'81 U.S Rabbit

[GeorgeMK1]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Paul, why you bringing that up for. Hahaha thanks for the morning laugh.

Yeah unfortunately I wired up the fuse I between the relay and the actual fuel pump/ecu and wherever the source is going.

Put absolutely everything back in yesterday and hard wired a fan switch for me to control. Drove around beautifully and the front strut top raisers work awesome! I picked up my girl friend and the car died in her street. It wasn't priming so I checked the fuse and sure you it's the fuel pump fuse blown. Unsure of what happened I touched the fuel pump wire direct to + and it sparked! this meaning it was shorting somewhere. Got a new wire in and fired right up.

Here's the annoying bit, previously a wire had melted for the fuel level sender. And now I've noticed the fuel sender not working again, so I'd assume that the 2 wires melted together. But why?

I just woke up, cars outside looking lovely, I'll take some pics in a bit

[GeorgeMK1]

Girl is finished and on. Huge tedious task to cut it all and open it up for maximum air flow, very hard as it's brittle. But looks very awesome. You may have noticed the gti badge, that's because I figured I'd do some sort of a gti mockup to go hand in hand with the motor.



Here's some turbo vags I was with today.



Otherwise I've driven about 150ks today and so far so good. Gears seam to not want to go in very well, I'd say that's because of the selector rods, so might tend to that. Also have got it booked in for wheel alignment and 2 front tires tomorrow. My buddy is a manager so were gonna stay after work hours and take out time sorting through it.

Fun times ahead

[Petska84]

Beautiful......I'll be around in the next couple of days George....hint hint hahaha.

[sports racer]

I've just read the whole post and it's pretty amazing what you've done since you bought the cabby.

You said the strut extensions are awesome, in what way?

What size wheel and tyres are you running? They look perfect so I might have to get some the same size.

[GeorgeMK1]

Sooo disaster happened. Was driving around yesterday to collect my recaros from the upholsterers, and BAM! Cracked sump. Limped home and battled the sump out. Managed to get a hold of a friend who welds alloy and got onto it straight away. 3 hours later sump fixed....




Also spent most of yesterday making new rails, for my lovely new trimmed seats I'm in love with them, and omggggg the comfort is amazing. Tomorrow's trip to Vella Beach NSW should be in luxury.



Eventually the interior will be brought back to it's former glory with everything in brown again.

Also had to put back standard wheels in order to get a wheel alignment. Raised the coilovers about 25mm and yet they still couldn't get the equipment on do a wheel alignment. so I'll have to do it by eye later tonight, as 9am tomorrow I'm meeting up with some more vww forum members and we're heading off.



With the car raised it feels much more comfortable. Also will try go past Gordies house tonight (16vkid) do he can scan my ecu for any faults or codes. Hoping all goes well.

[GeorgeMK1]

Hello hello

So I got home 3am lastnight from a huge weekend up in Valla NSW. Halfway hangs is an awesome event and I'm sooo happy I've attended.
Got together with Jarred and Woody (both from the forum) Wednesday morning and we headed to Canberra to meet more of the vw boys in the ACT. Car was running awesome, and then BAM I hit a huge bump. My instant reaction was to turn off the car. Turned out the sump had smashed open yet again!!



Broke down just outside albury. The local hwy patrol said I need to get the car off the road asap. So we got a tow truck and into Holbrook we went. We did some searching and thank god there was a bloke who did aluminium welding. I got the sump off in a very dirty gravely road and got it all welded up. Then back on and new oil in.



Anyway, luckily I turned it off straight away, as it ran no problems and made no damage. Made it all the way to Canberra no problems. The boys were all making last minute finishes when we got there. Seb was kind enough to let some of the fellas use his work place at 12am. Here's a shot of vr6t stu just finishing his polishing.



Then we stayed at Lincoln's place over night with a fair few vww members overnight in Canberra. With 3 hours sleep, we were on the road at 6am. The closer we got to Valla, the more and more ppl joined in. It was amazing. I've never enjoyed such an awesome cruise with an odd 30 cars off all makes.






