Mars Red 81 - undoing of trackcar

Hello all.

I joined ages ago and lurked looking for a Mk1 for ages.  I finally found one near Portsmouth buying it blind from the dreaded EBay.  I know really stupid but I think I've been pretty lucky  :redfaced:  I have no prior knowledge of cars whatsoever so needed something solid body wise and ended up with this.  The bonnet catches will be going  






It has been stripped out to be used as a trackcar but the body is pretty solid.  It's has an okish respray (good enough for me.)  



Anyone know what the seats are that are in it at the moment?








The original 1.6 engine has been replaced with a 1.8 from a 83 cabriolet, and it has coilovers.  Not sure what type (not even looked  :redfaced   





The first job was to get it water tight as the boot seal had been removed.  I got one off a member on here and fitted it, but it still leaks slightly.  I think this can be sorted pretty easily by removing some crud round the top near the heated window wires and then maybe run a bead of silicone over the lip of the seal to stop water getting in under it.



As you can see from the picture the petrol filler cap has been relocated on the o/s arch inside the car.  You get some strange looks from people when you open the boot and then start pouring petrol inside your car  

I'd like to say thanks to all the people that have helped so far, there are going to be a lot lot more questions I think, but I'm really enjoying getting stuck into it.  

So far I've fixed the reverse lights by wiring up the switch on the gearbox to a redundant plug I found in the engine bay.  The fuel gauge now works as one of the wires from the sender was not connected to the loom back to the fusebox  8O My Mpg gauge doesn't work at present but that may be because the speedo doesn't work!

The rev counter works but the speedo doesn't!  I've removed the clocks from the dashboard and driven along and the internal metal bit inside the speedo cable wasn't turning so I guess I need to check the gearbox end now and replace it if need be.

I've had a right nightmare with seats over the last fortnight buying a set of EBay, only to find they were mk2 then buying another rear bench to find this is for a 5dr Mk1     

I did get a carpet and did a quick check to see what it would look like  



And then fitted one of the MK2 seats just to see what it would look like.



I really just want to get the carpet in for now then worry about seats later, but to get the carpet in I need underlay and to feed speaker wires back to the non-existent parcel shelf supports, get under dash trays so that I can then get a centre console …………….. and so on.  Then I can hopefully finally fit the carpet.  Then the headlining  :cry:

First gear is a bit hard to get into, so I may be following the gear linkage FAQ, but that can wait till the winter when it gets taken off the road and put in the garage.

It's all pretty easy stuff I'm doing, but I'm learning a lot as I go, then I can try and start on more of the mechanical things   :?

And that's it for the time being!  Sorry for the novel  

car looks ace, what have you done with the old seats?

i could really do with those headrests!!!

I'm not really sure what is happening with any of the seat at the moment, but when plans are more fixed i'll let you know!

Off to a Classic car show tomorrow so hopefully find a few bits in the autojumble.

Im stripping my gti so will have all sorts of trim parts etc including two very good condition seats if you need any?

I need a set of interior door pull surrounds if anyone has any?  

Thanks to Mark83 today.  Great chap sold me a whole heap of interior bits so i can start putting the doors back together soon, and get some other bits!

Think you'll find the seats you had originally were from the '83 cabriolet that the engine you say came from.

My '84 cabriolet in black has exactly the same type bench seats which after researching are the original ones. If you getting rid off the seats, would be interested as the front ones in mine have been replaced with some gti ones.

jules70 said

Think you'll find the seats you had originally were from the '83 cabriolet that the engine you say came from.

My '84 cabriolet in black has exactly the same type bench seats which after researching are the original ones. If you getting rid off the seats, would be interested as the front ones in mine have been replaced with some gti ones.

that is correct, the seats ONLY came in the "all black" edition that was made for one year only. i'm currently looking for some of the stripped fabric to get my seats reupolstered

looks striaght enough

That car was local to me but I had already got my Gti project, mine was a stripped out car too, I have got a few duplicate parts though, if you need a hand I may have the bits!

whatalotafun said

jules70 said

Think you'll find the seats you had originally were from the '83 cabriolet that the engine you say came from.

My '84 cabriolet in black has exactly the same type bench seats which after researching are the original ones. If you getting rid off the seats, would be interested as the front ones in mine have been replaced with some gti ones.

that is correct, the seats ONLY came in the "all black" edition that was made for one year only. i'm currently looking for some of the stripped fabric to get my seats reupolstered

If you find some fabric please let us know - would like to get mine re-done too. Cheers.

Not heard of a "all black" edition, have you got any more detail about it or sales literature etc

jules70 said

whatalotafun said

jules70 said

Think you'll find the seats you had originally were from the '83 cabriolet that the engine you say came from.

