Dave's '79 GLD Rebuild/Refurb Thread

[GRN_VAGN]

Congrats, glad it all worked for ya

As for the fuse, do this vincewaldon.com - HOW-TO: Pimp your glowplug wiring

[gldgti]

yep - or get a 40amp 12V circuit breaker from supercheap.

[DaveGLD]

Cheers for the link, I think rewiring would be a good idea, I don't like the idea of all that current running through the fusebox and under the dash!

Pics of the new water pump and cleaned housing:


Repaired alternator bracket:

[gldgti]

sexy

re-glow plugs - the main current does not go through the fuse box, it passes through a heavy guage wire behind the fusebox.

The standard wiring is OK - if the glowplugs are working OK anyway, I woulnt bother rwiring the whole thing unless you are having problems.

[DaveGLD]

Spent the weekend flushing out the cooling system which turned out to be a good move as it SERIOUSLY needed it! This is what came out of the car after an engine flush treatment and 30 minutes running (I had previously drained the coolant and refilled with clean rainwater):



The heater core was completely blocked, so after several tries of flushing and reverse flushing a whole bunch of browny poo gunk let go and flushed through. This had me a little worried about how much crap could be through the engine and blocking the water jackets etc, so I pulled all the hoses off, flushed and reverse flushed and then drained everything and refilled with clean water twice more. Hopefully some mains pressure water will have cleared the worst of it out - and combined with a new water pump and decent coolant, anything left inside the engine will be loosened up and flushed through after a few months driving.

Very happy with my new battery too, I previously had a DIN66 600CCA battery in there, but I managed to find a DIN55 590CCA battery which does not take up as much room as the DIN66 - even though these DIN size batteries are meant to be a uniform size, they do vary quite a bit in price and capacity - repco had 500CCA DIN 55 batteries around the $200 mark, I found this 590CCA battery at Sprint Auto Parts for around $120 - even some of the more expensive DIN66 batteries were only rated at 550 CCA.



Still blowing glow plug fuses though, I'm very tempted to replace the single fuse with one of these fuse blocks from Jaycar: Gang Block - 57 x 60mm - Jaycar Electronics

This way I can have an individual lead and fuse for each glowplug so that if one is shorting out I don't have to remove all of them to find it - and having a look online I can upgrade to a set of the fast (7 second) glowplugs for $30 a set - or $99 buys me a complete kit with the fast glowplug relay.

At the moment I have a big rusty old parts merc in my driveway which is going off to the scrappers so once that is gone I can finally take the golf on a high speed drive and see if I have fixed my overheating issue!

[DaveGLD]

Just realised it's been nearly two months since the last post, mainly because I've been moving house - but the good news is that the Golf is registered and back on the road! After the coolant flush I took the car on a high speed drive on a 30+ degree day with no problems, the temperature gauge stayed more or less in the middle and I only had to use the thermo fan (the previous owner has put a manual switch on the dash for it) when the car was sitting at the lights. I've also done a few runs from the old house to the new house, which involves going up a big hill at 80km/h - even with the car fully loaded the gauge only crept slightly past halfway - so I think the overheating issue has been licked for now. What have other GLD owners found to be a 'normal' position for the temp gauge?

I've also re-wired my glowplugs, the previous owner had already fitted a dedicated solenoid under the bonnet, so I've run 4 individual wires to each glow plug with a blade fuse inline to each GP. Will post some pics tonight. 1 GP keeps blowing fuses so at least I now know which one is faulty but can still start the car easily on the other 3 GP's.

The one fantastic thing I'd forgotten about this car is the stupidly good fuel economy, fuel gauge was on the red line, I put 10 litres in and that brought the gauge up to 1/4 - then have made two return trips from happy valley to Parafield gardens (that's two 78km round trips) and the gauge is now only halfway between 1/4 and empty. Awesome! I love being able to do mega kms on pocket change!!!

Now that the car is back on the road and being driven weekly I'm starting to catch up on all the other 'little' jobs. In the next few weeks I'm hoping to tidy up the wiring that's hanging under the dash and in the engine bay so that all my accessories are working again and there is no chance of crappy wiring shorting out.

Just before I took the car off the road last year I'd had balljoints and wheel bearings replaced - so now I'm really enjoying hooning around in my Mk1!

[mikinoz]

Loved your last update. So nice to hear things are getting sorted and you are enjoying it!

Drive on!

[DaveGLD]

Thanks Mick, here's the pics of the aforementioned GP wiring (and my nice new coolant reservoir too!).

The separate solenoid had already been fitted by a previous owner. All I had to do was re-route the wiring and create a new loom that consisted of a ring terminal with 4 separate leads going to each glow plug, with an inline blade fuse. The wire is rated at 25 amps and all connections have been soldered and then covered with heatshrink tubing so there are no places to short.









