συνέχεια!
I had no idea how much work was involved at the start. The car was sold on the description that it would take an amateur mechanic no longer than a week to get it back on the road. Basically just needed a good service and check over and a couple of bits of minor welding on the floor. Got to love eBay!
So much hate for the rear lights. Have to admit I'm really surprised given what Lada put on the car. :-)
Here's a preview of the front ones to take the pressure of the rears. Just a rough mock up but I'm happy enough that it'll work. Turns out a Lada Riva is a good bit wider than a mk2 Golf! Need to order another grill as it'll be much neater and stronger to have a single join rather than try and piece in the missing gap.
Progress has been slow but it is being made. Next job to tackle (which I'd been putting off) was the bonnet which was pretty scabby although basically solid. Worth attempting to repair it even if just to see how effective some methods are. All the edges were blasted clean with some cheap grit from eBay. Made loads of mess but gets right into all the bits the sander can't.
There were some holes along the front lip which were filled with solder. Trickier than it looks when you see it on youtube!
All the bare bits were painted with POR15 and then epoxy primer so should hopefully be sealed. Once it's all painted it'll get some cavity wax just for good measure.
The area around the engine bay was cleaned up, construction primed, epoxy sealed and painted ready for the bonnet to go back on. The engine bay wont be done until the engine comes out later in the year.
An enthusiasm boost, taken from the right angle I can pretend it's all done! :-)
Seemingly endless filler work on the wing, rear arch and sill blend areas condensed into a few painless pictures:
A final coat of epoxy on the wing and a trial fit of the doors
Nearly time for some primer..... except I'd completely forgotten about the repairs needed on the n/s/r door which is the only door not being replaced.
Small rusty section cut out the bottom corner of the door, patched and the welds ground smooth. Cleaned up the back edge which was pretty good but gave it a coat of rust converter just incase.
Bare metalled the door (which all seems ok), sealed it with epoxy primer then skimmed the wobbly bits with filler before high build primer.
More masking/ primer/ sanding/ primer/ flatten/green basecoat/ masking/ black basecoat then finally lacquer. Some real progress now!
The door was worth the work. The reflections look pretty good so should flatten and polish really well.
A bit out of sequence but got the headlamp mounting points made, nothing fancy but they do the job!
Trimmed down two new mk2 Golf grills and bonded them together. It doesn't look like there should be too much finishing work to get it looking like one piece. No point smoothing it all untill I've worked out mounting points/ method. I used a fast bonder that set in 60 seconds which made it much easier. Time will tell how well it works but so far the whole grill can be twisted and flexed a bit with no signs of cracking at the joins.
Roughly how it will look when it's done:
The rear panel is going back to green and the lights are staying. I do have another plan to change the look slightly but will reveal if it works. In the meantime here it is with a black rear panel. It does look a bit better in the picture than real life but it just doesn't work with the overall feel of the car. It would probably be ok with heavy black stripes down the side but I'm not going in that direction. I wasn't going to post these pictures incase everyone liked it but may as well!
I'm glad I've now seen this as it's one thing less to wonder about. I thought it would grow on me but it just hasn't. Looks worse every time I see it.
With a loft conversion on the house and the arrival of my second daughter the Lada ground to a halt for a while but has been making some progress. Have been putting a new plan into action/ metal for the rear lights. This is the final solution! :-)
Sending this to the company who cut my exhaust flanges...
Resulted in these arriving.
Hours of faffing about and fingertip destroying sanding resulted in this:
The rear valance was also smoothed out so it looks a bit cleaner rather than seeing all the pressing marks behind the bumper. Not sure what I've done with the pictures of this part though.
Some repairs to areas I wasn't completely happy with and finishing off the front panel and it was finally ready for paint again:
Paint on and a preview of the new rear light surrounds:
Slightly out of sequence as I started this before the paint but have started doing some more work on the front grill to get the ends fitting with the wings better. The ends were sanded down and lots of holes drilled in them to push the fibreglass through. Again not sure where I've saved the pictures. Was also filled from the back so the fibreglass ends are 'linked through the plastic. Taped up everything around the area and hoped for the best. Was a bit tricky releasing everything but got there in the end. Still have some finishing to do but the basis of the grill is definitely taking shape now.
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