My Corrado. going 24v!

[Vw_owner 1]

not gona boar you to Death -..- with the details..

but a few months back rescued this from an otherwise unhappy life down south uk,

no mot,not tax and hadnt been driven for around 2 years!! if you recognise it please let me know

think the previous owner was a subaru freak as it had a scooby bonnet scoop and scooby style exhaust

reg K129 KWX black was white...

this is when i first got it,

did alot of stuff to it myself to keep the costs down,the usual service crap, leads,plugs,oil change,

rear mk4 golf calipers,oil cooler seals, discs f&r, wheel bearings f&R new miltek decat exhaust and weitec shocks, had to respray the bonnet as the previous owner pulled the scoop of takeing the paint with it!! i also smoothed the front bumper and relocated the indicators in the head lamp, lol i better stop here with the details.

windscreens comming out soon for rust repair also got rust on rea arch but i'll get it sorted

[Ian_rogers 0]

Love the work with the headlights!!!

[Vw_owner 1]

thanks ian, the headlights turned out alot better then expected,i tryed useing led indicators wired up to the plug but the indicators

worked at the wrong speed,{ realy fast} i guess to run them them you need to wire in a resitor? but the other problem i had with led is where the blady hell do you fit them? it dont look right no matter where you fit them, turns out anyway that highbeam has two bulbs, the main bulb {the bulb i replaced with indicator} and another smaller bulb in the main section of the headlamp, so i still have a highbeam and can still flash at people if needed, obviously though it aint as bright on highbeam as it was before but here in the channel islands unless your drivieng around at 2-3am you wont use highbeam anyway..

[plrdub 0]

That's one lovely car,love the corrado's,seen a few on ebay when we were looking at vr6's,but my fella being the way he is!!!! wouldn't let me have one,the one's we seen were minters,and was scared of me scuffing the wheels lol !!!

[VR6Pete 1,455]

I love Corrados

[Vw_owner 1]

thanks,completly forgot i posted up here , right now i cant sleep so i might aswell post some pics and progress of the rust situation, this past few months iv taken the corrado off the roads to sort ot the rust issues on the main shell,

:- rust bubbles above each top corner of windscreen

:-rear valance rust bubble + smooth badge holes

:- rear ns arch rust bubbles

:-tailgate hinge paint split signs of rust

:-ns rocker panel re shape and add stone chip finish from a previous unfinished repair.

:- delete roof aerial.

:-have multiple cups of tea in the process

i'll start with the tail gate hinges, realy wasnt expecting to find what i did,it just goes to show how bad it can be underneith before it becomes visible at that time its to late,

this was after pokeing and scrapeing at the split edge

same for the otherside

grounded all out, once i saw this it made me feel like iv bitten off more then i can chew, but once i got stuck in it felt so good seeing it together knowing idd done it properly. job satisfaction right there!!

this was after i cut the worst out,

tacking it together

all welds were grounded down before level with u-pols finest filler.

[Vw_owner 1]

bye bye roof aerial!! i realy hate aerials and sun roofs!! basicaly all the crap you dont need in a car i hate!!

]

one of three rust bubbles which all turned into holes on the arch,

in the middle of the rocker panel there was bare filler covered over by spray can paint, im guessing a previous owner had metal work done at somepoint so its down to me to finish it

smoothed it all off as best i could this also followed on to the top of the sill inside the door shut where there was a slight rust bubble so i smoothed that out aswell.

covered over the sill area with 2k primer then added u-pols gravitex to the rocker to add the oem stone chip texture

this is the drivers side which is mint! just to give you an example of the oem stone chip texture

[Vw_owner 1]

cut out the rust bubble on the rear valance, thought while im here i might aswel weld up the badge holes, made a plate to fit just inside of the vw badge recess, smoothed off some rust and a dent which i never knew about

smoothed to a certain extent with the help of u-pols powder guide coat.

