Vw Mk2 Jetta Coupe 4motion Build. (Recent Photos Added)

Few little snaps of what i've managed to do today.

Got the arms capped off on the ends and drilled and bolted through to extra support on the join



Also cleaned them up slightly and the front bearing carrier also pressed in new bearings in both front and back

shafts fitted





Big task today was to get the rear shock brackets made up, started with the obvious lining up and measuring





Then got all the plates made up.



Started welding

 

Thats as far as i've got will do the other side tomorrow and have it on its wheels

 

What’s ever happened with this?
Any more progress?

 

Still made progress and not far off getting the shell ready.

 

Small update,

Found sometime to get the shell on its wheels, the rear is now complete, firstly welded up the rear shock brackets.

 

Found a little time to start working on the rear seat. Top half is scirocco and the base is off the TT i had which is a narrow, both will be re-trimmed together with the front buckets.










Started getting the shell ready for undercoating few little add on had to do first. going to attempt as much as possible to shave the bay and declutter first off is the windscreen washer bottle. Gone with a Mondeo bottle which fits really well behind the drivers side wing. Sorry i know ford is probably an insult but it works will shave off the logo and the neck needs shortening so it only pokes out a tiny bit.





















Due to the TT brake bottle being too close to the turret decided to go with a remote bottle off a Audi A2 and tucked it to the side of the turret.











And just plugged as much of the engine bay holes will fill them and should be ready for primer

 

Few more photos of the few hours i've managed to squeeze firstly finally got round to getting the front end inner arches all clean up and factory under seal removed ready for primer. also drilled out the outlet for the loom which will run along inner arch, tacked on some threaded rivets.











Made some brackets for the rear seat which bolts onto the existing holes. Still need to make a bracket for the seat belt mounting in the middle.



















And the big buy this week was these, 16" BBS RS 131 8.5 fronts & 132 9.5 rears Porsche fitment which was going to leave till the car was completed but things sometimes come up when you're not expecting them. To make way for these the Epsilons have to go which my heart telling me no but as i will be running 312 discs i have to run 16s to clear so they need to go to a good home if you're interested pm me.

 

Trying to use up the most of the hot weather to get the car primed and sealed.

Firstly had a coupe of bits i needed to get relocated, going to run a electric power steering pump but don't want it to be on show so figured out that an Astra electric pump can fit in the wing gap. made some brackets













Tried to hide the abs pump under where the battery goes but unfortunately its too big to fit and have the wing fit properly. Positioned it on the cross member and all you will really see is the back over and the brake lines will run inside the wheel arch.









Next up was getting the underside sanded down some areas i've gone down to bare metal mostly on the aftermarket steel panels and tried to keep as much of the original zinc primer. also used some Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 where had a bit of rust patches. This took a while but i got it done.























After that Bilt Hamber Electrox primer.

























Haven't painted the bottom where the rear sear goes as i'm getting a tank made up and will need to weld brackets for it when its done. the bottom and engine bay is now epoxy 121 primed will get some photos once the paint has cured.



Also got the inside flatted down ready for primer

 

Some photos of the underside with epoxy, plan to get some seam sealer then cover that with epoxy and final layer of 3M Sprayable Sealer and its ready for base coat.

 

Continuation from the above just wanted to list the material i've used to under seal it so far.

After stripping the factory under seal and welding/repairing the rust etc i used Bilt Hamber 80 rust convertor on the areas that didn't have the worst rust still had to clean most of the rust off.





Then sprayed Bilt Hamber Electrox which isn't meant to be sprayed over the Hydrate 80 so just sprayed against it/lightly over sprayed





On top of all that went with Rust Buster Epoxy mastic 121 which i sprayed on with a 1.8 Tip Sealey gun, had to thin it down a little to get it to flow right out the gun. Went with dark grey. Only have a small 50L 2BHP compressor which did the job alright.









Started to seam seal all the joints using Upol Tiger Seal polyurethane sealer, plan to seal all the joints then cover the seam sealer with more epoxy mastic and then 3M Bag sealer over the top.







The bag sprayable sealer comes with its own gun, not cheap stuff and will need a fair few bags to get the job done. Will add a base coat and clear after that.



I've also 2k Epoxy primed the venerable areas inside with Spray Max Epoxy Primer these cans are not cheap either but get good coverage. Squeeze the bottom valve to activate the hardener. will also add seam sealer to all the joins



























The colour of the whole car is not going to be Polar Silver unfortunately, gone so far away from the stock element of a Mk2 Jetta Coupe i've decided to paint it United Grey LA7T found out mk5/mk6 golfs had a mk5 GT TDI golf some years ago which i bought standard and did a few things to it loved the colour and had to sell it to fund my deposit on my house haha. Will do the inside base coat and underside myself and then have the outside major looking areas done professionally just not a seasoned painter and want it to look good.

