bens ... 1986 MKII 1.8 8v K-Jet Golf ... project

[Ben Lessani]

Tools Required: 8mm XYZ Key, 17mm Sump Key, Jack, Axel Stands, Full Socket and Spanner Set, Engine Crane

its been a long time
well, its been close to 4 months since i last updated my thread, turns out that i'm getting well lazy. its not that i have fixed the car, quite the opposite, i've done a fair bit of work, i just didn't have my camera handy to document it. over the past few weeks, i've had to...

• cut off and weld the wiper arms because the shaft sheared (left with only 1 wiper)
• replaced the missing sunroof parts - NO LEAKS!
• replaced rocker cover grommet
• changed oil and oil filter

but then recently, i needed to get the car MOT'ed and after a quick check, i found that the steering rack was slack - it could have been an easy fix just by tightening up the adjuster bolt, but i wanted PAS anyway so i figured i would replace the lot. also, given that my engine bay is green, and my car is black, i wanted to paint it. so the easiest thing to do was to remove the engine and paint the bay and the block itself.

so after a rough day of dismantling stuff i managed to get the engine out single-handed and went about painting bits. i went with yellow for the head and ancillaries, and black for the block. the yellow is a bit of a pig and needs about 3 coats to look good, whereas the black is pretty much single coat.







every bolt i removed, i labelled up to make sure i dont end up with spares at the end.



then i got out my dremel and polished the alternator back to a crazy shine, but because i couldn't be bothered going over it with 2000 grit to get it to a mirror shine then lacquering it, maybe next time. i wire brushed the inlet manifold too and it looks awesome in the photos, but its no-where near as shiny in real life





my last fight, and the reason i've given up for the night is because i cant remove the tie rod end from the track rod. the boot is damaged and needs replacing, but i need to get some heat to try and separate the track rod end from the rod.

[Ben Lessani]

fitting PAS guide...

I've posted a tonne of useful information and diagrams here. Should come in handy for a steering woes.



PAS Pump
Pump Bracket + Bolts (2x 6" and 1x 2" which replace the water pump bolts. 3x 1" and 1x 4" for those which secure the bracket to the lower and rear of the block)
Hoses
Resevoir and Bracket
Rack
Belt
UJ joint from lower steering column to rack
Pulley Setup - Depending on the year of your car it could either need
* Double crank pulley, a water pump pulley, slip pulley for water pump and PAS pump pulley
* Double crank pulley, shallow depth water pump pulley (to prevent belt rubbing) and PAS pump pulley

In terms of tools, its all 13mm bolts, with varying levels of access (ratchet spanner, deep and shallow sockets). And the hoses themself bolt onto the rack with 18mm heads (spanner). The tie rod ends are held on with a 17mm nut (socket).

I changed mine with the engine out, so it was very straightforward, although putting the hose connections on was still awkward.

With the engine out - as a sidenote, the instructions below also apply with the engine in, but it requires the rear subframe to be dropped out (something I don't have experience of)
Put the car on axle stands and remove the front wheels.
Pull the rubber sleeve back and remove the 13mm bolt on the UJ on the rack, then repeat the same with the UJ on the lower steering column (it is easier if you remove the lower dash to access it).
Undo the 4 nuts from the captive bolts in the rear subframe, each two pairs are located at each end.
Loosen the tie rod end ball joint, 17mm nut, on both the passenger and drivers side and gently tap it out the wheel bearing housing (or use a ball joint separator to push it out). If you find the ball joint itself is spinning whilst trying to undo the nut - hit the top of the ball joint with a hammer reasonably forcefully, then proceed to undo the nut.
The manual rack and now be removed without the need to remove the track rod arms, just slide it left, then lift the right side out, followed by the left side.
Putting the PAS rack in is basically the reverse - Inspect the rack as it is now the time to replace any boots, ball joints etc. it is much easier with the rack off the car!
Remove the hoses from the PAS rack, then proceed to slide it in, in the same manner the manual rack was removed.
Put the 4x 13mm nuts onto the rack itself and torque to the correct setting (I can't remember offhand).
Re-locate the track rod ends in the wheel bearing housing
Tie the hoses back onto the rack and tighten appropriately, just above hand tight is sufficient. The hoses run across the length of the rack, pass over the brake lines and rise underneath the expansion tank
Tie on the UJ joint on the lower steering column, then fit it onto the rack
Mount the resevoir bracket to the engine bay somewhere appropriate
Release the belt tension from the alternator by loosening the 13mm securing bolt and 13mm pivot bolt (it may also be neccessary to loosen the 8mm allen bolt at the lower pivot)
Remove the upper right, lower left and right bolts from the water pump
Fit the PAS pump to the bracket
Bolt the bracket to the engine with the two 6" bolts to the lower left and right of the water pump
The 2" bolt is applied to the upper right of the water pump
The 4" and 1" bolts are driven through the lower part of the bracket into the bottom edge of the block
The remaining 2" bolts and secured to the rear left (when facing oil filter) of the block, these holes may require tapping depening on the block age
The belt can be fitted and is tensioned by undoing a series of bolts. The tension mechanism on the PAS bracket is clearly visible, slightly loosen the slide nut, also loosen the lower left bolt on the PAS pump, and a further slightly hidden 13mm bolt accessed through the right hand gap of the PAS bracket.
Tighten the belt until appropriate (I usually do them until there is less than 10mm flex between pulleys)
Then tighten all the bolts loosened prior to the tensioning.
Re-attach the hoses and fill the PAS resevoir with fluid (Dexron II is suitable, also used as ATF)

