'83 Golf - (non)BBS Bodykit - Resto Project - (02/01/22)

Might be a while Going to another bodyshop to be re-done next month looking at a few places, main one on the list is iKustoms in northampton.

Alex

aw man that must have been a sore one realising the paint needs done again after thinking it was finished, one of the reasons im gonna tackle the paint myself atleast if im unhappy with the first job i can do it again a fair whack cheaper than taking it to a bodyshop again. anychance you could send me that roof info again when you get a chance mate it would be greatly appreciated, thanks

J1M said

aw man that must have been a sore one realising the paint needs done again after thinking it was finished, one of the reasons im gonna tackle the paint myself atleast if im unhappy with the first job i can do it again a fair whack cheaper than taking it to a bodyshop again. anychance you could send me that roof info again when you get a chance mate it would be greatly appreciated, thanks

To be honest, If I had painted it myself I would have been pretty chuffed! But as its supposed to be a professional job, I expected a lot more out of it. On one hand it's a bit annoying that I wasn't able to pull off a free pait job (maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist and could live with it). On the other hand it was free, so didn't cost me anything (on top of the welding which was fine). It

The worst part is that I was supposed to be taking it to Germany at easter and would have made it if I had got it painted elsewhere in the 1st place…

I'll drop you a pm about the roof later..

Cheers

Alfie

So since I last posted almost nothing has happened! Whilst waiting for my quote to get the car resprayed, from Steve Denton at Stylehaus in Northampton, I decided to move the golf into it 's new home, the garage at my new house which I moved into a few weeks back. Bit hairy with no brakes, or widows lol








I started to give the engine bay a rub down today but to be honest as I no longer have a compressor for the DA sander, I've had to start by hand, which is a pain in the a**





Hopefully I'll have the rest of the bay done tomorrow, that's if my heavily if i can tear myself away from the F1 and my heavily pregnant wife doesn't drop! lol

Alfie

Hi Alfie 
Great work mate.. She's going to look sweet when done.. Love the colour.

Nice colour dude. Good luck with the rest of the resto

Cheers Guys, appreciate the comments, colour may well change now though lol, not sure yet.

Got a bit more of the engine bay done over the last couple of days.. I was originally going to just flat it back to the previous layer (the blue), but I saw a bit of rust about the 2mm wide and thought, well we can't have that can we, and decided to strip it all back to metal!

Well all I can say is, what a total pain in the ar*e, I've seen people say "spent today on the golf" and then show a picture of a completely shiny, clean, stripped engine bay. Smug shites.

I've been using a heat gun to heat the paint, then a scraper to get the big bits off, then wire wool to polish whilst it's still warm, on the harder bits I've used a polycarbide striping disc and a really small wire wheel set for the hard to reach areas. Thought i'd be done by now, but nooooooooooo Oh and Nitromors…. what a load of useless gobshite!

Anywhoo, I'll let the pics do the talking..






Bit further along now but seriously hard work, if anyone has any tips, or have an urge to drop by and finish the job for me, feel free to stand up and be counted lol

Cheers for watchin'

Alfie

Never easy stripping paint mate      You could use a small shot blaster in the bay but then you've got the mess to consider

I've had a similar day to you but with removing the sealer from underneath the car  what a pain lol

Melteddrummer said

Never easy stripping paint mate      You could use a small shot blaster in the bay but then you've got the mess to consider

I've had a similar day to you but with removing the sealer from underneath the car  what a pain lol

That may be my next job lol, not sure I feel it needs doing but may still do it anyway.

May have to get some advise on how you tackled it..  

Good work dude. Good luck with the rest of it.

smudger1980 said

 Good work dude. Good luck with the rest of it.

Cheers Smudger, think I'll need it lol Did a bit more last night, found a real sweet method to get at the smaller areas that requires a lot less effort: Using a heat gun, I've been heating the area for about 10 seconds, and with a lump of wire wool I've rubbing the paint clean off. It leaves a perfectly smooth, clean and fresh looking surface and unlike other methods (wire wheel etc) doesn't scratch the metal in any way, shame as i've been doing in the hard way with a nylon stripping wheel until now, which whilst it's a good tool and also doesn't scratch the metal, is very hard work.

Still a little more work required but a huge chunk is now down!

I was using the heat gun and scraper in one area and heard a crunching noise, like I was going through the metal, I did panic a bit but found that I was actually scraping fiberglass… very strange, peeled straight off though. Turns out it had been used to cover a previous repair:





Nothing major really but will need to get a grinder in there to make sure it's smooth enough to paint over without needing filler.





Here is how it stands at the moment, close.. but not close enough, the work continues!!

Quick vid on a small test area to show you how I've been tackling it. 1st stage is heat gun and scraper, 2nd stage is heat gun and wire wool (5ever from screwfix)


I have been doing around 5-10cm square at a time (the longer you heat it the easier it comes off obviously..sometimes like butter) and managed to get most of the scuttle clean in less than an hour today using this method.











Getting there a lot quicker now!



Cheers for looking

Nice tip matey. Looks like some nice results for you there.

smudger1980 said

Nice tip matey. Looks like some nice results for you there.

Cheers, Just done the same on the other side/back of the rain try and got that down to a nice shiney finish in 40 minutes.

Pics soon!

I know, I know, another post about my engine bay lol!

Unfortuantelly there is just so much work to do on the bay that there are loads of photos lol. Looks like I seriously underestimated the amount of work needed to get this "right".

Continued work on the rain tray area today and made some good progress.

Whilst removing the sound deadening in the rain tray I came across this little beauty !! Bit of a bug*er just because of where it is and how hard it is to get to. I would ideally like to find a replacement piece from a donor shell rather than have to make a piece to weld in.



After a bit of cleaning up with the heat gun and wire wool:



Few shots from the other side, all cleaned up. Again a little present left for me under the sound deadening, at least its been plugged, albeit a little scruffy. I guess not all Mk1 owners are as fussy as me lol!!






And a few of the rear face of the engine guard/tray:





And finally a bit of a clean up was needed, which left me with this!!

Looks like your making good progress.
To be honest that patch in the rain tray doesnt look too major.  I had/ have the same problem with my red car and it was much worse (loooked fine untill you removed the sound deadening).

Yeah good progress mate. Lovely pile of junk left after the hard work

MR_LONG said

Looks like your making good progress.
To be honest that patch in the rain tray doesnt look too major.  I had/ have the same problem with my red car and it was much worse (loooked fine untill you removed the sound deadening).

Cheers, I've managed to source half a raintray piece so will have a good piece of metal to weld back in, which is a real bonus.

smudger1980 said

Yeah good progress mate. Lovely pile of junk left after the hard work

Cheers, to be honest that's only half the junk, Found a whole load that had found it's way inside the car through the variouse holes in the firewall and heater matrix hole lol!!

MORE ENGINE BAY WORK!!

Well I've had a bit of a break after the arrival of my 1st baby boy, Toby!! But not for long lol, I've been on paternity leave for 2 weeks and on the second week, I was able to fit in about an hour a day, to get some more work on the bay done.

Today, I was able get out for about 2.5 hours and spent the entire time working in one area! The area just behind the drivers side suspension turret.

The problem is that it's so hard to get a hand/drill/anything into this area, I would have been better off removing the entire rain tray and refitting after!

Anyway a few more pictures to keep the thread going:







No signs of the end tho lol!

Congrats on the baby!  

Nice work on the bay