My Restoration

It all started with a love affair the first time I saw the car looking back at me from my computer screen.

I saw it and I had to have it……



she has her faults…







But also a nicer side…



But she had one very big problem.  Her hood was a mess, it had to be replaced.  When I mentioned it on here, everyone said "Get a red roof!".  I thought about it, then thought better of it, then after i'd ordered the black hood I phoned up and asked for the Maroon, Mohair of course.

And now she sits proudly in the frost and damp days in her new hood…





Together we've done over a thousand miles together in our short 3 week romance, but that isn't to say that we're not without problems.  The engine is really flat, it's just not pulling at all.  Revs drop when you start the car from where ever they should be held at, say your holding your foot down at 2000rpm, then drop down to 500, then come back up to 2000, then drop down to 500, continuosly, changing every 2-3seconds.

This occurs until she is warmed up, but is a concern, but the lack of power is more concerning personally.

The interior of the car is in A1 condition apart form the front 2 seats, the passenger seat is just very dirty, but the drives one has a hole right through to the metal, and doesn't tilt, so not sure what path I'm going to go down with that, total recover or just buy new seats.

Can anyone confirm this engine.  I have checked the manual thread and seem to think this is a DX engine, can anyone confirm?  I need to make sure I buy the right manual!!



My last pressing issue is the fact that the lights seem so dim.  I have checked and I have the older halogen lights with the metal plates to disperse the light.  Is there an easy converter kit, where I can buy the light housing without the metal shroud and swap them over?  Any help would be appreciated..

If you look carefully at the headlight you should see the big metal shroud in the middle, diffusing my light.



Any help with these issues, or any other tips for me to look out for with this car is much appreciated.  She will be having a thorough tune up soon, so we'll see how the power issues, etc, go.

My last pressing issue is the fact that the lights seem so dim.

You can upgrade the wiring loom to improve your lights have a look at

Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply

Mk1 lights are poor unless the loom is upgraded .

Car looks good , engine is later "DX - 1781 K-jet fuel injection - mk1 golf, scirocco, mk2 golf pre '86" used till last of MK1 cabriolets . It has some later fitted valves etc not present on early examples , so later Haynes manual covering Cabriolet would be good option . Power down ? Maybe agood service would help ?

Cheers…………..

Thanks for the tips..

She's already been serviced, but I'm gonna get a full system clean out done when I get her tuned.  I'm going to flush out the engine and the cooling system, make sure everything is in good nick.

Got it booked in for a tune-up next week.

Keep us posted on here .

Cheers ………………..

Looks sweet, chudd is right lights are poor until you get use to it but the upgrade is well worth it,

Keep us posted on all progress, if you need help im only in Cranfield.

For the power being down that could be a combination of things, timing slightly out, vaccum advance retard on distributor not working properly of split vaccum pipes, blocked gause in breather on rocker cover, dud ht leads, etc etc……….a tune up and good check over might find something simple

To try and cure the eratic idle at start up that is probably the "5th injector" or cold start on the side of the inlet manifold sometimes they dont work properly, check the plug connector and wiring to it, or it could be the fuel warm up regulator on the front of the block not "warming" the fuel? also there is a valve behind the inlet with all the vaccum advance etc and check the connections on that, my sportline was a bit eratic when i got it because the plug had fell off that!!! put it back on and it improved 100%

new cam belt & tensioner, bosch plugs, leads, oil and filters and wd40 on every connector in the bay cured mine  runs sweet as now

Topoftherange said

or it could be the fuel warm up regulator on the front of the block not "warming" the fuel?

Good idea - is that because when the fuel's warmer, it flows more freely and thus burns better?

as it contains a heating element which operates as the fuel passes through it prior to going to the metering head then i would suggest yes, its just like a wax stat on a carb to prevent "icing" but then if you knew anything about high pressure fuel being extremely cold you would have known that surely?

Topoftherange said

as it contains a heating element which operates as the fuel passes through it prior to going to the metering head then i would suggest yes, its just like a wax stat on a carb to prevent "icing" but then if you knew anything about high pressure fuel being extremely cold you would have known that surely?

The laws of thermodynamics tells us that when work is done on a system to raise its pressure, its temperature goes up, not down. And that when its pressure is reduced, the temperature goes down too.

In any case, the heating or cooling effect of the warm up regulator is a red herring here, in terms of the temperature of the fuel. Its the pressure of the fuel which is important, since this controls the mixture. It has a bimetallic heated strip (and a conductive connection to the engine block) but this has nothing to do with heating or cooling the fuel. The strip is not directly in contact with the fuel, its connected to a valve which reduces the fuel pressure flowing through it.

Booked in for a full tune up beginning of Feb (had to cancel the last one), and have ordered some relays etc for the wiring loom mod.

Got to drive back to S. Wales to get the hood refitted, as not entirely happy with it , and going to get some prices on restoring the seats to their former glory, or maybe going for a different finish, not too sure yet.

I'm going to spend this winter getting her running nicely and tidying up inside the car, the outside can wait till she's running sweet and the weather is warmer!!

looks like stunt double to mine with the red roof :wink:

Just a little update..

I've been messed around now by 4 mobile tuners, so have decided to do it myself.  My mate restores cars, he is currently working on a fully back to shell beetle, so he is going to walk me through it.

