Author Topic: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project  (Read 134017 times)

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #10 on: 06 November 2006, 22:18 »
after everything had pretty much been done, i setup an old stereo and a few old speakers to test it out. it was all perfect, i was super suprised actually. the earth was only attached to the chassis, not the engine, and it was just touching the battery terminal, not bolted on at all. the +ve was just lying on top of the +ve terminal (not screwed on yet) and it made good enough contact. i was going to redo the alternator +ve and grounds along with terminals, but the headlights weren't dimming at all and it was all working perfect, so much for needed super wiring :( cant wait to tell the talkaudio boys.



the car is getting closer to completion - if you notice from the photos it has a bit of tarp propped over the top to stop ANY water getting in. the door membranes aren't done yet, the sunroof is leaking and the passenger window seal is completely wrecked! so its still leaky, until i've sorted those bits i wont be taking the tarp off the top.

« Last Edit: 07 November 2006, 19:08 by blessani »

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #11 on: 06 November 2006, 22:19 »
silence
or at least thats what i plan to achieve with all my glorious deadening....the business post van arrived carrying my goodies.



at first glance the stuff seems pretty thin (but ive never messed with deadening before), but the back is super sticky! its slightly flexible but if you push it hard enough it will crack. i got it from bodyshopwarehouse (google it) and its made by a company called bodyline.

about 10mins in, i had got pretty far, but i needed to move the car because  we decided to empty the garage (and im talking A LOT of stuff in there). as theres no seat in the golf, i had to improvise.



after i moved it, i got cracking and about 40mins later i had got to here...



then after deadening the doors, which i managed to do with super skill - i didn't cut the 50x50cm panels at all, i managed to slide the whole thing up and stick it to the door, so that didnt take long at all - 2mins max. i then made some new membranes out the backing for the deadening, and taped it all up with some duct tape. fingers crossed they'll do the job.



and now i have found this magical new space (whilst listening for rattles). behind the rear door cards, well, cards. its pretty massive and i dont know what to do with it now, i must fill it full of speakers or put computer equipment in there or something! i'm already putting the subs above the rear wheel arches in the boot, but now im wondering what i can put in there.

« Last Edit: 07 November 2006, 19:12 by blessani »

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #12 on: 07 November 2006, 01:03 »
the car went for its MOT the other day and failed on....(fanfare)

n/s front shock
arb bushes
pitted rear disks
corroded rear brake lines
siezed calipers (front and rear)
dead registration plate light
no horn
hazard lights non functioning
un-aligned n/s headlamp
leaking exhaust

and out of that, i managed to sort the majority, but somewhere the wire leading to the horn switch has broken, so im going to need to run a new one, but im dreading trying to get in behind the fusebox.

and now i managed to waterproof the doors, i replaced the sunroof seal and the car appears to be 99.9% leak free. so much so, im leaving it outdoors tonight as a test of faith.

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #13 on: 14 November 2006, 00:21 »
so much to post, i've missed loads recently, so where was i, the mot failure.

so the mot failed :( but it wasnt on mega huge things soooo, i refitted all the interior, carpets, seats, dashboard, clocks ;) and the car looked proper again, then i went about sorting the car out.

n/s front shock - still not technically fixed as im lowering the entire car soon, so he let me off.
arb bushes - was easy enough to fit, with a tonne of brake cleaner as lubricant and a 3 foot pry bar  :o
pitted rear disks - stripped them off and managed to goose one of the bearings whilst i was at it, so replaced a bearing too
corroded rear brake lines - weren't that corroded at all, but i will still replace them in the next few weeks
siezed calipers (front and rear) - the front left caliper needs replacing, the seal is away, but it is still sliding, it just seized up. the overall braking went up 10 fold after cleaning up the pads and calipers
dead registration plate light - put a new bulb in
no horn - the wire to the steering wheel is broke (i will replace it) so i just bodged a quick switch up to the relay
hazard lights non functioning - the relay was loose, pushed it harder, works fine ;)
un-aligned n/s headlamp - the headlight had just come loose off an adjustment bolt, pushed hard and sorted!
leaking exhaust - lots of exhaust gum fixed this, i will be getting a new exhaust shortly

so the car then passed its super mot and i was a happy chappy, until i drove to the post office and found out road tax was £100 for 6 months - WHAT THE HELL, i almost died! then taxed and mot'ed i was dead chuffed with the car, apart from the fact the heater was pants :(

i thought i'd sorted the leaky roof with a new sunroof seal, but it turns out i hadnt, and a short drive to the shops, me and my cousin ended up being super drenched, it wouldnt be so bad but it dripped out the front corners onto my damn crotch! stupid car, so i left it parked on the street to find it really did leak and just pissed water into the car  :angry:  :angry:  :angry:

i took it into the garage and stripped down the roof and realigned all the seals, poured water on it, and to no avail, it still leaked, so puzzled, i thought i'd leave it.

