Rainbird's LCR

Hi folks, long time lurker but infrequent poster. Previously had a Leon Cupra (below) which I sold when I found out I was soon to be racking up 300 miles a week in favour of a more economical Mk4 Golf GT TDI (PD150) (also below)





The move requiring the commute has now been postponed until next May, so the slight boredom of the Golf became a little much so this happened.

Please don't expect too much in terms of a quick or particularly interesting build thread. This isn't a 500bhp big turbo 4wd conversion rocket-powered track spaceship, this is more so I can track what I'm doing to the car and keep it all in one place really. I've bought this car in a bit of a sorry state and needing a lot of love, so my main priority is going to be spending a little time and effort getting the car back to the way it should be. After that then perhaps there'll be a few choice tweaks thrown into the mix, but we'll have to wait and see...



So, I’m sat at home perusing a well-known auction site seeing what cars seemed to be about for less money than they should have been when I find an ad for a Seat Leon Cupra R (in 2003 210bhp AMK flavour, with a REVO map to 265bhp and a few other little bits but nothing too substantial). The car in question is around 3 hours away and has a short time remaining, was a little rough around the edges and had a few problems that had the potential to be an expensive pain in the arse to fix. I put in a bid in the final moments but it wasn’t high enough to come out on top, but I wasn’t too fussed in all honesty given it was a bit of a “just in case” type bid in the event of the auction being missed by people watching it.

Anyway, the winning bidder had ended up being an idiot and messed the seller around with regards to paying and colleting the car, who offered me a “Second Chance Offer” on the vehicle for the price of my highest bid (which was less than half of the going rate for the cars at the moment). I got chatting to the seller via email, along with some back-and-forth with his mechanic gathering a bit more history on the car and it was clear that although the car was in a pretty sorry state at the moment, it had been looked after really well during his 9 years of ownership, despite any costs involved. The car was listed as having a head gasket on the way out, losing coolant and burning oil and it was semi-clear from the photos (which I can only assume had been taken through a Vaseline-smeared lens) that whilst the bodywork was clean, the wheels needed a refurb and it had some choice styling options from a crash into the nearest Halfords store. I made another, lower, cheekier offer to the seller and was pretty surprised when after a bit of consideration he agreed to it, on the condition that I collected the car within the week. Result! Bit of a doer-upper, but mostly minor issues. Ideal.

I was planning on driving up into the area at the weekend to take my dad up to collect his new toy – a 1985 Land Rover Defender 90”, a factory V8 manual in ridiculously good shape – and this LCR was around 20 minutes away from there. Unfortunately there was no way I could drive one car up and both cars back and we don’t have a trailer to tow it home with the Landy, which would have been ideal! I told the seller I’d work something out and go from there.

So it’s 8am the following day and I’ve just sorted my **** out ready to head to Derriford Hospital for an appointment with the allergy clinic. Long story short, my employer have decided that my intolerance to seafood which they previously decided was ok, wasn’t ok and needed to be checked out. Fun. I’ve got a few hours of skin and blood tests ahead but nothing particularly taxing and it beats being in the office I suppose. By a little after 10am I’m pretty much done and back in the car park, figuring out what to do with my afternoon off. Almost as soon as I’m in my car ready to head home, I get a message from some douche with an S3 asking when I’m picking up the new car. With the afternoon off and no plans, I check a few train times and reply to let him know I’m on the way up and will need a lift from the train station to the Leon.





Because RaceTaxi.



Rather nice M3 hooned past not long after we left the station:





The seller was more than happy with this despite the short notice, which was somewhat handy I suppose, so a few hours later we arrived at his place to find the car waiting outside. As expected the car is a little ratty in places – chavtastic tints on the windows, lack of splitter – but nothing too killer from what we could make out. The seller arrives and we open the bonnet and start the engine. Everything sounds nice and smooth, but there are boost leaks galore, the expansion tank is the most disgusting colour and it’s pretty clear that there’s no flow of coolant through the system; likely the cause of the suspected head gasket issues.





I have a quick chat with the guy and manage to get the price down a little further still. Given that I’ve already brought him down from the reduced price he offered it to me at which would already have been a bit of a steal, I’m pretty stoked that he accepts and we sign the paperwork while funds are transferred. The car is mine!