I've just purchased a Xenon Advanced timing light, and I've just received my Bentley manual.

Thought I'd make a weekend of it, so the plan for next weekend, (this weekend I'm off to Amsterdam, so it will have to wait until I get back), is to:

Sort Timing
Replace Leaking Rocker cover Gasket
Paint Rocker Cover and Timing Belt Cover
Oil and Filter Service
Drain and Flush cooling system (really lovely rusty brown colour  8O , also some blockages in pipe from rad-coolant reservoir)
Also going to check out the Idle Boost Valve, seeing if we can get to the bottom of the fluctuating idle.

Anyway, quick question for you guys..

In the Bentley Manual it says the car has a Catalytic Converter.  This is obviously a US manual, and I thought Cat's weren't introduced until a bit later over here, but can anyone confirm if i have a CAT in my car or not?  Thanks.

Sounds like a good, rigorous service schedule there.

I have an '89 model, with a k-jet 1781cc DX engine in it, and as far as I know it doesn't have a cat on it.  Hope you get your baby going nicely, I've just finished getting all the sugar out of my fuel tank!

Thanks for that Estoril,

I was pretty sure mine didn't have a Cat, but wanted to make sure!

Also just received my dash vents today from Crazy Quiff, going to fit them now…

 

Been working on the car this weekend, nothing has gone to plan so far…

Will post a full update tomorrow, but thought i'd show some roof down pics today..









I'll spill the beans on the drama tomorrow..

it looks really tidy! Is that your Ford?

The Ford belongs to my mate Stu.  He's teaching me about cars.  He's got a Beetle he's restoring at the moment.  

Here's some pics from January of his two cars…



















Another mate has a beetle that needs welding for the MOT so is currently off road.  He is driving round in a VW polo.

Cheers for the pics, haven't seen one around for ages (the ford that is) Takes me back to my 'Street Machine Magazine' reading days! :roll:  

Well as I mentioned yesterday, everything that was planned for yesterday seemed to go wrong.

I'll let the story unfold, it had all started so well….

Here's the engine bay before work commenced:



I had all the things I needed in place to carry out the work planned…



So I started off by adding the rad flush to the coolant, to run in while setting the timing…



And this is where we hit the first problem.  The timing marks on this engine are on the flywheel, which is accessed through the transaxle bellhousing.  This caused 2 major problems:

1 - We didn't have a tool to remove the plug.
2 - Even if we had of removed the plug, there was no way to get the timing light to shine down the hole.  No wonder these mobile tuners never bother to turn up, this is a pain!!

Timing Hole location:



In the end we had to give up on the timing, so I began work on the next part, removing the timing belt cover..



I then set about cleaning it down…



Unfortunately as you can see from the pic, the cover is heavily pitted, so I have decided to replace it, along with the rocker cover.  So the next step was to spray a primer light spray over the timing belt cover, just to give it some protection until I replace it.  

I then dropped the oil and removed the rocker cover.  After messing around with brake cleaner on the rocker cover, I decided not to paint the cover, as it is too poor condition, I will just replace that.  By this time it had now got dark, I was cleaning the inside of the rocker cover, when I stopped concentrating and dragged all the old lumpy oil straight into the breather inlet.  It was 6 o'clock and halfords had closed, so I needed to rush back to mine and get my last can of brake cleaner, and try to repair the damage.

By this time we were working off an old torch which the batteries weree running out on, so I had to replace the gasket and cover in the dark.  I fitted the Timing belt cover, without it getting it's second coat (first Main Coat), and then fitted the sump and oil filter.  This was all done in the dark.  When trying to fill up with oil the torch ran out and I ended up putting almost as much oil over the engine as i did in it.  When we ran it up, there was smoke pouring out from the rocker cover.  I hadn't tightened the nuts enough.  So there was a round of re-tightening and testing.  Then it was back here to bed.

I topped up the oil in the morning, and check the floor, no leaks from the sump or filter, a good start.  I then drove back to my mates house to continue on the car.

Here's a pic of the state of the engine bay this morning after our night rebuild:



So the next stage was to drop the coolant from the engine, as we hadn't got round to doing that yet.  Here's some of the dirty brown contents..



A lovely shot of the water flush chasing after the original coolant tracks:



Then it was on to sorting out the wind noise.  The Bentley manual provides some tips on possible causes of wind noise, and I found adjusting the nuts and hooks that catch the hood in place on the passenger side has now greatly removed most of the wind noise, In fact, it's now door wind noise I am getting, and this is also covered, so will be looking into that next.

I also managed to change the drivers wiper and clean out and aim the jets onto the windscreen properly, so now I can get a lovely clean screen to drive with!!

Overall it turned out OK after what had been a disastrous first day.  But she's good for now, and will keep going.  Going to try a VW specialist to get the timing done, man how hard is this.  Why didn't they just put the timing markings on the timing belt?

soulrider said

Overall it turned out OK after what had been a disastrous first day.  But she's good for now, and will keep going.  

I really was tempting fate wasn't I?

Yesterday while driving back, the accelerator cable came off the back of the pedal.  Today, I got back to the car and I had left the lights on and the battery is deader than a dodo.

Hey, it never rains…