Black '82 GTI. Resurrection.

Here's my GTi which I bought of here recently. Finally got it home on Friday.

It's got 109,000 miles on it and been off the road for a long time, probably since 1994. Thats when it was last MOTed.

Last owner had it since it was 3 years old, and kept all the mot's and receipts.

Plans are to keep it standard and bring it back to it's former glory.

So before I strip it down I want to get it running, which by the looks of it will mean going through the whole fuel system and cleaning it up or replacing it.







This is what I've got to work with.












First thing I,ve done is clean a seat. Didn't want to put them away in the state that they are in. Drivers seat has been repaired with the wrong material in the past, but it'll do, not going to be concourse, just for fun.

looks like you have alot of work ahead of you mate.

with the car's mileage and history the car is worth saving,

so best of luck on the build, and keep us posted.

Thanks for the encouragement Studs. Yeah, your right. Lots of work

I hope it doesn't take as long as my last project, 12 years

Follow the linky link to my Escort Mk2 thread

What I'm up to on me mark 2

well the mk1 is in great hands after seeing your mk2 escort thread great work

Couldn't resist the T-Cut

that look like a alright car

all them bit of rot look managable

just the roof could a be a bit of a problem, whats it like underneth??

Jellybelly: The roof is a mess, opening the sun roof, it looks like bits of the Titanic, so the whole lots got to go, going to replace it with another sliding sunroof roof, want it to be original. But apart from that everything I've looked at is pretty good. I've had a look through your thread and even with the roof to replace it's nothing compared to yours. I may regret that statement, I haven't had a really good poke about under the whole car yet :lol

everything is repairable with a bit of time and effort

Hi Merp0

Just spent the last hour (at work  :redfaced: ) reading through your MK2 post..  It looks great mate.  You did a cracking job. Cant wait to see what you do with your GTI! Good luck mate

Cheers
Tony


PS. check out http://www.freecarcheck.org/search

looks like it last ran out of tax  Expiry Date: 01/08/1993

Yes jelly, your right, you have proved that anything is repairable

PNERivage :Thanks for that, at least you didn't waste an hour of your own time

and thanks, yes I haven't been on that site before, but had had a look on the DVLA site which gave the same info.. Have since spoken to the guy who bought it off the original owner ( he just happened to come knocking on my next door neighbours door while I was out messin' about with the car) he said the original owner had lost his job, presumably back in '93, and had left the car on the drive, just starting it every now and again. I think the starting it up thing must have stopped a long time ago

I was a bit wary about going and knocking on his door, in case it came up for sale due to his passing, but it would seem he decided it was time to let it go, so will have to drop a note through his door and see if he has any more info on the car. Maybe even a picture of it when he got it back, in 1986 :pray:

Still messing about with this.

So, I've been trying to get this running, before I take it to bits, starting with the tank which is in a right mess. So rather than clean it out I've been running fuel out of a can. but the return still goes to the tank, so now the tank has loads of gunky fuel in it. The outfeed pipe from it is disconnected, but nothing is coming out, it's that manky.

Any how, the fuel pump was jammed solid, so a trip to the scrappy and we found a pump from an old Merc which looked like it would do the job, and it does. Got pressure at the mettering dooda, but still nowt at the injectors. Then looked at the air flow flap and this was jammed down. wipped it all of and the plunger in the metering unit was jammed solid, so freed this up and finally got the old girl to fire. Only on 2 cylinders mind





The biggest problem that I can see is the rot in the roof, so that is what I'm tackling first. Here's what the sunroof apature looks like




and here's the solution, well hopefully.  Going to gum it on with some sticky backed plastic.


Started to unpick it and suprised to find the roof panel is folded in to the gutters with very few spot welds. have cut off the gutter so there is still a lip left on the roof, which will sit on top of the original roof lip in the gutter.


you can see the roof skin has parted from the rest of the roof here.


and also split it along the windscreen hole.

So I've gone a short way in a long time, but progress anyway

I've still got this

and finally it's in the garage


and I've started stripping it down





Still not running though :redfaced:, after leaving it on the drive all summer, damp has got in to the fuel pump and siezed it up again , so I've just been enjoying tearing it to bits, and finding more stuff that'll need to be replaced. I think It'll be a while before I'm putting it back together though

I'm still going to leave the engine as is, need to make sure it's a runner before I take it out.

