Mk1 Golf G60 YO!

Hey guys,well thought it was about time that i started a project thread seeing as ive been here for years and never did one the last time i made my G60!Heres a quick rundown of my history with her to bring you up to date,the heart ache,the pain and the joy!And then on with the build thread.

I bought my Mk1 about 3 years ago,it was a scrappy 1.1 mis firing to sh!t,no interior and most of the original features gone.Got it from ebay so as you can imagine it wasnt the car that i though i was getting. Never mind,i bought the car with the sole intention of becoming my project car,id got wind that a G60 conversion was the thing to do so i went head first into that with little research haha. Its a bad habbit of mines.

The build took me about 2 years to complete in total due to lack of money and my lack of commitment haha the car was in a lock up miles away and it was just a hassle to get there and work on it.Also the car was a pig to work on as most classics are and it fought me every step of the way.So many seized bolts and broken parts!Everything took 10 times longer than required. This was also the first time id done anything like this so it was a big learning curve!

Anyway i spent about a year and a bit with the car in a lock up,going down maybe once or twice a week making little or no progress.Manged to get the bodywork done and ready for the bodyshop,also had prepd the bay for the G60,uprated the whole fuel system ,all the suspension and the brakes.Fabricated up some tombstone seats to fit in the car,replaced the dash and fitted the rest of the interior.Then one day i got a call from the lock up owners asking me to pack up as they decided that cars were not allowed there anymore.I had a week to get a shift on and finish the car before we were out on our asses!.The looks of everything went out the door and it was just a case of bolting stuff in and getting it weather tight and driveable.Managed to the get it all together and even a few coats of matte black on before we had to leave.

After that i spent a while struggling with the wiring before finally managing to get it running.Only to realise that the last owner had sheared a few exhaust studs in the block,so i spent a ages trying to remove them.As fate would have it that also went wrong and while drilling one out i went squint and fubar'd it up  :x I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to fix it with different solutions before i finally took the head off and sent it to a machine shop to fix and put and insert in.Got the car Taxed ,Motd and took it out for a spin,first drive of course things were going to fail,first the starter wire wasnt making a decent enough connection so wouldnt start,then the gears were needing adjusted so i had to drive home crunching and smoking the clutch,finally it decided to start conking out on the way home.This was all in one trip,coupled with my girlfriend moaning and complaining, id had enough. By this point i was so fed up of the car i decided id had enough and put it up for sale.Not only was the car giving me grief but so was my GF complaining that it would never be finished. Anyway i fixed everything,had it running sweet as a nut(i even considered keeping it) and popped it up for sale. With a low price of £3k i was sure it would sell soon.It actually sold the same night,after a week i realised the guy was having a laugh when he wanted me to send the car down by trailor so he could test it then decide if he wanted to buy it! I think it was up for almost a year with no buyer,had a million offers,plenty of people interested in swaps.Had about a dozen people say they were going to buy and then nothing,no reply's or answer,i even got a deposit from one guy and on the day he was ment to pick the car up his "clutch" went.

So i was getting fed up with this and wondering what to do when my mate decided he was going to start a project on his Glanza and spend the winter turning it into a 300bhp beast,after helping him for about 5mins i realised that i wanted to complete golf and i decided then to take it off the market and finish the car how id first intended.My girlfriend had left me a month or so before this so it was the perfect way to keep myself busy and re kindle my passion for the VAG! So thats a brief trip of my experience with the car so far,heres the build thread!

Anyway heres how we started life,she arrived on a trailor late one night in November and in the morning i went down to inspect my buy:-







Was a bit disappointed but like i say i was ripping her to bits anyway so didnt really matter.

Managed to get a space in a warehouse lock up so i could start stripping:-







Interior was out in minutes as it only consisted of 2 front seats and some spare parts in the boot!

After that enigne was out pretty quick too and i got cracking on the bodywork.

The tired 1.1



Id started my spraypainting and panel beating course the year before so this was my project car to get more experience.Unfortunately haha the car was in great condition,no rust,no bodge repairs,no dents so i just went out filling some small dings around the car,replaced the front panel as the bottom was a bit bashed(im guessing someone was rallying it in a field at one point considering the amount of turf stuck in the wishbones etc)










Off comes the front panel with a bit of grinding       




 And on with the new one



Bit more bodywork and prep going on….




Quick mock up with my lights that came,



Considered fitting a Mk4 polo dash before deciding to stay original…



So with the car pretty much ready for a respray i turned my attention to the engine.After a while on ebay i found this little beaut



Its a complete Rallye engine,90k on the clocks,rebuilt head at 80k,along with stage 4 charger,magnecore leads and polished TB.Set me back a bit but its def worth it!To make all this work in my carb'd car i had to go buy a mountain of stuff!:-

inj fuel tank
fuel lines
fuel pump
Gti gear linkage and gearstick enclosure(ABD short shift kit)
TSR Linkage kit
Gti steering rack
020 gearbox with diff bolts
Gti Throttle cable
mk2 1.3 clutch cable
Gti rev counter cable
Gti Starter
Gti lightened flywheel
Sachs heavy duty clutch
100mm Driveshafts
Wishbones
Whole exhaust(4-2-1 mani with welded in lambda boss, standard middle and supersprint box)
All 4 engine mounts
Radiator
Interooler(Universal from ebay)
IC piping(used the rallye plastic pipe and silicone hose)
Potentiometer(costs like £70 for this sensor!)
G60 Lambda
Suspension(HOT TUNING ALL ROUND,OH YEAH )
Brakes(VX set up with 256 drilled & grooved disks)
E30 servo and MC


