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
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
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