My Mk3 Project.. SHE LIVES!!

[xAntiVenxm]

Right, so the golf I've picked up will be a bit of a project as there's a fair few things to get done to pass the MOT, and a fair few other bits to get done to get her into good shape.

Don't know what she's like under the arches, can't get power where she's stored to drill them out, so i guess i'll find that out when i can keep her at my house legally 

Right, so the garage quoted me £758 to get her back on the road.

Things that need doing for the MOT:

1) Reg plate light dead - easy fix

2) ABS failure - Rear right sensor has gone

3) Needs new wipers cause apparently they don't clear the screen properly..? lol easy fix

4) Emissions weren't tested because the crank sensor is dead so she can't idle. - not the easiest, but doable

5) One front tyre is illegal - She will probably need new tyres all round really.. dollaz 

6) Nearside front CV joint severely deteriorated - Balls. Not ridiculously hard but not the easiest 

7) Nearside rear wheel bearing needs replacing for excessive play - unsure how hard they are to do

She needs the wishbones replacing. One failed the MOT for excessive play, but I replace in two's otherwise one side will be stiff and the other gummy.

9) Somehow the offside front top mount has become very loose? All the bits are fine, it just needs to be tightened up with a wrench or windy gun.



Apart from that the rest is all cosmetic, there's steering wheel trim that needs to be put back on cause the guy who owned it before me didnt put it back together after installing a sub wire.. 
Passenger door has a big scrape down it, annoying but would need respraying.

Engine seems sound apart from the obvious crank sensor.


So yeah, my money is tight atm so this old girl will be a project car, for doing bits on her as and when I can afford them. I have a fiesta i use as my runabout so it isn't essential I have her on the road.

Might be able to blag my way to the money from somewhere, but not today!

So yeah I'll use this thread to post updates from time to time when I get round to replacing bits.
Hopefully with some TLC and 'elbow grease' she'll be a lovely ride


UPDATE - SPEC!!

So the poor golf has been sat still for a VERY long time now since i got her in april 2012.. unfortunately I didn't have the money to get things sorted..

Since then i've got a new job and now have the funds necessary to give this car the love it deserves and bring her back from the dead.

So, spec as she stands..

ABF 2.0L 16V Engine - 3 Door - VW Mystic Blue
MODS
VR6 Brakes & Hubs all round (explains why standard wheel bolts didnt fit lol)
Spax Lowering Suspension
Sub & Sound system wiring still in place from previous owners
Ripspeed  head unit with MP3/Aux capabilities
Parcel shelf build with 2x Sony speakers. Not sure the size, they look bigger than 6x9's!!
BBS VR6 standard alloys
Powerflow exhaust system - Installed by Top Gear

The rest is as you would expect.

ISSUES

She has the usual rust under the arches, though not very bad - just the bottom tiny bit of the wings need some attention.

Usual rust on the sills.. and a tiny bit of the floor pan on passenger side (d'oh!!) and under the sill covers needs attention asap.

Tyres on the BBS were all totally screwed, and needed replacing.
Front drivers window is totally unresponsive, no clicks or nothing so needs new motor and wiring checked over.
Exhaust has had the bloody mounting arm welded on the wrong feckin way!! currently held on by cable ties 
Door bump strip on drivers side has a broken clip
Someone put a god awful gearknob into her.. one of them horrendous halfrauds jobs, silver plastic with blue LED's in it 
Drivers door lock barrel is ruined.. key barely goes in and it just spins
Drivers side CV Boot is destroyed, barely any grease in it left. wouldnt be surprised if the joint has gone as a result.
Auxiliary belts are crumbling away - power steering non existant
Havent checked the cam belt but I will get it replaced, tensioner as well, just to be 100% safe.
rear right ABS sensor dead
Crank angle sensor dead

And, the biggest issue.. she doesn't run  didn't know what it was, she would fire up if you had your foot on the pedal but no such luck otherwise.


I'll make new replies below with some photos of what I been up to over the last few months.. lotta work been done, and more to come.

MOT Time next Saturday -She's ready. If it fails on the rust, have a mate at the garage who will sort it for mates rates which is fantastic.

Insurance being sorted out this week - Admiral Multi-Car are heroes, all mods declared on this and my runabout, for about a grand which is epic considering no NCB on the dub!

I'll be keeping this updated more regularly now, C+C welcome.

just a quick picture of her (she needs a clean.. badly lol  ) :



and one more..

and a photo of the lows.. i will likely upgrade to coilovers once she's road worthy!

[xAntiVenxm]

First fix.. the door lock. Annoying but simple fix! £10 kit on fleabay for a shiny new replacement which works perfectly



and the bonnet hinge which was corroded.. good wd40 scrub and a layer of lubricant and she's back to normal.





sill strip was corroded to hell, so off it went, and ive now scrubbed out the sill covers..




New PAS Belt..



and new Aux belt..



