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

Hairyarse said

Best you start a build thread then!    

Agreed, get some pics up!!


Still nothing yet from the paintshop unfortunatelly, i'm hoping that when Spikes finished with this beast that mine may get a look in




In the meantime I've been retrieving all the parts from the parents garage Into to mine. Didn't realise I had quite so much! But happy to account for pretty much every piece





Also managed to pick up a few little bits at Edition 38 at the weekend!

Been looking for this little gearbox inspection plate for some time now, and stumbled across a box with 3 of them in at the auto jumble. Mine was made from an old Vimto can! At a fiver, I should have bought 2!



I've also been on the lookout for a new wiper motor as I put my GTI one in the Mk1 van when that packed in. Got a nice little unit that I've been asured is in full working order for a mere £15.



Not a huge haul of parts but pleased to bits with the gearbox plate as i've been on the lookout for one for ages!

After my trip to E38 in so eager to get mine done I'm like a small kid bursting for a wee! Good things do come to those who wait though, so will just have to be patient! lol

Shame to be losing the Vimto can  

Hairyarse said

Shame to be losing the Vimto can  

Haha it'll go in the box of "how not to fix up a Golf", along with the old paint, a big lump of filler, some shoddy katerham style wing mirrors and the old aftermarket sunroof!

Bit of an update from the paintshop.. Not many pics but gives you a good idea of whats going on









Not sure how far he's got with it, as theres not a full roof shot yet, but i'm hoping that he won't hold back on the photo's!

Damn Alfie just read the whole build , I cant believe your bad luck but massive respect to you for not giving up ! its in great hands now so just sit back relax and let the pros do what they do best mate .

Once its back and you put the grill, lights and bumpers on you will stand back and think to yourself YES ! it was all worth the bleeding knuckles and late nights and hard work !

Cant wait to see this baby finished mate ! 

SANJP said

Damn Alfie just read the whole build , I cant believe your bad luck but massive respect to you for not giving up ! its in great hands now so just sit back relax and let the pros do what they do best mate .

Once its back and you put the grill, lights and bumpers on you will stand back and think to yourself YES ! it was all worth the bleeding knuckles and late nights and hard work !

Cant wait to see this baby finished mate ! 

Must have been fairly painful reading through all that lol, there's a lot of not much going on at times!

It has been pretty tasking! Just little things like taking the car to be blasted and then getting told.. yep that'll be £800 notes please.. BUT..BUT you said… a few hundred quid before .. etc, I've learnt along the way to hold my ground and take it away if I'm not happy (just unfortunately a little too late after the 1st body shop).

I hope it will be worth it haha, I know I have every confidence in Spikes after spending a year looking for bodyshops etc, but after everything that's happened I'm still freaking out about it.. Just want it back now!

Good bit of progress that Alfie! Like Sanj says, it couldn't be in better hands!!

Can't wait for the next update.

Melteddrummer said

Good bit of progress that Alfie! Like Sanj says, it couldn't be in better hands!!

Can't wait for the next update.

Cheers, bud. Got total confidence in the guys at Spikes.. And thats saying something as i'm such a stress head when it come to anything like this (spending money!) lol!

Few more pics of the roof fitted from Andy at Spikes!





Pretty chuffed that I ended up getting the roof done, despite the costs involved! Andy looks like he's done an awesome and thorough job, not just dropping the new skin into the original gutters but actually drilling out all the spot welds and replacing the gutter rails too so that when it goes back together, the roof is exactly as it was supposed to be!

I'm can now be happy that that the lump of filler in the old roof isn't gonna give me grief in the future and f*ck over the paint that's going over the top of it!

Dunno what the next steps for the car are yet, but I guess there will be a bit of down time while he finishes some other jobs before picking this back up.

Cheers for looking guys

Alfie

He's done a nice job on that roof mate. It's not an easy task, especially the guttering, I done a small section of it when I fixed the 'A' pillar, it was a right pain.

Melteddrummer said

He's done a nice job on that roof mate. It's not an easy task, especially the guttering, I done a small section of it when I fixed the 'A' pillar, it was a right pain.

Sounded like a bit of a biatch lol Apparently he counted nearly 400 spot welds!!

Had a chat with Andy today and we're now looking to get the floor blasted, it does mean that the I need to remove the running gear, steering rack, breaks etc so they don't get wrecked.

Soooooooo and I know it's a bit of a long shot (hopefully i'll be able to reach a good number of people here) but I need something to move it around on, either a rollover Jig or a frame with sort sort of dolly wheels on. Either that or some dog sh*te suspension thats ready for the bin that I can have and don't need to worry about getting sand in.  

Anyone Got anything to rent or lend me or at worst for sale…. Help a dubber out!!

Cheers guys

Roof transplant looks great, you must be very pleased  

Matt

pazwaa said

Roof transplant looks great, you must be very pleased  

Matt

Cheers Matt, yeah looks like a top job.

There will be a bit of financial pain attached to getting the roof done for a while (essentially as it was caused by me being a d1ck and losing the sunroof going down a dual carriage way!) but I reckon as soon as the cars painted and I get it home I'll forget about the money and be happy in the knowledge that the cars sound and doesn't have a gash aftermarket piece of glass in it!!!

Small update (as usual!)

