My Mk1 Golf GX Project

They're a great improvement Travis, look good on the car too

Hairyarse said

They're a great improvement Travis, look good on the car too

Thank you buddy, cant wait to get it done now! dont want to rush it though haha!

Okay,

so it turns out that I couldn't wait to put the schmidts on, so I put them on my Mk1 Jetta, so I've got to look for new wheels for the golf now



Got the Mk1 out of its cover, and into the garage for some work to be done. Now we can do it any weather!





Started getting the rear valance off, as it was a little rotten



Next is to get it off completely, fix the spare wheel well, as thats also a little crusty and get the new rear valance on

Oh and on another note… I'm now a paid member of the Owners Club 

what colour is it mate? looks amazing

browner01 said

what colour is it mate? looks amazing

Thanks buddy its Papyrus Green LB6V

Nice looking Jetta Travis  

So its been a long time since the Mk1 has had anything done to it, however now that its the new year I've decided that I want it on the road as soon as possible. I have my good friend Lewis pushing me to get it done also, so I got him round to help me out



On the 1st I woke up at the crack of dawn to get some stuff done. I thought it putting the engine in would be one of the best things to get done first, so we got it from in the garage and plonked it in front of the car ready to go in. After a lot of thinking, I decided that I would keep the GTD lump and put that in the Mk1, as it is going to be used as my summer daily drive. All that was needed (or so I thought was the driveshafts going in and the mounts to be bolted on) but its never that easy is it?

So with a buzz gun to hand we set about getting the driveshaft bolts off. The drivers side shaft came right off, but as always there is always one (or two in this case) bolts that are going to stop you! The bolts have probably been tried to be removed previously but the heads are rounded. After a lot of hitting with the hammer it didnt sort it out, so out came the grinder. Finally the bolts were out!

Needs more grease in there!


The next Job was to remove the old Mk2 Mounts and fit the Mk1 ones, which sounds easier than it was. The bolts holding the Mk2 gearbox mount in place were heavily corroded, so the heads got snapped and the box was heated to expand the metal so we could punch the old bolts out. After they came out, we spent a while cleaning the area to get rid of any corrosion.



After this, I found out the drivers side mount that I had didnt fit the diesel lump, so I've got to buy a diesel one. So, after getting stuck and not being able to get the engine after all the hassle, I thought it was time to try the new wheels on 



It will either be run on the Schmidts or these Rota's, whichever are not on the Jetta at the time that this goes on the road! Last thing, I decided that I am going to run the early westy front end. I bought the NOS front grille last year.



Ill update this when the mount comes through and the engine is in! Or if anything else hapens in the meantime.

so much love for this car i thought it looked perfect on the schmidts

where did you get the grill from?
did you get the rear panel off?

I'm voting team rota, they look great  

Matt

browner01 said

so much love for this car i thought it looked perfect on the schmidts

where did you get the grill from?
did you get the rear panel off?

Thank you  Hopefully it will be back on the road soon. Im itching to drive it after no owning it two years and it being off the road for 1 and a half years  I got the grill from US Ebay buddy, had to import it from Puerto Rico, came in the original box and everything!

We got the rear pannel off and have started to rebuild it, I didnt know that I hadnt put that bit up, so here's some pictures  

It still needs the rear lower arches welding back on, but its slowly getting there. And I think im gunna rock the US plates   (after making them fit properly of course!)

pazwaa said

I'm voting team rota, they look great  Matt

Thanks Man! I love the Rota's I have them on my daily polo at the moment, but when the MK1 is back then the polo will be put in storage, so I'll use the wheels for this or the Jetta!

Right, so I've been working on the Mk1 again today, but haven't got any pictures. Hopefully i'll be back out for a few hours in the morning to get a couple more things done.

I got the engine mount delivered to my work in the week, so I thought i would bolt it on and get the lump in today. Again, because its a Volkswagen things never go to plan! I didn't really have a look at the old mounting place so didn't take into consideration the work that needed to be done to get the mount on!

After actually having a look though we found out that where the mount needs to be bolted on is a blanking plate on the Mk2 and where the diesel pump bolts too. So we set to work getting the cam belt back off (after making timing marks of our own) which was really tight! we worked out where we needed to cut the bracket to make enough room for the mounting bracket. We then cut the part off and bolted the mount on.

After that it was just a matter of putting the cambelt back on and timing it back up again. Hopefully there will be more progress tomorrow!

So on Sunday we got the engine in! It wasnt too bad, and didnt take that long.

Back up it went as I had to jack the car up high enough to get the lump under. Gotta say a massive thank you to my cousin Steve for lending me the huge jack, would have had a massive struggle to get it back in if I hadnt have used it.



After putting the engine on the dolly that my Dad made to move our beetle engine about, all we needed to do was roll it under the car and drop it back down, whilst shimmying the engine various ways to get it to fit. Had to take the starter off to get it to clear the front cross member, but that was really as bad as it got



All I need to do now is wire it all up, find a rad and pipe work and get it running, sounds easy right?

Next is to get the front valance on, and weld the dips up for the round headlights.