Thats basically it, enjoy!

steering in the right direction
no pictures at the moment, but i did manage to remove the tie rod ends, and i fitted new gaitors to it, i also got a new uj gaitor as mine was very brittle. i got the rack fitted up to the car and went to fit the uj and it seemed about 2cm too short? after scratching my head for a while, i started dismantling the steering column and found most of the bearings were out of place and that last time i took the steering wheel off, i forgot to replace the spring. basically, my steering rack was never damaged, the slack was in the column - which is very annoying, as i could still be MOT'ed and driving the car. the bonus i suppose will be that im getting PAS, fingers crossed.

I refitted the balljoint lockplate, and the suspension strut, which basically completes the wheel aspect of the car, i just need to drop the engine in. i went over the engine bay with a wire brush and a drill and got it all nice and clean, but there was still loads of adhesive, so i got out my pressure washer, turned it to 130 degs and went about steam cleaning it, i also did the g/box so i can paint it and what a difference! it removed all the crap that had built up over 21 years in an instant!

when i went about sticking the PAS pump and brackets onto my block, i ran into a couple of hurdles.

1 - where the two bolts go into the rear side of the block for the support bracket - i had to tap threaded holes in as they didn't have a thread before.
2 - how on earth do i get the pulley's sorted, I don't have autodata installed, so i can't see the belt configuration, but the PAS pulley is about 2cm further out from the alternator, crank and water pump, the guy i got the bits off gave me another pulley - its got 4 holes so i can only assume it goes in the crank - but it sits about 4cm away from the PAS pulley?

so i went to the scrapyard today and found a MK2 golf.......shell. i checked the MK3 but thats an entirely different pulley system, ribbed belt, not toothed. then i saw a lonely looking Corrado sitting in the corner, popped the bonnet and there was a nice little 16v K-Jet engine in there, pulley system looked similar, so went about stealing it.

a lot of swearing and bodging and 2 hours later, yes 2 hours! i got the water pump pulley and the crank pulley off, but there is 1 issue. the water pump pulley was slightly damaged, there is two, the inner and outer. it looks like the inner pulley serves no real purpose and just spins freely and its the PAS belt that drives the water pump. as the inner pulley was damaged, i doubt i can stick with my original pulley, as the water pump will be driven by two different belts, not to mention it probably won't fit, so it looks like i'm back to square one!

I will test fit the components tommorow and see how it looks.

[Ben Lessani]

paint fumes, what paint fumes - damn talking tyre always harrassing me
i had a little agenda to get the car finished in 3 days, yesterday i went to the scrap yard and got the pulleys i needed and fitted them all up - not with a lot of initial success, however...i got my super dooper pressure washer and steam cleaned the engine bay and gear box ready for painting,



the reason for painting the engine bay was because the car used to be green, and the engine bay still was, so i thought i'd quickly go over it and just paint some black hammerite on - i'm not after show condition, just want it not to be rusty and green.

heres how it used to look





then after about 3 hours or so of painting it started to look like this








just incase you were wondering about the amount of space i've been working with heres a quickie at my workshop/garage.