Anyway, the car ran perfectly fine to Valla. The golf was amazing, seats were incredibly comfy and the motor had plenty of torque. We set up tents, cracked the beers open and had an overall fantastic weekend. I meet plenty of interstate vww boys and girls and had a great over all weekend. I somehow managed to pull off the "Best Vintage" award too, so I'm super happy.



Anyway, amazing weekend over we took off. Everything was going super sweet until we hit Newcastle. It started mis firing and after closer inspection we came to the conclusion that one of the spark plugs had somehow come loose and busted out and broken the coil pack too. No idea what happened. Anyway r32 mk4 Josh and Jarred helped out and had the car running. It still misfired but it ran atleast. I then parted and drove alone directly to Melbourne from there with my co pilot.

All was great until we hit Holbrook again. We had a quick check over the car, and it turns out all of my tires were compleeeetely dead. I was shattered. One was on belts and we changed it to a spare. Then from there we drove 80km/h home the entire trip to be safe on the roads with bald tires. The toe must be completely out on all 4 brand new tires gone just like that haha.

Anyway over all it was super good weekend and worth it all. The car ran amazing and was as comfy as a brand new mk7. I'm overall very happy with the performance of the car and look forward to VITS coming up in albury soon.






The trip has shown what needs updating on the car, and I've had plenty of time with the mk1 to see what I want to improve. Plenty of inspiration for me, so the mods will continue, and I have some pretty cool ideas ahead.

[sports racer]

Great write up George, your car didn't look out of place and I bet you got a few (good) comments from the other guys there. How well did the car go on the hills? No speeding tickets?

How did you manage to wear out your rear tyres? The rear end isn't adjustable so should always track true unless something's bent.

Here's a simple way to setup the wheel alignment for the front wheels. It takes a little bit of time but it's free and you can make adjustments so the steering wheel points straight ahead.

Go to a carpark that has a smooth cement floor, multi storey carparks are the best. Drive down a row in a straight line - the tyres should be quiet. If not, adjust the tie rod ends to get the wheels pointing straight and test drive again in the carpark until you've adjusted it and it's quiet. Adjust the tie rod that corresponds to the steering wheel position. If it's pointed to the right adjust the left tie rod if you're shortening the tie rod length (too much toe in). If you're lengthening the tie rod (too much toe out) then it's the right one you'd adjust. This is only for a steering wheel pointing to the left when you're driving in a straight line. If it's pointing to the right do the opposite tie rods as above.

Now drive down the row and do a sharp right turn at the end, not too fast, just normal car park speed. Do the front tyres squeal? Then it needs more adjusting of the tie rods until it's quieter. It's very hard to get it so quiet that there's no noise but at least the tyres will be pointing in the same direction now and tyre wear will be greatly improved.

I haven't taken my cars to a wheel alignment place for years and my tyres are always evenly worn across the tread.

Cheers

Paul

[ericcs]

on my sons car which only has an adjustable right tie rod, i used a string line on the left side. once in line. i locked the steering wheel in place and put the string line on the right side. just kept adjusting the right tie rod till till that side was straight. hasn't been driven a whole lot since, but it tracks pretty good and the steering is pretty light.

[Vinda76]

Great adventure and good write up. Congrats on the glassware too.

Don't know a lot about the 20v, but isn't there a shallow two piece ali/steel sump!?!

Gav

[Pilks]

congrats on the trophy! should come up to canberra more often... i want to see this beaut in the flesh.

[GeorgeMK1]

Great write up George, your car didn't look out of place and I bet you got a few (good) comments from the other guys there. How well did the car go on the hills? No speeding tickets?

How did you manage to wear out your rear tyres? The rear end isn't adjustable so should always track true unless something's bent.
Cheers

Paul

I think it should be ok mate, I mean we didn't have a speedo but we were with friends the entire time who did have a speedo, so I think we should be in the clear and no fines hopefully. As for the rear, I did the ol' shim camber trick. So the toe ws out of whack.

