Mercury Grey MK1 VTS Restoration - Updated 103/07/16 - Saxperience

Jigs2895 · 22nd July 2015, 21:42

Okay, so this is saxo number 7 for me.

But this one I'm actually going to keep. 1997 MK1 VTS, a light 166k on the clock with 6 previous owners. Interior is damp, mouldy and full of shit, exterior needs a good detail but overall not to bad.

So I got cracking this evening on cleaning out the interior, first job was to remove the 2 bin bags worth of shit. However in my clearout I found a receipt for Spoox rear wishbone mounts, and solid engine and gearbox mounts.. Had a quick peak to see if they were on the car.. result!

A few hours later I got somewhere with the interior, the floor will be getting resprayed and the carpet needs changing for a new one, but the spiders are evicted and it smells a little better in there now!

Its been stood for 2 years now but surprisingly the beam is good, and there isn't much rot. Bought it off the previous owner who had it stored in a garage for the last 2 years ever since 'the clutch went'.

A quick bit of investigation revealed the gear pivot arm had lost its rubber ball, so a quick trip to the scrapyard and £10 and a bit of paint later, quick bit of adjustment and we have a car with a clutch... another result!

Last job for the day was to make the car water tight again, the aerial had been ripped out leaving a nice hole in the roof for the water to get in.. hence the mould and damp inside the car.. £8 later for a new genuine part and its water tight.

Also found out its got aftermarket cams in it.. further investigation required to find out which ones.

So whats left:

Cambelt and water pump
Jp4 covers
Clean the engine bay
Detail the exterior and interior
Fit a airbox and new steering wheel
Discs and pads all round
New tyres and wheel referb
Full service including all fluids
Fit 16v badges
Give everything some paint
MOT

Suggestions welcome!

Dan-Subtle^m · 22nd July 2015, 21:50

Great colour and looks a good project.

I'm using a mk1 Mercury vts as my donor for vts conversion so if you need any body panels etc let me know.

Willsy will be jealous as I know he is on the lookout for a decent Mercury grey saxo.

Jigs2895 · 22nd July 2015, 22:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan-Subtle

Great colour and looks a good project.

I'm using a mk1 Mercury vts as my donor for vts conversion so if you need any body panels etc let me know.

Willsy will be jealous as I know he is on the lookout for a decent Mercury grey saxo.

Cheers Dan.

Dropped you a PM mate.

willsy · 23rd July 2015, 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan-Subtle

Willsy will be jealous as I know he is on the lookout for a decent Mercury grey saxo.

I want it! :-(

nuttysaxo · 23rd July 2015, 18:38

Nice project , will keep my eye on this for updates .

lincolndanny · 23rd July 2015, 22:30

Really got the itch to restore a early n/p reg vts to oe concourse standard so envious of this! Sorting out a early 106 gti at the moment. What happened to the posi blue one?

Gandi699 · 23rd July 2015, 10:53

rare colour this is, how bads the rot?

VeiRoN · 23rd July 2015, 23:26

Interesting project,will keep an eye on it.

Jigs2895 · 24th July 2015, 07:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gandi699

rare colour this is, how bads the rot?

Just had some rot on the nearside rear arch. All ready sorted that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lincolndanny

Really got the itch to restore a early n/p reg vts to oe concourse standard so envious of this! Sorting out a early 106 gti at the moment. What happened to the posi blue one?

Posi blue one I sold on. Never been a fan of the colour and had other ones come up.

Jigs2895 · 24th July 2015, 07:23

Got a bit more done yesterday evening.

I decided to detail the car to work out how good the paintwork is, as unfortunately its been sat under a sap tree for 2 months so the paintwork was dull and course.

Gave it some snowfoam, clay bar, polish and bumper treatment and to my surprise the paintwork is actually really good. There are a few dents which ill get sorted at a later date. Still need to get some wax and window polish on it as I ran out of daylight last night.

Also got the rear arch welded up and seam sealed. I didn't have any before pictures but the rot wasn't really that bad.

