1983 1.4 conversion to 1.9 with Bike Carb Conversion

Right guys,

Thought I'd better start this thread given I've had the car for a few weeks and now started to make progress with the plans for my 1.4 1983 Golf.

I bought the car off Ebay for a mere £700, including a honed block, overbored to 1.9. with new shells and piston rings, connected to a GTI gearbox, it also has new engine rubber mounts, complete new wishbones, and brake discs.  The shell had, had a fair bit of work done to it, but is well off ready for painting.

So I've had the car for two weeks, and here is where I'm up to with my project thus far:-

I've cut out the old number plate area (it was riddled with rust), welded in a new plate (never done anything like this before and had plenty of fun, melting the metal, cutting more etc etc).  The rear wheel arches are both gone completely so I've bought two new arches off ebay for a mere £20 a piece and having them welded in by a professional (i don't want to warp the rear panels by anu stretch of the imagination)…

My paint man has been to look at the car, and said it's not too bad but needs further time on the shell, which I intend to do at his garage given he's got all the gear etc etc.

The car is currently silver, but I'm having it painted metalic black, given Im not too much a fan of silver cars.

Well I've bought some JK coilovers, some deep dish alloys, a set of R1 Bike carbs, and other little bits and bobs.  For anybody thinking of doing a bike carb conversion give me a shout I have the experience now on shortcuts lol.  I'm also in the process of having a FEW manifolds cut for me, given Bogg Brothers while very good are quite expensive.

Once I've learned how to post some pics, I'll get them up, I'll have a look now and see what I can do.

Well that's it for now but I intend to update on the weekly movement of the project and hope you all enjoy reading my progress, and look forward to seeing you fella dubbers at the usual meets  

Interesting read.  get some pics posted mate!!

Welcome to the site.  Looking forward to seeing the pics!!

Lets see if this works  





The car as it is now

Here are the wheels I'm picking up tomorrow…

So cannot wait to see them

Well as I stated I'm looking to put R1 bike carbs on the car, which has created all sorts of problems, I'll try and post as much detail on here as I can to help everybody who is thinking of doing the same.

One of the hard things to get is the correct manifold, so I managed to get my hands on the standard 16v lower inlet mani, and brought it into work and stuch the base of it on the photocopier, this helped provide the template for what I wanted the final thing to look like, after cutting out for wiring looms etc.



I've managed to get myself a 80mm by 10 mm flat bar of aluminum for £17 from the aluminum warehous and going to a metal cutter on Monday to get a price for cutting four of them so I can sell them on here if people want them???  

Well a quick update for today, the wather hasn't been too kind to allow me get much done on the car, other than pick up my new rims, which love lovely I must say    

I've done a bit of looking around at things like polished rocker covers etc, and decided that was the way I wanted to go, to have as much of the metal under the hood polished, if nothing else to look clean and sparkly (although I'm not into all that blinging stuff), I think polished metal looks the bollox.

So I've found a small company very close to home (I live in Manchester) who have taken my grubby old rocker cover and charged me the sum of just £30 to have it polished and explained it'll take a week "Bargain of the century if you ask me", I explained I'll be taken a box of stuff over to them if the rocker cover comes out anything like I imagine it too.  We'll just have to see what level of pitting has taken place over the years.

Well I hope the weather is better tomorrow as I have to get the car ready for the paint shop, and need to clean the inner of the car given that too will be sprayed, so plenty on and against the clock for sure.

Cheers for reading the update.
Mark

Keep the updates coming dude, will be watching this project with great interest as need to know how to put a 16 valve on bike carbs into my mk 1 jetta so gathering up as much info as possible, cheers

Well not much progress this week, I've received the bike carbs and given them a good clean up (will post pics tomorrow), the car is going in on Friday for it's paint job, I've been told it'll take a few weeks to do, but it suits me really given the guy has a much larger garage than I do, and he's agreed I can work on the car while it's at his garage  

I'm still waiting for the ali cutters to come back to me regarding the manifold template, will chase them tomorrow.

Had the drivers side wheel arch arrive today, so that'll be welded in prior to the paint job.

Watch this space