Alan, my Clipper Cabby...

Well, since I was a young lad, I've always coveted a Mk 1 cabriolet, but had never got around to getting one. Now I'm 45 and able to afford a summer toy, I found this one in, of all places, a neighbour's garage!

It had been owned by a horsey lady, and was covered in dog hair, horse 'stuff' and was generally unloved. The paintwork was particularly manky with a bloom all over it. Otherwise the car was sound, with a full service history and 115,000 on the clock for a 'K' plate, which isn't too bad.

I have owned a number of VAG vehicles in the past including a T4 camper and an Audi A4, but this is my current daily driver;



She's a beauty, but that's a whole other story (and forum!!).

So, back to Alan, as he's been dubbed by my kids. Lovingly named after weird Alan off the Hangover films First job was to get the outside ship-shape, this is 'before';



You can see that the paintwork is faded, what you can't see are the stains on the seats .

So, Alan was given a good clean to start;

1. Pressure-wash hood (came up lovely) and reproofed,

2. Wash-down paintwork and clay-bar,

3. Remove front grill to treat cloudy lights,

4. Strip-out inner panels, seats and carpets (Was a relief to find a completely dry and unstained floor pan!),

5. Flush coolant system, radweld and refill,

6. Soak carpets in Oxy-Action and pressure-wash (They came up a treat as you can see!),


7. Thoroughly clean inner panels, which were absolutely filthy and had that delightful nicotine smell. I used this stuff, it is the best I have found for cleaning fabric,


8. Used the same stuff on the seats and they came up like new. Just need to go over them with a fabric shaver to get rid of the bits.

9. Got the cutting compound out on the paintwork and it has come up much better than expected. Still a way to go, but it is now presentable!

10. Completely Gunk and wash down the engine bay (it's not show-standard but I can now reach in without my clothes looknig like I've rolled around in the Exxon Valdez!)

11. Lastly, at the moment is getting rid of the cloudy spotlights. So I removed the grille, removed bulbs etc, and laid the grille facedown on the decking. I filled them with water and a sterident tablet. The following morning I used an old wall-tie and a bit of kitchen scouring sponge to actually scrub the internals. Was a bit of a pain, but they are much better!
BEFORE :-


AFTER :-

You can still see the bit of sponge in there. This is how I fashioned the tool, one end for moving the sponge around, and one for retrieving it afterwards!


Well, that's about it for the moment. Still to do are;
- Bleed and service brakes and renew fluid,
- Get new cambelt fitted (better safe than sorry!),
- Oil & filter change.

Goodies I've so far bought are some nice new legal pressed number plates and surrounds (look much better IMHO), some new floor mats and a couple of universal leccy window switches to replace the cruddy genuine ones.

A couple of 'mid-valet' piccies;




Thanks for looking, and I'll get some better piccies up once he's all put back together…

Nice results Andy she has come up a treat. The carpets tend to absorb years of cack but your treatment seems to have done the trick

Bit more work done, and now he's pretty much there…
Internal rebuild:




Gave the engine bay a bit of a spruce up and got rid of years of cack. Also noticed that the slam panel was filled with leaves and crud which blocked the drain holes so they were cleaned up…


Shame I don't have a before and after, but the seats came up like new…


A bit of Wolfsburg bling…




The bonnet has come up pretty good so far, but there's still a bit more to do…


And finally, I whipped the wheels off, replaced the brake fluid and bled them (the stuff that came out was brown!), and while I was there gave the calipers and drums a coat of black caliper paint to tidy them up.

And a 'finished' shot…

Few more internal piccies. Carpets now look (and smell!) like new…




Taa-dah…


And a final piccie…

Looks great, you can see that it has had loads of tlc

Nice work mate. That carpet looks great.

Top job mate, looks very tidy now!!

Swap the passenger seat base cloth and foam over to the drivers side and vise versa.
This evens the bolster wear out on the seat edges.
Saves bolster collapse and wear through the seat material.

The Drivers outer bolster gets bashed as you get in and out the car, so swapping means the bashed bolster becomes the new passenger inner and the origional passenger inner becomes the new drivers outer bolster.

RICH234GHA said

Looks great, you can see that it has had loads of tlc

Could really do with a sprayover, perhaps next year. The camera hides the stonechips on the front valance, but overall I am pleased with how it has cleaned up!

You should receive that seatbelt tomorrow andy

Its funny you call your car Alan I call mine Alan too only reason reg ends in aln. Funny hey. Anyway car looks good mate 

project1 said

You should receive that seatbelt tomorrow andy

Its funny you call your car Alan I call mine Alan too only reason reg ends in aln. Funny hey. Anyway car looks good mate 

Mine's been named Alan by my kids. Reason is when I cleaned the hood with a pressure-washer and left some lines like Alan off of Hangover 2 when he got his badass haircut…

Well, finally taxed and insured last weekend so out to the coast with the family. Wifey thought it may be a bit 'agricultural', but was pleasantly surprised by the whole dub experience.

Anyway, he went in for a new cambelt and oil change yesterday. While they were at it they found the water pump was leaking, so a new one of them was fitted (the complete housing), along with a new fanny belt and some Quantum Synta semi-syn oil and filter.

Only minor fly in the ointment was a split bottom hose that goes to oil cooler. Veedub have them on ten day backorder at £58+vat (), so a quick search of t'internet brought up the same genuine part including 24hr delivery for £30 all-in. Beauty!!!

So now, he'll be all good for Bristol Volksfest at the weekend. They joys of owning older vehicles Best bit is, while they were working on it, I got them to check out the underside. All is good, and they can't see anything which'll fail next month's MOT. 

Good news Andy, sounds like you've come up trumps. VW would be the last place I would go to for some parts as the prices they charge these days are ridiculous

Enjoy the sun mate

wow looking fantastic mate

Well, a bit of a free day today meant I could do some bits'n'bobs for Alan's MOT. On checking last years stiffy-cat, he's only done 373 miles and there was only one advisory for OSR wheel-bearing slight play, so hopefuly that hasn't worsened. Plan is to fit new over the winter anyhow fingers crossed for a pass.

So jobs done included cleaning sparkplugs. Havdn't had a car that needed them for about fifteen years! They were triple arm jobbers and dirty as hell, so a good wirebrushing got em clean. Also, annoyingly the stereo had been wired in by someone whose idea of electrics is vastly different from mine. After sorting out the spaghetti mess of wiring, finally managed to get Sony headunit wired in to a switched ignition live. Now it turns off when it should and actually has a memory .

Then sorted out interior courtesy light that was hanging out, passenger door grab handle that had come out at top and best of all finaly adjusted the passenger door so it now closes cleanly.

Feeling chuffed with mysel I went to put some petrol in, and stuck in Super Premium Gold-Plated Unleaded rather than the usual low-fat alternative. How 'effin much a litre .

Heartbreaking prices at the pumps these days aren't they Andy

Yeah, right!

£1.49 a litre from village garage! Used to paying £1.32 for low-fat supermarket unleaded…

        £1.49!! How far does a tank of the good stuff get you? Any better than the "normal" stuff?

smudger said

        £1.49!! How far does a tank of the good stuff get you? Any better than the "normal" stuff?

Closer to an overdraft, that's all  

So, in he went for an MOT today. Passed fine but with some brake advisories. No biggy, just some clean-up work and a bigger servo over winter should dort it out for next year...