LB's Mk1 G60 cabriolet Project

Right, as some of you know I've been in the process of restoring and rebuilding my cabby into a supercharged tarmac monster of the G lader varity.

Having been a tad ill of late progress has been slow but I've finally got back to it recently so heres an update on progress so far.

In the beginning she looked like this,



it may look good but the photos lies! The engine was on its last legs after lots of miles and plenty of smiles and the body work was starting to show some bad signs!

Firstly the body was stripped to reveal the extent of the damage,



It was at this point my drill jammed and spun round to give me a fat lip, a black eye and a bloody nose!
Note to self: burn drill!



Some of the under arches and bodywork were a suprise as it was really good!



while other parts were not so good!

Hard to see in this photo but the arch has taken a whack at some point and been badly repaired.



This was my own fault, got a rock jammed in here at the Touring cars back in 2005.



How the slam panel got this bad is anyones guess! I tapped out some filler and found this hiding underneath!



Typical mk1 bonnet!



And Lastly, a typical mk1 scuttle panel…



Curse that bloody tin worm!!

She'll be off to the bodyshop soon for paint and panels. That a new front panel, rear passengers arch, rear valance, scuttle panel, bonnet and two wings… bugger! :cry:

Next job was to strip out the engine and running gear which I've been doing on and off like the rest of my motor since april!

Firstly had to rip this out!

The poor thing was bleeding oil, rattling, smoking… just generally passing on!



That was easy… well it seems so typing this! Would like to say a massive thanks to the Unit 22 crew of Matt, Shayne and Andy for giving me a hand with this and also Matts wife Jill and my long suffering girlfriend Alison for the tea and bacon sarnies!





Hmmm…well knackered! Hard to see but its showing signs of a blow piston ring! the head is as bad as well!



Box is excellent though… any takers?



Onto the running gear, started with the front as I intended to do this in stages.

All the bits off!



Cleaned then painted the driveshafts first with good old hammerite,



Did the same with the anti roll bar mounts



And my coilovers, gave them a full service while they were off too.



But being lazy, I cheated with the wishbones!! Bought nice shiney new ones along with poly bushes, new ball joints and roll bar clips.



Also couldn't resist polishing the hell out of these! a labour of love… :p



Treated myself to nice new brakes!

These are Mk2 golf 16v ones with Scirocco 16v carriers, EBC greenstuff pads and drilled Zimmerman disks! I had to completly overhaul the calipers with all new slide pins, bolts, piston seals and bleed nipples but the results look bloody mavelous and cost a great deal less then reconditions ones!



Basically, Mk1 automotive porn…  :wink: :p



Next stop is to start hacking the G60 engine apart and rebuilding that… it'll pass the time while the car is away to paint. watch this space!

Great work man…. another cab that will be restored and living for years to come…   8)

what sort of price you want for the gearbox - do you have a code off the gearbox? I presume its a 5 speed and no issues?

Not sure on the code, its obviously from my own cabbie which is a 1990. its covered approx 140,000 with plenty of love and care… which is more then can be said for the engine!

It goes like this…

Tis a sad tale of an unsuppecting mechanic and his poorly cabbie engine. One cold evening after fixing a persistant leaky water pump said mechanic went to top up the sick little engines water only to dicover his anti freeze had been borrowed by nameless persons for their own car… so plain water was added instead till he could get to the shop and purchase some in the morning.

Unfortunatly, nasty mr Jack frost came a visiting that night and murdered that poorly engine in cold blood! 8O (… well maybe oil!) that poor engine was no more, split asunder by the icy fingers of evil Jack… :cry:

Sorry, really need to get out more…

Anyhow, I replced the engine with an old mk1 gti lump which I sourced dirt cheap… for a reason… its was a bit on the old and high mileage side. it did well untill now and did its job grand. but I used the original box so I can vouch for its tender loving care if you want it.

Talking of which I'll put up the next lot of photos now…

Right, next bit.

there should be some lovely photos of a manky g60 engine and gearbox here… but I er… lost them… use your imaginations! think dirty, oily and nasty thoughts…. Sadly, being of the Mk1 fold we should all be used to the manky end of an engine by now! :wink:

Anyhow, got my new engine home in my brothers van…which doubled as a handy little garage for stripping it down…



One pile of manky parts, most of which will need refurb or replacement,



and a rather nasty looking G lader which is going to get a full rebuild courtesy of Matt from Unit 22. (Thanks squire!) On inspection its just manky outside, internally its not bad at all! still, I have no service records so its getting a rebuild anyway!



Well first off I got the gearbox onto the engine stand and after some serious cleaning… and I mean serious! I gave it a good lick of acid etch followed by some nice silver paint. I know everyone does silver but I'm after a factory look install with a little bling.



and the same box after some detailing



While they were off I thought I'd better do some stone chip work on my bumpers…





before deciding that I was going to get the whole car painted… dam I'm lazy sometimes!!

Still thats all for now, I'll keep everyone posted as to my progress so watch this space!

loooooooooooooooo

kinnnnnnnnnnnnn

goooood!

Nice job on the gearbox!

What exactly did you use to clean/paint it (Brand names?), as I need to do the same while mine is having it's 3rd heart transplant…

AL.

Well after lots of chin scratching, flicking through the frost catalogue etc, I finally decided to stick with what I know and could get cheaply locally.

