My Mars Red Mk1 Driver - 16V on twin 40s

Hi guys, here's a bit of a build thread on my Mk1 Driver that I've been upgrading and modifying over the last 18 months.

As a bit of a back story I sold my last tin top 10 years+ years back to buy a Sportline which I still own but have laid up to keep the miles off it (enjoyed driving it too much!) and give it a freshen up…




I had been on the look out for a tin top after seeing Pojy's stunning black tin top GTI at VW festival a few years back.             

At the time I was running a Mk2 Scirocco and promptly sold that to start building up funds for another Mk1… knowing I would need much deeper pockets than I did ten years ago! £££££££.

 

I kept a few of the choice bits from the Rocco including a Weichers lower strut brace and my Momo Prototipo steering wheel as they were destined for a Mk1. 

I had been doing the daily searches on all the usual places for a good 6 months and the Driver popped up on Gumtree. It had been listed just 30 mins before I spotted it and was a good price, in fact it was less than I sold the Scirocco for!   .  



The owner had kept it in his garage for the last 10 years after his son had lost interest in it. They had modified prior to loosing interest and had fitted a KR on twin 40's, Ashley 16V manifold and exhaust, bucket seats, a bolt in cage and a few other mods.

The styling was a bit of a time warp back to the mid/late 2000's (iron cross door pins, Awesome GTI store stickers etc) but the car itself was a great base and so the deal was done and I picked it up the following weekend.

The plan was to keep the engine and neaten up the install. The rest of the car would be stock-ish with some subtle mods.

So the cage and seats came out and then the hunt for a full set of seats and original seat belts began. I was keen to get the car turned around quickly as I bought this a week after my son had been born and the Mrs wasnt best pleased!    



The fuel pump had been mounted inside the car on the roll cage so that had to be rehoused. It was also on a switched live straight off the fusebox so a proper relay was wired up to make it a bit safer!

The easy jobs were tackled first so:

The GTI badge was pulled off and replaced with a spare Driver badge i had in my stash





The fuel cap was swapped for a Hella cap





Race style gauges swapped for VDO's





and the Mountney steering wheel swapped for the Prototipo





All of the bits I didn't want were sold and the money went back into improving the car.  

The roll cage sold and the cash was set aside for some seats.  



A set of grey stripe GTI seats eventually came up local on ebay so they were bought completely stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. They looked neat and ticked a job off the list but the grey GTI seats didn't look quite right in the red car to me.





I decided to look out for a set of original Driver seats or red seats but put that to the back of the list.   

Not long after a near mint set of Driver seats came up but they were miles away in Glasgow.  



I wanted them bad but couldn't justify the cost of the seats plus fuel and time it would take to get them. I'd just put so much effort into the GTI seats too. Damn

A trip to a proper old school scrapyard turned up a stash of Mk1 grilles tucked away in an old shed. The old boy running the yard told me he used to buy Mk1 golf insurance write offs in the late 80's and fix them up. He let me have the lot for £20 which was a nice result. The grille that came on the car was a repro one so i now had a good genuine one to replace that with. 

The red trim was pulled from the GTI grille and was prepped and painted with an old can of mars red I had from way back when i did my old white GTI's grille trim.

I also knew of a Mk1 sat rotting in a field so made a few enquiries hoping to buy the whole car for the trim (red seats - although seen much better days! parcel shelf supports etc) The bloke refused to sell it - he was a proper hoarder but there was one red grille trim left on there that I persuaded him to part with.



I found the other trim on facebook nice and cheap so had a full set to paint up.

Painting…


Fitted…


I'd removed the wide side trims in that pic too, I cleaned up the bodywork and fitted new trim clips and a set of narrow trim from werk34.de. 

I had a set of tarantulas in the shed that i had kept from my white Mk1, they'd been powdercoated and ran on my mrs Mk2 polo for a while and then just sat in the shed for a few years. I'd fitted 175/50/13's on them for the polo but went for a bigger profile for the Mk1.





