About time you sorted out those piddly little 16s, they were ruining the car and felt weird as hell as a passenger when you pushed it so god knows what it was like to drive.

It was like steering a 1.4 tonne ladel through gone off custard.

It's definitely brought out the chassis' inherently designed understeer though... Need to get me some early spec mk1 TT hubs (pre-recall?) and just hope I don't lose it at speed, meant to be night and day understeer wise though, just a lot more snappy at the rear!

Going to treat the old gal to a nice set of fresh 225/40 r18s and a pair of new spigot rings for the front this weekend, was set on toyos but almost tempted to go a bit more premium - They're going to be on the car for a while and they're the only thing keeping me on the road afterall :-D

Keen to fit my R32 ARBs as soon as I get home, along with some poly bushes, should really finish the handling side of things off a treat.. then it's just making a decision about springs. I seem to have done everything backwards, most people would leave things like ARBs and braces till the end, but from what I've read the stock suspension is meant to be pretty well balanced, just let down by the ARBs mainly!

Edited 8 August, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Made it to the coast today

New page, new pic, nothing too major for now though...

Coast drive by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

More please

Patience

Made my mum drive the 4mo last night as I was far over the limit and got to see it rolling for the first time since the OZs appeared. Looks spot on, especially at the front.. rather chuffed

Might grab a tripod and do some flybys if I get bored this week

Oh, also forgot to update on here, I went for a set of 4 Uniroyal Rainsport 2 225/40/18, it's incredible :grin:

Edited 16 August, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Spent the last few days furiously refreshing the tracking page on the UPS website, all the way from Poland, it finally arrived. My black brushed aluminium 3M di-noc vinyl. I completely understand the hype behind this stuff now, the texture, the way the light reflects and colour makes it very very convincing. So easy to work with too, although I keep nearly setting my fingers on fire as a heat gun is a little bit more manly than a hair drier....

Anyway, some progress pics, got a fair amount more left to do but need to let my fingers cool down [:S]

Wrapping time by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Old and new by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

New and old by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Despite saying I would never get rid of the walnut it's going.. comments/thoughts on the new choice? Don't think I've really seen black alu done before and I didn't think the R32 silver would go against the cream interior, quite keen to see it all back in the car now!

Corr blimey that took a bit of effort.. so happy with how it's come out though. Was a major effort to get the internal curvature right on this but after using a hell of a lot of heat and burning my fingers to many times I lost count it's finally done, about 40 mins later..

Didn't get an initial pic but this is after the external edges have been done..

Had to clear all the clips, this was a bugger...

Getting there now, guessed how far in to cut the diagonals for the corners and luckily it was spot on!

Done!

Looks fantastic in the flesh, doesn't half require some concentration though!

[]

Brushed aloominum. by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Looks well smart that does, got a wider angle ?

I wasnt too sure at first glimpse, but now its on the car that looks tidy as fuck!

Wider angle pics coming tomorrow hopefully, that one was taken to hide the fact the cup holder and radio weren't in at the time

Effel it's funny you should say that, at one point I was pretty convinced I'd just ruined £60 worth of dash trim but was pretty happy when I started refitting bits, definitely looks a bit more modern than the fake wood anyway!

Argh, glued the side trim sections back in as some of the clips were broken, left it overnight using various items to jam against the steering wheel / seat to press against them, drove the car to work the morning and half way there the right one pinged back out

So this is the state of play since getting home from work at 5pm...

Hopefully be finished tomorrow, need to give it all a wipe down as the adhesive I've been using gets everywhere!

So.. apparently pics say a thousand words..

Knob ruining it all... by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Hold me by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Red ring of death by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DOMO! by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

So...

Bit of a payday spending spree occurred, a fairly mild one but it's still car bits!

S3 coolant / washer bottle engine bay covering on eBay, then down to TPS for a bracket for said item, pair of sharan rear caliper springs and an oil filter.

Just need to get my mitts on a cheap S3 battery cover and the DSG intake stuff and the bay is complete.. for now [H]

Hope he doesn't mind me posting up this pic, but this is the inspiration atm.. 'cept standard finish on the covers.. although I do like the idea of colour coding with my cream leather...

