My Sportline Cabby! New pics today, lookin' schweet!

Apologies for starting a new thread but I kinda got in a huff one night and deleted most of the last one :redfaced:

This is my Sportline Cabby as bought from GavVR6 in September



First jobs were to sort out the dreadfully high clutch pedal &  shagged gearchange. Clutch was easy, it just needed the cable adjusting. The gearchange took a bit more time and money to sort. I opted for a rosejointed setup from VWHeritage, expensive but should last my ownership of the car! It's now much nicer to drive but then showed up the car felt a little vague. Again VW Heritage supplied a Bugpack full polybush kit. I replaced the front arm bushes, the front arb bushes, steering rack bushes, rear beam and rear arb bushes. I also replaced front & rear engine bushes. I opted not to use the additional side engine mount bushes as it had already increased cabin noise and didnt want to increase it any more. I think in the future I may replace them with something a little more compliant.

At this point I turned my attention to the interior, the glovebox had cracked around the hinges so I sourced a replacement off e-bay. This meant removing the dash completely. I then removed the old glovebox by dremelling off the plastic lugs. Before the new 'box was fitted I bonded in some aluminium on the back to take the load of the hinges so as to prevent it from cracking again.




The glovebox was fitted back into the dash with araldite.







I then got another few weeks use out of it until I started to think about suspension, I have some wheels on order, 15X8 Fifteen52 Snowflakes and want to be able to set the stance right when they finally arrive. (Supposedly arriving with Fifteen52 in USA next week and should be with me by the end of the week)
I opted for mid-price coilovers, a set of Spax RSX's. Whilst doing this I thought I may as well do all the wheel bearings, I know one rear had an advisory for the last MOT and one of the fronts had a nasty whine at about 60mph. The cost of the bearings is so cheap I decided it best to replace all four at the same time.
So, last Thursday I set about fitting the Spax RSX kit. I have to say Spax have really upped their game, I'm very impressed with the quality of their kit, much better than they used to be.

Ive set the car at a reasonable height, it will settle a little more no doubt so may end up raising the rear a little so it sits level.

Oh and you may notice another addition, my new rego! Been after this plate for a while and finally got round to it. It goes well with my other plates, got Y2 PER on my Focus RS MK1, and Y3 PER on retention ready for my Mk2 FRS. The plate cost me a lot more than the car but it really suits it I think.





Onto this week and a booze trip to the Co-op Sunday night left me stranded as the car cutout on me. I managed to roll into a bus stop and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to get it going. I eventually called the missus to come get me in the Volvo, but whilst on the phone it started so I booted it off home. It cutout briefly a few times but I got it in the garage ok.

Next day I removed the dash again, (getting good at it now, took about 35 mins from dragging the car out of the garage to dash upper & lower being on my garage floor.) I'd always had reservations about the Cobra alarm & immobiliser and as I planned to replace it with a more modern unit I decided to remove it if only to discount it from suspicion. A couple of hours later and it was out with all interupted wires safely soldered up and heatshrinked. I connect up the dash and tried to start it. It started straight away, but after 30 seconds I heard a relay spaz out and it cut out. I eventually worked out it was the fuel pump relay, on removing it a small lump of solder fell out. I checked the relay over and it appears to have overheated around one of the pins, also looked like a dry joint on another so I soldered that up. With it back in it seemed to be OK but I decided to order a new one from GSF. Ordered Monday arvo and it arrived this morning. So far so good, been using it today with no problems.

Last night I had the dash apart again, in my hast to get it back I hadn't correctly connected the speedo and there were no dash lights. A quick check with a multimeter showed power on the connecter, once plugged in and give a hefty shove dash lights were restored. A drive up the road showed speedo now working as well.

Whilst under the bonnet I notice the top rad hose was looking a bit sorry and a squeeze indicated it was past its best, it's gone all soft at the engine end. As I want a relaible car I've ordered a full hose & ancilliary kit with stainless hose clips from Crazyquiff, along with a pair of std rear lights (really hate tinted lights!) and a new dizzy cap and rotor arm. They can't come too soon as when I took off the cap to check it, the spring holding the centre carbon had corroded down to about one spring loop so it fell out. I nicked one out of my Escort RS to keep it going in the meantime.

Future plans include a new electric aerial, maybe some chrome side trims & handles. I also plan on getting the rear arches re-painted along with a few small dents repaired. I will get the arches trimmed/rolled back at the same time

Anyway, that's enough for one night and I hope you all approve of my mods! I'll get some more pics up over the next few days hopefully.

