82 Cabriolet S3 TFSI TSR conversion (wide arched)

So after picking up the recovery van 3 hours late due to it not being returned on time , the van breaking down on us 2 miles from final destination , £160 in diesel , a night spent in newquay , 2 hours waiting for the breakdown to recover a recovery van !! and a 560 mile round trip !!  I finally made it home with my 82 Cabriolet Which as you can see from the photos was a bargain for the price of £300.
  I am really happy with what I got  as there is the smallest amount of surface rust in the drivers footwell and just a bit of bubbling underneath the paint in front of the windscreen.
  I bought the car as a 1.5 non runner and was told that they thought that it was the wiring that was stopping the car from starting. In fact it was the condenser on the side of the dizzy and the fuel mixture that was stopping the car from running.
  I had a quick mess around on Sunday and have managed t keep it ticking over and managed to get it moving which it hadn't done in over 2 years.
  I have started to strip down the interior ready to get it sanded and to treat the surface rust in the footwell and give it a treating and a fresh coat of paint.
  Here's just a couple of pics of me getting it moving. I'll try and get some more pics of the car on friday to show you how good a state the bodywork is in.

Adam.

Thats a bargain!

Lovely motor, the Mars red suits it with the small bumpers

Looks nice and tidy!!

Going to keep her standard or what is the plan??

Thats a good looking 300 quid car!!

Thats a good looking 300 quid car!!

STEAL !

top work, sounds like a mini adventure on the picking it up and bringing it home as well

best of luck with the work you have planned and keep the picture updates coming !

Cheers

Rich

Cheers !! not too sure on what i'm going to do to it yet. 1.8T engine into it for a bit more power and a fresh coat of paint as well as getting the interior and seals sorted out first I think.

Adam.

Looks good mate ! I picked up A really similar car to this last week and have started stripping that down too. Look forward to seeing how it turns out

Good luck !

looks decent mate

Got on with stripping the car out today and started on getting all of the glue and adhesive off the body from under the sound deadening.
  I tried using a wire brush attachment on my grinder but it didn't do a great deal so i set about scraping it with a screwdriver and using some tar and glue remover to get rid of the gunk.


I only managed to get a couple of hours on the car so didn't get much of the glue removed yet
  How should I go about prepping the inside ? do I have to get the layer off from under the seats as it's stuck down good !! and what should I cover the interior with , any suggestions ?
   The only rust i've found was this bit , which isn't too bad. I went over it with the wire brush and i didn't get any nasty surprises !!  

  So that's how it stands for the time being !

Adam.

Well I have finally got around to cracking on with the car !! after the wedding and honeymoon and countless other weddings that I have had to attend !!
  Engine out , fuel tank off and engine bay cleared !! The car is pretty solid underneath with only a couple of places to be welded up and the front panel and a couple of the lower arches to be sorted out heres some pics of todays actions.

Great work!
The car looks really tidy. Not too much rust.
What are your plans?

djrussf1 said

Great work!
The car looks really tidy. Not too much rust.
What are your plans?

Undecided on what engine to go for at the mo' I just can't make up my mind !! Want to get the bodywork sorted out then a fresh coat of paint, and would like to put a new interior in as well. Would like to have a custom dash built but don't know who I would speak to ? Had a look online and can't find any companies that do custom dashes
  Hopefully should start getting things done a little quicker now to !!

Right !! I managed to get a little more done in the last few days , but i've still got a long way to go.
  I managed to get the rear axle off the other day and brushed off ready for painting , but I want to try and do the rear disk conversion done to it.
  I had some trouble trying to seperate the brake lines at the back so that i could drop the beam. After about 30 mins of trying I gave in as the nut had rounded and it wasn't budging (either side) In the end i cut the nut with the grinder so I will have to replace.
 I also managed to get the fuel tank brushed off ready for painting too.
Today I thought i'd give the bay a clean and try to get rid of the grease but I forgot my degreaser !!   so had a go with some truck wash , which didn't really do a great deal
  Then i found a bit of rust on the front wing so decided to take it off to see what the inners were like (inner looks solid   ). In trying to get the wing off a big split appeared down towards the light  :dontknow: I found out that it had a bit of a repair done which involved filler , a lot of filler at that !!!     I got the grinder on it to see if it was salvageable. Afraid not  :cry:
  So the work continues !!  

Nice buy and a bargain price!!!

New genuine wings are available at £202.96 Inc VAT from VW Heritage, along with a host if other hard to come by parts.

Paid members get a discount. See the BBT link on the left <<<<<.

looking great bud, that wing looked a bit scary but you got a bargain

chris

Right then !! Had my friend Mr angle grinder out at the weekend to see what i could discover. More bad news unfortunately !! found a few more holes that had been hidden by filler and not repaired properly , so i've got to start getting these sorted out.
 Also found a nice big dent that had been filled with about 2 inches of filler !!

Well I think i've gone as far as I want to bodywork wise before I end up cutting bits of metal off and making a hash of it. I've booked it in at Kimberley coach works in Nottingham on the 19th Jan to have all the bodywork sorted out on it and a fresh coat of paint.  I have also decided the route i'm going with the engine. TSR are fitting the 260 bhp T-fsi s3 engine   and is going down for the engine fabrication on the 1st of Dec.  
  The bodywork in Notts should be done by the end of March and then back down to TSR for the fitting soon after !!  Excited now !!!

Dropped off at TSR for the engine fabrication today it'll be there for a few weeks and then it's off to the body shop

Cars been in the body shop for a few weeks now and all the metal work has been finished bar a few little bits and pieces.  The guys have just started to do some of the prep work and the outside has been blasted.  
  I took the wheels up yesterday to see how they sit , but the arches are gonna have to be rolled.  
I've started to make up some new front door cards from some 6mm ply as I want to make them a bit stronger than the hardboard cards as I want to fibreglass some speaker moulds onto them. Gonna crack on with them a bit more tomorrow but they're looking good. I managed to line them up perfectly so that they use the plastic pins to fit into the holes on the door , I'll get some photos tomorrow at some point.