My GX, front end rebuild.

Well folks the time has come for me to get off my butt and fix my mk1.

I got it December 2006 from a guy down in Peterborough. It was the first car I bought and I went down to see it on my own then went to pick it up the next week with my dad giving me a lift. So driving up the A1 with my dad behind me I was dead excited until I heard the dreaded thunk of rubber against the bulkhead and my battery light went on. So me and my dad had to drive round Grantham to find a parts place for a fanbelt, leaving the golf at the side of the road. Found one and fitted it then drove back home to Leeds, all in freezing fog.

Here's how it looked when I got it.











Nice isn't it. Got it for ?350 with a fresh MOT and no tax, I was made up.

So at some point over the next few months it got a single light chrome grill and some cheap coilovers and it got slammed. It also got some mk2 golf OE alloys but the tyres got eaten by the front arches even though they weren't that wide and had the correct offset.

I drove it for just under a year then it came off the road for a resto. That never happened. I got a near mint low miler mk2 in that time then a cracking Passat estate. But after a while with no progress on the mk1 and the passat just not exciting enough the mk1 came out of the garage. It also got some new wheels, Corrado estorils with the laquer stripped off and inserts painted black.

At some point my exhaust got pulled apart at the joint just under the front seat, it kissed the top of speedbumps so the joint got worked loose. Thankfully it happened halfway across the work car park and not on the 300 mile trip to Suffolk I was setting off on! Anyway a mechanic saw me struggling and said I could use one of the pits as it was a quiet Saturday afternoon.





That's a bus pit, there was about 2 inches of tyre on either edge and I had to get over the huge brake rollers at the front of the pit, it was quite an experience.

Here's it on the mk2 alloys and stock steels. It occasionally acquired some bodywork repairs which were covered with satin black so it got rather patchy.



The coilovers eventually got raised to save tyres and exhausts and make it easier to get on and off my hump-backed drive.

I did various mk1 meets in it including a couple of the Buxton/Cat and Fiddle meets which were brilliant days out.

All was good for the next 6 months as I enjoyed using it as a daily and save a dodgy alternator and a couple of fan belts has not let me down, even though it does get a fair bit of hard driving.

Then last December disaster struck and I went off the road in sheet ice on my way to work one morning. I was well gutted, here's the original thread with pictures of the acident:


http://www.vwgolfmk1.o…highlight=a37+lew&start=0


And that is how it stood for the last year covered up on the drive.

Due to some fairly recent unwanted attention from some chaps in a scruffy transit pickup and my scirocco needing to be taxed or sold and a regional meet where I was following kev's nice black 16v GTI all day I've finally got round to working on it.

I've some time off work this week so I'll hopefully be able to get most of it done. Last week I change the wishbone and found out that the lowe mounts and frame ends ae not knocked around and the damage isn't as bad as first thought.





A nice rust free inner wing, just what we like to see.



New section.



Over the year I got various bits including a bonnet with some running gear and various bit of glass which have since been put to use on another member's car. I got a nice cheap front chassis leg/battery tray/inner wing section that another forum member kindly pointed out to me and the same forum member even let me have a nice front panel from a car he broke. :y:

Anyway, today i started on stripping the front panel off, after taking off trim and loom and wrestling off the wing (forgot how much sealer there is on them) I got to the first 2 spot welds then the rain started.

So there we are a nice potted history of my car and a little bit of good news for those on here who have met me and A37 LEW.

good to see some pics of the car you were talking about at the meet the other week dave. hope all goes well with rebuild/repairs. have you all the bits to repair it completely?

nothing better than a good story

sure you'll have it fixed in no time

are ou going the weld the whole inner wing in??

 :y:

can't believe it's nearly been a year dave  8O

let me know if you could use some indoor space…

Cheers Kev, I'm gonna need all the luck I can get, it's the biggest thing I've taken on yet. I've got a full front panel, bonnet and a few bits of trim that I need. I've taken the rad off and it's a bit crusty so I'll probably be getting a new one but other than that I've got all the bits.

Jelly, I've not fully decided on how much of the inner wing to replace. It's pretty crumpled in front of the wheel well and behind that there's a more gradual curve to the panel, I'll do some measuring from side to side tomorrow and see how far out it is then decide.

I know John, it's a bit mad, I guess time flies when you're having fun. I'd love a nice cozy indoor unit but I'm kind of commited to doing it this week on my drive, that and getting it over will be a royal pain in the bum. That and if it's all the way over your way I'll probably do even less work on it, I might get one of those three sided gazebos from Argos to go over the front end and shield me from the worst of the elements.

hadn't thought of the issues of getting it over!

have a full set of body hammers and dollies if you need any to reshape the remainder of your inner wing as opposed to replacing the whole lot, in leeds tomorrow as well.

Hey John, cheers for the offer, I've only just seen it now so I'll bear it in mind and have a little trip over to yours if I need them.

I didn't get anything done on the golf yesterday as it was pretty wet all day and I was onto drilling and grinding and I don't really fancy acting as an earth for 240V. :roll:

Got my van fixed though so not all bad.

Today's task was to get the front panel off, I went pretty slowly but I'd rather get it off without butchering anything else on the car or myself for that matter.





That's the outer skin of the front panel off but seeing as the lower bar/crossmember was fairly rusty and a bit bent at the end it came out as well.





Close up of the front chassis leg, I'm fairly confident that the end has creased itself just after the bumper mounts and left the rest of the leg intact.

And just because I haven't put it up yet, the wishbone that thankfully took most of the impact and stopped the floorpan and frame horns getting damaged.

Yikes thats a LITTLE bit worse than mine..  





I think my chassis leg is ok though, wishbone is straight ( ignoring that little knock in it that was there before the crash ! - drove it home in fact..   8)

Looks like you're going to have yours fixed up in no time.  

Well I thought I'd give the thread a little update seeing as I've got a weekend of working on the mk1 now it's a little brighter and I actually had a weekend off work.

Gold-mk1: it is a little worse than yours, still no a nice thing to happen to your car. :?

How the weekend started





So out comes the angle grinder and started off cutting the chassis leg just in front of the gearbox mount. Stood there looking at it and thought, that'll be a lot easier with no engine, I'll 'just' take it out.





Unfortunately, when I got it off I realised the rail was rippled on the bottom edge pretty much all the way down and very pitted so, deep breath……and….cut





It was at this point yesterday we had a little shower so I packed up and just putting the tarp on was wondering what exaactly I'd done.  8O

Anyway, got up today and cracked on, no pics 'during' but it's pretty much measure, cut, measure, offer up, trim, offer up…….

I used measurements from my Bentley manual to keep it square using the bulkhead and opposite chassis rail as a reference. That front bar is actual 903mm long, the distance between the inner edges of the chassis rails, welded in place to stop it all moving. I had a top bar through the wing bolt holes but took it off when I'd finished welding.

The end of today:



I'll be removing the remnants of the red front panel but left it there to stop things moving when I was welding.

Slow, but progress.