1981 Mk1 Golf Build Blog

 

Welcome to my blog for the progress of my 1981 Golf C, You’ll have to bare with me while i try and work out this whole blog milarky.

So anyhow my 1st experience of mk1 Golfs was not a great one.

This is the M6, Its winter its not nice and that there is one broken down LHD mk1 Cabrio, which at the time i did not like one little bit, Perhaps it was the overtaking i didnt like, as you being the passenger were the one that got flung into the oncoming traffic 1st.

Looking back it was actually one cool little car and the one that started a small fire somewhere inside my brain.

I’d always been into my french cars, 205’s, clio’s etc but decided one day i wanted a mk1 golf , My Friend had this rather sexy looking (from the outside) mk1 with a VR6 lump for sale. Some of you may recognise it as being the Awesome Gti demo from yesteryear in a rather fetching peach colour.

After a test drive, and a going over i decided to leave it, wasnt quite worth selling my nice reliable clio 172 for. In hinesight this was a good desicion, seems to still be doing the rounds on ebay from time to time. Shame because im sure it could be a good car with a bit of effort. 🙂

Sometime the year before last after seeing another friends Mk1 freshly bike carb’d up i decided i needed one in my life, it was coming upto summer (well the time that people expect to be summer but rarely actually is) I made a desicion to buy a Cabriolet, engine size wasnt important… my 172 was still in my eyes the greatest and fastest car to gace this planet and it was just going to be a second car.

Before the week was out, spur of the moment buy or what!

A D-reg 1.6 gti Quartet Cabriolet, Cant quite remember the milage, 120k or something but the engine was sound-ish, Used to piss out coolant every now n then but well what can you expect. Tax & Mot cost me £1200 and had some glorious red brake calipers (no i did not do this (yes i know i usually do)).Few mods here and there.

But alas the father anounced he wanted the garage back so off she went to a new home.

I later found out that it was infact a cat B write off and should never have been on the road, although the car its self  seemed to be sound, i can only assume it was a stolen identity or something. Mysterious non the less.

RANDOM MK1 PICTURE:

Saw this in a body shop that was closing down in cambs, no idea what its story was or anything no idea what happened to it .

Back on track.

In July this year i decided it was time to get another golf and sort out a workshop to do things properly after months of searching and months of me chewing my partner at the times ear off about various golf realted things we finally decided on this little one.

After about 2 months of  this sitting on someones drive ( i still must thank them for this) it was time to move her into her new home 🙂

1ST things 1st, interior came out, was so imaculate its going back in, car has only done 42k (acording to the clocks anyway) and tbh there in no wear on the seats what so ever and they are pretty cool ones so decided to keep those

making a lovely mess along the way 😛

My Dad decided a while back that it was essential he bought a carpet cleaner, so spent ages researching the best one and so we have a great carpet cleaner thats been usd only once typically, so i decided it put it to the test and use it on the 28 year old car seats which have probably never been cleaned before. The TT doesnt really carry large objects well haha. But after battling with it we managed to get the thing to the workshop where i proceeded to clean the seats.

before, bit manky but perfect condition.

You should have seen the colour of the water that came out!! yuck and it wasnt even my own ming.

But they seem to have come up a treat so jobs a gooden 😀 Will most likely give them another going over before they go back in but for now im very happy with those.

Then it was time to start stripping the interior.

It appears that the main compound used for sound deadening in 1981 was infact cheese! Propper grim wax stuff was ontop of the factory sound deadening and that needed to come off 1st as it just melted as soon as you put the heat gun anywhere near it. So i enlisted the help of my little brother for that bit. Sterling job there, Thanks Stephen 🙂

So once the sound deadening is all out your left with something that looks a bit like this (feel like im a blue peter press packer here…”here’s one i did earlier”… or is in news round that has press packers??? oh i dont know)

and a very heavy basket or 2 full of cheese (dont eat it) and tar stuff

I could not for the life of me work out how to get the dash out (it seems its actually quite simple, Thanks Chris for doing that bit for me :D) so i lined the inside of the car with a giant plastic bag nearly sufocating myself in the process.

Primered with Zinc primer – Rust protection just to be on the safe side 🙂 im not half arsing anything on this project as i know it will eat away at me knowing i could have some something better or neater.

