Hi guys... !
I have found great inspiration on this forum, and now I want to share my own project! It started last year when it got the car - The first part of my Post here is a time line from the first days and up until now. After that i will update regularly.
I bought the car last year (2007). The price was right, an I had though of getting a Golf project, suddenly I was the owner of this 1983 Golf model LX. Engine is a stock 1.5 liter with the code JB.
The color is Mars-red and the car is equipped with some extras because it is a LX model (One of the last German made models)
My plan is to keep it retro/old school/Euro or whatever you call it =)
I will ad some chrome and extras to the car when rust, bodywork, paint and others has been fixed. I don't have a deadline yet.
I might lack some technical terms, have bad mistakes in typo and grammar, but I am from Denmark so please bear with me! Hope you will understand some of it ...
This is the car. My friend and I drove it home, but soon with we had problems! At the first test drive (Before I bought it..) we did not notice that the engine acted very weird once it got warm. It would not idle and when cruising it suddenly lost breath. The trip home was 50-60 km but it took us forever to get home! I was pretty angry with the situation, the previous owner had not mentioned this problem with the car even though we had asked him... Well Sh'it happens!
The day after it came home I took these pictures:
When looking around the car I found that the car was in pretty good condition. Interior is super clean, but the drivers seat is worn apart as usual.
The climate here in Denmark and the fact that our roads get salted all winter have "killed" many older cars like this one, but this one look liked someone had taken good care of it. It has some rust in the rockerpanels and a little bit in front fenders and the doors. Underside is heavily covered with rust protector.
It still has the original sparewheel with the original tire on. It has never been used, the trunk is also clean an healthy.
I believe I am the 4'th owner of the car. Second owner had sadly started some hopeless mods on the car by adding a huge cheap fart can exhaust an neon-lights under the dash, he also started some bad work on the rear wheel arches, they are heavy widened... Exhaust and lights will be removed. Arches will be repaired if possible.
The car was bought in the fall last year - first task was to do a quick repair to those rear fenders so winter would not eat them of as they were only in primer. My friend an I brushed them of using wire wheels and then primered and painted then. We redo them again later.
Played around with a set of 15" Mercedes rims I have lying. Thought of polishing them, but would need expensive adapters to use them
Soon after i found a set of 7*15" BBS wheels (From a BMW I believe)with tires to :thumbup: price - so they came home also =)
In the early winter a guy searched for winter wheels for his Cabrio and he wanted to swap with his summer wheels. I would not drive my Golf in the winter so gave him my rusty 13's with winter tires and got these instead:
8" and 9" by 14" Steffan Cup wheels with tires, started to repair the lips as they had talked to some curbs here and there...
Just had to try them on even though it was cold an raining that day - they fit easy under the wide rear arches
Winter came cold an with snow - the Golf had to stay outside, what a shame :rolleyes:
My friends a I spend most evenings inside McD talking cars and drinking hot coffee - the red Audi A4 is my dailydriver, the Scirocco and the Mk 2 belong to 2 of my good friends
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i195.photobucket.com/albums/z196/SyrusGrissom/golfSIMG2817.jpg[/img]
We also used some time on fixing my best friends "new" Mk 2 in a garage which belong to another friend. Sadly there werend space for our cars to stay there permanently.
I work at a VW/Audi garage an one day an older co-worker had good things lying around at home, I was lucky an he gave me this original Hagus mirror - had to try it on
I also fixed up my gascap with new stainless bolts and polished the aluminum
June 26. 2007
Sometime ago i was bored on a rainy day - so i started an experiment. Had read about removing rust with the help of citric-acid, but was a little skeptic - i started with taking the belt-cover from "my" donor Scirocco engine:
Brushed the surface rust off with a steelbrush and a electric drill, after that mixed citric acid (powder/crystals) with hot water to speed up the process and dropped the cover into the mixture (Picture shows the cover after 1½ day in the mixture)
After a couple of days the acid had actually removed most of the old paint and the rust had disappeared too - cover came up once again and after a quick wash and dry looked like this
Brushed once again with the steelbrush
And primed with zink and then painted in Light Beige. The color is a little off in the picture
Worked better than i thought it would - i like the result
June 27. 2007
I'm trying to solve a problem - i had to take the insert out of the dash. What i believe was a bad lightswitch had made a wire burn up inside the dash, from the switch to a point behind the steering wheel
Notice i have mounted a nice old stearingwheel made of wood - if i don't remember all wrong it is a Momo wheel (The horn-button is wrong I know..)
