Right i've had my polo 4 months now and thought it would be time to start a thread! (Quite new here)
Anyway, Basically I'm a 17 year old kid with no car experience what so ever, so everything what will be done will be from guides (This is going to be fun)

So, I bought the car back in January 2014 with no intention of doing anything what so ever to it because i am complete novice when it comes to cars! Bought it for £725, 142000 on the clock (which is quite a lot) but it is in very very good condition for its age.. I think? Anyway, its a 1993 Mk2f Polo genesis 1.3.

Thats what it looked like when i bought it, already, personally i think it looks really nice! Everything works perfectly and it comes with BBS alloys (Dont know if they're stock or not?)

Anyways, got it home and it sat on my drive for about 4 months and i just sort of... Looked at it until about 2 weeks ago when i came across this picture!

And that was it. I Started my mad journey of (Probably) fail.

The first thing i did was the roof Bars. My brother had recently sold his morris minor, so he had a nice vintage roof rack lying around. (Of which he charged me £30! Cheeky bugger)

Here are some pics !

Got some Northcore Roof Pads for the surfboards when I pass as well (Keen surfer)

The second thing i did. Were the speakers! After fighting to get the old crap stock speakers out i finally fitted some 3.5's in the front and 6x4 in the back. I wired the back speakers through the bottom door skirt and then under the seat so they can't be seen. Speakers are alright, but i might get some 6x9 and put them in the parcel shelf? (Yes, no?)

Got a nice sony head unit. Speakers weren't to hard to wire up!

Anyway. Next thing i did was the bumpers. Theses weren't to hard to take off but, just required me to get under the car and take some nuts off!

Grill and front bumper are off!

And the back!

So once i got them off, i searched around on to spray paint plastic bumpers. Watched a couple of youtube clips and thought i knew what i was doing (hopefully)

Anyway, I lightly sanded part of the bumper down with P400 Sand paper which i found in the workshop and also put some resin on a bit of the bumper to see what would happen. I did this to see if it was quicker to just to resin on the bumper because it gives a nice hold and finish and it would save a lot of time! Heres what it turned out like after i resin and primed it.

Yep. Not to good. It wasn't smooth, and it left loads of the these sorta pimpled holes!

So, i was left with no choice but to sand it down. But before that, i wanted to see the finish on a light sand. So, thats what i did!

This is what it turned out like! This is with two primer coats and two spray coats and a lacquer spray afterwards. I kinda like the bumpy look as i do like rat cars, What do you guys think?

Anyway, thats all i've got up to so far, any ideas of what i should do next (after the bumpers)?
Bumper process will be up tomorrow hopefully!

(Sorry about the noviceness in the post haha )

imo if you want to really paint the bumpers ti should be done properly because the paint over raw plastics it´s not really my look but then again you do what you like because in the end of the day it´s your car and you should be the one to like it. i only say this because i have had mine color coded and they are really lovely

love the color by the way

We have progress!

Did the Front bumper today, turned out pretty good i think! Need to lacquer it tomorrow.

Also sanded down the wheels for a re-spray and they also turned out quite well!

They also need to be lacquered tomorrow!

I also decided to take the side skirts off the car! Didn't take to long to pull them off, but unfortunately, they left quite a mess, so i spent about 30mins cleaning it and getting all the shit off!

Looked at lost worse than this, but forgot to take pictures!

From this, to this..

Good days work if i don't say so myself! Hopefully both bumpers will be done by thursday and also the wheels!

Break fluid and air filter needs to be changed so that will be done next week. Xenon lights are also order!

Going to buy some clear break lights as well, any ideas where to get them?
Also, thoughts on a bonnet bra?

thats a good project, nice to see some research being done before moding

Nice to see my car has given someone some inspiration at least

Nice to see my car has given someone some inspiration at least

You probably don't want to be saying that just yet, lets see how it turns out first!

thats a good project, nice to see some research being done before moding

Cheers! Slowly but surely coming along quite nicely!

