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Okay, here we go. I am now the proud-ish owner of two quite mediocre MK1 Volkswagen Golfs. Between the two of them there is enough there to make one good car, and one average one. I am so far from a VW expert, but I've wanted to join the VW family for a while so I've jumped in at the deep end. Allow me to introduce my new friends to you.
1. Erik
The ugly one. Erik is a 1978 model and a bit of a frankenstein. The badges on the back say GTi, and that's because of the motor.
A MK2 GTi 16V motor. This one has had some work done around 10,000kms ago. Now bored out to 2.2L with new pistons and rods. The head is also basically new and lightly ported. The mechanical injection has been upgraded. I've got a folder full of paperwork with the specifics but I still need to look through and get the details.
Inside he's a real piece of work. The whole car is not in particularly good shape. It's all there and solid enough, just not very respectable. The only thing in here worth salvaging is the mint MK2 dashboard. I don't feel a lot of pride when I'm behind the wheel.
Some good news though, there are coilovers and upgraded front brakes. Also an adjustable swaybar up front. That's about it for Erik.
2. Rupert
Rupert is in much better shape. He's a 1976 LS model and has been looked after. Under the hood is an 8V that won't be staying for long.
The body was stripped back and resprayed about seven years ago. Some rust has been cut out but there is still one little patch left to go in the passenger footwell.
I don't love the colour yet, but it's growing on me. With the right details it should look good when finished. The windows and door seals all have new rubber.
Sadly there are some imperfections in the paint and a ding in the driver's door, so I'll need to have some sections sprayed again once he's back together.
One other good thing about this car is the rear disk brake conversion.
Inside nothing is assembled. The interior is the nicer black/charcoal combo in fantastic condition. New carpet is in there as well.
The rest of the car is currently full of spares and bits for the body.
That's pretty much where we're at. There is a lot of work ahead. My plan is to have the last rust cut out of Rupert this week so I can get cracking on cleaning and assembling the interior. I'm driving Erik around in the meantime, but once that is done, the engine swap will happen. After that I can do the suspension and the dashboard swap and we'll be ready for the paint shop. Once the paintwork is fixed up I'll add the last touches to the exterior and we'll be away!
The green car will get the 8V motor, which is actually quite healthy, and the suspension from the yellow car. The green car is registered (and actually engineered for the motor swap, but oh well) until October so once it's running again I'll sell it off for whatever I can get. Rupert will stay and get rego so the fun can begin!
Here's to a seemingly straight forward project that will probably take far longer than anticipated to complete.
---------- Post added at 11:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 PM ----------
While Erik is very ugly, he is a blast to drive. Plenty of torque in the little Golf chassis. The handling is good too with the suspension in there, and he even makes a pretty good noise.
The sad bit is that he looks like arse. I spent an hour or so today tidying up a few things to make him slightly more acceptable to be seen in. First to go was the matte black bonnet.
I really do not like matte black bonnets. They're horrible.
Luckily Erik came with a spare one that's sort of almost maybe a match. Better than black anyway. After that I switched bumpers.
These fibreglass bumpers were badly installed and really ugly in my opinion.
You can kinda see the poor condition of the front one here; broken indicator lens and all.
I took the plastic bumpers off the yellow car and put them on the green one for now. Would like to find some better ones for the yellow car.
Front end looks weird with this bumper and the quad lights, but what can you do? Better than before. Last thing was switching the spacers.
For some reason the last owner put 10mm spacers on the front, but left the back as is. I switched the spacers to the back.
Offset looks more even now front to back, and it's much easier to turn with no power steering. Result.
1. Erik
The ugly one. Erik is a 1978 model and a bit of a frankenstein. The badges on the back say GTi, and that's because of the motor.
A MK2 GTi 16V motor. This one has had some work done around 10,000kms ago. Now bored out to 2.2L with new pistons and rods. The head is also basically new and lightly ported. The mechanical injection has been upgraded. I've got a folder full of paperwork with the specifics but I still need to look through and get the details.
Inside he's a real piece of work. The whole car is not in particularly good shape. It's all there and solid enough, just not very respectable. The only thing in here worth salvaging is the mint MK2 dashboard. I don't feel a lot of pride when I'm behind the wheel.
Some good news though, there are coilovers and upgraded front brakes. Also an adjustable swaybar up front. That's about it for Erik.
2. Rupert
Rupert is in much better shape. He's a 1976 LS model and has been looked after. Under the hood is an 8V that won't be staying for long.
The body was stripped back and resprayed about seven years ago. Some rust has been cut out but there is still one little patch left to go in the passenger footwell.
I don't love the colour yet, but it's growing on me. With the right details it should look good when finished. The windows and door seals all have new rubber.
Sadly there are some imperfections in the paint and a ding in the driver's door, so I'll need to have some sections sprayed again once he's back together.
One other good thing about this car is the rear disk brake conversion.
Inside nothing is assembled. The interior is the nicer black/charcoal combo in fantastic condition. New carpet is in there as well.
The rest of the car is currently full of spares and bits for the body.
That's pretty much where we're at. There is a lot of work ahead. My plan is to have the last rust cut out of Rupert this week so I can get cracking on cleaning and assembling the interior. I'm driving Erik around in the meantime, but once that is done, the engine swap will happen. After that I can do the suspension and the dashboard swap and we'll be ready for the paint shop. Once the paintwork is fixed up I'll add the last touches to the exterior and we'll be away!
The green car will get the 8V motor, which is actually quite healthy, and the suspension from the yellow car. The green car is registered (and actually engineered for the motor swap, but oh well) until October so once it's running again I'll sell it off for whatever I can get. Rupert will stay and get rego so the fun can begin!
Here's to a seemingly straight forward project that will probably take far longer than anticipated to complete.
---------- Post added at 11:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 PM ----------
While Erik is very ugly, he is a blast to drive. Plenty of torque in the little Golf chassis. The handling is good too with the suspension in there, and he even makes a pretty good noise.
The sad bit is that he looks like arse. I spent an hour or so today tidying up a few things to make him slightly more acceptable to be seen in. First to go was the matte black bonnet.
I really do not like matte black bonnets. They're horrible.
Luckily Erik came with a spare one that's sort of almost maybe a match. Better than black anyway. After that I switched bumpers.
These fibreglass bumpers were badly installed and really ugly in my opinion.
You can kinda see the poor condition of the front one here; broken indicator lens and all.
I took the plastic bumpers off the yellow car and put them on the green one for now. Would like to find some better ones for the yellow car.
Front end looks weird with this bumper and the quad lights, but what can you do? Better than before. Last thing was switching the spacers.
For some reason the last owner put 10mm spacers on the front, but left the back as is. I switched the spacers to the back.
Offset looks more even now front to back, and it's much easier to turn with no power steering. Result.
Not ideal. It's in the passenger floorpan under where the seat would be. I've got to get someone out to fix this and a small spot in the passenger footwell. Can anyone recommend someone? They need to be mobile. I've been told about two blokes who do it, but haven't been given contact numbers for them. Not very helpful.
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