Me: Prey for me Father for I have sinned. Priest: How have you sinned my son? Me: I have bought another MK2 despite my wife threatening to do nasty things to my body when I bought the last one. Priest: That is alright my son, God will forgive you. What colour is it? Me: Red Priest: Oh man, you are so dead.
Matthew 14:29 And Jesus called to him in the blue boat "Come to me here on the Red shore, walk on the water ma son" You have been truly blessed
I finally plucked up enough courage to tell my wife I'd bought another MK2 GTI. I told her it's for our son who's getting his licence. Picked it up yesterday after a 13 hour round trip. Because it's red I took a trailer as everyone knows how unreliable red MK2's are. Safe at home. It's in much better condition than I thought but the paint will need to be redone (typical, bet that doesn't happen to blue ones). The interior is in good condition and all the trim is there, nothing missing. Even the headlining looks good. It came with some spares. Pretty sure there's a can of blue paint in there for touchup's. Sound system looks like it's been sitting on the parcel tray too long. Anyone know how to straighten it? It's not broken, just warped. The car was advertised on the local Aussie forum and someone stupidly offered $100 and a case of beer. I thought $100 was an insult and jokingly offered $1000 and a case of beer. 3 months later I got a message saying it was mine if I still wanted it and can it be a case of cider instead. I couldn't put down a deposit fast enough. The car was cheap because the previous owner had thrown lots of money getting original parts only to have it run like it only had 3 cylinders. He suspected injectors but by now he had enough and wanted it to go to someone who would look after it. When I got it home I drove it round the block and the engine was rough. Not much power and slow, even for a red MK2 with a 3 speed auto. No wonder the previous owner wanted it gone. First thing I did was disconnect each spark plug cable in turn while it was running. Every one that I took off made the car run rougher so I knew the problem wasn't isolated to a single cylinder. Just by chance I thought while I had the plug leads off I may as well check the plugs. All of them looked suspect and even though they were 3 pronged platinum plugs the gap didn't look right so I put in another set of plugs. Bingo. Purrs like a kitten now. It's a slow kitten with it's 3 speed auto but that will change soon. And for those wondering about the auto box, 2nd is good for 120 k's and third does 160 with more to go. Just don't ask how I know.
It's funny but when I sat in the car before putting it on the trailer it felt like I had come home after being away for several years. Only another MK2 owner knows that feeling. I can't wait to make it my daily to get to work and back (200 k's round trip each day and most of it is on country roads).
Nowhere near as good as yours but it will get there one day. Long term plan is to find a wrecked Polo TDI and swap everything including dash.
Noooo, don't do it. Keep the MK2 dash, looks a million times better imo. TDI swap would be cool though
Finding a MK2 dash that isn't cracked in a country where summer temps go over 40 C is like trying to find an Irish red MK2 in good condition. There's rumors they exist but so does the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot. Yeah, it has to go. Luckily I've got 2 wrecked MK2's with 5 speed boxes. I'd like to know who ticked the box back in 1991 that said GTI + 3 speed auto gbox is a good idea. Did a couple of little things yesterday. Fixed the drivers door so it could be unlocked (window channel was in the way of the key mechanism). Took a lot of time and 3 door handles to work out why it wasn't working. The radio was getting poor reception so I took the adapter piece off the white MK2 so the aerial fits correctly in the back of the radio. Interior light wasn't coming on when the drivers door was open. All the other doors worked so just needed a clean of the door trigger. Boot light not coming on. Fixed it so well it didn't go off when the hatch was closed. Had to glue a bit of plastic on the pad that pushes the pin in so the pin goes further when closed. Heater hose split on a plastic pipe between 2 rubber hoses. Replaced it with a metal pipe. That's it for now, I've run out of little things to fix. Because it doesn't have airbags it's not the safest car to take the kids to school (100 k drive) so I'll wait until the school holidays before using the MK2 to go to work every day. Looking forward to it.
Welcome back. You learn something everyday. I never knew MK2 GTI's were offered in an auto version, or was that retrofitted?