My Phase 1 (work in progress)

[scratcher]

Looking good.

Black plastic trims are a nightmare, I remember having to go all over mine quite regular with some black 'gloop' stuff on my old 205 GTI. In the end I gave up and removed the lot and rattle canned them with plastic primer and satin black.  :lol:

Cheers dude I know what you mean about the black goop days  :lol: I've been letting the last stuff wear down for about a year. It doesn't want to budge! I'm going to see how Auto Finesse Revive handles them. It hasn't let me down yet.

Put some contrast on that first picture and you got a sweet sig mate

You can have it Mark  :lol:
I can't wait to have all the 5's out again this summer. Even though I know Steve won't have his ready for a long long time... if ever, haha.

[sparkysparks]

If martin gets his act together aswell there'll be another to add to the photos, will need a panoramic lens

[scratcher]

Gave the car a wash today and took him down to Ace Cafe





Custom center cap



And I'll be refurbing the steering wheel this week too I'm so happy that I have plans and enthusiasm for the car again. Now if only I hadn't had a month off sick, I could afford to do some of those plans  :roll:

[James5]

Rich, you coming surrey meet next month?? be good to see you and the 5 again?

[scratcher]

I'm going to try and get down for it James. It'll be good to catch up with everyone.
I've just been signed off for another month so I'll have even less money by then one of my phase 1 interiors might have to be sold on

But being off of work, I found time to refurb my steering wheel.

The center was all chipped and the leather worn





Gave it a good clean and taped up the center. Sanded, primed, re-sanded and painted satin black



After cleaning the wheel up the leather looked even worse!



So the foamy bits were masked off and the leather re-coloured.



3 layers of colour were applied. Then 2 layers of sealant.

All finished







So lots of pictures of a steering wheel  :lol: enjoy

[Ash-Lee]

Very nice.

What do you use on the leather, and more importantly will it leave me with black palms after a spirited drive?  :lol:

[scratcher]

Haha! I used a leather re-dye kit. The sealant keeps the colour in and away from your hands
I didn't realise the GTT wheel was 2 tone before  :lol:
I done the steering wheel in my daily too amd it's perfectos now.

[scratcher]

I haven't been very active on here for a while, only popping back to delete some spam and such.
I've been mega busy with my little business going from strength to strength (off to work on a classic Mustang shortly) and this week I moved to my new apartment 

I went back to give the Renault it's first drive in months, hit a dual carriageway and lost an indicator lens, haha.



Speaking to Markey Mark, it turns out new sets are very cheap. Less than half of what I expected to pay.
I wanted to go back to ambers all round so ordered this set.



A nice fit all round. Only issue I had was the pins in the fronts didn't match up for the plugs so I just used the original ones with the new foamy seals. Oh, and whoever fitted the passenger wing couldn't be bothered to drill the locating holes so I had to do those quickly.



I love the more original look to it now
I just need to get back to pick it up one weekend and park it in the underground car park for winter

[sparkysparks]

Thats looking fresh man, Ive always thought orange looked crap on a car, the more i see it the more i realise its cool and retro looking.

[scratcher]

I haven't been on here for a long long time, Ive been so busy with work but I've got my own workshop now and after having the 5 for 9 years, it finally got properly cleaned and detailed.

I was asked to go to a show, and was told everyone is entering show and shine... a show car this is definitely not!
Ah well, I thought it better at least have a tidy up.

The car onoy really gets a QD wipe down before it's taken out and lives in an underground car park.
Some dirt inside, outside, everywhere, haha.



















They wheels, tyres and arches were cleaned up with Auto Finesse Imperial, Verso and followed up with Iron Out.

Safety first...



Auto Finesse Avalanche was used to pre wash the car. While it was softening the dirt, the little gaps and shuts were dealt using a detailing brush.







This was followed up with a 2 bucket method wash using Auto Finesse Lather.



Taken inside after a thorough final rinse and dried using compressed air and an Aqua Deluxe towel.





The car was clayed and then onto polishing.

These will be rubbish as I didn't set the camera up for the different light. Whoops!





Only a finishing polish on a medium polishing pad was needed to get where I wanted.





There's always been some marring on the bootlid, you can see the sweeping lines below the torch.



Easily removed.



The bonnet before (it was Tungsten grey when I got it, and it'll be easier to sell on one day if it's still grey)
This took a much heavier polishing set with further refinement.



After.



The paintwork was then waxed with ODK Wax Eclipse.



All unpainted plastics were treated. There's a lot on this car!



The interior was a bit grubby. Fully vacuumed. Plastics wiped down with the new ODK interior detailer.









I then turned to the engine bay. Auto Finesse Verso sprayed on and agitated, before being removed with a microfiber cloth.

The alloy intercooler had become tarnished. I didn't have time to remove it so just the top was polished.



After - the crusty looking intake will be swapped very soon.



The exhaust take a pasting from the road.
Before.





Auto Finesse Mercury used to bring it back.





The glass was polished with Auto Finesse Vision.
Tyres dressed with Gyeon Tire.

All finished up

















Thanks for reading!
Any comments or questions, fire away!

[tony5gtt]

the car is looking clean. nice to see people use the site again