'83 Golf - BBS Bodykit - After crash Resto Project - Off to paint again!!!

Did a bit more last night, found a real sweet method to get at the smaller areas that requires a lot less effort: Using a heat gun, I've been heating the area for about 10 seconds, and with a lump of wire wool I've rubbing the paint clean off. It leaves a perfectly smooth, clean and fresh looking surface and unlike other methods (wire wheel etc) doesn't scratch the metal in any way, shame as i've been doing in the hard way with a nylon stripping wheel until now, which whilst it's a good tool and also doesn't scratch the metal, is very hard work.

Still a little more work required but a huge chunk is now down!

I was using the heat gun and scraper in one area and heard a crunching noise, like I was going through the metal, I did panic a bit but found that I was actually scraping fiberglass... very strange, peeled straight off though. Turns out it had been used to cover a previous repair:





Nothing major really but will need to get a grinder in there to make sure it's smooth enough to paint over without needing filler.





Here is how it stands at the moment, close.. but not close enough, the work continues!!

 

Thread revival!

We guys it's been a LOOOOOOOOONG year since I last posted on here. So much (yet so little) has happened to the Golf in that time, and since then this forum seems to have gotten a bit livelier. So (and I'll try to keep it brief!) he is a recap of whats been happening over the last year and where the Golf stands now!


Noticed that the wings had already started to crack and show signs of rust... just as well I'm re-doing it.

So started the ardiuos task of striping the main panels back (wing, bonnet, doors etc). This is my progress so far:

Unbelievably the blue on this wing was put on by me using no primer and rattle can! I said to the bodyshop, that'll need to come off as I've just sprayed it over quickly with a rattle can and there will be all sorts under that... Well turns out they didn't bother!




Lot of people have been asking why I'm going down to bear metal, wasn't long before I had my answer....




And as far as the passenger door, I haven't got a f**kin clue what's going on here!!






Although it does look reasonably straight under all the shiz, I'm on the lookout for a spare door just encase!




Luckily, no such trouble with the driver door,






Some bonnet work, top coat came off a treat, original paint is a tough old nugget to crack though so will look at that another time,






Wings coming along nicely, still much work to do,






And as it stands so far... long way to go. but nearing closer to paint shop time again!





Cheers for looking!

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Took the day off work today to do some work on the Golf and made litterally "some" progress.




Started working on the rear of the car, I know I've not finished the doors/wings etc but i'm just getting everything back as far as I can to see what i'm up against lol





Removed all the old paint from the passenger rear quarter, looks in pretty good shape!





Bit more work on the door, nothing major but was able to remove most of the filler and filler primer




Started removing the paint from the drivers rear quarter and found a nice dent (just at the top corner where the rear quarter meets the door), bit hard to see in the pic, faily easy to sort though but still a bit annoying..








Started to strip the paint and filler from the arches, not sure why the arches had so much filler when the welding was so neat, but as with everything on this paintjob.. it's turned out to be total shiz!





And to my ABOSULTE SHOCK, my brand new arches... COVERED IN SURACE RUST!!!! AFTER ONLY A FEW MONTHS!! WTH!!!! UNBELEIVABLE!!!!

Just as well I decided to re-do the paint, otherwise this surface rust would have ended in my arch needing doing again! GRRRRRRRRRR




The rear of the arch was also pretty straight originally (no dents etc)... so again why all the filler FFS!






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Pretty much finished what I can realistically do with the tools, and time that I have available. Blew up a DA sander last week and blew up my angle grinder today so it's off to the media blasters for the inside and then the rest of the prep will be left to the pro's!

Managed to get the rest of the paint off the passenger door and then made a start on the inside floor. And the good news is.. no nasty rusty holes lurking underneath.. Success!










And the last pictures of the outside before it goes off to the media blasters..... I promise!

 

AND NOW UP TO HOW IT STANDS AS OF RIGHT NOW

Well that's it folks, a recap of the last year! Lots/no progress made lol.. (if you've not read all of it, the recap starts a few posts further up, I've slimmed it down a lot so you don't get bored!)

