Another 1.6 GTI Restoration

Floorpan looks excellent :clap: . The new wiring looks good to, looked at that website before, have you been able to get the wires with the original colour coding? What are you going to do for connectors into from the wires into the fusebox connector blocks? The only ones I could get were from VW and came already attached to wire which meant loads of bulky 'butt' joins

Cheers

Floorpans were a right bugger to get clean… Hot airgun and scraper followed by angle grinder with several wire brush attachments, followed by lots of  white spirits and scouring pads then lots and lots of hot soapy water to clean it all up before several rolls of kitchen paper to dry it up. Not sure I would have bothered if I knew what a pain it would be but at least there is no rust left anywhere on teh inside of the floorpans now…

Yes, I got all the right coloured wire for the two parts of the loom that I tackled. I think you can get all the right stuff for the rest of it which I will be tackling at some point later on. I went with the new thinwall type wire 1mm cross section for most of it. Used the connectors on the following page (ref 3-1200) for the fusebox blocks…

http://www.vehicle-wir…erms-non3/terms-non3.html

They are slightly wider than the original ones (2mm rather than 1.8ish mm) so I just made sure I stripped plently of wire bare and had it going almost to the tip of the connector so that the wire would make contact with the fusebox terminals inside the female terminals - if you get what I mean!

Forgot to mention made up a new alternator loom too again with mouldings from website and nice thick 6mm 50amp wire. Only thing is the alternator moulding points up rather than down as the original did… No big problem though.

Here are the holes I managed to create…





Put in sound deadening from Newton Commercial and carpets and corrado seats…






Rust free sunroof panel… Colour matches nicely don't you think 8O



And just because…


 

Let us know how you get on with wiring, will be looking to do similar stuff myself. Floors are worth cleaning up, only way you know you have got rid of all the rust. The upper holes at the front of the inner sills where they meet the bulkhead should be there for cavity waxing, although yours have rotted out a bit. You can see them in this photo



I'm going to scrape out the sound deadening in mine some time. Your just putting the Newton Commercial back in? How much was it?

Cheers

Think the newton sound deadening was about ?25. Got a boot mat from them too. All looks good quality stuff.

Those holes have rotted out a bit but there are some more on the seam of the inner sill and floorpan.

Wiring has been pretty easy to be honest. Easier to do each fusebox block at once rather than fiddling with individual wires although my loom has been hacked around a fair bit by someone at sometime in the past…

Not updated for a while… Been a bit busy. Re-wired the rear loom (lights, fuel pump/guage sender, window wiper/washer etc) and all works ok! I was amazed. Put the rear lights on the wrong sides to start with and everything went a bit mental but swapping them round solved all that! Thought I might as well fit a new fuel pump while I was at it (old one sounded like a bag of nails). Ordered a bosch one from gsf but got a pierburg one?…

Went about getting the old one off and ended up with a big pile of rust. Think I can salvage the pump basket… there is a bit of metal left on it and the brackets are ok. Fuel pipes have had it and the long supply pipe to the engine split as I was wrestling with the jubilee clip to get the connecting pipe off. So another ?150 spent with rich (crazyquiff) to get the full stainless fuel pipe set.

Going to have to remove the fuel tank to get at the bit of welding that needs doing - have bought myself a cheap welder off ebay to have a go myself 8O Should be interesting. Going to get a load of scrap and practice first. While I've got it off will fully de-rust the underside down there. Can't wait to get all that crap in my face as I'm lying on my back with my angle grinder… :cry:

Managed to get the car started too After all the rewiriing in the engine bay still didn't work but after feeding 12v direct to the coil from the battery she fired up straight away. Still need to get an auto-electrician out to sort it but shouldn't take a pro too long… A step in the right direction anyway.

lookin good mate

Good stuff  :y:

You don't have an alarm/immobiliser system fitted do you? These can do odd things to the electrics and prevent cars from running, even when you want them to!

No alarm/imob fitted as far as I can tell. Might look at getting one fitted though… Although my last one had one fitted and got stolen from outside my house, right below my bedroom so can't have done a very good job!

Got my fuel pipes from rich (crazyquiff) today. Speedy delivery - cheers rich. My door seals arrived from germany today (typ-17.de). Not going to fit them until I get the car resprayed though…

Had the fuel tank out to get at the bit of welding I need to do so spent ages with an angle grinder with wire brush attachment cleaning the fuel tank, filler neck, heat shield and tank straps. Going to de-rust and cake with hammerite. Just going to brush it on I think as it will take loads of rattle cans to cover it.

