1980 Mars Red GTI BRMotorsport 142

Love this car so clean and simple

 

Loving the Orange mk1, reminds me of my brothers mk1 scirocco gls back in the late 70s. Loved that car, wished he never sold it. Love seeing yours on here though.

Beautiful looking car. The gold wheels look great with the orange  

Matt

It's finally time to sort the engine bay…



I've enjoyed almost a decade of driving around in a car that looked so straight and clean until you opened the bonnet. MOT time was always embarrassing, and the garage loved to taunt me each time. Took a picture before the engine was stripped to a thousand pieces for inspection. It's not often I feel overwhelmed at a task, but this actually scares me…

That will keep you busy for a bit Ben, how much work does the engine need ?

Look forward to seeing the progress.

mark83 said

That will keep you busy for a bit Ben, how much work does the engine need ?

Look forward to seeing the progress.

It's been a very difficult decision to make around how far, and to what standard I take things to. I've had it at the forefront of my mind for the best part of a year now, and many people will tell you that I've swayed from one end of the spectrum to the other with my opinion. 
I'm happy to sympathetically restore the finish of each and every part under the bonnet without over-restoring them. It sounds odd, but it's the same approach I took with everything else. Many parts are obsolete now, and I'm forced to work with what's there. I'm more content to retain patina and originality rather than immaculate as new components. It's not a show car, and it was never intended as such. That said, it's very easy to sign up and aspire those standards and even assume they're maintainable whilst you drive the thing, but in reality that's too hard for me. The original car was always carefully restored to give an unrestored look, which I should really continue with the engine. As the original motor spec is long gone, I feel more comfortable with minor period upgrades, and a slightly more utilitarian finish. My other S1 GTI will be the stock one, as this car has always expressed my desires around modifying.

So, in short - everything will be restored, and the engine will be fully inspected and rebuilt to ensure a reliable future. Even though it's not an original spec engine, it's probably rarer in that it's a BRMotorsport. Power will stay at about the 150bhp mark, which is more than enough through these early boxes. 

There's a whole load of work going on in the background sourcing things like the correct size over-bored head gaskets and obscure engine parts. There aren't many pics as I prefer the prettier rebuild phase, but we're not quite there yet. 
After the waxoyl and surface rust have been fully and carefully removed we could see the damage extent where the clutch cable hole is. The repair plates are a good solution, but they were never the prettiest. We've decided to replace the whole area with a modified clutch repair rather rather than the usual method of sticking it over the old hole. Also, there's a few minor repairs to make to the metal around the heater box. It's preety delicate around there, and really awkward to work around, but there's been a plate fabricated in the bodyshop that'll do the trick.

 

Heres the plate in its earlier phase. It's a talented man who's made this using traditional bodyshop tools and skill.

The original clutch repair plate has been modified, extended, and reshaped to fit the hole left after the original metal was really too corroded to do anything with. A bit ugly at the moment, but all the correct shapes, plus its strength is there. 







Also, I've been doing some research into the engine specs. 82.46mm pistons were used with a 1.7L Rabbit crank from the US. I've forgotten the exact size but it's around 1850cc with these components. Finding a suitable head gasket proved difficult, but I was eventually steered in the direction of TechTonics tuning in the US who sold them. You never know how long these parts will be available so I bought two gaskets and a spare 1.7L crank! 

Coming along nicely , that's a couple of tricky bodywork  repairs to do.

Bodyshop have made a nice job of fabricating the heater repair plate. 

Cheers Mark. They're really good at what they do, but it doesn't come cheap. 

I've just been to see the car this morning and drop off all the gaskets and little bits that need replacing during the engine rebuild. I thought I'd share a few pics of some of the other cars awaiting attention for one thing or another. The Renault 5 Turbo 2 is one of my all time favourite cars from the 80's. Those with a keen eye will spot the Lotus Europa, and those even keener will see it's the Lotus twin cam version rather than the Renault engine. The Ferrari is a Dino, and as with all Ferrari's they're just a thing to behold. 
