[Vw_owner 1]

time to un cover the nasty scabs!! realy wasnt looking forward to this part!!!

you cant realy see from these pics but i was realy shocked i thought i was going to have to cut the lot out!!

anyway to do a half decent job thought its best i cut the screen out, easier said then done

took me and a m8 3hours with a wire saw, it came out almost undamged, but i orderd a replacement screen anyway as this one had a big chip in it!

only cost £80!! absolute bargain! it better fit!

anyway cleaned everything out ! and it started to reveal a few holes, nothing major but if this would of been left, next year might of been a different storey

heres the passenger side welded up, i forget to get a pic of the otherside, just imagine it done

leveld off with the old paint, again no pic for the other side, use that imagination!!!! lol

now iv been wanting to clean up the scuttle tray for agaes now, and nows the perfect time!!!

removed what i could, and what i didnt want to remove i taped up!, removed and cleaned the old vin plate aswell!

lol i love this! turns out my ecu has been replaced! £30! not bad, seen some on ebay for like £60!

i thought what if this is the wrong ecu? from a golf? but all is good ! i checked the number and its for the 2.9 corrado

all primed,

the first bit of Black magic! LC9Z!

[Nero Mk 2 8]

sweet mate, loads of good work there

[oldmandon 1]

Good job...some tricky bits to do there.....Brave man.....

[Vw_owner 1]

cheers guys, im almost there on the shell, after the shell though i got to do some welding underneith and re do both front wings

thought it would be best to remove the windows, as a previous painter just masked off around the seal, there was a slightly visible hard paint line which would chip easily, and adding more paint to that isnt a good idea,

just aswell coz i found some nasty rust forming

think the rust was forming because that window had been replaced and the paint was damged from removeing it,

the drivers side just seemed more oem like it hadnt been played with, i also found a piece of glass in the boot area,

if any of you want to remove your rear quarter window you can,

you will need a stanley knife and a crafts knife with a long ish blade, you cut/stab along the edge from the inside, and the vertical edge by the door edge you do from out side by lifting up the seal at the same time, takes around 3 hours per window,

also removed the door latch and found a massive hard paint line, im guessing they put it back on to soon after paint, and rust was forming,

i started preping the boot for paint, remember how my car used to be white, so all the pita stuff like engine bay,scuttle tray and boot was done with a spray can

the main shells in primer now, the black you see isnt urban camoflauge, thats my get out clause, if my paint job sucks

its actualy a powder guide coat its used for block sanding,

ill explain how it works as im such a nice guy ;@

when you start sanding the powder gets left behind and it will reveal the low spots in the paint,

you can see some low spots after slight sanding of the badge holes area, i actauly had to add abit more paint to this area as i started to hit filler when the wave was sanded out,

so more paint in that area follwed by another guide coat followed by more sanding = a very straight peice of work and once the guide coat is sanded out in theory your work is 100% smooth and ready for paint,now if you didnt sand out the low spots, fair enough there fractions of a mm but your paint would only sit inside it and basicly mimic that texture and you would end up with crazy orange peel texture on the clearcoat, basicly your basecoat or colour coat will not hide anything! as its so thinn and your clearcoat certainly wont either,

[Vw_owner 1]

any questions feel free, im not a pro infact this is the first time iv done anything this big, cheers

[Vw_owner 1]

got the boot preped to a certain degree, im not wasteing my time on something that cant be seen so i just sorted the rust around the abs sensor grommits and went to town with u-pols gravitex,

this is the texture it produces,

[rsweeney 40]

wow didnt quite realise how much you where doing on the body work side of things , im going to make a real effort to learn but where did you get the sprayin kit from ? and what welder you using ? done anything on the floor pans or sills ?

[Vw_owner 1]

spraying stuff was collected over a few months if you want to learn, like i have get yourself some how to dvd's and it will show you the basics but you wont start learning until you actualy do it and make mistakes and then correct them,

the welders my m8's its a seigen 130 amp i think cost around £250 from auto elec,

compressor's mine which i got from bougard and harry,on special for £200 its a 50litre with a high cfm think its around 9.5 which is good for a 50litre,

spray guns and prep materials and paint from ebay, you want a 2k { two componante paint} primer and then your colour base coat then you want a 2k clearcoat to give a decent long lasting finish, no welding on sills but i will be doing some underneith as theres a fkn hole from a previous owner which must of driven onto something ! absolute idiot!, be warned if you do want to get into bodywork it is very time consumeing! seriously its on par with cutting grass with tweezers.and in some cases its actualy easier/less money just to sell your car and buy another one with a better condition body, luckily your mk3's prety solid, you better sort that window out soon eh!

[ashmk3 0]

hat off to you mate, i once tried it but because of the time consuming part i got bored and rushed it. it looks like you have more patience than i do lol good luck ill follow this with interest.

