Humble Beginnings...........

So I've been on here a while now and thought I should put a build thread up for my MK1.
I've owned the car 8 years now having acquired it from a friend for the massive sum of £50, well actually £49.94 as I've since found 6p under the carpets whilst stripping it out!
She started out life in the Wolfsburg factory in 1984 (the same year I was born) as an 1100cc C model, original colour was a reddy/brown mix which I think was either Mahogany or Gambia Red. Since then though it had been re-sprayed in what I think was Mars red although can't confirm this as I got very little in the way of history with her!







Up until last year she had been dry stored with the intention of carrying out a 16v engine conversion and full restoration but time, money and other circumstances got in the way, however………………………things have since changed.

A friend of mine happened to be breaking a 1994 16v Corrado and so a deal was struck for me to secure the engine, gearbox, wiring loom, ecu…………….basically everything from the bulkhead forward was mine so I couldn't say no really! Then the fun began………………….







Engine removed from the Corrado and then it was the turn of the MK1.







As you can see she was pretty grubby but with a little elbow grease…….





During the course of the build I entered a competition last October to win a brand new set of alloys from Venom Motorsport, they were the Concept P's which were based on the original Pirelli P-slot alloy. Now I never win anything…….ever…….but amazingly (I use the word amazing as apparently they had never had so many people enter a competition!) I received an email to say that I had won!!!
At first I didn't believe them but got invited down to Ultimate Dubs this year to collect the wheels and have my picture taken accepting them for the magazine! So if you were at the show and saw some shady looking guy practically running out of the building with 2 large boxes of wheels then that was me! Lol
Here's some pics of the wheels in question.









As you can see the gap between the alloy and the original suspension is a little tight to say the least, but then when the alloys are 8" wide that's not a great surprise.
I have been assured that they will fit, and found that they are running their demo MK1 with stretched tyres so they fit on that, however I intend to use mine on track days and such so I'm going to try a 215 40 16 tyre (which apparently is an awkward / rare size) to ensure there will be some clearance and also be able to corner at speed!?!? I'll let you know how I get on there!

Then came the task of re-positioning the offside engine mount and trial fitting the engine!







Now the eagle eyed of you may see that the engine is only in on 3 mounts in those pictures (mainly cos I forgot to take pictures with them all in!) however I can assure you there are now 4 mounts!

Also instead of using the manifold and injection system which was on the engine I have decided to fit some Kawasaki ZX9R bike carbs.



At present I am having a custom manifold made to fit the carbs to the engine so once I get it then I'll post some pics of that too.

I have mainly been spending my time cleaning up the engine and porting and polishing the cylinder head. I also have a set of KR cams to replace the original cams for a little extra poke, ideally I'm aiming for 160 bhp so every little helps! My current task this wknd is to remove the cylinder head, have it re-faced, pressure tested, generally checked over and then I will rebuild the engine with all new gaskets.





I'm at the turning point of the build as the car is currently having all the rusty parts removed with new metal grafted in, both sills, rear arches, 2 new wings, bulkhead repair section and a couple of other little bits and pieces.
Once that is done then she will be re-sprayed in her new colour. My brother in law recently bought a new motorbike, a Suzuki Hayabusa and I fell in love with the colour. It's a mix of Pearl Nebular Black and Phantom Metallic Grey which seems to look a different colour no matter what angle you look at it in the sunlight.

Here's a couple of pics before she went.







At the moment I have bits and pieces everywhere, I just hope I can remember where it all goes, and if not I hope the Haynes manual can save me!!

Also once she is back together I hope she'll be able to pull this off:



So for now this is where I am up to, I will try to update this thread as often as possible and hope I didn't bore anyone in the process of writing it!

Simon

Looking nice mate, love the wheels  

it's gonna be fun!!!

congrats on the wheel winnings!!

Yeah thanks for the comments, was pretty shocked to be fair because I never win anything, but I do like them too, just hope they're going to fit!

The car's been in the body shop for nearly 2 weeks now so I'm going to give in and pop in tomorrow to take a look and see how far they've got with it!!

Really like those wheels, cant wait to seem them on  :punk:

Love the wheels.Engine is the same as i plan on putting in mine.Just waiting for some carbs and manifold to come up at the right price.Keep up the good work. 8)

Looking good so far, I'll be keeping an eye on this build, good luck with it.

Good work, looking forward to see it in the Hayabusa colour mix

Hey thanks for the interest and comments!!

Yeah I know what you mean mate, the carbs and manifold can be pricey, luckily I'm having a custom manifold made up for mine from a local garage for a good price and I managed to get the carbs off evil-bay for a reasonable price too!

I've managed to get hold of a cheap tyre to try on the alloys so fingers crossed they're gonna fit when I get the car back from the bodyshop!?  :dontknow:

Ok so last wknd was spent removing the cylinder head and tidying up a few bits and pieces. All the caps for the cams came off easily except for one, why is it there's always something that won't come off without a little gentle persuasion!? Anyway managed to prise it off without damaging the head, quick check and it seemed fine to me, will be taking it to the garage tomorrow to be re-faced and pressure tested plus generally checked over. I'm also going to get them to put new threaded bolts in the back of the head for the exhaust manifold as two snapped upon its removal and the rest are just generally in a poor condition.















