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Mars Red 1.6 GTi Converted Driver..........

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Mars Red 1.6 GTi Converted Driver..........

Hi folks,

Thought i'd get a thread started on my Mk1 as I'm hoping to start work on it over the next few weeks as I need to move it out of my garage soon to make way for my E30 as my mum wants her garage back for the winter. The Golf will put under a car cover at hers.

Bit of background on the car, I first owned it as my first car when I was 17. It was bought early summer 2002 from one of my best mates at the time who also had it as his first car and he'd bought it off another of our mates who'd had it as a first car. Jellbelly knows the car from this time as well.

I had the car for about a year, unfortuneately I rear ended a Vectra with a towbar damaging the front panel, bonnet and moving the off-side chassis rail a touch. As it was a really good shell I stripped it and swapped the wheels, exhaust, suspension and Cobra bucket seats into a Silver Driver and sold it as a rolling shell. A guy came to look at it with a view to chop it up to repair his S1 1.6 GTi but ended up carrying out a full GTi conversion on this shell due to it's condition and repaired the front end (apart from the chassis rail :roll:) and re-registered it as a 1600.

Fastward 9 years and on a regular browse in the internet I stubled across an advert matching this car as I knew it'd been re-registered and there it was, the otherside of Birmingham from where I work. Was being sold by mAtt-, he'd original bought it to do a diesel conversion on it but then found an already converted car so decided to sell it on. As I'd kept looking at Golfs through the 9 years I thought there was no better time to get back into one than buy my old one. :lol:

Here's the advert pics;






Since buying it early this year it's just sat in my garage untouched while I was working on my E30 project, it's slowly found itself getting used as parts storage but they're slowly getting sold now.

Initial plans are to get it running and see what it needs for an MOT before a bit of a simple tidy up and get it on the road. I'll probably be lowering somemore (was dropped about 60mm when I had it before), fitting some other wheels (either refurbed BMW E30 BBS or some OZ routes I've got). I've also got a 2.0l 8v bottom end that's been rebuilt a few years ago buy Grant Motorsport that will probably find its way in at a later point.

Sat on the drive the day it was delivered;


Here's how it's sitting now;




Scirroco leathers 8)


When I bought it it did run but not great but now it won't even turn over with a fully charged battery. The battery light comes on and the temp light flashes a few times but nothing else happens. It's fitted with a Clifford alarm :banghead: so I'm going to take a wild guess that this might be the cause. I've noticed these three wires near the battery, the black is connected to the negative terminal, I'm guessing the red needs to go to the positive but anyideas where the grey would go? I think all the electrics need an overhaul as nothing really worked when I first got it.


Thanks for looking,
Dave

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dave if you need a hand let me know :)

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Cheers Matt, no doubt I'll be taking you up on that offer. I've got too used to the E30s with looms that have nice plugs making it obvious where everything goes. Random crimped wires make my head hurt.

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Hooked up the red wire to the battery and found that the grey reached a switch on the front panel to stuffed it in there. Alarm now seems to work but she still didn't want to start, can hear the starter click once when you turn the ignition and then nothing.

Jammed starter?

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no shouldn't think so mate

can you turn it over by hand? 19mm socket on the end of the crack shalf

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Not tried that, will pick some tools up from my mums and give that a go.

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Turns by hand nice and easy and the starter terminals are getting good power. I've given the starter a couple of good hits but still just clicks as soon as you turn the ignition. Think I'll be looking for another to try, are all 8v starters the same, would one for this 1.6 work on the 2.0?

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i have a spare starter mate :)

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Awesome, can I come n try it at some point. Going to whip mine off later & see what it's doing.

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Little update, felt the need to do some spannering to this over the last couple of days as I need a retro car on the road and I can't see my E30 filling that void any time soon.

In attempts to solve the rubbish running of the engine I've been having a real good tinker, this old K-Jet really does seem overly complicated for my liking.

I'd already sorted the non-start issue, was a long line of duff starters. Even a couple of new ones from ECP were dead!!

Jellybelly came over a few weeks ago and gave the metering head  a few bashes with a hammer which gave instant positive results, something to do with a plunger/pin getting stuck. As that made such a difference we opened up the metering head and gave it a quick clean up and check for any obvious wear and tear, all looked fine. Been over the engine checking all the vacuum pipes and trimmed down any pipes with splits and used new clamps or replaced altogether with black silicon hose, also replaced all the tiny braided vacuum hoses with diesel injector line. Finally the throttle body was pulled off and given a good clean out and the gasket was replaced with some instant gasket stuff. Fired it up and it ran like a dream yesterday, reverted to being a rough again so still need to dig deeper. Next port of call will to double check all the vacuums since it was OK yesterday and also check the ignition timing.

I decided to get my OZs fitted now they were booted with the correct sized tyres for the Mk1, going to need some meat taking off the ones on the front as they're sticking out a fair amount at the moment. Currently ET12, going to trial fit a 15" E30 BBS to see how that fits with ET25. Fitted all new exhaust rubbers as the old ones had perished so the exhaust was sat on the rear beam.

Next jobs on the list with curing the engine is a brake overhaul, took it a quick drive up my road and soon found out the brakes are awful. The job I'm dreading most is the back that the lights need rewiring, there's a nasty uprated lighting loom fitted and even worse Clifford alarm that I think I'll remove as well.

Time for a few pics on the new rims;
Don't worry, the nasty badgeless grille will be going as well. It's just a temporary thing since what was on it was broken and missing the ends and this was in the boot.

Last edit: by Kedge

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looks good dave :)

glad my hammering worked

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It certainly helped dude, it's gone back to running pretty rough again when cold. Might need your assitance at somepoint to do the ignition timing if possible.

Swapped the from discs and pads this evening, brakes still felt rubbish though. Plans is to do the rear shoes tomorrow and bleed the system, hopefully that'll improves things.

Safe to say the pads were well past it;


The discs were well lipped as well.

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Changed the rear shoes using new spring clips today. Also changed the brake fluid, but hit a snag doing the last caliper, bleed nipple snapped. :@Brakes are still no better though, barely stops at all, looking at the new discs they are very much like the old with only the outer half showing any marking from the pads.:ocf_emoticons__dontknow:

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the brake are not the greatest at the best of times

completely changing the fluid help me with my car after it sat along time

worth checking the flexy hoses are ok to

the the nipple break in the front or rear?

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These are dangerously bad mate, struggling to stop from as slow as 10-15mph.

The flexis don't really look very bad at all, just looked at the price of them and they're pretty cheap so might change them as a precaution.

Broken bleed nipple is the front right.

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very nice mk1 you have  :)  love the OZ's, are they 15x7? if so what are the tyre specs if you don't mind me asking?

'83 formel e

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ned_h said

very nice mk1 you have  :)  love the OZ's, are they 15x7? if so what are the tyre specs if you don't mind me asking?

Cheers :)

Yea the wheels are 15x7", tyres are 195/45/15.

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ah cheers, thought they were, trying to decide whether to get 195/45s or 195/50s :lol:

'83 formel e

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Don't think I've seen what 50s look like, I went for the 45s as I'll be lowering it at some point in the future.

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yeah i think i'll probably go 45s too as the car is lowered a bit plus they look better than 50s

'83 formel e
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