After having a deeper look round the car I found it had Goodridge front brake hoses, a solid crank pulley and polybushed lower arms to go with the solid rear mounts.

I also found the heater matrix is leaking so that will get replaced this weekend along with the cambelt and water pump.

lincolndanny · 24th July 2015, 09:18

Cracking work! Amazing what elbow grease can do!

djx11b · 24th July 2015, 09:27

Like the colour looks good :-).

Miss my mk1.

Gandi699 · 24th July 2015, 09:44

really good work so far mate, very quick too. Amazing how the rear off side wheel looks in good nick but the front offside paint wise is fooked

willsy · 24th July 2015, 10:41

Looking forward to seeing more updates on this. What's next on your to do list?

jpsaxo · 25th July 2015, 08:06

Can't beat a Mercury grey mk1! Good look with your project. Keep the pictures coming...

nuttysaxo · 25th July 2015, 10:41

good work that mate

Jigs2895 · 25th July 2015, 20:20

Thanks for all the nice comments.

Had a spare few hours today so got cracking with a few other jobs. The parts pile is getting bigger and I'm itching to get it all fitted.

Managed to collect some VTS wheels after work, I don't plan on keeping them on the car, they a temporary measure whilst I have the original VTR wheels refurbished. Quickly bolted them on.

Fitted some 16v badges.. I can understand why they were taken off, but I want the car as original as possible. (excuse the bad picture and the little brother noising around)

Few bits that will be getting some paint tomorrow.

And a few more engine and scuttle panels that will be getting washed and cleaned up with some vinyl and runner care tomorrow also.

Stripped down the engine bay to get cleaning. Plan is to jet wash out the bay to remove most the oil, then the rest will be cleaned by hand. I'm going to do my best to replace most of the nuts and bolts as most are rusty. Along with all the jubilee clips etc. Nice to see the wings only require a light bit of attention.

Ive removed the scuttle panels and wiper motor in preparation to remove the dash tomorrow to change the heater matrix, it also gives me a nice opportunity to clean everything up under there.

Hopefully if the weather holds out tomorrow ill get the dash and carpet out, I also want to wet vac all the seats and carpet to see if they can be saved from the mouldy mess they are.

lincolndanny · 25th July 2015, 20:30

Keep going mate, you could be on to something special with this one

are the 16v badges you bought aftermarket ones that are identical to the OE ones then? Just noticed the packet they came in doesn't look like a Citroen packet?

Jigs2895 · 25th July 2015, 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by lincolndanny

Keep going mate, you could be on to something special with this one

are the 16v badges you bought aftermarket ones that are identical to the OE ones then? Just noticed the packet they came in doesn't look like a Citroen packet?

I wanted to get hold of some genuine ones but my local Citroen dealer isn't worth bothering with, they are awful.

I mocked these up against some genuine ones on a friends VTS and they are identical in length and height so i'm happy enough.

Jigs2895 · 26th July 2015, 16:23

Despite the weather being awful today, I persevered inside the car whilst it was raining and managed to get the carpet and dash out.

Still undecided if the carpet is saveable, i'm going to have a go cleaning it up next week and go from there.

Uncovered 2 damp patches under the carpet, the first being in the drivers footwell, which I know now is from the heater matrix.

The second was in the passengers rear footwell, i'm slightly lost as to what is causing this, maybe the rear window rubber?

I was happy to confirm my suspicions of the heater matrix being faulty, no wonder the carpet was mouldy.

Whipped the dash out and was left with more parts to clean up.

And a full hour after getting the dash out I finally managed to get the matrix out... what a awful job that was! I was fighting the rubber grommet as I didn't fancy removing the inlet manifold to unclip the hoses from the engine bay, mainly as most of the inlet manifold nuts look very rusty... but I won in the end! (never again!)

Looks like the previous owners 'KSeal fix' actually did a fairly good job of sealing up the matrix.

How the car looks this evening... very daunting.

I want to get some paint down on the interior and change the sound deadening before I put it back together, hopefully I'll get that done this week.

Quick few pictures of the panels i'm cleaning up.

More updates later in the week.