"Have a go hero", I like that, I think that sums up my mentality perfectly. There's only a few jobs so far that I've decided not to do myself or that I've not been able to do, but that's what other people in the community are for I reckon.

Yesterday I got the replacement rear screen out of the cellar and cleaned off the overspray with a green scouring pad and some sugar soap. Came up really well. Put my special silver Club Polo sticker on too (pictures when the tailgate is finished). My Retro Rides sticker should be in the post by now I expect which will be going on the other corner.

Today, I set about stripping the decidely dodgy paint off the tailgate. Of all the panels on the car, this one is the worst. At some point we think the previous owner reversed into a post or similar as well as using both hands to put matching dents in the rear panel when closing the tailgate.

Several different layers and kinds of paint, reactions, rust and neglect. I like the texture in a hang-it-on-the-wall-as-art sort of way, but not in a put-it-on-my-car sort of way.

This was Rover Nightfire Red pearlescent.

As I stripped the paint I had a tiny window of time before the jam-like goo dried and set and had to be reactivated. The various layers just sort of turned into this horrible gloop.

Once most of the paint was off (hadn't taken off the lock at this point) I got out the marker pen and figured out how much of the panel was deformed.

Oh well, lots of filling to do there. Thankfully the metal behind the lock was really solid with only minor discolouration type rust which mostly brushed off but was wire brushed too, just to be sure.

Tomorrow I'll have a go at doing the other side of the panel and the filling of those big shallow dents (I wonder if the previous owner closed the tailgate by using hammers?). My other job for tonight is to get the final coat of black on the back of the wing that's still here and then tomorrow I can look at putting the final coat of black on the outside before getting the red detailing finished.

List of jobs for the weekend is pretty extensive, but happily I have Mechanic friend and Just Getting Into Cars And Wants A Capri friend to help me out for which I'm very grateful.

At some point there will be a big mission to get all the body panels back to and on the car too, probably in about a month since that's how long it'll take me to finish everything I reckon.

Weekend plan:

Sort out and fit new front brakes. Fit new rear wheel bearings and brake drums.

Prepare and paint front valance (edges at least) so that front wings can be bolted on.

Put wheels back on, put petrol in, pootle around farm

Strip sills and rear arches, deal with rust, paint prepared bodywork.

Need to finish more stuff to feel like I'm actually getting somewhere with this. Right now it just feels like (and if I'm honest, actually is) a huge mountain of work.

I love project threads like this.. Good work!!

I love project threads like this.. Good work!!

Thank you :) I keep having moments where I'm regretting all this work, then I finish a bit and I get all excited to do more again. Really not looking forward to sorting out those dents though

Nice little project. Always good to see some have-a-go-heros about.

x2

So... I want to band my 13" steels on the Polo because I've never seen anyone band the stock Mk2 wheels before. I don't want camber, stretch or poke since I'm not keen on any of those things. Plan to keep the wheels nicely tucked within the confines of the bodywork without stretching, rolling or flaring the arches.

So now the question: How wide can/should I go to retain stock bodywork on a set of stock 13" wheels without stretched tyres?

I know I can't go very wide on the back, VW sacrificed tyre width for cabin and loading space, but I'm not entirely sure how I work out how wide I can go.

love this thread mate. This is what its all about for me, why I love cars. Its not people who drop their car off in a garage and pick it up, its the people like you we dont see for 6 months stuck in a shed and then you leave with a one off brilliant car after much blood, sweat and tears.

Fair play to you my man.

love this thread mate. This is what its all about for me, why I love cars. Its not people who drop their car off in a garage and pick it up, its the people like you we dont see for 6 months stuck in a shed and then you leave with a one off brilliant car after much blood, sweat and tears.

The more I've added to this thread the happier I've been for seeing things like this, really makes me feel like it's worth putting the stupid amount of effort in to get everything sorted out. I don't know what I'm going to do when I've finished all this bodywork, I'll have so much free time!

With a bit of luck, later tonight I'll have an update on the tailgate, all depends how long this filling takes me. It's quite handy working from home and being self employed.

I love it when I've got a proper project to get my teeth into. Going home everynight and doing a couple of hours keeps you busy and the eventual goal of finishing it is made so much better if youve done it all yourself. Theres nothing like it, in my eyes

I've been watching my stats shoot up on Photobucket as this build has progressed along with the number of positive comments increasing. Keeps me going with it all. This weekend I'm off to the workspace and will have another friend helping who's just getting into cars, which is pretty awesome.

I got those dents sorted out and they are huge. Great big shallow things that are a bit of a bugger to get smoothed properly.

Fill

Sand

Fill

Sand

Once it was about as smooth and perfect as I could get it I thought it time to apply some primer. Due to thunderstorms this had to be done indoors and I successfully fumigated the entire house as a result.

I think that's a pretty good result. It's really close so I'm going to apply another coat of primer after this weekend and sand back to see how close it is. Hopefully I shan't have to do any more filling and can then get straight on with the shiny stuff.