I believe I'm a bit lucky anyway. Only one wire was damaged apparently - but what a pain to fix wires inside the dash
Also discovered that the timing-belt was sloppy as a piece of boiled spaghetti - therefore NO "test" drives before it is changed. New original parts are here!
Good thing is that when looking under the carpets this is what you see:
Maybe in the future the cars ends up something like this - unless i change my mind
July 25. 2007
Cleaned more parts using the citric-acid bath and steel brush - belt pulleys and the alternator bracket :
All cleaned up very well! Here they are just drying after being sprayed with zink-spray
One of the other projects is getting this back to former glory :
Should end up like some of the parts that are already done :thumbup:
The table in my small workshop (Not big enough to house the car...) is also full of parts
Re-organized some stuff the other day an found my old Schroth seat-belts in a box - they will probably go in the Golf in the future
Just bought the Haynes manual to get the wiring diagrams an so on, - i believe it will be nice to have around sometimes
Took some parts from this car before it was scrapped .. The car is an import from Switzerland with no papers
Car is imported an therefore in really good condition. A shame to part out actually, but the taxes havend been payed a no one wants to. Therefore it continue its life in other cars :rolleyes:
Looks a little ruff in the picture, but it has been sitting outside for a long time.
August 11. 2007
Used a little time the on giving the car a good wash - tryed to bring back the original shine of the paint, by polishing. Worked out pretty good - Easy to see on the half of the roof
Also tried on the C-pillar
Together with the daily driver ..
Also cleaned a set of bumpers - got them from a Co-worker who where about to throw them in the dumpster
. Also got a set of fender flares. All in good condition with minimal rust on the brackets! Nice score i think
Also found this shifterknob the other day - it's from a VW New Beetle, i like the design ...
Will go and pick some more of these one of the following days i hope - they are not that easy to find around here but have found a source
August 22. 2007
Did a little more work - i think i made a huge difference. Started the boring job of cleaning the enginebay which is covered in old rust protection. I has done a good job of protecting the paint and body but it looks like azz! ;D
This is what it looked like when i picked up the car:
This is the bay after todays work
Still missing alot though - this is the other side:
Cleaned up pretty good -
before:
After:
Finally i sprayed the areas with this original clear VW wax product as new protection
September 1. 2007
Did some more work in the bay - the other side is now pretty clean to
I had a plan of maybe swapping the Scirocco DX engine into the Golf - 2 friends and myself went to slaugter the Scirocco. Along the way the idea of the engineswap was cancelled. The engine had not run for a long time and was full of water
Instead it gave up some smaller parts of the engine that can be used on my own engine:
If this radiator works and don't leak I will use it - believe the size is and advantage - The one the right is the standard 1500cc fanshroud:
Also took complete ignition system, with this I get electronic ignition (Hall giver) instead of the old system using points (breakers?)
Cleaned up the distributor :
Painted some of the smaller parts that go on the side of the distributor:
Hope that it will be easyer to use and make my engine run well
Also unbolted this bracket which mount up between the front bolts, that hold the swingarms for the front suspencion. Believe it will make the car more stiff when it gets lowered
March 21. 2008
After along period with no progress on the car, as a result of me ending my education with tests at the school (Mechanic - and soon i get the papers to prove it!
and other delays we finally had some good times!
2 friends and I found a place to rent and create a workshop - It is a barn but with insulation to keep it warmer
We have worked on getting the garage ready to be used. :thumbup:
As it looked when we started:
First thing was to put some filler on some spots and start priming the walls before painting (Thats me in the Kawasaki jacket)
My friends both dumped there cars as none of them where ready for the streets (Golf had the licence plates taken by the police and the Rocco with broken transmission)
Outside the place with my dailydriver in front ...
Weekend work made great progress - The boys out in the cold and ready to work after eating cakes ;D
Found a new friend ... The lowered dog
My friend Tobias fooling around while painting and having beer ;D
With the end of easter we where close to have the place finished - I now work on getting the Golf moved out there (Still parked where I live.)