i went down to the wholesalers and bought loads of car goodies, so i cleaned the windows, gave em a coat of rain x anti fog (worked a treat!!!) and cleaned the dash and upholstery (again). the heating issue was going to be an issue, so after a blob of searching i found that removing the valvey things would help, and as the water was a brownish sludge i thought it might be a good idea to flush it. i bought some radflush and went to work, cleaned the whole lot, ran radflush for about 30 miles, and flushed 2 more times after, the water is almost clear now (still slight brown tint). i flushed the matrix thoroughly, removed the valves and put two lengths of straight copper pipe in. the car is now hotter than a swedish sauna - awesome!

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #14 on: 14 November 2006, 00:22 »
i dismantled the entire sunroof now, cleaned all the crap out. after some advice on a forum, i dropped the rear bumper off, and attached a footpump to the rear drain hoses and gave it a swift pump. a shed load of crap (mainly rust) flew out the sunroof. i grabbed the hoover and attached a little bit of hose to it (what a mistake). you know them little footpumps for inflating airbeds, the ones that whistle when you blow through them? i hooked one of them to the hoover with some gaffa tape, and the noise it made - christ! i couldnt actually hear my tapping on the door panels 5 minutes after i turned it off, or maybe that was the sound deadening doing its job. but it did help remove all the crap from between the outer and inner skin. i rebuilt the lot and was still puzzled as to why VW relied on the sunroof vinyl lining to deflect water out the rear....then i realised. i jumped onto etka, looked at the sunroof breakdown and saw that i was missing a reasonably important part...



im still trying to track this down as the dealers want £20 +vat for it...and i refuse to buy any more things from them (cant afford it). i refitted the sunroof running gear but left the actual sunroof off until i get this bit.

so with the sunroof problem half resolved , i went to work on the noisey stereo....lots of interferance. so firstly, i upgraded the alternator +ve to some nice 4 awg, i redid the chassis and battery grounds too, and shorted the amp ground to about 6" . but there was still noise, so i pulled the stereo out and used a spare rca set to investigate, low and behold the noise was gone. so there was interferance somewhere along the rca lines. i pulled up the carpets, lost the drivers seat (which was soaking anyway), and removed the cable, i left the engine running whilst i did just to figure out where it was coming from. turns out one of my many immobilisers was causing the issue, the one that fed the fuel pump, put an rca anywhere near it and it really does pump out some noise.

so i went to reroute the wiring down the centre of the car, but i soon found out that my brand new rcas were faulty, only one channel worked :( and even worse, is that my set i just removed out my peugeot had the same damn problem - super annoying! so im waiting on a new set before im going to rebuild the car, plus i need the sunroofy bits before i can park it outside anyway.

im a bit annoyed actually, i left my jacket at the mot place and it has my car keys for the peugeot in it, so i cant really drive any car at the moment. i keep wanting to go for a blast in the golf because i havent really driven it yet but theres always something wrong, eugh. till another day!

photos will soon follow, but my camera battery has totally died on me.

ps. to make things even more annoying, the duct tape has come unstuck and the door membranes are leaking again. ARGH!
pps. im loving the fact im the ONLY person in this forum who has started his own thread, not JV, i rock!