I didn't like them after all that so sold them!  

I then spotted a set of G60 steels listed as Mk2 golf steels on Marketplace and snapped them up nice and cheap. They were a bit rough and needed a refurb, the tyres were 165/50/15s but were binned in favour of set of 195/50/15s

Before…





After…

I reinstated the rear wiper as it had been removed and grommets fitted in the tailgate by the last owner. The rear motors were stupidly expensive on ebay but I found one on Facebook. It turned out to be a dud when it arrived, the internals were completely solidified with rust. £25 down the pan.  

I had pulled it apart and so decided to see if I could get a motor in there from another VW. I had a spare breadvan rear motor but that wouldn't fit. After a bit of research I saw that a barndoor T4 has similar units (very close part number) and I managed to win a pair of motors on ebay for 99p.



I drilled the closing plate off the T4 motor and swapped the Mk1 closing plate over, fixing it back together with screws and a dab of solder on the wiring and gave it a go. Worked a treat.  

That’s a great read and nice subtle mods to get the car looking sharp and how you want it. Keep the updates coming

Hi Gav,

Loving this.
My rear wiper has give up the ghost so will definitely looking for the T4 unit. Wonder of they sell on VW Heritage?
Shame the interior was so far, would have been a great finishing touch. Not sure why the previous owner put a GTI badge on it. It's a driver. No point being something its not.
Be good to see some ARB images?
Keep the post going.
Whats next on the list to do?
Andy

Kingy76 said

That’s a great read and nice subtle mods to get the car looking sharp and how you want it. Keep the updates coming

Cheers Kingy.  

Andyp-75 said

Hi Gav,

Loving this.
My rear wiper has give up the ghost so will definitely looking for the T4 unit. Wonder of they sell on VW Heritage?
Shame the interior was so far, would have been a great finishing touch. Not sure why the previous owner put a GTI badge on it. It's a driver. No point being something its not.
Be good to see some ARB images?
Keep the post going.
Whats next on the list to do?
Andy

If your motors not working (and you've checked wiper stalks, the fuse and can hear the relay click) you can test the motor by taking the card trim off the tailgate, disconnect the wiring at the plug on the loom and then connect a 12v battery charger to the motor wires (lift the wiper arm off the glass when you do this). If it runs you know the motor is fine. You're then looking a break in the wires were they come through the rubber boot from the roof to the tailgate.

I wouldn't buy a T4 motor new, they'll be just as expensive as a new Mk1 motor!

It was a real shame that the interior was out of reach. I'd just sunk loads of time and money into the GTI seats too. There'll be another set at some point if I'm lucky (fancy a swap for some red GTI seats?     )

I think the GTI badge was just the sort of thing a young lad would do at the time. It looked like a GTI and had a MK2 GTI engine I guess. But yeah, not to my taste! I'd had that Driver badge for years sat in the back of my toolbox, it was meant to be!  

I'm think I'm close to where I want to be with it for this year and could do with focussing on some other projects. I need to repaint the front panel and have a a pair of clear opening quarters to fit if the weather permits!

It flies along but is popping on the overrun and doesn't idle that great so needs constant throttle blips at junctions. A trip to Bogg Brothers for a set up on their rolling road is needed soon.

I've got plenty more bits to post up as I work through the phone.  

I picked up a S2 postie rear light on ebay and that made it's way onto the car. I decided to paint the tailgate badges satin black too, the silver lettering was worn and I like the stealth look.





Then I turned my attention to the servicing the running gear/engine etc.

A set of GTI hubs/discs and calipers had been fitted by the previous owner when the engine had been swapped so new discs and pads went on. Whilst there I swapped the bottom arms for a pair of new GTI spec arms with the mounting points for a lower ARB. The Weichers lower strut brace that I had pinched off the Scirocco went on too.





