So some of my progress has been out of order, but I'm gonna try get it back chronologically now.
Apologies that some pictures have been recycled.


MID FEBRUARY

In mid-Feb after my exams, I serviced the car. Pollen filter seal was knackered, so I had to bodge job it with some tile silicon, but that didn't work and it rained heavily for the next few days and the passenger footwell flooded. Whilst I was away from home. So had to soak up as much as possible with a towel, and then drove the next few hours with the heater on full directed at the footwell, but was still soaking wet. Decided to hire a dehumidifier for a week, and it extracted about 30 litres of water, most of that from the air, but as the air dries out, the water will evaporate from the carpet back into the air.




During that week I also obtained a new scuttle panel, filter and seal, and went and fitted that.






Also ordered some heavy duty faux leather to do the door cards in. Bought a £0.99 sample off eBay (*other auction sites are available) to check the quality and look and feel of it, and when I was happy, ordered a massive 2m x 3m for £9.99 including P&P. Got plenty of it that I can make mistakes with and not worry about running out of material.




Probably won't be fitting it until the stuff (including exterior door handles) comes back from the bodyshop... as I'll have to take the doorcards off to fit them, so will save myself a job as I'm pretty busy at the moment. Whilst I'm doing it, I'm thinking of taking the silver strips off the door cards and getting them painted in the same BMW Titan Silver as the centre console, the silver that matches the gearstick, interior door handles and handbrake.



LATE FEBRUARY

Decided the rubber splitter and plastics on the front end were looking tired, so decided to give them a going over with some satin black spray. After a few layers, decided the fog light plastics were looking good, but the lower grille wasn't quite "bright" enough, so gave it a couple coats of clear lacquer to give it a bit more depth, seemed to work a treat.

I didn't do the normal upper grille, as that's at the bodyshop getting colour-coded. I'll mask it up and give it the black satin treatment when it's back, if it needs it. (Current upper grille is just a temporary one). Also didn't do the splitter (yet) as I'm considering replacing it with a Cupra R splitter instead, so didn't want to waste my time or paint.

Before





Sprayed






Fitted, along with new front-end numberplate. Legal font, slightly smaller. Looks much better imo.





Decided to pull my finger out and get the (next) brake upgrade ready for fitting, so as in the previous update, swapped the rear calipers for refurbed items. I also re-drilled the new brake discs, which are 5x108 to 4x108.


Managed to get a complete front brake kit from a Mk2 Focus ST. £120 off eBay. Thought if they fit, great, if not, its not a huge loss and I could maybe even sell them on for more.

The calipers are massive. Here's them in comparison to a few items, to give an idea of scale:


Tax disc letter




Legal sized numberplate (the one that used to be on the car)




5 litre oil bottle





Fits inside the ST170 wheel with a bit of room to spare, will look beast behind the wheels once fitted.





Anyway, back to the progress. I was looking for a company to drill them for me, but then I thought why spend the money, may as well do it myself. So I used the hubcentric 4x108 wheel spacers I have, put them onto the disc back-to-front, so they fitted inside the disc, then lined one of the holes from the spacer up with one from the disc, and marked on the disc where the remaining three holes on the spacer were, and drilled a small pilot indent in one hole. Then removed the spacer, drilled one hole in the disc, put the spacer back on, put some wheel studs through the two holes, checked they all still lined up, and carried on with the rest. Took 5 minutes per disc and they fitted onto the hub on the car first time, and don't even move a millimetre once they're on, perfect fit.


Size difference between old and new discs






EARLY MARCH

Decided to paint the front and rear calipers/carriers to make them a) look better and b) protect from rust. If it was a black car, I'd probably have gone with blue calipers. If it was a grey car, I'd probably have gone red, but I wasn't sure red or blue would suit the Ink Blue colour of the car, so instead, went for a stealthy look and chose smooth Black.


Painted the rear ones last week, forgot to take a picture. Doing the front ones at the moment, one more coat of paint to go then they'll be done.

Before & After the first coat.