This weekend I shall hopefully be getting the front wings bolted on (now finished all bar final cut and polish), the front valance painted and the front brakes fitted. If I'm lucky I'll also get the sills and rear arches sorted out and the roof painted, but that's dependant on how smoothly the other jobs go.

I'm after a slim high level brake light or lens to go in the washer hole at the top of the frame, any suggestions welcome on that score.

The weekend was a very productive one. All four corners got new brakes and while we couldn't bleed all the air out of the system, that job will be done by my friend who's Dad's barn the car is currently living in. Had another friend join me to help with the car too, so he was a boon doing things like getting rid of rust and being a second pair of hands for a wide variety of jobs. On to the pictures.

New helper helping.

Mechanic friend, Adam, removing a strut to replace the strut top bushes so they don't fail on the new MoT.

He also replaced my shocking front discs. He'd refurbished the calipers since my last visit and painted them but I don't have a picture. In addition to that he replaced the rear drums and wheel bearings and the one corroded steel brake line with a shiny new copper brake line.

I did some work on the bodywork. Driver's side was given a quick coat of paint to keep it waterproof and I'll be going back to prepare that panel and smoothing it out at a later date. I also got two coats of paint on the roof and the passenger rear quarter. Finally fitted the front wings and the hub caps. Smallest job was clicking the newly detailed rear view mirror in.

I return to the workspace in three weeks time when I hope to have tailgate, bonnet and passenger door painted and fitted so that the car is waterproof and almost ready for an MoT.

Perhaps not as exciting an update as the previous one since nothing in this one is finished, but we shall see.

First of all, a while ago I started work on the sunvisors. I'm still working on the covers so they've stalled for a bit and since the body panels are more important they're very much on the back burner along with the seats and door cards.

Stripped, waiting to be cleaned.

After washing as much of the glue and foam off as I could, I tackled the remaining bits and flashing with a hand file. Took a while, but you'll see why this was done later in the build.

Surprised at how big these visors are, each one requiring an A3 sized amount of material to cover them.

Trimmed the pattern and checking fit.

Then it was on to the next sunvisor. This one was completely finished but because of the change to the interior there wasn't much point keeping it this way. It's a shame really, my partner spent ages hand sewing the edges of this visor to finish it off properly (and yes, I was duly berated for undoing hours of finger bleeding work).

Top visor is the one above stripped. Peculiarly the visor skeletons were not the same colour plastic, but since I want them black anyway it means I only have to spray one of them.

Next job was to tackle the aluminium lattice beauty rings I got from here (sorry, I've forgotten the name of the person I got them from!).

One was in really bad shape.

Before I straighten anything out, I get my trusty Sugar Soap. Need to buy more of this, I've been going through it like I'm addicted to it.

Bottom rings almost completely clean, top two not touched. With more time I'll get all the grot off but for now I just wanted to remove the loose stuff so I could see what I was doing.

It was getting late, so I didn't manage to finish straightening out that bad ring. Resorted to seeing how easy it was to polish with Brasso and discovered that I need to get something a bit tougher on it first to get the metal back to something like.

I don't think the lattice trims are beyond saving, but they're certainly going to give me a lot of work. I only hope they work on the car since it would be a shame to do all this work and find out they don't fit.

I stripped the bonnet down to find no rust but one new dent (not sure where that's from) and primed the bonnet and the tailgate. First job was to apply the first coat of red paint the morning after.

Pesky dent.

After the red was touch dry I could get the masking tape on the nice straight edges and apply the black paint. Took me a while to work out what it reminded me of until I realised it was the Lucky Strike colours... tempting.

After the black was done, which seemed to take a lot less time than usual, I pulled off the tape and was really pleased with the colour split. I must be getting the hang of these paints because I'm getting less and less problems.

This week should see the bonnet and tailgate finished front and back. I'll be squidging the rear window back in and refitting all the bits and bobs once I've cleaned them up. All being well next week I'll get both front doors finished since I have space to work on those in tandem and that should leave me a week to work on interior stuff.

I only wish my driving lessons went as smoothly as this!

Things are storming along at the moment. It's amazing how much faster the painting goes when I don't have to strip the panel back to bare metal, treat rust and fill dents.

Today I'm ahead of schedule, which has me grinning quite a lot.

With a little help from the significant other I got the doors out of the cellar and onto the lawn. I'd already got the blue sliding glass out of the white door and removed the chunky bumpstrip, but I can't get the quarter light out, frustratingly.

We then pulled off the door handles and mirrors ready for paint.

I thought I ought to check the doors were the same for the door cards I'm making. The white door is from a newer car, possibly a Parade model, and has a slightly different release handle which I'll swap for my old one, blue tinted glass, cable-operated door mirror and a strengthening/side impact bar. However, the shape of the door card and the metalwork is essentially identical so all is good.

Next job was to make a template for my new, flat door cards. They'll have a slight compound curve due to the shape of the inside of the door, but should look nice and smart.

