1990 VW Golf Mk2 goes Wörthersee 1988 - 9x15s in the house!

[Dr.AK]

So,

as some may know, my daily is a '99 Audi A8 4.2 quattro. It's a nice car and I love driving it, but insurance is annoying as well as parts prices. So the original plan was to buy a nice retro daily - something big, comfy, with a/c and automatic, that is cheap to insure. Something to replace the Audi as my daily. I was thinking of Mercedes W126, Volvo 900s, Saab 9000s and similar cars.

Well... that didn't work out. Seems the Audi is destined to stay my daily for a while longer.

Cue two weeks ago. A friend dragged me to a gathering of the second generation Volkswagen Golf - Mk2 Elite in the Netherlands. I was somehow so excited by this, that I bid 301€ on a Golf on ebay while I was at the event. I won the car the next day for 300€.

Today I finally picked it up.

It's a '90 Golf Moda - the Golf Moda is a special edition that's bascially a fancier Golf CL (base model). Compared to the base spec CL the Moda comes with funky seat covers (see pictures), arch flares and skirts, GTI tails, painted mirrors, and was available in the color Dark Burgundy (which mine is) which was usually only available on the Golf GTI Edition One. The Moda was available only in 1990. From the factory, it also came with 15" BBS wheels, which sadly were not included with mine.

Mine's got the 1.3 NZ and the engine is bascially destined for the curse word heap as it runs like curse word and I want something more powerful anyways. I'm thinking either 2.0 8v or 2.0 16v or maybe VR6 or 1.8t. But since I'm a stingy curse word and hate to pay for things, I'll probably go with the 2.0 8v.

Condition wise... well, it needs work but it's not worse than I expected, but not better either. One door needs replacing due to rust. Apart from that the body looks pretty straight - I'll put it on a lift later today and a have a more indepth look. The paint... I'm not sure if that can be revided, but I think it needs at least a partial repaint. Might just repaint it a different color altogether.

Interior needs some work too. Driver's seat is curse word, passenger seat and rear bench are decent, the colored Moda stripes on the door card are broken, headliner is curse word.

But apart from that it drives relatively decently.


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I think I'll have my work cut out for me, but I don't think it's too much for me to handle. I'll keep you posted.

[Dr.AK]

So, I had it on a friend's lift today.

Underbody looks surprisingly decent, better than I expected. Did some poking around with a screw driver in all the usual spots and didn't really find anything. Found a bit of rust around the front wishbone (?) mounts and above the drive axles, but that was it. Of course it could still look entirely different underneath the undercoating... And I still have to look under the arches and skirts, but from what I felt behind the arches, I'm not expecting anything major.

[skkylinedave]

Thats a lovely colour . It looks like a good basis to start from .

[VWPowered]

its in better nick than my rat mk2 was, nice save

[Dr.AK]

Well, I think the colour won't be staying, although I'm sure I'll catch a bit of flak for that, lol.

I think the front window needs to come out. First order of business will be removing the interior to look at the floor for any hidden rust. But first I need to finish parting my E36 as I won't have enough room until that's gone...

Took some proper pictures today at least.









Also, I think I got my old man on board with the project. He's basically the one who got me into cars in the first place and has owned his fair share of Golfs back in the 80ies and 90ies, a few Mk1s and a Mk2 as well. His words: "Yeah, that looks decent, just needs to be cleaned up, lower, some nice and shiny wheels and a good engine!"

So... let's see where this goes. I'm really not sure what engine I want - 2.0 8v would be the cheapest and easiest solution, but also the most boring. A 2.0 16v would be a bit more interesting but also more expensive. A VR6 would sound great, but I'm not sure how I feel about the added weight. I might need to drive a VR swapped Mk2 to decide. Even though I've never been a big turbo fan I'm also entertaining thoughts of a 1.8t. Then again, a traditional 1.8 16v with Weber carbs would sound bloody awesome as well... the possibilites are big and I'm really not sure which direction to go!

[79cord]

Was going to echo the nice colour comment, looks purpler in some shots. Glad to see the awful wheelcovers gone. Plenty of possibilities, but cheap & simple might be best as contrast to A8? Tough choices.

[Dr.AK]

Hahaha, yeah, that silly bag. I heard that if you can find one, people are askind really crazy money for that lol.

Anyways, I bought the first few parts. Mostly stuff that gets stuffed on the shelf for later, but oh well

A period correct headunit since it came with a butt ugly spaceship one... I scored a working Blaupunkt Freiburg SQR39 on ebay.



And also a matching Fischer Cassette box:




And I also ordered a few sets of these to replace the ugly clear headlights that came with the car. The extra sets are to play around with... maybe smoke a set and such

[/QUOTE]


Also scored this Now-I-touch-myself book, errrr repair manual I mean

[Dr.AK]

Got this interior yesterday - for free, haha. Guy who rents the unit next to mine had this sitting around gathering dust. I gave it a quick vacuuming and it looks pretty decent but definitely needs a real cleaning. May or may not use this for the time being. I think these are out of a Golf Boston. I was also offered Golf Moda sports seats - so like the ones currently in the car, but with the GTI shape for added support. Those are veeeery rare, but they definitely need to be re-upholstered as the sides have big holes. I may pick them up and store them until the car is done and then get the Moda interior redone.

[Dr.AK]

No time, I'll be here as a photographer:

www.facebook.com/events/557173787808310/?fref=ts

[Dr.AK]

I'll post some pics tomorrow!

