Sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, its copied from another forum!

This is what I picked up yesterday, a 1984 1.3 CL with lovely brown interior
Please excuse the rat look, Ive been there and done that before, so it won't be staying that way,as it has no dents and especially seeing as the only bit of rot on the whole car is on the drivers side front wing, which I'l replace. The sills, floor, arches are all rot free, and all the rust on the car was intentional by the last owner. Its been lowered 60mm on springs and shocks, and has an uber powerful 1.3 4 speed goin on under the bonnet, which if all goes to plan won't be staying there (although for 200k miles it drives well).

First thing to do is the clutch as the release bearing has collapsed, meaning I had to do the 100 mile trip home with no clutch and then I can rub down the surface rust and primer it all to stop anymore rust. Then the plan is to do my first ever full respray

Anyways here she is, in all its ratness









The car has an interesting story to it, basically the last owner found it dumped next to a derelict building, and after 7 months of driving past it he knocked on a few doors to find the owner. Turned out that an elderly couple had owned it for about 16 years but it had sat there untouched for 3 and a half years, so he took it off theyre hands. After about £600 spent on it to get it back on the road and replacing the troublesome pierburg carb with a manual choke weber carb, and lots of other engine work, hes had it for 3 years and not really had any trouble with it, and obviously it was him that ratted it (but he ran it on BBS RAs and refused to let me have them with it). Hopefully I can turn it around into something nice as I don't like to see such a mint shell being a rat.

Good news is after driving it clutchless for the past 250 miles it finally has a spangly new clutch and I have to say considering its age and mileage its incredibly smooth and nice to drive!

Rusty bonnets now been swapped for one I can paint when I do the whole car

Hi Adi

It's great to see the car has found its way back onto this forum, also great to see that the soft rat has managed to stay on the car for now at least.
That is indeed one funky bonnet you have fitted although it will definately be more suitable for the respray. Did the old bonnet take pride of place on your mates car in the end?

Toby

no, he's also gone off rusty bonnets now, I bought this one the othe day, and put the other up on a local forum, and it was gone within 2 days! Thanks for the tip you gave me about the leads, will be sure to replace them when I service it. I've now done a good 800miles in it, so far completely trouble free

Well I gave the car a service, and after a few hundred more trouble free miles the engine is starting to burn a bit of oil (probably because the new oil is thinner than old oil and 200,000 miles won't help the piston rings and stem seals), so I have decided to replace the old 1.3 lump with a 1.6 or 1.8 carb engine (just to keep it simple and I hate wiring so a GTi lump is out of the question). So I'm now on the lookout for a dirt cheap rotten or MOT fail mk2 with the right engine, and preferably one that works...

Been busy working on the bodywork yesterday, been playing with my new sander

A mate has offered to respray my car for a price I couldn't refuse, as long as I do all the prep work, so once I've finished sorting all the surface rust and got a pair of front wings and some new gutters then I can let him change the colour for me

So anyways so far I've done a fair bit on the drivers side, over the next few days I'l work my way round the back and the passenger side










I know it don't look pretty, but it can't look any worse than it did!!

Good work Adi, glad to see the resurrection has commenced.

Oh yeah, not sure what oil you put in but I wouldn't put anything thinner than 20w50 in otherwise it'll start burning it like you say.

Looking good mate, I don't envy you in the slightest having to do the prep work though, not fun!

I think its got 10w40 in it, not sure though. I just put in whatever the motor factors gave me!

Bit more progress yesterday


And I thought I'd share my voodoos

done some more today but run out of primer

Decided not to be beaten by the thieves, so I'm going to finish it and get it resprayed now. Done some more today...


Removed the number plate and plinth to find I have a 100% rot free bootlid!

Started on passenger side now

Good man Adi, glad to see you're back up and running on the old beast.
Would be a shame if such lowlife scum had killed a project with so much potential.
The car still amazes me how it hasn't even strated to rust in all the usual areas, I reckon that shell was blessed the day it was made

Damn boy you've been busy! Good work dude