My First rebuild - 110 station wagon

mick the builder said:

I'm with you on the time scale.ive been on mine two years and I'm just past the seat box moving forward. My bulkhead is in great nick thankfully so just the doors and both wings to panel beat into shape. New door skins seem a good idea and not too dear compared to the time spent repairing the damage to mine. I'm trying to decide whether to paint the engine bay to match bodywork, slight colour change. Or raptur it with a brush. The thought of still stripping down to do work after all this time fills me with dread. Are you doing your work outside? If so, I take my hat off to you. I've mine in a big shed but still find inspiration hard to find.

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I'm doing a lot of it outside, all assembly, most painting. Most welding inside because it's usually raining when I do it. I'm also painting my inner wings the same red as the body, just to be different really. I only wish that my neighbours house was just 18" further away so that I could fully open the doors one side, or get around both sides at once.

Had a day off work today so did a spot of painting. Look at that run! That's what happens when you have 60ml of laquer left and stick it on a panel instead of just binning it.



Bit of a run on this one aswell.


Wanted to be different so painted the inner wings to match the body. I'm going to Chassis Black the other side. The runs on these are in the por15 that I just couldn't be bothered to flat out.


And as always - a couple of spare panels to soak up any spare paint.

Discokids said:

Had a day off work today so did a spot of painting. Look at that run! That's what happens when you have 60ml of laquer left and stick it on a panel instead of just binning it.

View attachment 135512

Bit of a run on this one aswell.
View attachment 135513

Wanted to be different so painted the inner wings to match the body. I'm going to Chassis Black the other side. The runs on these are in the por15 that I just couldn't be bothered to flat out.
View attachment 135514 View attachment 135515

And as always - a couple of spare panels to soak up any spare paint.
View attachment 135516

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I see you have a hole in the light cover plate as I do in one of mine. Any idea anyone why it is there?
Runs in the lacquer are easier dealt with than in base coat.

mick the builder said:

I see you have a hole in the light cover plate as I do in one of mine. Any idea anyone why it is there?
Runs in the lacquer are easier dealt with than in base coat.

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These covers were bought in off eBay, from I believe a newer td5 model. Was thinking myself today I wonder what it's for, and decided it's a good place to stick a ciggy socket or a USB.
I'll flat them out easy enough.

Deep colour, that. Nice

Had a run on each door, in the same place. Always happens when there's a bit of laquer left and I just think 'might as well spray it on rather than waste it'. Silly me. Sliced it off carefully:


Rubbed down with some 1200. Too dark to get any pics of the end result.


Manky glass retainer on the left, new shiny Ali one on the right:


And fitted;


Bit of foam applied to this


And some nice stainless screws with fibre washers to secure it.

Headlining finally refitted after I put all the cabling in for rear speakers and interior lights (2 and 4 respectively).

The plank was just to hold the headlining temporarily.

What im now struggling with is fixing of the rear trim panels, they were bodged in when I got it, and I appear to be missing brackets and clips. Each side window surround has three brackets at the top. I assumed these 'hooked' over the roof internal gutter but pictures online suggest not?
I also do not have the stiffener plate for the back of the seat box for the parking brake. Is this essential? It didn't have one before.

Looking good, not to long until shes driving

Discokids said:

What im now struggling with is fixing of the rear trim panels, they were bodged in when I got it, and I appear to be missing brackets and clips. Each side window surround has three brackets at the top. I assumed these 'hooked' over the roof internal gutter but pictures online suggest not?
I also do not have the stiffener plate for the back of the seat box for the parking brake. Is this essential? It didn't have one before.

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Mine looked like this.

The clips just pushed on to the seam of the metal window frame Clip No7 LINKY
Clip No14 LINKY

Finally got onto round two of my wiring over Christmas, spent a few nights with the old loom spread out, mapping it and all it's joints etc, assessing damage, then weighed up the pros and cons of repairing it, buying a new one and making my own. Repair basically out the window as I wanted to incorporate a few extras anyway and it seems that the original design is barely fit for purpose within a standard vehicle, replacement out because it costs over £400 and you just end up with a new version of a rubbish design.
Here's the first load of wire, laid until I ran out. I'm using all correct colours and making sure that all cable is greater than what was originally used. All cable in this picture is stuff I had already, that I'd bought previously for the rear loom I made last year, or bought for other projects, or retrieved from other vehicles (not much of that though, and even then only on minor circuits).

Once I got to this stage I had a decent enough list of other wire I needed so got an order in at autosparks on Monday evening - they emailed yesterday lunchtime saying it was ready!

So that's a total so far of £26. I was struggling for a few connectors but the two areas I was most concerned with were the stalk switches and the warning lights. I've managed to find a pair of plugs for the warnings in a disco 300tdi, wires are all wrong colours on the wrong places but not a big deal. As for the stalk, I will possibly change to the newer style later on, which means I can use the newer plugs instead of cutting the old rubber bullets off the ones I have.

Really getting into the wiring now.
Not bad for a 'basic' loom. Only a few more cables to go then just figure out the permanent live/ignition feeds.

Just been to vwp to collect a bit more wire - almost there!

I've been watching this fred for ages, but not been seeing alerts for some weird reason - anyway.... just noticed a new post and had a look

Still love that colour - gonna look the dogs doodahs.

And as for making your own loom - love it - brilliant idea to save some drinking vouchers, AND get what you want. Respect

Disco1BFG said:

I've been watching this fred for ages, but not been seeing alerts for some weird reason - anyway.... just noticed a new post and had a look

Still love that colour - gonna look the dogs doodahs.

And as for making your own loom - love it - brilliant idea to save some drinking vouchers, AND get what you want. Respect

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Thanks a lot Sim.
It's getting there slowly, I've not had much chance to work on it for quite some time. Assembling all the cables is the cheap(ish) part, once I'm sure it will all work I'll order all the connectors - that's where it will start adding up. There's been a lot of head scratching involved but I am enjoying it.
How are you keeping anyway?

No probs - look forward to seeing it up and running mate

We're good thanks, You guys ?

Not a lot to report, although I've been off today so nipped over to autosparks and bought myself these;

They don't list these for sale but agreed to sell me 20 anyway while they had good stock supply. They fit in the warning light connector blocks and were they only bit I couldn't work around.
More wiring pics to follow soon.

First batch of econoseal connectors arrived today. A job for small fingers.



I did initially buy 300tdi Rear lights but when they arrived I realised that;
A - they're wider and I didn't want to cut bigger holes in my galv corner cappings
B - I didn't want to drill new mounting holes
C - they're of poor quality.
Took them back and changed for the older type which seem loads better and come with bulbs too.
Will be fitting tomorrow.

Using nylon nuts and bolts to hold all the lights on, these won't rust and the other benefit is that if the lights get knocked the bolts should hopefully break before the light. Steel bolts still in this light but did change them afterwards.


Put a thin smear of grease around the very edges of all the lenses aswell, just to hopefully stop them sticking to the rubber.


Postman delivered this lot yesterday which will take care of the joints at;
-main to Chassis harnesses
-main to front wings harnesses
-chassis to rear door.

Bolts from inside;

All lights on. Not obvious is the fact that I broke the left reflector when riveting it on so plastic bolted the right hand one.

Discokids said:

Bolts from inside;
View attachment 139561
All lights on. Not obvious is the fact that I broke the left reflector when riveting it on so plastic bolted the right hand one.
View attachment 139562

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Very impressive electrickery work there, mate. I likes it, I likes it alot