rather stupidly i left my chrome wheels on for 2 months whilst the car was on axel stands, they do not look too good ....



and just because i haven't posted a pic about it - heres my bargain stainless steel exaust.



i managed to keep myself busy just adding the ancillaries onto the block and generally sorting all the loose ends before the big install. one problem that i faced was getting the pas pulleys sorted, after a long discussion with rubjonny i tried all possible methods of hooking up the pulleys without any real success. in the end i just cheated and i hope it wont put too much a strain on the bearings. i spaced out the 2nd crank pulley with 3 washers, and the pas pulley to line up. stuck a small belt on 675mm if memory serves and tensioned it up, and fingers crossed it all seems to be fine.






the pulleys of success are turning
today was my most productive day of all, i finished up my work and went about putting the engine finally back in the car, i had my reservations about a couple of things which i later found out to be true. i bolted everything together, then rather gently and awkwardly slipped the engine back into the car.

before the big lift




the big lift
so heres a quick few shots of the final step, its all single handed, so it took be about 8 hours to get the engine back in, wired up and bolted down, you can see in the photos the rad going back on, front grille and finally the bonnet.

[Ben Lessani]

always listen to your instinct
when removing the bottom hose off the water pump, i managed to shear a bolt, i tried extracting the snapped stud - but with no joy. so i drilled a hole, tapped it and then put a stud in it. when i put the water pump back together again, it looked like the hole i drilled was a little off centre, and so made the thermostat and hose not sit 100% flush. i hoped it was ok and that it just 'looked' loose - i was wrong. i went to fill the engine so i could try to start it and almost imediately water started pissing out of the water pump.

annoyed isn't the half of it - not only do i have to buy a new water pump, but i also need a new bottom rad hose, thermostat, rubber seals, and worst of all - have to take all the damn pulleys back off so i can get to the friggin water pump. its a pain in the arse with the engine out the car - but now its back in, feffin balls! just another expense to add to the flipping list.

is it so wrong that i just want to drive my car!

[Ben Lessani]

ready, steady, go
so where was i, oh year, my water pump was leaking. it was the bottom flange connection that wasn't sitting flush because the hole i re-drilled in the pump was about 2mm out of place, which meant the plastic sat ever so squint. unfortunately, this meant i had to retire an otherwise perfect 22 year old water pump, for a new silver counterpart. i got new seals and a bottom flange with the waterpump and fitted it all up in less than 30mins - dismantling a golf is easy!

after a quick test run, i started the engine, made sure it was okay, no leaks etc. and everything seemed ok. so i bolted the rest of the parts back onto the car, front bumper, grille, sorted out the wiring for the headlights that i had to snip, re-did the grounds and tidied up the bay a little. i stuck my old p slots back onto the front so my drive to the MOT place with completely mal adjusted tracking wont shred my tyres.

i kinda guessed my gearbox alignment again by estimating the central position and wedging cardboard around it, then sliding under the car and tightening the mech up. i just bolted the exhaust on quickly, before i put it on my mates ramps tommorow where i can line it up and add sealant.

the car was sat about 16" off the ground at the front subframe, and as i only have a little 2t jack, i had to lower the car tyres onto bricks, then reverse the car off them.



and we have lights...




heres a quick snapshot of the new water pump and PAS pulley in action




and now heres the mess i need to tidy up. as the neat freak as i am with my tools, i have to polish each one clean before i put it away incase the world explodes.



so with my MOT booked for tommorow at 3pm i'm in a race against time to get the last few things done...

make window wiper sweep entire window width
put orange indicators in rear lights so they flash amber
put indicators in the front bumper as i seem to have lost mine
put a switch in for the horn as the steering wheel contact snapped off
tighten up the exhaust and seal it
fill PAS resevoir with fluid
hammer the brakes so that the rust comes off and the car has sufficient braking power
secure front offside headlamp as plastic cap fell off
secure back seats properly (sh!t, i forgot about that!)

