Hi Chaps,
Joined the forum just after Christmas last year when I bought my new car, and have finally got my act together to put a thread together.
Little bit of history:
I began my golf obsession with my first car, a 1994 1.4 Mk3 Golf "Match". It was my first forray into dubs and and the modifying scene in general. I made lots of mistakes with that car, but learnt from them all, plus it helped me develop a few basic mechanical skills.
I've put a picture up of her for you guys to
judge ridicule look at
Unfortuneately, the first engine blew its headgasket, and when the head was off, we noticed it was knackered!
Then a year later, the oil pump gave up the ghost in the replacement engine.
Think you can guess the outcome of that...
Anyway, back to the present....
I scraped together the very limited funds I could get, and bought a 1997 8v GTI.
This is what she looked like in the advert.
Was clean, all electrics worked, and had electric everything which quite frankly was a novelty I am yet to tire of.
However, sods law kicked in, and I have spend the last few months repairing the stupid thing.
It needed:
Front and side coolant flanges
Expansion tank
Thermostat
Radiator
Both drive belts
Service
Cambelt - next on my list
Had two slow punctures and needed tyres
Having bankrupted myself buying the car in the first place, these things made me a bit annoyed.
Any road, she's now running properly, and thanks to some gorgeous weather today, I cracked on with the parts I had lying around from my old car to tidy her up.
The last owner had removed the front fogs and replaced them with battered reflectors, so I shoved on the crystal set my old car had. I also had a go at doing Anniversary-esque pinstriping in blue, and I'm quite pleased with the results.
Next was the obligatory Eurowagens splitter
I had some model paint lying around, so I joey'd the headlights
Very pleased with the results
To sort the punctures problems, I found some VR6 BBS's on Fleabay with decent tyres left on them, and as advantage, they had been refurbed black (I have always wanted black multispokes)
Few little bits to brighten up the interior:
Overall, I'm happy with the results, but there's always more work to do
Next time:
Debadged FK grill - waiting for paint
New rear bumper - what ever numpty had the car before clearly had issues:
Looks like a cutout was made for a tow-ball in the rear bumper, and glued back badly. The worse part is that it had been painted 3 times on the black parts. Top layer is flaky black paint, underneath all that is blue paint?? And under that is the original black textured plastic, ruined.
I have a bumper, but it needs painted (couldn't find a decent fjord blue one anywhere)
I've also drilled the airbox and run a cold air feed from the bumper grill, but forgot to get a pic of that one.
