Bianca Ratlye

[C2K]

It all came out fine. No bothers.

More fun and games this evening:

I set about finishing off polishing the bonnet, as I thought it could be a bit better than it was before.

Nice and shiny


So I thought given that i've finished the front driver wing and the bonnet, I may as well protect them from the daily crap that's reaching the car..

Time for the Werkstat Acryclic Kit. Prime goes on first as a base prep layer, Jett goes over the top as an acrylic sealant, and Glos to finish it off with a top coat.



After all, it's motorsport intended... even says so on the labels!



Comes out with a cracking top shine, massive transformation from the tippex finish it had before.




After that, mundane job of sorting out my oil cooler pipe routing through the front of the arch and replacement of the broken arch liner on the front passenger corner.

Wheel off for a good clean with Autosmart smart wheels! Epic epic epic wheel cleaner, nothing it doesn't shift even on it's 'weak' 3:1 dilution ratio.



Nonetheless, broken one out!

New one in!



And that does me for this evening! Waiting on my replacement filler neck now from eddy.

Oh, one last thing.. here's the damage to the rear left corner from Christmas after seeing some petrol on a rag - massive improvement. Not even seen the polisher yet this corner.



Becomes:

[Tom]

That bonnet looks great, top job!

[7057sam]

Looking sweet

Definitely think ill get some of that werkstat

[C2K]

I had bought the acrylic kit with the idea of making the rallye stay clean but in a non time consuming manner. It does exactly what i had hoped. Clearly the car isn't fully clean yet, but makes sense to protect the bits i've done as i go along, then can give it all a final top coat.

Got to pull all the stickers off now!! Not looking forward to that!

[Alee83]

A lot of love going into this car... Top marks sir! Keep it up!

[C.A.R.]

I'm going to have a crack at cleaning the insides of my cyclones I think, before they go off to get rebalanced.

Where do you get this almighty powerful stuff from?

[C2K]

Polished bliss or from clean your car. Autosmart smart wheels it is, shifts everything I've come across and is kinder than wonder wheels. might see if they do walk in discount as they're based on the village where my girlfriends gran lives lol. You'll need tar remover too, tardis or similar.

[C2K]

Came home to the rain, which revealed some nice beading on the car:



So I had to take the passenger side crystal out to glue the broken lug on the top (bottom one has long been missing). I'd seized the opportunity to polish the very dull grille whilst it was off the car... ta-da.



Another 'part' ticked off the polishing list...

I didn't want to do anything heavy duty, so just cracked on with peeling the stickers.

Drivers side gone (what was left of it)



First person to guess what was written here wins a passenger lap:



My patience ran out after removing the 306 Rallye sticker, just gotta pull off the coloured stripes but they're very 'bitty'.





Had enough of this s**t for today! It's about as interesting as watching paint dry!!

[Kezzieboy]

Did it say poojeaux, per chance?

I'd like to claim my passenger ride in SA next time you go, you'll pay for the flights, right?

[C2K]

Had a little bit of time this afternoon with nothing to do, so I went outside to play.

I managed to finish off polishing the roof. To show you how matt and flat the paint was, here's a can of WD40 on the recently polished bonnet:


and here's one on the roof...


Not a hint of reflection as you can see.



So I set about polishing, Megs G220 V2 and Menzerna PF2500 for the polishing, as usual. Here's a few shots along the way to show the difference:







And here's the final result!






Here's some examples of the damage my neighbour caused in Peterborough:





and the most typical sort of deep scratch that's going to need some filling in and touching up. There's about 10 or 12 of these along the passenger side.


So having finished the roof, I peeled off the remaining stickers (by means of hairdryer ftw!), took the spoiler off to polish the roof, and took the lights out to polish around them:



Have done the bootlid (all around the glass) and done the lower panel where the stickers were. Nice and shiny now, although there are some marks around the glass I can't get with the polisher, so going to need to do a spot of hand polishing to finish this panel off, but it started to rain.





That's all for today. I hope to continue to polishing tomorrow!!

[Piggy]

Good work laddy!!

