Work commences on the GTI...Updates page 6!

I've decided that its time to start tackling the problems on the Golf GTI, or 'White Lightning' as i nick named her  :mrgreen:

I bought it in August '07 as a non runner, and did the 250 mile trip back home on the back of an AA truck ops:  (that home relay does have its advantages lol)


A pic of the car when I first got it.


Well within a week, and after replacing and testing nearly the whole ignition system, i traced the problem to the ignition switch of all things. I got a new one stuck in there, set the timing and she fired into life!

Not long after that I discovered the steering rack was shot at, aswell as several other bits that needed looking at.

Over the pit in my garage while i changed the rack.


I knew work was needed on the inner and outer sills, as they did look pretty goosed, not by rot however, just jacking damage had caused the sills to collapse, obviously letting water in an rusting from inside out  

That was pretty much as far as it got really, as another project came on the scene, with a deadline to meet! Me and a mate signed up for Road2Rimini, a banger rally across Europe in a 100 quid car…

We picked up this little beauty with T&T for 58 of our finest English pounds - bargainal!



………And spent most of 2008 and several hundred pounds turning it into this


On the Grimsel pass in Italy…oh and snow!

The new braking system alone was 8 times the cost of the car 8O

Anyway back on track! several months of being stood the mk1 came back out of hybernation, and was covered in a thick layer of dust! so i gave it a wash.



First thing to do was deal with the worst sill. At this time i didnt know whether i was putting a piece in or doing the whole thing. But in 99% of jobs i start there is always more work needed than was initially expected, and this was no exception!

I'll apologise if there seems to be big jumps between the pics, with steps missing. I'm really bad for just powering on with the job and forgetting about the camera!

Jacked up to remove the wing.


Then up onto ramps to get a good look at the underside.


The offending article! After removing a bit of the grime the whole sill, inner sill, floor pan and even jacking point was pretty mashed up. Just shows its been treated pretty carelessly at some point in its life.



Moving along the sill it seemed apparent that someone had just stonechipped ontop of rust.


Even the back end of the sill looked like it had seen better days, well the whole lot gets chopped out!


Moving onto the rear arch i discovered that, well, there wasnt one! Just a load of body filler with the arch spat stuck over the top, top job!


Looking on the inside of the car i found a very nasty looking weld repair on the inner sill, dowsed in waxoyl.


I cut a section of the outer sill away to see what was going on behind that patch, and found what i expected, just welded over the top of rusty metal.

This really annoys me, why can't people do a job PROPERLY!!??

 



Well there was only one thing for it, cut the whole lot out!


Some more of the outer cut away…


After scraping off some more underseal i discovered the jacking point will have to be cut out too, its seemed to have collapsed.


This weld repair was on the inner arch.


…But was it the same quality as the other one? i wasnt chancing it, out came the grinder!


yep, another one welded ontop of rust! the remnants of the old one (fully rotted away by now) dropped on the floor!


well thats it for today! iv got a better idea of what needs doing and I've started sourcing the parts.

Also got my account with BOC set back up so im on the proper bottles of Argoshield :mrgreen:  Well worth doing is that for anyone who has a minimig, the difference in quality of welding is immense! Bird poo will be a thing of the past!

I'm going to have a do at fabbing up a welding trolly at work to take my MIG and TIG + bottle.

Updates very shortly!

cheers
Greg 8)

Amazing what can lurk under a shiny paint job! Can't believe you got the rocco for ?58!! nice one! :wink:

Like it..you will be busy!

Just a small update!

I stopped at work until near midnight last night to fab up my welding trolley, as i was determined to finish it in one do!

Just after i finished assembling it. I tig'd up the frame from 1.5" angle in 2 halves. I then blasted it, Welded the whole thing together and got it powder coated. The wheels were nicked off my mig welder :wink:



Then round to the sheet metal shop to make some slightly overkill 5mm think aluminium trays…



I spent an hour on the golf this morning, nothing major to write about, i just scraped some of that 'asphelt' stuff up from the floorpan, that stuff stinks when it gets hot!  8O

The heatgun helps!


Then a quick clean with a splash of petrol and a rag..


Found this lurking in the corner  


Making me think cut the whole inner sill out instead of patching it, because the rest is fine, or am i going a little bit too far?

At a bit of a stand still now until i get my panels, which will all be here in the next couple of days. I should get get on with some decent cutting/welding action over the weekend all being well

Greg 8)

p.s. Hairy, the Rocco was an ebay special, seemed nobody else bid on it! Then again it did have a VERY negative description, didn't put us off, still drove it back all the way from Clevedon

Bloody hell! Your welding trolley looks better than some restos I've seen!!! Can't wait to see the work on your MK1 8O  :wink:

Puts my dexion one to shame!!

Will be watching this.  Looks to be top notch.

Thanks for the comments guys, I hope I dont dissapoint! 8O

I'm still learning as I go along, luckily I've had a couple of cars to practice on (my mates Renault 5 turbo's ) before I took the grinder to my Golf lol.

Greg 8)

Right! Got on with a fair bit over the weekend, I'm slightly behind as i didnt get my panels until saturday but iv made progress none the less :wink:

Everything fit on the trolley as it should!




As the jacking point collapsed i needed to put some new metal in somewhere, although i had to cut some away to get at it! The piece is in tact and will be welded back in later on.



I drilled out the spot welds and salvaged the original part.



I was originally going to replace the whole section with another bit, but i cant get one for 2 weeks so decided to repair mine, its not bad anyway. I ground down the remainder of the floorpan to the peice underneath, and hammered it back into shape.