Glowplug 1 kept blowing the 15 amp fuse after about 10 seconds, but after changing to a 20 Amp fuse it is now fine - I might have to check 2 and 4 with an ammeter to check they are actually drawing current. Glowplug 3 is shorting out the 20A fuse so that definitely needs to be replaced. At least now it's easy to see which one is shorting and the others aren't disabled when a fuse blows. Even with the solenoid in place the PO still had the glowplug wiring going back through the dash, so I've disconnected the old wiring and all the high current GP wiring is now only in the engine bay. Total cost for the fuseholders, cable and terminals was around $25.

Oh, and another easy job was replacing the wiper blades - I replaced the whole blade assembly with new Bosch "DirectConnect" 16 inch blades - when I put my order for all the gaskets etc to fix the water pump I added these to the cart - at $3.88 they are a bargain (and around the same price as rubbers at my local car parts place). Well worth getting the next time you order something! Good quality and they just click right on to the old arms.

Your Parts Search Returned 2 Part(s)

[allana13]

Any more updates on this thread.... Wish the Body work was good on this.... Been looking for a GLD for a while.....

[DaveGLD]

Hi allana, yes I do have updates! Sorry for the delayed response, I've been busy playing wedding car driver and have spent the last few months prepping and cleaning cars!

But in between things I have been able to do little bits and pieces on the GLD. Most of it has been to do with removing old crappy wiring and replacing with new, plus a lot of tidy up jobs in the interior. I managed to get a dash mat, make a trim board for under the passenger side, fixed the ignition switch, rewired the glow plugs and radiator fan - I put in a relay connected to the temp sensor and also rigged up a manual override switch using another hazard light switch. Combined with some general tidy up the interior is now looking much much better than when I first got the car - Here's the before shot:



And as it is now - it's a very tidy and nice place to be! :







I also re-keyed all the locks so ONE key works doors, boot, ignition - previously there was a different key for every lock!!!

The towbar has also been fitted and wired up. Wiring was super easy using some piggyback spade terminals off the rear lights. Easiest trailer wire-up I've ever done and no need to cut any of the loom!



So I'm still driving it once ever week or two to keep things ticking over, there are a few more little jobs on the list - I need to replace the washer pump, two glow plugs need replacing (I have two spares but do you think I can find them?), still sorting out a few electrical gremlins - the horn and left headlight aren't working and it's NOT a fuse issue, so there is a bad earth and bad connection in there somewhere.

Other than that, the issues that remain are the exterior and the head gasket - the car is still losing coolant - the overflow bottle is pressurising and coolant is leaking out, plus it is starting to weep around the gasket. That might end up being a summer job. As for the respray, I'm not sure whether to tackle all or some of it myself or just rub the car back with wet & dry and use a rattle can to cover some of the rust spots.

BTW allana, the body IS good, it's the paint that's the let-down!

[allana13]

Very nice... Do let me know if you see one for sale dude...

cheers

[GLDoldcoot]

Don't forget to check the coolant cap. It has a pressure relief valve in it that can easily get clogged up. Years ago I spent ages containing all the coolant leaks in my GLD to find that this little valve was clogged, and it took just a few minutes to pull the cap apart and clean the valve out. It has a stainless steel spring in it so you wont need any bits unless you lose them. You can test it by taking the cap off and pressing the valve down with a small nail or something. If it doesn't budge, then you need to pull it apart.
Cheers
Rob

[GLDoldcoot]

Also, I would be surprised if you don't have some bad connections inside the fuse box. You can pull the fuse box apart and fix it if you are patient and have a bit of electrical understanding, and a full current track chart [circuit diagram]. The pins on the back that the square harness plugs push onto often develop solder cracks on the PC boards.
Good luck! Ive been through all this stuff a few times.

[GLDoldcoot]

O yes, and the horn problem is usually a bad earth through the steering column and universal joints; check the earth wire on the steering rack housing. I gave up on mine after560000km and now use a button switch below the radio on the dash!

[DaveGLD]

The pins on the back that the square harness plugs push onto often develop solder cracks on the PC boards.

Thanks Ron, that is an excellent tip! I will try - I cleaned the fuse contacts but didn't know about the PC boards so will give that a go - I have a full circuit diagram in my haynes manual which has the numbers for all the pins. I noticed that my L/H headlight seems to come in and out intermittently and wiggling the connector at the fuse box seems to fix it, so it's very likely that a dodgy board is the culprit. Will check the horn too - I pulled the steering wheel off and cleaned all the contacts and earth wire so that could also be a fusebox issue.

Cheers too for the advice re: the cap - although I still think it could be the head gasket as it seems to be weeping from the head - but if it's just the cap then I'm home free!