Next up to get some scrap metal to practice my welding before patching the hole…

Some pics of the underside with the fuel tank off. Most of it looks worse than it is. Just surface rust really (apart from the big hole!) Have ground all the rust & old underseal / seam sealer off and slapped a coat of hammerite on it (had some left over from doing the fuel tank…) Going to give it another coat before liberally applying plenty of seam sealer followed by stone chip. That should sort it for a while.

Must get a welding mask and get that hole patched…

2 coats of Hammerite ready for some seal seamler and stonechip…



Fuel tank Hammerited up…

Just doing the rear axle beam… Coming up quite nicely too.

good work! tank will keep good for another 20 years!

Thanks... It ought to last a while now. I know people tend not to rate hammerite but I have always had pretty good results with it in the past...

What a great thread.  Just dropped by the forum for a few minutes but ended up being totally hooked on all 10 pages of this.

Your MK1 is the same spec and colour as mine and has inspired me to not only get the problems sorted, but also improve the things which are ok!

Nice work. 8)

gavbs said

What a great thread.  Just dropped by the forum for a few minutes but ended up being totally hooked on all 10 pages of this.

Your MK1 is the same spec and colour as mine and has inspired me to not only get the problems sorted, but also improve the things which are ok!

Nice work. 8)

Thanks… I only started to do a few things for the MOT and ended up with an almost complete rebuild! If a jobs worth doing and all that… The end is definately in sight though. A complete respray is on the cards at some point and while the engine is out I will probably fit a 2.0l 16v and megasquirt it… Want to drive it a bit first. I reckon it will be ready just in time for the salt gritters Still with all the stonechip I am going to plaster on it should be ok…

Good luck with yours and get some pictures up for us to look at.

Time for an update…

Welded up the hole in the underside. First effort at welding and once I had the wire feed speed set right things went quite smoothly. Looked a bit messy but I hit it with a hammer a few times and the patch didn't fall off so it moust be ok! Covered the welds in seam sealer, paint and stone chip so it looks ok now. Refitted the fuel tank, realised I had forgotten to fit the heat shield so off came the tank, heatshield on then tank back on.

Wrestled with the filler neck and finally got that fitted up. Same with all the pipes off the fuel tank. Re-fitted fuel pump & accumulator with stainless pipes (from crazyquiff), refitted brake compensator & rear beam. Took off rear beam to get exhaust middle section on, put rear beam on

Fitted new brake liines from front to rear compensator - managed to bust one of them so figured I might as well replace both. Removed old fuel lines except I can't get at the clip behind the steering uj that holds them in… More wrestling with that tomorrow.

Just need to fit the new fuel lines, connect up the flexi brake pipes to the rear beam & bleed the brakes, reconnect the handbrake cables, fit my chrome bumpers & the jobs done!

New fuel lines on. Right pain to get the engine bay clips back on. Think I need to get it up on a ramp to do them. Primed the pump for a while and she fired up first turn of the key & no fuel leaks… Result! Peirburg pump is really noisy though… Oh well. Can't hear it above the roar of the exhaust 8)

Front chrome bumper on, still need to do the rear one. It was too wet and dark tonight to do it. Then just need to fill holes that standard bumpers attach to & bleed the brakes. Then it's ready for the auto electrician to sort the 12v at the coil, the indicators and the reversing lights. Then I need to fab up some sort of bracket/frame to hold the corrado rear bench in place. Other than that all sorted. Going to get that MOT booked in now…

I'll get some pics of the underside posted soon. Keep forgetting my camera.

Know what you mean about those engine bay clips. What a nightmare - it took me and a mate about an hour of fiddling about with them, and they're still not right. In the end I went for some good ol' cable ties  

Looking forward to seeing it finished - when are you planning to have it on the road?

Rich

Cable ties are the way forward I think! On the road asap. Just need to get the auto-electrician out. Car starts and runs fine if I short the fuel pump & put 12v from the battery to the coil but I have to pop the bonnet and pull the wire to cut the engine! Don't think it will get through the MOT like that!

Hopefully get that sorted next week & then it is just some cosmetic things to sort like the sunroof (need a cable coming from MalC) fix the retro rear spats I have instead of the GTI arches, fix in the corrado rear bench (although I might just put in the GTI one for the MOT).

Just in time for the salty roads!

Alex - Went in post Friday so should be with you today / tomorrow