I went round to see the last proper owner of the car the other day, he'd had it on his drive for 15 years, turns out he had a job which involved a lot of travelling on the motorways. He'd seen a few nasty accidents and decided it would be safer to get a bigger car. He took the Golf to trade in against a Cavalier, where he was offered £500 quid trade in for it. The dealership had an offer of £1000 off if you had no trade in, work that one out, so he parked it on his drive and initially took it around the block every now and then, 'til one day it wouldn't start, and it hasn't ran since 8O

So, hopefully the next update won't take so long, as I want to get all the welding done over the winter. :wink:

I'm still on the easy bit, rippin' it to bits

Got the wind screen out, without breaking it or sacrificing the seal, which is a result, even £30 for the seal is too much for me



Also got the dash out



Now with all the glass out, the head lining can come out, wanted to salvage this for reuse, but it's paper thin around the edges, so a new one will be needed :cry: The list of parts that need to be replaced is growing, all the trim is so flimsy in these :cry:




Decided to try and preserve some originality, build stickers behind a poly bag.



Only one thing for it now, time for the grinder

An exploratory incision


So without further ado, I've got a convertible



I've still got all the edges of the roof to carefully remove from the car, which will take a while, so more grinding tomorrow  Yahoo I love a bit of grinding

still a long way to go 8O . do you have a target date?

No real target, but won't be back on the road next year, unless I win the lottery and give up work May be 2012 :dontknow: we'll have to see how it goes. Don't want it taking much longer than that, but you know how these things can drag on

Slowly getting on with this, well I say slowly, but there is long periods of inactivity interspersed with short periods of rushing about   

So, over the last week I finished grinding off the remnants of the old roof , and then spent yesterday afternoon finally separating the new roof from it's frame and trimming it all up. Then dropped it in to place on the car, I've trimmed the edges so they fill the base of the gutters, meaning the roof just sat on top of them instead of falling into them, but with a bit of easing it's more or less in place. All I need to do is trim the outer skin of the A pillar, as it overlaps at the mo, then it'll be ready to stick on    Here's how it looks now.






These things were made very precisely, every spot weld lines up with the old ones almost perfectly.







Still a bit of work to do to finally get the roof on, but a few steps nearer, and looking less like a scrap yard refugee

Looks like a good job so far mate!

Superb job with the roof so far mate, im very tempted to follow your lead on this one. Where you mention that youve got to trim the front of the roof on the A pillars, whats the rear like on the C-pillars? Is that where the roof ends naturally or do you have to trim there too? If that makes sense?

And keep up the good work!

amb said

Superb job with the roof so far mate, im very tempted to follow your lead on this one. Where you mention that youve got to trim the front of the roof on the A pillars, whats the rear like on the C-pillars? Is that where the roof ends naturally or do you have to trim there too? If that makes sense?

And keep up the good work!

Not really sure what your asking, but, in the last pic you can see the seam on the C pillar. This is brazed originally, there is still a bit of brass left on the roof in the pic. So I suppose , yes, this is where the roof ends naturally. So doesn't need trimming as such, but has taken a lot of careful grinding so as to cause as little damage as possible to the roof skin.

By the way, don't follow me just yet, I haven't proved it will work But I have it on good authority that it should work :dontknow:  

merp0 said

amb said

Superb job with the roof so far mate, im very tempted to follow your lead on this one. Where you mention that youve got to trim the front of the roof on the A pillars, whats the rear like on the C-pillars? Is that where the roof ends naturally or do you have to trim there too? If that makes sense?

And keep up the good work!

Not really sure what your asking, but, in the last pic you can see the seam on the C pillar. This is brazed originally, there is still a bit of brass left on the roof in the pic. So I suppose , yes, this is where the roof ends naturally. So doesn't need trimming as such, but has taken a lot of careful grinding so as to cause as little damage as possible to the roof skin.

By the way, don't follow me just yet, I haven't proved it will work But I have it on good authority that it should work :dont know:  

        you cant beat a good old roof chop,i was going to do mine the same by unpicking it but my guttering had gone so it had to join down the pillars(AAARRRRH)seeing yours i wish i took some more pics,to late now i aint doing it again lol