Will keep this forum updated as I get more progress updates from the paintshop...Cheers for looking!

 

It was good the read

I'd be tempted to pay the 300 for a mint underside.

 

Cheers bud, nice to see that people ae still giving the project a look over

Think that's what I'm going to do! Took me nearly 5 hours to do the front and that's not 100%. Plus the car is currently 120 miles away so a lot of traveling and a big ask to do the rest in 1 day! Quicker, less effort and far better results.. Just don't like having to spend the money, but hey, sure I'll get over it

 

What a nice read!

I'd remove as much sealer/undercoating as possible by hand, and then have it blasted. The underseal is quite thick in some spots and removing it by sandblaster only will heat up the metal pretty good.

Either way, my gut tells me that this is going to turn out awesome!

 

300 well spent, life's too short to scrape underseal off. Get pics of the white van up too!

 

Cheers bud, I was warned off getting it blasted however the paintshop recently had this Porsche done and had some propper thick sealant on it. They apparently are sympathetic and know what they are doing whilst still being able to get the hard stuff off, so he says

Spoken to the paintshop and he's said that the 300 was a "worst case" price, so I've decided to just get it done, hope it's the right choice!

 

Agreed, get some pics up!!


Still nothing yet from the paintshop unfortunately, I'm hoping that when Spikes finished with this beast that mine may get a look in




In the meantime I've been retrieving all the parts from the parents garage Into to mine. Didn't realise I had quite so much! But happy to account for pretty much every piece





Also managed to pick up a few little bits at Edition 38 at the weekend!

Been looking for this little gearbox inspection plate for some time now, and stumbled across a box with 3 of them in at the auto jumble. Mine was made from an old Vimto can! At a fiver, I should have bought 2!



I've also been on the lookout for a new wiper motor as I put my GTI one in the Mk1 van when that packed in. Got a nice little unit that I've been assured is in full working order for a mere 15.



Not a huge haul of parts but pleased to bits with the gearbox plate as i've been on the lookout for one for ages!

After my trip to E38 in so eager to get mine done I'm like a small kid bursting for a wee! Good things do come to those who wait though, so will just have to be patient! lol

 

Bit of an update from the paintshop.. Not many pics but gives you a good idea of whats going on









Not sure how far he's got with it, as there's not a full roof shot yet, but I'm hoping that he won't hold back on the photo's!

 

just read this thread this morning while i should be compiling a list of what i need for my MK2 haha

awesome little build thread, kinda disappointed in the fact the kit wont be making its way back onto the car, but lots of little progress is good gonna keep an eye on this

 

Great job on the roof skin, done a few of these and they take time if you want them right
Nice project

 

Thanks for the kind words bud,

I'm pretty torn on the BBS kit, loved the look of it when it was on, but scared to death of putting it back on after seeing how rotten it got underneath. Granted that was mainly because when my mate bought it from me, he didn't look after it, but still.. couldn't risk it!!

Cheers fasteddie! Unfortunately the roof skin wasn't something I was willing to tackle myself so it in the hands of the pro's now!

 

Few more pics of the roof fitted from Andy at Spikes!





Pretty chuffed that I ended up getting the roof done, despite the costs involved! Andy looks like he's done an awesome and thorough job, not just dropping the new skin into the original gutters but actually drilling out all the spot welds and replacing the gutter rails too so that when it goes back together, the roof is exactly as it was supposed to be!

I'm can now be happy that that the lump of filler in the old roof isn't gonna give me grief in the future and f*ck over the paint that's going over the top of it!

Dunno what the next steps for the car are yet, but I guess there will be a bit of down time while he finishes some other jobs before picking this back up.

Cheers for looking guys

Alfie

 

Had a chat with Andy today and we're now looking to get the floor blasted, it does mean that the I need to remove the running gear, steering rack, breaks etc so they don't get wrecked.

