Back to Black - My 16v, soon to be Daily

Bought this 1983 Mk1 Gti last week from the dreaded ebay. Broke the first rule and didn't view it first as I only spotted it with a couple of hours to go.




Pics are from the previous owner as I neglected to take any and its stripped for spraying now

I bought my last car - an BMW E30 325 Touring with the 3.5 litre 5 series motor shoehorned in - in the same way, in fact I even flew to Aberdeen and drove it 400 odd miles home. I figure cars like that don't come up every day and lifes no fun if you don't take a few risks. I never regretted it for a minute it was a great car - was gutted when I had to sell it due to a longer commute and fuel costs crippling me.

I havn't been quite so lucky with the golf but then for the money I think I got reasonable value.

Since I got it I've stripped it for a respray in its original colour due to lacquer peel in a few places, largely the car is in very solid condition, repairs were needed to both rear corners, the back end of the drivers sill and a bit under the drivers rear arch. All of which have been carried out to a good standard none of this weld patches over the cr4p (seen enough of that on my 1972 Baywindow camper to realise that its a false economy - previous owners work I hasten to add).

Anyway as work progresses I'll keep updating.

steamo said

Broke the first rule and didn't view it first as I only spotted it with a couple of hours to go.

Brave man .  

Pics of any work would be great !

Cheers ………..

Brave man .

Or stupid .

Cracking on and taking pics when I remember, I'll upload them when I get a chance. It's nice to have a record of work that you've done.

Well some work has ensued and progress is steady.

Heres the car stripped, work has already started on the rear end. Gutted i forgot the photos of the start.


Areas that required attention were:- Both corners of the rear valence, Under the drivers side rear arch, the rear of the drivers side sill, inside the car.

Heres some before and after pics, tool them as and when I remembered - tend to get into a flow when working so there's not as many as I would have liked. Hopefully you can see all the rot was removed new metal welded in. Ready for rust proofer followed by primer, stone chip and then painted as per the rest of the car. Pics will follow.








The rest of the car is in great nick really, couple of small bubbles on the bottom of the doors, but thats it. Pics to follow again.

All welding is done so its really just preping for paint now.

Now heres some pics of the better bits;

My favourite:


Got to stop it as well, also note new coilovers fitted monday:


Nice and low:


Wheels back from the blasters:


Finished article - painted yesterday:


My towing eye - I know lots of people just delete them but I fancied someting different.

A little personal touch - just a silly little idea of mine very nicely executed by my best mate whos a very skilled metal worker and jeweller, hes also had a helped me no end with a lot of the work (and most of my previous motors) - If you're reading this mate cheers, yours is next promise I won't buy any more.

Looking forward to getting some paint on - hopefully this weekend.

More progress today - its nearly ready for spraying.

Today I bare metalled any renowned rust areas that I havn't already repaired to make sure that they are not full of filler. I also carried on with the flatting and sanding.

Round all wheel arches, all the way round the windscreen and the top corner of the wings. Fortunately I've found no more repairs needed. There is only a circular patch braised into the top of the passenger side wing - I can only assume that this is where the aerial once was. Its definately not a rust repair. Photos tomorrow when I upload them.

With a bit of luck there'll be some photos of it with a coat of colour on - I can prime all the repairs in first thing in the morning. Looking forward to my first attempt at a full respray. The last car I did I primed it and then someone at work put the top coat on (for a bottle of whiskey) Sadly I've changed jobs since then so its my turn now. Fingers crossed it turns out alright.

Today I also ordered some nice little 175/50 R15 tyres to cure clearance problems with the coilovers.

Well bit of a delay in the pictures but I've made plently of progress - no colour on yet partly due to the foul weather last weekend, and partly due to me mixing the filler primer wrong (2 parts paint to 1 part hardner instead of a 5:1 ratio) this resulted in a rather runny mix and runs everywhere.

Pics of the usual trouble spots bare metalled and coated in rust protector stuff.

Rear arches were OK - I removed the arch lip and seam welded the outer and inner anyway. I prefer this to arch rolling firstly because I can do it myself and secondly because theres less to catch the mud and less to go rusty. There were some very small repairs needed at the same time



Front arches were sound just a couple of scabs where the plastic arches screw on - think the cars probably had new wings when it was painted blue.



Scuttle was mint, wish I'd not bothered touching it, just caused more sanding - oh well at least I know its good.



Front valence also totally rust free.



The first disastorous attempt at priming - following the labourious sanding down.


The second infinately more sucessful attempt.



Coat of primer followed by stonechip under the rear arches.



My new wheels have now been fitted with the new tyres and it would have been rude not to put them on to get some motivational taster pics.

Finally after all the preping Wednesday night was time to put some paint on!!


I was very impressed with the finish, really good shine to it.


Unfortunatly due to a lack of light I missed a couple of small areas, there were also a couple of "fish eyes" (apparently caused by silicone in the air)
on one of the rear panels. So Thursday night was spent preping for second coat. Soul destroying sanding down shiney paint back to this

8) good job, looks great!
Love the wheels too

good work wish i was as organised as you, what coilovers you fitting

Nice pics. What kind of paint are you using?

Cheers for the replies,

The coilovers are the Janspeed cheap ones. The wheels are BMW E30 BBS 15".

The paint is 2K single coat not the base with laquer. Colour is VW Schwarz.

Hopefully more pics after the weekend, I'm just going out to the garage to paint it again now - wish me luck.

Spraying 2k in a domestic garage  8O  - good luck!

how did you get on with it mate

any pics

Very impressive welding and prep work


 

Good luck with the paint

Cheers ……..

Its black - well the main shell is now, the doors, boot and bonnet are still in primer but I'm getting there.

I'm not as pleased with the finish as I was last time round - I started with the paint a little thick I think and the panels that I sprayed before I thinned it down are a little bit orange peely - nothing that a good going over with rubbing compound won't cure though.

Overall I'm pretty chuffed with it for a first spray job.



Can't wait to have it finished now.

Looks proper nice mate.

Want to spray my own car

Just dont have a spray gun or kompressor etc..

And cant spray yet either

Nice work though.

Looking good matey  8)

Finished - well almost, its on the road at least.

Insured it on Saturday and went away for the weekend camping in it. Everything went fine - apart from the weather ha.

Been a while getting the last of the bits and putting it all back together, been rather busy hence the lack of progress reports for the last couple of weeks.

Biggest headache that I've got left is the choice of arches or no arches.

Heres a couple of pics of when I finished it one with arches on:


and arches off:


What you all reckon? Because I like both!

wow.. looks mint!  8) good job dude. I reckon it looks good with and without the arches.

vw_tees

that is gorjus fella looks awsome. keep up the good work.