Finally got my badges and had to repaint them.

 My new badges arrived, but they were just a bit too orange, so I took them apart and repainted them.

 Then I cleaned and restored the plastic trim with some olive oil, hope it'll last because it sure looks good!

Minor repairs and things I still need to do.

I fixed this old hard cable guide with a washing machine hose.

 Removed the back seats and seatbelts because I'll probably never need them.

 I still need to fix that damned windscreen leak, fortunately it's on the driver's side and not above the fusebox.

Thank you.

The results!

I tried to recreate the angles to show the before and after.

 So that leaves the wheels. Now I know that the purists will probable not like the following choice, but this is my car! If you don't agree I'll accept donations towards some decent looking alloys.

Royal mail red and £4.19 trims from Eurocarparts.

My Skoda Felicia.

I'm super impressed with the results.

So, that was my first attempt at fixing up a really old car. I made plenty of mistakes, but the end result speaks for itself.

Now the underside.

The tin of Tetroseal I bought was reasonably large, so might as well use it to rust proof the entire underside.

Hope the black seal will trick the MOT guy next year.

 Still not satisfied that the Tetroseal would adequately protect my Felly, I went to https://www.skoda-parts.com/online-store.html again and bought some wheel arch covers and a set of fender flares.

Don't use NO-NAILS!

First I tried to stick the flares on with unbranded No-Nails, because I'm a dumbass.

So two days later one fell off and I had to spend an entire day cleaning them and sticking them on with black mastic.

Trying to continue that black body line.

 I sanded and sprayed the bottom sills with black manifold paint, why? because it was the cheapest and only black can I could get.

But it looks quite good.

Had a bit of paint left so I removed the back badges and painted them.

One last polish (Yes, I know this is a buffing pad, but where in this blog did I ever give you the impression that I knew what I was doing?)

Giving it one last clean and wax.

I sanded the letters to make them stand out.

That's water, not oil.

Finally got the right paint!

I found this relatively cheap paint shop that custom mixes any colour code you give them. https://auto-paint.co.uk/index.php

And after the initial 3 weeks of lockdown they sent me the two cans I ordered.

Not looking too bad.

 So I scuffed, sanded and masked off everything again, for the 3rd time!

It was here where I realised that the original paint had changed quite a bit, and my custom paint didn't quite match.

I resprayed this whole wing as there were just too many patches.

Orange peel everywhere, but at least it's not rust!

A first time for everything!

I had made plans to tackle the rust on my Felicia in the summer holidays as my job as a Teaching assistant would give me 6 weeks of time to dive in head first.

But then the world suddenly stopped dead in its tracks due to COVID-19!

Sanding and grinding and sanding and grinding!

So I decided to move things up a bit on my schedule and attempt something I had never done before! I was going to do my own body work! Thanks to YouTube I became an expert overnight *COUGH* and swore to do the very best job £20 could buy!

I had to cut out a bit of fender here.

Considered replacing it with a disposable BBQ griddle, by my neighbour came to the rescue with some discarded steel plate.

So I wedged the straight plate in there.

Traced the drivers side arch and mirrored it.

Cut it, bent a lip on the bottom and had my neighbour tag weld it on with an electrode.

Fortunately I had plenty of filler.

And gap filling primer.

I couldn't get the right paint due to the lockdown, so I decided to grab the first can of something red I could find just to cover the primer.

I bought a can of Tetroseal and slapped it all over the inside arches, can't rust if you can't breathe!