[bunicula]

Well gents (and lady's of course) I hadn't planned on creating a build thread for the bunny but I think it will be a good source of some much needed moral and support.. So here goes!

I guess a good place to start would be a little history of when the build actually started. The last time the car actually saw the road was about 2 years ago now. I had made the trip to H20i and my plan was start working once I got home... And that I did. After a day of rest from the trip
The car looked like this..

Like I mentioned this was 2 years ago now.. This build has since gone from being worked on nearly every day for months on end. To every so often to being completely stagnant. The car has moved shops, been buried behind piles of parts and not even looked at for quite awhile. Until now that is. So what I'm going to try to do is sort of skim through some pics and try to get things up to date. This will be only a tiny fraction of the photos I've taken documenting the process and also skipping over all the ups and esp the downs of how things have transpired to date.

After the motor was out things really moved along well for quite awhile. Wether is was working on the bay, sourcing parts or refurbing parts that would be reused in the build..

The start of cleaning/deleting things in the bay..

Some Filled holes.. Hidden strut mount hardware..

Deleted body line on strut tower.. These were cut, hammered flat and stitch welded.

Removed ill fitting single round rad support.

Cleaned Inner wings

Had some help from a real creep along the way

New OEM rad support installed and lots of sanding completed as well

Early aba block getting prepped for paint

Trans got some love as well..

After paint...

I'll end this installment With a couple pics of the engine bay in it's first coat of primer I was so excited that night ahahaha

I hope you all will enjoy following along.. There's still
More to come to get things up to date and once we are I hope to be able to be a bit more detailed as far as my posts go and the work I'm doing is concerned as well.. Cheers everyone :wave:

 

[r32flow]

Looking good. I love how the trans came out. What did you paint it with? It looks really thick.

 

[veector]

Great attention to detail with the black hardware:thumbup:

trans and block look sweeeet

 

[gtidaddy]

good to see you got mr creep out of the house and back to where he belongs.

 

[Cushy]

seconded on the trans paint. that looks amazing :beer:

 

[bunicula]

Thanks guys Trans and block were both painted with evercoat high build primer, sanded, based and cleared.

And as far as getting Doyle out of house, that was a long time ago

 

[der hare]

Good talking to you today mang. Shizz is looking proper. Excited to hear it running son :thumbup::heart:

 

[vwjodi]

Good Job Bird... I may need to start a new build thread soon as well. Need motivation.

 

[BROsiah]

about time you f&*king slacker :wave:

i cant wait to see it done

 

[Nashty Rabbit]

finally got your arse off those two wheelers and back to work on this beauty!

:heart::wave:

take care,
nash

 

[bunicula]

Well seeing as I don't know how to quote more than one post at a time in my responses yet (hint hint nashypoos) I'll just say thanks again the sarcasm, ball busting and the love are exactly what I need right now! Maybe we can even get Shannon in here to hate on me alittle to really make it a good build thread eace:

 

[urogolf]

really diggin this!

 

[IronTrap]

birdman makin' moves! :heart:

 

[bunicula]

So I thought I would toss up a couple more pics to somewhat illustrate things a bit more.. As mentioned while working on the car itself,I was also gathering parts for build as well..

Custom JE pistons ( .40 over 10.5:1 ) and Pauter rods with arp hardware

Aem wideband ( heard great things about this from mr. Fries)

Mk4 exhaust manifold with filled O2 and emissions ports

And here's "the money shot" I guess..

So returning back to the engine bay side of things.. After the first coat of primer went on there was one little spot that needed some attention.. This was my first real attempt at body work/welding so I was def very pleased with how things turned out.. I had a buddy come by and give me some pointers on how to fix it and it came out really well.

On both side of the bay I had filled the gaps in the body line where the frame rail meets the inner fender.. This was done all with shaping metal and welding in filler pieces. I think what had happen was i had just got one spot a bit hot and it warped alittle right above the body line.. Some gentle hammer/dolly work and another skim coat of plastic and it was looking good..

At this point the whole bay had been scuffed and I had gone around all the seams with new seam seam sealer and was ready for a second coat of primer. That night I laid a nice heavy coat on and headed home for the night.. Little did I know that night was the beginning of the end..

The next day I headed to the shop after work
Ready to start sanding again.. I started on the firewall and it was looking really good.. Moved along to the passenger side of the bay and noticed that something seemed alittle strange along the strut tower seam.. Then this happend

Dosnt look so bad but it happened almost everywhere I had seam sealed the day before.. I was so bummed out... At that point I had so much time and effort into it it litterally felt like I got kicked right in the yam sack.. After a few days of staying as far away from
The shop as i could I went back and started scraping away all the seam sealer taking along with it all the bodywork in those areas with it. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a pretty resilient dude but this was such a huge setback for me.. I finished scrapping, sanded all the hard edges down and that's pretty much the last time I worked on the car.. As it sits now it's still
In the same state I left it 2 years ago.. BUT your boy has a fresh tube of seam sealer and a quart of primer just waiting..

 

[Cushy]

:laugh: nice stash. 8v?

 

[bunicula]

:laugh: nice stash. 8v?

Yup.. 2.1L ABA :thumbup:

 

[rabbitnothopper]

hmm wow interesting pistons

hey would that mk4 exhaust manifold fit a stock 1.7L 8v? with the stock downpipe?

 

[Markg813]

subscribed :thumbup: Love the motor/trans.

 

[bunicula]

hmm wow interesting pistons

hey would that mk4 exhaust manifold fit a stock 1.7L 8v? with the stock downpipe?

Not sure bud.. I know you would at least need a duel downpipe..

 

[rabbidmk1]

I'm not a body work expert but is seam sealer the correct material for those body lines? I would imagine it would continue to flex and mess up the body work again and again.???
We welded those seams and body soldered those areas on my rabbit to make sure that didnt happen. Either way your work looks great! Can't wait to see it complete.