Author Topic: maaarcooose - mk2 8v  (Read 2955 times)

Offline jv

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maaarcooose - mk2 8v
« on: 28 April 2006, 12:56 »
here you go :)
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Offline maaarcooose

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MK2 8v rises from the dead.
« Reply #1 on: 28 April 2006, 15:07 »
Well, here we go.....

Back in November of 2004 I received a random phone call from my friend.
The first words to come to my ear was. "Hey mate, do you want a Golf GTi for nothing?"
Considering I've wanted a MK2 GTi since I was 12 (now 31) you can guess what my response was.

No one gives a good car away for free, so my first words, after I'd stopped stammering were, "What's the catch?"

The guy was just about to take the car to be scrapped and was trying to avoid the £30 disposal fee by randomly offering it to my mate. He doesn't drive, but knew that I wanted it. All I can say is thanks Ray (The donor) and thanks David (my mate).

Soon after this conversation (I think it was about 3 hours) I went to check it out.
What I found was a poor, unloved, 4 door, 1989 GTi 8v in white or rather in light grey (dirt), and green (algae), that had sat on his driveway for about 18 months. 113k, No MOT, not running

2 days later I returned with a donor alternator from a scrapped Driver. Had to jump start the car, but it ran. This is when I drove it home, with my mate following in his car in case it needed a jump start. It threw smoke out the back every time I stuck my foot down, but ran with no stutter all the way home. I then stalled it pulling into the driveway.


The first MOT...

I knew full well that it was going to fail but not as badly as I expected.

  • Massive crack in the windscreen - Green tinted replacement.
  • Brakes operation quite simply laughable. Had a new master cylinder, and pads all round. Breaks now work.
  • Couple of corroded break pipes.
  • Handbrake half working. This did work both sides for the retest, but stopped working 2 days later. I drove around for a year with it working on one side only, then for the next MOT the guy fixed it and now it's fine. Told me the compensator was knackered at one garage, the next one just cleaned it and made it work.
  • Two tyres cracked.

All in all not much. It total I think I spent £500 getting it MOT'd again.

Once it was done, the only things I really did was give it a good T-Cut and scrub some of the algae off. Made it white(ish) again.

Cosmetically the whole car is a bit tatty. I recently tried to redo some of the rust spots on the door and found them to be rusted through in places. Also discovered areas that had previously been filled, and subsequently cracked again.
Thankfully, no rust underneath or in any of the main body work, just the doors and bonnet.
The standard teardrop alloys are a mess of corrosion.
All over the car there are spots where someone tried to touch up the paint work by simply spray painting it without masking anything off, and using plain white instead of Alpine White. There are paint splatters on the lights, the windows, the bumpers. Thank god for T-Cut.


Current state of affairs

I decided to run the car without doing anything serious to it for a year to see if it totally dies or anything fell off. It's now been over a year, through another MOT with only the nearside, front suspension bush needing doing, and it's still going strong.

It smokes a bit when I fill the oil up and put my foot down.
It lets out some dampness from the back if the water it topped all the way up.
It looks a little creamy in the breather hoses, none in the oil though.
I suspect the head gasket is starting to go.
This I will leave until it really goes and then do all the gaskets and valve seals at the same time.


The rocker cover gasket needs doing as it's leaking a little oil over the block.

The back end behaves weirdly. If I take a right hand bend, it feels like it dips too much on the back, nearside corner and starts to loose it really easily.
I'm going to replace the shocks, springs and bushes on that.

Fixed the heater recently with a new bypass valve. £30 from the dealer. Car now has heat again.

As of this week I am tidying up some rust and giving the entire car a T-Cut, including the bits under the trim. It's just so dirty under there and I've removed the rear light cluster to clean around them. I swear there was something growing in there.
My ham fisted spraying job is not gonna make it look awesome, but will at least make it look less like a rust bucket for the Bug Jam this summer.
This will be my first time.

While cleaning the front grill, one of the glasses fell off the front of one of the center spots. New one required.

Drivers seat need a replacement bottom foam. It's worn down to the frame on the right side. The whole seat wobbles too. New runner plastics required.

MFA, fuel usage meter never works, just displays 99.9.



All in all it will be a lot of work to get it sweet again, but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Next post will be all the proposed updates and mods I have in mind, along with a few pictures.

!m!
« Last Edit: 16 May 2006, 12:50 by maaarcooose »