Mk1 Golf 16v - Full Body Restoration - Insta chrisqgolf

I thought I had a thread on this forum? obviously not. Anways i'll give you a run down of my Mk1 Golf to date:

Bought the Golf from eBay back in 2004/5 from a guy up in Kent. I was 17, young and looking back now, cant believe I bought a car without going to check it out. Anyways so me and my best bud took the mission and drove from Devon all the way up to Kent to pick the Golf up. Lucky enough the car ran and body work was pretty good considering. The car did have a silly K&N filter on it, so the breather hose was just shoved in a can?? so it leaked oil everywhere it went… which I'm kinda grateful for now as I'm guessing that's why it has hardly any rust, well nothing like i've seen on other Mk1's.

Ebay pictures:



Just after I got it home and gave it a clean:



From here, it basically stayed in the garage until it got kicked out when my folks sold up their place. It stayed at my grandparents place for a couple of years where the engine got stripped out and sold on. It then went to my another garage where it lives to this day.










Right so now the Golf was in a nice secure place I could actually start working on the car in a proper fashion! So first of all I wanted to try and clean that oily engine bay….

Before:





After: Free from all oil!






So now that it was oil free in the bay, I could start work in there without worrying about it going everywhere.
So, got my good friend monkey to come round and change the engine mount position for me, as it's in the wrong place for the GTi lump.


Engine mount in the 1.3/1.1 position.








Dave after getting the mount off





Daves excellent welds




And the finished thing for now. Will smooth them more but for the time being sprayed some etch primer on there to stop it going crusty.







So now winter had passed a little I had been back out in the garage and started work on the engine. Started striping it down for a full seal/gasket replace and paint






So took off all the injection, inlet's, dizzy cap and leads as i wont be needing any of this I've got a set of carbs I'm chucking on and plan to run it on a wastered spark ignition.




Then it was time to remove all the pulley wheels and alternator, and also get rid of the power steering pump.





Then decided to take the gearbox off and all the other lil bits a pieces.




After I got the gearbox off, I researched the code to only find its not a KR box but hopefully i've been able to source one.

So then my carbs, they needed bigger chokes in, so bought some bigger chokes and fitted them. These are going to be sent of to JMR ltd to have them serviced and cleaned up



oh and my crusty inlet..



Anyway, this is where I'm at, at the moment. I've just placed in an order with TPS for all the new genuine seals/gaskets for the engine, as well as new water pump, ABF windage tray, cam belt and new cam belt tensioner. When all that's in the fun begins in rebuilding the engine.


Heres me outside with the Golf, ha

good luck with the conversion, looks like you've found a decent base car   im just getting to the end of my 16v conversion (hopefully!)



is this you by the way?  :dontknow:






 

cant be him, he'd never fit into that dress….

This is like the spitting image of mine when I bought it, which also happened to be 2004 when I was 16! Your bay looks just as yellow as mine was from all the oil fumes coming out of the breather too  


Look forward to seeing the progress 8)

Ha, quality! but yes that is me.. I cross dress all the time! Maybe I should of mentioned that?

A little small update today, got the downpipe off, all looked ok. Loosened the intermediate pulley, so now that's ready for the seal to be swapped over and can now take the pulley off and give it a good clean behind there. And also emptied the oil and took the sump off.



I also taped up the holes in the block today, i did do the inlet and water holes as well but after this picture


So then took the pump out to inspect and clean.


Looked at the pick up filter and looked like it could do with a bit of a clean



Found some swarf in there :/


Much better


What a great sunny day to be outside working on the car/engine

nice project, will be watching

not the one in the dress you numptys  

Back from TPS and just shy of £200 later and I've got all my engine seals, gaskets, water pump and cam belt.
Didn't have the cam belt tensioner and crank bolt, so going back in next week for them.



Also picked up a mk3 wiper motor and Mk1 Golf grille badge from Dan and DDS. legend!
So time to put it all together

So more parts… More gaskets and o-rings. Also a new cam belt tensioner and a windage tray.





Cleaned up the old water pipe and thermostat and refitted them into the new water pump and then put that to one side.

So the mk3 wiper i had was the wrong one, so got Dan at DDS to keep an eye out for one when he gets something in.
On other news I have been able to source a better gearbox. The one that came with the engine was a 4T gearbox, which had 90mm shafts and has the longest gear ratios of all the mk2 gearbox's! So been fishing around for a KR box for a while with not much luck, but an old friend messaged saying he has an AUG box, which has extremely close ratio's to the likes of a 2Y box. 1st, 2nd and 5th are the same, just 3rd and 4th a little different. Also has the same size spline and clutch diamater as the 2Y, as well as the 100mm shafts. So if i decided to swap to a 2Y box at a later date i can.
Needs a good clean



Also because of the windage tray i've had to use the smaller baffle that attaches to the pump, so went to TPS and got one of them too.