Looks sweet mate, black motors always suit the chrome bits imo.

I liked the looks of the wheels it came on.

Did you fit the new linkage as I have a gearbox to get refurbed and have bought a standard linkage kit for it at the same time but was looking to get a better one and saw this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250900539820?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

Nice one if you are going to change the wheels i'm interested if you want to sell them just send me a PB

for the rest nothing to complain about i have the original rear light clusters but ordered the clear/red hella light clusters  so yeah everyone has his likes and dislikes

The fuel pump relay overheating is a sure sign that the fuel pumps are drawing too much current.
The wifes Sportline had the same problem, only it had gone much further and corroded the contact in the fuse box itself.
Sure enough not long later the lift pump gave up the ghost. The main pump was very noisy as well.
Just something to look out for if the new relay starts to show signs of getting too hot.

lhasadreams said

The fuel pump relay overheating is a sure sign that the fuel pumps are drawing too much current.
The wifes Sportline had the same problem, only it had gone much further and corroded the contact in the fuse box itself.
Sure enough not long later the lift pump gave up the ghost. The main pump was very noisy as well.
Just something to look out for if the new relay starts to show signs of getting too hot.

Ah, makes sense. I wasn't aware there were two pumps. I assume one is located inside the tank, where's the other one, near the rear beam somewhere?

Yea, one inside the tank called the lift pump, you get at it from under the back seat - about £25 to replace with a new filter on the end of it.
The other is under the drivers side near the rear axle, has two wires going to it - about £120 to replace - the pipes to it can be corroded though, so it can become a bigger job.

They unified the fuel injected and carb fuel tanks in the cabby from 84 onwards, hence the old way of gravity feeding the main pump off the bottom of the tank could no longer be used.

Massbad69 said

Looks sweet mate, black motors always suit the chrome bits imo.

I liked the looks of the wheels it came on.

Did you fit the new linkage as I have a gearbox to get refurbed and have bought a standard linkage kit for it at the same time but was looking to get a better one and saw this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250900539820?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

I really like the BBS RM's it came on but they ran stretched tyres which I'm not really into, plus the rear tyres had suffered badly from hitting the rear arch. They're currently stashed away in my garage. I've had a few interested parties but until I decided what to do with them I held off. I've been looking at various wheels options as a second set to the 15" Snowflakes I've ordered and these crop up from time to time, when they do they always look stunning so I've decided to get them refurbed but change the dishes to get them to sit better in the arches.

I did fit the new linkage, took a couple of hours and requires a grinder as you need to remove the ball-ends from the old linkage. I plan to add a short shift to it as well in the future.

Northpole said

Nice one if you are going to change the wheels i'm interested if you want to sell them just send me a PB

for the rest nothing to complain about i have the original rear light clusters but ordered the clear/red hella light clusters  so yeah everyone has his likes and dislikes

See above, decided to hang onto the wheels and get them refurbed!

I dont mind the different tail-lights as such, it's more that mine were home-tinted. I quite like the clear/red ones tbh!

Lhasadreams - Thanks for the info, seems the lift pump is cheap enough but the main pump is expensive. There's a sytec pump on t'bay for about 65ish iirc but I would prefer a genuine Bosch pump, I know a Bosch dealer so I'll give him a try.

The car is doing its best to annoy me, I went to drive to the Post office to cash a tax disc in, it started to rain so I put the wipers on, two wipes later and the drivers side stopped whilst the passenger side carried on. I'll drop the linkage out over the weekend and see if it can be repaired, otherwise I;ll be on the lookout for a s/h item!

Bloody Veedubs, about as reliable as Fords lol!

Wipers now fixed, I just went into the garage ready to remove the motor & linkage, I went to remove the drivers side wiper arm and found the securing nut was loose  :? , tightened that up, checked the passenger side and that was loose too. Both tightened up and absolutely fine!

Think I'll give it a hoover out whilst waiting for my Crazyquiffs delivery

 :mrgreen:

Just dropped it in for an MOT, hopefully will fly through! Only doubt is regarding the emissions, it's a '93 but has no Cat or Lambda sensor? It was first registered in Jersey and wasn't imported into the UK until 2003 so maybe that makes a difference.