Then after coating my lungs and making myself feel quite sick i came back the next day and sprayed it all black

really happy with the satin black at the front, decided to use hamerite for the back, mistake really as it looks crap, so i may well attempt to remove the hammerite off the back and spray that too. I know it wont be seen but i will know it looks tatty underneith so again need to get that sorted till im happy with it. Not a massive cock up but still annoying non the less.

24th September 2009

Small update off my camera as ive not had chance to do anymore work on it this week various things on and the Funeral of a good mate yesterday.

The afformentioned hammerite floor… anyone know the best way to remove this stuff? answers on a postcard. Or just in the comments section haha, So glad i didnt get too carried away and to the inner wheel tubs too!

Took the rear lights out and found half the bulbs to be missing, slightly worrying seeing as it was ment to have just passed an MOT. Doesnt make a difference to me mind as its not like it will be on the road any time soon!

Brand new lovely sound deadening, put 2 layers on as its not the thickest stuff in the world but 2 layers should be plenty and i have enough left over to do the inside of the rear quarters and doors etc.

Actually really pleased with this bit 🙂

Also while the carpet and everything was out i decided to route the battry relocation cables in, so they are all nice and hidden then i can have the battry in the boot and a nice clean spacious bay.

excuse the mess. 2nd layer of sound deadening in, this stuff is foam backed so should be nice and warm and a bit squidgey (girlie side coming out) so when i replace the carpet it will feel a bit more luxurious and thick as im sure the new carpet will be equally as thin as the original. Shame its brown and not black tho so everything matches 😛

Random Picture of the Daily Driver 🙂

28th September 2009

This weekends progress:

Decided to take the rear arch guard things off was a little worried about what i would find behind them, but all was well! 2 very solid rear arches and 2 patches of original colour non faded paintwork hehe

Last time the vehicle was on the road 🙂 i hadnt even left school then or even started to drive.

luckly i havnt found any half eaten apples or anything as after 6 years that would have been a little grim, kinda like the dead cat outside work today! yummy

Then it was derusting time, there wasnt much to be honest, scabby bits here n there n 2 bits that need welding.

 

this was the sill as you can see not alot but needed sorting non the less, so sanded it down, took it right back to the metal obviously then treaded it with zinc rust repelant primer,

All smooth and nice 😀

rear window edge bit was a bit worse for ware,

lots of sanding, primering, tiny weeny skim of bag to level it all off

really chuffed with the results

tiny weeny bit more to do.

As she stands/ stood untill chris turned up and was like a man posessed.

MK1 heaven… or hell depends which was you look at it 😛

and the view from the workshop road on the way home!!

4th October 2009

The roof lining was something id been very keen to keep as is as it was near perfect, so have been making my best efforts to protect it, but it was getting a bit grubby, so went all out with my giant plastic bag again haha!

spent ages sticking it all up, managed to put 2 small rips in it but hopefully they wont be seen, came in the next morning… to find it all fallen off again… wont over kill the 2nd time hehe

Decided to tackle this bad boy this weekend, Was hoping it was a fairly simple job of de rusting, grinding back the welds and just skimming over… wrong

used hammerite rust off stuff 1st to remove the serface rust then started grinding the wends away.. then the corner started peeling away oopsie… peeled it back to discover this delight.

tip top job by who ever did that then….

Decided to bite the bullet and just cut it all out, as there is a rather tallented welder in the building so it wont be a problem 🙂

looks messy now but in no time it will be as good as new… and not just covered up like before ….

Saw a car at a show this year that had a smooth gloss dash and intstantly wanted, picked up a cheap 2nd hand dash and went to work, may have boged over the vynal to start with oops!… how am i ment to know it comes off!

2nd time round is more sucsessful!

and thats after like 6 hours work.. will only take me 5 years to do at this rate!! fingeres crossed the effort will be worth it tho!

19th October 2009

Ive now been banned from ever touching that dash again haha… ill say no more, might give it another go but i doubt it will ever make it to the car as tbh it wouldnt actually suit but well if i can it to a fair standard someone can put it in thiers.

anyhow.

TAAA DAAAA  engine out!

bit more stripped… the day i turn the ratchet to tighten thats when i know im going in the right direction

managed to take the bonnet off myself, was a little precarious lol

As you can see it is imperitive to have every single tool ging round the car at any one time haha

hubs and brakes removed, all sound deadening cleaned – im not removing it all just neatening it up 🙂

n by far the best bit so far… these arrived last week!!

Ordered shed loads of new bits this week so fingers crossed it wont be too long before it all starts to come back together!! 🙂