Simeon - "Golf G60 rebuild"

[jv]

[Simeon]

Cheers jv 

Right, little bit of background. Bought the car in November 2008;

1988 mk2 8v gti

Corrado G60 engine conversion
   -97k miles
   -rsr outlet
   -sprinter intercooler
   -standard rebuilt charger by G-werks (done 1000 miles - receipt for £600)
   -68mm pulley and appropriate chip
   -cylinder head overhauled
   -new belts

mk3 driver gearbox (retaining rod change setup)
280mm front brakes
22mm master cylinder upgrade
40 mm dropped front
Corrado interior
resprayed in matt black (rattlecan job)
All red rears (quality job done with lamin-x)
Smoked headlights (lamin-x)

Couple of pics from the advert;









Went to view it one evening, but first thing I did was look underneath and unfortunately it wasn't a pretty sight  Sills both needed attention and the floor at the front both sides. Told the seller there and then that I couldn't buy it as I didn't have the time to weld it up. However, he insisted that we take it for a run, so I agreed as I had only been in one G60 before. Anyway, got back and loved it so had a good look around the car, offered a silly amount (without his wheels as I didn't like them) that I was sure he would say no to, and sure enough he did. Set off home and about half way back I got a phone call off him saying he would accept my offer

My mate took me over to get it a week later, put my wheels on it and had a great time driving it back



Ready to go ..


First thing I did was change the backbox as the one on it was a bit knackered and hung down quite low so looked like it was falling off anyway.

Old


New




While it was up on the ramp I got to have a good poke around underneath;

rust 



and bad rust 



Over the next few weeks I didn't do a lot to it except drive it  as I was busy doing a masters. However, I quickly got bored of the ride hight and the wheels .. so got some brand new hottuning coilovers (I run them on both my other mk2s and think they're ok - a lot less firm than my old beetle!) from someone locally and picked up some new wheels off ebay.

Into the workshop (that's now nearly finished)



Coilovers



And some new wheels .. 15"x7j et 52.3



The wheels quickly had some attention and new rubber (175.50.15s) and were fitted with 20mm fk adaptors. I also changed the headlights to a crystal set I had as the smoked ones were terrible, couldn't see a thing at night!

Wheels



On car

[Simeon]

I then thought I'd fix a couple of other probs with it. Temp gauge wasn't reading much so decided the thermostat was stuck open so thought, yeah thats a quick job on a non-pas model...cue the freezing hands and an f'in o-ring that doesn't have a proper ridge to sit on .... anyway, got it sorted then came the fun job of bleeding the system, which sort of worked, but still had cold air blowing in the cabin and the oil temp was higher than before bugger. Anyway, left it as it was for the time being because I was getting the tracking set up cheap the following morning. Then of course the tracking couldn't be done because there were no threads left on the tie rod


Had a quick look on this forum and decided that my cooling probs were due to knackered bypass valves on the matrix so thought I'd remove them. Also found that if I bridged the plug on the temp sender and the gauge went to the top then it was the sender that was knackered (thanks rubjonny) ...which it was, so stuck a new one of them in and got a working temp gauge again  Replaced the bypass valves with some 22mm copper pipe and got heat in the car too and a sensible reading on oil and water temps in all driving conditions  Woo


Decided to replace the tie rod, but this is not an easy job with car on axle stands, especially without the correct size spanner so took it down to a guy my mate knows who has experience with mk2s. Anyway, turned out I'd bought a late tie rod instead of an early one so it couldn't be replaced anyway, but the guy managed to free off the adjuster on the old one and set the tracking anyway  good on him, and he only charged me a tenner to mess with it then 20quid to track it up - result!

Whipped off the teledials for some much needed attention so stuck my g60 steels on temporarily and gave the car a wash for first time since buying it 





Then my friends got the chalk out





What nice friends I have..haha



It all came off pretty quickly (rain), though probably a good thing.
 

[Simeon]

Right, so that was up to January '09, didn't do much else till March when I finally got my hands on some wheels I'd been after for a while Aero-tech alloys, 15"x7j. Got them blasted and powdercoated in white ..



and a (not great) shot of them on the car shod with 195.45.15s



That was pretty much how it was until June when the mot was due and I didn't have time to do anything to it due to dissertation writing so stuck it in the garage and put my gtd back on the road.

Was left untouched until recently .. moved it into the workshop at the end of December;



Started stripping it down to see whats what





and found a lot of this



Had a poke at the offside sill too and it looks like it's gonna need a new one, but should get away with patching the nearside. About 5 floor patches and rear suspension turret and it'll be looking a bit more solid again 

Got hold of a complete corrado G60 wiring loom so thinking I may replace the engine loom as the wiring all looks a bit dodgy.

More digging produced this;



It's not actually too bad on the nearside, which is strange, the offside is a lot worse .. no pics but gonna have to cut a pretty big section of floor out and put a new plate in.

Got to work pulling the engine out;

[Simeon]

Dropped the rear subframe out;



Worst wishbone (hopefully ok when cleaned up);



Took a while to get all the seized bolts out, but perseverence paid off and then started to clean it up somewhat, as well as steering rack and front subframe. Need to go over them with the sand blaster next.