 

Took the cambelt pulley, clutch and also got the crank bolt and the bottom toothed pulley wheel off the crank today.




Took the gearbox plate off, and took the metal seal ring off the crank on both sides and cleaned them up.





New and old:




Cleaned up the metal piece, and put the old seal back in for now, as I'll put all the new seals in after I've painted the engine.




Belt side:




New and old seal still in place, again didn't fit new seal, will after painting






Then started to clean the block ready for paint

Looks a good shell and since you've bought it hardly seen the road. Making good progress on the engine too looks so promising. Make sure you protect that steering uj if you use a 4-2-1. Hate for it to happen to yours after all the work what happened to mine.

Cheers for the heads up Brad 

The garage decided it wanted to let all the awful rain water we've had this winter into the garage, and had a lovely warm welcome to a swimming pool when I opened my garage door…




Lucky enough I've had the engine up on a crate, resting on the legs of my engine crane, so that didn't get touched, the only things that got damaged where some cardboard boxes storing some engine ancillaries and other things too, so got away lightly on that. Had to pull everything out though, mop it all up, and fix the problem. Worked it out to be a hole on the back wall of the garage, so started filling the hole with expandable foam to reach the outside wall and then went over them with a masonry mortar. Did this to a few other holes I found in the garage too whilst I was doing it, was surprised how many I found really.
Anyway, so its all water tight now and doesn't leak, tried and tested through more hideous weather and heavy rain  I also chucked in a dehumidifier just to dry out the last bits of damp, amazing how much water those things can pick up!

And hopefully Jason (JMR Ltd)  has fully rebuilt my Carbs, so will be picking them up in the upcoming weeks, looking forward to getting them back

Well I think the water did damage a little more than i thought it did. When i cleaned the block over the christmas period i didn't paint it, so it was jut bare metal, and obviously with all this water that came in it caused a very damp environment. So I've basically come back on my easter Holidays to find my engine block looking like this:




Smothered in surface rust, just hope the internals haven't ended up like that. Hopefully because I've sealed all the holes it shouldn't of done, but will take a good look tomorrow.  So ground it all back again and masked it up for paint.






And then painted it Its turned out a bit to shinny and glossy, it was meant to be a matt black? Hopefully it dies down a little. It does ideally need another coat which I'll do in the morning.




 

The paint actually matted out over night, so I'm happy with it, and then added another layer.





And that should Matt itself off once it dries.
I also popped up to TPS the other day to get some new stretch bolts. So a new Crank bolt and Clutch pressure plate bolts.






Started cleaning up a few bits and pieces, started with the engine mounts.








Then replaced the pulley side crank gasket, with a genuine VW item.







New genuine VW gasket.

Coming along nicely.  

Cheers Smudger Slowly getting it back together.

Started off by changing the seal on the intermediate shaft with a genuine gasket.






And the O-ring that goes in behind the seal with a genuine item.




Then back on




Then changed the seal on the gearbox side crank shaft






New genuine gasket





So slowly getting there, its just finding the time to do it…

Got to spend two days with the golf so did a few more jobs.

First of all I wire wheeled the sump & waterpump/alt brackets and painted them up -






Then it was a matter of fitting them back on to the engine.
Primed up the oil pump -




Fitted the windage tray -




Then bolted the oil pump on with a small baffle -





Then bolted on the sump This has been the first time in almost ten years I've actually started putting things back together since I started stripping my Golf, had a massive smile on my face as the engines coming back together, love this feeling. Still a long way to go on the shell yet, but still





Also decided to pull the passenger wing off to see If I had any rust that needed sorting, and to start planning the wiring down in the wing. Spent a good hour getting this wing off.. ha :/




But was greeted with near perfect wing and inner wing so i cant really complain, even around all the bung holes were rust free.




I guess having these in since new is a good idea then really…


Then just put her away again for another month or so before I get any other free time to work on it again… sigh

Nice update mate. Mark the days off till next time

Look what's just arrived back from Mr JMR
Everything had to be changed,.. So all new gaskets and a service kit, striped, cleaned and rebuilt with correctly sized emulsion tubes, jets, and correctly sized chokes. Can't recommend Jason (JMR) enough! Looks a top job and full of useful advice! He also brought round the new mk1 front mount he's been making up… now they look like some serious piece of kit! Will be ordering one of them when money will suffice Might look into cleaning up the shells abit, powder coat or some sort of media blasting?