Nice to be noticed
Righto, what have I done under there..
First off, go to a scrappy and find a late mk3 rocker cover, the type without the VW badge on it. They seem to be made of a metal that doesn't rust, and powdercoated properly so the paint doesn't peel up and fade like the old mk2 ones have. Give it a bit of t-cut and a polish and it'll come up nicely.
If you do really want to keep your VW badged rocker I'd advise you have it powder coated, as anything else just seems to fade with the heat and soak up all the filthy motorway spray within moments, just looks a bit manky really..
Next, get your air filter housing off, wire brush it down, sand it back until it's nice and smooth, treat it with rust killer where necessary, prime and respray in matt or satin black (don't be tempted by high gloss, metallic, pearl etc, just looks out of place). Be sure to leave it off for a few days before you clip it down in order for the paint to harden, otherwise the metal clips will just go straight through the paintwork and it'll rust all over again.
While you're painting things, get some high temp paint (you can get it from accessory shops), strip all the rust from the exhaust shroud and repaint that. You will probably find that the bottom edge of it has burnt and rusted away, I just took tin snips and a file to mine and cut back the bottom edge to make it more even.
Go to an auto accessory shop and get a nice shiney new warm air feed pipe to run from the hot air feed to the air intake.
That lot should smarten up the engine bay a bit and sort out all the bits that commonly rust and show their age.
Time to start actually cleaning things.. the best way to do this is to douse everything in degreasant - gunk and the other commercial degreasants are fine, but petrol works just as well and is a lot cheaper. Brush it on liberally, let it soak in, then take a hard bristled brust to the areas where it's built up and put some elbow grease into it. A strip of wood shaped like a wide screwdriver is useful for chipping off the runs of wax that appear over the wings. Really try to get in down behind the engine, remove the air filter cover and get behind that, because it's the little bits that really make the difference. When you've got rid of the grease build up, rub down the paintwork where it's been stained from the grease with some methylated spirit, then wash it off with soapy water before it eats your paintwork. When it's all done, wash everything down with clean water, and polish it - I know it sounds excessive to polish an engine bay that will just get covered in muck the first time you hit a dirty motorway, but the polish goes a long way to stopping the paintwork from being stained again, and makes the bay easier to clean in future. Try to clean it when you clean the rest of the car, and give it another coat of polish under the bonnet, on the inner wings etc from time to time to keep it looking reasonable.
Tidying wires.. get back to the scrapyard and find a mk3 polo with the HT lead clips still in place. There should be a couple of these, they neaten up the HT leads. Best if you can get some genuine HT leads in the first place as they're the right length and you don't get some long ones that are all over the place like you do if you get a set from champion etc. Coolant pipes you can't do much with, wiring looms you can tie up with electrical tape so that the wires aren't so slack.
The key with everything is once you've done all the above, just clean it regularly, throw a sponge around when you clean the rest of the car, especially in the winter and when you're making long journeys in the rain. One thing that helps if your car doesn't have it already is the fibreboard panel that sits behind the grille, clamps onto the end of the radiator to stop mucky water from flying into your cylinder head and rocker cover and staining them. Go to the scrappy and find a late mk2 polo if you don't already have one.
That lot should keep you busy.. I have to admit that mine's not looking as good as it did when I took the photos of it, I've had more important things to be getting on with recently so it's looking a bit rough.. ought to sort that out soon
