1978 GTI from JAPAN

Hello everyone.

At last, my 1978 GTI woke up from 15 years of storage in the garage !  
From his histories, he was produced at Wolfsburg in June 1978, and then imported into Japan in September.
My father bought it in 1996 and started restoration.

Body rusted heavily so we had to do the full restoration of his body.
At the same time, the overhaul and tune of the normal 1.6L EG motor has started.
Restoration of the body was made by ourself and bodyshop that located near my house, and the motor was tuned by COXSPEED [COXSPEED is the most famous VW tuner in Japan].
His heart contains many special parts such as COSWORTH 81 diameter pistons or ABT Rally cam [272 or 276]… these items become extremely rare currently.

But some problem,mostly about money, has happened and his restoration was stopped for the long time.


We`re still in the long way to complete restoration, but his engine is running well.  
To use him in daily use, we have to complete the restoration, especially the messy interior.

I`m going to post here about progress of the restoration.

thanks and sorry for my poor English…  :redfaced:

Makky

Hi makky, very nice car you've got there.

There's nothing wrong with your English, much better than my japanese :mrgreen:

I've edited your post so that your images and YouTube links show up

Good luck with the car, hope your money issues calm down so you can get a decent build in progress

X said

Hi makky, very nice car you've got there.

There's nothing wrong with your English, much better than my japanese :mrgreen:

I've edited your post so that your images and YouTube links show up

Good luck with the car, hope your money issues calm down so you can get a decent build in progress

Thanks X  
I`ve been in trouble about how to write here for a hour  :redfaced: .

Very impressed  an S1 GTI in Japan! And it looks very tidy. Get it finished Makky!

Excellent to see Mk1's in the Land of the Rising Sun………Keep us posted on your progress.
It cannot be easy to source parts there ? Do you know if many were imported into Japan?

Nice car there,make sure u do a nice restoration job of it!

I uploaded some photos of ancient days of restorations.

I`m sorry but they are bad quality because I don`t have the scanner so, the only way to upload the photos is to take the picture of the original photo by digital camera  :dontknow:   

If I were in the days of these photos, I became crazy to take lots of pictures.
But when these were taken I was elementary school student and it was too young to awaken in those kinds of passion     

















These are our current buddies
Yellow one is mine [1981 GLE] and Black one is my brother`s [1983 GTI]

awesome, very good to see. where in japan are you?

I visit there every few years to the saitama prefecture.

good work  :wink:

Good stuff

What are the white wheels on the black gti? Looks beasty

lakesk8 said

awesome, very good to see. where in japan are you?

I visit there every few years to the saitama prefecture.

good work  :wink:

thanks  

I live in Hyogo prefecture near Osaka and Kyoto but it`s not famous   :dontknow:

das_auto said

Good stuff

What are the white wheels on the black gti? Looks beasty

thanks  

Maybe Weds Sports wheel.  http://www.weds.co.jp/english/products/brand_index/wedssport/index.html

Wedssports is famous manufacturer of racing wheels in Japan.

Very nice collection Makky - you are a lucky guy.

Hope the work goes well…

すてきな自動車兄弟！

私はまた早いゴルフ1を元通りにしている !!  

babel fish rocks !

campaignjerry said

Excellent to see Mk1's in the Land of the Rising Sun………Keep us posted on your progress.
It cannot be easy to source parts there ? Do you know if many were imported into Japan?

thanks  

it`s becoming very hard to find the parts now…

The result of more than 20 years fight with the lack of parts, at last the collections are occupying part of our house like this.

I even don`t know where and what items are existing… :dontknow:





At least, I know 3 S1 GTI are running in Japan now.

I could find one 1977 GTI during the activity for parts discovery, but it was terrible condition more than ours at that time.
I personally think my GTI is the oldest MK1 GTI in Japan that still running healthfully  :wink:

89clipper said

すてきな自動車兄弟！

thanks   ありがとう   

CRAZY is the word just for us   .

hysteric said

私はまた早いゴルフ1を元通りにしている !!  

babel fish rocks !

thanks  ありがとう　

You have good skills for Japanese 8O

I`d like to see your car someday  

Hello  

Today`s small progress  







No rust?
Healthy floor  :wink:





The sound like bird`s voice was coming from fan, so we changed it with better one salvaged from 1983 mk1.
I think the fan installed in later models has better capacity and less noise.



Comparing the oil coolers.

We might have to change the oil cooler to install 525mm radiator.
This GTI has 475mm rad and to update it to 525 rad, the oil cooler should move to left hand a little to make a room.  
We got this oil cooler from 1982 GTI with 525 rad, and it seems that the structure of the bracket is different a bit.  :dontknow:

Thanks  

We brought him back to our home!







Took MK1 picture from MK1.
We used him in the public road after an interval of 15 years.





Blue sky, Green mountain, Silver MK1.



Broken emblem has removed.



Not original but a set of almost new seats.







Seats has removed for cleaning.





Clean up the floor.



Only 133km from overhaul.



New room light installed.



Original door cards for GTI.





Seat covers which we bought it from dealer 10 years ago   .



Tricolor.



New wheel has installed after wash and wax.



First rain after the completion of restoration.

Thanks  

thats fantastic makky, i love it.
My MK5 GTi is from Japan  8)