MK2 Rebuild

I`ve been meaning to start a build thread for a while now about my old MK2 that I decided to spruce up (foolish boy). I`ve had the car for about 11 years, it started off as a daily driver then got tarted up then turned into a track day car. A couple of my friends ended up using it while they where a college and it also did a stint up in Scotland with my mates eldest lad. Anyway, long story short, it`s been sat unused on my driveway for the last 3 odd years, so earlier this year I decided i`d either have to sort it out or sell it off.

The original plan was a quick semi-strip down, sort out the little niggles then put it back to road trim. This however quickly went out the window as I started stripping her down and having a closer look at her.

Unfortunately i`ve only got a couple of pics of her from years ago as all the old pics where lost when my PC decided to trash it`s HD a couple of years ago. Here she is in 2003 at a trackday at Oulton Park, resting in one of the garages after a good workout.

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And now, just after I started to pull a few bits off.

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Some of the more obvious problem bits.

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First bit to tackle was the hole in the scuttle,

Chop out bad bit,

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and weld in some fresh metal.

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After a bit of a poke round at the little hole in the floor it turned out a little worse than first thought (dont they ever), so choppy chop,

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made 2 new inserts to connect the floor pan and inner sill back together,

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and weld,

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finished off with a quick coat of etch primer over the top of the repairs.

very nice mate, do you fancy coming over to weld my arches for me lol

Next was the rust around the fuel tank flap, a notoroius rust trap, so I dropped the tank out for a better look,

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oh dear,

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oh well, drilled out the spot welds on the filler neck saddle, hmmm, not much left,

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I decided that it wasn`t worth saving so I fabricated another one but don't have any pics of it (durr), I also cut out the rough stuff from behind the filler flap,

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and welded some new small plates on the inside and outside,

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after tacking them in place I seam welded them all up (again, no pictures).

Also took a look at the crusty bit under the boot seal,

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it had also rotted right through so I decided to chop the lot out and make up new inner and outer lips for the seal to sit on,

choppy chop,

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weld weld,

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Followed by a smidge of filler to even things off and a coat of etch primer.

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very nice mate, do you fancy coming over to weld my arches for me lol

LOL, i`ve had enough of welding for the time being.

Next the sills, there worst rot was the rear wheel arches were they join the sills, so, choppy chop, weld weld, yadda yadda,

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again I cant find the pics where they were finished off, i`m sure my bl**dy phones not storing them


Other bits where the bottom of the rear quarter panels,

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and after

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again, these were finished off with a skim of filler and painted.

A bit of trackday battle damage turned up,

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soon fixed,

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and the front of the sills, chopped out and welded inner,

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and the outer

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i`ve also put in a couple of repair pieces on/around the rear jacking points.

At this point i`d decided the only way to carry on was with a complete and utter strip-down and rebuild so i`ve worked my way from the back of the car to the front attacking ANY corrosion underneath,a few of the bigger bits I found where;

rear exhaust hanger and chassis rail

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nasty stuff cut out,

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unpicked hanger bracket from rusty chassis bit and welded that onto the new repair plate

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and now welded back on car,

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and painted with POR-15 anti corrosion treatment

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other side chassis leg was just as bad,

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and the part where the Golf floor-pan meets the Jetta boot floor on the OS had gone at the edge, so

cut,

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repair plate,

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and weld

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again, finished off with 2 coats of POR-15.

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More in the next day or two as i`ve got nearly 2 months work to post up.

You've made me worry about my project now, from what i can see i dont have any nasty holes or rot under the car BUT i dont have a car lift to check it more closely

I havnt got a lift either, just lots of wooden blocks and axle stands.

I wont worry too much, this cars had a much harder life than most.

Keeeeeep us posted bud lovin it.

Ok then, next lot of catch-up pics and stuff.

The rear lower apron had gone into a hole where it meets the rear chassis rail,and the exhaust cut out had been opened up to fit the silencer so something needed doing with that, so

Cut out,

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when I started doing it I was wondering whether it would look better with the apron smoothed off, so I decided to weld up the exhaust cut out and remove the rear tow hook and weld that hole up too,

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both holes welded up and skimmed with filler.

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Next started to remove the stone chip underseal on the lower quarter panels,

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I found a couple of small dings in the rear panel so I also removed the paint from there while I was at it,

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and now with the filler sanded, which took ages to get right, and primed in etch.

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Next, pull the engine and gearbox out, looks a bit bleedin grubby doesn`t it,

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using three bits of timber clamped to the roof of the garage, a couple of old towropes and a fence winch, out she comes,

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With the engine out, first job was to remove the front sub-frame. Well 3 of the 4 bolt loosened up OK but the front NS one went stiff after half a turn, no amount of penetrating oil squirted in and wiggling the bolt back and forth made any difference, so put my big extension bar on the socket and heaved until the bolt went pop,

1 sheared off bolt,

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also now I can see how bad the front sub-frames got,

is that hole meant to be there?

