Dad's retirement project - TT flavoured

Dad's retirement project - TT flavoured

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anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 4th August 2019
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Good work. Looks like a nice car. What's the 15kg dead weight thing ?

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Sunday 4th August 2019
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Grahamdub said:
Good work. Looks like a nice car. What's the 15kg dead weight thing ?
the weight lived behind the rear bumper on the left hand side (right on a LHD TT) it was retro fitted onto the TT following the original recall following the much publicised accidents back in the day.
It was part of the suspension change, the ESP addition, the spoiler add on etc...
It was all to dumb down the handling and make it more neutral for Joe Public who's driving skills weren't quite up there....

My dad's never going too drive it like he stole it so it's been removed with less weight = a lighter car, meaning better fuel economy.

rickygolf83

287 posts

160 months

Sunday 4th August 2019
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Love how you and your dad are getting stuck in to this together.

Wish my dad shared the same enthusiasm; retired engineer walking about the house all day with a bottle of jif and a cloth in the other hand, driving my mum mad!


89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Sunday 4th August 2019
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rickygolf83 said:
Love how you and your dad are getting stuck in to this together.

Wish my dad shared the same enthusiasm; retired engineer walking about the house all day with a bottle of jif and a cloth in the other hand, driving my mum mad!
it's something Dad and I can share, i'm the Electro/Mechanical Engineer and Dad is the retired Senior Management Executive, since Mum is bound in a home due to ill health I thought it important to give Dad as much a distraction as possible... knowing he loved the TT I (and the rest of the family) were quite persuasive in ensuring he decided to buy one...
Claude (as he's named the TT of course) is something which can be a distraction... for me it's soul destroying as here he is in the prime of his life, just entering retirement and Mum's struck down with dementia and he can't enjoy their retirement with her... life is st at times
So Claude is his distraction and I enjoy the teaching him all about how expensive the "car" hobby truly is lol, luckily my time is free and I enjoy it all....we joked at the weekend that Emily (my 2 week old daughter) will enjoy the TT as her first car....
(I did comment that my Fireblade and S5 may be too powerful for her to start with...!!!)


r5kdt

234 posts

184 months

Monday 5th August 2019
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Having just bought a £700 roadster, am watching this thread avidly... keep the updates coming OP and sorry to hear about your mum, that is an awful condition.

Danm1les

783 posts

139 months

Monday 5th August 2019
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Work on the car looks superb!

I've been slowing working through problems and faults on mine, recently had the wheels back from refurb, changed the awful shark fin that was on the roof back to the factory Bluetooth aerial and due to have a alcantara wheel from Royal come tomorrow smile



89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Monday 5th August 2019
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r5kdt said:
Having just bought a £700 roadster, am watching this thread avidly... keep the updates coming OP and sorry to hear about your mum, that is an awful condition.
what's the spec of your Roadster? £700 is a bargain, what does it need doing to it?

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Monday 5th August 2019
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Danm1les said:
Work on the car looks superb!

I've been slowing working through problems and faults on mine, recently had the wheels back from refurb, changed the awful shark fin that was on the roof back to the factory Bluetooth aerial and due to have a alcantara wheel from Royal come tomorrow smile
a V6, nice... what have you needed to do?

Danm1les

783 posts

139 months

Tuesday 6th August 2019
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a V6, nice... what have you needed to do?
[/quote]

When I bought it it needed discs and pads all round and tyres so that was the first job to do. Since then I've had the wheels redone, which are the optional BBS 2 piece ones. Changed the Aerial back to stock ,tidied up the interior with a few new/better condition parts including the gear knob.

The central locking unit died in the driver’s door so the car would lock and unlock on its own, then the motor died in the same window, so whilst that was being done the door lock was matched to the ignition barrel. When I bought the car it came with 4 keys, 2 for the door and 2 that worked remotely and worked in the ignition so I've sorted those.

Oh and it had a leak in the boot that meant every time it rained the battery was left in a puddle in the wheel well smile

I've probably missed some bits too!


martin mrt

3,768 posts

200 months

Tuesday 6th August 2019
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I’ve just read through this and I’ve also just bought a cheap 225 bam roadster (£350) that I’m about to hopefully return to the road

The value for money these offer just now is mental

r5kdt

234 posts

184 months

Tuesday 6th August 2019
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89forever said:
r5kdt said:
Having just bought a £700 roadster, am watching this thread avidly... keep the updates coming OP and sorry to hear about your mum, that is an awful condition.
what's the spec of your Roadster? £700 is a bargain, what does it need doing to it?
Its a 51 plate 220bhp and pretty much everything so far.... wheels refurbed, HID sensor for MOT and ABS sensor.

Still to do service, peeling laquer on bootlid and instrument cluster. cant get into boot, poss cabin switch boot opening from key and fuel filler opening only works when it feels like it.

Roof will need replacing at some point as its started to go in all of the usual places. Was bought for a bit of summer fun and to keep the mileage down on my main car.