Then I dropped the rear beam off (sounds quick and easy when you say it like that ) and started cleaning it up along with the front subframes.

Up in the air (and a messy workshop!)



Beam off



Back end looks odd without the beam/suspension 



Started stripping and cleaning



Front subframes



Steering rack



The fuel tank was next and was a bit of a mission as VW in their wisdom used some nice mild steel bolts to bolt the straps on .. resulting in knackered bolt heads some 20 years later Managed to get 4 of the 5 bolts out in the end, will deal with the last one later. Had a bit of a fight with the rear beam too three of the stub axle bolts seized, one came out relatively easily, but two were a right fatherless son blow torch sorted them out

Tank out





Few holes left 



Deal with this later



Cleaned up



fatherless son bolts



Sorted




I then made a little purchase which solves my problem of where to put the gauges.



That is pretty much up to date now. Next job really is to get the last few things out of the engine bay and set about knocking up a frame to roll the car over .. it needs too much welding to do it all on my back with my face a few inches off the car!

Plans are basically to make it solid underneath, paint all the bolt off parts and detail the engine a little, put a mk2 interior back in (which I already have) as I don't really like the corrado seats, get some mk4 rear calipers (spied some in a local scrappy over the weekend so going to go ask them how much they want tomorrow on my day off) and get it back on the road asap

[Simeon]

Picked up a new rear bumper at the weekend as the old one was knackered. Also went to the scrappy today and got some mk4 rear calipers Cheapest conversion hoses I've found are on ebay for £28 + £4 p&p .. if anyone knows anywhere cheaper then pls let me know  Also found that I can use the 4hose goodridge kit together with the conversion hoses to make the 6hose kit I need so that'll work out a little cheaper GSF sell the 4 hose kit for about £35. Couple of pics;

EDIT; The GSF 4-hose kit doesn't work as it is the two fronts and the two rears that go into the disc. What you need is a 4 line drum (non gti) kit as this has the two fronts and the two lines that go over the beam, which combined with the mk4 caliper conversion hoses gives you the 6 line kit

Old bumper;



New;



Mk4 calipers



These will get stripped and painted before fitting of course. My main detail colour is going to be matt white (plasticote) as it should be a nice contrast with the matt black

[Simeon]

Right, as always not got as much done as I'd like. Cleaned up the worst of the rust on the subframes and rear beam, removed the bushes from the rear beam and found some powerflex rear bushes for £25 result. Have also stripped the carriers and slider pins off all my rear calipers and cleaned them up a little. Am getting the sand blaster out (finally) on Tuesday (my next day off) and will pick up some paint this weekend so should have some pretty pics next week 

Great piece of kit this;



Resulting in a much cleaner rear beam and subframe;





Rear bushes were really knackered and were very easy to remove only took a few minutes to remove both - had set myself up for a couple of hours for that job too;



No pics of calipers, but the mk2 rears are now for sale if anyone is interested. Thats all for now

[Simeon]

Bit more done today, but as ever not as much as I'd hoped. Had a few probs with the sand blaster so need to buy a couple of parts for it before I can do anymore with it. Managed to do most of the rear subframe though just a couple of the difficult to get to areas left on that.

Picked up some etch primer (bloody expensive stuff! Couldn't believe it) and some decent metal paint (supposedly better than hammerite, but we shall see) to paint all the underneath bits in

Started cleaning up the rear carriers too, but will finish these off with the sand blaster when it's useable again.

Subframe;





Carriers;



In case anyone is interested, this is the sandblaster I have;



It's a 20 gallon pressurised jobbie which I have hooked up to a 160 litre compressor. I got it off ebay for about £100 so not badly priced really. I use kiln dried sand (you can't use ordinary sand as it's wet and it would clog the machine) which is about £2.50 a bag so dirt cheap

The biggest problem I have is that my compressor isn't big enough, so it's a bit of a stop-start operation as you have to wait for the compressor to catch up. Another problem you can have with it is damp air getting in and clogging it up, which I mostly avoid by having two water traps and an inline filter too. Also, the fittings supplied are brass and the grit wears this away quite quickly (the problem I've got at the moment) so I am replacing this ball valve with a stainless steel item which should last a lot longer There is an interesting article on home sand blasting on the link below, which is why I decided on this blaster in the first place.

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/sandblasting.htm

[Simeon]

Right, today I bought a 7m length of 2" square tube, 2' of 1 1/4" solid bar and 2' of 1 1/2" tube Couple this lot with the two outboard engine stands I've nicked from work and a quick dabble with the welder and the car should be upside down in no time

[Simeon]

Got hold of a few bits; (all on the cheap )

Powerflex rear beam bushes;



Mocal oil cooler and braided lines; Just need a sandwich plate now - thinking mk1 golf but not 100% sure they fit ..?



Also bought a new lift pump housing as the old one (right side) was pretty corroded and the plastic was pretty cracked; (99p ebay bargain)



Only going to be able to do a little bit on the roll over jig tomorrow as havn't been able to get my welder home from work Bit of a shame, but also have Saturday off this week so hopefully put a few more hours in then.