Mk2 Golf 8v GTi to 16v ITB Build Thread (Pic Heavy)

Thought I should use the opportunity of being furloughed from work to finally get round to doing a build thread on my Mk2. Back when I got it I was 17 so a bit of a newbie to the VW world and forums specifically, a long time watcher but first time poster you might say. To date I've had this car for 6 years so this might end up being a long thread..

Anyway, this thread will show what work I have done to my Mk2 in as much detail as possible from the photos I have.

I bought my Mk2 back in July 2014. I found it on eBay and being too young to buy a car, I showed my dad who agreed it looked like a good project base. It was a little rough, a non runner with no gear linkage and a semi stripped interior. There was a little rust and about 9 shades of blue over the car. But overall it looked solid and better than the two others we'd seen that week (one of which had a clean 12 month MOT but the floorpan wasn't connected to the sill..). Fast forward to the day of sale and we missed it, it sold for around £400! I was gutted, but thats life and moved on, I had a school trip that week to get ready for.

I got a call from my dad while away on the school trip saying he had a surprise, that Mk2 we had missed out on had popped back up, and he'd won it, for the sum of just £350! Turns out the previous winner didn't want it after seeing it when he went to pick it up.

A week later, it was dropped off in my driveway, and what a looker it was

 

Looks tidy for the price!

Keep the updates coming

 

So once the car was home and I had given it a first wash to remove much of the slime that it had gathered while sitting around, I could see what I had bought. The previous owner had started a restoration on it but hadn't got very far before giving up. The shell looked pretty solid despite needing a full respray. The interior was a little rough but mostly there, however the dashboard had been pulled apart with the wiring hanging out. The clocks were just sitting on the passenger seat and the trim was scattered all over the car.

Myself and my dad checked the major outside areas for rust and were pleased to find nothing major, there was a little rust on both of the rear wheel arches which we would deal with later and a hole in the top of the sill on the rear passenger door, weird place to rust but again that could be fixed. We started to strip down the interior to check the condition of the floorpan, hoping not to find anything too scary and luckily the floor was perfectly solid.





There was a little surface rust on the floors, from where the sound deadening had been holding water, but a little bit of rust treatment and some paint saw pay to that.
With the interior fully stripped out and stored away, I received the first in what would end up being many parcels from VW Heritage. A new rear wheel arch panel and a two new front wings. The wings that came with the car weren't great and with the replacements being around 35 quid and hearing good things about them it was a no brainer.





It ended up being a good call buying two new wings, as when we removed the wings we found this nasty patch of rust on the passenger side, where the sun roof rain channel drains out




As a 17 year old I was starting to wonder what I'd got myself into, but was enjoying it all the same, even if it did look a little sad at this point.

 

With the extent of damage to bodywork now known, we decided to see if we could get the engine running, a full service was carried out but something was stopping the engine from firing. We believed it was electrical so we would need some assistance on that.

When the car arrived there was no gear linkage in it at all, the pervious owner had purchased the half rebuild kit but it was all in bits and we had no idea what was going on, so we bought the full kit and with the help of multiple diagrams and browsing the forum, we were able to rebuild the linkage from scratch with the addition of a weighted mk3 shifter.

 

Next job we tackled was the mess of wiring behind the dashboard. We were recommended a very good auto electrician (Martin Joy @ AEDR) as neither myself or my dad fancied messing around in the spiders web of wiring. Martin was a huge help and discovered that there were two alarm systems wired into the loom, as well as two stereo looms, no wonder it looked a mess. I also took the opportunity to fit the 16v smoked rear lights I got from a scrappies, they really change the way the back of car looks and one of the things I was sure I wanted.




By midday he had stripped out a plastic bag full of wiring and returned the car back to how it should have been. He advised that the clocks that came with the car were junk, in the past someone had soldered some wiring to the back of the cluster to try and fix them, and they wouldn't get any power. Despite this though, the car fired up and I was able to get my first taste at driving a Mk2, albeit one with one 2.5/3 cylinders. That would need some more investigation.

 

With the car now able to move around (a relief for my family from having to push it everywhere), we got it up on the ramps to change the exhaust. The existing one was rusty and just not very nice, so a replacement GTi system was purchased from Germany.




This system went straight on and looked a million times nicer. It also turned out the old system was full of water, we only discovered this when I took the box off the car and tilted it under the weight and it splashed over my dad.. whoops!

The next day our friend came over with his welder to see to the rust on the inner wing, it was cut out and nice thick plate steel welded in, definitely wont rust there again! The surface rust was also ground back, treated and painted to prevent any further damage.



With that done, I could put the new wings on the car and see how they looked, after I cleaned off all the old sealant, not a job I'd rush to do again. The fitment of the new wings was spot on.



Also in that image was the set of TSW Hockenheims I bought to roll the car around on while the BBS RA got refurbed, I ended up selling these which is a shame as they're a nice retro wheel.

 

Definitely lots of things to sort out

 

September soon rolled around and I returned home from school to find a big box from VW Heritage for my birthday. Inside was a complete suspension rebuild kit, new shocks, g60 front top mounts and standard Mk2 rear top mounts, new bushes as well as new brake discs and pads to rebuild the brakes.



We started on the rear as thats where things are simplest, it was definitely in need of some new parts. I gave the springs a coat of red which we all know adds at least 5bhp.




