Beige Golf - new lease of life

[britchie]

hello all,

For those who know me and my beige golf 'Gramps', the 2 Litre is in and running on the OEM fuel injection. A fairly simple job that i managed to make an epic as per usual Car now sports matching five speed as well. Engine sounds fantastic! Still some tidying to do re the wiring but a couple of nights this week should have it sorted and see it back on the road in the not to distant future.

No supercharger yet Valver, that will have to wait till i have enjoyed its current configuration and got over working on it

I have been a few years without a powerful mk1 golf, which is too long...

Thanks to golfwise and gtimk5...the parts and advice are always there!

[brackie]

Goood to see both of you back

Well, one of you at least (We haven't seen or heard the Golf yet.) Some pics would be nice and an account of your mods. Looking forward to it.

I reckon a SE Tas cruise may happen soon so will it be ready?

[gtimk5]

Pleasure britchie, good to hear that your immaculate Golf is getting somewhere near completion.
Forget the old Land Rover and finish it off mate!
Rally Burnie in september? Or Rally Tas next Feb??????
Cheers, Andrew

[Valver.]

Woot - nice one, Ben

[britchie]

For brackie and others,

the Golf ("Gramps") is a one owner, 1980 model, GLS, 2 door in Savannah Beige - awesome colour. I bought it stock standard, but done the following:

-Koni adjustables with coilover platforms on custom struts.
-Custom wound king springs with my own spring rates.
-Front Whiteline sway bar (26mm).
-Rear Whiteline sway bar (21mm) - proper rear facing bar like genuine gti.
-Sirocco K bar (lower suspenson mount brace).
-New strut tops.
-Rear mk3 disk brakes and hand brake cables
-Front mk3 hubs, disks, and calipers (256mm).
-Rose jointed steering arms to allow for hubs, spacers to eliminate bump steer.
-Mk3 master cylinder.
-Mk2 brake booster.

It was going around like this for a while but i have currently added:

-2e code tall block 2.0litre engine with bosch motronic fuel injection (OEM)
-Walbro intank fuel pump.
-standard exhaust to keep it quite (big noisy exhausts that knock on the floor pan - been there, done that)
-Matching 5 speed
-large drive shafts and cv's


And of course those wheels (15") - thanks Valver

As mentioned Andrew and Eddie both put a lot of time in also.

[britchie]

Brackie: golf will be finished at end of week hopefully - fingers crossed.

Andrew: wow!! wound love to do Rally again but i think we would both struggle to afford it!! Any one out there in Golf land want to sponsor us - wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more Would need to raise a good $5000.00. We can offer sticker space on the car and printed t-shirts for advertisers? Also photos of the car in action post event with advertisers sign writing.

[mollins]

sounds awesome

Hey britchie..

Great to hear of another mk1 2dr getting the crazy tassie refurbishment treatment... nice list of mods you have there.. Looking forward to hearing more about the car and seeing some pics.. Thumbs up!

cheers

mike

[Water Boy]

Sounds awsome cant wait to see some pics... Are you running 4 stud or 5 stud hubs... Id like to know a bit more about your brake set up with using Mk3 stuff sounds good...

Cheers James

P.S You Tassie guys sure know how to do it...

[TassieGTi]

Good work, Ben Will be good to see it up and running again! We have to get all these Mk1s out together!!

A couple of pics of the beast!

[britchie]

Thanks TassieGTI I was going to ask you for a copy of those photos cause it looks great with Stu's car.

The hubs are 4 stud. it is not a difficult job, but requires a lot of frigging around as the lower ball joints have to be upgraded to the heavier duty mk3. The hubs then locate on those. the struts need to be totally modified for the size of the machined hub flange where the strut locates on the hub and provides camber adjustment. The camber adjustment holes need welding up and relocating. We then cut the spring platforms off the strut and welded on adjustable platforms. Custom springs could then be used. i have two sets of springs that can be interchanged quickly.

A mk3 hub has its steering arm located at the base of the hub, and a mk1 at the top of the hub. Therefore, the steering arms were not near horizontal as they are supposed to be, resulting in severe bump steer (very dangerous). this was rectified by drilling out the tapered hole where the tie rod fits and putting a big bolt and spacer!! (emphasize big bolt). This means that the tie rod must be substituted for a spherical joint.

As later mk1s had a non adjustable steering arm on one side, i replaced it with an early LS adjustable one. Now steering geometry can be maintained no matter what height the car is at (ie super low).

The mk3 hubs then carry there original calipers and disks as they came from the factory ie. 256mm

This system has been totally over engineered (cause its stops you from hitting the trees)

I would not take this approach again!! i only did it because the parts were available to me and at a very reasonable cost and Eddie and Andrew did a lot of welding etc.

I would instead buy off the shelf coil overs and spacer brackets for mk1 gti callipers and 256/280mm disks. ie like TassieGTI's car.

One advantage of the big hubs is that the big CV joints off later cars bolt straight in. Therefore my car has the big drive shafts and cv's like Stu's car

One last thing. Well sorted brakes and suspension on a mk1 is just as fun as a powerful engine and adds considerably to the safety and enjoyment of the vehicle. My last golf had a big engine way before the brakes etc. and was suffered because of it.

I will post some photos later when the car is finished and out of the shed

Cheers

[DaveMack]

The more I see those beautiful Tassie Mk 1s ...

... the more I want one. No ... not in place of the Pogo ... as well as. Is that just being greedy?

Great work, guys.

Dave

[rayray086]

x2, love the examples of Mk1s down in Tasmania!

Car looks fantastic britchie. Your suspension list looks quite impressive - the car must handle even more than a dream

[britchie]

handled really badly for a while cause it was sitting on the bump stops

I got sick of it being so low that i put it up a fair bit again. Now it handles like a roller skate. It still has rubber bushes in it which makes it nicer for the road. i hope to take it out to the track at some time. I don't want to trash the bodyshell too much so it won't be a track car. It is a similar setup to my last golf but with a bigger engine, brakes and roll bars so it should be pretty quick. My yard stick is Baskerville raceway. old car did it in low 1min 09sec, new car slightly faster because of the 'bigger' stuff but it probably wont rev like a 1.8litre 8v (old golf)

[Valver.]

We'll have to all get out and take some better pics - I just bit the bullet and bought a new DSLR camera in readiness

[GoLfMan]

We'll have to all get out and take some better pics

I AGREE, stop being lazy you lot and entertain us with your bloody sweet mk1's all together.... its been a while since i've had a decent druel over aussie mk1s