more door 1.5 silver fox - berkshire

     



my new car! first ever mk1 more photos soon, just seeing how this goes!

looks good mate, welcome to the club.
you got any plans for it in the future or just leaving it how it is at the mo ?

also keep an eye out in regional section as the berkshire lot hold meets quite regularly

scott

Hello, car looks nice. Did you buy this off a guy in Bracknell?

Where in Berkshire are you?

hi james - yes i did! never actually met the guy who owned it, i bought it from his dad on his behalf so never really got to hear about what he had done to it - i live just outside bracknell towards wokingham so it didnt have far to go!

scott - i do indeed have many future plans! the main one being to get it running nicely as ive had quite a few problems already and also the brakes are aweful (handbrake only going to one wheel and general sloppyness) so need to get the basics done then i can worry about making it look nice as there are quite a few bodywork issues not apparent in the photo too (all part of the fun) also thanks for the info, i joined their facebook page and will go to the next meet if im available! cheers

I just confimed you on the fb page . The next meet is weds 18th Jan.

some photos/ history of the car!

its a 04/1983 1457cc GL - engine code - JB, 4 speed, 3 former keepers, 90,000 miles on the clock with quite a lot of paperwork, acquired late september this year (3 months ago, feels like 3 weeks)

when i collected the car…


i drove it home all of 5 miles, and the following day took it for a spin to the shops (its my only car/ daily driver since i swapped the insurance almost straight away). As i came onto my road, there was alot of smoke coming from the engine bay so i turned it off and pushed it to my house…good start! turns out a water pipe going from the block (number 4 on the diagram below) to the inlet manifold had blown off



since the car had been fitted with a top fill radiator i decided to go and find an expansion style rad and set it up the old fashioned way. so i went to the scrapyard, found a 1.8 cab, took out the rad, cowling, some pipes, an expansion tank and headed home. i also needed to source a new metal pipe so that i could connect the bottom of the expansion tank to it as the one on my car had been changed for the top fill rad. i also fitted a new thermostat (the old one was stuck open) and a new radiator switch, tested the fan and did a colour change test on the coolant to see if the head gasket was ok. long story short, its been fine ever since (apart from a few pipes leaking coolant but i have some new ones on the way) i also changed the water pump pulley as the old one looked very worn, but the pump seemed fine.





so with the cooling sorted ive been driving it around ever since, it even started first time when the temperature dropped to -1.5 so that was nice to see, ive also checked the cam belt which seems brand new and changed a rear wheel bearing (probably should have done both but oh well). aswell as new plugs, dizzy arm, dizzy cap and condenser but it still gets a bit jumpy at 3500rpm - might need a new coil, looks pretty old!

here are some photos of the bad bits on the body work (drivers side)



i have a spare door which came with the car, ive been quoted £300 from bodytone in wokingham to have it painted, fitted and the two panels either side blended in, not sure how expensive that is but i know their reputation is good.

the rear driver side arch



the rest of the body is in very good nick! i cleaned under the arches properly today and was pleasantly surprised! more updates soon

i figured out what kind of mpg i was doing yesterday as i went on a decent run…turned out to be 21mpg, if not less as i think i was being generous. so am now looking at 5 speed box's. also i have a weber carb  (36 tlp) on the way to replace the pierburg 1b3, hopefully will sort out some idling issues

i decided not to do the gearbox conversion for now as it seems to be quite an expensive job and my weber carb didn't arrive so all in all not a very productive month. However, the silver fox is about to undergo quite a good service (all the filters, points and new back brakes) early next week so time for a catch up.

Had a bit of a disaster driving to my girlfriend's house



the points had broken, not a very good photo but you can see there isnt much for it to make contact with



i have some temporary ones on for now but managed to order in the last set from vw for this engine so lucky me! they will be going on Monday along with a new bosch coil and some other shiny bits

i also had a nice vinyl sticker made



and a nice picture of the fox in the snow

Nice little thread this and the car :wink:

Good to see you sorting all the problems properly and enjoying the car.

Whats next on the list? Are you keeping it standard?

Looks a good buy

looks nice and keep up the good work

love the silver fox stickers :-)

thanks i got the sticker from ebay - username 'turnerco' very helpful bloke if you want a custom sticker made!

also thanks to 'funk-star' on here who is a super cool dude, and sold me these yesterday for a really good price (he has lots of wheels and interior bits so is well worth a message) threw in some long wheel nuts too which he didn't have to do



i also got these thanks to the berks mk1 group on facebook!



quite excited about how it's going to look…cheeky test fit on the standard suspension



also the mpg has improved dramatically since fitting the new points, and i travelled 157 miles without a blip yesterday…all before i've even put the new filters on! so that is good to see. future plans are to clean it up and keep it as my daily for as long as possible! im quite looking forward to really getting underneath it when the warmer weather comes and treating the underside, improve the engine reliability and making it look as good as my small budget can take me

Liking the new wheels Max

funk is a good guy, and really helpfull on parts etc, fora set onf Ronals they were a bargain, gona look nice when all fitted buddy :-)

Nice, love the turbos 8)  Just need to get those coillies on now!

Glad you didnt buy the other set for sale on here

I would like Ronals

service time! got lots of the basics out the way and more

old fuel pump


old fuel filter


new fuel pump


new fuel filter


new bosch coil


poking through new handbrake cables


old drums


old air filter!


new rear brake shoes/ cylinders/ wheel bearings




old






old oil filter


not surprisingly it runs a lot better now! i also fitted another set of genuine vw points so they should keep me going for a while.

one problem was that when the new fuel pump was fitted there was a kink in the return fuel line and the improved pressure from the pump caused a leak on the carb from a front gasket


 
put some gasket in a tube stuff on the gasket, cleaned it up and sorted the kink on the return pipe, she now runs really well and is a pleasure to drive no more horrible noises! next week im getting the timing and co2 levels in the carb checked for emissions/ to see how its running. Then when im sure all is well i will be fitting the coilovers/ wheels, however i will probably roll the arches before fitting the adjustable coils as its easier to do on the stock suspension.

Lots been going on, to summarise a new MOT and a new door! The MOT went well, the only advisories were that the front brake disks have some wear and the emissions which i just about scraped, so all in all pretty good.

Body work now….ive been cleaning up the bitumen paint around the car but i think the photos will speak for themselves

before drivers side, there were two dents in the arch, bitumen paint



rust drivers side



before passenger side



rust under the spat, passenger side



after some cleaning, drivers side





after some cleaning, passenger side





so after my scrubbing, it went into the body shop to get a new door painted and either side blended, also i wanted the arch spat holes welded up, the dents taken out from the drivers side, the inner arches cut, treated and folded in for wider wheels, then the hole on the sill welded and treated…the result





looking good

i had half an hour free today so decided to fit a recent purchase, some clear headlights. started with taking off the grill



then parked infront of a wall about 3 feet away marked where the headlights were aiming with some chalk



switched the lamps over



adjusted



grill back on

Such a nice car! Any updates?