Cut the old piece out and replicated a new one.



Good fit!



Welded in and ground down, jobs a good 'un!



The rest of the inner sill cut out, I ground it right back to the outer sill to break the spot welds.



Made a piece to go in the corner that had rotten and been cut out, new bit welded in.



Choose your weapon! Cutting, grinding and sanding. Just because i cant be arsed changing the wheels! Bloody wires get like spagetti junction though..



A nice straight cut on the inner sill, better than i could get with the grinder anyway :wink:



Inner sill tacked in place, i decided to cut the whole lot out in the end as you can see becuase i thought it would be easier spot welding along the top join than trying to butt weld a piece in. Its more original this way too!



With the inner welded in (oh great panel btw too, perfect fit, cheers Rich ) i cut my floorpan section and offered it up.



I'v not cut the original out yet but have been contemplating whats the best way to stick it in, for strength i was thinking a slight overlap and a seem weld both sides, or un noticable but harder to do butt weld :dontknow:

Any advice or opinions?

I'll post up my progress through the week :wink:

cheers
Greg 8)

Cracking work Greg 8) If you're talking about the floor, personally I'd do an overlap - no one will see it when the car is back together. If all flat section you could joggle the edge if you wanted?

hey, my old car, it had a lovely interior

pics from apr 2006





i sold it to danny (mr_gti) :wink:

Cheers Hairy!

Hmm I think i will go for the overlap for the strength and ease, like you said, no one will see it!

You know I've been told of a couple of people now to buy a joggling tool, i really must invest in one! Sadly in this case the panel joins just where it goes into that channel so it wouldnt be an option, but im sure it would come in for doing the sills….

cheers
Greg

hey, my old car, it had a lovely interior

pics from apr 2006





i sold it to danny (mr_gti) :wink:

Woah! Nice one, its had a couple members club owners then

I see it had the single wiper back then too, that things gonna do a bunk, it wipes the wrong side of the window!  Alright if it was a left hand drive…

Thanks for posting the pics up!

Greg

i got the car like that and done nothing to it, actually my brother bought it and then swapped it with a mk3 colour concept with danny, then my bro borrowed the mk3 to a mate who took it to his hometown slough and he found the mk3 next day all burnt up..

your mk1 drives good, has it still got the shortshift gears..

Thegreg said

You know I've been told of a couple of people now to buy a joggling tool, i really must invest in one!cheers
Greg

I got one delivered in the week from http://www.frost.co.uk/

I've not used it yet but its weighty and appears to be a good quality tool

If you use promo code 8112M2 before 31st Jan when ordering on line you will get 10% off too :wink:

A lot of time spent on the car this weekend, just not much to show for it

Well i got the floorpan welded in anyway, though most of the time was spent grinding down welds at awkward angles :?

Anyway heres all 4 pics of my progress lol  ops:

I blasted the jacking point as it was very rusty and difficult to clean with the grinder.. I actually filled the holes back in with weld and ground them flat, but forgot to take a pic.



Welded back in place from the inside. seeing as i filled in all the holes i lost my reference points, so just took a guess



The floorpan now spot welded in to the inner sill.



The piece that i previously cut out to get at the jacking point was now butt welded back in place and blended into the floorpan.



seem welded in both sides. Not quite as neat as id like, but cos of my funny angle i was welding at i couldnt keep a constant bead:? not to worry though, the carpet will cover it up….



Moving further backwards i found a bit of rot in the floorpan.



Cut out and pieced a new bit in!



Thats about it, not all that much done! I really must refrain from staying out until 4 am on Fridays, its putting a damper on my progress!

Hoping to get the outer sill on this next week, make me feel like im doing something productive! Getting myself some new jacking rails made up too, as the old ones are non existant!

Ill post up pics as i go along this time…..hopefully

Greg

Thats some hefty welding you've done there Greg, should be well strong!

First off i have a question! see pic further down that I've drawn a little arrow on :wink:

Anyway, back to the beginning! I spent a couple of hours on the golf the other morning, chopped more out! Sill now cut out, just a rough cut, Ill do a proper one when i butt weld the new one in.



Seeing as my jacking rails are completely mashed or rotten away i got some new ones made up to the exact dimensions of the originals. Ill spot weld these in, should be nice and strong!



Found some more rot in the inner sill, nothing serious though.



RIGHT!!!! The bit i need help on!, does anyone have a pic of the area i put the red line on? what i need to know if should there be 90 degree piece that follows that profile round to weld the new sill too?… That whole area is pretty bad so its a bit tricky to tell what used to be there!



cheers
Greg 8)

I intended to get the sill on this weekend (its been postponed about 6 times now lol) but suprise suprise i found some more rust :cry:

I discovered that the rear inner part of the sill and part of the arch well were pretty bad, basically i didnt have anything to weld the sill to!



There was already a weld repair there, which didnt look too bad. It must have been this that let water in in the first place. I cut out all the rot ands started patching in a couple of bits.



Few more pieces patched in which finished off the inner sill, I put 6 bits in all together, and found myself cutting out good metal to get to the rot again! Felt a bit counter productive!



got some rust eater in there as a precaution, then primered up the area. Ill dowse the inner in waxoyl before i weld the plate on the end.



My progress is a little slow, I keep on getting demoralised when i uncover more unexpected rot!  Touch wood i will actually have the sill on this week….I hope!

cheers
Greg

Good work Greg. I dont think my inner sill was quite that bad, but no what you mean about progress feeling slow!