Melos body removal

[Ed Townend]

Me and four of my friends have grouped together to rent an area of a warehouse to work on our cars. First up is Greg's Melos. The front suspension needs work, so we're planning to remove the body entirely to do so. Any tips for along the way? Bolt locations? Even a build manual? I understand mechanically it should be fairly similar to my Legerra, but I've not had a good look at it yet.

Thanks!

[Adrian Southgate]

I'll email you the pdf build manual Ed. Its the same as the S3 phaeton.

[Ed Townend]

Thanks Ade, it ended up in my junk folder but I've found it now.

[1midz0wwbl268]

bolt locations,  2 at the very front that also hold the front bumper, 2 at the sides by rear wheel arch ,1 at the end, centre of rear moulding, dont forget the roll bar bolts, and seat belt attachments and seat though  bolts, you will need 4 people to lift the body off, but 3 can do it at a pinch  its very hard to do it with 2, not because if the weight, its not heavy, but because of the body flexing,  once off, i store the body on a level floor, or on a palet bolted down to prevent it flexing to much. 

[1midz0wwbl268]

Why remove the body just to strip the front suspention, or are you planning on cleaning up the chassis at the same time, you can get at all the front suspention bits from with in the wheel arch,

. its quite a  lot of work to remove the body  front bumper off, disconect rear light, remove rear moulding   remove handbrake cable at lever, remove seats, remove seat belt mountings and roll bar   undo all wiring from chassis including all earth points, plug fuel pipe once removed from tank  remove flexible from steering shaft separate the two assemblies , you should now be able to remove body   see what i mean ? if your just doing front suspention  its not worth it.

[Ed Townend]

Thanks guys.

We're going for the full restoration, it had a little bump which took it off the road so we want to be sure to get everything sorted. It will need a bit of box replacing in the chassis too.

Incidentally, I see that the car's in the Melos gallery on the owners club site - in two different colours to the metallic green it's in today!

[1midz0wwbl268]

As your going full restoration,  lable and photo everything otherwise you will spend hours scratching your head, The previous owner on mine didnt so i had to work out things as i went along, and had to re do things, several times as a result.