My 1983 MK1 Golf Restoration

N

Nova2k7

Senior member
 Halifax - West Yorkshire
well after owning my Z4 for over 4 years and taking a huge change of direction i thought that i would keep a thread of the work im doing on the new car! i know its not a Z4 but ive been on here for so long it hard to leave lol! ive been posting on the MK1 club since getting the car so ill just cut and paste all the past few weeks of updates on here!

Hi Guys, im new and from the West Yorkshire Area. got my mk1 about 2 weeks ago and loving it. ive come from a BMW Z4 3.0 so as you can tell this is a massive change for me and something im still getting used to lol.

Im going to try keep a record of the bits im going to do to the car as i progress along! she is also my daily car so things may be a little slow lol

anyway here she is at the moment.







just put two new tyres on last week.

List of things i need to sort.

1. need to order 2 new sills and 2 front wings. have seen these on VWHerritage price at £22 for sills and £49 for wings. are they decent parts? i understand they are not genuine but this does not bother me too much.
im currently waiting on a price for having the sills and wings fitted plus painting. Both door will be included in the painting as well.

2. The boot currently works on a boot popper and for some reason the button has stopped working so this is something ill need to investigate.

3. I also need to install some new bulbs in the instrument cluster and i already have them, however im a complete novice with doing anything on these cars so although ive read the instructions on this site im still too nervous to do it lol.

4. The speedo is also 10mph out so i need to figure out how to resolve this. if anyone has any ideas that would be great.

5. Cold mornings have been an issue lately, i bought the car from my best friend and he has advised that over the last 4 years it has fired up straight away with no hesitation even in -5. With this is mind i need to figure out what could be causing it to struggle.

6. Gear linkage. finding a gear is like stirring porridge. apparently a common issue? my engine is the 1.8 16v MK2 KR engine and ive been informed that there is a repair kit for this? can anyone point me in the right direction?

7. Door speakers are only working on the left lol, been told they are the original 1983 speakers so obviously need to get these replaced with some more up to date ones. does anyone know which are the most popular, what the sizes are ect and also how to remove them?

8. blowers! the controls for the heater need looking at as the hot and cold one does not slide all the way up and down as it should. i also want to take a look behind the dash and make sure the pipes are all connected as i dont think as much air is coming through as it should. any info on this?

ok so thats my list so far lol!

quite a lot to sort out!
 
Well the car has been running rubbish lately, not idling correctly and such. Im hoping that a change of the HT leads, distributor cap and rotor arm has solved the problem.




Also noticed the coil was damaged so will have to look at sorting this out later



In other news my gear linkage has arrived and soon I'll be getting round to fitting it.

Im still trying to find out which is the best oil to use as I've been told to use mineral and not synthetic? Us this right? I've put some 10w40 semi in for now.

Another big update is that the car is going to the bodyshop on the 9th for the repair of the rust on the drivers door, both front wings and sills. Plus it will all be repainted to freshen it up. Been told it will be around £570 but I'm expecting more.

Tomorrow I'll also have to order a new choke cable as it just spins and won't lock lol

Thanks for reading guys!
 
well another day and another update. went along to the garage where my brother in law works to see if we could get some bits done.

new choke cable fitted today. took the dash apart to locate why the button that operates the boot popper wasn't working. turns out that behind the dash is just a complete mess of wires which appear to go all over. cables that go nowhere and have a live current! anyway managed to find a new live for the boot popper button only to find out that its also the button that no longer works. also was going to have a look at the dash bulbs but didnt get round to it! also tried to fix my driver door lock pin which just pulls out! took some of the door card out and cant seem to see what the door pin needs to hook into? looks almost like something is missing?










anyway she is all back together now. if anyone can see anything in the wiring that they recognise then please let me know lol no wonder my drivers side door speaker doesnt work!
 
well today the car was delivered to the bodyshop where the bodywork is to be carried out. seems there is more work involved that first thought and already a nearside sill and rear arch have had to be ordered.

i took a few pictures before i left the car with him this morning











i didn't think he would be working on the car so soon but after a few hours ive had some pictures come back from him.









so seems there is going to be more work involved than first anticipated. what more did i expect lol. ive ordered the new sill and arch on next day delivery and should all be delivered to the bodyshop directly by Wednesday! i know this is going to cost a lot but im trying to see the end game and remind myself that its going to be solid once complete and then i shouldn't have to worry about any further bodywork issues for quite some time.
 
