Hi Dan, was good to catch up......Cadwell 2nd Oct??? book via MSV, i'll PM you. Deako, I was so nearly taken with them but I really wanted the interlagos trim to match with the red paint, and I've got leather in my Mk5, still thinkin about them though. :-) Chris, got a bit of help at the weekend from my best mate Adi, but I'm off this week so Its all my own pain...sorry Work.
Been a little slow on this one recently, back to work now so real life is catching up.... Been cleaning up the interior of the shell so I can start to mock up the bits that need modifying, bulkhead, seats, pedals, dash bar etc etc etc... the list goes on. The glass is now out along with the bonnet & doors being removed. Hope to start the cut & weld phase this weekend and would like to have lots done by sunday night. Interior ready for action.... More soon.
Excellent progress. Looking forward to seeing it come together. Have you found any rot with this shell? From the pictures it looks great, that floor is spotless now the soundproofing has been removed. Looks like its a very good base under there for the work!!
The shell is unreal...really really good, only got four spots that need attention, two in the rear panel, one under where the battery was (Moving the battery to the boot) and one near to one of the bung plugs in the right rear floor pan and thats only surface rust on the inside. Inside the rear quarter panels is really clean...
Little update from tonights efforts, decided to start with mounting the air conditioning/heater unit to the bulkhead as this will be difficult with the Leon dash bar mounted. Been looking at this for a couple of evenings and finally started with the first holes cut into the bulkhead... official start of project tonight...Yeay!! Marked up the bulkhead for the pipe location. First holes cut for the air con pipes to connect to the condensor in the heater box. Cut with a 51mm hole saw then extended them together with a jigsaw. The pipes for the heater matrix use the original Mk2 holes and this gives a perfect alignment for the blower fan intake hole under the scuttle. To get the blower unit high enough under the top of the bulkhead I needed to remove a mounting lug from the blower fan case. I'll have to rig up a support for the box once the dash bar is mounted to help support the weight of the unit. Next was a hole for the condensor out fall pipe, this is to let the moisture collected from the air con unit to escape to the out side of the car. The is where the pool of water you always get under your car when you've been stationary with the air con going comes from. Then it was just the four holes for the mounting bolts and its first mock up job done. Easy first job it seems, don't think its all gonna be this easy though.
Did a bit more tonight, the next bit is the Leon pedals, brake servo & clutch master cylinder. The Leon bulkhead was always gonna be the best template for fitting the bit i'm using, so I cut it up to form my pedal box template. Thought it would be simple to just overlay the template on the servo holes and bolt everything in place..... But that was just too optimistic. The problem was the pedals would have been far too high off the floor to be any good. I've decided to bite the bullitt and lower the servo position and therefore lowering the pedal positions to somewhere near the original. I've taken the simple route of using the original bottom servo holes as the top holes for the servo's new position. Started by bolting my template to the bulkhead, then drilling two new holes to allow the template to be held in place without interfering with the servo. The template is set up with the throttle pedal mount plumb in the vertical plane. Then I needed to mark up the bulkhead for the new servo hole and clutch master cylinder hole. When that was done I needed to cut and flattern the bulkhead to allow the servo to sit flat on the bulkhead. The servo is about 70mm lower so I had to clearance the strut tower fot the res. and body of the servo. Mounted up the pedals and then had a dream about the day it might actually run again!! This is not the final fit, just moked up to see that everything works, got to do a bit of welding on this and final fixing. Gonna leave that until i've moked up the steering colomb and dash bar to check it all works. Dash bar tomorrow.
Excellent job mate, am a bit sad to see the Leon turned to scrap, but if it was Cat C thats not all bad. What engine code is your Leon, as my old X plate cupra was APP, which only has the K03 turbo on it. What gearbox are you going to be using? Get rid of that Dual mass flywheel, makes the car nice and smooth to drive, but costs a lot when it goes wrong. If I were you I would renew all the clutch cylinders, one is in the 6 speed box, and the other is on the back of the pedal. Good luck with it
Thanks Ian Yeah this is an APP with the KO3, is it still 180BHP? was seriously thinking of a turbo upgrade to KO4 and the fuel rail. I'm using the six speed unit from the Leon, gonna mok-up the Leon engine mounts on Sunday and then I can look at what I need for the driveshafts. Also been thinkin about the duel mass, not really had chance to look at that yet, what other flywheels fit?
Still 180 ish, the handbook used to say it was 177bhp. Not sure about what you can use instead of the dual mass. I know on the five speed you could use the SMF from a 90-92 corrado G60, and its clutch. I found my Leon was quick enough so in a mk2 you should be ok. To be honest my dmf and clutch and slave cylinder all went at the same time, and I paid a local specialist about 600 I think. As you have it all in bits anyway its just parts cost. I was told the remap limit on a K03 is around 195 is, but even just going to a K03S will get you to 220 is with better engine breathing. If you can get the K04 stuff though I would.
Well its half way throught the weekend and things are moving on.... Just had my Birthday (Sat) and i've been hard at it all day... Started this morning by cutting the slot needed to mount the dash bar into the bulkhead. Bit of a leap of faith so I just cut it out and sorted things as they cropped up. Once the bulkhead was cut the dash bar needed a small amount of alteration, a few bits of un-needed brackets to cut off and the end section to be trimmed down. After the bar was fitted the main windscreen air vent needed fitting, so it was back in with the air-con unit and fitting of the vent. Then the bar was temp fitted with a couple of screws to allow the steering colomb to be mokked up and the dash fascia. Dash fascia before cutting. There was then a whole ton of cutting and radiusing the front of the dash, didn't photo that bit, but it took ages.... the end result was this... Then I temp fitted the centre of the dash and steering wheel along with the centre console and the shifter box. Got to do all the perminant fixing for the air-con unit, pedals and dash bar tomorrow.
Top job Philip, you certantly was right when you told me it was going to be a difficult project this one! No doubt this will be a great mk2, just cant beat doing the job properly!
Well its been one of those weeks where your constantly doing the tiny jobs that make it all come together at the end. Bit frustrated at the lack of progress tbh. I've cleaned up the engine bay side of the bulkhead and welded up around the area for the servo. (Had to put a relief cut into the bulkhead to allow me to re-shape it when i moved the servo). Fitted the pedal mounting plate from the Leon and sound proofed the inside of the bulkhead. Photos to follow. I've also finished the fitting of the dash bar so its all welded into place, the air -con box is also mounted into its new home and can't come out again due to the dash bar....... Hope the heater matrix never goes wrong!!! More Photos later, can't access photobucket at the mo.
Excellent work, I love these OEM type projects, my mate Llyr built a MK1 16v G60 a few years back and used OEM parts whereever possible, the factory look is a lot harder to achieve than an aftermarket approch. Well done
Thank you all for your very kind words.... Photos as promised... Engine bay side of the bulkhead all cleaned up and welded. New holes for the air-con and wiring loom. In car side all sorted with sound proofing. Pedal mounts all fixed into place. Air-can box mounted. Monuting the dash bar. The air-con box is now trapped in place by the dash bar.
OK been trying to write this update for ages...Grrrrrrr my internet keeps crashing, so i'm gonna do this is stages now. Sunday started like this with the angle grinder poised and ready for action. First off was the old handbrake mount. Then removed the top off the Golf transmission tunnel to make space for the Leon shifter. I'm using a chunk of the Leon transmission tunnel to give me the mounting points for the Handbrake, Console and Shifter.
