AT LAST! Hairys Resto!!

Dubbuds said

Looks great mate, good idea on shaping the edges of the plates makes it much neater

The plates are much neater, not sure my attaching them to the car skills are though! LMAO  

Melteddrummer said

Hairyarse said

Cheers Andy for the tip, wasn't sure if to go all the way around with weld or not.

I had it on 2, min and 7 from memory. 1 and min didn't get enough penetration, didn't try the 1 and max combo but will give it a bash

No worries, If your set is the same as mine then MIN/2 has more power than Max/1, it shouldn't be this way but it is  

Yep same set. I'll give MAX 1 a bash, it may just take the edge off a little and help me blowing any more holes in the car

Have today and Monday off work to put some more time in on the Golf which is a good thing but progress is slow. I spent all morning in the garage trying to get the arch tub to fit. Bit by bit I got it closer in to place - I did have issue that the top flange wouldn't push against the body but having ground back a little of the outer arch and cut out filler neck it seems pretty much there now


However my issues are there are three areas of concern - two I think will work out ok, the other one I'm not so sure.

Right first one which I think will be ok is this;


The panel wont push in much closer to the edge of the rear panel so hoping this wont cause any issues with the outer arch and rear quarter but will fettle that at the time

Second one;


I can push the tub in to meet the flange of the floor generally without much issue but in the bottom of the above pic you can see the section of the tub that juts out which isn't like the original. I'm thinking I may have to put in a panel to ensure that the floor meets the tub. Bare in mind though that a small portion of floor is missing so it probably wont be so bad.

The last issue and the one I can't get my head around is the gap between the bottom of the arch tub and the flange adjacent to the rear beam mount and chassis leg


There's a gap of about 20mm and I think it's mostly due to the part of the tub that juts out (as mentioned above.) I can't close this gap with brute force - I really don't know what to do here short of chopping the tub up and fabbing this section which I really don't want to have to do!

So, having spent half a day getting nowhere I thought I'd make the blank to close off the hole that's not needed. I was actually pleased at how round I made it! 

Andy - I tried 1 MAX on the welder as you suggested. The first two spot welds were beautiful - game on I thought! Third and fourth blew holes though - for but weld really needed just a fraction of a second of squirt on the trigger so I turned it down again! Will be a good setting for double layers though I think

After a while I ended up with this;


and this;



Happy about that at least! So, any help/advice would be really appreciated ref the above as I'm stumped now. I'm going to order an oversized outer arch from VWH which includes the rear corner as mine doesn't as I think I'm going to have to incorporate fitting this at the same time as the arch tub.

Answers on a postcard please! 

Andy, does the arch tub seem like it needs to move towards the front of the car to fit correctly?

No, to be honest the position of it vertically and horizontally seems pretty spot on now - I had cut off some of that flange that you mentioned at the front edge which helped a little but that wasn't much of a problem

Have you got any pics of the top of the panel inside the car mate? I was wondering if you used the channel grips where that 20mm gap is to pull it together, does the top pull away from under the rear window, if so, there must be a pivot point where it is touching, that's where I'd be looking at.

No didn't take any of that bit! lol

Good point, I'll have a look at gripping the bottom and see what happens at the top (that could sound a bit wrong!   )

Probably wont get back on it until Monday now though

That's a perverted mind you have there Andy  

Yeah have a look and take some pics from inside mate. Wish I was a bit closer, as I'd come and give you a hand

Me too - you could save my sanity!    

Looking good Andy, hope
Your
In that garage already  

Not yet mate, not up for it tonight! lol

This arrived today though;



Hope to get in the garage tomorrow evening and see how this sits with the tub too. Also ordered my Bilstein B12 suspension kit. Can't wait til I'm at a point when I can bolt that on - will be a while yet though

Nice delivery Andy!!

You need to trim off as much of that panel as you can, when you come to fit it. Once you get it in place and your happy with it, mark around where it meets the body and then measure 10-15mm back and cut off excess(see pic). You need to get that tub in position first though mate

If you already know all this tell me to shut up lol

LOL, cheers Andy, you're alright

That was the plan, I don't need much of the outer arch so most of this panel will go. I was going to sandwich it as Yomp drew up before for you.

I do already have one but not with the rear corner built in. Whilst I have a rear corner panel I thought it would make life a lot easier to have it all in one, hoping it may help to know I've got the tub all in the right place!

Well Saturday was due to be a MK1 day but the 944 is playing up so spent 10 hours lying under it! This box arrived at work today though…


…containing…

For the money I was hoping I'd get front struts too but alas only inserts. The old kit coming off my MK1 is Bilstein too so will clean those struts up and use them. It will be a little while before these get fitted to the car but I can't wait! 

Very nice Andy, Nice set up!!

Nice deliverys mate 

   

Will be good when they're fitted. The one thing that bugs me though is you spend all that money and you don't get all new fixing bolts, rubbers etc.

I didn't think that you do but it still doesn't make any sense to me - feels like half a job!  

You're right Andy.  Youd think that for the money you'd get a full assembly kit.
The car is coming together mate stick at it.
 

I was in the same boat, i thought the B12 kit came with the full struts on the front, was a bit disappointed tbh