Wish I had taken more photo's for you now as the box was in one hell of a state! The slave clyinder had been leaking for some time and the bell housing was about an inch deep in pure crap!

I started cleaning the box with brush on gunk applied with a paintbrush and an engine cleaning brush (just a small stiff bristle thing!) got the worst off but ran out of gunk so bought some stuff call Jizer made by swargfega (sp?) Its way better then gunk, just eats the crap off.

I then washed it off by hand with a hose as I hate pressure washers! you end up wetter then the item your cleaning normally and I prefer to let the de greaser do the work… not me!  :wink:

Once all the oil was off I set about the whole thing with a wire brush on the drill to get any last rubbish off and key the surface for paint. afterwards the gearbox was spotless, not a dull patch on it. I did need some small pointed wire brush heads to do the diff but otherwise you can just use the normal round head ones.

People say to degrease the box before painting but I had a total disater doing mine so just wire brushed it to within an inch of its life, brush it clean with a brand new paint brush and went onto paint.

First step of painting was to use hammerite special metal primer brushed on with a light coat. I did this on the complete box, bolts still in the lot!

I then took all the diff bolts out and anything else I wanted black was masked off with tape. I had to put a few spare diff bolts back in to stop any oils leaks!

3 hours later I sprayed the box with two coats of hammerite smooth silver, minding to let the first coat set before applying the second one. Then after it was dry I hand painted all the bolt heads and bits and bobs using two coats of smooth black hammerite, fitted a new gasket on the end of the box and sprayed the end cap in satin black hammerite spray paint.

then, it might sound absolutly mad, I left it out in the rain for a week to help cure the paint… its now like rock!!

Hope that helps, if anyone has any questions at all about anything I have done so far or in futher installments then please ask away.  

Jiz eh…. Hmmmm…  

I have heard of it actually, just never tried it. Where did you pick it up from? I'll have to see if I can get some.

Cheers,
AL.

The chav shop of choice... Autosave! ?15 for a 5 litre tub... and yes the name does sound a bit "more tea vicar" ish!!!

Laughingboy said

How the slam panel got this bad is anyones guess! I tapped out some filler and found this hiding underneath!

the front panel rusts like that when the car has a light front ender, the bracket beneath brake off and get welded back on then rust like mad!

volkswarren said

Laughingboy said

How the slam panel got this bad is anyones guess! I tapped out some filler and found this hiding underneath!

the front panel rusts like that when the car has a light front ender, the bracket beneath brake off and get welded back on then rust like mad!

I've seen a couple of cars with this, one of them was my old Cabrio. In that ones case it had been in a minor front ender but by the looks of it had had the whole front panel replaced. I think the rust had got in due to the new panel not being painted with top coat under the slam panel, that black primer stuff on replacement panels doesn't protect from the elements at all well, especially on an area that gets sprayed with salty water from the car in front during winter. The replacement front panel was a genuine one too.

If you replace the panel make sure its rust proofed well. On my sportline I've brushed a load of waxoil all around the back of the front panel area just to make sure it doesn't happen, even though the panels are original and show no signs of rust.

Thanks for that guys, she's off to the painters soon for a new front panel etc. I'll let andy my painter know about rust proofing it good!

The poor girl was in a front ender as well as rear, but she still has her dignity!  :wink:

The front panel looks to have been heavly body filled around the latch and panel beaten straight hence the rust… all for the sake of fitting a front panel!  :?

I'll post up some more pictures soon, just a quick update. Got hold of my front panel (genuine VAG!!!) and a raft of other goodies from a local lad (thanks stuart, your a star mate and thats the sickest mk2 I've seen for a long time… Ex touring car!! Mental!!) including a set of goodridge braided brake lines. Combined with the new brakes all round and the 9" servo and M/C, That should be the brakes sorted! All I need now is a bonnet as my old one has a case of rust scabs! Anyone got one lying about?

Disaster!! 8O

Came home yesterday to find my poor mk1 lying in the gravel! Some toe-rag has pushed my car off the axle stands! Originally wondered if the wind had shifted it untill my mate said on the phone "what wind?". went round to my next door neighbours and asked if he had heard anything, he said there was the sound of some kids mucking around outside but he didn't feel as though he could intervene in case they started on him.

Thankfully theres been very little damage, the front passenger axle stand has pushed the floor up ever so slightly and my front panel has been misshapen by catching my mothers car parked in front. had to laugh though, her bumper was perfectly in the gap of the front grill on the mk1! she barely got a scratch! :roll:

Still, its a dam shame that someone could do that to someones car, I hope they get linched, or ran over or get there giro's stopped because they are a shower of work shy scroungers with nothing better to do then wreak other peoples things, SODS!!!

Anyhow, she's off to a safe garage soon where I can continue my work in peace and away from chavs and bad weather and get this thing finished.

Rant over… feel better now too!  

8O  :tlc: my feelings towards the individuals who did this to your car would get me instantly banned from here


  little buggers! had you already fitted the new front panel?

thankfully no and trust me, my feelings already have… sorry Doug!  ops:

Your neighbours a wuss, direct him here, much better range than some kids with a pocket knife.

Peter.

laughingboy were did you take the picture in the regions page . i thought we called the chavs  neds up here  :wink:  ( non educated delinquents) excuse the spelling i never went to school much eather :wink:

I know its about 4 months late, but did you ever sell the old gearbox? And does it have 100mm flanges?