We convoy back to Jardo’s in a somewhat reserved manner and drop off one of the cars before popping down to GSF to pick up a new expansion tank for the car, along with a bottle of coolant flush to put through the system when we get back. The boy even managed to get a few quid discount, presumably because it was the only way that the chap behind the counter could stop Jardo talking about Fiat 500s…







Pizza in the oven, time to whip the old tank out.

Looked like someone had decided that human faeces would be more effective than G12 coolant…



Clean the crap of the cap:



Chez Jardo:



Colour of the crud we flushed from the system. Took a pretty substantial volume of water and chemical to get it all out:



Once that was coming through clear it was out with the old:



And in with the new:



Celebratory pizza:



Topped up the system with coolant and ran the car to bleed it through. There’s a little bit of metallic gunk coming through but in pretty small amounts. I think it must be from where the garage had tried using K-seal to fix the potential head gasket issue (though from checking it all out I’m pretty sure there’s no head gasket fault!)



Let the car run for a bit to get up to temperature and check that there was heat coming through the vents etc. All seems pretty much spot on – checked that the thermostat was functioning correctly by keeping an eye on the temps – held perfectly at 90 degrees for the entire trip back, ideal



After that it was time to head home – it’d been a pretty long day of it and I had a 3 hour trek back to drop the car off on base, head into town to pick my current car up and drive home from there so around 4 hours in all ahead of me still. Nothing to report on the journey, really. There’s a very slight slip from the clutch if you put it under some strain so I’ll likely get that done pretty soon to be on the safe side, but totally usable in the meantime and not a problem in the slightest. I kept an eye on temps which stayed rock solid, and checked fluid levels a couple of times to be on the safe side – levels held fast and there doesn’t appear to be any more gunk coming through so I’ll likely flush through again after a few trips and be done with it.

All locked up in a military compound, safe and sound.



Boom, job done! A MASSIVE thanks to Jardo for hooking me up with a lift, some pizza and some additional experience sorting out the coolant flow issue. Looking forward to making a bit more progress with the car this weekend – will be starting by sorting out the small niggles (removing tints, tidy up wheels etc). Then I’ve just got the small matter of working out how to tell the missus I accidentally another car that we don’t have room for

I didn't get the chance to do anything to the Leon this afternoon as I'd hoped, but grabbed a couple of phots in passing during daylight.

Excuse the dirty daily derv (which needs to be sold ASAP...), the weather was crap here overnight and washed a shitload of mud into the road by the river. Will be getting a good clean tomorrow



On the subject of cars needing a wash, the Leon will be needing a severe going over. Will make a world of difference with regards to cleaning it up a little. Replacing the missing splitter should help make things look a little more legit again too.



Needs some new badges too, though I'll probably just remove these altogether. This is also the wheel with the worst kerbing. No vibrations to drive so will check it out properly when I get the chance, but may be able to get away with a refurb rather than a replacement which would be ideal.



Needs a thorough clean on the inside too! Replacement mats to be bought.



Hooray for purple tints



Shocking sticker theme continues on the inside too



Previous owner's badge placement almost as questionable as the placement of his tax disc (let alone the fact it's still there), what was he thinking?!



Sweet pillar pod yo!


Engine bay is pretty uneventful



...with the exception of this gopping mess lurking



There's a Neuspeed short shift linkage hiding beneath that monstrosity too. Little too short f-r for my liking, though l-r feels good. Will work something out on that front, haven't really looked to see if this is adjustable at all.



Coolant level remaining constant and still pink after the 3 hour trip back. Promising!



Still a little metallic jazz in there from the last of the k-seal the old garage used. Will scoop this and flush again at some point after a few more drives to clear the lines of any residual gunk.



In related news, have had a little bit of interest in my Golf. If it goes then there's room to bring this one home where I can work on it a little more readily. Fingers crossed, can't wait to get stuck in properly

Cheers gents. The car was unbelievably cheap which saves some funds to put towards tidying it back up. It's certainly not in the best state at the moment, but fortunately lots of that it pretty superficial so should be a relatively quick and easy fix.

