The RAD Roadtrip

370 miles, several UK towns, cities and motorways later, and we're back from a mini-weekend break that involved bolting-up a few new parts to the Caddy.

First up was a Friday morning blast down to RAD: Reflex Auto Design in Brixworth, just north of Northampton. Job one was to fit a sliding-door rail cover, painted in Raven Blue this more than finishes off the side of the van:

Next up (while the paint is in the gun), a rear spoiler to finish off the rear end:

And finally, a sump-guard is bolted up to replace the original plastic unit and allow us to run the ride-height a little nearer the tarmac without the worry of speedbumps.

All excellent products and RAD have been a pleasure to deal with from initial emails to driving away. Quality is high and they take pride in what they do.

Just before driving away we caught a glimpse (well, had a good nosey around) another Caddy that was in for some last-minute tweaks before Ultimate Dubs. I'd seen this van before in Magazines and on the forums, but to see it in it's new guise, show-fresh and ready to roll left me absolutely awe-struck. More info on this in the next post...

Winter mode pt.2

Here's the van; raised ride height and repainted steel wheels. Not quite the head-turner it once was. 

I appear to have un-pimped my ride!

Winter Wheel Weekend

So back to the progress update; on go a few coats of Ford (yes, sorry) Graphite Grey. There wasn't many VW greys to choose from in the rattle-can section of Halfords, I went with this because it seemed to have a little bit of a blue hue to it - from what you can tell by the colour swatch on the lid!

Then on to lacquer. If I wasn't feeling a bit spaced-out from the paint fumes before now, this would be the real dizzying part of the process!

After the lacquer I then put a heater on in the garage for an hour or so, Whether this makes a blind bit of difference or not, I'm not sure. But subconsciously I hope it helps the lacquer to harden and with a bit of luck protect the paint through Winter.


Finally, I rolled the wheels outside this morning to admire my work.

Good enough for now, and at around £10 per wheel, there's no complaints.

Winter steels

I've always been one for swapping my alloys for the original steel wheels at the end of a season; salty UK roads don't do any favours for pricey alloys.
So I was really happy that when buying the Caddy that it came with the original wheels. One down-side was a mis-match of tyre profiles - 2x 195/65/15 and 2x 195/70/15. Not ideal.

Knowing that I can move the wrong tyres on, an order was placed with Camskill (probably the prices for tyres anywhere on the internet) for two replacements of the correct 195/65/15.

So now we're on to prep; hours of sanding, smoothing and masking. I would ideally have done this with tyres removed but I'm up against a deadline to get the wheels swapped.

More time taken at prep should result in a better result further down the line. Then, after one last clean, on with the primer.

With barely a dribble or run in sight. I've laid it on fairly thick; first a white etch primer, then a good couple of layers of matt grey primer. Images of the final colour and lacquer coats will be posted tomorrow.