So, she is a 5 door white early mk2 golf GTi 8v 1986 registered, 116k, some history and in need of restoration. Bought in a drunken bid during the euro cup final half time.... ridiculous. Anyway after over a 400 mile round trip she is here up in Aston, south Yorkshire. Condition - non runner....why did I do it?? Lots of surface rust, a lot of interior parts missing and no carpets due to water ingress. And a non starter. Probably not worth the money to make nice as it is an early car, but like everyone else the challenge has begun. Not started for a year allegedly but did turn over manually very easily.. fully charged battery and no Prime at the fuel pumps. Electrically tested, and the car is on its backside. All earthling points and connections cleaned, fuel relay replaced and we have voltage but no working pump in the tank. Old fuel so I dropped the tank to empty and clean it, which has now resulted in the complete underside and arches being slowly rust treated, repainted and stone chip protection in white. New in tank pump fitted, new tank straps so let's see what happens. First attempt and fuel all over the floor from the accumulator pump which had supposedly previously replaced. Oh well, not to be beaten I have refurbished all of that and it has a new pump, filter and regulator. Try starting again..... nothing.. Turns over lovely but not firing. Checked for fuel at the metering head and got covered!! Petrol and pressure..Fuel at the plugs which I had cleaned and checked for a spark. I hadn't connected the cold start plug since cleaning its connections, idiot. Anyway, tried again and she started 1st time. Drives but no reverse gear. The small rod with white ends near the gearbox was shot. Got a new one and she goes backwards too now. Electrically the indicators needed a new relay and dash hazard switch. Fog light and rear screen switch internal points cleaned so nearly everything works..stereo connections are non existent Except the clock and MFA. I'm here for the journey and club GTi experiences that can help get her back to being a car again.. The MFA in the cluster holds a vacuum and has vacuum coming in. The white plug MFA wiper switch has continuity on the connections when switching and a 30 minute power off reset makes no difference. The clocks still show 00:00. So I am stumped... I do wonder if I am a relay missing on this ce1 fusebox as nothing is in 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7. Does it need a relay in either 4 or 5? the mpg one!! Sorry it is late and I can't remember which. More is happening as I am just repainting the scuttle area so that a fresh seal may stop water coming in through the foliage grille. The sunroof will be a problem as it is missing many parts and leaks. No roof lining also Yet the only ROT so far is at the N/S rear lower arch. All help and wisdom is gratefully received. I am not great with computers but will try to get my head around posting pictures if I have to use photobucket. That way you can all see the task in front of me And a big hello to you all.
Hello and welcome! Always great to see an early GTi being rescued Will be interested to see how you tackle the sunroof - I've got rotten channels on mine and not sure on best way to remedy. Good luck with the project and looking forward to seeing updates.
Well now you have diverted me to the sunroof. I had a look and found why it does not retract all the way back, the inner liner was there. I have the wind deflector too but no fixings or the arms that drop it down. I have to question is it cheaper to buy and fit a sunroof delete panel (vw heitage £250) + bodywork costs against refurbing this... I believe an inner and outer seal alone costs close to that, never mind the daft price people want for the deflector arms. It also needs the rain plate at the back and I haven't taken it all out yet.Then there is all the time to treat and paint items. It is a shame that it is not like the later VW cassette items that you just bolt up to the roof. How the hell can you treat rust in the void at the back?? And I thought the one on my Corrado was a pain... The sensible option is to delete it, but that isnt keeping it standard or having a challenge The only good news so far is that the scuttle area has been repainted, but tooo much over the VIN. So that will need sanding back, oh well. And I need to put a question up on the technical forum to see if anyone thinks I am missing a relay in no. 4 location as I have nothing MFA displayed
keep em peeled ebay and classifieds, ask the breakers you can get bits for good prices if you shop around. or look for scirocco tilt+slide roof kits, they are expensive but you should be able to get a kit for less than 250, as long s its complete all you need is some white paint unless you get extra lucky and find a white one
Slowly got a little further in re-doing the stone chip refurbishment under the car. I even remembered to take the bungs out and waxoyl as I go along. And I'm happy that the scuttle tray area is painted and the foliage cover is on with a new seal. That may rule out one of the water ingress areas Should I be posting pictures as full image or thumbnail? Door pocket question. This is an early 5dr with plain door pockets that are broken where some baffoon has badly fitted speakers. Would this car have just plain pockets? Would the pockets with a storage part in be a straight swap? Are 3dr and 5dr pockets different? I dont want to end up buying the wrong ones as this car will need enough spending on it. Especially as most of the interior trim is missing. Clocks are away with Nates2 to work his magic on hopefully. And I may need to do my homework on the MFA wiring in case he finds nothing wrong!!
Also, looking to the future let's talk preventative maintenance. What should I consider? I will swap the heater Matrix as half the dash is missing, but all comments gratefully received.