Few little parts on order to get the ball rolling and make it look a little less ratty but most important is going to be a proper deep clean as soon as I can get the car home rather than leaving it on base.

Minor update of nothingness:

Got to work, LCR still there. Good.



At the end of the day it was also there, which is always a bonus.



Gave it a run up to temperature - still no apparent leak form the coolant system and no signs of any oil on the floor which is handy.

Pulled off the shitty little "R" badge on the glovebox. Need to get some acetone/similar to remove the residual superglue. Didn't happen to randomly have it in my bag or I'd have done it then and there



Also pulled the tax disc holder from the most retarded position known to man. Was stuck down mega hard, so must have been deliberate...



Quick clean and it'll look normal again.

New badge has arrived. The rear of the car has been completely debadged; I'm going to try running just this one for now for a fairly minimal look ad see how I like it. May put something a little more on there though as I'm not a big fan of the completely blank look. Going to remove the pair of these that are currently on the wings as they're not in great condition. Will look a little cleaner without.




That was about all I could do without any additional parts or products to sort out any other niggles (like the car being filthy!) so I headed home. Unfortunately this took considerably longer than usual due to whichever mong thought it'd be a good idea to send a massive lorry down a not-so-massive lane. This is widest part of the road for miles, god knows why they went that way!

Cheers, Rob! I'm about 10 miles out of Plymouth at the mo, but currently working in the Dockyard which is pretty handy in terms of having somewhere to keep the car until I can clear room for it at home. The downside of course is that it's a little trickier popping to the car to do little bits, plus the fact I can't really rock up with a few buckets of fresh water to start removing what appears to be years of crud and neglect from the paintwork...

Just had a quick read of your thread mentioning respray issues - glad to see you finally got everything sorted. Get some pictures up!

Cheers dude, will find something to do it I'm sure. Acetone/nail polish remover is generally a pretty safe bet so long as you don't go nuts though on darker plastics sometimes leaves a bit of discolouration, so if it comes to that I'll be trying an inconspicuous area first!

Swung by the car briefly this morning to pop the new splitter on. If you weren't looking for it the car would still look nigh on identical of course, but its one more little detail ticked off the list towards getting the car back to nice and tidy.



The splitter itself fits using two push-fittings in the centre, then simply clips into place around the rest of its length. Whilst the majority of the fitting is nice and easy, the two in the middle can be a pain in the arse and require a fair bit of force to push into place.



Easily remedied with a couple of car jacks though!



Before:



After:



While I was down there the size of the crack in the front bumper became a little more apparent. Not ideal, but will be a fairly easy fix a little further down the line. Nothing a bit of epoxy can't resolve!



With the splitter in place, I popped inside the car to clean up the remains of the superglue on the glovebox lid.

Manliest shopping trip ever:



I opted for this glamourous method since the nail polish remover contains some diluted acetone which breaks down the glue adhesive pretty well. Had used it a few times before and whilst it's not so rapid as using neat acetone, it's a little gentler and easier to avoid overdoing it which can leave some pretty nasty discolouration on plastics etc.

Before:



After:



Still a very slight mark there, but it's almost entirely removed it. Will give another very quick wipe over at some point but happy with that for now.

In other interior news, I'd spotted this when I picked up the car:



I'm not entirely sure what it's from/for, though I assume it must have been to do with a previous audio setup, or the random reversing camera that appears to have been semi-removed:



Still, a little investigation showed it wasn't wired in to anything now, merely tucked away behind the plastic so out it came:



That's not the end of the non-standard wiring though, as there's an additional fuse that's evidently been fitted for something by a true professional at some point:



Shall be chasing those wires at a later date.

Also on the tidy-up list is the DV-boost gauge hose. Not only is the current offering delightfully obvious and entirely hideous in blue, but it's not exactly been finished to a high standard (I spy a theme appearing here...)



The screw was actually stuck in there when I picked the car up - that outlet from the T-piece was originally just open to the atmosphere, which was obviously a little pointless. Will likely remove the current pillar-pod setup and sort this hosing out at the same time; certainly won't be driving it around like this for long once it's in daily use!

I completely forgot to order a set of replacement pins for the rear parcel shelf, bugger. Nice cheap and easy fix so no biggy, ordered a set this evening.



