SpearMintRhino - mk1 1.6

[SpearMintTom]

Dropped the car off at InnerLink first thing Monday morning, getting changed after being at the gym I had a phone call from the garage asking me where my suspension mounts had gone.. (i'd forgottent to put em back on after taking the strut braces off for a paint!).

Lots of ridicule was being recieved from my mate.. (i deserved it).

Anyway, by the time I took her down she needed this doing:
- Manifold fitting
- Sun roof seal fitting
- Centre section flexi pipe exhaust replacing (torn)

Phoned em today, they ended up removing the whole exhaust system and putting it all back together as the manifold and centre flexi pipe needed replacing / refitting.

In doing so they've found that the exhaust system was badly put together (bodged rather) and so they have ordered a few parts in (awaiting arrival for tomorrow) so they can refit the whole exhaust system & secure it to the body properly.

Have also ordered a brand new Bonnet Bra from AutoBra.co.uk for a journey to the south coast this weekend..

Sunroof seal is also fitted (will update with pics later on)

[SpearMintTom]

Bonnet Bra arrived, girlfriend not happy I brought the car a set of underwear before her..

Went to pick car up from garage, £270!!!! HOLY sh!t! 

Although to be fair I now have a completely brand new exhaust system including manifold through out the whole car

Garage gave me a lift home as the engine was flooded, also not happy as the gearbox has always been loose (needs new rubbers/linkages) and they've obviously been warn to f**k by the garage mechanics trying to find the gears forcefully, so I now cannot find reverse or 5th gear at all either. - They've said they'll sort it.

Anyway had the car running for a few seconds and the exhaust sounded SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET! 

Will Post a Video tomorrow evening

[SpearMintTom]

In the mean time whilst I wait:




My Bonnet Bra.. As borat would say... "Niiiiiiiiccccccccccccccceeeeeee"

[SpearMintTom]

tiny clip (was rushed for time) - not a great clip and doesn't really sound anything like what it does to the ear.. lurrvvvvvlly new exhaust system though!

[SpearMintTom]

My bonnet bra:


Some bad photos of the exhaust system:

[SpearMintTom]

Well after certain family problems it turned out I needed to sell my MK1

Turns out no one wants to buy my MK1 at all..  :embarassed: so i'm keeping her 

Had a nice little idea after seeing what a mate had done to his new motorbike tyres, so i've got some white tyre paint Photos soon!

[SpearMintTom]

So.. recently i've been having abit of a heavy time at Uni & with a new job (trying to bring in some cash for the SpearMintMachine )

Hadn't driven her or had her out in nearly 4 weeks so today in the gorgeous sun I went to get her out, stuck a full tank in and found she wasn't running amazingly. So i took her back home and did the usual checks, found that some of my fuel lines were looking rather overly warn so went got some new braided hoses - installed them.

At the same time I gave her a top up of VW R32 Semi-Syth oil, refitted and tidied the pipes & some of the electrics on the engine bay.

One other cool thing i did today was start to colour code my engine bay - I forgot when i first got the car that I also got a tin of the paint used on the respray - enough left to do the engine bits i wanted to do.

So today I removed:
- Alternator
- Alternator Expansion Bracket
- Inlet Manifold
- Several Pipes
- Strut Brace

I then rubbed em all down (all the metal areas) and got em all shining and gorgeous, I was going to paint them straight but my dad gave me a good idea of painting them with hammerite first - to give some extra protection against rust (not that there is any).

Once it was dry I sprayed all the above bits with the Porsche Green paint that was used in the respray, and refitted them for the mean while.

Whilst doing this I found that my alternator expansion bracket although still intact (partially) was a tad rusty and had snapped - this would explain the belt squeeling sometimes & my occasional lack of battery (from not charging properly). - I've wipped it off and am gonna deal with it tomorrow morning.

Will put lots of pictures up tomorrow

*At the end of the month I intend on:
- Refurbing My Alloys
- Installing Crystal Lights on the rear
- Smoked Indicators on the front
- Leather interior

[SpearMintTom]

This is a picture of whats been put back on the car so far:




The expansion bracket had been previously welded as it had cracked slightly, but it's completely snapped now as I just welded it on the outside as it was the only accesible area without removing the cambelt cover and I was stretched for time.. anyway i removed what i could and took my drill set to it to smooth it down for when i reweld it in a few days time - purely so it will have a very very strong good weld:


I rubbed all the bits down, painted with hammerite for rust prevention and then sprayed them in the cars colour:


Will update once i've done more, once I know how to correctly take off the cambelt cover I will remove the head / cambelt cover & alternator and polish them all up and give them a coating of something (not sure about respraying the lot quite yet).

[SpearMintTom]

So i've removed the cambelt cover & battery clip, rubbed them down and resprayed it:


Had some paint made up & colour matched but for rubber and so have started to replace old warn hoses with new one's with a new coat of rubber paint (one example):


Dismantled the basics of the alternator and rubbed the alternator and all the other bits down (will be putting some black hammerite on these carry on with the black/green colour code through out the car) just abit of a clean up:

[SpearMintTom]

Will update on the colour coding tomorrow (have got to finish it off), welding the expansion bracket is taking longer as the bolts that mount it to the engine are starting to round so I'm gonna have to get a heat gun to try get them off..

In the mean time i've just brought this:


To replace this:


why? - because although it makes a lurvvvly sound, it's causing me serious problems because i'm lowered and the backbox on this thing is hUUUGgee, also i'd like to be able to hear myself think whilst driving. - It's also too big for the system I have (S/S Performance) and so blows due to not being able to breath as it would like.. I'm hoping my mixture should be better once i get the new Rage exhaust on..