Alan, my Clipper Cabby...
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Not so much a restoration, as a bit of a wash and brush-up!
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…
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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…
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Local Hero
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.
"Making Cabbies More Beautiful One Roof at a Time"
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Old Timer
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
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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…
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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.
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Enjoy the sun mate
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SOUTHWEST Regional Host. Bristol Meet - 1st Friday of the month - Toby Carvery Bradely Stoke Bristol Bristol Region Facebook Group
1.8T CABBY
TINTOP THREAD (SOLD 2016) SPORTLINE THREAD (SOLD 2015) CLIPPER THREAD (SOLD 2012)
1.8T CABBY
TINTOP THREAD (SOLD 2016) SPORTLINE THREAD (SOLD 2015) CLIPPER THREAD (SOLD 2012)
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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 .
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