How to start my full resto'??

Hi all.
I have taken Goly (my Mk1) off the road for a full restoration over the next 2 years. I have a lot of mechanical background so this task does not seem daunting to me BUT! I just can't decide what to do first.
I was wondering if you guys/gals know what the best method is when doing a resto'?
Would you recommend buying as many parts and components as I can fit in my loft before even starting to strip the car to a bare shell or should I dive straight in with both feet, strip her and get her into the bodyshop??
Any advice greatly appreciated.
One more thing, did the Mk1 tintop series 2 bumpers come in different colours? Mine seem to be grey but all I can find as replacements seem to be black? Were mine black as standard and have faded over time or were they fitted with grey ones?
Cheers, Brit. 

IMO you need to strip it to find out what your dealing with.
i've seen it before where its far to easy to go and buy the nice shiny bits - a mouse click on ebay - only to find the shell needs far more work than anticipated and the project stalls due to lack of funds.

Better to have a solid base than a shiny turd.Don't under estimate how much time and money a full resto takes.

Once you've stripped it there's no going back!

what kind of resto are you doing? Back to standard / modified / concours?

Strip to bare shell if you want it to last a long time.
Replace any rotten panels if you can.
Took us about 6 hours, inside out…

To echo Yomp, don't under estimate the time and cost. Even DIY-ing as much as poss, if it needs bodyshop welding and new wings/panels and painting and engine refurb and lots of new parts and new tyres and bits of exhausts and wheel refurb etc etc it can soon be up to £5k+. But if spread across 2 years not such a hit all in one go.

The amount of space a disassembled car takes up is also amazing.

Restoring a car can be frustrating but eventually if you stick at it's very satisfying. I did that. And you get to know y0ur car literally inside out so any problems in the future should hold no fear for you.

Some tips from my experiences; take lots of photos (easy now with cheap digital cameras) so you have a record of what went where and how. Bag all the bits up in freezer bags, us the ones that you can write labels on. When things aren't going to plan have a break and do something different, even if its doing something different to car.

I'm in the process of doing a total strip and resto, and can only agree with yomp and Early-1800, some good advise there.    What ever you budget for time and money….. double it ! However, there is some fantastic advise on here and other peoples experience is a great aid for your dicesion making …….

personally i would start with the body as echoed on here by others as that would probaly be the biggest job to do by far, then from there on you the world is your oyster lol

Strip it and get any rot sorted as everyone else says. Then respray and build it back up from there.

Best of luck with it.  

Firstly thank you all for the reply's, I think I will start stripping the car back to a bare shell before purchasing the shiny bits  as recommended by  everyone. As for the amount of space needed for the parts I am in the process of sourcing a double garage for the bottom of my garden, hopefully I will have plenty of room in there The plan is to do a full restoration, bare metal respray with plenty of rust proof, primer and a top coat of original Lhasa green paint. She will be totally original inside and out. I'm hoping to be able to pop some small chrome bumpers on, lower her and have a nice set of BBS alloys for certain shows  but then easily transform her back to how she was on the day she rolled out of the factory for other shows. I'm hoping not to double my budget as I have told the wife I would like to spend no more than £10k over 2 years. Some people might say I'm mad but my lovely wife got me this car for my 30th birthday and I will be keeping her forever. this resto needs to last another 30 years at least Blue_Mk2 Thanks for advice, do you have a build thread?
Early-1800 Camera is at the ready and thanks for the freezer bag advise, I will stock up on them Thanks everyone
I will be updating my build thread as the work starts.
Brit. 

If your going back to standard then I assume you are having all the zinc plating redone on all the bolts and various brackets.

when I did my resto - if I take the horn assembly as an example, then I stripped it and then took a picture of the stripped assembly showing the nuts, brackets, washers etc that were going for plating and counted the quantity. Then on an excel spreadsheet put the description, quantity and image number so then I knew exactly which items went on which assembly. I could then put all the parts for plating in one box and get loads of plating done in one hit. I logged over 500 parts for plating in 3 batches. Cost me about £50 each box full. When you get them back you go through the photos and you can re bag everything back into their relevent assemblies quite easily.

You also know whats not come back from the platers but tbh mine were really good. I lost a couple of m5 spring washers but gained some self tappers!

I never stripped my car out fully as I was trying to give it a sympathetic resto and managed to do it with removing any of the dash- just covered it up.

Are you planning on doing the welding?

Another mistake I see on here is people cutting the car to suit the new panel not cutting the panel to suit the car. For example the rear wheel arches - replacement panels come in about 6 inches from the edge of the arch and unless its a total basket case then you probably only need up to the point where the arch goes in from the angle up to the vertical of the quarter panel. Cutting 10mm in on that change of direction will help keep the shape when welding and will need next to no filler if done properly.

Mine needed a small amount of welding on all the lower ends of the arches behind the plastic spats. I sacrificed 2 new pattern wings and rear arches just for a couple of lower patches. Probably threw away 90% of what I bought.
I lead loaded the joints rather than using filler as lead doesn't crack like filler. It also seals the gap between the joints. I also left the front wings on rather than disturb all the oem sealer which makes the removal of the wings not only difficult but potentially damaging.