Soooooooo and I know it's a bit of a long shot (hopefully i'll be able to reach a good number of people here) but I need something to move it around on, either a rollover Jig or a frame with sort sort of dolly wheels on. Either that or some dog sh*te suspension thats ready for the bin that I can have and don't need to worry about getting sand in.

Anyone Got anything to rent or lend me or at worst for sale.... Help a dubber out!!

Cheers guys

 

Small update (as usual!)

Managed to get hold of a pair of rollover jigs from a MK1 owners club member (massive shout out to Anthony Parr!), who lives about 30 minutes down the road from me.. Dropped them off to the paint shop on on Wednesday and set about adding some wheels to them so I can get the car moving.

Because I'm getting the underside blasted there are two issues, I don't really want all my brake setup and suspension getting ruined and the paint shop don't really want their nice shiny expensive, adjustable, movable Rollover Jig to get ruined either. I could have paid for the shop to fabricate something for me, but I was asked if I could supply my own too.. which seemed like the cheaper option lol. I've only got 4 wheels on at the moment and have ordered 4 more to go on the other side, so not sure how well it's all going to come together yet, but hopefully it will do the job.

 

Bit more up an update, not quite as much I'd hoped but still, progress none the less.. (bit of a long read but please bare with!!)

After agreeing with the painter to get the underside of the Golf blasted, he quoted me to remove all the running gear, brake and fuel lines etc so it could get blasted.. at 150 I thought that was a fair price and agreed, after a while though his blaster came back and said that because it was a VW the underseal is SO thick that he would need to do some sort of chemical removal first before blasting otherwise it will either bounce off or knacker the floor! So on top of the 150 I was quoted another 600 to strip and blast the floor plus transport plus any refit and painting of the underside.. I was looking at nearly 1000. I was never originally intending to paint the underside the same colour as the car but after seeing a few recently I thought it would be "nice" lol.. Well not 1000 extra on the build "nice", Despite these prices generally being the going rate,..

So after deciding that I'm not going body colour underneath, I went to go get the car, remove the running gear and check/re-protect the floor of the Golf myself and deliver it back to the painter on 4 wheels..

Car back at home and then tucked up in the garage:











I then started the painful task of lifting the car onto the rollover jig, spent nearly 5 hours doing this, I was using axel stands, jacks and blocks of wood, only to almost drop the car back on the floor! Not as easy as it looks! Wasn't until 4 hours in that I found an old engine hoist in my dad's shed which made life so much easier!








Got the rear beam off... was pretty easy apart from having to cut the brake lines (seized nut on the brake line end)



Rear brake setup rather dusty from the original painters! This will need to be sorted!!



Used the engine hoist to help turn the car over by myself, worked quite well!





Took a look under the car and at first glance the underside looks pretty damn good! Really happy with it..









There is however a number of areas of surface rust on the rear chassis rails/legs.






Started the arduous task of removing the main sections of under seal, despite looking pretty good there were a number of small areas of surface rust that needed to be sorted.

This is how it looked after 3 hours..



Gave it a bit of a clean up



Then started on the chasis legs.. these were not so easy and to be honest look like it may take some time..

I've used some Builthamber Deox Gel to kill off some of the rust and then cleaned up with a wire wheel! Will need another coat of Deox Gel and more work with the wire wheel, then I'll have to decide what to prep it with..







I'm looking at maybe por 15 or Epoxy Mastic 121 on the bare metal but as I've managed to keep the origianl factory printer in tact, I should be able to put the underseal directly onto the finished surface.

Nothing I've found comes even close to the original really thick rubber sealant other than the 3M bags (at like 20 each). I've have heard that you can get the original thick ruberised VW stuff but no idea if it is exactly the same..

Original VW Stuff:



3M stuff:



3M also says you can also get it in a spray can too!

Any tips or tricks on what to use would be great!!!

 

I bet you never thought after taking the bodykit off almost 5 years ago that it still wouldn`t be finished

I`m assuming you are going for a show car finish with the amount of prep you are doing. That engine bay hand-sanding & gearbox paint removal looked bloody thankless tasks !

Hope you manage to finish it at some point