[C2K]

Managed to get the top mark out by the rear bumper too, so just got to fill in the mark in the bumper now. Hell, I may as well attempt body repairs on this thing as it's never going to be concourse!

[Alee83]

Good work on that mark...! Came up a treat!

---

Oh, and can you come do mine...?

[C2K]

Got quite a bit done today. Put the headlights and grille back in and tried out my new polish - Raceglaze glass and chrome polish. It's ok but not as abrasive as i'd hoped, do going to invest in some of the 3M stuff on polished bliss. I managed to recover the crystals on my hdi from milky to clear again - this made some improvement from the below, but not as clear as i'd hoped.



I wanted to try it primarily because the rallye's rear window is f**kED as some retard has obviously left a faulty wiper running until it chewed through a blade and dragged the metal against the window (P2 wiper originally), leaving a half-arc of rather deep scratches. I don't think any amount of polishing could get rid of them, but hopefully i can improve them as they're a real eyesore.

Anyway, passenger side masked up and ready to go:





Lots of odd scratches, again from the neighbour when the car was parked the other way around:



And nice and shiny, some reflection!! (sun shining briefly!)



Even when rain stopped play it looked good!



Only got the passenger side and rear to do now which won't take long as i've done the roofline already (front bumper is in bad shape so not sure i can do much with that). I need to move the car away from the wall for that though.

Instead I started to recover the dull plastic!

So out comes the dressle trim treatment. I like this as it's easy, not messy and does last. It takes a few coats to build up a nice layer, but lasts a good amount of time. I use it on the mini as it has plastic trims around the bodywork.



Here it is in action, though these neglected plastics are really drinking the treatment so it'll take a few apps yet to look good.



Pretty much just started cleaning odds and sods then like the stuff growing in my rubber seals!! Using my new toy, a great addition to your cleaning supplies tbh and why pay for a brand one - this cost £2 and is quite capable of spraying water around the door shuts when i don't want the hosepipe nearby and want a bit more oomph than a hand spray!



It's had a hard life this car. It'll never be a show queen but it's looking a bit better than the "tippex white shed" it was described as by someone at work. Though she did comment on it having a climbing frame in so i'm not too hung up on that. :p

It's a bit rough around the edges, but getting better with TLC!!

[Alee83]

She is looking really smart mate. Don't put it down. You're doing a cracking job. Keep it up! Love white Rallye's.

Mine needs a good going over, going pink...

[C2K]

Ah i'm not putting it down, it's just a cat C repair and there's no getting around that it was repaired on a budget by the former owner. It was a light side swipe to the drivers side, which is why the door had been changed originally - it also caught the rear quarter but looking inside it must've been in the immediate area of the door as the panel looks ok inside.

The front bumper has seen a few gravel traps that's for certain! It's got a lot of pressure marks on it.

I'm not worried to be honest, it serves my needs and once I have my replacement filler neck i'll try to continue putting some miles on it. If the house goes through at month end then i can move it to the new house and do some mechanical works there. Got a nice brake upgrade to go on.

[C2K]

So tonight saw the delivery of my replacement filler neck assembly from eddy. Couldn't help but clean the foot and mouth inducing filth off it before i started.

Here it is next to the defective one, no prizes for guessing which one is the replacement and which is the duffer..


And replaced.


Not sure the two little small bore connectors have gone in correctly to the stupid little one way valve clamp arrangements. Time will tell I suppose, they came apart and went back together all too easily. The one that had been chopped off on the repalcement neck was a swine to get apart - ended up sawing it off: here's what it looks like for those of you who haven't come across one yet:



Have ordered some Bilt Hamber deox gel to get rid of that rust before I paint it and refit the arch liner. Hoping to get a steam cleaner in the next couple of weeks so i can agitate it all with citrus power and then steam it off. Can put the arch liner back on top then.

[Matt-Rallye]

Some really cracking attention too detail happening here my man!

Im very jealous, i have all these ideas of doing the same with mine but i simply dont have the patience!

[C2K]

I caught a great shot on the way out the house this morning which really shows the difference in pre and post polishing!



Check out that tippex finish!