My resto:
http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&type=misc&id=your-mk1-golfs_2%2Fblack-bullet-ngh705y&start=20

This is the reason I became a paid member to this club  Yomp, that is some sound advice and I will certainly be using it. I will be having all of the zinc plating done and I did wonder if I should have a go at the welding myself (I do have access to a mig and can weld) but I have decided to let the professionals do it. I would like to find an old school panel beater so I have as little filler as possible with a perfect panel at the end of it. My front wings are too far gone to save so I will need to remove and replace them, hopefully with some genuine NOS ones, if I can find some. What are your thoughts on acid dipping? I'm tempted to get her dipped to make sure all of the rust and rot is gone. Thanks for the advice and I'm off to read your resto thread now.

I can't  really comment on acid dipping because I've never had it done but I have heard mixed reviews regards it leaching out from the seams long after the process was finished. There is a swallowtail project on here which has been dipped. Have alook at his shell.

Dipping removes everything which could be a benefit as I scraped all the rubbery underseal off mine and it took ages! I also found that where this rubber coating had been punctured/perferated by whatever over the years, had trapped moisture and had started to corrode the steel and you couldn't see it.    It depends on how bad you think the shell is corroded. I tend to estimate rust similar to an iceburg - what you can see is only 30% of what is there.

If I did another I would consider dipping.

GolyTheGolf said

This is the reason I became a paid member to this club  Yomp, that is some sound advice and I will certainly be using it. I will be having all of the zinc plating done and I did wonder if I should have a go at the welding myself (I do have access to a mig and can weld) but I have decided to let the professionals do it. I would like to find an old school panel beater so I have as little filler as possible with a perfect panel at the end of it. My front wings are too far gone to save so I will need to remove and replace them, hopefully with some genuine NOS ones, if I can find some. What are your thoughts on acid dipping? I'm tempted to get her dipped to make sure all of the rust and rot is gone. Thanks for the advice and I'm off to read your resto thread now.

Looking forward to seeing the end result Yomp is right about cutting the panels to suit the rusty bits. We managed to save lots of original panels on our van by just cutting out the rot and joggling new panels in. If you want any help with welding, Elv is very good at making panels fit, cutting to suit and making bespoke pieces. He learnt a lot from doing our bay and split vans. Got all the special tools, welder etc and he doesn't charge a fortune! Use your discount on Frost products too!

I will have a look into the dipping process Yomp and see what I come up with! hopefully it will be a good investment.
Hi Anna, how are you? It's been a while since I've seen anyone so I will try and pop to a meet and say hello soon. I hear Dek has sold his cab, has he managed to persuade his good lady to let him get a tintop yet?  Thanks for offering Elv's skills and if I need him I will give you a call. I'm so excited about getting Goly back on the road I dont know where to start.
Keep the advice coming folks and see you all soon. 

If you can make or buy a spit to roll the car over, it will prove invaluable

Not only is it much more comfortable than lying underneath a car trying to do all sorts of work with potentially dangerous power tools, its much safer and the results will turn out a hell of a lot better simply because you can see what you're doing.

No use of angle grinders inches from your face because of the limited space underneath, and no blind one armed welding with spatter constantly dropping down your sleeve and burning your arm, or flying down your ear canals, and letting you listen as they sizzle the flesh inside your ear

Phataz1 said

 letting you listen as they sizzle the flesh inside your ear

I hate that noise!!

i cant believe no has suggested the mostimportant thing to do first

take picture of your car and post it up in the members project section so we can all see what you are starting with!

 

GolyTheGolf said

I will have a look into the dipping process Yomp and see what I come up with! hopefully it will be a good investment.
Hi Anna, how are you? It's been a while since I've seen anyone so I will try and pop to a meet and say hello soon. I hear Dek has sold his cab, has he managed to persuade his good lady to let him get a tintop yet?  Thanks for offering Elv's skills and if I need him I will give you a call. I'm so excited about getting Goly back on the road I dont know where to start.
Keep the advice coming folks and see you all soon. 

All is good thanks, hope the snow's not too bad round by you guys. Dek has bought another cabby, but I don't think he's loving it! Hope to see you at a meet soon,hope to see you at the AGM, even if your not in a Mk1. Good luck with Goly, very exciting and happy to help out if you need us!!

I'm restoring my Formel E and, like others have said, I stripped it to see what needed doing to the body first.

The spare room is rammed!

The body work has taken the biggest chunk out of my budget and was double my estimation  

Once it's done and tucked up in the garage I'll start on the engine and buy what I need when I need it. I'm not rebuilding the engine, just replacing anything that's worn etc.

I'm aiming for a nice example rather than a show car  

I don't think I could not drive it for two years, it's been off the road nearly 5 months and that's too long already!

Mr dik-van-dub I have taken your advice and popped some pics on my build thread for you.
http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&id=your-mk1-golfs_2%2Fgoly-it-s-resteration&redirected=1#post_1257081
I will try and update as often as I can.
Its so exciting but scary at the same time because I want to do a great job and do it right.
Anna, I will have to send Dek a message, see what his new car is like 

Hats of to you mate, i dont think i could ever entertain a full resto, havent got the patience, knowledge…or money for that matter. Looking at your photos though yours looks really tidy, if its all original maybe consider a sympathetic resto over a full bare metal strip. Would be a shame to strip it of its originality as VW intended if its really good in the first place. Ive got mine down at the bodyshop at the minute and its litterally having all the scabs and nasty bits repaired/replaced as i want to retain as much originality as i can. A couple of body shops wanted to quote for a full respray as its really sound but i wouldnt have none of it  
Whatever you choose, it should be a corker when its done  
Chris