[Vw_owner 1]

cheers, yea man its nuts, seriously i had a rough idea that it would take awhile but the time scale is probably 3times longer then i anticipated, theres allways something else which needs preping which you should do at the same time which makes it even longer, i just cant wait to get the bull shht jobs of sanding out the way and on to paint so i can see my hard work! just hope i can pull it off if i can get it like my bumper, man im gona be one happy chap!

[ashmk3 0]

if you can get it like your bumper you can come and do my bumpers lol

[rsweeney 40]

ha yeah im scared of whats under there tbh! still got the saggy door to fix but never know , now i have access to a full workshop i might get to have a go at it.

any chance when you do the floors you could take some pics ?

[VR6Pete 1,455]

I so would pay you come sort my rust spots!!

[Vw_owner 1]

cheers, pete where abouts have you got rust?,

yea rich i'll get some pics up when i do, wont be until early new year as im not bothered with that just yet, heres the hole

i was underneith and saw some fibre glass filler, eh hello!

removed it and found this!! luckily its not rott, seems to have drievn on to something, idealy i need a section cut from another corrado to weld into this, but i think the best bet is to cut it out to where its good and get my own metal in there and tack it then beat it then tack it some more and beat it some more,

and yea if i was you i would make a start on cutting that window out so you know how bad it is, if i would of left mine damn next year wouldnt of been a good year for my corrado,

[Vw_owner 1]

slow progress has been made, im hopeing next week i should be ready for some paint just got a few hours of sanding to do , then i need a major clean up of the shed and car to get rid of the sanding dust.

decided to re do my bonnet from the ground up! at the time my bonnet was my first spray peice and i didnt know about the guidecoat sanding technique and as a result you could see slight waves or ripples of the paint around the filler area, it still looked ok but i knew it was there so f-it do it again!,

didnt feel guilty about buying this for myself as a x-mas prezzy

got all the plastic sheeting i need for a diy booth also got an electric garage heater from me old work. not sure what im gona do about

an extarctor fan , plan was to rig up a car rad fan..

[Vw_owner 1]

finnaly got around to putting on the basecoat {colour} today, it went prety well, not as well as i was hopeing but the visible panels have turned out prety good, only 3 things which didnt go to plan, slightly scrapped air hose on paint , not bad but will need attention, condensation dripped off my mask on to the passenger side sill! so i gota sand that out! and in a couple of spots there was like contamintion marks which i have no clue where they came from , could of been the resin from my tack cloth but this is mainly on the drivers side door shut/sill so not visible when doors shut, overall im pleased with how the paint layed down, that devilbliss gun is an absolute beast!! compared to the cheap sealey gun, beautiful fan pattern and so smooth to operate, just need sand out those bits and re shoot another coat atleast iv got decent coverage and im halfway there

pics arent great due to the light and i didnt have much space,

it hasnt got its glossy wet finish yet as it still needs its clearcoat

[Vw_owner 1]

its almost finished and im so stoked!

i can finnaly see my hard work paying off, should be finished next month,

its not all smiles though, i went to do my bonnet and got crazy contamination! i thoroughly cleaned it before i stripped it of its original paint and before i primed and after useing the correct methods and pre wipe , so i put it down to my compressor spitting out oil, a decent new paint filter at the gun sorted it out,

just wiped it all back to the 2k primer with base thinners,

sun roof, in the reflection thats the fuel filler cap,

bonnet hinges, was done previously with matt black spray cann, so this is a massive improvment, also assembleing with new stainless bolts

gave my wheels a new look!

and the car!! so so so happy its not even funny! i had doughts to wether i could pull it off but them doughts flew out the window straight after i put the clear down! these pics were taken the day after i sprayed it, since then

dry spray/overspray and places with orange peel has been sanded out with 1500-2000 paper and buffed

with g3 compound and 3m's imperial glaze, so it looks even better then it does here,

back end is so sweet! no highs or lows from the badge delete,

i thought i would see some highs or divets or a sign of repair on the arch but nothing, looks so good!

hard bits prety much done, still need to rust repair and spray the tailgate but im not going crazy on that, also doing all red rear lights, and the best bit is iv got my motivation back! i kinda lost it halfway through but im back on it!!

assembleing the car shouldnt take long and its straight forward just need to sort out a windscreen fitter as i dont fancy doing that myself, the quarter glass windows i'll glue in myself though thats prety straight forward and i cant go wrong with that, still need to do both doors but they can wait till the cars driveable and are do them as and when along with the front wings,