Firstly a big thankyou to JV for opening this thread for me.....I thought it only fair as I undertake this project to share the experiences I am gaining from this with the people that are likely to help me.
Right, here we go....lets start with a little background info.
After a string of cars (Ranging from a lowly Mini Clubman Estate, A couple of MK2 Sciroccos even a bloody Toyota Celica) I came across this MK2 8v GTi for £750 on eBay. After several chats with the guy selling it, I was convinced I had a good buy and went ahead and placed my bid....possibly my first mistake. Went and had a look at her and on the surface, all looked fine so parted with £750 hard earned notes and collected the keys. Within 20 miles, the clutch was slipping badly and the gearbox was jumping out of gear and alarm bells started ringing....What had I just bought!!!!
So, eventually got her home and set about finding a second hand box locally...not quite as easy as you might have though....ended up buying a dodgy second hand box from a Scirocco 1.8 GTX as a stop gap. Had a nice new clutch fitted and had the box dropped in.......Immediately noticed something was amiss as there was a funny whirring noise in both 1st and 2nd......Oh dear
Guess what? This box probably lasted me a month before I needed yet another box...Luckily I found in the local scrappy a box that came from a car that only had 41,000 on the clock so snapped it up and dropped it in....All is now good in Gearbox land
The car has had nothing but problems since I got her, mainly stemming from dodgy wiring. Most of the electrics in the engine bay have been bodged somewhere along the line and like all bodge jobs, they are only a temporary fix before they decide to give up on you.
So now, she is running sweetly and handling nicely so it is time for the fun stuff....making her into the car I want.
So far plans for her include dropping a 2litre conversion in, Rebuilding the front end (corrosion is havings it's wicked way with her), New set of rims....(Looking at Platin P3's at the moment but open to suggestions), A complete ICE install (my particular expertise), retrimming the interior, Performance mods (including exhaust system) and finally a respray just to finish her off. I am toying with the idea of flushing the bootlid and smoothing the back out but as I say, they are WAY down on my list of priorities right now.
So there you go, A brief outline of the plans for this car and just for your pleasure (Or disgust) some pics of where I start from.