Now a bit that REALLY cheesed me off... Locking. Bloody. Wheel Nuts..

Obviously some absolute monkey of a garage apprentice had a go at these with a windy gun at some point and totally F***ed em!!

Two came off okay... the rear too.. jeebus. Half hour each smashing a socket over the top to pull it out. This is what they looked like.

I take credit to the outer edge damage but the inside.. definitely was NOT me!!



this was the 2nd one, before I even touched it (still in wheel) and it is absolutely ruined..


next issue I fixed.. the CV boot. it was basically rubber strings around the joint.. which was not in a pretty state either. nicks in all the ball bearings, and the tracks were worn. Threads were f**ked too, either from me knocking it out or from previous work done on it..



Thankfully a new CV joint was £23 with our euro parts discount, so now a shiny new one is waiting to be corroded from weather, and broken due to britain's shocking roads 


I totally forgot to photograph the ABS sensor issue.. took off the rear right wheel to look at it. Undid the allen key bolt, pulled it out.. and only got half the sensor xD

The other half was still stuck inside the wheel.. SO... lots of WD40... tapped it out from behind the wheel and the thing was absolutely destroyed haha. copper wires splaying out everywhere! replaced it and the abs light goes out

[xAntiVenxm]

Now, the absolute most frustrating thing EVER.. the running issue... 

I spent MONTHS working on this.. replacing things left and right to find the issue.. I forgot to photograph this stuff though 

So. I replaced the usual culprits of relays.. #30 and the fuel sender relay.. No change. 

Then, I replaced the crank angle sensor. Annoying having to undo the front engine mount but hey ho it was done in about half hour. The old one was cracked, naked wires everywhere a real sh** show. New one in, fault code cleared but no change 

Then, I replace the ignition switch.. what a pig of a job!!! not even complicated but annoying as hell putting the steering column back in where it was.. found myself upside down in the drivers footwell, one arm shoving the steering column in and the other hand holding the U-Clamp straight for it to drop in..

Much aches and swearing later, it was in. Good thing too as the old one had a small crack and a corroded pin, but didn't solve the issue 

SO. What next.

I spent a day in the engine bay. I replaced a vacuum hose (throttle to ECU) and spent the rest of the time cleaning up EVERY electrical contact and sensor I could get my hands onto without breaking something or myself..

love electrical contact cleaner.. the most expensive bottle of white spirit ever haha 



before..


and an after.. I see copper!!!


these sensors don't look clean.. but you should have seen em before.. covered in sludge and carbon (i think i need a new rocker cover gasket) and one of em was filled with a wax-like substance, orangey yellow in color..  don't know what it was but its cleaned out now 



Now throttle body.. off you pop!


looks pretty sweet in there..





Hmm.. how bout in the inlet mani??


Nope, pretty clean, usual oil drops from the breather pipes..

Now ISV.. thought it was blocked..


hmmm..

nope, pretty clean...


Also if anyone know whats this sensor is coming off the throttle body.. which is plugged into a blanking plug in a breather pipe is for, id love to know if I need it!! 



STILL NO RESULT!! 

So I posted on here and after a few suggestions sure enough someone cracked it!! THANK YOU to everyone who replied to my post.

It was the stupid ISV.. seized inside, the piston wasn't moving when turned on!!

thin screwdriver in there, few taps with a hammer and it opened.. soaked in WD40 to keep it loose and suddenly..

SHE LIVES!!!

I felt like Dr. Frankenstein for a moment.. it was dark outside, and she sprung to life and after bashing the ISV with a hammer a couple times the idle smoothed out and she runs happily now. HURRAY!!

[xAntiVenxm]

She goes in for an MOT next saturday.. fingers friggin crossed she passes.

Pretty sure I did everything that needed doing.. checked everything over.

few of the "failures" on original MOT were made up by a garage trying to make a few bucks.. the wheel bearing was absolutely fine.

still unsure why the top mount on one side sits up slightly higher than it should.. but every mechanic i know says they are a bit funny anyway, and the golfs have loads more movement in the top mounts than other cars 

only thing it should fail on, hopefully!! will be the rust. in that event, the bloke i've made friends with will sort it for not too much dollars

[xAntiVenxm]

So last saturday she went in for her MOT..

I checked everything over the night before to make sure I didn't miss anything.. brakes rusty as hell.. but felt okay.

Got my insurance sorted out. admiral multi-car were awesome.. I actually pay less for my golf than I do for my fiesta somehow

Anyway.. grabbed a quick snap of her on the ramp waiting to be lifted up



nerves aching at this point!!!


Made a good contact to have in the man doing the test. He made a point of having me look underneath.. and was explaining how damn surprised he was at how little rust was underneath!!!

Sills are rusty.. but nowhere near the seatbelt anchorage points..
Floorpan is rusty.. but not in a load bearing area and not very bad.

Brakes have what looks like cracking so he advised it but thinks they just need a good clean/proper use to scrub em down but the work 100%.

