Jon's 91' Mk2 ABF Digi GTI

[jmsheahan]

Put a few more hours in on the car last weekend. Progress has halted the past few weeks with that annoying thing called life getting in the way. Still, payday today so booked a few extra days off for the bank holiday to try and blitz it - I aim to get the car as near as damn complete before the loom comes back from RJ.

Sunday consisted mainly of sorting the coolant system out. I replaced the oil cooler hose that had disintegrated before and fitted the amazingly expensive metal water pipe (£45 effin quid with no pattern options available!).







Going to be requiring a new plastic outlet for the front of the cylinder head I think or a new seal at the very least:



Swapped over the spark plugs for Beru items and also fitted a new set of Quantum leads. The leads are also made by Beru so don't get mugged off with paying dealer prices.



Bolted up the inlet with all new gaskets and bolts and popped the HT lead cowling on.





Popped the old 2E 8v block on the trolley and wheeled it off down to chuck in the boot of the Ibiza. Myself and a mate did get a few weird looks walking down the hill with it  Kind of sucks a bit to think that this time last year I was building this block up and now it's off to scrap. Still, onwards and upwards!



Dooms day arrived for the Ibiza on Monday. There really wasn't a lot left on it when it went. Driver did a pretty good job of ninja'ing it onto the truck too considering it had minimal front running gear. The newest (and most rotton!) car I've ever owned...







Complete with stoved in doors from the rachet strap




That's all for now, hopefully a bigger update weekend after next.

[Mr Blue]

Been watching this. Very nice!

That split shell would have caused the nock 

[Simeon]

Nice progress mate

[jmsheahan]

Cheers chaps 

Looking forward to getting it back on the road, it's been off for around 8 months now.

Good to know on the shell cheers. I'm still not really sure what happened with the 2E block, it just let go one night when coming down to a junction.

[jmsheahan]

Again a little out of date and copied over but please bare with me 

Had a couple of days off work this week so a small update on progress. The list of things to be completed is getting smaller and it's a great that the car is starting to look more like a car again.

First thing to do was to pick up oil, coolant and a new breather hose from the dealers. Part number is 037 103 231 C if anyone needs it. Old one was completely shot.



These also arrived in the post. Ouch at the price tag but can't wait to fit them. Should make a nice upgrade.



Nice bit of discount saw a set of Pagid 280mm discs being ordered from Eurocarparts.



Old and new. Nothing wrong with the old 256mm setup but as Ibiza had 280's it would be rude not to.



Despite being the factory colour the red of the Ibiza calipers was not my cuppa so stripped them down to be repainted. Resprayed them silver and currently drying for fitting tomorrow.



Discs on and now using the correct bolts for the Ronals.





Turned my attention back to the engine and fitted a new seal to the water flange on the cylinder head and finishing off plumbing in the cooling system. Mk4 expansion tank now on and fitted pretty easily. Required a little trimming of the plastic on the side of the tank but near enough direct fit. Just need to figure out how to pop the electrical pins out of the Mk2 sender plug to refit into the Mk4 connector.





Slam panel bolted back on which felt like a big step for some reason  Cleaned up a little surface rust around the headlights and gave it a lick of paint.









Fuel lines all connected up and vacuum hose from the FPR





After removing the end fixing from the P/S lines the mk2 ends fitted straight into the ABF pump (good spot RJ, you were dead right [:y:])



Cleaned, sanded, prepped, primed and painted the rad surround. Took an age and I have no finger tips left from sanding but it came up pretty well.



New 8v rad arrived. This has to be the biggest bargain of the whole project at just £28 delivered for a brand new Hella rad. 'Coolpartsuk' on Ebay - super quick delivery too. I've lost the link but cheers whoever posted it on here. Spot on.



All bolted up and looking fresh 







Handily one of the rubber bungs that came on the rad was the perfect size to block the larger intake on the throttle body.



