...continued Corrosion Dropping the fuel tank revealed all sorts of horrors. The amount of crud built up around the filler neck was unbelievable. The filler neck mounting bracket to the body was shot. I secured the fuel tank inside the car and dropped it down the paintshop to be rectified. That and the bodywork around the filler flap. Starter Motor Sometimes the car would not start and all you could hear was a solenoid click. Not surprising really. Starter disassembled, cleaned, positive posts cleaned and electrical connections on the loom replaced. All has been good as gold since. No brand new starter for me which is exactly what a garage would of done. Engine Mounts With the starter off, my attention turned to the front engine mount. Aggressive gear changes where accompanied with a powertrain shudder. Closer inspection of the front mount revealed witness marks on the front crossmember where the mount had been striking. I removed the mount and it was soft as anything. Reading the forums I avoided economy GSF mounts. On the other hand I wasnt paying VAG prices for their hydro mount. I did the perfect compromise and got a German made FEBI item. Happy days. Vehicle has been transformed with this OE mount. Gear Linkage All linkage bushes and that funny arm with the golfball on replaced. The old arm had no golfball left! Gearchange is infinitely better and fifth gear selection more positive. The Jetex This was a tough one for me. I am an originality geek and did all the modifying worth a lifetime in my twenties. Been there, done that. However, I was repeatedly visiting Kwik-fit for silencers. Your modern day TIMAX and WALKER pattern stuff are really made of monkey metal designed for 18 months. I went to my VAG dealer and got a price for the original galvanised system and nearly had a heart attack. Essentially, the Jetex full stainless system was cheaper than the factory steel counterpart. It was a no-brainer really and I really like the Jetex brand and tail pipe design. I still keep the original back box for when (if ever) I sell the old girl. I promise this will be the only 'modification'! Towbar Despite towing stuff, the towbar had to go really. The car is getting closer to classic status and the tow bar looked more and more out of place. Endless people were commenting on how rubbish it looked so off it came. Man it was heavy! The tow bar flew off the shelf with ebay. Had cash on collection within 48 hours. However, as the towbar doubles as the bumper irons, I now had no irons and a chuffing great big hole in the bumper! The bodyshop sorted the hole and I got a set of bruised irons off ebay. I have a trailer I can't tow anymore but aesthetically; who cares! Continued...
...continued Front Grill The spot lamps were cracked, the headlamps were not genuine Hella and my grille stripe was pink. Four genuine Hellas sourced and grill stripe painted very carefully. Results are awesome. BBS Wheels I wouldn't swap my wheels for anything, but they were in a poor state. Outer tyre beads were popped, and the wheels dressed with 1200 grit. Painted silver and lacquered. The car returned to the paintshop for the roof, bottom of the drivers door and bonnet, in addition to the previous work around the fuel filler. Wiper arms and other matt black components had a paint. She is back on the road now with a full mot, full service and I did a posh photoshoot as she was looking so good. It was an injection of nearly a grand but I think that is value for money in the long term. Thanks for reading! Update in another 40k!
Wow stunning mate fair play for tackling all the problems as well I've seen others get scrapped for less
Holy cow! You definately put the effort & hours in & the end result is stunning! It looks as if it was purchased brand new last week. & this one is like a mag / brochure photo:
I just read your thread from start to finish, and its great to see another Mk2 saved. You can see the hard work you have put in, and the end result shows this. I'll keep an eye out for updates.
Just noticed this thread too. This is what I need to do to my daily royal blue GTI as I'm now putting 12k on it a year. Stunning car and great work you've done there Matt.
Another two years so thought I'd do an update. Just clocked up 170,000 miles. I don't want to put any more miles on the old girl but I have to really. I just have to accept that she is never going to be concours so you might as well use it and enjoy it. She might have to visit the paintshop soon because the infamous redundant wiper grommet on the scuttle is corroding bad. Heater Matrix & Cooling System. First started with a few drips on the floor mat. Removal of the foam shield that wraps itself around the blower motor revealed a puddle of water and a wet heater box. Dash virtually out really, took the seats out too so working upside down was limited. Bit of a cow all in all. It was the original matrix dated 1990 so it hasnt done too bad I guess. With the cooling system drained, I also did the heater hoses and the steel pipe that wraps itself over the gearbox and down to the oil cooler. This was heavily corroded and I was surprised this wasnt leaking too. FEBI pattern parts again. Im finding my dealer is struggling to get some parts now never used to be this way. Obviously VAG support is drying up now which figures. Again with the coolant drained, I changed the thermostat and the plastic elbow that retains it. Despite appearing fine, I dont trust 24 year old plastic that has sustained countless heat cycles! Speedo Cable With the dash out, decided to do the speedo cable. It has always ticked with every revolution (when cold) so something was up with the cable internals. Pulled it through the bulkhead and out of the gearbox and the plastic dog drive went plop into the gearbox! CGTI forums here suggested that not only was this common, but being plastic it would get chewed up and would not matter. I didnt fancy this and spent an hour of my life with coat hangers, paper clips and god knows what trying to fish that devil out. Got it in the end. Main beam tell-tale I drive with headlamps illuminated a lot, even during the day. My main-beam tell-tale has always been dim. Made sense to do this too so stripped the cluster down. Talking of VAG parts support, the little bulb (its not an LED despite looking like one) is still available... go figure! With the dash out, I also wanted to fix the illumination for the heater controls but annoyingly its all a sealed unit and you cant change the bulb... how stupid is that?!? That will have to wait i'm afraid.... Brake pipes I have always known the brake pipes needed attention (where it is difficult to see them) and had the attitude "sort it when it fails the Mot". However, it went through another MoT unnoticed and it was off the road anyway so thought enough is enough. I purchased a lovely little hand bending tool which gave remarkable results. With time on my side, there is something quite satisfying making a brake pipe look as OE as possible. I changed all pipes to all four corners, from master cylinder to wheels including all hoses. I maintained the original T-pieces as these were fine. Used a Gunson brake bleed kit which uses the air pressure from a spare tyre. Worked a treat. Aux shaft seal & cambelt The routine cambelt change revealed a leaking aux shaft seal. The bolt for the aux toothed belt pulley was stoooopidly tight for a shaft that just has to drive an oil pump and dizzy. No problems, hooked it out and drove in the new one. New boots No conjecture here... TOYO Proxes T1-R. Have used them for years. I feel they give a good balance of wet/dry handling, looks and cost. I'm finding them harder to get hold of. Both ATS and Kwik-Fit said they were unobtainable. They are still on Blackcircles though. Wolfsburg To finish, I'll put some photos up of her drive to Wolfsburg. Its been a bit of an itch of mine to take her back to the factory. She has a W in the correct place on the VIN. We stayed on the Autostadt complex and it was amazing. 1050 miles round trip, with no faults to report. A shocking lack of significant mk2s at both the Autostadt museum and the other museum on Diesel Strasse. No Rallye or G60 to be seen. Shame on you VW. One thing driving across Europe was quite clear; just how rare mk2s have become. If anything, it acted as an incentive to keep the old girl going as, well, all of us are driving something quite special. Here's for another two year update as we edge ever closer to 200k miles. Cheers all. Below; at the Wolfsburg Ritz-Carlton. The corridors are lined with VW cream leather and it has a floating swimming pool in the VW factory docks... very cool. Thanks for reading everyone!
Superb work and looks so good! You rightly must be so satisfied with the results of all your effort and hard work. Regarding exhaust mounts I've found these to be the best http://http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=161236344004