My '84 cabriolet in black has exactly the same type bench seats which after researching are the original ones. If you getting rid off the seats, would be interested as the front ones in mine have been replaced with some gti ones.

that is correct, the seats ONLY came in the "all black" edition that was made for one year only. i'm currently looking for some of the stripped fabric to get my seats reupolstered

If you find some fabric please let us know - would like to get mine re-done too. Cheers.

Not heard of a "all black" edition, have you got any more detail about it or sales literature etc

have a look in the brochure section on here, it should be in there, it's under the "all white"

Right I've been busy collecting bits of interior and cleaning them up over the last few weeks.  I  have started to fit them into the car this weekend as I couldn't make it to the AGM, maybe next year.
First I got to work on tracing my dodgy clock earth wire and so eventually got the dash out



I managed to find it and hopefully that is all sorted now.  Whilst the dash was out I took the opportunity of cleaning all the bits and pieces







I got the dash back in and all I now need to do is get a speedo cable as that is the only thing on the clocks that isn't working now, oh and the MFA average speed MPG figure, but hopefully the cable will fix these.

I got a centre console of Bulster on here, nice chap and cleaned it up from this:






To this: (any ideas what the switch would have been used for?)





Then I got on with the door cards.  Rubjonny said to put a second layer in 1st so I got some plastic sheet and managed to get this stuck on the inside of the door then got the second membrane to go over the whole door.  Hopefully it'll be water tight, time will tell!





 

And finally I fitted the germanish plates that I got.  The pictures I took were when I used masking tape to hold them to double check they looked ok!




I took a trip down the only local scrappie on the off chance that they had a Mk3 Golf there.  2 minutes later and £1.50 lighter and i was fitting a no. 99 relay for the intermittent wipers  

Tomorrow some carpet underlay is being delivered so I can get on with fitting the carpets.  I've gone for a combination underlay that has felt with a rubber backing, which should keep any moisture (not that there will be any )  away from the felt and carpet!  
I've also got some felt underlay for the sound proofing of the roof, but the headlining will be a job I think I'll let the professionals get on with.

Your doing the same as me! My car had the carpets/seats etc etc….etc removed and i'm now putting it back to normal!

I need a decent set of door cards like that for mine! Missed out on a nice set at £30 the other day on ebay!

Will definatelly be copying the plastic behind the door cards, looks like a top job!!

id love to have my filler cap on the inner rear arch, just wouldnt know how to go about it.

Bit of an update.

I've put the new German look plates on and fit some crystal headlights







I now know what speed i am going.  I bought a speedo cable from GSF and was going to fix it but thought i'd just check the drive was seated properly in the gearbox.  A couple of the teeth on the red drive were worn badly so went to the local VW place but the guy said there were none available at all.  So i went home and refitted my original one and it worked.  The speed reads about 10mph slow, a common problem i think on reading up about it.  I've got a white drive arriving soon so may fit this along with the new cable as the speed judders under 20mph, i thnk the existing cable might be kinked somewhere.  The clocks in general are rubbish, the milometer doesn't work and on taking the clocks apart the cog inside doesn't even exist!  It's snapped off and been removed  

I finally got some underlay so i could fit the carpet.  The only problem being was that i had a small leak   unsuprisingly.  I checked everywhere pouring gallons of water over the car to have it leak sometimes but not others.  I eventually found it to be the windscreen rubber.  I've done a quick fix for now with some clear bathroom sealant and it's done the job, but i know this will need sorting properly over the winter when it gets put in hibernation for 6 months.

I also have put in the Mk2 seats and centre console.  I'm still trying to find a cheap localish rear 3dr seat to try and cover it with the Mk2 material, but no joy yet.












I've not secured the carpet in yet as i want to double check my leak fix and a few other things.

I managed to get a couple of badges for the rear.  As the bootlid has been smoothed in the past i managed to get badges that had the mounting clips broken off but they were faded.






After trying to buy some chrome look sticky plastic to make my own decal repair kit, i got a silver permanent marker pen and set about restoring the silver.

The end results aren't perfect in anyway, but from any other than really close up you can't tell.








I've since gone over the badges again to get rid of any lines showing in the marker.

Then today i received the side trim part i've needed since getting the car and was amazed at how easy it went on (i bet it's not the same getting it off!)


Before:










After:









Thats about it for the moment.  I've got an Audi oil pressure sender arrived today but i need to get the T piece and  the Audi oil temp sender now.

Blimey,the  last update was a while ago.

Since August i have been busy with the car.  It came off the road in September when the tax ran out, luckily i have a garage to store it in over the winter.