Took some time to flat back the paint on the old door. Surprisingly there was only a small amount of rust on the underside which was easily dealt with.

Then I could get the firstcoat of black on. It's so much faster without the pfaff of stripping back to bare metal and removing rust and priming. Makes me a happy bunny.

Took the wire brush to the bumpstrip glue on the white door, happily getting to use the new drill after the old cheap one was burnt out from the last visit to the workspace.

First coat of black and an alternative colour option should I get bored of the red further down the line... but I'm going to resist the urge to Art Deco the car for now.

Interior of the tailgate painted. Needs a second coat and the glass fitting to be finished.

Bonnet now finished.

What car today would be complete without stickers? I'm keeping to stickers for the places I update the build thread at and a couple of funny-because-they're-true type stickers.

More soon, I have no doubt.

Little update this time. My new bumper arrives tomorrow, which I'm excited about.

Today I put the petrol filler flap back together, being sure to touch up the red where it got slightly damaged due to the way the hinge fits back in one piece. Red hinges are going to be carried throughout the car so that it's a nice matching detail.

Then, after flatting back the black on the doors, I put the second coat on. Some detritus had got on the panels from somewhere so I had to flat that out too. One more coat of black should see the paint ready for polishing. The red (which looks nearly like it does in real life in this picture, rather than the usual pinkish hue) needs another two coats to be finished, ideally.

Today was a good day. I sorted all the smaller bits and pieces out that need to be taken up to the car in a couple of weeks and this is the pile I've got to shift.

Then it was the usual drill of flatting back and painting. The black just needs a polish, while the red needs a final coat. I'll probably switch to painting the back of the doors and do the red last now because that will make life slightly easier. Getting there though.

My parents kindly delivered the second Hillman Imp/Sunbeam Stilleto bumper today. The pair of bumpers only cost £10 (less than getting proper Polo bumpers!), and they mostly just need a bit of TLC to make them shiny enough to look smart on the car. Eventually I'll probably get them rechromed.

I hadn't thought of using Imp bumpers because I thought they'd be too small, but when the above appeared about 10 minutes from where my parents lived for such a low price I couldn't pass on the opportunity really. Turns out they're likely to be a perfect fit. The bottom of the black on the tailgate is the widest point of the car and the bumpers just fit over it, so it should look good.

I would quite like to have my house back now though.

I would quite like to have my house back now though.

Love it!

mate this is looking cool! :) cant wait to see it put together! Crazy! I did a red roof on a back car and people said it was a crap. but i think its brave and works! Nice mate! :)

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that 'people' don't know anything What's not to like about a black car with a red roof?

Update time, again. This bank holiday weekend will see the paint on the bits I can do here finished and next week I'll be moving on to the interior, finally.

So, on to today's update I suppose.

6 brass door pulls from eBay for 1p + £2.50 postage? Yes please and thank you. Nice long screws to fix them to the door cards and just the right size for my hands.

Interior of both doors given the first coat of black. The white one needs flatting and giving a second coat and while the blue doesn't need it, I'll do it anyway for completeness. The hinges will go red.

Outside of this door finished all bar a good polish and the refitting of the various bits of trim. Well chuffed.

Finish isn't as good on this one, but again should polish out okay.

Mind you, I got my masking a bit wrong, so I'll have to fix this. At least it's an easy job.

Finally, a revision of the custom concept. Much closer to how I want it to look, but still in need of some tweaking. Inspired in part by the Austin A40 Farina and the Riley/Wolseley Elf/Hornet.

more please

Soon... There's a big update next weekend, of course, when the car will be in one piece again. This weekend should see the last bit of panel painting done and next week the last bit of sewing for the seat covers.

Not had chance to work on the car since the last update, frustratingly.

Condensed version since I don't want to have to go through the rigmarole of copypasta-ing the whole massive update. To see the whole gory story, go here: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?...mp;thread=82305

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

The rear bumper needs to be modified or replaced with a wider and bigger one and the paint (especially the driver's side rear quarter) needs more attention before I get on with polishing. Oh, and the interior needs finishing of course. However, we're very close to MoT time now (just need to fit numberplates, mirrors, indicators, fix the small blow on the exhaust and put some new tyres on, actually) so we're getting to the point where I have to do epic levels of fiddly cosmetic work.

Awesome.

I'm really glad that i'm an insomniac and decided to click on this.

great work, although i am curious why you didn't just copy and paste from the retro rides forum ?

Mainly because it was three posts... took a lot of pictures, it was a lot of stuff and, sometimes, I'm just lazy. Poor excuse, I know, but when you're updating 4 or 5 different forums you do tend to abbreviate a bit. Insomnia ftw! This post will've disappeared by the time people who work days (unlike me) wake up so it's good to get some attention.

Days are for the weak.

Also, you're right. This doesn't recieve the recognition it deserves. I'm even going to mention that reading from the beginning, I got the impression you were going to be in your forties/fifties, yet you're a year older than I.

It needs lowering though, just to complete the streamlined look.