Sifty's GTI "It's not a restoration" project...

I bought this car in 2011. I'd had my eye on it for a while, it took a while for the guy selling it and me to meet eye-to-eye on a price.

It looked rough and other guys in my club who'd already checked it out told me it was pretty much only good for parts… But I thought it was a bit better than that.

The pictures tell the story really:

Here when I first saw it:





Finally bought it, and took it home:



It had some "rust issues"



Started having a closer look at those.
 




I wanted to see how bad it was before I started spending money on it, but it didn't seem too bad so I decided it should wear some patchy primer for a while and I should enjoy driving it and see what else needed attention.
http://s1194.photobucket.com/user/sifty1/media/IMAG0774.jpg.html?sort=3&o=189

Wheels next:


Suspension:



Time to enjoy it a bit:



Found a nice Becker stereo




 

While looking for something else, I found these cool old rims in Germany, shipped them over and refurbed them: .



Decided it was going to be a while before I could paint it properly, so I should tidy it up a bit.







Scored my "Holy Grail" set of rims.



A year or two passed, I blew up the gearbox….


Thought it was finally time to start on towards that paint job.
So, windows out and lets see what we have:





Nothing too scary in there.
Back hatch:



Fixing an old repair:


Breaking the windscreen


"This is not a restoration, I won't bother with bare metal"




Windscreen out and wings off. Not too bad either, consider this is a car people said was only good for parts.


And, that's where I'm up to so far. :-D





 

Looking good so far, and allot of effort for a "non restoration".    

I can't call it a restoration, I'm a bit scared of those. This is just "maintenance" really. :-)

My Mk1 is having a lot of maintenance too   
Looking good so far and its not too bad considering everyone said to leave it alone! You might have found a little gem there!
Are your Pirelli 8 slot P slots 14" or 15"? I bought myself some 8 slot P slot 14" last month and can't wait to get them on my finished car 

GolyTheGolf said

My Mk1 is having a lot of maintenance too   
Looking good so far and its not too bad considering everyone said to leave it alone! You might have found a little gem there!
Are your Pirelli 8 slot P slots 14" or 15"? I bought myself some 8 slot P slot 14" last month and can't wait to get them on my finished car 

 Maintenance is much less scary that doing a "restoration". :-)
The P-Slots on it in the early photos are just normal Mk2 GTI 14"s. Then in the later photos they're the aftermarket 15" P-Slots. I also have a set of aftermarket 14" P-Slots that are just smaller versions of the 15s (only 8 "P"s instead of the 9 "P"s that factory VW P Slots have)

GolyTheGolf said

Are your Pirelli 8 slot P slots 14" or 15"? I bought myself some 8 slot P slot 14" last month and can't wait to get them on my finished car 

Ah, classic, I just read your thread about your new wheels. So clearly you know all about the 8 Vs 9 P argument.     Welcome to an exclusive club.  Also the Plastic Vs Metal centre caps.

Do yourself a favour and don't loose the centre caps, the plastic ones don't fit these wheels.

Also, if you're going for "Original" look, then on the 8 P's, the whole wheel was silver. Whereas on the VW OEM 9 P's, the P's were painted black. Which was apparently a logical (gotta love those Germans) decision based on the fact that black P's wouldn't show the brake dust like silver ones.

My 15's are wearing black P's because I wanted them to look 'not quite' OEM. Where my 14s are still in original 'all silver'.

Whether you're rolling on the 15s or the 14s I love the way you can roll up to a meet and people are scratching their heads trying to work out what's different about them. I've even had one guy come up to me and say "Hey, why do your cars rims look better than that cars?"

  O I see. Best of luck with the maintenance then. And as GolyTheGolf said, its not that bad. I also think your gonna have a awesome little car once you're done.  

With the maintenance of course, once your done with the maintenance its gonna be sweet.    

"Only good for parts"??? Yeah right  That's a decent little mk1 you've got there sifty, bet you're glad you saved her now. Great work so far, keep it up mate

Andy.

How did I get here?


Finally some real progress!!! Off for paint:


Primer on and starting to get  blocked out:



Body getting there in a shady old workshop I managed to borrow.


 Guide coat


….









 

Cool projected. Nice to see it being saved.

sooooo… It's really humid here (New Zealand) right now. We got through all the coats of primer and the two base coats of black with no problems at all. Then on the final coat and in spite of the 2 water traps on the compressor - water drops!!!!   Nothing for it but a wet rub with 2000 grit and another top coat.    I'd rather not have done this, but the up side is we'll get a better finish. Finally the Top Coat. I'll get some better photos in the day light over the next few days, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. After a couple of weeks curing we'll give it a cut & polish and it'll be stunning. Next up, bring it all home again (and tidy up the spray booth I borrowed) spray some Dynatrol around where ever I can reach, then "Just put it back together" 

Good job with the spraying  

What does the cut and polish process do?

Matt

pazwaa said

Good job with the spraying  

What does the cut and polish process do?

Cheers. After a fresh paint, the cut and polish does a few things really. If you're spraying anywhere but a proper spray booth with big extractor fans and filters, chances are you'll get a little dust settling on the paint, no matter how hard you try.
So the cut & polish will remove the majority of those tiny dust specs, and any other small lumps.
The other thing is that the modern black paint like this is REALLY shiney, must more glossy than an original GTI would have been. It'll still be very glossy, but after the cut it'll be a little bit less glossy than it was straight off the gun.

It's like unwrapping a Christmas present, only it's not socks, it's something you want.

Oh wow, that looks excellent sifty  

Update:
Period Becker


sweet period Blaupunkt's (I rebuilt an old knackered shelf, I didn't cut up my good one!)


Naked GTI


Stripes going on:


More or less finished here. Just waiting on a wheel alignment.

Great progress on this one!
Car is looking very clean  

Hi sifty
Your car looks really good. Just wondering where you are in NZ as I am in east Auckland and have recently immigrated from the UK 8 months ago. Would be good to know other mk1 followrs this side of the world.  
Martin.