I've been busy buying bits and pieces for the car, amazing how many jobs you can find to do when you put your mind to it!

I've taken the tailgate off and given the boot arches a spray.  I used Halfords Mars Red No 2 spray cans (expensive way of doing it), but i think it came out quite well for a first go at paintwork.





to this


 
and this






I then picked up a Duckbill spoiler and fitted it, but i can see i'm going to have problems with it as i couldn't get out of the garage  



So put the old one back on




The dust sheet was a great buy from Sainsburys, keeps all the crud etc off the old carpet in the garage and is waterproof.

I managed to get some Red striped Gti seats, finally.

They were dusty with a few marks, but more importantly no rips.  The stitching had come undone on the passengers seat base, but i  managed to sew this up and hopefully it shouldn't be too noticeable.



To this:




Now i've got a full set of seats i can go about fitting the rear parcel shelf supports and all the other interior bits that have had to wait.  


I also managed to get my clocks fixed, i hope!  But i haven't had chance to test them as the car hasn't moved since i've done the work on them!

The clocks that came with the car firstly didn't show the speed, and the mileage didn't work.  I fixed the speed by reseating the drive in the gearbox.

To fix the mileage i took the clocks apart and found that the gearing behind the clock was missing!  I got a spare Motometer speedometer and took the gearing off and added it to my existing clocks.  I stuck the power drill into the clocks and tested them and got over a ton out of it and the mileage started working again



There is one peculiar problem i get with the clocks. This happened during the summer.   When the clocks are plugged into the car and i prime the ignition the handbrake light comes on etc etc but the oil/temp light sometimes doesn't work.  If i press against the blue plastic circuit on the back of the clocks between the rev counter and the speedo part the temp light flashes, as soon as i let go it stops.  

I thought this could be a bad earth, so i ran a wire from one of the metal pins (that are in that area on the back of the clocks) to earth.  I don't know if this fixed the problem because when i drove the car it started juddering then misfired and finally stalled about 400m from home.
I didn't know why it had stalled so i waited a while got it going again only for it to stall again.  I eventually tried to disconnect the wire and it started up and has run fine ever since!  

How can i fix the temp light problem, and what exactly could i have done to make the car misfire then stall?

I've also bought some ATS wheels from German Ebay.  They eventually arrived Christmas Eve after taking 5 weeks to arrive.  The courier tried to deliver them to Preston, i'm in Devon!!      The snow didn't help!

They are Opal ATS classics in a bad way, but i got them cheap and it was good practice and fun sorting the 1st one out, i'm now on wheel 3 and so over it!

As they arrived:





I toyed with the idea of getting them bead blasted, but went down to B&Q and got some Nitromors and did this





And finally after a lot of sanding, re-sanding and more sanding ended up with this



And finally this



The first was ok, although my masking for the black was a bit wonky so i'll have to redo it.  I've finished two, started sanding one and stripped the other one, so getting there.


When i got the wheels i trial fitted one on the front to see what it looked/fitted like.  Problem!!  It wouldn't fit over the brake caliper, so i've got some 15mm hubcentric spacers to fit and so had to get some stub axle spacers for the rear.


Whilst the car was on the axle stand i noticed the wheel was binding quite badly on the front offside, so i unbolted the caliper and took the carrier off.  I then couldn't get it back over the disc.  



I think the piston has seized, so i am just in the process of following Malcolm's  "build thread"  

http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=46506&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45.

 where he refurbished his calipers.

I've cleaned and repainted the caliper in Hammerite and bought a load of brake grease, Copper ease, new bleed valves, carrier bolt guides and rubber hoses.

From this:



To this:










I also bought a Momo steering wheel and got a cheap boss off Ebay.  The boss was rubbish as it wouldn't fit over the steering column far enough, the hole wasn't central.  So i got a better quality one and it now looks like this



I had to run two wires through the boss to the horn button as there was none in the boss or on the wheel.  So I attached the live to the copper terminal at 6 o'clock in the picture below and managed to run an earth by attaching it to the column itself.



The original steering wheel has the tab that cancels the indicators.  The instructions said that i could detach this from the original steering wheel and attach this to my Momo so i could carry on using the cancellation function but i can't see anyway of detaching it.  Has anyone done this??





And that is about it for the time being!

The wheels should be ready soon, they'll then get some rubber put on them, balanced and then i'll probably get the MOT done and then tax the car.  It'll be interesting to see how it gets on, as it had just been done when i got the car.  Interesting that is as long as it passes with flying colours

Car looooks mint mate. And you have done pretty much everything I have done... I even have the same steering wheel. However I have bbs ra. I cant see any way of detaching the self cancelling indicator thingy either... Think they talk poo

nice progress man, keep it up