A few updates are due, I took it for the MOT, everything was fine, no advisories but it failed on the emissions. I discussed the no CAT with the MOT guy and he showed me his list he works to, the DX engine is not in the list so it goes through a no CAT fitted test. Which it failed on the CO being too high. I took the car home, ran some injector cleaner through, got the 3mm allen key to tweak the mixture and took it back after a good thrashing to run through the cleaner. Even though the emissions hadn't improved much it passed as the system had changed the pass level to 4.5% CO. MOT guy couldn't understand why but you can't argue with a machine so it got a pass.

Last week I noticed some of the water hoses were going soft and starting to swell so  I replaced them all with a set of black silicone hoses from Crazyquiffs. I also fitted a new dizzy cap & rotor arm.

This week I turned my attention to the interior, namely the boot. When I got the car it had a twin 12" bassbox & amp in the boot. It weighed a ton and made access to the spare wheel almost impossible, plus there was no room in the boot for anything else so out it came!

Cat taking advantage of a new sleeping location!



Now the question was what to replace it with. I looked through my loft and found some stereo gear I had in my ZR160 some years ago. The plan is to run 2 X 12" Infinity subs with a Genesis Profile Sub Amp to power them. It runs at 500W RMs into 2 ohms. The front and rear speakers will be powered by a Genesis Profile 4 amp.

I spent a few evenings sketching up potential designs befoer settling on the pair of subs mounted behind the rear seats both in their own individual sealed enclosure. As they only require just under 17litres each it is the most efficient use of the already small boot space.

Planning the sub location



Marking out the mounting ring



First hole with mounting ring glued in place.



Both mounting rings in place.





Location in car





Setting up the router guide on the parcel shelf



Parcel shelf sides routed to size





Will hopefully make a bit more progress tomorrow, should get most of it finished.

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing what you do with the boot install. I had the same dilemma regarding retaining space in the boot with amp and subs and still getting to the spare wheel.
Got there in the end though!
Keep up the good work…

Nice to see my old sportline has gone to another vw enthusiast.Would have loved to do what you are doing to the car but funds wouldn't allow.I'm going to keep an eye on your thread and look on in envy!I was hopeing Gavinvr6 would have given me first option on a buy back but he may have lost my number.Good luck with the car and i'll look forward to the updates.

i can see that this is going to be a good thread .

good work

New wheels finally turned up today, gonna drop them down to get a new set of Toyos put on and will hopefully get some pics up later. I reckon it might need a bit of arch surgery to fit them properly but we'll see!

look forward to seeing the pics :-)

A fwe pics of the boot build taking shape.











Build in place, from inside it looks pretty standard. I had to split the parcel shelf as it can't be manouvered into place in one piece.



Seats down-



Inside the boot-





Access to spare-



Access to both rear lights-





Overall I'm very pleased with the build. I've also replaced the front speakers with some Infinity components and combined with the subs sounds pretty good, the 10's give a nice solid bass without being just pure noisemakers like some subs. The only thing I'm disappointed with is the cloth, the local supplier f***ed me about, the cloth the boot floor is in is perfect but the second lot I got did not match and actually is so thin in places you can see through it. I'll take the lot out and recover it when it warms up in the new year.

Next up, WHEELS!!! The Snowflakes turned up and the Toyos were waiting to be fitted. I've just stuck two on one side to get the idea and check fitment. They're 8X15 ET30, I thought there would be a slight fitment issue on the front coilovers but they fit perfectly. There's about 5mm clearance between rim & shock body. I'm going to take off the plastic arches and give the steel underneath a little trim up so I can run it slightly lower at the front.





I'm really pleased with the wheels, well worth the 3-month wait!

Great job in the boot, if you ever have time on your hands you can come and do my Sportline the same, what beer do you drink  :wink:

Wheels look fantastic as well you must be delighted

Cheers Chris

Fantastic boot build.Your doing a cracking job.I think it's time i started looking for another Sportline!!

Not had my car for a month or so, I took it in to get a few bits on the bodywork sorted out. Initially it was just the bumpers, skirts & arches but once there I decided to get the whole car repainted. I saw it on Friday, it's ready for pickup and looking stunning. I will be picking it up on Monday so will get some pics up once it's home!

Picked up the cabby from the bodyshp this arvo, spent the rest of the day putting it back together. I'm dead pleased with it! I need to order some side trim clips and clips to hold the boot badges on. Also i'm gonna drop the front down a little bit more. I've also had the BBS RM centres powdercoated so may build those up depending on how wide I want them. Pics to come tomorrow.