My '83 Gti Tintop

OK guys, first update for you all.

The brakes on the Mk1 have never been very good, as most people wil know. The previous owner had already carried out the 16v front disc, servo and master cylinder upgrade but the pedal just didnt feel very responsive at all.

I purchased a mk2 16v setup from a member on SVAG, however the discs were badly corroded and pads were knackered so they all went in the skip and ive since ordered new genuine VAG discs and pads from my work. Ive also ordered backing plates, new caliper bolts and wheel bearings aswell.

Last Saturday i set about cleaning up the calipers and carriers in preperation for paint. This is what they looked like when i first got them:



Using an airtool with several different wire brush heads i mananged to get the worst of the rust removed and now they are ready for paint. This is a comparison to show one clean and one still rusty.







I dont have any pictures of the calipers and carriers once i had actually painted but i just went for the safe option of hammerite black  

Then yesterday i set about actually carrying out the conversion.
Picked my mate up at 7.30 so we could get an early start on matters. Was meant to leave the car in work on Friday night and soak all the nuts and bolts in release but totally forgot bout it so was dreading removing everything. Thankfully, everything came apart easily

First of all, as Nicky was dis-assembling the rear shoes i set about fitting the Goodridge hoses to the front. Was pretty straight forward, no real problems at all and managed it relatively quickly.



Once the rear shoes were off i cleaned up all the years of corrosion and road muck from the rear axle and began to about assemble the n/s/r set-up.



Backing plates and stub axle fitted



Caliper carrier's, calipers, discs and pads all fitted



Finally, we fitted the Goodrige hoses to the rear. Fortunately we didnt have to make any new brake pipes, all the original ones were in good condition and none of them broke or snapped trying to remove the old flexis.





Dont have any pictures of the 16v handbrake cables but they are not very exciting and im sure everyone knows what they look liked anyway. Once the handbrake was connected and adjusted we bled the brakes 3 times and all i can say is…….. what a difference in my pedal. Before i used to have loads of travel before the pedal seemed to bite and my handbrake was always rubbish. Now i have brakes pretty much as soon as the pedal is depressed and the handbrake holds strong with only 2 pulls/clicks up.

Im well impressed with the braking of the car now, i have alot more confidence in the brakes and even my gf now feels safer when she is driving the Golf aswell.  

Next up, fitting the 4 branch manifold, ported inlet manifold and Audi 2.2 5pot throttle body  :twisted:

Nice work. Do the rears lock up at all?

We checked for that in the workshop but i could only get the fronts to lock up. However we didnt have a great deal of room to build up speed so i might try it on a quiet road and check to see if the rears actually do lock.

What makes you ask?

Well this weekend i finally got around to fitting my 4 branch, Audi 5 cylinder throttle body and ported inlet manifold. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batterys first thing Saturday morning so i have no pictures at all.

First of all i had the problem of trying to get my 4 branch to fit. It had a flanged end and i couldnt fathom how to get it to fit my centre section sleeve.

A quick phone call to a man who knows a man and i managed to purchase the correct connecting piece that comes with the manifold when purchased new, only cost ?20 including postage.

By the time i finshed work on Saturday morning, Nicky, whos a tech at my work, had already removed my inlet manifold and exhaust manifold, and had the 4 branch fitted. Exhaust is going to need a slight modification though as the connecting piece appears a little to big and the exhaust sticks out from behind the car further than it used to, so we'll remove that again tomorrow and trim it down to size.

It was then just the case of fitting the inlet manifold and piecing everything back together. No matter what we tried, we couldnt get all 6 of the manifold bolts to secure, only the 3 on the right hand side appeared to be going into the holes. At 4pm yesterday, after alot of swearing and many scraped knuckles, Nicky had enough and decided to call it a day. We went back to it today and noticed the problem straight away, the new inlet manifold casing was slightly thicker than the other and was fouling the 4 branch once in place. A little trip to the grinder and problem was solved, inlet manifold slotted in nicely.

Once it was all bolted together and all hoses refitted, we decided it was time to turn the key, started first time but was running terrible and misfiring. ON closer inspection we noticed that 2 of the HT leads had snapped in the dizzy cap. I suspect it happened when me and Nicky were climbing in the engine bay trying to get the manifold on.  :bang:  :bang:

So tomorrow i have to order up another set of HT leads (just bought these ones in march) and a new dizzy cap. Once these are fitted and the exhaust is sorted, hopefully i'll get to take Lauren for a wee rip and find out if this weekend has made any difference   :?

Today didnt really go as expected.

Ordered a new set of Bosch HT leads and dizzy cap but for whatever reason the main HT lead that goes into the middle of the dizzy was far too short. So ive got another set that should be arriving tomorrow and hopefully they will be the right ones

I managed to borrow a set of leads from one of the techs in my work and we got them fitted so at least the Gold starts and runs. We also got the exhaust trimmed up and now it fits perfectly, but…….. one of my exhaust rubbers broke so the exhaust is now rattling like a b4stard at idle :x

More importantly, i'm slightly unsure what do with this pipe.

The large rubber pipe that comes from the back of the Audi throttle body. The original TB had a blanking screw in a similiar sort of hole but i cant see how the blanking screw will fit in this TB as the hole where the pipe connects to isnt threaded. So we left the pipe in place and started the car without the bolt in the end (as pictured above) Revs were sitting about 700 - 800 at idle but car seemed to go well on the road. Fitting the screw brings the revs up to 1k but car doesnt seem to go aswell once out on the road.

I have a mobile tune up van booked to come out and fine tune Lauren now ive added these additional parts, but i'd like to get everything right before the guy comes out. My question is, what do i with this rubber pipe that seems to attatch to nothing  :dontknow:

fvf217y, Your car is comming along nicely fair play to you,
Where did you get the new heat shields / backing plates for the rear axle?

Cheers mate, i appreciate your comments.

Got the new heat sheilds straight from VW. I work at a retailer so i got quite a good discount on the parts for rear disc conversion including the backing plates.

They are Mk2 16v shields that i ordered against my mates 1989 chassis number. Think they are about ?15 each

cool thanks tought they cant be got genuine any more