B5.5 Passat Estate

ItsAdamC

RMS Regular
Messages
324
Location
Bangor
Drives
Scrappers
That looks great! Making me want one myself even though its only me, the other half and a our tiny dog so I've zero use for an estate 😂
 

Geoff Campbell

RMS Regular
OP
Geoff Campbell
Messages
186
Location
Crumlin
Drives
Passat
Quick update. Had sold off a set of Artec Splits a couple of years ago while I still had my Golf before buying the Rotiforms. Had always wondered what they would have looked like on the Passat and by pure luck I stumbled across them for sale locally a few weeks ago so of course I snapped them up:

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They’re currently built to be a staggered set of 8” fronts and 9” rears at the moment. Decided to mock them up on the car and discovered that even with spacers, the 8s were lost up front. So mocked up the 9s:

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These filled the arches much better so put in an order for a pair of lips to build the set out for 9s up front and 9.5s at the back. While they’re being built the centres will be resprayed, new centre caps and the lips polished back up due to neglect in their previous ownership.

Then I got into some major wheel swapping and selling shenanigans. Had put the Tarmacs up for sale to fund the refurb of the Artecs as well as future paintwork. Ended up doing a part exchange for them for cash and a set of BBS LM-R reps which I intended to sell straight on. Ended up mocking them up on the car just to see how 19s sat:

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Put up an advert and they were sold within 15 minutes for full asking price which was helpful.

Once those sold, ended up wanting to change out the 17” Phoenixs which I had as winters for something a bit larger so picked up a set of 18” ABT wheels for a great price before selling the Phoenixs on. They need new centre caps and a refurb in the long run but they do the job:

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While this went on, my US front bumper arrived into the country so managed to get that picked up:

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Got it, the new bootlid, spoiler and one of the rear US rub strips which had been hit in the work car park sent off for paint yesterday so should have those back fairly soon with any luck :grinning:
 

HILL9N3GTI

RMS Regular
Messages
159
Location
omagh
Never knew you had a thread for the b5 Geoff example of a car and great read.
love to see the updates pop up on Instagram so now i have 2 places to watch out for this
 

Geoff Campbell

RMS Regular
OP
Geoff Campbell
Messages
186
Location
Crumlin
Drives
Passat
Little update on the Passat.

Had sent some body panels which I had accumulated for the car off for paint a few weeks ago and they were finally completed.

First part which I had managed to fit up was the US front bumper. While I was in the process of transferring the lower portion of my old bumper across, gave the splitter a quick coat of paint to take the worst of the stone chips off plus hit the grills with the heat gun to bring back a little colour.

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Next up was the new bootlid and spoiler to replace the rotten original. Had plans over the weekend so Friday evening I got the bootlid laid flat and bonded the spoiler to it with some CT1 giving it the entire weekend to cure.

The following Monday then consisted of swapping it on to the car.

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Swap was straightforward enough and while I was swapping parts over, managed to get the boot light working for the first time since owning the car with the new latch module from the replacement bootlid.

Had the new bootlid’s glass tinted to match the rear windows and also had the rear door glass done at the same time. Did have these done a while ago but they were poorly done and had begun to tear so I had removed them.

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Also had a new exhaust back section put on to the car since the last update. Really just wanted it to complete the back end of the car more and thankfully it’s not really much noisier either.

Only other jobs which were completed were a new thermostat and temperature sensor to cure an intermittent temperature reading on the cluster and then engine and gearbox raisers for my own peace of mind.

Keen to try and get the Artecs built up for it before the summer completely passes me by so that’ll be my next aim.
 

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