My Mot'd 1975 Golf LS

Hi,

Im new here,  Hello …. i thought my Golf resto may be of interest and the knowledge on here may be able to help get this finished.

Just to introduce the car its a May 1975 Golf LS RHD in Pheonix red and its been in my family since new, my Dad bought it Tax free in Holland in 1975 -  ordered at that time in Rhd and top of the range i believe at that time. Its sat on an R reg plate as they used to issue cars number plates based on its import year unbelievably back then (wish they did that now)-  we were based in Germany in the forces and came back in 77 - hence the plate (if you were wondering

So where has it been - well 1975 upto about 1989 it was in everyday use as the family car -travelled all over Europe and beyond , then went off the road in 89 and was my first car which i finally got the keys in 92 i think…. that was around 123000 miles if i remember right when i got it, then it was used and abused by me as a teenager and in my 20's up to 96 i think when i parked it up with 205000 miles on it.
It then sat 6 years in an old garage till 2002/3 when the garage was going to be pulled down and i moved it to nearer my home at that time, and there it sat again in a very damp and leaking garage till today.
My intention was allways to restore it and any part i changed i kept the original parts i took off so that i had the best chance of getting it back to original when this day finally came, i was also lucky enough to find a 75/76 golf about 5 years ago which was more rottern than a pear which i broke and kept all rare parts as spares..

I managed to get the original engine started on new years eve 2009/2010 to a massive cloud of smoke and fuel pouring out the bottom from absolutely everywhere but it confirmed that most of the electrics still worked and the mice that had made it their home in the boot had not done too much damage.

Anyway i have decided that after 14 years and looking at the condition of our old family car that its now or never as a few more years and there wont be much to restore…….

Ok so its not all Bad news, luckily my Dad had the car Zeibarted from new and it had waxoyl sprayed around everywhere regularly which has kept the body much better than it should be, but it has suffered from all the years/miles and time sat…

The engine has only ever had a top end valve reseat and a new head gasket in about 1990 when we got the car ready for its 2nd life then, the bottom end has still never been apart and the gearbox is the original 4 speed one that came with it when new.

So i have spent the last few weeks pulling bits off it to bring home to start the resto in the shed, in the next week or two i will be dragging it to a unit i'm renting to get the welding done and then a friend is going to respray about 75% of the car as i hope to keep some of the original paint.

The end result i hope to be somewhere near as we got the car in 75, no engine rebuild either im going to keep the block as is and repair the interior back to a usefull everyday car i can use occasionally for work, well thats the plan - we shall see..

A few pictures…


Dads Service history




After many hours of cleaning mould off the seats and door cards..

All the missing parts have come home for rebuild, the black stuff is waxoyl







After a much better inspection tonight - the Sill rot which is mainly on the passenger side has not spread into the upright inner sill or the floor pan either side. The rear chassis box section where the rear beam bolts on has also survived intact and is solid and full of wax.
The welding list is.. both rear outer arches,  repair the drivers sill front and middle, replace all the outer sill passenger side, rear valance edges and some valance/ arch repairs. 3 small holes found in the front inner wings - nowt major. Bottom of the front windscreen both sides due to rust which was fixed badly in the early 90's and some correction to make the front panel correct as Dad dinged it very lightly in the early 80's on the passenger side and i think he changed the front panel at that time.

Anyway i hope to occasionally update this with some progress and hope to get it done by July this year if i can

Thanks for reading

Mark

Love those pictures would be nice road legal and original un-restored .

Cheers

wow man, you've got your work cut out! It'll be worth it though; good luck!

Bet this car has a lot of sentimental history then. It will be great to see your progress! Good luck with it.

Joe

Cant wait to see progress on this..

phew i got a sweat on just looking at all the work, however will be sweeeeeet as when done.

keep the faith!

you're a stronger man than me that's all I'm going to say…

best of luck to ya though, she'll be spankin' when she's cleaned up some

well worth saving, get stuck in

Thanks - it should keep me busy for a little while.

Ok so im going to jump right in and try and get this thing done, final arrangements to drag it to the unit where im going to do the welding were made today and i should be trailering it over first thing sat.
Fingers crossed i will have it all unbolted and the grinder going in my midday- we shall see.

Anyhow last night i stripped off the front brakes - more shed work.


tonight they are shot blasted and currently sitting in the tiny ebay zinc tank - plating before i then do the yellow passivate things to yellow them as they were new.


Anyway im already at some questions…

Where can i get new seals for the front calipers from - while they were not leaking and the seal is ok they have done 200k so… - i would prefer Original Ate (couldnt find on the Ate website) but if they are not available what do you guys use?

Also the front brake hoses - they are currently Ate one's - which supplier does these?

I have some NOS rear wheel cylinders but they are a bit old looking from sitting for many years- what do you think of the Febi wheel cylinders and disks /drums - fit and forget or cheap and cost more in the long run - should i stick to the VW items or are these not available?

Sorry for all the questions-
Cheers

I will spare you every detail of this resto but im happy how  the first restored part came out - it was just a tiny bit big for the plating tank and i had the amps up a bit high which i think caused the streaking - the first "finished" caliper with factory finish..


hopefully can get the other one a bit more even..

