1976 Sunshine Yellow Scirocco TS

[Tim]

Been slowly working away on the car over the past week.
Pitting looks bad in the photo but its really quite fine. The floors are still pretty sound. If it had have been left another year or two it would be a different story though id say..

Heres a pic after the first coat of POR-15 treatment (yes I cleaned up all the rust first with a flapper wheel/wire wheel. Will key the surface and do another coat after a little bit of welding is done to the rust hole. The stuff dries rock hard so I can see why they say not to let it dry on your skin! I spilled a small amount on the concrete and its not going anywhere!


The worst of the rust. Ive started cleaning up the area in prep for welding up this little hole but still needs a bit more work.


donor low mileage 2E engine


crossflow head from a Seat cordoba I believe and some other goodies I have collected


I have all the parts from the head kicking about now. Just need to drop if off to get it all pieced together. The next step will be figuring out which head gasket kit im gonna need. It looks as though I should get away with an ABA gasket kit.

I wont be touching the bottom end at this stage.. Its a pretty fresh engine so no point really.

[velly_16v_cab]

awesome tim, this shoudl be a nice car once it back together.

keep up the awesome work

[Tim]

Started tearing into one of the carbs yesterday to get the jet/needle & seat specs and they seem to be in pretty good nick. Will need a bit of a cleanup but nothing too serious other than 1 or 2 cobwebs

Ive ordered a TT 268 cam from Preeny at TPR. This engine will be a bit of a make it up as I go along jobbie but from the few people ive spoken to it should be a nice streetable cam. You already lose out on some low end grunt going carbs over fuel injection so dont want to go too wild.. The head will mostly be stock except for some minor porting so thats another reason not to really go nuts. The car needs to be fun on the street.

Ive also hit up ebay for some dellorto parts. 2 x full rebuild kits and the missing banjo fittings. Ive never rebuilt a carby myself.. Looks like fun though

I just need to wait now until the parts arrive and we can start getting stuck into them.

[velly_16v_cab]

good skills Tim, nice to see your being the old girl back to life

[Tim]

Ive spent the past week cleaning up the interior and dying the carpet black. Was a shame to lose the old salt and pepper pattern but instead of black and grey it was kinda blue and green. Has come up well for original 35 year old factory carpets. The original owner has was running rubber matts that have really protected it well.



Excuse the crappy mk1 pov spec steering wheel. It has gone on so I can get the original wheel refurbished professionally. The rubberised grip has come loose from the metal wheel which is an easy fix just by injecting some epoxy but im interested to see if they are able to some how rejuvenate the finish of the wheel.

[tassie_euro_mk1]

Looking great Tim! Really love the Mk1 siroccos and you have a fine example there. I like the direction of modifying you have chosen too. Twin carbs are awesome and addictive. Definitely my best and happiest purchase for all things VW. Keep it up

[Tim]

small update.
well the club reg thing was a bit of a dead end it seems. Since im a PIARC member I was going to get them to sign off on the car being "safe to drive" but it seems the guy they have in charge of inspecting the cars has retired and doesnt have access to a hoist anymore. They suggested I jsut get a roadworthy cert on the car which is the other option for getting club reg.... But if im doing that then maybe just full registration will be the go..

Anyways... off to the mechanic who had a heard attack at the weber dcoe carb hanging off the back of the engine so i did a mini rebuild on the old carb.. Its more driveable on the stock carby.. Just a bit more responsive down low. The stock Zenith 2B carb is a pretty complex little unit but its nice to now have an understanding of how it works.. The issue it had when I picked the car up was a failing accelerator pump. It doesnt have the standard diaphragm operated setup. It has a linkage operated valve that feeds from a secondary bowl. The main issue apart from a few vac leaks was the rear bowls float level was set so far out that it was completely dry! A quick adjustment of the float level and a tune has it running pretty nicely now with all the original stuff. (no doubt once the car is on the road this will change pretty quickly though )

Second challenge was the inspector had a second heart attack at the rust spot on the front guard. Non structural rust is not supposed to be a problem but I think vicroads have the inspectors so scared of losing their licences that he wasnt willing to budge. Anyways I have a guard in perfect condition that im going to throw on anyways so i decided to put that on.. Solves the rust issue..

