Afternoon everyone,
It’s been a month since Ive updated you all on what’s been going on with my Project OEM commuter, well the answer is not too much really to be honest. In the last couple of days though I have been getting back to tinkering.
Yesterday I fitted the reupholstered Twist headlining (good colour match but a bit lighter) and I will reupholster the pillar trims along with the sun visors in due course. I had to put it all back together for now so I can start to use the car again. It’s been over a decade since I’ve done this task, which was on vehicles with a lot less contours on the headlining biscuit. I’ll master it in a very short time, just need a bit more practice to perfect the shape before I offer this as a service.
You’ll see the pictures of the sagging headlining fabric earlier on in this thread, but here is what it looks like after putting it all back yesterday before we used it for a family drive.
No more fabric touching the boys heads in the back:
The fabric around the overhead switch panel was also coming loose but looks so much better now:
The pillar trims will get done when I have time along with the sun visors (which are a little more difficult to do than first thought but I’ll get there)
Here is the colour match:
It will be less noticeable once I have completed the job.
I have also added a SDS Microphone (A VW item from Amazon, £11 same day delivered which works perfectly). It is only to ‘talk’ to the RNS-E PU for now. I’m yet to purchase a Telephone Module and may do that another time.
On the subject of the RNS-E, some of you may have noticed earlier in the thread that there was quite a lot of the anti-glare coating missing. It wasn’t perfect to start with but I certainly made it worse when taping the unit up for its diet to fit into the A2 aperture.
In the last hour I have removed the remainder of the anti-glare coating. I may fit a screen protector to it in the future but I’ll see how performs over the coming weeks before I make the decision.
Here is the RNS-E removed from the A2 with the screen open:
Looks pretty terrible doesn’t it. First I removed the Piano Black Surround. To remove the surround you need to remove the 2 PH0 screws (the bottom left and right of the picture)
Below you’ll notice said screws removed:
Once the 2 screws are removed you need to gently unclip it around where you can see the 5 small rectangular holes along the bottom.
Surround removed:
Now starts the simple process of rubbing away the coating with a slightly abrasive liquid polish. I have in the past used watered down toothpaste which works perfectly but today I went for the following product (toothpaste is a lot cheaper though):
I kept gently rubbing with a small amount of the product, 3 applications with cleaning everything down (alcohol wipes) in between application to gauge the the progress/results.
After 10 minutes of the above process here is the results which I think you’ll agree is so much better than before:
Surround refitted and about to be placed back in its snug home:
It’ll next be removed when I decide if I want to add the factory Telephone Module, £100 for the kit is steep when I already have this functionality with the Xcarlink. All I would be gaining is using the same microphone, thus removing the Xcarlink microphone and be able to use the SDS to make calls.
It’s an expensive thing to do which I don’t really need, so therefor, knowing me, I will probably buy the kit and fit it next week!
Kind regards,
Tom