 

Update,

One of the last bits i needed making up was the tank, now due to being limited on space and loosing the area where the original tank goes i decided to go some little thinking how i was going to relocate the tank.

The only option i had was a custom tank but didn't want it in the boot and i could of had it further back like the syncro but this means it would be more visible as the jetta curves up in the rear, so this is what i came up with, sketched it out at work and had a local fabricator weld it up for me, its not that big its roughly 35L which is plenty for a car that wont be an everyday driver, still a working progress as i still need to add a breather outlet etc

























With the tank in that location the exhaust is now a side exit. will need to sort out a heat shield to avoid death















As you may have noticed the petrol cap has been blanked off as i will be running the filler cap inside the boot, open the boot to fill up.

 

Welded in the mounting brackets for the tank and got it fitting to the body, and started on the mocking up the filler neck.

















also got all the seam sealing done











Final coat of epoxy over the seam sealer to protect it.

 

Update.

Despite the heat i still managed to get a few bits done to the shell. First off bought 18 bags of 3M Bag sealer and applied 16 total, its messy stuff so covered my garage floor with cardboard.





Masked up all areas that didn't need it.







and the result













Left it outside for 4-5 hours to bake bit of a cool photo also





Base coated the inside and underside.





































Next stage is to prep the outside but wont paint the outside myself get someone with more experience, the above is my first time painting with a gun and its not perfect but happy with how its turned out.

 

Update,

As i'm waiting to get the outside painted started working on few little cosmetic mods.

On my early posts i mentioned that i was attempting on a westy look grille but not going to call it that as it doesn't look like it really. Not a huge fan of the jetta headlights so set about using the 7x5 headlights found on a wide number of old cars and ones used on the Westmorland grille, also wanted to try something different.

These were the first attempts just to see what it would turn out like which i may still finish off only reason i haven't gone with them is they are both 5 slat and not 7 to try keep my shell period correct.





This is the attempt i'm working on, its an aftermarket 7 slat jetta grille as the base and the surrounds off a datsun sunny which marry up to the jetta opening.



To close the gap had to cut up another grille which i didn't want to do but the grilles are pretty cheap





Measured up the section to cut









Filler on the sections joined together



Plan on using all the TT loom therefore will retrofit the xenon headlight so first thing was to take the TT headlights apart to get to the projector.





Bought some 7x5 headlights in crystal clear and standard as the backing of the crystal clear ones are not smooth and the standard ones are.



Bought some projectors off ebay as the TT projectors are too wide for the 7x5 housing also these have a solenoid for high and low beam



The projector will fixed on to a stainless cup which i bought from home bargains for 49p haha.





Drilled the holes and made some fixings which i riveted on, will seal the join around where the 2 meet to avoid condensation







Cut up the TT projectors so i could use the D2S retainer





Made a retainer bracket which bolts onto the ebay projector.













Painted the both housings matt black





Had some broken merc xenon headlights and liked so decided to use the headlight shrouds.



Glued the shrouds together.

 

Finished product which don't look too bad i think.





Preview of what they will look like with the grille

 

Sanded down ready for primer.





Primed



And the result







The other challenge was to modify the Golf slam panel to accommodate the lights















The idea here is i will be able to retain the TT headlight adjustment



The headlight motor housing on the TT headlights









Finish product, couldn't test it on the shell as the spit is in the way

















Total cost of the grille, £110 not bad for a one off item.

 

Little Update:

The shell progress is on hold as i'm expecting my child to be born at any min and my full attention will be to that for a while might still get the odd bits done here and there but will definitely finish it some point in the new year, however thought this update below might interest some of you.

Mentioned in the earlier post that i had a set of 5 quite rare NOS 15" 5x100 G60 look steels pretty much exactly the same at G60s but in 5x100 so thought about making them even more rare by converting them to split steels. Could have gone down the banded route but i wont be able to run 15" and 3piece gives me the flexibility of making them wider in the future.

First up was to split the face. only done the one so far as i need to mock it all up and see if it will work.



All thats needed to split the face is to grind out the 4 bead welds on the back.





As these are brand new pretty much no struggles to remove the face









I bought some 3piece 4x4 16" wheels not sure what the make is but they're the right sizes 7" fronts 8" rears.



Rough idea of what they will look like.





Got 2 sets of centre caps also to go with them.





These will need modifying





Mocking up the templet which i will CAD up properly then have some rings made up and then welded to the faces. The faces are a little close to the holes but should have a coupe mm shaved off to make some room or have a flush bolt face so you don't see the bolts as the rings act as the fastening plate. not sure but somehow i will get around it.





Idea of the rings.



And this is potentially what the end result can look like these are 17" and 4x100 but mine will be face mounted.

 

The colour of the centres wont be black as it doesn't go with chrome, thats as far as i've got to will update with more soon

 

Looks great how is the paint job doin.?

 

That is awesome.

The headlights, the projectors, are they heads and dips?