Re: roof / sunroof I managed to get a roof cut with the sunroof tray and parts but haven't found the right person (or time!) to get it sorted. Tempted to swap to a solid / non-sunroof roof but still a big job and becomes non original. As a temporary measure I used roofing flashing tape around the sunroof - it's horrible but stopped the rain coming in! I was hoping that the sunroof tray could be removed and treated / sorted, but I seem to recall from research a while back that it's a roof off job? Sounds like a nightmare! Re: door pockets, I would imagine they are different between 3 and 5 doors due to different door sizes. Unless you mean just the pocket bits and not the whole door length plastic part? I think you may be able to check original spec if you can get the codes from sticker on inside of rear panel, or in car's handbook, if either are present: https://vwmk2.fandom.com/wiki/Options_Code_List Full inline images are better than thumbnails IMO
thumbnail or large is up to you, I post thumbs personal preference. early are plain pockets, later speaker/bin type straight swap. 3 and 5 door bins are the same for option codes on older cars you're better off using my list, as VW over-wrote some of them over the years: https://clubgti.com/forums/index.php?threads/vag-option-codes-decoder-list.283422/
As always you think more about the car than what you get done. So today I was just happy with grinding off the exhaust as it was just in the way all the time. I should have done it a long time ago. Fitted the tunnel heat shield that I had repainted and cleaned up the fuel lines and clipped them back to the body. I am 1 nut short on the exhust shield fixing and it is a strange size. Slightly bigger than M10. I really need to find someone who is breaking a car so that I can get lots of daft parts. The car also came with a VW oil filter rolling in the boot so I thought I would just change out the Halfords one. Damn, I forgot what a pain they are to undo without a filter wrench I have new suspension that will go on at some point, but I need to decide whether I start at the front or back. As the rear axle needs to be removed and refurbed and then I can not move the car and it blocks my Corrado in. So much to do, especially with a leaky sunroof. But the clocks are out the car and I need that sorting 1st.
Still not sorted the clocks but have ordered another set that hopefully Nathan can sort for me. I attempted to try and fit a standard replacement exhaust system but the heavens decided to open on me so it was door handle time. The originals are very wobbly and worn so I purchased some Febi ones to replace these. Jiggery pokey and I re-tumbled them to fit the ignition lock so all is good. Does anyone know where I can get a Febi tailgate lock? And can a petrol cap be done too..... I may just jump in at it and try I taped the sunroof over and have 99% cured water getting in, hmmm.. I still can't seem to fall in love with her yet as she is so needy and everything i try to get for her is not easy
Hello, Cressa, If the fuel tank cap is the type the screws into the filler neck, and clicks once it's tight, then it's possible to alter it to suit an existing key. I have the procedure listed elsewhere, but briefly; the finisher with hole for the key cylinder can be levered/popped off the base the key cylinder and its housing lifts out the cylinder is removed from the housing, leaving behind a linkage bar with two ratchet teeth the cylinder can be cleaned and re-loaded with the right pattern of wards/bits/gates/tumblers the cylinder is re-inserted, with its 'nose' engaged with a slot in the linkage bar
Thanks for that, I will give it a go. Confidence is up now I know it has been done before. I will post up how it goes as I am hoping to get the exhaust back on too
It's a bit fiddly, but not an utter dog to do. Looking inside the outer cap, there are four small flanges clipped over the edge of the base. Once two of those are free (lever carefully with a suitably sized screwdriver, not too small, but not massive) the others can be cleared just by moving the cap. You'll probably find that some of the slots in the cylinder are empty. I've always supposed that this was to avoid giving anyone who 'found' a lost cap the opportunity to work-up an entire key. This type of cap survived a long time with VAG, it was used on Golf 3 and 4, Lupo, etc, though by then it had mutated to use the grooved 'laser' key type.
Well a big thanks for your post. 20 minutes and done. All of my slots had the wafers in but were a lot tighter to remove than the door handles ones. I had to use a thin screwdriver to push them out from the back. I removed 2 and this key works fine. All lubricated and back together, Cheers for that
BUY CHEAP- BUY TWICE..... I had purchased some brake line clips off of Ebay and the hole is too large so they don't tighten!! And I purchased a standard exhaust centre silencer and 2nd box only to find neither are the make that I ordered and don't fit each other at the flange side. Ahhhhhh Now fitted but I may be using the wrong rubber hangers as it looks to be sitting quite close to the body. Oh well
Took the plunge on a preventative job and got in deep for the heater matrix. This was a pig on my Corrado and is still a ball ache on a golf. As usual the bottom fixing in the engine bay needs cutting off!! But I have just got the unit out. Time to recover the flaps..... what have people used?
Little update. I managed to swap the heater Matrix for an NRF brand, recover the heater box flaps and get it all back together. Looks like I had a mouse nest in one of the dash speaker areas so it was nice to give it all a good vacuum out. A huge thank you goes to Nates2 who I refer to as the clocks master. I took him mine which were a pig, got another one for parts and he has done some magic and mine is now working great. During the dash out part I thought I had broken my main beam as it was constantly on!!. I unplugged it at the steering column and on reconnecting would not work I have spent too much time testing individual fuses and wiring until I noticed that the column stalk latches in to pull on the connection when fitted correctly... Schoolboy error and damned annoying, but sorted now. To sort:- Fog light switch not illuminating when the lights are on And probably more of an issue is the heater control that does not light up. Hmmm Below is a picture of the stereo wiring I have to sort. I only seem to have a negative/permanent live and light feed. Should there be a switched live?