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #15 on: 16 November 2006, 11:53 »
............
« Last Edit: 27 January 2007, 22:45 by blessani »

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #16 on: 10 January 2007, 02:44 »
right, its certainly been a loooooooooong while - "where should i begin, to tell the story of how great my golf can be..."

the sunroof saga

i never managed to sort out the sunroof really, I just duct taped where the water catchment plate should be to stop it dripping on my head, and then I bought some waterproof seat covers for the front seats (love curing the symptom!).

alternator wiring stuff
cant think of a title for this section. but, i refitted the alternator +ve wire and the battery > chassis, and chassis > engine grounds. the wire is massive because i used my leftover 4 awg, i couldn't think where to put it, so i just improvised and cable tied it onto the back of the radiator mounting plate. i didn't have any alternator crimps, so i removed the old one, pried it open a little, and re-crimped it onto my giant 4 gauge wire, seemed to work perfect!







lights, camera, action

after winning a barginous auction for what should be crystal front and rear lights, it turned out it was just crystal rear lights and ordinary fronts, but at £20 delivered it was still a bargin.




all blow and plenty of go
my exhaust finally gave up on me and fell off, so whilst i wait for the backbox i want (twin square tips), i went down to my garage and just made an exhaust out of some tin exhaust pipe. i made a straight through from front to back, and the noise was so unbelievably loud i had to leave it there for the night and take another car. i went back the next day and fitted one muffler, hooked up the centre straight and made a twin exit straight exhaust. the car actually sounds pretty good, not crazy loud and has a nice rasp to it. its all air tight and is only a temporary fix, but i might just get some square tips for it and then at least let it look like a proper exhaust. (the photos are from it being on for about 1 month - super rusty though!)



« Last Edit: 10 January 2007, 03:41 by blessani »

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #17 on: 10 January 2007, 02:45 »
im all electric baby
finally i managed to win an auction for electric windows, i got the loom and switches and both motors and regulators for £35. i pulled out the old windows and found a way to fix the new electric ones in. they were off a mk3 polo, but still fitted perfect. i couldn't work out where to put the switches themselves, so i settled with the blank spaces under the hazard light switch. its a temporary fix (as it looks pants), but until i make the panel for the centre console (or buy one) it should do.

when refitting the doors, i made the membranes out of an old camping mat, so it sound deadens the doors, and waterproofs them, and its reusable to a certain extent - not like every previous membrane which ive had to bin after removing it.

i then managed to refit the door cards (which have totally lost their shape) for the first time in 2 years, so its a reasonably quiet car to drive now - wooo.





fueled up

my fuel line has been leaking since I replaced the fuel pump because I bent and split the stupid plastic line, so I had to snip it back and bridge the two bits of pipe with some braided fuel line. but if anyone here knows, the fuel pressure on a k-jet is out of this world and can easily blow off the tightest of connections! i had been driving the car with a tiny leak for about 1000 miles, and i went on my way to manchester for christmas. i made the entire journey just fine, pulled into my grandmas driveway to see that the line had blown off completely and was throwing fuel EVERYWHERE! i lost almost a whole tank of fuel (thanks to capillary action) until i pulled the fuel lines out of the lift pump.

so i went ahead and booked a new fuel line at £40 and set about fitting it, which was much easier than i expected. i know i can strip the fuel pump off with my eyes closed, it was just my fear of pushing it through the chassis leg into the engine bay, but it went through 1st time with ease. i tightened everything up and tried to start the car, i tried until the battery was flat but there was still no fuel pressure. i thought that the line they gave me was a dud, until i started testing stuff. there was no fuel pressure from the lift pump...after scratching my head for a long while (mainly because of all the petrol that had soaked it when fitting the fuel line). i removed the lift pump to find the motor just hanging loose and not connected to the little rubber fitting, i wedged it back in, and then presto - the car started!

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #18 on: 10 January 2007, 03:12 »

Tools Required: Crimp Tool, Wire Cutters, Wire Stripper, Multimeter



headlight loomage
this update has a crazy amount of images, so it needs its very own post. i was getting fed up of driving round without even being able to see the road, so i went out to buy some bits to upgrade my lights a little - which turned out to be a little bit of a disaster, because trying to find relays appears to be impossible in glasgow, heres the list of places i went to (which didnt have any in stock) before i managed to get some.

maplin
rs components
city electrical factors
tait components
dunlop motor factors
lucas automotive
...then finally got them at maccess - who NEVER seem to have them in stock.

so i went to work fitting them up. i would have bought one off ebay, but i really wanted to have an individual relay for dip and beam for each side, if i was going to upgrade them, i may as well do the lot. i got some thick wire rated at 27.5a - which was twice as thick as maplins wire rated at 30a - which has me a little concerned. at the moment, the relays are just pretty bare, but i will grab some hobby boxes to put them in, and bolt them to the wings properly for a nice tidy finish. i will also tidy up the whole engine bay soon and trunk every wire, because im fed up of the wirey mess and crappy battery terminals.

you can try and make sense of the photos, it shows photos with one side fitted, and two different types of bulbs, the philips blue vision (on the passenger side) and the ring rally 100w on the right. i will annotate each photo to show how good the loom and bulbs are!