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A better pick of a very mucky and rusty engine bay,

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Right, what to do about the sheared off bit of the bolt stuck in the chassis rail,

carefully cut three slots in the mounting and score the bottom so that the side can be bent down to reveal the caged nut with the remainder of the bolt,

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after a bit of jiggery pokey I got the captive nut out from the cage,

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now to get the bit of bolt out of the nut, as you can imagine its in the good and proper, so this call for heat,

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and a bit more,

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then a lot more, BURN ya bugger,

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with it red hot I clamped the remaining bit of the bolt in the vice and turned the nut off it with ease,

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Da darr,

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to finish off I put the nut back in the cage (a little bit of persuasion was needed ), the bent the tab back up and seam welded it up,

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I bought another sub-frame off Flat4fanatic along with a few other bits,

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and set about cleaning it up, there was a small hole just under the NS engine mount,

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so that got a quick weld up,

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and also found inside it the remains of a mouse nest, ),

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poor little buggers now homeless.

how it looks now after a couple of coats of POR-15

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Next was the gear linkage,

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I stripped it down fully as nearly all the bushes where kettled, the only one that didn`t need replacing was the ball and socket on the bottom of the gearstick as this was done about 6 years ago and still looks good now,

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I bought a bush kit (oo err missus) from GSF and a new relay arm from VW (please dont ask how much THAT cost )

Can you see whats missing?

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Gearstick bit all cleaned up and ready to go back in,

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I painted the linkage housing and shift rod, another missing picture i`m afraid, then screwed it all back together.

next, do something about that engine bay, especially where i`ve got missing bungs in the bulkhead and that rust behind where the exhaust runs, so after removing all the wiring harnesses, i`m left with

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also the front of the chassis rails had started to go,

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so chop out offending bit,

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made a couple of small repair plates, and weld back in,

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with a lick of POR-15,

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at the same time I set about degreasing, wirebrushing and rust treating the bay, you can also see where i`ve welded up the big hole in the bulhead where I had a missing rubber bung

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next came a couple of coats of etch primer,

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then some overpaintable stonechip paint (thats a good laugh spraying that stuff),

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then finally a couple of good coats of 2k high build primer,

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looks a bit more presentable now.

Jesus!!!

You on some kind of illegall substance?....
Some pace your going at there and enjoying the build thread.
Keep up the great work and i'm watching with interest.

Illegal substances, I wish.

This is a bit of a catch-up so far, i`ve been doing to car off and on for a couple of months so i`m posting up work thats been done a while ago.



The engine bay took a couple of evenings work to clean, weld and prep then another eves for spraying.

Enjoying this alot chap cant wait to read more.

Top work with the welding torch mate, are gonna put anything special engine wise when it all goes back in? looking forward to more updates

Next update/catch-up.

After much head scratching and indecision as to what colour to paint the car I purchased just a litre of paint to put on the engine bay just to see if I liked what I was hoping was a good colour .

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It`s VW Harvest Moon Beige, as found on the new `Beetle`.

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Seems ok.

Also been busy stripping down and painting various little bits like brake servo, steering rack, headlight mounting plates (they where fun to get to bits) and some of the other engine ancillaries.

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Headlight mounts after being cleaned and sprayed. I`m using Admiralty Grey to paint all the odds and ends to try and keep a factory look.

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I had a quick visit down to my mates to use his latest state of the art CAD/CAM lathe set-up to turn some replacement bushes up for the front wishbones. The poly part of the bushes where good but the steel inserts had rusted badly, so after getting a bit of 316 Stainless (actually its a motorboat prop),we set to work.









CAD?CAM??????? I think not, more like vintage Myford

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The results

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After that I reassembled the front sub frame and mounted it back in the shell. Also started putting the wiring harness back together (i`ve got some mods to do on this but more of that at a later date).

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I also thinned down some waxoil and injected it inside the subframe and wishbones. Coffee? anyone.

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Also reassembled the radiator fan and cowling.

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finished off front calipers with new seals and bleed nipples (finally tracked a couple down from GSF)

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while I was there also got a replacement fuel pump and my mate from the ST Helens VW centre tracked down a new fuel pressure/vapour regulator (i`ll have to make a new mounting bracket for this as its a different style than the original)

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WOW

omg keep up the good work dude....

Awesome thread and skills bud, liking the new colour as well

next catch-up

This is where we are now,

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So the next step was to prime the body with 2K high build primer, before that though I had to take the old celly paint off the roof as it was in a very poor state and wouldn`t have made a good base for the primer. I started to sand it off but it was clogging the pads up something terrible so in the end I draped cloths on the roof soaked in celly thinners to soften the paint, then it could be scrubbed off with a scotch pad soaked in more thinners. It took about 3 hours to get the roof back to the original VW paint and I ended up looking like a bleedin Smurf but at least now I had a solid base to start on.

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I placed some plastic sheeting on the garage walls and floor to try and keep the worst of the dust down and masked off the engine bay.

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After a good flat off, followed by a go over with panel wipe and tacky rags,a couple of good coats of primer was applied,

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While I was waiting for the primer to harden off (about 6 hrs), I stripped some more little bits down including the wiper assemble, which I found was very stiff due to the old grease drying up in the bushes. A good clean and grease had it running freely again.

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Right, top coat time, again everything was flatted back and prepped, so lets get some colour on her

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Out in the daylight

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After leaving the paint for a couple of days to fully cure, I wanted to top up the under seal on the floor-pan,

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so I masked everywhere off, including all the mounting studs for the fuel and brake hose clips,

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both sills,

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and the engine bay,

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A good blast over with 3 tins of Soudol stonechip treatment,

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at least it looks a bit more even.

Great work!! Loving it!

Inspiring thread bud and top class workmanship

Loving the thread friend, tis giving me some food for thought for my own build!:-)