So the next thing to tackle was a small coolant leak I've been having, I've been finding little puddles of coolant on the garage floor after driving it before I had the rack and bushings done.
I spent an afternoon trying to find the leak, nothing from any of the hoses or the thermostat housing. Eventually I saw the TINIEST stream of coolant spraying out from the middle of the expansion tank, you could barely see it. So I did a quick Youtube seach, looked easy enough to do myself. I hate bleeding cooling systems, but I will if I have to.
Went and bought a new bottle on Friday and took out the old one on Saturday afternoon, but the hoseclamp was toast, and the level sensor had disintegrated and leaked when I tried refitting it to the new tank. Parts shops were closed by then. Annoying. So had to wait until Monday to get a new hose clamp, level sensor and just because, I bought a new bleed screw as well.
I thought about converting to the VW Mk5 expansion tank in preparation for future plans, but I wasn't prepared to go down that rabbit hole just yet.
Eventually got everything fitted, no leaks and began the bleeding procedure. Jacked the front end up, turned the heater on full blast and let it go. Gave it a couple of revs every now and then, and topped up the tank. After an hour and a half I still had some bubbles at the bleed screw, so I turned it off and went back the next day. Another hour of bleeding it and no more bubbles on idle. Took it for a 15min drive, no issues, so I'm going to assume its fine 😂
Onto restoring the Mtech door mouldings!
(Top is after, bottom is before) My approach to this was fairly simple. Washed them all down with soap and water, bought a pack of scotchbrite pads and went to town. Had a bucket of water and just wet-sanded all the mouldings until I was happy with the finish. I didn't want a smooth finish, just an OEM-like textured finish so the scotchbrite worked really well, as you can see from the before and after photos of the bucket of water I was dipping the pads into.
Once the finish was good and even, I washed them down again and let them dry.
Right before, left after. Pretty damn happy with the finish. Now to do a test spray. Again I was going for an OEM finish, and seeing Jimmy Oakes use Trim Black spray paint when restoring his trims on all his cars confirmed what I needed to use.
Managed to get it on Makro online only, no where in store has it. Did a test spray on one of the small trims and was happy, so I did the rest over the course of a few days. Cape Town weather has been very temperamental. These past few weeks.
3 - 4 coats and the finish was great. Time to do the rest with my janky "spraybooth" 😂
All new clips for all the mouldings too. Be prepared to spend R1000+ on new clips if you're doing the swap. Here's the part number if you need it, the clips are different to the narrow mouldings as I learned.
And finally on the car! It was a pretty laborious and time-consuming job, but happy with the end result. I'm going to change the OEM M badge on the front door mouldings though, they look a little "Janjira" to me, even though they're OEM. Will probably get the Motorsport ones.
Also ended up swapping my numberplates around, took the CAA and put it on the Cayenne, and put the CA on the E36. Just to be more period correct 😂 its the little things for me.
Up next: braking. Will be taking off the front bumper this weekend for a cool little development project, and overspending on brake pads 😂 will be changing pretty much everything about the braking system.
