J reg 8v gti...changing to a vegetarian diet...With twin tanks, cruise control etc

After selling my stripped out abf'd H reg 3 door Mk2 gti on tuesday night (and instantly regretting it), i had a mk2 shaped hole on my driveway and i didnt like it, so a whole three days later, i have secured this little gem...





and august '91 8v gti, the interior is in good condition, no sagging from the headlining, slight drivers bolster foam wear but the fabric is still good.

Rust wise there is a 10p size rust patch on the drivers door, another in the o/s/r door shut and a small piece by the bootlid light panel but the wiper panel, boot shut, fuel flap and battery tray areas are rust free , as are all four wheel arch areas

Bodywork wise, there is a dent on the drivers door and a scratch down the n/s/r quarter panel. All the windows have the reg number etched into them (you dont see this anymore do you?) and the boot sticker is still present. The rear bumper needs looking at as it doesn't sit totally straight.

Engine wise, the headgasket has gone to the point of where steam appears from the exhaust once the engine warms up, not an issue with my plans for the car...

My daily drive is a mk3 tdi...



that is converted to run a twin tank veggie oil setup (returns 62mpg) so love the efficiency of it but i prefer the look and drive of a mk2, so i'm going to take the engine out of the mk3 and make a mk2 gti veggie tdi and use it that as my daily drive. I already have a passat tdi pedal box so i should be good to go fairly soon

As the Mk2 has some bodywork to be done, i am going to have the car resprayed in matt black paint (already purchased for the mk3 but thats now the donor car) in the booth at my works bodyshop and then fit the porsche design 90's currently on the mk3 also, i think the matt paint and shiney wheels will work well.

Do you guys like my plans?

 

That sounds awesome. Will keep an eye on your progress.

I need a kick up the bum to get the conversion done on my T4 van. A few weeks ago I did at least start and got the solenoids fitted in the engine bay. I just really need to get the WVO processing plant done.

 

It's a nice looking car in its original metallic so not sure on matt black paint, but the engine swap sounds interesting and looking at the numberplate you could call it Project J4CUL.

 

Nice :-) saw some stuff the other day in GSF head gasket repair in a bottle :-/ guaranteed to work :-

May be worth taking them up on that challenge lol

 

Tdi mk2 will be great :-)
Not so sure about matt black (current colour looks nice as it is) and I like the JAG CUL reg too (they should have a cull on Jags imho)

 

I've researched the gsf claim and I'm up for a product trial mat.... Bring it o-n gsf

EDIT: after watching a review video on youtube, i didnt bother with it, A) because the reviewer said it didn't work and B) to get your money back you need to supply a vat registered mechanics report that the headgasket had gone and reciept of the car being scrapped!?!? Needless to say, i decided against it as the 35 is better being spent elsewhere

 

MK3 looks nice though. But as you said, you cant beat the drive and feel of a Mk2

What exhaust is that on the MK2 btw ? ......

 

Why do you need two tanks? And is veg oil not almost the same cost at diesel ? Or are you looking to used used veg oil?

Mk2 looks nice and so too dose the mk3 as it stands

 

Mk2 has some tail pipe extensions I believe

The mk3 has covered 244k miles, was used as a courier van before I got it and has a slightly dented rough and is suffering from a bit of bodywork rust here and there. I retro fitted heated leather and a black interior (just got the dash to do) but the interior might find its way into the mk2 as well.

The twin tank system is used so you can run 100% veg oil on a run but then purge the system so that the pump sits in diesel whilst the engine is not running. This also means that you start on diesel as well. I'm using svo which is brand new oil, which costs 1 a litre at the moment, so while it's not a massive saving, it's still a saving

 

Sweet, the plan sounds great buy as others have said, not sure about matt black.

I've just opened a tab to look at mk2's on e-bay (your fault)

 

Discussion has been had with my sprayer and he said that he'll see what is involved in restoring her to her original glory... If this proves to be too time consuming then and only then will the matt black be considered.

It would appear that I'm picking up a 160k mile mk3 tdi later today...

 

picked up the bargain gumtree tdi yesterday...







The guy that owned it lived in a h-u-g-e house with electric gates etc etc..he had used it for a 3k mile round trip of france but unfortunately had hit someone up the back 5 miles before getting on the ferry lol. Needless to say, he fashioned a o/s light lens out of two halves of a water bootle and continued his trip.

I bought this car for three reasons, one, i still need my daily tdi to run around in and, two, this has the later AHU engine that has the same pistons as the mk4 110bhp engines and the smaller 7mm valve guides in the head and, three, it will probably cost next to nothing for the engine conversion once parts have been sold off it and its been scrapped. I mot'd it after work and it passed after some major tweaking of the headlamp aims lol.

I've also been offered my old audi A3 back as the auto box has just died on it, so hopefully i'll have the vnt turbo, 11mm pump, ecu etc etc from that so i can have the ecu remapped to around 140'ish bhp...should make the mk2 very nippy and still return very good mpg

 

Tonights progress...

The weather has been awful after getting home from work so i began to take the dashboard out of the tdi



and then had a play with vagcom to check the timing as the engine doesn't quite run as smooth as my daily does, and here's why...



the timing of the pump is quite retarded as the fuel temp sensor within the pump looks to be faulty, as confirmed here



on the upside, the ecu is a metal case one meaning that its 16bit and not 8 bit, it also comes with an internal 2.5bar map sensor as standard (reads up 1.5bar/22psi of boost)



this means that i can use this ecu with the chip set from a vnt equipped cars ecu, swap the n75 over with the vnt turbo and manifold as well as the injectors and i'll have 110bhp, to start with

 

Had some time again tonight after work, although it doesnt seem like i have done much to be fair lol

I removed the dash for easier access to the fuseboard



so that i could also label all the plugs and begin to remove them



so that i ended up with the loom being ready to be pulled through the bulkhead



i also removed the obd connector, immobilizer box and instrument cluster looms



and then swapped the golfs throttle potentiometer over on to my passet b4 pedal box and reset the pawl setting to suit (the throttle pot sits at a slightly different angle on the passat pedal box)

So, like i was saying, doesnt seem like much does it lol

 

Finally picked up the mk2 today, made it home without any issues or drama drives quite nicely, no crunch in 2nd but the gear change is a little out, oh and the initial brake judder from where the car has been sat has totally gone as well...there was a fair amount of steam coming from the exhaust when I restated it to move it onto the drive though, those of you old enough, think Cliff Richard on top of the pops when that smoke machine went mental, yeah, like that lol

 

[video=youtube;GXhNjZwZkmo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXhNjZwZkmo[/video]

A little walk round video of all the usual rust spot areas commonly found on a mk2...those of you with a sharp eye will notice one little repair/modification in one of these areas...apart from some light surface rust on the battery tray, i'm happy with the car...the drivers seat foam has worn but yet the fabric is ok, the rooflining is ok as well and the boot stickers are present and correct.

 

Looks pretty tidy I need to get the LHD wiper mount removed on mine too You've made a fair start on it considering the weather and light now.

 

Thanks...I am going to have a play today, mainly in the mk2, dash out, heater box out (to do the air flap foam mod) and replace the heater matrix as the Headgasket has been pressurising the system, I'll also suss out the wiring. I'm contemplating fitting the mk3 fuse board.

 

progress has been slow due to the usual change of seasons cold...anyhow, today progress included getting the gti's engine and gearbox out...



after replacing the housemates bmw e46 318 headgasket, this meant the obligitory 'one gregg power' shot needed to be taken...

 

Ha ha!!! 1 Gregg power, whats he like on the motorway lol lol