Fitted the lambda sender in. Could do with a new one of these I think but after seeing the price of them I'll be using this one for now. If it causes problems I'll replace at a later date.





Picked up an Ibiza airbox a while back to replace the sh*t induction kit my Ibiza came with so cleaned that up. Came up real nice after being through the dishwasher. GF didn't quite share my enthusiasm on opening the dishwasher to find caliper carriers, airbox and intake boot in it though [LOL]



Only thing I've found with it is it doesn't seem to fit into the Mk2 mountings. Will need to tie it down somehow. Handily the other bungs from the radiator fitted the airbox so blanked off  the connector that was for the carbon canister.

Accelerator cable, speedo cable and clutch cable all connected up although I think the clutch cable may need adjustment. I can get all gears but first seems a little difficult to engage whilst the other gears seem easy to engage even without the clutch pressed. Hopefully just a niggle to iron out.

Lastly I need to figure out the top hose connection for the rad. The 8v one fits but seems a little long.



And that's pretty much up to date for now. Very happy as it's the most complete the cars looked in months. Just the driveshafts left to connect up and brakes to finish off then it's ready for the engine loom to go in.

[jmsheahan]

Had a couple of weekends away from the car but picked up progress again today. Engine bay is now completely finished bar the engine loom. All the plumbing is done, lighting loom wrapped, cables connected up and brakes and lines are finished bar bleeding.

Fitted the 280 discs and goodridge braided lines. Only 4 fitted at the mo but will do the ones around the beam later in the year when it comes off for a refurb. I just kind of want to get the car on the road for the summer now.











Also picked up some HEL stainless nipples:



Whilst the rear of the car was up in the air I decided to whip the back bumper off to check for rot and to see if I could align it any better. Turns out the inner brackets are broken but I have a new bumper to go on at some point anyway. Really pleased to report none of the usual rot and its clean as a whistle.



Before:





After:



Sitting a little better:



Also realigned the exhaust tips so they sat better:



Decided to clean out around the filler cap. It's amazing how much **** can collect here. Fortunately all clean and rot free.







Back to the engine bay - sorted out the top rad hose and cut it down to fit:



Had a bit of a mishap with the rewiring the coolant level sender wires. Needed to remove the pins from the Mk2 plug and refit into the Mk4 one. After 30 mins of trying to prise them out with various screwdrivers, hairclips etc I gave up and smashed the plug off  . Unfortunately it STILL didn't want to give up its precious pins and one of the wires broke  . After thinking sod this popped up the scrappy and robbed a mk4 of its sender with the pins already in place and a length of loom. Bit of a faff but at least I get the proper housing cover. Anyway all sorted:



Just the loom to go now really, can't wait to get back behind the wheel. Only issue I have currently is the clutch cable. It's an auto adjust jobby and seems too loose. I can get all gears but 1st is a little tricky. Whats concerning is I can get all the gears even without the clutch down. I have a 1.3 manual cable kicking around somewhere, I may try that on it instead.

That's all for now.

[Wayne]

Great progress

[Diamond Hell]

If you still need to de-pin a plug a couple of lengths of MIG wire would be useful, you can even hammer the ends down a bit flat, which will help you insert them to de-pin the plug.

If you haven't replaced the crank sensor, I'd recommend doing so - they seem to be the one thing that can drop an ABF dead and the wires don't age well.

[jmsheahan]

Cheers, didn't think of MIG wire but then again I don't have a welder to hand. Real bugger of a job that. Wasn't too keen on cutting the wires but they've been soldered, heat shrinked and wrapped well so should be ok. It's only sender wires.

Crank sensor was replaced as like you say the wires were indeed dead. Thing broke in two as I removed it, was knackered.

[tech1889]

Alright mate. Car is looking sweet as ever.. Im just fitting my ABF and going to replace the coolant pipes were they expensive ?? did you go dealer ?? Also how much you pay for crank sensor as like everyone says mines dead as well lol

Thanks

Dan