Also need to check out the best way to remove the window tints. As with most DIY jobs you see, they've not been done brilliantly, but a quick look online suggests steam, heat and/or newspaper to assist removal. Will work something out and get to it.

Need to repair one of the nearside headlight mounts when I get the chance. The pattern it's putting out is spot on, but it's not quite sitting flush with the wing so it'll be another small gain but should help.



Pretty much it for this update, other than to say that I've been spraying up the replacement skirt trim that I ordered. I'll give that until tomorrow to for the paint to harden before I smooth it back a touch, add a few more coats of colour and several of lacquer and it'll be good to go on the car. At that point, with the exception of the tints, the car should look pretty much standard from the outside. Crying out for a decent weekend of paint correction etc though!

It has indeed so shall bear that in mind, thanks Tim!

I've got the original lock/barrel etc so if that's the case I'll just put it back to normal and remove the additional wiring, should be a nice quick and easy fix. Haven't actually taken a peek into the fuse panel yet as I've only had short amounts of time here and there with the car. Will try and change that over the next week or so!

I was on taxi duty to Plymouth yesterday, so managed to very quickly pop by the car and take a look at the fuse situation. Turns out that it was indeed fuse 38 for the central locking unit, so a nice 5 minute job to remove the additional wiring and put the fuse back to its original location.





Didn't get a chance to pop the lock barrel back into the drivers' door due to being pressed for time, but going to swing by this afternoon and take care of that. Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes to do. I also need to pull out the clocks at some point, as one of the alu dash rings has fallen off from around the fuel gauge which is a tad annoying. Doesn't look too difficult from a brief read online, but we'll see.



Gave the car a quick scan with VCDS. Nothing substantial to report, just flagged up a bit of an intermittent issue with n249 readings. Not surprising given the state of the boost hose mentioned in a previous post, so should be yet another relatively straightforward step to getting the car back to the way it should be.



Had some pretty funny looks from the military police who lapped the car park a few times. Clearly they thought I was up to something a little dodgy there with wiring and fuses being pulled out and a laptop plugged in!



Anyway a few minutes later their van broke down, so I popped over and lent a hand and got chatting to the lads inside. Both totally sound once I'd explained what I was up to. Nice to know that the car is left somewhere with decent security too!

Got the drivers' door lock barrel refitted again today. Such a quick job, as you can see (even including time to grab photos!)







Can see the state of the old insert. Not ideal though with a bit more paint would look fine of course. Not sure whether to hang onto it in case I become a chav down the line and want to refit, or (more likely) lose it in the garage somewhere.



Very keen to get the car home so I can spend a weekend sorting out the paintwork; it's a pretty sorry state:



Have also added re-vinyl-ing the B pillars to my list. Not in any major rush at all, just be nice to clean it up a touch as these carbon-esque ones aren't the nicest to look at up close. Probably go either gloss or matte black, nice and simple and OEM looking.



Not sure if it's noticeable in this photo really, but the centre console in this car also seems to be angled towards the passenger slightly which I find a little odd. I wonder if a previous owner has replaced it for whatever reason and picked up a LHD fascia by mistake, as I've only ever seen dashes angled toward the driver or neutral previously. Again, no massive issue so will add it to the ever-growing list of small niggles that I'll get around to at some point in the future.

Also managed to stick my head to my local mechanic earlier with the Golf. It's got a minging cold starting issue which means on particularly chilly days it's not firing on all 4 cylinders. I've replaced the glow plugs and harness but to no avail. From a fairly preliminary look he reckons it's likely an injector seal, which is a relatively pricey fix apparently. If that's the case, combined with needing a flywheel and clutch it's probably not worth me bothering with. If I had the time and space I'd chuck it on the drive and either repair it or break it for parts (it's in really good shape other than the above) but as it is I'll probably just stick it on eBay as soon as I can and get it gone so I can start using the LCR daily. If anyone wants the Golf cheap then let me know, would be great to rinse for parts or to fix up if you could do the work yourself as it'd be a cheap pokey runabout (Y)

Happy new year gents!

