Making the Audi TT look (almost) new again

Technically, the car is in pretty good shape with practically everything working. The body panels were rather scuffed though. Also, the front bumper cover was split in half and poorly repaired at some earlier point.

Here is a closeup of the bumper removed. The lower left quadrant is cracked in several places.

There was a bunch of poorly attached glass fiber on the inside that was already coming apart.

Having removed the bumper cover I noticed several more cracks on the underside as well. As I had already started with the repair, I went ahead with it. Generally, with several places cracked on a plastic part, it may make more sense to replace the entire part.

The bumper is relatively easy to remove, except for four bolts on the inside of the wheel well liners. These require specific tools, or some imagination...

This is a socket wrench with an extension, a 14mm socket, and a 10mm/12mm spark plug socket stuck into the 14mm socket. Not pretty but works.

The bumper is attached with these four bolts, six screws on the top right under the hood and two screws underneath. These all come out easily.

In addition, there is a weird mechanism for attaching the far rear ends (is that a word?) that squeezes two slots in the bumper in a plastic clamp type of thing inside the wheel well. This is in the pic right where the bumper meets the fender in the lower right spot. On the left side this comes off easily, you just loosen two screws on the inside. On the right, the front screw is almost completely obstructed by the small (AC?) radiator and this is a real pain.

Here's a pic of the tools used. You can also see the general state of the bumper cover underneath. Guess this is one way of keeping a car.

I fixed the cracks with epoxy and slapped some rolls of glass fiber tape on the inside of the bumper. Also, (not pictured), I had to reshape the left end of the bumper cover entirely from glass fiber tape as it was pretty much shattered. This came as a surprise as it was covered by the wheel liner and front mud flap.

The end result is not quite perfect but I managed to sand the shape pretty flush with the lines of the bumper and once painted, you cannot really tell it apart. Except from the underside.

Removing, glueing, painting and reinstalling the front end took about two to three days with plenty of time for drying. I did the painting in the storage room but forgot to take pics.

The side skirts looked ghastly.

As I had to paint the front bumper cover anyway, I figured the easiest way to restore these to their former glory would be to paint them over.

Looking at the Bentley manual, these can be removed but the process looks painful so I ended up masking the car and painting them on site. Not the most professional job but well.

I sanded the surfaces relatively even and tried to fill in the rest with plenty of primer.

This pic shows the 17" chrome wheels that came with the car. These are now gone.

Not quite the professional job but substantially better than the original. The paint code by the way is LY9B, Brilliant Black.

Although the paint is color matched, it is not 100% the same as the rest of the car. I'm thinking almost 20 years of fading perhaps.

After the painting I buffed and polished the rest of the car. I used Scholl S17 and S40 and a buffing wheel, as these were what I had.

The paint surfaces are really scratched. I can't get them to show in these pics taken with my iPhone but even after the polishing job, the roof is still really scuffed.

I put a heavy amount of Autoglym Ultra Deep Shine on top and polished that as well. It may not be the perfect wax for a paint surface this old but it was what I had.

Here's a pic of the front end before the restoration:

Not a really pretty sight. The lower grilles seem to have been painted white (?) at some point and the paint is coming off. The plug on the left lower grille is for a heater element.

Below is the 'after', taken this morning. The lower grilles are black with a funky gloss effect clear coat that I had around. Thought it might add a fun effect.

And here's a full shot from the front. The wheels are also restored. Will need to write a post on them as well. The theme of the car is 'black' as you can see.

The car looks ok from the back as well.