'E-MAD' - 1988 Mk2 Golf 16v Track Car Project - Seats & 'Wheel lowered...

Not updated this for ages - lots of changes... copy and pasting from another forum but this should all make sense...

I think I forgot to document above what fun it was changing the little ball and socket on the base of the gear lever over the weekend too. Another lovely job...!

Ended up taking out the whole gearshift mechanism and working on it out of the
car, after which I conclude it would be very tricky to change the ball and socket with it attached to the car!




Made some good progress this evening - picked up the rest of the flywheel bolts, put them in with loctite and managed to get the gearbox on.

Correct bolts at last:




Bolt part number if anyone else is trying to track them down:




Flywheel on with bolts in place:




Predictably there are clearance (or lack of...) issues with the four branch and bulkhead so need to work on that next.

With the driver's side rear engine mount bolted on firmly I can get the gearbox mount about 1mm from lining up and accepting it's bolt, but at that one of the pipes on the manifold, from cylinder four I think, just touches on the bulkhead and stops it going together. Even if it would bolt down properly it's too close anyway and I'm sure would make a hell of a racket with the engine running.

Shouldn't be too bad a job to draw the engine and gearbox out complete on a trolley or the crane, adjust bulkhead and then put it back... probably have a crack another night this week after work as I'm feeling quite motivated to get this all back together!

 

More progress last night after work...

Marked up the bulkhead where the manifold would catch, and then took the engine and 'box out again. So glad I have an engine crane...!




Weighed up the options to adjust the bulkhead or engine mounts and went for a lump hammer and some brute force to the bulkhead. It was pretty tough to re-shape and I didn't want to bash it too much in case it weaked it.

After some careful 'modification' it looked like this...






Not pretty but hopefully enough clearance. I barely broke though the paint as it's that thick rubbery stuff but I primered it anyway and then put the heat shield back and re-shaped it to suit the adjusted tunnel.


The engine and 'box went back in relatively easily although it was getting pretty dark by now. Rear mount and gearbox mount aligned and bolted down fine once I got the driveshafts in position, bit of a fiddle but the crane and two trolley jacks helped.

I didn't check clearance last night as it was too dark but the fact the gearbox would go on it's mount tells me it's better than it was the day before! Will investigate more later

 

Did a bit more on the car today, manifold to bulkhead clearance wasn't as good as I'd hoped even after re-shaping it with the hammer as per the photo's above. Bit of a pain really, had to take the manifold on and off a load of times, couldn't be bothered getting the engine out again.

After thoroughly assessing the situation I booked the bulkhead in for an urgent appointment with Mr A Grinder and everything fits much nicer now.

Whoever said the four branch on an ABF would be tricky into a Mk2 was right, quite a hold up but hopefully can make some good progress from now on!

 

Engine in and sparks flying while Mr A Grinder gets to grips with some bulkhead adjustment as mentioned above...







This part held me up for a while, the threaded extension bolt to mount the oil cooler sandwich plate. Got the right one in the end, it's 3/4 UNF thread is anyone else needs one - I got this one from Merlin motorsport in the end, very good service.




I decided to use this Mocal sandwich plate I had 'in stock' rather than the nice shiny new one I bought recently for this as it seemed a better fit with the extension bolt.




Mounted in place.




I bought a length of hose from my local Pirtek hose and fitting specialist and made my own oil cooler pipes, already had the fittings and clips etc. Made them long at first to allow for different mounting possibilities for the cooler.




Bit more reassembly.




Test fit of bumper etc.




As I wanted to keep the twin light grille I made up brackets to mount the cooler in a place that would allow maximum air flow but not foul the back of the spotlights. My brother in law helped make and mount the brackets and it ended up a nice neat job.







Shortened the pipes to suit and secured them, making sure not to kink any of the pipes.




Over the weekend I got busy fixing and reconnecting all the wiring, plumbing bits in, connected up the driveshafts (horrible!), bumper mountings etc.

Refilled the engine and gearbox with oil, cooling system with water etc to get it looking like this....






After checking the timing, fiddling with senders, fixing air leaks, messing with the dizzy settings, ISV wiring etc. she fired up!

The engine appears to run well above 2k rpm but won't hold an idle, splutters and dies below 1.5 - 2k rpm really in spite of trying lots of things to keep it going.

 

Got the car idling ok on Good Friday, it needed the mixture adjusting a little bit and the timing setting correctly. This was hard to do as the car wouldn't run but Gary (GVK) pointed me in the right direction after me posting a question in the 'engines' section here:

http://www.clubgti.com/forum/showthread.php?t=159678

His tip was to wind out the throttle stop to get the car to run at a high idle of 2k rpm, set it up and then back off the throttle stop and check / reset timing again.

After a bit of fiddling we were left with a lumpy 1k rpm idle and the car running ok, needs more work in that area but got carried away with something else at the weekend...

... Bought a roll cage on Saturday... the man in the shop said it'd never fit in a Mk2 Golf, he was kind of right but we got it home ok anyway....

(Don't worry, we covered those feet sticking out of the back before driving home!)







Got the cage home and thought we'd give it a trial fit... er... no chance with the sunroof mechanism in there so had to book another appointment with Mr A. Grinder on Sunday...

Followed a post from Steve R on here about doing similar in his track car, excellent info and it really helps - cheers Steve






Turns out the sunroof tray is very well fitted in on the old Mk2, took a lot of messing to remove it but we managed it. These are some of the bits that came out, didn't take photo's of the rest but there were the cables, sliding mechanism, water drain tubes and all kinds of bits and bobs!




This of course left a fair size hole in the roof of the car and the weather wasn't looking too good... luckily my brother in law called in and did a spot of welding for us to hold the sunroof panel back in place. We fitted it in central and welded some brackets to hold it in with a view to sealing around the gap with some suitable waterproof sealant.