Great adventure and good write up. Congrats on the glassware too.

Don't know a lot about the 20v, but isn't there a shallow two piece ali/steel sump!?!

Gav

Hey gav, you're right I did more research and there is a two piece sump. It's for the Mexican beetle. However no need for a stronger sump. Read below

So these past few days I've still got off work I decided to get fairly experimental and push the envelope. I got hold of a mk4 cluster from Peter, and have/had intension of installing it in the mk1. I started by gutting everything and clearing as much as possible for rough measurement. The cluster is damn big haha, very hard to fit in.



Started wiring what I could, from as little diagrams as I could find. Very hard to wire up most of it as it's far more advanced. For the constant lights that flashed constantly, such as air bag, immobiliser, brake pad light and others that I won't be needing, I figured it was a lot easier to stick blu-tak over the bulb (dissembled the cluster) rather than de-code it all. And it works awesome.
I gutted both dash face and cluster so I can start the mockup.







Very rough fitment at this stage. I'm just trialling it all. Thinking of ways to get it all in without ruining everything, and trying to make it look as eom as possible. Reason I'm doing this, is when I upgrade to 02j box, I won't need any adaptors or any conversion boxes for the speedo and rpm to work, it will just work with the cluster. Also I absolutely love the mk4 clusters at night!!




Also want to sort out my over heating. Cut up my old rad shroud and retro fitted my slim line fan on. Hoping this makes a difference. Let me tell you, there is barely any space in the bay to fit this shroud in haha.






And now ........ Drum roll please.





It was an impulse buy. My buddy was selling his mk3 bags for so cheap, I just couldn't walk past it. Yes, you read correctly. Mk3. After some george-modifications they should work a treat. Fronts are almost identical. Just some spacers made up and they will be super sweet. Check out the Bagyard bombers on the front for a test fit.
Lowest I could go before the chassis hit the drive shaft. A notch will do wonders.





Here's a shot of the rears in comparison to the mk1. I have a feeling I can chop the strut lower, and the bottom part should be just a hollow tube. It's simply too long to be gas filled right to the bottom. Anyway we will find out soon haha.




That's it for now. My #1 priority is to get it ready and reliable water temp for VITS in Albury. After that, the 02j and air ride should be going in.

[sports racer]

Don't cut shocks, they are filled all the way to the bottom. Better to make taller rear suspension towers, similar to what you'e done on the front. Or you could weld longer brackets on the lower mount so the shocks sit lower.

[GeorgeMK1]

Don't cut shocks, they are filled all the way to the bottom. Better to make taller rear suspension towers, similar to what you'e done on the front. Or you could weld longer brackets on the lower mount so the shocks sit lower.

You sure they are filled all the way to the bottom? I mean both shocks in the picture are blistein, and it doesn't make sense there is gas all the way to the bottom where the rod doesn't travel too. Hmmmmmm anyone have any experience?

[Water Boy]

Have a few 'sangers' mate and snort some cocaine!

[GeorgeMK1]

Hey guys, not a crazy update but update non the less.

Been enjoying the golf enormously. Due to it being off the road for such a long time, I've accrued enough club reg days to drive pretty much 4 weeks straight haha. I've been to car meets, hill and mountains runs/cruises, city cruising, camping, and just everything in between within the past few weeks. Golf has been running extremely reliably for the past 1000 ks and hasn't let me down at all!

Here a bunch off accrued pics.





Getting ready for camping



After a huge hike which should have been for. 4x4 only haha we made it



Mt. Donna



Docklands



Over the weekend I started sanding the golf down. Idea was to have it painted prior to VITS. However plans changed and we couldn't reach the deadline for the paint booth. So I'll be prepping it and getting it in primer as well as filling any dints and smoothing the body over. Looks like I'll be going to VITS in primer haha.





Getting everything perfect, so I can achieve maximum stance points lol




Found out the paint code is L96F, which is metallic Brazilian brown. Apparently the cabby was the top of the range karmann edition at the time. Explains why the interior had a bunch of features and all the exterior additions. How exciting