Also, slightly more excitingly.. if you're in to that kind of thing, I got a license for VCDS yesterday evening, so today enabled alarm chirp on lock/unlock, anti hijack and need to find somewhere quiet to reset my steering angle sensor and can now add throttle alignment to the to-do list for the mammoth car sesh when i get home :)

Oh, one last thing, £80 of V Power []

So I heard that tuck was the new scene thing..

Rear offside had been leaking air, got the new tyre fitted last Friday and was down to 10 PSI on the Wednesday, so took it back to the garage, they whipped it off and found out that the tyre was fine. Good news I hear you saying? Not entirely.. they found a little hairline crack on the rim of the ultraleggera [cry]

Am in the mood to torch the car right now...

Anyone in the Newcastle area recommend any wheel refurbers that might be able to weld it? Please PM me!

Decided to continue with the vinyl wrapping as the car is essentially grounded until I can get the wheel repaired now.

Took the passenger handle cover off, unscrewed the handle from the door card. Took the lot inside, scotchpadded the handle to death to remove all the textured coating, wrapped the walnut trim piece - did it with the trim insert in situ as I couldn't get it off the handle and was worried about damaging it.

Turns out di-noc works well for this, cut a rectangle bigger than the area to wrap, smoothed it down, put some heat on it and worked the vinyl around the edge of the insert with my thumbnail, ran a knife along the edge and peeled off the excess. Finito!

Monkehs! by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Just need to order some more to do the two rear handles, fit my cream gaitor and get a black 4Mo gearknob and that's the interior done as far as I'm concerned, need to give the seats an epic clean and I'm keeping my eyes out for some Recaros but not sure if I'll be able to justify it anytime soon..

Hopefully get back to more exciting mods soon once the wheel fiasco is sorted out!

Edited 27 August, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Nice progress mate, I'm looking for recaros atm too but blue 3dr ones seem rare as hell in a decent nick. TBH I have other schemes aswell.....

I know what you mean, the cream/beige ones are rare as fook.

Been spending my money on other things anyway so can't really afford them anymore!

S3 engine bay covering, <3 the VAG parts bin

nice bay

Cheers Neil! Looks a fair bit neater.. more like the TT anyway

Driven over 1000 miles in the last 7 days, so bloody chuffed with the car, laps up the miles unlike the 1.6 polo which would scream above 75MPH and felt like you were destined for 6 feet under handling wise

To update, fitted the sharan caliper springs hoping they'd sort the sticky rear brake, the handbrake is now a fair bit stiffer and wants to return to the home position with a lot more feel which is nice, but the caliper is still sticking, pretty sure it's the cables as I can manually release the piston with a screw driver on the arm that the cable attaches to, so it hasn't seized solid anyway.

Got frustrated with that so painted all the calipers black, was going to go red but thought black was a lot more subtle and I kinda like it, also went to clean out under the arch liners but was relieved to find clean 'as it left the factory' metalwork behind them so they've been doing the job anyway!

Must get some pics of the painted calipers at some point, makes a hell of a difference over the browny rusted mess they were before...

Also took some more shit pictures [:p]

DSC05819 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Edited 10 September, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

Don't lower it then cos mine hates long trips now!

Really? How so?

Probably just going to go about 25mm which should make me about 45mm down from a standard mkiv, hopefully the vw sports dampers will be alright going that little bit lower! Can't really afford bilsteins!

Gave her the mother of all coolant flushes today, was ridiculously bad before, lots of sludge in the expansion tank, ran some rad flush through it and then about 100l of clean water and it's nice and clear now :)

Hoping to try and get the LCR splitter on tomorrow! Isn't looking like I'll have a chance to do the R32 ARBs before returning to uni now sadly :(

Edited 11 September, 201115 yr by AMD_Man

So I got my OCD flex on...

OCD? by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Shiny door shut by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Fed the leather, hoovered carpets, detailed plastics, cleaned door/boot shuts and under bonnet.

Haven't even washed the damn thing yet, let alone clayed, polished or waxed!

So... Haven't updated this for a while..

Went to players

Well the old girl cleans up fairly well considering she was pretty neglected over the past few months

DSC05894 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DSC05931 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DSC05899 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DSC05886 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DSC05903 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Fitted an LCR splitter..

At first I wasn't sure but after looking at her head on for a while it's really grown on me, really think colour coding the valence would tie it all together though so that's still on the cards.

DSC06011 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

DSC06020 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Untitled_HDR2 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

Sunshine!

DSC06024 by andrew-fraser, on Flickr

So whadda you reckon?