Thanks again for all the advice and help, you guys rock
news from the past weekend, positice battery terminal worked its way loose so come thursday she wouldnt start. blame comes down to some el-cheapo looking post clamps. anyways, battery wasnt terribly flat so i jumped it and went for a long drive. when i get chance i will take the battery out and give it a proper charge.
also, i finally got a chance to put some real speakers in. car came with a basic pioneer CD f/loader and some 160w (i think) 6x9's. still had all my Golfs sound gathering dust, so in went a set of 480w 4 way Pioneer 6x9's, a 12 inch Pioneer sub, and a US audio amp (not sure on the power cos its an old handmedown and the numberings a bit faded), and a Pioneer deck with all sorts of settings on it so no real need for a cross-over just yet.
car sounds fairly decent, just needs some fine tuning til i'm totally happy

only thing left to do is sort out the decks power wire, as at the moment both the memory wire and the 12v are connected to the same ignition 12v wire. so i need to add a wire to permanent 12v so the radio remembers its settings, and i prefer to have the radio's power connected to permanent 12v too, so i dont have to have the ignition on to listen.
tiny bit of bad news is i'm starting to see more and more how the PO who rebuilt it cut corners here there and everywhere

the wiring is a mess (in the process of tidying), i need a new battery clamp, he used cheap-ass mdf for the rear shelf-box-thing that holds the 6x9's and theres water getting in around the rear window somewhere which is soaking into the box (will make a full proper setup when i have time), crappy glue to hold down the carpets, over-spray on almost all the rubbers/grommets/etc

the cubby is in a terrible state, paint peeling in lots of hidden spots around the frunk and engine (revealing the quite pleasant original turquoise)
all in all i'm a happy chappy, nice to get to work hassle free and have some good (and loud) tunes to keep me smilng.
immediate to do list goes as follows
1. move RCA's further from the amps power cords to get rid of some whine
2. add in the decks extra wires
3. have a slow puncture looked at
4. wash and polish
5. get out to some shows and park-offs