That is how far my project have come so far - Almost a shamed - I now it is really slow
Hoping to do progress from now on!
I have found great inspiration on this forum, and now I want to share my own project! It started last year when it got the car - The first part of my Post here is a time line from the first days and up until now. After that i will update regularly.
I bought the car last year (2007). The price was right, an I had though of getting a Golf project, suddenly I was the owner of this 1983 Golf model LX. Engine is a stock 1.5 liter with the code JB.
The color is Mars-red and the car is equipped with some extras because it is a LX model (One of the last German made models)
My plan is to keep it retro/old school/Euro or whatever you call it =)
I will ad some chrome and extras to the car when rust, bodywork, paint and others has been fixed. I don't have a deadline yet.
I might lack some technical terms, have bad mistakes in typo and grammar, but I am from Denmark so please bear with me! Hope you will understand some of it ...
This is the car. My friend and I drove it home, but soon with we had problems! At the first test drive (Before I bought it..) we did not notice that the engine acted very weird once it got warm. It would not idle and when cruising it suddenly lost breath. The trip home was 50-60 km but it took us forever to get home! I was pretty angry with the situation, the previous owner had not mentioned this problem with the car even though we had asked him... Well Sh'it happens!
The day after it came home I took these pictures:
When looking around the car I found that the car was in pretty good condition. Interior is super clean, but the drivers seat is worn apart as usual.
The climate here in Denmark and the fact that our roads get salted all winter have "killed" many older cars like this one, but this one look liked someone had taken good care of it. It has some rust in the rockerpanels and a little bit in front fenders and the doors. Underside is heavily covered with rust protector.
It still has the original sparewheel with the original tire on. It has never been used, the trunk is also clean an healthy.
I believe I am the 4'th owner of the car. Second owner had sadly started some hopeless mods on the car by adding a huge cheap fart can exhaust an neon-lights under the dash, he also started some bad work on the rear wheel arches, they are heavy widened... Exhaust and lights will be removed. Arches will be repaired if possible.
The car was bought in the fall last year - first task was to do a quick repair to those rear fenders so winter would not eat them of as they were only in primer. My friend an I brushed them of using wire wheels and then primered and painted then. We redo them again later.
Played around with a set of 15" Mercedes rims I have lying. Thought of polishing them, but would need expensive adapters to use them
Soon after i found a set of 7*15" BBS wheels (From a BMW I believe)with tires to :thumbup: price - so they came home also =)
In the early winter a guy searched for winter wheels for his Cabrio and he wanted to swap with his summer wheels. I would not drive my Golf in the winter so gave him my rusty 13's with winter tires and got these instead:
8" and 9" by 14" Steffan Cup wheels with tires, started to repair the lips as they had talked to some curbs here and there...
Just had to try them on even though it was cold an raining that day - they fit easy under the wide rear arches
Winter came cold an with snow - the Golf had to stay outside, what a shame :rolleyes:
My friends a I spend most evenings inside McD talking cars and drinking hot coffee - the red Audi A4 is my dailydriver, the Scirocco and the Mk 2 belong to 2 of my good friends
We also used some time on fixing my best friends "new" Mk 2 in a garage which belong to another friend. Sadly there werend space for our cars to stay there permanently.
I work at a VW/Audi garage an one day an older co-worker had good things lying around at home, I was lucky an he gave me this original Hagus mirror - had to try it on
I also fixed up my gascap with new stainless bolts and polished the aluminum
June 26. 2007
Sometime ago i was bored on a rainy day - so i started an experiment. Had read about removing rust with the help of citric-acid, but was a little skeptic - i started with taking the belt-cover from "my" donor Scirocco engine:
Brushed the surface rust off with a steelbrush and a electric drill, after that mixed citric acid (powder/crystals) with hot water to speed up the process and dropped the cover into the mixture (Picture shows the cover after 1½ day in the mixture)
After a couple of days the acid had actually removed most of the old paint and the rust had disappeared too - cover came up once again and after a quick wash and dry looked like this
Brushed once again with the steelbrush
And primed with zink and then painted in Light Beige. The color is a little off in the picture
Worked better than i thought it would - i like the result
June 27. 2007
I'm trying to solve a problem - i had to take the insert out of the dash. What i believe was a bad lightswitch had made a wire burn up inside the dash, from the switch to a point behind the steering wheel
Notice i have mounted a nice old stearingwheel made of wood - if i don't remember all wrong it is a Momo wheel (The horn-button is wrong I know..)