Some of the waterways are a bit crusty so will clean them out as best I can before I put it all back together. New head bolts will be on the shopping list and of course all new gaskets.

The only thing I'm a bit unsure of at the minute is whether to use a steel head gasket set or fibre faced head gasket set, anyone have any experiences with either, pros/cons or just general advice/experiences of either would be appreciated!?!?

Looking good!

Keep up the good work!

Steff

Man! those wheels are shweet! What a prize win! haha solid work man this golfs goona look great!

Thanks, yeah I just hope it turns out the way I can picture it in my head!  :wink:

How is this project coming along?

Need updates please

Wow didn't realise it had been so long!

So……should be picking up the manifold for the bike carbs this week (hopefully!), the car is still in the bodyshop and not sure how far they've got with it yet cos I've been away on holiday (went to Tunisia and saw one MK1 Golf, although at the time it had been pulled over by the cops! Lol) but will go in to check progress this wknd.

I dropped the cylinder head off before holiday to be sorted and got it back in two days, now that's what I call good service! They refaced it for me, pressure tested it, put all new studs in for the exhaust manifold and compressed the hydraulic lifters. Here's a couple of pics of it all wrapped up nice and safe! Lol





Also still stripping the block down to be painted and just generally cleaning/painting various parts to go back on under the bonnet.





So there's a small update, will hopefully get a couple of pics of the car this wknd so there's something a little better to see……………….things should move along a lot quicker once I get the car back!

Ok so as with all things nothing ever seems to go to plan, the current state of play is this:

I now have the manifold for the bike carbs and am intending to send that, and a few other bits and pieces, off to be powder-coated.

The original bonnet I had supplied with the car had a rather nasty dent right along the front edge, it is repairable however it would have been noticeable once painted. Luckily I managed to source another bonnet with a very slight dent to the front edge so that was that crisis averted.

Next, after being sat in the garage waiting to be painted since June (mainly because of a rusty old MG taking up a lot more time than expected!) work started on Friday only to find things aren't quite as good underneath as once thought! After cutting the drivers' side sill and rear arch off holes could be seen through the inner arch as well. Upon closer inspection, and some screwdriver probing, holes have now emerged adjacent to the mounting points for the rear axle!
Also the 2 new front wings (pattern parts) that I had sent to be painted turned out to be pretty rubbish. They don't fit right at all and have slight dents / ripples all over them. By getting one corner to fit would mean the other end wouldn't look right at all. So again I have managed to source another couple of wings, again these are pattern parts, however they have previously been fitted to another car and so I'm hopeful these will fit a lot better to mine, time will tell!? :/

The front panel of the car is also slightly dented with some suspect looking filler between the front chassis and the front panel. Seeing as I'm going to all the trouble of re-spraying and sorting the rest of the car it makes sense for me to get this sorted as well and put a new front panel in.

Unfortunately because of all this the original estimate for the work has now doubled! Now I love the car to bits but throwing money at it just isn't feasible for me.

The paint I originally wanted is also now out of the question, because it is a 3 stage mica pearl the price for this is a lot more than I had bargained for……..so it's back to the drawing board for that too.

So the plan now is to get the car back and sort the welding myself as I have the space and tools, it will be a good experience and also a lot cheaper!!
I've never done any welding before, unfortunately it was something my dad never taught me before he passed away, but I'm hopeful my brother-in-law who is a mechanic will be able to offer some help and guidance!

Once I've got the car back I'll put some pictures up, other than that wish me luck for a cold winter spent out in the shed slowly welding the car back together! lol

I'm sure you will get it sorted

Keep us updated!

Cheers mate, yeah I will don't you worry, just looking forward to getting the car back so I can fully assess just how much needs to be done.

I think a roll-over jig is gonna be next on my purchase list! lol

Looking good mate, keep my eye on this thread!

And love the wheel choice :-)

Ok so got the MK1 back today, first with the grotty pics!







So there's a couple of areas needing attention there plus there's also a couple of holes underneath next to the axle mounting points:



Both these areas should (hopefully) not be too bad to fix once I've got a rollover jig and the axle is off!?

The drivers' side sill and rear arch has been cut off and surprisingly the inner sill isn't too bad. Just glad there's still a lot of the arch that could be saved, this is pretty similar for the other side as well (as much as I can tell at the moment anyway!).

 



Now to the front end, don't think having one half red and the other green will ever catch on as a trend setting look though!? Lol





The fit of these wings are pretty good, a hell of a lot better than the other wings I've got, but there still seems to be a 10mm gap between the wings and the bonnet, can't remember the gap being that big though!? Is this the same for all MK1's or is it purely because I'm using pattern parts!?



It's going to be a slow process welding her back up due to a lack of time at the minute but for now, she's back in her natural habitat, and also making friends with the welder already! Lol