Nice work mate

 

nice bit of TLC going on there!

(now you got me thinking whats lurking under that scuttle panel trim...)

 

Good work mate. Although after looking at your photos I've just sent away my front end to get re painted as the grills wear looking rusty, yet I have that paint in the house and was tempted but thought it would be a stupid idea. How wrong I was... Looks great and wish I done the same to save some pennies!

 

You'll look back at all this tinkering with great fondness lol. Your bonding with your baby!!

might be worth getting yourself a bottle of this from Hobycraft http://www.focusrsoc.com/forums/topic/154906-ug-detail-paint/

Keep up the great work and ....Enjoy

 

Excellent work, I think I had better check my grill.

 

Nice work mate! You've also got me wondering what's under the scuttle panel now...
Are you working your way round the car? If so, have a look under the rear light units, you can get a lot of crud building up under those too! There was a thread on it somewhere not so long ago; i'm on my iPhone at the moment so not able to copy the link to it...
Enjoy the RS!

 

That's a few little jobs out of the way mate . :nice:

 

It's the little jobs that can make the difference .

 

Good work! :thumbsup:

With the RS badge, i'd get back down to Hobbycraft & put a layer of clearcoat over the top to seal it otherwise it will start to come away when wet. :nice:

 

Thanks everyone :thumbsup: . tbh i didnt think what i've done work either :laughing: . Its not perfect as ive had a better look today and theres a few edges on some of the little sections in the grill but for about £20-£25 & an hour or 2 im happy with it :yep:. i might go over them another time but if you look at them close up for too long your eyes start going funny :laughing:. ill have to go back to Hobbycraft & get those couple of bits that Burger & Gareth have said about :nice: . Even if it lasts 6 months its done its job. The grill was just starting to leave rusty streaks down the paint so ill have to keep an eye on it, hopefully this has sorted it though

Thanks for the tip with the rear lights aswell Pete, i had seen that when i was looking through stuff on here to get an idea of what to look for on these cars :nice: . Thats part of the reason i ended up taking the scuttle panel off too, just to see what was hiding in there. That was probably the hardest bit to do but thats more down to me not knowing how it came off. After taking the little gripper clips & wipers off i thought thought it would pull down (sort of towards the front bumper if that makes sense) you have to pull it straight up though as theres another metal strip that goes along the bottom of the windscreen and the trim clips into that. i ended taking the whole lot off anyway as the metal strip was full of dirt/mud/gritty stuff and wouldn't go back on anyway. Gave me the chance to clean the bottom of the windscreen too, just had to be careful as there were 2 copper coloured metal strips connected to wires (1 each end so I'm guessing its to do with the heated windscreen) stuffed down in the gap. There is another bit of trim i was going to take out but i just cleaned it up with it in place as the the symposer thing goes through it (think thats what its called anyway :laughing: . Its the S shaped hose that goes across to the left hand side of the plenum?). While i was spraying some bits up i took the time to order a bry short shifter too :smile: . There was a load of **** in the back of the ford badge/bonnet lock cover so i cleaned that out aswell, got rid of the years of road dirt and grease around the bonnet catch and lock too which was hiding under the plastic cover at the front :nice:

Ive got a few more pics of it all going back together, while i was spraying some bits up i took the time to order a bry short shifter too :smile: .

 

Few more pics, you can see how faded the scuttle panel was here-



Im glad i took it off as it was much easier to clean up and treat it without having to lean over the car & risk damaging it. I used Hubi Trim from Hubikote



This 50/50 pic really shows how bad it was :l:



Much better :yep:



Who knew bird feeders could be so handy when it comes to painting windscreen wiper arms :thumbsup:





They didn't seem to bothered either



Done the nuts,washers & trim clips too. Little things that you dont really see but they were off anyway and i was bored waiting for the other bits to dry





Took the tape off next to see how much paint i'd got on the bumper :facepalm: . luckily there was only a small bit which came off easily enough



The other bit of trim that i just cleaned up, didnt get any pics of that afterwards though





A bit manky around the lock and behind the black plastic



Cleaned up nicely though, cant get the dirt out from the corners so might have a go with a steam cleaner some time but its alright for now





Managed to get some trim restorer on the black bit of the RS badge too so now it looks like new...ish



Under the bonnet wasn't too bad



Still got cleaned though



Painted the 2 screws that hold the badge on too, wont ever see them but they looked rusty so got done anyway



Even had a little helper, he likes to see whats going on/ get in the way :laughing:



All back together & looks much better than it did. Really surprised how a few little bits have made such a difference



Didn't get time to get the rear lights out this weekend, hopefully i can get some caliper/engine paint for next weekend so i can do the next bit of getting everything tidied up to how i want it :nice:

 

Would not expect a car of 5 -6 years of age to have bit rusting on it

 

coming along nicely - good work

 

Would not expect a car of 5 -6 years of age to have bit rusting on it

Lol I've seen rust starting on many modern cars in under a year, if you spend anytime underneath motors you'd be shocked. Granted a lot of it is rust staining from dissimilar metals around the contact points.