The weather soon took a turn so we moved the car into the garage to continue working (you can see the patches of rust on the rear arch that would need repairing).



With the rear done we moved onto the front, along with the new parts we also fitted new lower arms as the old ones looked a little past it, and since the suspension was apart it made sense to do it now. We also gave the hubs a wire wheel and a coat of black as well as new bearings.



I headed out to Cambridge to buy some odds and sods from a Mk2 breaker, and also bought a set of brake callipers which, while they needed a refurb, where still in better condition that those that came on the car. With that done and installed, the car had completely refreshed suspension and brakes and began to look much better.

 

Nice write up so far nice having something interesting to read while stuck in the house. Keep it coming pal

 

The car then headed over to our friends garage to have the welding on the arch carried out. While both arches needed new patches putting in, he managed to use the same panel to repair both sides, very handy. While it was on the ramp I took the opportunity to tidy up the subframe and the rear beam while on the car, these hadn't been removed at any point as we hadn't needed to, but it was easier to do it while in the air. It was pretty tidy underneath with no signs of corrosion bar the anti roll bar, which got a coat of rust treatment and paint as well.




I then sent the BBS RA's off to Essex Wheel Company to have them resprayed in gun metal grey. They did a cracking job on the wheels, taking out the kerb damage and giving them a nice colour change. Looking back I probably wouldn't have gone for such a dark colour but you live and learn.



I also acquired a new set of small bumper 87 - 89 arches, these are the same as the pre 87 arches but they have the moulding for the thick side strip whereas the later 90 + arches are different.

 

Thank's mate, it's good to relive the journey

 

Excellent account of your experiences so far.

 

While at the garage, the car had the rear arches seen to with the small patches being cut out and replaced, this is the better way of doing it rather than cutting out all that original vw metal if it can be avoided.





While on the ramp at the garage, our mate found a nasty patch of rust under the dash, above the exhaust downpipe. This is apparently a common place for mk2's to rust as the heat from the exhaust can cause condensation. Luckily this was caught before it became too bad and a panel from a scrap shell was bought and the rust cut out and replaced.






The car was starting to look pretty good and was soon going off for paint, but it still wasn't running nicely. We carried out a compression test and all was well, the readings were slightly higher than what we were expecting, possibly proof of the head work the previous owner was talking about? We changed just about everything on the engine; cambelt, water pump, power steering pump, 2 lots of service items but it still wasn't running nicely. My dad found an 8v engine for sale locally so we went to pick it up, and started trying parts off that in case that made a difference. After a few failed attempts, it turned out that one of the injectors was duff and was dumping fuel into the engine (we had a suspicion something was wrong as we drained the oil and it overflowed the 5l container and smelt heavily of fuel). With the injectors changed it fired up and ran smoother than it ever has, a short trip up and down the road to check all was well was in order and despite the lack of alignment, it was brilliant.

 

With the car now running and soon to be off for paint, we turned our attention to how we were going to rebuild it. As we hadn't taken it apart and had no guarantee that everything was there, I started looking for another Mk2 we could use as a 1:1 scale diagram and parts source. A couple of weeks later the perfect car popped up, a stolen recovered gti for just £300. We hired a trailer and headed down to Maidenhead to pick it up, I felt bad buying this car as the seller had had it from new and had taken it all over Europe. He was away with work when thieves broke into his garage, hot wired it and took it on a joy ride round the M25 and did a few fuel thefts before dumping it. A shame but ideal for what I wanted.



We dropped this off at home and went to retrieve my Mk2 from the garage, we definitely got our money's worth out of the trailer that day.



Once home, there was only a couple of weeks before the car was due to go for paint so that was spent stripping what was left of the car and carefully bagging and labelling everything as it would be 2 or 3 months before things went back together as it was A level season and they tend to take priority annoyingly! A couple of weeks later though, the car was fully stripped, the trailer was reacquired and the Mk2 secured on the back, ready to go for a fresh coat of paint.





I was not happy with the condition of the bumpers so was on the look out for a set of replacement ones, I wanted the ones on VW Heritage but they were a little expensive. As luck would have it I found brand new set on Facebook, only issue was they were in Dorset and he wouldn't post, damn I thought.. wait, my grandparents live down that way.. A quick call later and they were safely in my grandparents house, much to the dismay of my gran but hey, least my grandad was on board with the plan. He popped them in the post and 2 days later I had brand new bumpers ready for the rebuild.

 

I didn't see the Mk2 for around a month from then but took the chance to go and see it in primer before it got hit with colour, this was a big step as (despite it being grey) it was the first time it had ever been one colour in my ownership!




Another month passed with exams and all that fun stuff taking place, so the car had fallen to the back of my mid a bit. We went to go and see it in the paint shop after the colour had been laid down and it looked incredible, such a nice deep shine. I had wanted something a bit different to a simple OEM respray, so asked for some silver flake to be mixed in with the Helios Blue, to help it really pop in the sun light. Looking back I was pleased I did.





It would still be a couple of weeks before I got it home but this was a massive step forward in the project.

 

Thanks mate

 

Yeah it was a steal (pardon the pun), I had to replace the steering column and the ignition barrel to get it running. I tried hot wiring it and all I managed to do was smoke the starter motor, that was the extent of my criminal career!

I know I'm working fast, everything seems to be falling into place!