Damn, 6 months since an update? Time flies when the world is ending.
I, uh, chickened out on the whole respray thing. The car actually sat for about 4 months before I did anything with it. I've decided to just focus on the mechanical side of things, get it driving properly, before I go trying to make it look good. I'd rather drive a car that works properly but is a bit rough around the edges than have a car that looks great but spends more time sat at the side of the road.
I also passed one year of ownership with the Abarth back in February, and last Sunday was its third birthday! Should've also been its first MOT but due to coronavirus it's been extended until November. Gave it an oil change to celebrate our first anniversary, and I quickly discovered that the oil filter is in an absolutely ridiculous place.
About halfway down the engine, that's already shoe-horned in there, and to get to it you have to remove the turbo pipe, which is made out of very rigid plastic and is not easily persuaded to come off. Took me about half an hour just to get to it all and change the oil filter. I think a silicone pipe replacement is in order simply just to make the job easier next time I do it, but they're not exactly cheap either. I think the cheapest is around £65 for one from a brand called MTC but I've seen on the Abarth groups that people have struggled to get them to fit properly and have to cut/modify them, which is something I'd rather not do if I'm paying £60+ for it. Forge Motorsport do one but it's over £100, but I suppose you get what you pay for. I thought about going all out and getting an induction kit too, but those come in at over £200 and honestly, it gets far too hot in that engine bay for them to make that much of a difference, plus I quite like the look of the original air box. I might just settle for a K&N panel filter instead.
The Abarth also takes super fancy special oil that you can only buy from Petronas, which is Petronas Selenia 10w-50. Sounds quite thick for such a modern car, but it's needed due to the high temperatures the engine runs at. You could technically put any old 10w-50 in, but Petronas Selenia is the only manufacturer approved one. A lot of parts places that I usually deal with struggle to get hold of this oil, and on eBay it sells for at least £50 for two litres. I decided to just try out the local Fiat dealer parts place to see what they'd charge, and I ended up paying about £55 for four litres! Got the oil filter from there too so it ended up being cheaper just using genuine parts.
Gave Bart a good wash after, and a full tank of V-Power, which two months later, I still haven't had to fill up again. Lockdown is crazy.
I'd planned to get the wheels refurbished this year and painted black, since the diamond cut is absolutely ruined and it's too hard to keep on top of, but of course coronavirus has put a hold on that too. Originally I wanted them done in time for the Auto Italia show at Brooklands, but that was cancelled. I've also been thinking about buying some lowering springs, since I changed insurers this year and my new insurer will let me add any cosmetic mods for free. I just don't want to have a daily that rides awful again. I had enough of that with the Panda! Also been thinking of getting a front splitter... and a spoiler extension... and maybe side skirts too... basically everything in
Maxton Design's Abarth range for the facelift. There's a girl in the Abarth Owners Club who owns a yellow Comp and hers basically looks exactly like how I want mine, but now I don't want to look like I'm copying.
(Doesn't have the side skirts in that photo but I think she's fitted them since)
That's it for the Abarth for now. At the moment all it does is ferry me to work and back, since I've been working throuhgout the pandemic, and that's it.
Now for the Scirocco!
Celebrated its 30th birthday in April, and I couldn't even go to the unit at the time because of the lockdown restrictions. I've since brought it home since some of the restrictions were eased, just so I could do some bits at home in case we all get locked down again, and so my friend who I share the unit with can use it, since he needs it more than me. I have a garage at home while he doesn't, so I felt it was only fair.
Before all of that though, and before we even really realised what coronavirus was, I did manage to do a few things in the unit. The rear number plate lights and the surrounding area has looked a bit sorry for itself since I bought the car, so I bought some new lights (actually for a Mk1 Golf, but I think the black ones look nicer anyway) and decided to clean up the area a bit.
The last time I used the Scirocco properly before taking it to the unit was during torrential rain, so I stupidly parked it up damp and left it. I was soon reminded of my mistake.
After cleaning up that mess, I made a start on the number plate lights.
The new lights.
The state of the old lights.
New lights vs. old.
Things weren't much better once the lights were off.
Cleaned them up a little with my mini air sander.
First coat of primer.
After a few coats of white, which was just a can of VW Alpine White I bought off the shelf from Halfords, so I was quite impressed with the colour match!
All done with the new lights installed. Much better!
After that I made a start on overhauling the brakes. The brakes have always been pretty poor since I bought the car. I put it down to old components and old, murky brake fluid. VW Heritage sell a rear brake kit which includes new shoes, drums, cylinders, hoses, and springs for £80, so I couldn't grumble at that. The wheel cylinders ended up being the wrong type for my car, but it didn't matter too much as a pair of Pagid ones from Euro Car Parts was only £13 - the perks of a trade discount! I also bought new wheel bearings for the rear since the new drums didn't come with them already fit, and instead of messing around trying to press out the old one, I thought I'd just fit fresh new ones to the new drums.
The rear brake kit from VW Heritage.
The old drum.
The old shoes and cylinder. The shoes themselves aren't too bad, and the cylinder wasn't leaking, but it never hurt to renew everything.
The other side halfway through. I was straight up
not having a good time. Brake shoes are probably one of my least favourite jobs to do.
New shoes, cylinders and springs fitted (after a lot of swearing and fighting with the springs).
Nice new shiny drum with new wheel bearings.
After that there was a bit of a gap before I made a start on the front brakes. And by 'bit of a gap' I mean I did all of the above in February and did the front brakes last weekend.
The Scirocco finally at home in the garage after being stuck in the unit during lockdown!
New front calipers from VW Heritage.
New Brembo Max discs, along with Brembo pads not pictured.
Old brakes. Again, nothing was really wrong with the discs or pads, but it's nice to freshen it up with some uprated discs.
The calipers looked like originals though, and this bleed nipple did
not want to budge, and I didn't want to risk snapping it when doing the brake fluid change.
A bit of black Hammerite to freshen up the backing plate.
New discs, pads, and caliper. Looking a lot nicer now!
I haven't decided on a colour for the front calipers yet, hence why the pad carrier hasn't been painted. I was originally going to go with some kind of grey to match the wheels, but I quite like the gold of the new calipers, so I might go with that.
I also noticed some months ago that I have a servo leak. The non-return valve for the brake servo has a hole in it, and has been very poorly repaired by someone at some point.
I ordered a new one from VW Heritage but didn't really look at it like above before I did, and ending up ordering the wrong one. It seems like the kind above with the little additional pipe is quite hard to get hold of, so I've just wrapped the valve up in tape for now to at least stop the leak.
After doing a brake fluid change and temporarily fixing the servo valve, my brakes are... still 🤬. I took it out for a drive just to make sure the pads and shoes were probably bedded in, but there's still a ton of travel in the pedal. You have to press the pedal halfway before it starts to do anything. It stops, eventually, but it's a bit scary. The only other thing I can think of that I haven't changed is the master cylinder, so I'll try that and see how it goes. Other than that, I have no idea. Maybe I'm just expecting too much of the brakes since I'm used to modern cars. It's always passed MOT on the brakes, so who knows!
And that rounds up another 6 months! See you in December I guess?
), while the Scirocco R isn't seen nearly as much on the road. Both me and my mum preferred the Scirocco over the Golf, while my dad wasn't as keen, but my mum does the majority of driving (my dad and I work at the same place so we both go in mine), so ultimately it was down to her choice. It hasn't taken much for my dad to be won over by the Scirocco, however!
) if you were ever to engine swap I think it would be a shame to put a turbo engine in, or at least a modern turbo engine with nowhere near the character/noise of an older one. 