2gins

2,839 posts

161 months

Wednesday 7th August 2019
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martin mrt said:
I’ve just read through this and I’ve also just bought a cheap 225 bam roadster (£350) that I’m about to hopefully return to the road

The value for money these offer just now is mental
I owned my coupe from something like 2009 to 2015, all the time the TT community were saying values can't get any lower, future classic for sure, signs of them firming up etc... like any owner's club really. My own view was they sold 40,000 of them in the UK so it's not going to happen for a very long time yet.

I still fancy another. Great thread.

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Wednesday 7th August 2019
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2gins said:
I owned my coupe from something like 2009 to 2015, all the time the TT community were saying values can't get any lower, future classic for sure, signs of them firming up etc... like any owner's club really. My own view was they sold 40,000 of them in the UK so it's not going to happen for a very long time yet.

I still fancy another. Great thread.
a car is worth what someone is willing to pay. There comes a point where condition will dictate rather than the market.... poor condition will remain cheap and provide a cheap source of secondhand parts.
Whilst prices are cheap, there are still some good ones around....


Caddyshack

10,596 posts

205 months

Thursday 8th August 2019
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There are thousands of TT's being broken all the time and the young modifiers are pulling them apart and also track daying them. The 205 gti went through the same phase...loads built, popular car, nice design....cheap as chips to bend and break. Modified and crushed...then the values came back up with rarity.

I think the TT is just passing through part of the phases above and will need a bit more time for them to become rare in standard form to get the values back.

The TT is also needing a bit of upkeep and money at this stage of it's life (mine has soaked up over £4k this yr), many will not have money spent due to the low current values so they will be broken and scrapped when the MOT fails them.


89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Sunday 6th October 2019
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another small job ticked off....

on checking the oil one morning Dad snapped the top of the dipstick off, so as we had no record of how old the plastic parts were... renew it all...
Sadly some numpty had previously rounded off the screws heads which hold the plastic cover on, so new screws ordered, new dipstick tube and new dipstick....
Screws were drilled out with ease, which allowed the easy removal of the cover, the bracket which retains the dipstick tube was removed.
On removing the original dipstick tube it snapped clean in half, thankfully no plastic fell into the sump... that would have been a bad day...!!!
New tube on


all built back up and as it should be

The TT is coming off the road for the winter months and a plan is being hatched...
Suspension refurbed so all the underneath can be brought back to as new.... anything which needs replacing will be... it will all go back as factory
Boost hoses and making it air tight are my next concern... I didn't have time this weekend but I need to run some logs to check boost pressure and check all over but Dad is doing a great job and polishing and keeping it clean... newly discovered petrolhead lol

5harp3y

1,942 posts

198 months

Wednesday 15th January 2020
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any updates? just bought a 225 TT and this thread has been brilliant

Big Tomm

67 posts

51 months

Thursday 16th January 2020
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Nice to see one of these getting some love. Back when I got my licence as a teenager I saved up and bought a black 225 MK1 with the BAM engine. I ran this up to around 200k, I then bought the V6 version with a DSG box and I loved the thing! I’ve actually still got it tucked up although it hasn’t been on the road for many years unfortunately and I need to do something about that. I’ve had problems with rear calipers on both cars.

I hope your father continues to enjoy the car, I’ve always liked them.

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Thursday 16th January 2020
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5harp3y said:
any updates? just bought a 225 TT and this thread has been brilliant
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it so far...

The TT is currently SORN’d since New Year as Dad doesn’t want to use in bad weather....

I’m currently putting together the parts list to refurbish all the suspensions underneath.
It’ll start to happen soon...

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Thursday 16th January 2020
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Big Tomm said:
Nice to see one of these getting some love. Back when I got my licence as a teenager I saved up and bought a black 225 MK1 with the BAM engine. I ran this up to around 200k, I then bought the V6 version with a DSG box and I loved the thing! I’ve actually still got it tucked up although it hasn’t been on the road for many years unfortunately and I need to do something about that. I’ve had problems with rear calipers on both cars.

I hope your father continues to enjoy the car, I’ve always liked them.
Now that sounds like my sort of project.... Car’s are meant to be used

89forever

Original Poster:

554 posts

72 months

Thursday 7th May 2020
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Whilst in Lockdown Dad has sadly been remote and has spent his time polishing Claude...

To explain the name, his phone autocorrected the term "clayed" as in clay bar to Claude and the name stuck, sort of suits his TT perfectly haha

We were curious if we could work the same magic on his bolster to the same extent as my S5, ColourLock didn't have his colour so they requested a very small sample of his leather to make a dye to suit his coloured leather.
I suggested from underneath the rear seat bench... good idea came the reply.... how do i take that out he asked....!!! so instruction communicated and out it came



a small sample was chopped off



and put into the mail on Tuesday, he received the dye today, i have to say full credit to Cdolourlock turning this around in 2 days, great service and hats off to them.

So, full of vigour and spirit Dad set to....

The offending bolster which let the rest of the interior down



all cleaned and sanded down and first coat applied....



and the finished result, now needs to be left for 24 hours and then buffed and sealed



It looks superb and i think dad's done a stellar job......