Diesel Monte's 2001 Skoda Fabia "Project vRSDI"

[DieselMonte]

2 hours ago, shyVRS245 said:

Needs a clean, might not need wax and polish though.

It adds character (and hides the dents).

[DieselMonte]

Since I am on here updating my Monte Carlo thread I felt I should update this one aswell.

Where to start? For a while now I had been suspecting that the headgasket was gone because over the course of a few days it would lose coolant randomly. However,I found out just the other day that  it is just some hose that looks to be going to the heater core which is spitting "coolant" out.

Also,I noticed the oil cap was spitting oil out and noticed it was missing its rubber seal. I just so happened to have a cheapo Oil and Coolant cap set off of eBay I was initially going to put on the Monte Carlo but wasnt happy with. Happily however,It hasnt leaked since. On the topic of stealing stuff I have earmarked for the Monte Carlo,I got a pair of badges for the bonnet and boot of it. Since my boot badge is in fine enough condition I just took it and put it on whats left of the grille of this car.Granted,They are just cheap Wish badges but I'm contented with the results.

Finally, My drivers side spring,which had already snapped a coil off before,decided to lose another coil. I can't properly describe the massive clang that went through the car as the spring went, I could feel it snap.

Yes,the orange rus****er is what should be distilled water. I got most of it flushed out by now so Im not worried.

[DieselMonte]

Apparently Rust water put together twigs something in Briskoda's censors.

Oops.

[DieselMonte]

Got a new air filter for the fabia, it was on sale and for a fiver I couldnt pass it up. I knew mine was bad but I cant comprehend how bad it was. Pic isnt great and it makes the new filter look pinker than it should but still.

[DieselMonte]

Also got some washers to raise the bonnet up a bit. Because of the bent front slam panel it sits low where the hinges are and makes it look odd so I just got some washers to put it up a few cm's. Looks better now.

[DieselMonte]

Installed the gauges on the remains of the dash the other day. Still waiting on some stuff to wire them up so they're just in place for now.

[DieselMonte]

Making moves.

[DieselMonte]

Managed to find most of a front end from a vRS to replace my Mad Max front end on the Fabia. Not the prettiest mind, but considering I got it, a dash, Vrs steering wheel,handbrake,Gear Knob and a full set of vRS alloys for decently cheap I am over the moon. Have the plate obscured as its the one from the car I got the parts from, not my car. Not that it really matters either way but still. I can now proudly say that my car is the slowest vRS in the world!

[DieselMonte]

4 wheels on and all holding air. 

2 have old but still quite decent looking maxxis tyres, they went on the front. 2 have Toledo brand tyres, One is on the wear bars and is scrubbed bare on the inside, the other is cracked around the side and is bulged all over the sidewall, It is on the car and holding 15 psi of air but I wouldnt dare drive the car on it. I have the front bumper and all sitting in place but not bolted to the car, need to straighten the chassis to be able to properly fit the front end onto my car. Finally, I put a bit of wood onto the drivers strut to make the car sit level for now.

[DieselMonte]

Polished up the new grille and put my touch on it. The vRS badge has seen better days but i'll leave it for now. Got the dash in today too, massive pain in the ass trying to get the fusebox in properly but got it done in the end. Lastly I made some progress on the front end, got the vrs radiator out and my sdi one in. The bits being from a UK car are a little rusty, all of the Torx bits are covered in Crust, some of them stripped straight away and one was stuck so tight it snapped my cheapy torx wrench. I have the  a/c rad from the vRS but it looks like one of the pipes were cut trying to get it all out, probably of no use to anyone now, not that my car has a/c anyways.

[DieselMonte]

Making good progress thus far, have the interior 80% done, vRS bits et al. Also,made good progress on the front. Got the Front crash bar on and bolted and can probably get the radiator and other bits in soon. Only thing is one of the bolts holding the crashbar to the frame stripped so I need to extract it. Also have put the passat seats aside and just put the standard seat back in for the minute.