In the background I've been very busy gathering or cleaning all the little bits that make up the engine bay. The original fuel and metering head lines are now either obsolete or inaccurate which leaves a sizeable decision to make. I chose to restore what I had where possible and avoid buying alternative replacements. I researched several different ways of doing this and it was by chance that I needed to clean some tap fittings in my house at the same time which gave me an idea. I was using white vinegar to clean my taps and valves of their limescale build up. A day of soaking in vinegar brought them to an as new condition. So, I bought several bottles and a flexitub. All the lines were soaked for 3 days in vinegar before removing them. It was just enough time to clear all the rust and dirt. They started out really bad, so I was pretty amazed afterwards. 









You'd barely know it was the same hose. 

A quick update as the BRMotorsport block went back into red paint today. Not what you'd expect to see in the engine bay of a S1 GTI, but it's period accurate as that's the colour BRMotorsport painted their engines.














Also, they've had to let a new piece into the top of the scuttle firewall where the scuttle seal mounts. It was pretty rusty and cracked in places. Before he cut the rust out, he carefully braced and clamped the area to ensure it didn't go out of shape during the repair. Getting close to primer now…


 





The parts chosen for powder coating have come back from their acid dip, sandblast, and paint process. In the main they're very good, but I'm not 100% satisfied with the finish on the cam cover as the metal underneath was slightly pitted. I'm having that flatted back and then coated again so the imperfections are better hidden. It's the most prominent component along with the radiator cowling, so the powder coat needs to be right. Like I said though, the rest are great…

Some great work there. Can't believe the difference on the fuel hose with white vinegar.

Looking tidy!

I've been experimenting with citric acid to clean up rusty bolts and bits, wonder if that would work as well as white vinegar - guess I'll just have to give it a try!

Amazing work mate


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the comments.

It's really fulfilling when you reach this point as you know it's coming back together after this. It's the first coat of paint, and there's a few spots to go back and make better, but for the most part it's there. 

Good work! That block is pristine looking.

Thanks for the comments.


The engine bay was painted in direct gloss last week, and as expected, it looked very sharp and shiny as all fresh paint usually does. However, it was a gamble and ended up being a guide coat only really. Sadly, it needed a whole load of flatting back as there was quite a bit of dust flying around in there despite best efforts to blow it all out first. There's so many little nooks and crannies where dust can hide until the spray gun goes near it and blows it all out!

So, after a lot of rubbing it's all dull, but very smooth and ready for paint again…

   And then out of the spray booth again…



There's not much to tell apart in the photo from the top and bottom pics, but the finish really wasn't anywhere near as good on the first time.

I've had some troubles with the alternator mounts of all things. As many of you will already know, VW had an unusual arrangement of two mounts either side of the lower alternator bolt that were secured to the block. These would have a steel insert in a rubber bush. Then the top mount also has a rubber bush with a steel insert. Without major fabrication work there's no getting away from this set up. My top bush and arm didn't exist, and the lower bushes were very worn. The lower bushes are obsolete in the UK and I couldn't find a supplier anywhere. Eventually some came up for sale in Belgium through a VW Iltis enthusiasts website. They posted them out for a very reasonable fee, and that was one half of the job sorted. 
Mark at VW-Classic supplied the rubber insert for the top, but told me the steel insert was out of production and expensive when they were available. We drilled the later alternator arm to crept the rubber bush, and then made our own insert in stainless steel. 

A little update for this week.
The engine is going back together at pace now, and things are looking like I wanted. There's a load of dirty finger marks on the head and I'll degrease it after it's a bit more complete.





Every gasket and seal has been replaced, and there's not a single part that hasn't been inspected, assessed, and replaced or restored. The water pump was an interesting challenge as I wanted to retain the original front casing. When it was split apart it became obvious that the impeller had basically aqua-blasted the internals so they were no longer working to the correct tolerances. I bought a new series 1 pump for its impeller, and then put the original outer casing on a lathe to take 0.5mm off the side which would allow the impeller to work more efficiently with the old casing as it would close the gap. All new stainless steel bolts were ordered and the casing was etched, and sprayed. It sounds like a lot of unnecessary labour and effort as I could have just put the new pump on, but it wouldn't have carried the VW markings or the spirit of the original car.
There's so many little parts that tell a similar story.



The inlet manifold was match ported to the Neuspeed throttle body too. It's basically an enlarged throttle body similar to the Audi 2.2 ones people used, but it's made specifically for the Mk1 rather than the Audi…



Lastly, I succumbed to the zinc plating phobia - just a little…