Also, since my slow puncture on the front left wheel has decided to go down again (after staying inflated for like 3 months) I put one of my other wheels on last night to see what it looks like. I had bought these with some toyos on with the intention of making them track tyres with slicks. Until it's done a track day successfully though the slicks won't be going on anything! (Headlight clip is on order... )





Compomotives

[C.A.R.]

Uh oh.

Your rubstrip doesn't line up pefectly. Like mine. Bugs the hell out of me.

[ozonehostile]

I am insanely jealous of those compos. Been looking for a set forever! Haha

[C2K]

Uh oh.

Your rubstrip doesn't line up pefectly. Like mine. Bugs the hell out of me.

Yeah when i fitted the P3 strips it was the best I could do. One wing had two rows/positions of holes in, the other didn't. guess which one didn't have the right holes in!! Neither wing looks to have been disturbed, so i'm calling Peugeot on a parts bin special here. Could revisit that actually.

Compomotives - nearly sold them but then they went out of business. I wanted a good strong wheel for track and there it is. Direct fit too.

[Ruan]

Sell me the Superleggeras.

Naow.

[Alee83]

They are the sexiest wheels ever.... Don't listen to Ruan, they need to stay on a Rallye. Sell them to me...

[Matt-Rallye]

damn you and your compos! im looking for a set of direct fit flat face MO5's but theyre gold dust

[C2K]

Ha, Superlegs not for sale! I'm a wheel whore. Had the puncture fixed last night, it was a cable clip (the kind you nail a satellite cable to your house with) which i'm 100% certain was sabotage from my neighbour - it was perfectly nestled in the centre tread. Eish.

The compomotives are a delicious wheel - should look pimpin' on track with those on. I always wanted a set - i've actually had these for 3 years as I bought them before SA and they've just been in the garage. They have some T1R tyres on which I detest, and whilst exploring the limits of the car on a track day I shall turn them into canvas. I didn't want to be spanking it round a track with dirty great spacers, even though they are hubcentric, when I could have a nice direct fit wheel.

Also, i'd noticed when I last drove it that the headlights were extremely poor. Ok I have Xenons on the Golf but I know they aren't as good as my HDi was, so I dropped a couple of replacements in last night. No surprises to find some bargain basement specials in there really given the former owner.. Shoul dbe much better, though i've ordered some glass polishing pads to have another go at polishing them.

[Kezzieboy]

For those interested:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/COMPOMOTIVE-5-...1191127168

[C2K]

Hmmn so today is a day of mixed emotion.

Did the last bit of polishing on the left hand side. Got it looking pimp and set about sticking some stickers on, so it looks more respectable. Ignore the mismatching alloy, I couldn't be arsed to put the superleg back on after the puncture repair.

For those of you in the cheap seats - this is the before:


This is now:







After doing that, I took the drivers door off to have a look at the loom, but nothing wrong seemingly. Had a look at the passenger side and much the same story. When I lock with the drivers side everything works fine, if i lock or unlock with the passenger side it undoes it immediately - anyone had that? Do they break anywhere other than under the rubber boot?

After that I sort of confirmed my suspicion that the head gasket is gone after all. The coolant still had pressure in after 24 hours which had aroused my suspicion - it drives fine and runs up to temp ok, but with the cap off there are bubbles forming. Have to decide whether I want to attempt this myself, given how stressful the cambelt proved to be last time. (though to be fair, having to do it twice in succession thanks to a faulty water pump, only to end up with a less than perfect water pump didn't help). Can't say it comes as a huge surprise, but this thing has been a money pit so far. All the problems stemmed from a precautionary cambelt in the first place.

Still, bit closer to work and will have a garage for it again in a month or so. The cambelt isn't in need of being changed, so i suppose that would keep the cost down.

[Niall]

Sorry to burst your bubble mate but if your having that belt off, really it should be changed however that is just the belt. Not a complete kit and the good news is the expensive bit is the idler and tensioner. Belt can be less than £20 if you know who to speak to

[C2K]

It's just the ballache of it all again. It was such a faff last time and it's actually what started the spiral of unreliability off.

The belt has done 250 miles, I'll have a look at costs but frankly having gone for genuine parts I wasn't exactly rewarded. 2 duff water pumps in a row.