Great progress so far, looking at your engine bay your top suspension mounts also look past there best, there seems a large gap between the metal top and the rubber. A blue radiator cap is a good idea as the black ones are know to course problems.
 

  Cool car man👍👍
                 Rota vote for me suit the greenness

I cant belive how long its been since i updated this thread!

It's been full steam ahead on the golf over the last couple of weeks, getting it all welded up and getting stuff working! The first Job that I gave myself was to get the motor started, as I bought it in November 2013 and had never heard it running, I was relying on the trust that the guy on the Mk1 caddy forum gave me that it was a good running engine. Well I can say that he was right! it has been sitting there all that time, but she fires!



It needs the pump to be rebuilt as it is weeping diesel out of the throttle body part, but Ill send that away to get done as I really dont want to get involved with taking the pump off and doing it. It was a bit of a nightmare getting it started though, as it was the first diesel that we worked on, but after calling a couple of people up we bled it up and fed the diesel down into the pump instead of letting the pump pull it up. I got a whole Mk2 engine bay loom with the engine, so all I did was plug that into the Mk1 fuse box, along with the glow plug relay and it all worked! The glow plug relay and the fuel shut off solenoid work on the ignition straight away without the need to do any aditional wiring which i was over the moon about.

The next thing on the list to do was to get the front valance on and get the westy grille sitting properly. I thought 'How hard can it be!' After welding the headlight dips up in the valance, we found that the westy grille if taller than the standard golf one… So it was a case of cutting and welding until it worked.





The next thing on the list was the rear end. Again, it was a nightmare because theyre not original parts, so things never fit right, so it took my dad a lot of additional cutting and welding to get the rear quarter panels to fit and the valance to fit to those. After a lot of swearing and getting burnt he did it! So the rear end is done! Along with reworking the rotten flanges on the inner arch. Theres only a minimal amount of welding to go now.









Oh, and how could I not treat her to a pair of Chrome bumpers



Next on the list is to get the rear brakes rebuilt with new shoes and slave cylinders. Then i've got to buy a new diesel tank and get that fitted! Its getting closer and closer to being done

I love this vehicle.
Good job on getting it running, so jealous of the TD.

Front end looks good Travis

ahh man, i used to have one same colour back in the day!

this just looked so at home on the schmidts  they need to be back on  lol

Thank for all the positive comments guys!

I'm going to say it now, that there are no pictures for this update, just for the reason that it all looks exactly the same!

As I said in one of my previous updates, the diesel pump was weeping fuel out of the throttle part, so I went on Ebay and had a search for a Bosh VE fuel pump rebuild kit, and set looking on Google for some guidance on how to do it. I found a link that someone had put up showing the rebuild procedure step by step which was a little scary haha! I had initially decided to send it away and get a professional to do the work until I realised the cost in doing that. It was a bit of a 'How hard can it be?' moment as I set to work doing it. I seeked some advice form a fellow Mk1 Jetta owner who had recently done the rebuild and with his help it is now done and running with no issues. The only other thing that I had to do was to replace the leaky rocker cover gasket.

I have also been busy working at the rear of the car. I had a day off not too long ago, so I thought with the weather being fairly good I'd set to work getting the beam off and replacing the fuel tank, as the other one was pretty knackered. And it was as straight forward as that really. I removed the tank, replaced the fuel lines that were hidden under there, as they were perished (how they didn't cause a massive leak before I'll never know) and put the new tank on.

Next it was getting the rear brakes changed and the handbrake on the passenger never worked, and they were pretty poor. So it was a case of putting the beam back on, replacing the brakes with other parts that I bought off of Ebay, and then putting it back together! Loosening the handbrake cables and hey presto! they all work!

Next job is to look at the exhaust, as the 1.5 exhaust is no good. I've bought a 1.6TD exhaust from the Mk2 GTD car, so hopefully it will be positioned in a better place underneath the car and it will only need a little fettling to get it working!

So it's been another busy couple of days working on the Golf. It's getting closer and I can't wait to be driving in the nice hot sunny weather with the openair all the way open. 

The first thing that I wanted to do was to get it running off of its own fuel tank, instead of a 20 litre Jerry can. Just so if it's needed then o can move it under its own power without the need of a can following it around. The only problem with this is that I bought the wrong tank. I bought the GTI/Diesel tank, where as because the car was originally a carb I should have bought the carb tank. The only differences is that there are two extra outlets on the side of the tank (which are different sizes) for injectiony things, and that inside there is a 'bowl' welded in. The only shop that I could think of that would sell an adaptor for the two fuel pipes was a plumbing shop, and luckily my mate Dave works at one! I have him a quick call and asked if they stocked any and he said they did, but I'd need to go down with the two sized pipes. So a after a quick trip home (and dropping him home on the way back) I had the adaptor and set to work fitting it!





All that was left then was to route the fuel line in the engine bay, which I did this evening! Oh and fill the tank with diesel of course



Only a little smokey!!

I also ordered some US plates because I have gone down the early westy route



Also, I've got another choice in wheel which is ATS Classics! I think I'll be running them for the start, and then get them polished up.

Next to do is to sort the exhaust out