I know absolutely nothing about cars and have only been driving since May. Always loved Saxo's so was adamant I was buying one for my first car. Upon realising it was only a matter of an extra £300 on insurance for the 8v 1.6 VTR, I dropped the idea of the 1.1's and found one locally for around £500.
Owning a car and wanting to modify it as much as I do is going to be a hell of a learning curve, so bare with me!
She has around 120,000 miles on the clock, and as far as I'm aware she's in alright shape. Can't see any rust problems at the moment, but we'll see what I pick up the more I strip the car down as I go.
The first
problem I had was the air filter.
Simple things, the clip holding the pipe in was useless and the breather pipe had been snapped - this was giving a nice 'juddering' motion when driving, sometimes proper fierce too. I've replaced the air filter with a new one all together, but exactly the same type as before. Had trouble connecting the oil breather as they just didn't go together, looked like I needed a different pipe or adapter or something?
If anyone cares to take 5 to enlighten me on what my options are with the oil breather that'd be cool!
The next problem I ran into was my backbox had come away from the exhuast pipe itself. Had a look and basically the clip had just well and truly deteriorated and crumbled away when I attempted to take it off.
New clip, and sorted - for now.
I was warned by a friend that I may need to replace the backbox soon - again not sure why, guessing all the crap that caused that bracket to go over time is also doing the same to the backbox though?
Sure as hell I can hear it worsening and even I can tell it's on its way out. Any suggestions on a new exhaust (aside from standard) would be appreciated, but not looking for anything too loud.
Of course I was always planning on upgrading the sound system, took a while to decide on what brand to go with as I wanted to keep everything the same, but landed on Sony.
Pretty self explanatory but I went with XS-XB130's for the doors and the XS-FB6920E's went on the parcel shelf. Also got given an old school Earthquake sub from my dad. Currently all powered by the XM-N1004. Again, real learning curve, touched base with a few friends cars over the past few years when helping them with their sound systems, but when it comes to picking the parts I had no idea whether they'd work well together, whether the amp would be enough to power them etc.
The sub is currently running through the rear output in the amp, with all speakers running out front.
Currently running off the stereo that came with the car, which is just some Sony thing, will drop the model number in here later. Not terrible but only has left and right out so it all pretty much goes into one when it gets to the amp.
Not the end product, but it's a start for the audio. Plan to get another amp for the sub as well as add some more extra speakers, as well as of course get a stereo that has a little more to it, front, rear, sub output etc.
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A couple of weeks ago I'd realised a lovely (...) smell in the car, then later realised the passenger footwell was wet too. Thanks to a few older posts on this forum (and advice from the old man) I came to the conclusion the heater matrix was the problem. Finally found the time to buy and fit a replacement, which I did Sunday just gone.
Had to take the entire dash out to get to it, and I've gotta say that's the most time I've spent working on a car in one time. Took me the full day - but again with help from a few older posts on here and help from the old man, it's now back to working order!
Only got the one picture, this was taken shortly after the replacement heater matrix had been fitted.
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Which brings me up to date pretty much. I'm half way through converting the sunroof to an electric motor, again using posts from this forum - going with the 306 motor. New cog is all in place on the motor just gotta' find the time to fit it in the car.
I want to change the mirrors to electric too - was hoping to find some VTS door looms to make the job easier when putting the cable through the doors, but we'll see what route I go as obviously (I think?) they're pretty hard to come by.
I was given the standard Saxo wheels when I bought the car, so I'm going to change them back to them at some point too.
Also thinking about changing the headlights and rearlights. One of the spotlights have a crack in them so will need to replace that too.
I have a few things I want to do aesthetically, but if anyone has any suggestions on what changes to make I'd be happy to hear them.
Black VTR (first car)
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Mostly because I'm learning on the job with the help from my dad, and want to get my hands dirty.
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