1976 Bali green GLS

Hello guys,

Been a bit of a lurker on and off for a while and thought i'd start a thread for my mk1 as to track my progress and something i can look back on.

Wanted i mk1 for a while and after first buying a 78 and selling it not long after as the work needed was just a little bit to much for me.

The car had to be a nice 70's style bright colour but had to have the velour tobacco interior, we were really after a green so lucky this all came into place.

She's a left hand drive import from Sweden, as far as mileage is concerned she's been to the moon and back though you wouldn't think it.

There are a few areas that need sorting which originally i thought were ok but nothing to serious, a lot of the pictures are from my IG account and other places but soon will be up to date to recent progress, over time it will be a full resto.

This is some of the pictures from the advert when i first viewed the car.

For some reason it has deleted some of the thread i started, i'll continue it properly tomorrow.

In the mean time thanks for looking.

Kev.

Hi Kev - welcome to the forum! That's a little cracker of a MK1, how did you find that?

Need more pics too of the car  

Thanks buddy.

It came up on another VW website and a friend linked me to it, the guy imported and sold aircooled vans and had apparently bought this as a daily.


Another picture from the advert.





So originally i didn't have my own garage so my dad briefly let me use his, after the drive home from Portsmouth to Bristol without missing a beat i gave her her first bath and made a list of things i'd need collecting and as you can see the chrome window trim was high on the list, plus although it's my first LHD car it was very easy getting used to and an absolute pleasure to drive.






The previous owner left a few things with the car and found this which he kindly let me keep which is old itself and very cool, it was only a about a year later that i found out it was a knife. 

Welcome to the forum Kev. What a little beauty you've got there.    

I think I remember seeing this advertised, cant get over how perfect the interior is.

The front seats look almost new!!  

What an awesome find
looks amazing

Thanks for the nice welcome guys.

The interior does look good in those photo's, unfortunately the drivers seat although material is in good shape has gone a bit saggy and the sponge underneath is starting to deteriorate, but i'm still very happy with it.

Missed out on some of the black strips that sit on top of the door cards the other day on ebay, gutted. If anybody has some i'd be very interested as two of mine are cracked. with regards to the interior it's OK, some small rips in the door cards which i'm also trying to find, have never seen a tobacco set for sale though. Over time it will become sorted, I do actually quite like the interior like this, the outside however i did debate keeping it the way it was but i love having a car all shiny and spotless so it would have driven me crazy.

A lot of the Swedish cars seem to have these bonnet vents, it wasn't for me so has been sold not long ago.



My friend was selling his Weitec coilovers and at the time i couldn't resist buying them as the green was near a perfect match But they were also sold not long after aswell, as i went down a different coilover route.



Notice the lovely smoothed off filler that was filled with new newspaper on the A pillar. 

After a few months in my Dads garage we finally moved into our new house with a garage, the house used to have a shared drive but years ago the neighbours built an extension upto their half of the drive, by doing this it made our garage classed as a workshop as the drive up the side of the house is narrow, so before we even viewed the house on the inside i measured the drive width  luckily it's about 200mm wider, so it's tight but still fine just have to take it steady.



Just fits, the garage size is actually ok once in.

Then we had one last drive before i started the strip down.



 

hello keemar mate

azza_c from IG love seeing photos of this!

hows the paint coming on?
any ideas on wheels yet?

Hello mate, how you doing?

Body work is being worked on at the moment

And wheels will be painted shortly, RS's are the choice.

Forgot also i did a quick refurb on the steels before i got stuck in to the break down.





Gave it a quick wash in the arches aswell to reveal the original paint. Before



Part way through.



 

I had taken what i believe to be the original rear plastics quarter arches off as underneath the plastic was a genuine item but also has a white paper sticker with a scribble in pen on it, as maybe a signoff or something? who knows i'll try to remember to get a picture of it.

Anyway i couldn't have been more happy as this was what i revealed underneath the metal that's been hidden away for nearly 40 years.

Absolutely love the colour!! Looks great  

not bad thanks mate!

she looks solid!

a mate of mine has a jetta and can't find a new rear badge if i get it off him could you restore it?

keep up the pics on IG  

Thanks Chris.

Yeah she is pretty solid Azza, few bad repairs on the floor and a few other places that need attention but shes not bad at all.

Yeah i can sort his badges that's fine, message me a picture of the condition of them and we'll go from there. No probs.

That was actually one of the first jobs i did on the mk1, i restored my own badges. .


Before



After



 

What a great find. Nice work on the badges and steels. Any pics of the engine bay ? Keep the updates coming.

Hey Watson, thanks buddy  I'm not sure you'll want to see the engine bay  It has some weird device in the engine bay which adds heat for the colder climate which will be ripped out.

I'll get some pictures up soon.

Kev.

This is a diagram of the system in the engine bay is was on about.



Some history



Original bumpers and end caps, these have now been wrapped up and stored in the loft to get properly rechromed one day.



From then i started removing the interior.



Then onto my favourite purchase, which are being completely refurbished.



 

Very nice!  great condition for it's age. Look forward to seeing the progress.