The Golf started having a few little issues before Christmas, so I decided it was time to get rid of it. A good friend took the whole lot as he wanted to pinch the LCR kit from it (Brembos, subframe assembly/rack/ARB, suspension etc) and will be splitting the rest of the car. With that gone, it meant space on the drive and a new month just around the corner was convenient for taxing the LCR too so it’s now in use as my daily and back on the road after a few weeks SORN.



I’ve not yet had time to give the paintwork some real love, nor get the tints off but managed to spend a little while on it this morning.

First up was a nice quick one; replacing the missing pins for the parcel shelf.



They simply sit in the holes in the boot trim like so, then push in the end and they expand in the gap to secure them. Bingo. (Bonus view of the "sweet tint job" here too)







With that quick fix out of the way, I got started on bypassing the n249 and removing the vac reservoir. I’d previously done this on the old Leon, but with the LCR being an AMK it’s even simpler as there’s no SAI/n112 to remove.

Engine covers off (main and the small one in front of the inlet manifold), next job is to remove this plate. Held in place by a pair of bolts (5mm allen head) so as straightforward as they come, just take care not to damage the dipstick tube which is also held in place by this plate.



This is the mess to clear up:



All pulled out:



Looking much cleaner with it all out of the way. Vac hose fitted from DV to underside of inlet manifold:





Currently got the boost gauge coming off a t-piece from the top of the DV:



Have replaced the physical valve itself for now so that the ECU gets the correct reading from the solenoid. Will likely replace this with a resistor when I get hold of one so as to clean things up a touch, but no rush for that. Purely by chance the image filename for this turned out to be “249”



Noticed while I was at it that the nipple on top of the DV wasn’t screwed in properly so was leaking a smidge. Tightened it up, but plan to refit an OE DV here anyway. I bought one on eBay when I got home drunk on NYE but the seller has since claimed that it doesn’t work and refunded my payment. Fair enough, but the item was listed as fully working and tested so it’s pretty annoying. Will have to try and pick one up elsewhere, unless anyone has one knocking about they don’t need?



As some of you will no doubt be aware, the main engine over mounts on two sliders to the rear of the engine. One of these is integrated into the mount for the n249 setup I’d just removed. Wanting to support the cover (would like to keep things as OEM looking as possible for now – have got a standard airbox en route before anyone tries to call me out on that…!) but not wanting to remount the whole oversized assembly just for that, I set about pinching just the section I needed.





As you can see, just the part required to hold the cover. Nothing substantial and mounts by just the nearest/cleanest point at the rear of the rocker cover. It only needs to hold the weight of a little bit of light plastic supported at 3 other points, so will be more than enough to do so.

Filed the edges to clean it up a little, primed then sprayed to make it a little less obvious. Fitted and spot on, not that it’s complicated enough to **** up of course!



Covers back in place, job done.

I had wanted to get the tints off the windows and swap my head unit across but unfortunately not being able to find the keys for the Aura unit stopped that, as did not being able to find mother’s steam cleaner to stick some heat on the tints for removal. That’ll have to wait for an update soon instead…

Got a few mins with the car today.

Right hand side of the rear seat in the Leon hasn't clipped into place properly since I've had it. Was expecting to have to remove/adjust the latch in some way but turns out it was just bent. Quick tweak and it's good to go.



Also, it turns out that although an S2000 filter will almost fit in the lower half of a 1.8t airbox, it's not actually going to happen. It's even more of a physical impossibility in the top half, which unfortunately is where it needs to sit in order to meet the MAF properly.



Still, when did a little thing like physics cause a lasting problem? Small slot in each side and it works:



I plan on modifying things a tad further at a later date to hide it a smidge better, but for now it looks decent enough (certainly better than the previous CAI!)



Starting to look a little more OEM, especially with the tints gone. Phew!

Also (and I need to grab a few photos at some point) managed to get the horrendous tints off the car a week or so ago. Looks much better both from the inside and out with the added bonus of being able to see out of the rear end properly. Minor details eh?!

Cheers dude. Slow progress but it's getting there one small detail at a time!

Oil and filters all done - nice to know it's all sorted on that front. Threw a magnetic sump plug in there just to make sure there's not a load of crap in the system. Have kept the undertray off for now so I can replace a few bushes over the next week or two (including dogbone mount)