Emissions tested, and passed the emissions test.. sweating buckets by now!

so one final check on everything and..


...SHE PASSED!!! 



Only 4 advisories too!!!
advisories as the front brakes were rusty as hell and looked like the edges were cracked (as mentioned above)
so thats 2
3rd is floorpan
4th is the o/s brake pipe.. probably will need a copper one to replace by next year.

but she's on the road. Taxed, insured, and i am one happy dude 

[xAntiVenxm]

Cam belt and The Window..

So, soon as she came home from her MOT my mate came round to help me out with the cam belt.

While I kinda know what's involved and how it should be done, when it comes to things like the cam belt, I still prefer to have a professional do it - whilst I've come a very long way teaching myself to be my own mechanic, I can't compare to proper training and years of experience! And one false move, and i'd be saying goodbye to my engine..

So, before he came round I had a look at what the belt was like.. probably should have done this when i first got it but I was told the belt hadn't long been done so trusted that 

As you can see the belt is... well not in overall bad condition.. but that track worn into the centre worried me a bit.

My mate said it happens, as the cam pulley has a track in it that doesn't wear through it but rather leaves a track untouched due to the inset track.

belt wasnt cracked or splayed in any way, and was still flexible enough to twist..

I still got it done just to be absolutely 100% confident it is in good shape

Old Belt!



Old Pulley
doesn't look too bad, but i wasn't gonna take the risk. Usually always do the full monty when I do it for peace of mind.


And here's my mate who decided he was too sexy for his shirt 

was doing up the crankshaft pulley bolts.. which were rounded to f**k (and getting replaced this weekend)


Now the window..

So whilst my mate was tidying up the cam belt I decided to make myself useful and start taking the door card off and preparing to change the window reg and motor, or at least find out whats wrong/why the window don't work!

so got the card off.. held back a laugh and told my mate to come round..

"So... can't see why the window isn't working mate.. not one thing looks out of order here.." 



LOL!! 

So, apparently when the car was broken into years back (hence the fancy alarm system) the window reg and motor was removed to replace the glass..

..it was then constantly falling down so previous owner fashioned some wedges out of wood beams to hold up the glass 

So after some laughs and more laughs later i stuck in the new reg and motor and its working a treat now

hoovered out the broken old glass (and probably saved my door from rusting.. it was wet inside as the glass prevente the door drains working properly.. hadn't rained in over a month!) and happy days.

[xAntiVenxm]

Next Bits.. Audio & Wiper Stalks..

Audio

So I knew the car had all sorts of audio wiring left in it.. it seems someone years back must have had a pretty intense setup in there! My other car has upgraded speakers and a sub, and nowehere near the amount of wires everywhere.

I hate driving without my tunes, so I had a root around and found a Sony ISO adaptor! Win! 

So first thought I had was to rip out the broken Ripspeed head unit (volume button doesn't work.. spin and no volume change) and use the sony adaptor to get it ready to be able to swap my head unit between my cars depending which one i'm driving 

Aaaaannddd... this is what I was looking at 



Much swearing... cutting.. crimping.. soldering.. burns on my leg from liquid solder  and burnt fingers later, the Sony iso adaptor was all ready to be used 

A few days later I got bored again and started following the wires to the boot.. where I found an awesome surprise!!!



BOOM! FANCY SONY SPEAKERS! lol i didn't even know they were in there!!

As you can see from the wood bits, someone must have had a decent boot build in her before I got hold of her!

There's extra carpeting over it to ensure the speakers remain hidden and everything 

As you can see from the photo, the wires from the speakers were fuxxored.. connectors snapped off.. even the wires from the speaker itself to the connectors was broken and frayed.

Thankfully I had plenty of spare wiring from the Ripspeed ISO adaptor I pulled out, so half an hour of soldering, and building new connectors etc etc and voila! ready for testing 

Stuck the parcel shelf back in the car.. soldered up the wires, and connected them up. stuck my head unit in and HURRAY THEY WORK! 

Still missing a sub though.. gonna need one.. not the same without it lol *adds to wish list* although if i'm going for a trip i could probably easily transfer the one from my other car.


Wiper Stalks

So last week when it was pissing it down with the tail end of that hurricane was the WORST time to figure out my wiper stalk doesn't hold it's position when pushed up to make the wipers work faster!! 

Had to drive very carefully whilst also holding it up with my finger through the steering wheel 

Found the whole stalk cluster on fleabay for £12 so was pleased with that and waited patiently for them to arrive.

few days later I get a box in the post and its time to fix it!

I managed to do it without the air bag exploding so i was pretty pleased with that 

the ball ache came from the fact that the replacements I got had a broken high-beam switch.. meant doing the whole thing all over again.. at least i've got a fully working stalk cluster now though 

pics:

Tools to do the job!


YAY the airbag didn't explode in my face!


And there she is.. I can drive in the rain again lol