Couple pics of the pieces added:-



Quick mock up




Manifold



E30 servo and MC



Little plumbing



Hot tuning and VX calipers with 256 drilled and grooved disks




Engine mount in place with old one still there(found out when fitting the engine you need to remove this for the engine to fit haha,woops)



After getting all these parts and stuff i got a little side tracked and started on the interior.

Always had a thing for tombstone seats so went out and bought these for a nice bargain:-





Fitted them in quick to see how they looked:-





Im thing about incorporating the rear bench into the Mk1 bench,make it a bit different.Will be a job for the upholsterer so ill see what they say.

Anyway to fit the fronts i went about my old Mk2 seats with a grinder.Took the bottom section and ground out the seat pan leaving the sub frame,removed the Porsche runners and welded the frame straight to the mk2 subframe. Then i chopped off the little pin locater on the seat mount welded to the chassis and welded it on the other side to accommodate the Mk2 seats. I think however that im going to remove this soon and replace the sub frame with one for a bucket seat and the sliding mech is much smoother compared to the mk1 set up.

So it was at about this time that i was told i had to get out of the lock up!Panic set in and i had to get the car together and in one piece.

First thing first,get a lick of paint on the car to protect it,went with matte black as i was spraying in about the wost conditions possible and matte paint doesnt show defects as obvious as gloss paints.









Next i got the outside of the car built up,bumpers lights etc.:-



After that it was time for the last piece,the engine!





No pics of the inbetween part etc as i was pretty stressed from what i remember,this was the same day i had to leave haha,anyway car was finished here,sitting waiting for my mate to tow here home.



Got the car home and she sat in the drive for a while as i faffed about trying to finish her:-




So then came the day when i discovered the sheared studds and ended up fckuking one up and drilling squint.After a stupid amount of time trying to fix it with different methods i finally bit the bullet,took the head off and went to a machine shop. 24 hrs later and it was back in my hands with the repair done,you can see the insert on the top right hand stud.It should have been the first thing i did but you live and you learn eh.



It was shortly after this that i decided to sell the golf.I needed a car that i could drive everyday,i was skint and sick of looking at it.Because id had to finish it in such a rush and not been able to get it to the high standard id wanted it was just disheartening looking at it each day.I figured i could always buy another golf.

Anyway i got the passion back about a month ago and realised that i was mad to be doing this,the amount of time and effort ive put into this car,it wouldnt take long or alot more money to get this up to the spec i wanted.

So…………….i begin again,this time in reverse haha

Engine out!


























And whats left is a shed full of bits!!



From here ive just started start cleaning and prepping pieces for theyre  finish which will be with paint or powder coating.More pics to add when i can be bothered haha

good stuff... Keep it coming!

Cheers mate,got plenty more,just takes ages to write all this up and find photos haha

Just browsing some of the projects in this thread and noticed this one, i thought i recognize that number plate and realised that it's my old golf from about 10 years ago, i often wondered what happend to it.

It's a shame to see what state it got into but great to see that its still on the road and being restored.

 Awesome,nice to meet you mate.Yeah was in a sorry state when she arrived but i could see that she had been treated well before that.No rust on the car,no welding or bodge repairs,i guess ive got you to thanks for that haha.Any history you can tell me on the car?I didnt get a thing when i bought her.Looks like it was fitted with a few bits n bobs that have since went missing,ie alarm,wind deflector for the sun roof,all the interior?Did you do anything to her yourself or any old pics?Shes travelled the length of Britain as i got her from up past Inverness!!Who did you sell it too out of interest?

Yeah ive got big plans for her,shell be away for a full respray soon,inside and out,engine will be totally refurbed,full nut and bolt resto ,painted etc,anything that can be painted or powder coated will be and the interior away for a full retrim, new carpets etc so a completly different car.

I bought the car from my brother back in 2001, he had owned it for a couple of years before me. He originally got the car from Universal Salvage Auctions, Sandwich, Kent as a stolen and recovered vehicle.
I must of only owned the car for a year or so before selling it on to someone local and never saw it again.
I've got a couple of old photos of it that i'll have to scan and post up here to show you.

Ace thanks for that,always good to get a bit of history on the car.

Is everyone able to see the last part of the post?Just coming up black on my screen ??

Could only find these photo's you'll have to excuse the boy racer look, i was only 17 at the time :redfaced:

haha wow,cheers for the photos ,totally different car back then.Whoever has had it inbetween must have flogged the interior,took everything down to the last wire.Did the car have the wind deflector for the sunroof when you had it?Trying to replace it but having trouble finding one that matches.

Yea it had the wind deflector, also had MK2 Golf seats. i changed the front ones as you can see in the last photo.
My friend has just told me that he's got a couple of old photos of it that i'll have to dig out.