Now whilst the guard is off i figured I might as well address a few of the common scirocco issues.. Due to the way the seam sealer is applied water tends to seep under the rubber bonnet supports and then they rust from the inside out.. I started digging around a little and indeed i found some rust starting to form under sections of the seam sealer that looked in perfect condition. Im in the process of slowly stripping it back but I guess ill bring it back bare just to make sure its all good.. Seal it with POR15 and then hit it with some new seam sealer.. Heres a couple of pics to give an idea.. Looks like ive caught it just in time.

[Tim]

at this stage im just going to put a stop to any further degradation of the car but its looking more like she will need a full respray in the not too distant future

[Jarred]

yay full respray!

[Tim]

Took the old girl in for a roadworthy inspection the other day. The old school mechanic that looked at the car fell in love. He was amazed at how well she goes for a little buzz box too.

Anyways the list was pretty short.

3 tyres are bald
one upper strut mount is collapsed and needs to be replaced
windscreen wiper blade needs replacing
windscreen washers not working
reverse lights not working
And the one thing I was not looking forward to The windscreen is pretty badly sand blasted and has some massive scratches from the wiper having a mind of its own.

Not bad for a 35 year old car. Although I have put countless hours into cleaning her up mechanically.

So yeah.. took me about 30 minutes to rectify all the problems except the windscreen. No-one in Australia is able to help out so I turned to Germany. Classic Parts Center are a pretty slick operation. They replied to my emails with a quote and are able to ship me a screen at an extremely competitive price so hopefully once she arrives ill be able to get her in and on the road!

Todays fun was removing the old windscreen. Given how hard they are to source I decided to make sure it come out in one piece using the old paddle pop stick method. Worked a treat. Ill be able to put it aside in case I ever need an emergency screen.

The old seal is a little hard on the outside but its still serviceable. I havent found anywhere that sells a replacement new one just yet so I might just reuse it for now. The screen will eventually have to come out again anyways in the not too distant future so ill look into replacing it then.

As with most of the rust ive found on the car so far it seems to be a case of catching it just in time before it becomes a real problem. Will just clean it up and reseal it for now so it doesnt get any worse.

[Jarred]

Great news Timmeh!

[roccodingo]

Got new seals here, with groove for trim or grooveless or you can get direct from my good friend Randy at VR.Your Source For Hard To Find VW Porsche & Datsun Z-Car Seals and Weather Stripping

[Golf Loon]

Car Looks OK Tim. I can get new screen in Oz, but you need to lie to the windscreen people and tell em its for a 1991-1993 Convertable
Then all is achieveable.
I also have a used Cabrio one here that is sweet as.
Good luck with the Mk1 disease.

[Tim]

Got new seals here, with groove for trim or grooveless or you can get direct from my good friend Randy at VR.Your Source For Hard To Find VW Porsche & Datsun Z-Car Seals and Weather Stripping

Thanks for the heads up. I had seen that vintage rubber site before. Most of the rubbers seem pretty good for the cars age but when I finally start thinking about paint no doubt some will need replacing.

Car Looks OK Tim. I can get new screen in Oz, but you need to lie to the windscreen people and tell em its for a 1991-1993 Convertable
Then all is achieveable.
I also have a used Cabrio one here that is sweet as.
Good luck with the Mk1 disease.

Thats interesting Matt. Are you saying the screens are the same or that you can dodgy up a cabriolet one into a mk1 rocco?
Its too late now anyways as ive already put in the order for the genuine screen. The price was pretty good anyways so im not really paying much of a premium even after shipping.

A few of my friends had mk1s back when we were young and stupid. I dont plan on growing old gracefully

[Water Boy]

When this is finished you owe me a drive of it Tim.