Managed to get hold of a pair of rollover jigs from a club member (massive shout out to Anthony Parr! - Ant5), who lives about 30 minutes down the road from me.. Dropped them off to the paint shop on on Wednesday and set about adding some wheels to them so I can get the car moving.

Because I'm getting the underside blasted there are two issues, I don't really want all my brake setup and suspension getting ruined and the paint shop don't really want their nice shiny expensive, adjustable, movable Rollover Jig to get ruined either. I could have paid for the shop to fabricate something for me, but I was asked if I could supply my own too.. which seemed like the cheaper option lol. I've only got 4 wheels on at the moment and have ordered 4 more to go on the other side, so not sure how well it's all going to come together yet, but hopefully it will do the job.

Been looking for this little gearbox inspection plate for some time now, and stumbled across a box with 3 of them in at the auto jumble. Mine was made from an old Vimto can! At a fiver, I should have bought 2!

Not a huge haul of parts but pleased to bits with the gearbox plate as i've been on the lookout for one for ages



those gearbox inspection plates are still available new and are £7.45p

kamikaze cabby said

those gearbox inspection plates are still available new and are £7.45p

Realy? Direct from VW? I did ask at my local dealer but he told me they were discontinued! Will have to have a ring around as a new one would be spot on! Cheers for the heads up!

Alfie said

Small update (as usual!)

Managed to get hold of a pair of rollover jigs from a club member (massive shout out to Anthony Parr! - Ant5), who lives about 30 minutes down the road from me.. Dropped them off to the paint shop on on Wednesday and set about adding some wheels to them so I can get the car moving.

Because I'm getting the underside blasted there are two issues, I don't really want all my brake setup and suspension getting ruined and the paint shop don't really want their nice shiny expensive, adjustable, movable Rollover Jig to get ruined either. I could have paid for the shop to fabricate something for me, but I was asked if I could supply my own too.. which seemed like the cheaper option lol. I've only got 4 wheels on at the moment and have ordered 4 more to go on the other side, so not sure how well it's all going to come together yet, but hopefully it will do the job.

Your welcome Alfie  

Roll over jigs will make your life so much more comfortable  

And top man ant5, very generous  

Matt

Bit more up an update, not quite as much I'd hoped but still, progress none the less.. (bit of a long read but please bare with!!)

After agreeing with the painter to get the underside of the Golf blasted, he quoted me to remove all the running gear, brake and fuel lines etc so it could get blasted.. at £150 I thought that was a fair price and agreed, after a while though his blaster came back and said that because it was a VW the underseal is SO thick that he would need to do some sort of chemical removal first before blasting otherwise it will either bounce off or knacker the floor! So on top of the £150 I was quoted another £600 to strip and blast the floor plus transport plus any refit and painting of the underside.. I was looking at nearly £1000. I was never originally intending to paint the underside the same colour as the car but after seeing a few recently I thought it would be "nice" lol.. Well not £1000 extra on the build "nice", Despite these prices generally being the going rate,..

So after deciding that I'm not going body colour underneath, I went to go get the car, remove the running gear and check/re-protect the floor of the Golf myself and deliver it back to the painter on 4 wheels..

Car back at home and then tucked up in the garage:











I then started the painful task of lifting the car onto the rollover jig, spent nearly 5 hours doing this, I was using axel stands, jacks and blocks of wood, only to almost drop the car back on the floor! Not as easy as it looks! Wasn't until 4 hours in that I found an old engine hoist in my dad's shed which made life so much easier!








Got the rear beam off… was pretty easy apart from having to cut the brake lines (seized nut on the brake line end)



Rear brake setup rather dusty from the original painters! This will need to be sorted!!



Used the engine hoist to help turn the car over by myself, worked quite well!





Took a look under the car and at first glance the underside looks pretty damn good! Really happy with it..








 
There is however a number of areas of surface rust on the rear chassis rails/legs.





 
Started the arduous task of removing the main sections of under seal, despite looking pretty good there were a number of small areas of surface rust that needed to be sorted.

This is how it looked after 3 hours..



Gave it a bit of a clean up



Then started on the chasis legs.. these were not so easy and to be honest look like it may take some time..

I've used some Builthamber Deox Gel to kill off some of the rust and then cleaned up with a wire wheel! Will need another coat of Deox Gel and more work with the wire wheel, then I'll have to decide what to prep it with..







I'm looking at maybe por 15 or Epoxy Mastic 121 on the bare metal but as I've managed to keep the origianl factory printer in tact, I should be able to put the underseal directly onto the finished surface.

Nothing I've found comes even close to the original really thick rubber sealant other than the 3M bags (at like £20 each). I've have heard that you can get the original thick ruberised VW stuff but no idea if it is exactly the same..

Original VW Stuff:



3M stuff:



3M also says you can also get it in a spray can too!

Any tips or tricks on what to use would be great!!!

Hard work getting the car on the spinning frames, even harder getting the stuff of the bottom of the car  

You're making good progress though, well done  

Matt

Tel me about it Matt - As soon as I found the engine hoist though, eveything just became so much easier! I can turn the thing one handed now..

Spent an hour yesturday rearward of the main floor pans and am focusing my efforts on the rear chasis rais and cross member - the good news is though that it's only superficial surface rust and seems to be cleaning off fairly well…

Not much has changed but always nice to have pics!







Hopefully spend a bit more time on it this week as I need to get the rollover jigs back to their rightful owner fairly sharpish!

Alfie