You should of de-grained the plastic on the bumpers by sanding the texture off with 180 on a Orbital sander, then going over it with something smoother like 320, then spray some plastic primer adhesion promoter on it, then several coats of high build primer, then wet sand with 600 or 800, then paint silver, then lacquer... That's how you do it properly, but it's your car and if you like the texture that's up to you but personally I just think it looks naff and bodged and it will probably flake off pretty quickly too.

You should of de-grained the plastic on the bumpers by sanding the texture off with 180 on a Orbital sander, then going over it with something smoother like 320, then spray some plastic primer adhesion promoter on it, then several coats of high build primer, then wet sand with 600 or 800, then paint silver, then lacquer... That's how you do it properly, but it's your car and if you like the texture that's up to you but personally I just think it looks naff and bodged and it will probably flake off pretty quickly too.

Hmmm, It was done quite professionally, other than it wasn't sanded down smooth! Thanks for the advice though! :)

UPDATE!

Got the bumper on yesterday, and it does look pretty good i think?

Colour coded the vw badge as well. I also cleaned up the back wheels as they where pretty crappy...

Ordered some pressed number plates which also should look nice on the car.

Things to do!

Put back bumper back on.

Install central locking.

Fix central heating (only seems to work on 3?)

Install cig liter.

Lower the beauty.

Clear indicator lights!

Fix central heating (only seems to work on 3?)

under the scuttle tray there is a resistor on the side of the blower, it will need replacing to get 1&2 working again.

Kinda liked this picture!

I think it would look good if you colour coded the wing mirrors to match the bumpers.

Fix central heating (only seems to work on 3?)

under the scuttle tray there is a resistor on the side of the blower, it will need replacing to get 1&2 working again.

Oooooh, thanks! I'll give that a go later! :) :)

I think it would look good if you colour coded the wing mirrors to match the bumpers.

Yeah i was thinking that, but then again, i don't know if i want a bit of black on the car. I've got to replace the passenger side wing mirror, so i might spray the old one!

Car is un/Fortunately slowly turning in to a chav mobile. Which, can be kinda good or bad, which ever way you take it i guess?

Anyway, got this massive bad boy! Doesn't sound to chavy at all tbh, its got a nice purr to it which is what i really wanted Sticks out a bit and was a swine to fit (Hit my head about 50 times on the car trying to twist the exhaust off).
Sticks out a bit, which is kinda annoying, so might have to get the old man to make the pipe a bit longer to get it a bit more snug!

Anyway, got a bit of a problem with the paint work! Cleaned this up with some filler and a lot of work!

Used to look like that, which is kinda dreadful, but after i cleaned it up and sprayed it, it turned out like this!

As you can see, there is a massive improvement! BUT. The colour is kinda different to the normally colour! I sprayed it with Halfords satin silver, and I've sprayed something else on the car and that matched alright, but i was just wondering why this different match? Should I got to a VW dealer to get some paint or? Suggestions please! :)

You should of gone to halfrauds and given them your paint code then they would mix up a can the exact same colour. What did you use to spray the bumpers? That colour matched the original why didn't you use that?

Yeah thats what i did! They matched all the colours correctly and it turned out alright everywhere but the door panels?

The paint will never be the same when you just spray a patch like that, the original paint may have been put on thicker and with more coats of lacker, which will make it look different, and it will never look the same out of a rattle can anyway, try machine polishing it to help blend it in a bit!

you'll need to blend in over larger area to try cover iit up, as said t-cut and polish will even it out

Yeah you can't just paint patches like that, especially with metallic colors. You need to paint the whole door really.

I've got a silver gt myself and just recently finished it as a project,it took me 2 attempts ,,and i did a full spray job on mine and to spray silver metallic is a really hard colour to get right,,like others have said spraying patches wont work very well,,so it'll be best to spray the full door but then the door will look a slightly different shade of silver in the light..