MK3 Gti 16V Anniversary Restoration

Discussion in 'Mk3' started by swisstony, Jun 4, 2019.

  1. swisstony New Member

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    Right better get this thread started. My wife and I are in the midst of restoring an anniversary model back to its former glory and are already about 7 weeks in. This is how we got 'Mystic Mog" many many years ago

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    All original apart from the lights so popped in the quad

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    Now unfortunately she had been sat and SORN for many years on our driveway so the combination of the weather and bad previous care/repairs took its toll and she just rusted away. A real shame so the decision was made to scrap the shell. Luckily next door neighbour had the same car , same colour just 8V so we bought the shell, pushed it round to ours and it is now going to have everything from the 16V put into the new shell. Well....that was the idea but the new 'mystic' still needed a shed load of work doing to it, bodywork, chassis , welding, you name it. So I will use this thread to update and document as we go along. Cheers
     
    Sirguydo likes this.
  2. swisstony New Member

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    So first stage was discovering how bad the rot had got to the original mystic and it was bad ! All the usual places.

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    So stripped her all back to nothing and I mean nothing !

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    Taking the engine out complete with driveshafts and wheels, much easier

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    My son hoping he will get to drive it soon

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    Shell ready for collection

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    and off it goes

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    erreesse likes this.
  3. swisstony New Member

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    Next door neighbour daughter had a MK3 8V Anniversary which had been laid up for about 5 years so we purchased the rolling shell and literally pushed it around onto our driveway :)

    So before you know it, we have what seems to be a mirror image car back on our driveway in exactly the same spot as the last one !

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    All tucked up ready to be be started

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    The plan was simple..(yeah right) Take everything from the first golf and move it across to this shell. But although this shell and frame was in better condition than the original , it certainly was not in great shape. Sure the arches were not rusted to buggery, but underneath left a lot to be improved. Some previous owners (lets call them idiots) have just crushed all the sills when jacking and they were ALL gone. massive holes everywhere and the sills were basically shot to pieces. Bottom of the front wings were gone, per usual and some rust on the back near the bumper bar. Finally inside, where VW had decided bungs were a great idea, most of them had allowed moisture to creep in and rust away.

    So as we had already decided to go down the route of restoration we needed a welder ! Cue massive amounts of research and asking for quotes but most people needed the car at their premises which would have involved extra cost of a flatbed. But luckily one local chap came to our rescue and did it on the driveway. Took 4 days (probably as we kept adding to the job :) ) but he was great.

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    New sills going in

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    Back done

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    We have since , treated every panel that was welded with Janolite to seal and protect against ant rust ingress. In addition we have sealed every section underneath with seam sealer, and then painted over with either stonechip protection or commercial underbody chassis paint. The arches have then been colour coded back to mystic blue and blended into the black underbody seal.
    Pictures to follow.
     
    erreesse likes this.
  4. swisstony New Member

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    In the meantime, we have been tackling the existing donor parts section by section.
    So for example the 16V ABF engine which will be going into the car once we have removed the 8V engine and its wiring loom. This will be sold off for parts, either as a whole or broken down into separate components. I will be listing all these parts either on here or via the normal ebay/gumtree route.

    As you saw we pulled the 16V engine out complete with driveshafts, wheels and subframe. This allowed us to roll it to a place where we could strip it down to do a rebuild. When I say rebuild, not an 'engine rebuild' per se, but literally us taking it apart as much as we could to a level which was comfortable to us and our limited knowledge. So that meant steering rack, anti roll bar, shocks, hubs, various hard piping, alternator, pullies, inlet manifold, rocker cover, exhaust manifold, headers etc. Basically anything we could get to with a view to refurbishing them.

    This is the engine as it started

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    Here is semi stripped , as in the inlet manifold, alternator and a few other sections have been removed already but it gives you an idea what we started with. It was pretty dirty, rusty, scab on all the aluminium parts and generally in a poor state. All taped up and tried a steam clean first. That was pointless so broke out the degreaser, brushes etc and went to town with the pressure washer. Marginally better but decided that it would have to be stripped down more and each section tackled individually.
    As we want to keep it fairly stock and 'factory' we are not blinging up any parts, rather trying to keep to the way it looked when it first came out the factory. So for example the rocker cover. Here it is looking pretty sorry for itself.

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    Degreased and then with wire brush and dremel cleaned up in stages


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    That method applies to most things, especially the aluminium parts
    Then primer and aluminium spray paint.

    Will update this thread as the parts come together once cleaned and painted.
    The block is left as is and just treated with Janolite to protect against rust and anything too big to remove will be degreased and wire brushed.
     
    1990, erreesse and Toyotec like this.
  5. GregVR6GTI New Member

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    I don'y even know it was possible to remove an engine this way !!!!
     
  6. 12valver Forum Member

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    Some amount of work but I look forward to seeing it develop.
     

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