At the rear edge of the sunroof we refitted one of the roof support struts that had come out when removing the sunroof tray and welded it into place. We also bent the lip of the surrounding metal inside to secure the panel and leave a smaller gap to fill with sealant. Hopefully once sealed it'll just look like the factory sunroof from outside.






After all that we could trial fit the roll cage and measure up for where to mount the base plates for the feet. A sign of relief could be felt as we lifted into the newly non-sunroof equipped car and it fitted nicely!




Here's Neil pretending the cage is all fitted and he's not actually balancing on an un-fixed seat and holding the un-cut door bar up by hand....




Didn't have too much time on Monday but went shopping for paint etc for the cage and measured up for the base plates then put the car back to rest in the garage like this... cage just resting in position and an un-sealed sunroof




More soon. Any tips and hints appreciated on floor fixings for the cage. It did come with the base plates and all the nuts and bolts and stuff (it's an OMP one) but the instructions are next to useless so any input appreciated. It seems fairly straightforward... but then so did everything else....

 

Nice update there.

 

done well mate

 

Looking good stu, glad the sunroof removal info was useful

 

Yes - very useful thanks Steve. Hopefully I'll get chance to finish it off this weekend, seal it up water tight and carry on with the cage fitting.

 

Bit late with the update this week as these pics are from a few weekends ago.

Not to worry, anyway, weather was terrible so before pushing the car out of the garage to start work on Saturday I took the precaution of sealing the sunroof...




Don't worry, a more permanent solution is planned but this was a quick fix so I could keep the car watertight whilst working in heavy rain.

Next job was to cut and bend the roll cage foot plates to suit the car, then mark and clean up the paint and underseal to get nice bare metal to weld them to.

In progress:






That's my brother in law doing the welding. I did have a go but it would have taken about a week for me to do what he did in an afternoon, and it wouldn't have been anywhere near as neat either. I need to practice my welding!

Looked a bit more like this as things progressed...

B pillar feet:






Rear arches:






Front legs:






I've done a bit more since then but no more pics yet, rested the cage in position, marked up the location of the feet and drilled the base plates ready for bolts.

I've only drilled 8mm holes so far but think I'm going to go up to 10mm to use bigger bolts. Not sure yet whether to put little plates on the outside or just big washers, will see how it looks at the weekend when I get chance to crack on.

Started to think about adding a harness bar to the cage, it doesn't have one as standard. Any tips on that appreciated, also any info on the correct height to mount the door bars? They bolt on but you have to weld the lugs onto the cage and then cut them to length you see.

I'd like to get it all done soon and then I can get started painting the cage and finally installing it properly!

 

Yesterday's progress, more work on the cage in the rain / snow / hail showers - getting there!

Didn't take too many photo's as it wasn't that exciting really, mostly drilling holes, doing a trial bolt down of the cage, drilling more holes, and that sort of stuff.






Did get round to working out the fitment of the door bars once the rest of the cage was bolted down. On this OMP cage you can cut the bars to whatever length you want and weld the lugs on wherever you want to bolt them too.

With the seat on the car I cable tied a door bar in place and adjusted many times it until I was happy with the position and the seat would slide back and forward fully on it's runners without catching the bar. Also simulated driving and doing some steering to check my elbows wouldn't catch - seems ok.




Didn't take a pic of the drivers side, but similar to this one on the passenger side.




They are both now tacked into place with the welder and the bars cut to length. Will weld all the bits properly when the cage is back out of the car before painting this week hopefully, that's the next job along with knocking up some plates for under the car where each leg bolts through.

 

thanks for the updates, looks just like my mk1 OMP & seeing where the legs end has confirmed my thoughts for getting mine welded in now.

I wonder why they make the main hoop legs that bit shorter than the rest, or do they prefer them to be on raised box sections......?

 

Excellent work

What's your opinion of the OMP cage, is it a good fit, good quality? Looking at getting a cage soon and OMP are so much cheaper than others.

 

excellent work, interesting looking through all the pics.

one question- could you tell me the part number of the windage tray you put in the ABF? was it a vw part or GSF.

cheers

 

Thanks for the replies

Not sure, I've seen different cages mount in different ways, some up on the rear seat base, some on the sills, some on the floor. I think the way the OMP ones mount is designed to get the legs as far out towards the edge of the car as possible?

I've no frame of reference really, never fitted another cage but it seems good quality and a pretty good fit, certainly better than I expected from what I've read about other people's experience with them. It isn't absolutely spot on in terms of fit but nothing that a little persuasion when bolting it down doesn't fix, a few centimetres here and there, not sure if all cages are like that anyway?

The windage tray is available from GSF, it's listed as a 'sump gasket restrictor' or something like that for a Mk3 Golf Diesel. I can find the part number if required, it's about 27 + vat from there but I actually picked mine up from ebay for around 20.

You don't need a sump gasket with it as it has a gasket built in, very straightforward to fit. Give me a shout if you have any other questions

 

excellent, cheers for the info stu

 

Bit of progress last night after work...

Door bar lugs welded on properly:






Then painted all the cage bits in grey primer:






Hopefully do the next coat of paint tonight

 

hey stu

one more question about the windage tray- i noticed in my ABF lump ive got here there is a plastic baffle/restrictor bit that goes round the oil pump pickup- does this still fit if you put the deisel windage tray on or have you left if off?

 

pretty cool mate.

 

No, that part won't fit with the windage tray in, I left it off as it shouldn't be required. I was actually going to weld baffles into my sump 'til I realise it was alloy (ooops...) but will probably baffle the steel one from the KR and stick that on at some point.

Last night's progress... it's a bit, er... RED!