Dipped Beam
Left Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision with Uprated Loom
Right Bulb: 80/100w Ring Rally with Standard Loom

you can definately see the improvement on the beam pattern where it slopes up to the left way more on the left bulb.





Main Beam
Left Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision with Uprated Loom
Right Bulb: 80/100w Ring Rally with Standard Loom

there is still a mild improvement on the main beam as it does illuminate bigger on the left, so success, but the best is yet to come.



Main Beam
Left Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision with Uprated Loom
Right Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision Standard Loom

this is with the same philips bulbs in both sides, for a proper comparison (not sure why i didnt just do this the whole way through)



Dipped Beam
Left Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision with Uprated Loom
Right Bulb: 80/100w Ring Rally with Uprated Loom

now you can really see the difference. with the loom in place on both sides and the brighter bulb on the right, there is A LOT more light than on the left, so just shows how much better the rally bulbs are.




Main Beam
Left Bulb: 55w/60w Philips Blue Vision with Uprated Loom
Right Bulb: 80/100w Ring Rally with Uprated Loom

i think the photos seriously speak for them self here, right hand side is mega bright!





the wiring is a little messy at the moment, but it should do until i get the hobby boxes. everything is crimped and then wrapped in insulation tape and is rock solid. each light has a new earth straight to the chassis, and the relays are just driven off the original light loom and grounds.



« Last Edit: 29 December 2008, 13:01 by Ben Lessani »

Offline Ben Lessani

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Re: bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project
« Reply #19 on: 23 January 2007, 16:13 »
no wonder my friends call me static hands
ok, so where are we, last update was how great my wiring loom was - so now this is going to be how troublesome the wiring loom is :( it was working perfect for a couple of weeks, then it started doing some bizzarre things.

my alarm was also causing my car to do odd things too, because of the rush job i did to install it. i stripped out most of the dash again, undid all wiring in place, and routed loads of new cables for it. a fresh 12v constant from the fusebox, a new 12v ign from the fusebox, and a new chassis ground - this way it stopped odd things like the stereo turning on when the alarm armed (because of the potential difference over the ign wire). so, after relieving the cigarrette lighter from being the ground, i sorted everything out nice and tidy, with some clean crimps and double taped insulation.








oh and this last photo is my battery boosting baby, it can start a car with no battery, or a completely flat battery, 320A of power!!! it also has a super duper current sensing charger built it. every home garage needs one, but i dont think they are that cheap.



also, you may have seen my posts about it, but i was having a fairly large parasitic drain on the battery when the engine was off, after testing with an ammeter there was a 0.35A draw, after cleaning up all the wiring, it reduced down to 0.02A. i also added another immobiliser, so im running 3 now :D. i also wired in the door switch to the alarm, so it doesnt arm itself until all doors are shut (boot, bonnet, doors), because i hadn't gotten round to doing it before when i first installed the alarm.

however, this is where my static hands come into play - when i fix one item, another does something weird. like now, after about 10mins of the alarm being armed, the left hand headlight turns on. the only way i can figure this out is that the alarm is drawing enough current (and as the fusebox ign spades on rear goes through the main beam fuse) to flick the relay on - odd, but i need to take a look. and now, about 500 miles since installing the loom the left beam and left dip don't work anymore, but the bulb itself is fine, so i need to double check that again, the wiring should be sound as a pound, not really much room for error - but i'll review it anyway. even on one headlight, its still plenty bright to drive about anyway!

soon to be a beauty

i only started using the golf as a cheap fast runabout, but now im starting to like it and im going to be buying less than practical mods for it, but it should look smart as now ;)

if you've seen the drivers side door card, the beading got tore off, so i was driving round with insulation tape over it, but i got fed up of how crappy it looked, and got some new door cards. i picked them up from a fella in swinton for £11.50, now they dont flex at all, and look much smarter - yey!