I believe I'm a bit lucky anyway. Only one wire was damaged apparently - but what a pain to fix wires inside the dash
Also discovered that the timing-belt was sloppy as a piece of boiled spaghetti - therefore NO "test" drives before it is changed. New original parts are here!
Good thing is that when looking under the carpets this is what you see:
Maybe in the future the cars ends up something like this - unless i change my mind
July 25. 2007
Cleaned more parts using the citric-acid bath and steel brush - belt pulleys and the alternator bracket :
All cleaned up very well! Here they are just drying after being sprayed with zink-spray
One of the other projects is getting this back to former glory :
Should end up like some of the parts that are already done :thumbup:
The table in my small workshop (Not big enough to house the car...
) is also full of parts Re-organized some stuff the other day an found my old Schroth seat-belts in a box - they will probably go in the Golf in the future
Just bought the Haynes manual to get the wiring diagrams an so on, - i believe it will be nice to have around sometimes
Took some parts from this car before it was scrapped .. The car is an import from Switzerland with no papers
Car is imported an therefore in really good condition. A shame to part out actually, but the taxes havend been payed a no one wants to. Therefore it continue its life in other cars :rolleyes:
Looks a little ruff in the picture, but it has been sitting outside for a long time.
August 11. 2007
Used a little time the on giving the car a good wash - tryed to bring back the original shine of the paint, by polishing. Worked out pretty good - Easy to see on the half of the roof
Also tried on the C-pillar
Together with the daily driver ..
Also cleaned a set of bumpers - got them from a Co-worker who where about to throw them in the dumpster
. Also got a set of fender flares. All in good condition with minimal rust on the brackets! Nice score i think Also found this shifterknob the other day - it's from a VW New Beetle, i like the design ...
Will go and pick some more of these one of the following days i hope - they are not that easy to find around here but have found a source
August 22. 2007
Did a little more work - i think i made a huge difference. Started the boring job of cleaning the enginebay which is covered in old rust protection. I has done a good job of protecting the paint and body but it looks like azz! ;D
This is what it looked like when i picked up the car:
This is the bay after todays work
Still missing alot though
- this is the other side: Cleaned up pretty good -
before:
After:
Finally i sprayed the areas with this original clear VW wax product as new protection
September 1. 2007
Did some more work in the bay - the other side is now pretty clean to
I had a plan of maybe swapping the Scirocco DX engine into the Golf - 2 friends and myself went to slaugter the Scirocco. Along the way the idea of the engineswap was cancelled. The engine had not run for a long time and was full of water
Instead it gave up some smaller parts of the engine that can be used on my own engine:
If this radiator works and don't leak I will use it - believe the size is and advantage - The one the right is the standard 1500cc fanshroud:
Also took complete ignition system, with this I get electronic ignition (Hall giver) instead of the old system using points (breakers?)
Cleaned up the distributor :
Painted some of the smaller parts that go on the side of the distributor:
Hope that it will be easyer to use and make my engine run well
Also unbolted this bracket which mount up between the front bolts, that hold the swingarms for the front suspencion. Believe it will make the car more stiff when it gets lowered
March 21. 2008
After along period with no progress on the car, as a result of me ending my education with tests at the school (Mechanic - and soon i get the papers to prove it!
and other delays we finally had some good times!2 friends and I found a place to rent and create a workshop - It is a barn but with insulation to keep it warmer
We have worked on getting the garage ready to be used. :thumbup:
As it looked when we started:
First thing was to put some filler on some spots and start priming the walls before painting (Thats me in the Kawasaki jacket)
My friends both dumped there cars as none of them where ready for the streets (Golf had the licence plates taken by the police and the Rocco with broken transmission)
Outside the place with my dailydriver in front ...
Weekend work made great progress - The boys out in the cold and ready to work after eating cakes ;D
Found a new friend ... The lowered dog
My friend Tobias fooling around while painting and having beer ;D
With the end of easter we where close to have the place finished - I now work on getting the Golf moved out there (Still parked where I live.)
That is how far my project have come so far - Almost a shamed - I now it is really slow
Hoping to do progress from now on!
