.

 

 

[Kassie]

Alright.....so the car has been back from the paint shop about 2 months now. It's still not buffed yet......have a few runs on it. Not satisfied with the job done but at least it is still alot better than before. I did put it back in white though, a base and clear. Its not skoda's white.......but it's white.....with a little bit of white flakes in the clear coat.  I don't really like to mess with the colour a vehicle usually comes in. Maybe I'll be brave enough to change it sometime next year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also had the rims painted in a custom grey they mixed at the shop and had the colour of the brake calipers and drums changed from blue to red.

Edited 7 August, 2013 by Kassie

[skodanorman]

So is it much faster with this engine?

[TeflonTom]

I must have missed this thread. Good work..

I think I remember reading about this car on here years ago with the previous owner

[Kassie]

Yes it is much faster with engine. Well I haven't hooked up the speedometer cable yet so I can't tell you exactly how much faster it is but there is a difference. The diesel engine was alot heavier than the gas engine. When the diesel engine was in, I found myself changing the front shock absorbers very often. I also had the piping for the exhaust system re-done last week. The previous owner had used about 3 different sizes of exhaust piping on the entire system. I didn't like that so from where the piping of the engine manifold stopped.......all the way to the new muffler barrel.......I had it replaced with one size (2") piping. 

[Kassie]

Thanks TeflonTom. Loved the 1.8 conversion you did on the felicia.

[Yoss]

Looking good. They look so much better with the mk1 front and color coded bumpers. The grille on the mk2 looks a bit like the afterthought that it is.You never see mk1's over here any more, they seem to have disappeared along with the Favorit.

[Kassie]

Haven't updated for a while. The pics below are of the work I had done on the exhaust. Not the best work I know.......but hey...its functional.

The barrel on the left is the new barrel I had installed about 2 months ago and the one on the right was the old one I had removed. It was completely shelled out on the inside and had bits n pieces of rust knocking about inside the barrel. The old barrel as you can see was bigger and did not have a silencer. Needed changing so I decided to go with something smaller and less noisy. 

 

 

 

 

Also had a resonator put in to aid with the noise level.

 

 

[Kassie]

Just a little pic of how my custom aluminium radiator holds.

 

 

 

 

Plus I hit the jackpot with interior parts nearly two months ago too. Found a felicia and a felicia estate of the same year they were parting out in a Junk Yard. So I took the best of the lot between the two...for my car. After all the both carry the same parts from the front all the way up to the backseat.

[Silver Bullet]

Superb rebuild project    ,

what cc is the petrol engine you now have fitted?

[Kassie]

Superb rebuild project    ,

what cc is the petrol engine you now have fitted?

 

Thanks Silver Bullet. The petrol engine is 1497cc.

Edited 12 May, 2015 by Kassie