My Mk3 Golf GTI - "Kermit the Gonto" - Huge pic heavy first post.

[Edwh0re]

Once again not the best of weekends for my car.  I took it to Ears Motorsport in Macclesfield for a set of four Uniroyal Rainsport 2's and to get them to get it tracked up.  Unfortunately the Drivers side track rod end was seized, and when they heated it up it "popped" (can think of no other word to describe it), leaving loads of play in the joint but a still seized track rod end. 

Being as getting parts on a Saturday afternoon is next to impossible, its now stuck there for the weekend and I am driving a loaned Mondeo 

New track rod arm and end on Monday (the passenger side is fine and tracked up with no issue apparently), I am justifying the extra expense in my head with the fact that when its done it WILL drive in an arrow straight line on decent new tyres and with the new brakes and bearings should be spot on. 

[stow1985]

that sucks mate 

[Edwh0re]

Yeah it does, but I have to be realistic here and say to myself that it was seized and therefore needed doing... 

Anyway, picked up the car from Ear's Motorsport today and it drives straight as an arrow, and the Uniroyal Rainsports are fantastic.  They piss all over the set of budget Accelera's that I had to fit last January (or it might have been November 2010 even) due to £££ constraints.

Plus I figure one of the old tyres must have got a little misshapen perhaps - or the tracking might have been a factor - but a steering wheel vibration I had noticed recently at higher speeds was gone.  Drove my car from Staffordshire to Essex yesterday evening and REALLY enjoyed the drive for the first time in a few months.

[stow1985]

Yeah it does, but I have to be realistic here and say to myself that it was seized and therefore needed doing... 

Anyway, picked up the car from Ear's Motorsport today and it drives straight as an arrow, and the Uniroyal Rainsports are fantastic.  They piss all over the set of budget Accelera's that I had to fit last January (or it might have been November 2010 even) due to £££ constraints.

Plus I figure one of the old tyres must have got a little misshapen perhaps - or the tracking might have been a factor - but a steering wheel vibration I had noticed recently at higher speeds was gone.  Drove my car from Staffordshire to Essex yesterday evening and REALLY enjoyed the drive for the first time in a few months.

I've got Uniroyals on mine, I think they are a really good tyre...

do you ever get the feeling when the cars not working 100% you want to crush it, but as soon as it works a treat again you realise why you kept it? or is it just me..

[Edwh0re]

It is not just you Stow, I very much have a love hate relationship with Kermit.

I have put him up for sale a couple of times before, been on the brink of swapping him for an MX5 just back in October last year (but pulled out as he needed a few bits and I felt it wrong to trade him to someone who is in that grey area between acquaintance and friend with known faults).

But when you do a load of rectification work (or even when you do a big mod like new wheels or a vento front in my case) and the car drives beautifully, it does rekindle things between you and the car IMO.

I have put up with a tracking issue for a couple of months, plus shot rear bearings (having spent the money I had to do the rears on the front bearings) which has made me HATE driving the thing long distance (I do Essex to Staffordshire and back once a week), and I really was considering weighing him in at the start of this month and buying a friends 16v. But now I think he has won a reprieve.....for now....

[stow1985]

It is not just you Stow, I very much have a love hate relationship with Kermit.

I have put him up for sale a couple of times before, been on the brink of swapping him for an MX5 just back in October last year (but pulled out as he needed a few bits and I felt it wrong to trade him to someone who is in that grey area between acquaintance and friend with known faults).

But when you do a load of rectification work (or even when you do a big mod like new wheels or a vento front in my case) and the car drives beautifully, it does rekindle things between you and the car IMO.

I have put up with a tracking issue for a couple of months, plus shot rear bearings (having spent the money I had to do the rears on the front bearings) which has made me HATE driving the thing long distance (I do Essex to Staffordshire and back once a week), and I really was considering weighing him in at the start of this month and buying a friends 16v. But now I think he has won a reprieve.....for now....

 

[Edwh0re]

Not *exactly* the weather for it, but I got to grips with a Vax machine today that I surreptitiously stole temporarily from work...  Kermit now has fresh clean carpets and seats.

Excuse the quite frankly diabolical pictures, but my camera was flat (so resorted to phone) and my hands were shaking like hell because it was freezing and trying to snow...

Passenger side after carpet cleaned:



Passenger side rear, carpet and seat cleaned.



Drivers side before:



Drivers side carpet mat during (to show just how bad it was).  White dots are actually snow or hail.  By this  point I was too cold to care to identify what the weather was doing!



Ill get some better pics once my camera is charged up and the weather gives off.  Right now I just want a brew and a bacon sandwich.

[stow1985]

Looking good mate,

my carpets are mank, but there's just no point in cleaning mine

[Edwh0re]

Kermit is about to get a new look.

Here is a hint:



 

[stow1985]

eeerrrr... he's going to grow a boot?