My Rivage

[Phil K]

I bought this just over a month ago after selling my beloved Corrado - to a scott with a hormonal mrs (but thats another story)

Overall I'm very pleased with the car - it's fairly straight, but has had a respray at some point which could do with re-doing as not perfect, engine has 116K on it and seems to use a bit of oil but I guess thats to be expected!  The front seats have been re connalised so are in great nic and the rest of the leather is fairly good and just needs a clean!

So the first thing to do was obviously get a second set of rims for the shows and lose the twin headlight set up (Kept and in storage) to clean up the front end...



Yesterday I spent 7 hours down at The Phirm changing the lighting on the front (headlights had to be done for the MOT), a new pair of plates and put some new brake pads put on as the old ones were nearly non-existant!  It passed MOT first time but I'll need to go back in a week or so as we need to look at and sort a gear box oil leak wihich is slightly worrying...



Hope you like the pics - I'm wondering if I'll get flamed for modifiying a Rivage so before anyone does I'd like to point out that any changes will be reversable

One final question... while the car was on the ramps yesterday I noticed that it doesn't have a cat.. is that right?  I thought the Rivage was meant to have one...

[Neaty]

love it 

[Dinky]

looks nice phil..
love ur top wheels...nearly bought them myself

well mines a 92 and has a cat..but is an import so not sure if its the same?!

Dinx

[Madone_si]

the car looks great mate, love the colour and the wheels...

my view on modding cars is... its your car do as you want. Being a Rivage is a little special as not many where made, a few mod's will always helps making the mk1 cab's what they are.....

Mod's worth doing are;

Upgrade Throttle body - Audi 2.2 or mk2 16v
Get the Inlet manifold opened up to align with new throttle body
Upgrade manifold and exhaust - stainless steel - Jetex, Raceland, Powerflow, etc
Upgrade the Cam
Upgrade Clutch
If you have to get the gearbox rebuilt, you might want to change 2nd and 3rd gearing for more pulling power!! (a bit of search will be required though)
Upgrade Brakes set-up - front - see link - http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=15014
Worth checking all your engine mounts (rear one underneath car is the main one to give way and it really does make a difference) upgrade to a Diesel mk1 mount (solid mounts will make everything in the car move and shack - not nice in my view for a cab)
Replace the gearlink rubbers - will make a big difference on putting into each gear.
Upgraded Suspension - its really your choice on this one, and I would advise getting as much feedback from all other cab owners and if possible get a test drive in there cars, to feel what that suspension is like. For me Coilovers - Weitic and K&W are the best, but then again they are very costly but provide a great range on smooth to hard damping and adjustable options as well as height. I hear coilovers FK's are good but seem to lock up after a while if you don't adjust them... If your not really after the hard lower look, then a lowering kit will work out well 60/40 on cab, again there are loads of options out there today, but I refer Weitic.

and I nearly forgot, get a lower front mk1 strut brace - it will make a massive difference on cornering...

hope this helps... there is loads more you can do, but this is a good start that most people will not even notice when viewing the car until you take them for a drive 

[Phil K]

Cheers for those tips fella - really helpful... suspension is on the list although the current set up has only covered about 500 miles so far!  I'd just like to get the front sitting lower as it's got the normal ass heavy cab stance to it at the moment...

Have seen your cab on vortex and mk1 owners and have to say it's a bit of a beaut but tbh I think you need to get the schmidts on as they really will help finish it off

[gibby]

Now then Phil, hope you're well. Rivage looks sweet. I'm afraid I'm part of don't touch it brigade, well, not too much. Reversible mods are the way to go though and as Si said, it's your car so do what you want to it although I think that the castelletes help make the Rivage a Rivage in my opinion, but they just need to be made as 7.5 wide ! It will not have a cat on that year deffo not.

If you need any info that I can help you with then let me know.

[Madone_si]

yep the schmidts wheels will be going on soon, a few mod's are needed to getthem fitting properly in the arch wheel area... but I can say it does finish the car off.... 

[Phil K]

Cheers Gibby

Am collecting a list of various questions...

The rear seat catch/release knob doesn't connect to the rear seat clip bit so pulling it doesn't acheive anything and the only way I can fold the seats forward is to crawl into the comedy sized boot and lift it myself... any clues as to what I'm missing would be fantastic?

The front door tweaters have been butchered for some really chav looking items - are the original ones still available?

The years of moisure have got the better of the cardboard door cards - is it possible to get them repaired?

My Rivage badges are all siver - are these the cheep ebay jobs or did green ones have all silver?

Any good tips on reducng the height of the front end to help level out the ass down stance of the rear end?

Think thats it for now...

TIA

[[han]]

cool cab!

[gibby]

The rear seat catch I'm guessing will either have a broken wire or have become detached. I'd look at the one that works and try and look at the workings of it to see if there's anything obvious that's become detached.

Door tweeters, I don't know if they are available but I think a few different cabbies had them so keep a look out or try VW, they can still get hold of a lot of the parts so deffo worth a try.

Not sure about the doorcards, but you could take them off and have a look at them, there's always an opportunity to use the old cardboard door cards as a template and make yourself some new ones from some thin MDF or something like that if they are that bad. Not exactly the same I know, but my dad ended up making me a new back shelf as the original one had some nice speaker holes in it so the door cards must be fairly similar.

Rivage badges are found on Ebay but they are not the same as the original ones as the original ones have a faded look to them (on both blue and green Rivages), but what you can do is take it to a local graphics firm, get them to use some tracing paper over the ones that are there and make you some up. I doubt they'll get the original sticker finish, but they could try.

Unless you get coillies I don't see how you can lower the front independantly but they do tend to ride slightly higher at the front.