I had a few minutes today to poke around the Golf, so I did.

Had a look at an area that is typically rusty on these - the bracket that holds up the fuel filler neck thingie. Worst cases, it's so rotten that you have to cut out the wheel housing. But it seems very solid on mine. At first it looked like there was no rust at all, but after I cleaned up some more, I did find some. But it's not really anything major, I think. It feels very solid and while poking it with a screw driver, I didn't poke through, so... shouldn't be too bad to sort.

[Dr.AK]

So, I stumbled upon a set of wheels today on ebay. ATS Cups - nothing special, right? Well, wrong! Since this is a rare staggered set. The fronts are the standard 7x15 ET20s, but the rears are the 8x15 ET18s. Those are quite rare. And since I love ATS Cups, I just had to have them.

[Dr.AK]

Update time!

A few weeks ago I got around to taking out the interior to check for rust and remove the crappy stereo wiring by the previous owner. Found no rust!






And lately I've been collecting parts.

Sourced a Zender grille:






Some other stuff: a door, parcel shelf, trunk carpet with arch carpets, windshield, driver's window and some other stuff






And yesterday these followed me home for an absolute steal... 9x16 Borbet As with new 215/40s





Will finally have some time to get work done in the coming weeks

[Imperial]

Honestly, the 2.0 8v is pretty curse word. Its only 115bhp and there are basically no tuning parts for it.Other than its a quite a torquey motor it has nothing going for it, if you do go down this route remember it has an inlet manifold that goes over the engine so fitment might be a bit fiddly.
IMHO the 1.8 8v or 16v would be a better and easier bet, they are much tunable, an easy swap and wont destroy the handling like a heavy VR would.

[Dr.AK]

Long time with no update!

The car sat still for the majority of the time, I moved to another workshop and setting things up there took a while. Some other stuff happened that kept me from doing major work as well.

I did get the headliner out and fibreglassed all the cracks. Still needs to be covered with fabric.

But now, things are looking up. This winter, I'll be busy!


Saturday, I managed to score a set of Zender front and rear aprons. Both are new and sat in a cellar since 1989.



Stuck the rear one on, fits pretty good.



Front needs some adjusting as it's a bit bent due to wrong storage.




Yesterday, I scored a set of the matching Zender fender flares on ebay UK, they should be here next week or the one after that, I think.




Still need to find matching sideskirts and rear wing, then it should look similar to this:








And here's a suitable pic of a catalogue page from 1988




Next step is to buy a donor car for the planned engine swap. I settled on something at last - I'll be going with the 2.3 V5. Probably not the smartest choice in terms of power, mileage and weight, but it should be pretty cool still. Affordable, nice sound and quite enough go in the light Mk2. The handling negatives due to the mounting position (the VR5 and VR6 are actually not that much heavier than a 4 cyl, it's just that the 4 cyls all sit tilted towards the firewall whereas the VRs sit tilted towards the front and so the weight largely hangs in front of the axle) can be combated with some decent suspension setup, so that's not a major problem.

[tristanh]

Nice work. I'm building up a 2.0 8v for my one. ported and polished head from a mk2, TSR cam and exhaust manifold, bit of a compression hike and it should run around 150 bhp.

I'd highly recommend mk3 top mounts on the front suspension, and Audi TT bushes in the rear of the front wishbones.

Oh and a 16v master cylinder with 280 mm front brakes.

[Dr.AK]

That's basically the plan!

The axles and brakes will basically be going 16v spec with G60 spec brakes.

Suspension is not yet fully decided, but will be a custom ordered coilover setup to compensate for the changed weight distribution due to the planned VR engine.

[Dr.AK]

Was in the garage earlier to pick up some stuff and couldn't resist just sticking the front on.

Gonna need a different rad support or modify mine as currently the inner headlights hit the marked part in the picture. Anyone know if a Jetta rad support would help me out?

[Coakers]

Very good workspace. Quite envious. V5 is an interesting choice. I've never seen a v5 swap for a mk2 actually so it would be fairly unique.

1.8t is popular for a reason. Cheap enough, highly tuneable and lots of fun. Since yours is 1990 it will be running off the CE2 electrical system which is much more adaptable to mk3/mk4 engine swaps. There's a wealth of info related to this on clubgti.com. I have my own mk2 under a nut and bolt resto at the minute so I hope yours goes more smoothly than mine!

[mrmoonyman]

Really like this and the direction you're going with the original bodykit and those lights.

You sure you don't want to put a 1.8t in? You'll end up wanting more power pretty soon I reckon.

And that colour is great. Really lovely. Please keep it!

[Dr.AK]

The color is definitely being considered! I'm still very undecided in terms of color, though.

As for the engine - while the 1.8t is a decent engine and a affordable way to go the big power route, I don't much care for big power - as long as the car's not lethargically slow, I'm happy! The sound of the engine is way more important to me and that means going the VR route as the 4-cyls, the 1.8t included, give me no enjoyment at all in terms of sound! The only way I'd want to spend money on a 4-cyl is a Weber carb'd 1.8 - but that's not possible due to smog regulations as my Mk2 is a late model with a cat, can't get that legally TÜV approved with a carbed engine.


As it looks like, I'll be picking up a set of new in box sideskirts this weekend! Then I'll have the complete Zender Z6 kit, apart from the rear wing (on the list as well).

Spent last night watching old Wörtersee videos from the late 80ies on youtube. All the inspirations!