[Ben Lessani]

i figure i really need a list of things to do, scary thing is, it would probably be as long as my arm leg driveway.

replace nearside bumper indicator bulb holder
give the car a thorough clean, mop and polish
fix scraping noise when steering wheel turns 30/03/08
weld in proper brackets for split rear seats
re-make fibreglass sub box, recover and fit
replace both front doors with 90 spec units
get proper centre console for leccy windows
finish door pod builds, sand, paint/recover
use loom tape on engine bay to tidy it up
recover the door cards to match the seats
fix all dents/scratches/chips in bodywork
give the carpets in the car a full valet 01/04/2008
find and fit boot interior plastic trim
make some kind of new front wiper mech 28/03/08
re-spray chrome strip on dashboard
get proper central locking button
replace offside up and over seal
replace top starter support bolt 28/03/08
clean leather seats up properly 01/04/2008
replace passenger door membrane 01/04/2008
replace parcel shelf supports
put new seat runner bushes in 01/04/2008
smooth over rear wiper hole
replace parcel shelf straps
replace speedo cable gasket
smooth nearside wiper hole 28/03/08
buy new front components
fix chip in windscreen
replace steering wheel 01/04/2008
fix bouncy rev needle
replace parcel shelf
fit boot rubber seal 01/04/2008
secure PAS resevoir
refurb alloy wheels
replace back window
re-code alarm fobs 01/04/2008
fix noisey tappets
get wheel spacers
get hid lights
get MOT 28/03/08

[Ben Lessani]

glorious green piece of paper
so as you can guess - my MOT went through first time, no worries - so my baby is back on the road again - yey! But, as in the true style of old motoring, not 5 minutes after driving, it develops a fault - a pretty big one. I lost all gears! My fear was that it was the new box I fitted, but after popping the bonnet I saw the gear linkage had just come apart. It was a quick 2 minute job to pop it back in place - and away I went home to investigate further.

After spending a good 2 hours tidying the garage and polishing my tools, I jacked up the car, and started work again...



So I pulled the selector mech off the car and low and behold - the reason it was popping out was because the GSF part was simply too tall,



...and it had caused the bottom of the relay ball to foul on the metal plate simply wearing it away.



My OEM shaft was bent - so I based it a few times with a hammer to straighten it up. I popped the ball off the GSF shaft but it wouldn't clip back on to the OEM. So, as a temporary measure I drilled a hole in the middle, tapped it and put a bolt in, with the ball upside down. I managed to judge the hole dead centre with a hand drill!

[Ben Lessani]

musty, mouldy and wet
and that's the only way i can describe the interior of the car, it was minging. over the past few months, the water had slowly been dribbling in through the fan hole in the bulkhead, to the point where it was about 3" deep. so my only solution was to empty the entire car, out came the seats and carpets so i could see the damage. well, thankfully, i'd already painted the floorpan - so no rust there, but - in my infinite wisdom, i went stuffing sound deadening material in every nook and cranny, which was now just waterlogged and mouldy. so i pulled all that out (an entire binbag full!), tore up the sound deadening i have put down (adhesive bodyline stuff). dried out the car, hoovered it up, sprayed it over with industrial grade disinfectant, and sponge cleaned it all up. and it started to smell nice and clean.



whilst the carpets were out, they got sprayed down with disinfectant, steam cleaned with disinfectant, shampooed, steam rinse. i hung them up to dry and they were done in about 2 days. the boot carpet however was all malformed and misshaped because it had gotten wet and sagged around the spare wheel. i put it between two big pieces of wood, and placed a few wheels on top to apply pressure. i left it like this for about a week (still wet), and when i lifted the stuff off, the carpet was completely flat - just like new, so i hung it up to dry too. the trouble with the boot though, even though i fixed the seal - its still leaking from somewhere, but i'm yet to figure it out. i know its not the rear light clusters, but i have no idea where it is.



after everything dried, i refitted it all bar the passenger seat - only because it didn't have the recliney lever on it, so i took the seat cover off to have a look, and there wasn't any place for a bracket to go, i stripped down a spare rainbow seat - and its bracket is welded on.



looking at it, its pretty different to the standard seat - so it must have been off a newer model, i'm not really sure how to go about fixing this, but i'll be sure to find out. for the time being, i've just popped the seat back into the car.



winding me up and driving me up the wall - part 1
i was on my way to manchester and...after a 180 mile drive in the Golf, I'd built my confidence back up again (bear in mind it was off the road for 4 months, and only got its MOT 3 days ago). Then I hear an almighty clunk, I immediately pull onto the hard shoulder - give the car a quick inspection and all seems fine. I drove cautisouly for the next 35 miles.

