Lhasa Restro Project

Well back in July 2007 I bought my 83' MK1 Lhasa Green Gti. Kind of jumped in feet first without doing my home work, just liked the car so much I had to have it. Although it had an mot when I got her, I thought it would just be one or two simple things and she'd be properly road worthy again, I was wrong. I started to strip out the back and found quite a bit of the old tin worm. As I have come to find out the through looking through peoples projects the usual issues are evident with mind, spare wheel well, rear inner arches, rear axle mounts etc ..  although not as bad as some I have seen. So after the car being moved from one garage to the next and it always being far away from where I was living due to uni, I now have a house with a garage attached to it so its just next door. So after 6 months of it sitting in the garage, and after going to the 2009 gathering and seeing all the beautiful cars there, I have decided to make a proper start on her.

So here are some photos

When I got her




Some of the issues to deal with






Now up on axle stands and most of the interior gone.


Rear axle came off rather easy, properly because it was soaked in WD40 for a couple of days before hand. Exhaust off, fuel tank and filler pipe off.


Thats as far as I got today, tomorrow is time for a proper inspection and maybe even apply the angle grinder to it. My skills aren't the best so this is going to be a huge learning curve, so any help/suggestions the people have will be greatly appreciated

looks like alot of work there mate

i've had to deal with alot of your problems as well but nice one for taking on the job

Cheers Jelly, have been watching your project thread and its really helped me visualise what I have to do to mine.

Well only done a couple of hours this morning, some underneath shots

Passenger side mount
 

Drivers side


Hole in the drivers side Arch with a little bit of a clean up



Where the fuel breathers come through
 

Hopefully be finding out what I've done with the gas bottle key and I can start chopping bits out and welding some new in, but not till Friday.

barwell ain't to far from me mate so need any help then drop me a email

good work

ok, so after having it stood on axle stands for the last couple of years, with being a little lazy and having to save for a wedding, fix my other cars I'm now in a better position to get back on it. So I thought I'd start with a easy repair, the rear seat belt mount. Well after a lot of filler, (PS any way to get filler off whitout getting everything covered in lots of dust, as grinding it off at the mo.) there was a previous repair and the rust went into the top area where the fuel filler goes and I cant get in with tools so I decided to replace the whole tub as think this will be better in the long run.

So any tips on removing and replacing the tub?

here are some pictures







Where the fuel pipes goin in the inner arch


Axle Mount

So I started taking out the tub, spent about an hour on it with the grinder and a spot weld drill, have managed to remove early all of the interal spot welds, in the corner areas its still attached as can't quite get to them,

any way here are some photos

 Before


Removed the seal sealer








Not too sure how I'm going to get this area sorted


Will get this from the other side


Thats it for now, hopefully I will get it out by the weekend

Done a bit more and decided to remove the outer arch as that has started to go aswell, some of the metal in the front of the arch was wafer thin!!







Arches gone




I can see that several repair jobs have gone on, I counted 5 seperate pieces of steel on top of each other in some places!


Its not quite out, but its getting there.  

Took some doing but the tub is out, still need to do some sorting out at the rear and just in front of the tub. Will put some more pics up tomorrow.

Here are some more photos of removing the tub



























Also if anyone needs any part of the tub that I have taken out let me know, properbly no good to anyone but thought I would ask.  


There is now so much better access to the around the axle mount area. Some how I think it is going to be slightly harder to get in back in and all lined up properly. But I have until mid April to get it ready for when the replacement tub comes, so will need to get the axle mount and under side sorted before I put it back. And had to chop out quite a bit of the rear to get it out so need to get that done.

Also started cleaning up the drivers rear axle mount, most of it crumbled away in my hands, 2 repair patches ontop of each other, no wonder it hadn't lasted if the old rusty stuff wasn't removed. Couple of pics

good work so far, looks a right bunch of bodge artists been at it before you!

Cheers John, the more I cut away the better I feel.

Been cleaning up the areas where the tub meets the rear door (if it had one) card area, and where it meets the rear pannel and 3/4 panel, still need to do more in this last area.



Looking towards the front of the car









And one of the axle mount

Been cleaning up some more of the axle mount. Need to brace it a bit as its moving about 2-3mm as had to chop the piece connecting it to the underside. Once brace I'm going to chop out th eback and repalce with some good metal.
 




Also got these for my birthday from the wifey

Drivers Sill


Rear Valance

So have done much lately so decided to get a couple of items to re-spark me since the weather is getting nicer

First up is a rollover jig 


Second is an engine crane 


Now time to get to my ar*e in gear

It's been a long time in the making by the looks of it mate, would be good to see another one brought back to life and restored to former glory.

Good luck with it  

Cheers smudger, looking forward to doing more work to it.

Started looking into removing the alarm system that was installed, found a switch by the gear lever but no idea what it's for. There is another switch under the dash which I was told was a switch to turn on a sort of valet function,



There was also sensors in the dash VDO's, boot and a button on the hand brake lever. Just trying to find it all then it'll be time to remove it.

I had one similar on my RS Turbo many moons ago and it was for exactly that. Pants idea tbh and you're right to pull it out

Good work Rubix. I've been looking for a thread where someone has done the tub. I'm about to do the n/s tub on my car too, I've got an Idea what to expect now! Cheers, man.

Andy.

Melteddrummer said

Good work Rubix. I've been looking for a thread where someone has done the tub. I'm about to do the n/s tub on my car too, I've got an Idea what to expect now! Cheers, man.

Andy.

Cheers, the hardest bit apart from finding all the spot welds is where the tub meets at the back as it meets 3/4 different panels at that point, when taking it out I cut the tub panel about 2-3 inches from the rear, will try and get a photo to show what I've done. 

Here is a link to RichG build thread which I found very useful

http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&id=your-mk1-golfs_2%2Fmk1-golf-gti-83

If you have any questions give me a shout.

kudos for taking it on the chin and keeping going