Cheers

Not too bad. What sort of power supply are you using? Also I always put my parts in a 3 to 1 Water/Hydrochloric acid tank to remove any traces of rust and old zinc plating. When it stops fizzing you know it's done! Once it come out of the yellow passivate rinse in water and use a hair dryer to dry it!

Wow. Like the story behighnd it aswell. Good luck with this mate!

You cant get the seals and hoses directly from ATE

http://www.ate.de/generator/www/com/en/ate/ate/general/home/index_en.html

And have a search through the online catalogue.
The ATE catalogue will also give you the VW part numbers for each item is you click the 'OE information' tab.

You cant get pretty much every part from ATE, but I've never had a problem with Febi stuff.

Alternatively, you can get the caliper seals from the VW classic parts department.

You should be able to order them through your local VW dealer, or direct from the classic parts dept.

www.vw-classicparts.com

Part number 827 698 471

Joe B -Thanks very much for the information - i will give them a go for the caliper seals- hadn't thought of them.

Also cheers for the tip Chrissy - have 1 litre of Hydrochloric acid sat on my desk right now and will give the other caliper a good fizz tonight before i plate it . I'm just using a 12v battery charger and using the  current dropper that comes with the kit, i was just a bit over keen last night - longer and slower should be the key.

Can I recommend you diassemble the caliper before stripping and plating? For brake parts you will be a lot better off trivalent plating - the yellow passivate will just come off in time.

For the rear drums you are going to need complete manual adjustment shoes/fitting kit. Not easy to come by.

Think carefully before going ahead, assessing how you are going to get the parts which will be a nightmare and expensive. This kind of resto ain't cheap!

For a guide on pre-78 brake resto see my GTI build http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=64580&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

dubboy said

Can I recommend you diassemble the caliper before stripping and plating? For brake parts you will be a lot better off trivalent plating - the yellow passivate will just come off in time.

For the rear drums you are going to need complete manual adjustment shoes/fitting kit. Not easy to come by.

Think carefully before going ahead, assessing how you are going to get the parts which will be a nightmare and expensive. This kind of resto ain't cheap!

For a guide on pre-78 brake resto see my GTI build http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=64580&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Hi,
I did disassemble them, i put it back together for the pictures.

Yeh - its funny in the late 80's -early 90's when we did all this before the parts were dime a dozen and my local scrap yard was full of mk1 golfs and early Gti's - i grabbed what i could to keep the car correctish and keep it on the road.
Now that same yard does not have a mk1 to be seen and all the online shops go 75 - nah mate and VW which used to have most things doesnt seem to have anything much and what it does have is dear .

Dubboy -  have we met…Did you go to someone's house about 7 years ago in Cheltenham to collect some early brown door cards, i may have shown you the car but i dont remember. I remember chatting for over an hour on the ins and out of early stuff ?? Apologies if that wasnt you. Those cards were from the early car i broke for long term and resto spares when this day arrived.
Thanks i will have a look at your thread..

I did see the rear manual kit was no longer available - i'm hoping what's in there will clean up and then plate it. What i cant find right now i will find in the end - that's sort of my line - i will try and use OE kit but if i cant find it right now i will take what i can and search ebay etc to replace it later on.

I was lucky to break that early car a few years ago which has given me some gem spares, early doors,smooth bonnet incase i needed it etc but some of the smaller stuff is the biggest trouble - im really stuck on the 1471cc metal water pipe - mines like a sieve and was when i parked it - VW has drawn a blank so its looking like i have to make one.

Oh if anyone reads this - i did take the car to one show many years ago - it was the 1994 or 1995, 25 years of Golf at one of the shows at Stamford Hall. It sat in the 75 spot but if i remember right the 74 and 76 spot were empty as they never found one. If anyone has any pictures i would love to see them 8) - it was a bit of a wreck then too.
Cheers

I dont know how acurate it is at showing whether things are actually available, but the ATE catalogue shows a fitting kit for manual adjust brake shoes.

The number in the catalouge is 03.0137-9006.2

"Can i pick your brains - i was the guy doing the calipers on the other thread with zinc, i went with your hydrochloric acid suggestion for the rust pretreatment and it works a treat - however it seems the surface then needed reactivating as i get all bubbles and no plate once it has been treated this way - did you use another bath to reactivate the steel once acid etched?
Thanks"


No problem mate!

Blistering is normally down to poor cleaning, pretreatment. What I do is:

a) Always wear gloves!

b) Put parts in hydrochloric acid bath until it stops fizzing to remove old plate and rust.

c) Then give it a good rinse in tap water.

d) Dry part with dry cloth.

e) Use a brass wire wheel on the end of the drill and give it a good going over. This will also shine up the part nicely.

f) Go back into acid for a few seconds.

g) Another rinse in water.

h) Degrease in caustic soda solution.

i) Rinse well in clean water. Don't allow part to dry as it will start to rust!

j) Into plating tank


I normally plate for about 40 mins moving the electrolyte solution with a plastic stick every now and again.
It's a bit of a learning curve to start with!

I hope this helps

If I was going to do the calipers myself I would paint them. The finish would be a lot harder wearing. Something like the Golden Cad System from Frost

Thanks- i will give that a try.

Its an odd one, they plate fine straight from the shot blast but not from the hydrochloric acid bath. The wierder part is that its not all of it - the flat plate part plated fine from the hydrochloric??. If your method doesn't work then i will re shot blast them and do it again - thanks again for the tips.
 8)