I pushed it up on the axel stands this morning and spotted the culprit,



The rear bottom PAS bracket bolt had come out. I had trouble with this originally because the block itself didn't have threads in it for the bolts, so I tapped them as best I could - but it simply wasn't very deep. I hoped the tension alone and the fact the bolt was torqued to around 10NM should suffice, but it popped out it seems. Don't worry - my belts aren't setup like that, they are like this, that was the only photo I could find.



I got under it and there was enough width to get away with boring the hole wider, so I drilled it out to a M10, 8.5mm drill bit mixed with a M10x1.5 tap. Re-drilled the bracket to 10mm, and stuck two new bolts with plenty of loctite in its place.

It seems rock solid now.

winding me up and driving me up the wall - part 2
i was on my way back from manchester and...my wiper linkage had chucked it and I ended up sitting on the M6 embankment in the pouring rain for 1.5hrs waiting the AA to turn up (hoping my Relay policy would get me a lift home). the linkage had seized up, mostly the nearside spindle had seized. i didn't have the balls to try and fix my car at the road side at 11pm, so i waited for the AA fella to work his magic. after driving home with 1 wiper, i stripped off the mech today and took a look, and the passenger spindle was all rusty around the top 1cm - hence it sticking. so i got my trusty dremel and cleaned it up, including the column too, put tonnes of grease in there, gave it a quick test and it seemed fine, popped it back on the car, and sure as anything, it works perfect - woo. but i have only put 1 wiper back on, so that i can re-spray the wiper arms.

beep beep, who got the keys to my......vw
after driving for almost 18 months now without a horn - i've got to say, its the most annoying thing in the world, you can't demonstrate any level of anger or frustration to fellow drivers! so i finally got round to fixing it today, the trouble was with the metal contact on the stalk unit - it snapped off a while ago. so using a metal cable tie, i ground it a little bit narrower, so it would fit into the electrical plug, put some insulation tape round the back of it and bent it a little bit. difficult to describe, but i have no photo unfortunately. but it works a treat, steering wheel back on, and now i have a nice little push button horn - its awesome!

i managed to score a few more things off my list, but i've still got a lot to go...

[Ben Lessani]

somewhat clean and shiny
after seeing techie's car - something like that, all clean and shiny i thought maybe it would be appropriate to give my old motor a clean - and that i did, for about 5 hours. only a five part clean,

90 degree hot jet rinse
hot jet shampoo
autoglym sponge shampoo
cold rinse
turtle wax

heres the before shots



the wheels have definately seen better days, and i'm afraid they are a  bit beyond a simple polish, its going to need machine polishing with abrasive - so off to b&q tommorow to find some polishing pads.

...and after the rinse, shampoo and sponging



a wash alone helped 10 fold, but it needs a little wax protection, ideally i should polish it too - but i don't have any at the moment.

...then i got busy with the wax...



the bonnet alone deserved 3 shots because of how shiny it looked



and the overall look...



even more puzzled about the paint code
so if any of you know by now, the reason i still can't do any of the small touch up jobs or swap out the front doors with 90spec ones is because i have no idea what the paint code is for my car. to add more confusion to the mix, heres a couple of close ups after polishing, at this point - i don't have a scooby doo! but it looks bloody good though!



after spending a good little while on detailingworld.co.uk, i've found a few new products to try out and they should arrive within the next few days...

meguiars quik clay detailing kit
autoglym super resin polish
collinite No. 476s

should be interesting to see how the car turns out after this, i've already got bottles of farecla g3/g10 to do initial paint prep, tonnes of microfibre towels, polishing cloths etc.

[Ben Lessani]

pin striping belongs on a car - not on clothes
so after seeing (golf 8v's) project thread, and how they sprayed the red stripe onto the grill, it looked awesome, and i always missed mine after spraying it body coloured. so a few p'shops later and i was here...



i've gotta say, i'm loving the red stripe round the grill, it looks pretty good, breaks up the 'all black' on my car (everything is colour coded!). i doubt i'd ever do yellow - just interesting to see how it mixes with the interior. after a pretty convincing vote of 'yes to red' from my golfgti boys and girls, i grabbed some pin striping tape from halfords and went to work, and 5 minutes later i was here...



the look is growing on me, so i'll see how it goes over the next few weeks - and if i like it, i'll spray it. but i have to say, the badass in me is tempted to do it blue - given most people don't have it because its of a limited version of the golf, but it does look good  we'll see...