 

Not sure whether its true or not but i read somewhere the paint gets chipped (stone chips i guess) and then water gets behind the paint. Makes sense if it is that as the rust was mainly along the bottom and where ive washed it thats where all the water sits before i dry it so if its rained it must sit there until it dries, my car has spent its life in wales so its probably seen a lot of that :lol:

Dropped it off back where i got it from as the bonnet kept saying it was open (the reason this started getting cleaned) & they are replacing the bonnet catch, getting that done on saturday morning so doubt ill have time to get the other bits painted that i want to do before santa pod on sunday :sad:

 

Got a bit more done after work this week :thumbsup:

managed to make a start with cleaning it, think i started wednesday :laughing:

1st up, Washed it to get any dirt off it & then put tar remover all round the car. Never used this stuff before but it was really good :nice:





washed it again to get any of the tar remover off if i had missed any when i wiped it down. You could feel how rough the paint was so it got clayed, started off with a brand new clay bar



This all came off from the small patch on the rear bumper that you can see on this pic, not even as far round as the reverse sensor :blink:





it sounded and felt horrible and i ended up going off and getting some more clay as it had ruined this packet :facepalm: . this bit is not even from a quarter of the roof



washed it again to get any of the detailing spray id been using off so it didn't go all streaky where it had dried, all ready looked much better and the metallic paint was really shining through properly for the 1st time. I was surprised how gold it was 8)







Back away for the night looking much better





Used this stuff from 50cal detailing next, really easy to use and left a good finish too





Onto the next bit couldnt do 1 without the other





The colour was really starting to come out now Dance:



Went round all the trim pieces with the trim restorer/protector



its not until you start brightening other things up you notice how faded the other bits look :laughing:



Next up was the wax, i used Vitreo from wax addict. its really good stuff and smells nice too so always a winner :facepalm:











Started getting dark (another later night :smile: ) so the photos didnt really come out, still looks really shiny though so im happy :laughing:

 

Had to drop in to the garage where i bought it from as they replaced the bonnet catch for me this morning (they had a nice classic escort in the showroom too, its got most, if not all the receipts and bills from new apparently :shocked: ) the postman had been and delivered this-



i wasnt 100% sure when i ordered it as i couldn't really tell what it was like from the photo/colour board. when i opened it though i was 100% sure on it :mf_dribble:







Had to go and see what it would look like against the green Dance:



Washed it again after id used it today, i used britemax cleanmax car shampoo as ive used it before and its really good stuff again, to get rid of anything that might be on it so i could carry on with the other bits i wanted to do. Before i started the water would just stick to it and not run off, not any more :nice:



went round all the glass/mirrors with this stuff. never used it before either but it didnt leave streaky bits or lines when it was wiped off.



Then put angelwax H2GO rain repellant on all the windows







finished the paintwork off with madcow detailing spray, all the stuff i have used from them before has been brilliant. this was great too and smells like parma violets :yep:















its taken a lot longer than i thought it would but im really happy with how its turned out Dance:. only thing left to do properly is the interior and the wheels. i wanted to get the outside done though for the santa pod event so it looks as good as some of the other RS's ive seen photos of . i can do the interior if it rains next week and ill sort the wheels out properly when im waiting for the caliper paint to dry. Hopefully that will happen next weekend :bye:

 

looking good, great write up - some cracking photos in there

 

Your working well mate great job :thumbsup:

 

Awesome job matey keep up the good work

 

Looks good. Need to do the same now the days are longer and the weather is nicer.

 

Thanks again everyone :yep: it started raining a little bit on the way back from santa pod and i was hoping it would chuck it down so i could see if it had all worked :laughing:. The windscreen cleared really quickly though with what did go on it as the water just shot straight up the windscreen :nice:. I'm running out of things i can do myself now though, need to get the rear lights out still aswell & clean behind them but after hearing a lot of different RS's today i really want to get the standard exhaust hanged for something else. just not sure what yet as they all seem to sound really good :thumbsup:

 

Thanks again everyone :yep: it started raining a little bit on the way back from santa pod and i was hoping it would chuck it down so i could see if it had all worked :laughing:. The windscreen cleared really quickly though with what did go on it as the water just shot straight up the windscreen :nice:. I'm running out of things i can do myself now though, need to get the rear lights out still aswell & clean behind them but after hearing a lot of different RS's today i really want to get the standard exhaust hanged for something else. just not sure what yet as they all seem to sound really good :thumbsup:

As you're a fellow Herts guy, i'll drop mine round for you to do! :nice:

 

Having another RS outside wouldn't be a bad thing :smile:

 

Managed to get a bit more done, bry shifter is fitted & works great :nice:



Cleaned and painted the calipers yesterday too, only managed the front 2 for now as it was raining in the morning so hopefully ill get chance this week before the beaulia meet next weekend







They dont look too bad being clean/silver tbh



For some reason they look blue in some photos? definately purple though :laughing:







looks pretty good beind the silver wheels :yep:. At some point id like the wheels refurbed as bright silver as i can, i had some done on my 147 GTA in bright silver with a gold flake and they looked great in the sun 8)



Still clean too :smile:



Ended up finishing 1 side in the dark and rain, when the center caps turn up i might go over them again to see if i can get a smoother finish on them as the calipers are quite rough when they are cleaned up :thumbsdown:



Turns out a few neighbours have been talking and its a marmite colour :laughing: some love it, some hate it... i love it so thats what counts :thumbsup: