My Golf, Horns of a dilemma.

First some background.  In 1981, whilst living in Denmark, I purchased a new Golf GL diesel. This is the 1588cc normally aspirated engine coupled to the standard 4 speed box. the body is in Gambia red and has a sunroof. It was originally on Danish duty-free plates and is now an X reg. It is right hand drive. On paper the ownership has changed a few times, but the owners were either myself, my wife or my daughter. The car has been in this family since new. The car was in regular use until early 2001 when it started producing huge quantities of smoke from the exhaust. It was still running perfectly well at this point but was in danger of having an ASBO slapped on it. Six years earlier, 'others' had re-ringed the pistons because oil consumption had increased. I am assuming that the proper procedures had not been carried out when the head was tightened down and that the smoke was a blown head gasket. It has languished at the side of my house under a cover ever since. The intention was that when I retired, this would be my retirement project. I was going to bring it back to good running order and showroom condition. Now that time has arrived I really don't feel like doing it, and there is the cost. Whilst the car was still running I did a Waxoil job on all the box members and made sure the floor was properly undersealed, so I am assuming it is still structurally sound although I havn't checked recently.

So what do I do. Do I make myself do it?, do I take it to a breaker?, do I break it myself? or is there anybody out there intrested in it.

Copers.

Hi Copers

Was that you that came and saw us at volksfest?

That is some thing at the end of the day you need to decide.  But with that amount of history I rekon it's definitely worth a go.  If you can do the majority of the work yourself, that will help keep the cost down.  There's some knowledgeable folks on here that can help with anything you get stuck with, diesels included.

Go-on, give it ago   Just dont send it to the breakers :wink:

Put us up a pic!

Hang on to her, you know the nature of the beast and it will always be more to you than someone else. If you know what I mean. :wink:

I think you should restore it yourself…

It's good fun and you'll have something to stand back and admire when you're done…

I've thoroughly enjoyed doing mine, even though it's still not done, and it's not cost me much more than ?1200, including buying the car. If you're prepared to have a go at everything, it's really not that expensive at all.

First things first though, take the cover off, get some pics, and post them up here so we can all have a look

HTH

Rich