Ok so decided to spend the afternoon giving the front end a mini freshen up. The objectives were:
- Try to somehow fix the broken headlight brackets (previous owner must have been a lump fisted idiot!)
- Wet sand and polish headlights to remove oxidisation
- Spray grill satin black as it had faded
- Fit Fabia splitter
- Remove yellow fog tint
- Optional: Remove acoustic valve
So the first task was to sort this mess:
No real interesting method used, I ended up cleaning up the surfaces of old silicone (why people try to use silicone is beyond me) and applying Gorilla epoxy to bond each clip back together. Extremely strong stuff so lets see hoe it stand up!
Next up was fitting the splitter. With my drill and self tappers I set to work:
I worked my way up one side, pulling the splitter into line and screwing on every tab to ensure no movement or bumps once fitted
Took me a while but got there in the end:
Managed to get it pretty neat!
I then decided to tackle the headlights:
As you can see the factory coating was well and truly shot. I wet sanded with 2000grit followed by 2500grit and then used Meguiars D300 on a microfibre spot pad to remove the sanding marks to leave this:
Before:
After:
Not 100% but a marked improvement. Annoying as there's watermark type stains on the inside of the lenses. I then used Autobrite Ghost Rider to seal them up:
(I then whipped round the windows with the ghost rider too, sealed the windows ready for winter
)
Whilst the bumper was off I opted to whip this little bugger out:
Blanked off the vacuum feed and taped up the plug and tucked them away out of sight. I also tucked away various other wires and the headlight washer hoses which had just been left hanging behind the bumper, I also blanked them off as there was a nice puddle of screenwash in the bumper too
I then started on the grill. Prepped with Autofinesse citrus power and a good scrub, followed by an IPA wipedown. First coat of satin:
Whilst this was curing, I decided to remove the tax disc holder:
And polished the glue off and the rest of the windscreen with Autoglym Glass Polish
Next I finished off the grill:
And fitted back to the bumper being careful not to break and clips!
Once the bumper was back on I trimmed the splitter:
And peeled off the fog tint.
Here's how she looked before:
And how she stands now:
Much cleaner!
- Try to somehow fix the broken headlight brackets (previous owner must have been a lump fisted idiot!)
- Wet sand and polish headlights to remove oxidisation
- Spray grill satin black as it had faded
- Fit Fabia splitter
- Remove yellow fog tint
- Optional: Remove acoustic valve
So the first task was to sort this mess:
No real interesting method used, I ended up cleaning up the surfaces of old silicone (why people try to use silicone is beyond me) and applying Gorilla epoxy to bond each clip back together. Extremely strong stuff so lets see hoe it stand up!
Next up was fitting the splitter. With my drill and self tappers I set to work:
I worked my way up one side, pulling the splitter into line and screwing on every tab to ensure no movement or bumps once fitted
Took me a while but got there in the end:
Managed to get it pretty neat!
I then decided to tackle the headlights:
As you can see the factory coating was well and truly shot. I wet sanded with 2000grit followed by 2500grit and then used Meguiars D300 on a microfibre spot pad to remove the sanding marks to leave this:
Before:
After:
Not 100% but a marked improvement. Annoying as there's watermark type stains on the inside of the lenses. I then used Autobrite Ghost Rider to seal them up:
(I then whipped round the windows with the ghost rider too, sealed the windows ready for winter
)Whilst the bumper was off I opted to whip this little bugger out:
Blanked off the vacuum feed and taped up the plug and tucked them away out of sight. I also tucked away various other wires and the headlight washer hoses which had just been left hanging behind the bumper, I also blanked them off as there was a nice puddle of screenwash in the bumper too
I then started on the grill. Prepped with Autofinesse citrus power and a good scrub, followed by an IPA wipedown. First coat of satin:
Whilst this was curing, I decided to remove the tax disc holder:
And polished the glue off and the rest of the windscreen with Autoglym Glass Polish
Next I finished off the grill:
And fitted back to the bumper being careful not to break and clips!
Once the bumper was back on I trimmed the splitter:
And peeled off the fog tint.
Here's how she looked before:
And how she stands now:
Much cleaner!
