ALLMAG Blog

It's been a while since our last update on the R50 project. A lot has been done in the past month, so it seemed like time for another post. We left off with the car mostly stripped, and the shell cleaned up and ready for work to begin. This car seemed to have been partially submerged in water at some point, so extra care was taken to flush every part of the under body / frame with clean water. Then it was completely dried using a leaf blower, compressed air, sunshine, and fans.   The R50 body right after being...

  The car arrived! The body and exterior were pretty clean other than a few small dings, some missing trim, and the traces of an old Union Jack decal on the roof. The interior was also in very good shape, just typical wear on the driver’s seat. Most importantly, everything looked and felt dry, including the carpet. We hooked up the battery jump box and turned the key to ON. The odometer showed only 104k miles. Lights, A/C controls, etc. seemed to be working. All good signs. Under the hood is where things started looking worse. The spark plugs were...

We’ve had this R50 project in the shop for a while now, so we decided to start documenting some of what we’re doing with the car. The R50 in it's temporary home on the lift. First, some background on the car and some general R50 info. Most of you reading this will know, but chassis code R50 is the 2002-2006 hatchback with non-supercharged engine (W10). R53 is the “S” with a supercharged version of the engine (W11). R52 is the convertible and is available with either engine. Other than the supercharged engine and different transmissions, the R50 and R53 are...