I'd picked up a pair of ARBs and brackets etc a while back when a bloke on the Scirocco forums had a massive clearout of his workshop. I had intended to powdercoat them and swap them onto the Sportline but they went straight onto the Driver after a wire brush and a lick of paint. I used Super pro polybushes for front and rear ARBs.

I'm posting stuff up as I find pics/remember what I've done so you may notice bits appearing/disappearing in pics as I'm doing it in the wrong order!

I didn't like the Ashley exhaust, the tailpipe was a bit of a baked bean can and it didn't fit that well over the rear axle. That was ditched in favour of a Powersprint system ordered from German eBay.

Old…


Comparison…


The link pipe on the Ashley 16V manifold needed sleeving to join up to the new system as the were the same O/D. I added a flex joint in there at the same time and refitted it with plenty of clearance around the ARB.

Marking out…


Cut…


Back together…


Welded…oh no I left the flange out!  


Welds…


2nd attempt…


Welds…


Squirt of VHT paint and done…


The heat shield was missing from the gear selector boot so a NOS one was tracked down. It sits very tight and occasionally rattles so that needs a tweak.  

And all back on the car…



The rear silencer can be rotated and still sit securely on the hangers. This meant I could adjust the angle of the tailpipe and give it a nice upsweep so I span that round till I was happy with the position…



Getting there now with just the fuelling, engine service, wiring tidy up and suspension to sort.

Good work mate.
Keep it going.

Andyp-75 said

Good work mate.
Keep it going.

Cheers bud  

So the next job was a good service and neaten up the engine bay install. The coolant hoses in there were a mismatch of old hoses so a set of KR silicone hoses were bought and fitted. At the same time I replaced the metal coolant pipe that wraps around the block, the oil cooler that mounts on the oil filter head and added fresh oil and a new filter. All thehose clips were replaced for Norma stainless clips as well.

The wiring was all done with the pre insulted crimps so they were all stripped and redone with new non insulated crimps and heat shrink - much neater.



The car had been fitted with an inline pressure regulator so I swapped that for a Filter king and mounted the Facet pump and regulator on the chassis leg in an alloy mounting bracket. The pump needs to go under the car really so thats a job to do when I get chance. I also fitted new rubber fuel hose and stainless clips throughout, using Cohline 100% ethanol proof hose that I had left over from my camper vans engine swap.





The ICU was left loose tucked into the wiring on the chassis leg so I bought a bulkhead mount and got it tucked out of the way.



I picked up a set of K&N filters for the Webers and a new set of ram pipes.





I fitted a GTI rad and managed to get it to fit in there by tilting it under the front panel. This gave enough clearance for the K&N's and for the top coolant hose to route around the filters back to the block.


The K&N's threw up an new problem as the alternator adjustment bar wouldn't reach the alternator.



I bought a custom alternator adjuster on ebay and extended it with some threaded bar and a stud connector. After playing about with a few diferent belt sizes I found the best solution was to tension the belt by pushing the alternator away from the engine rather than pulling it towards.

The alternator belt still slipped every now and again so I decided to swap it out for a serpentine belt set up. I'd seen a Mk3 8V GTI in the local breakers so called in and stripped the alternator with loom,  mounting bracket, and the water pump crankshaft pulleys.

The Mk3 alternator is tensioned by a spring that sits beneath the alternator body so once fitted is near enough maintenance free. These went on the Mk1 but I hadn't realised that the AGG crank pulley wouldn't align properly with the other pulleys when fitted to the KR. A short term fix was to fit a 5pk belt.

Old KR set up removed…


AGG set up going on, new cambelt and tensioner going on at the same time…


Running 5pk belt…


Loads of clearance…


I sourced an ABF crank pulley (nightmare to find) and then swapped that onto the car and fitted the correct 6pk belt.

ABF at the back, AGG at the front…


Job done…

I fitted a set of new rear brake cylinders, shoes, and handbrake cables and then we were ready for an MOT.

MOT day…


A few exhaust pics whilst it was up on the ramp…








And it passed so I took it out for a good drive round the local back roads and took a few pics…







Happy days!