[DieselMonte]

[DieselMonte]

[DieselMonte]

Making a lot of progress over the last few days. Have the front radiator support and crash bar back on. Ended up giving the crash bar a quick scuff with some 120 grit and 2 coats of gloss black just to clean it up a bit. Took both front fenders off as I thought i'd need a bit more room to get the front support on, I didn't at all. On the brightside I managed to remove about 20 kg of clay from the front arches. Next day i'm out i'll take it down and pressure wash the bay and front arches and see where the car sits.

[DieselMonte]

Car is cleaned under the arches and front is back together. Not perfect mind but Its much better than what it was before. Only problem is that I ran the battery low by quickly starting the car to move it down to the power washer and then back up again. Couple that with the fact that the belts and alternator got a little wet it was obvious that I was going to run into trouble. I had the car Idling while I was bleeding the radiator, all the electrics on, draining the battery. I noticed the gauges had frozen and knew straight away what was up. Just to make sure, I opened torque on my phone and noticed that it was reading 6.6 volts on the voltmeter, not good. I gave the car a few revs and to my surprise it revved freely and much quicker than it normally would, but it sounded like the power washer that cleaned the **** out of the arches just an hour or two before, I presume it was just dumping fuel into the engine at this point. Shut it off and put the battery on charge overnight. Its a big battery so it'll take a long while to charge. Hopefully the car dries out a bit more and the alternator hasnt in fact crapped out on me. The pile of dirt you can see is the dirt I scraped out of the passengers side quarter panel while I had it off. 

[DieselMonte]

Quick side by side of the new and old front ends.

[DieselMonte]

It runs! The battery mishap seems to have been just some water getting into a place it wasnt meant to, charging fine now. Had it out and moving under its own weight, Drove fine, no leaks or major problems. It still has a ways to go before it could go back on the road but this was definately a major step forward.

[DieselMonte]

Spent the day working on the bonnet latch, its working for the most part, wont always catch when I try to shut the bonnet and wont always release the first try, have soaked in in wd40. Hopefully it will loosen up over time. The cable you see snaking out is the bonnet cable, I removed it when I took the car apart for the first time. Anyone know of a good way to feed the cable back into the car? Also, I changed the plate to the damaged front plate because I was sick of trying to blur out the plate from the car I got the bumper from.

[Truls84]

Fantastic work!
Did the cables for the B6 seats also fit?
I know of a scrapped octavia that i now want to see if i can use the front seats from, just as you used the passat seats in yours=)

[DieselMonte]

2 hours ago, Truls84 said:

Fantastic work!
Did the cables for the B6 seats also fit?
I know of a scrapped octavia that i now want to see if i can use the front seats from, just as you used the passat seats in yours=)

To be honest, I only ever had the passat seats in by 1 bolt and they were sort of wedged into place from there. The track was too long and too wide to fit properly. I've been meaning to look and see If I cant swap the tracks from my standard seats over because then they'd definately fit. I liked how I could sit lower in the passat seats compared to the fabias, its a gripe I have even with my Monte Carlo. One thing that is nice about my car is that its old enough to not have seat airbags, or seat belt warnings so I don't need to worry about cutting wires. 

What do you mean by cables? As in the wiring for the seats? My car didnt have any of that so It never was a problem trying to plug them in.

Edited 31 January, 2021 by DieselMonte

[DieselMonte]

Today marks 4 years since I got my mk1, 3 years and 1 day in the difference between getting both fabias. Found the first photo I ever took of it, which was taken not 5 minutes after going into a field, my first time driving it, and getting it well and truly stuck, how times have changed.

[DieselMonte]

Another photo of the car I found.

[DieselMonte]

As a final update for tonight, I got a sticker set with the whiteline kit for my Monte Carlo. I decided to put some on the driver's door. Does this car have a Whiteline? No! Do I care? No!

[DieselMonte]

Passenger seats taken apart. The bases are a piece of **** to do. I had hoped to just plop the back of the passat seat onto the fabia frame but it seems that the passat back has shorter brackets and wont fit. Means I now have to strip the fabia back and see what I can do. Those hogrings are the worst thing imaginable. As you can see in the photos the standard seats are pretty terrible. I was hoping to take advantage of the passat seats sitting lower but if i'm going to be using the fabias frame I cant see that working out,oh well.

[kentdale]

You are right about  the seat clips, I have memories of dealing with them , nasty things.