The pleasures of old cars. Having been working on a younger but still a 20 year old car recently. I understand all those problems. The only advice I will give spend the tine and remove the dash and sort the wiring. Or get it done properly if you not 100% sure.

We found all manner of potential problems!!
 
Can't beat an engine bay where you can see all round the engine and hardly no electrics in sight.
 
Car will look great when finished - there's something about a classic VW particularly a GTI that appeals to all petrolheads.
 
Lovely - some years ago I had a 1.6 GTi as a cheapy run-around, then had a 16V Mk2 - fabulous cars!

I didn't keep either of them long so cannot offer too much assistance, but wonder if your speedo reading problem is due to non-standard tyre sizes as your wheels look somewhat wider than my MK1 had.

Nice to see these cars getting sorted - there aren't many left considering how many there used to be!

How times change a decent Golf was always badged GTi - now they are all TDi! :lol:
 
few more pics from the previous weeks! - Posted 11 November 2015

well more updates from the bodyshop, even more work found lol! looks like this is going to be expensive lol

The new sill has arrived and the old one has been cut out and revealed some further areas that need some attention.





The new rear arch has also arrived so im sure ill have some pictures of that coming soon as well!

Hopefully its all going to be worth it!
 
well yesterday (Posted 14 November 2015,) i took a trip to the bodyshop to check on the progress, seems that there is more to do on this than i could of imagined lol a bit disappointing as i was told the car had been fully restored only 7 years ago. turns out that there are tiny bit of rust on most panels and the whole bottom of the drivers door needs replacing. is also appear that there i not one single panel that isnt full of filler! currently he is now working on cutting out the old rear arch and welding in the new one.

ive now ordered a repair panel for the door however and looks like this is now over 1k in repairs! ;-( i really hope it worth it!

all this has now got me thinking about the value of the car. as this is my first golf im not sure what its worth. i mean i know what i paid and ill be honest i paid A LOT! what are peoples thoughts on the value of my golf once completed and freshly painted??

anyway i post up the pictures i took yesterday








 
20 November 2015

Ok update time lol. Well the car have been in the workshop another week.

Drivers door has now been repaired and in the process found a stupid amount of filler which is basically all over lol, new rear arch has been fitted and all the sills and wings have also been repaired. The car in now all ready for paint which I hope is being done as I type this!

I'll let some pictures do the talking.




Stupid amount of filler has been used!


Ready for paint

 
Tbh from what you've posted it doesn't look too bad at all. It's a pretty old car now so it's bound to be a bit crusty here and there. How are the rear suspension turrets (seen a few 1's and 2's have issues around here) and rear beam mounts. Also, how are the subframe mounts at the front? These parts generally never get removed so corrosion often goes unnoticed. I'm surprised you didn't take the glass out though-its so easy on these older cars and you often find more than you're expecting around these areas.

I guess you've got to set limits though as things can easily snowball! Hope it comes out well :thumbsup:
 
Not sure if it'll help or not but I've got a full wiring loom from a mk1 that's been sitting in my garage for a while. Some time ago I bought a mk1 gti to tinker with then quickly discovered it had more bodywork issues than yours so moved it on but kept some bits.
 
Good thread. I've been running a restoration thread of my 205 GTi over on another forum for a number of years now. I looked into getting a mk1 cab just before buying the 205.

So many people look at cars of this sort of era and think ownership will be straight forward as they can remember running them as a regular car in their own lifetime so don't consider the possible classic car issues. As with my 205, your Golf looked pretty clean in those first pics. Dig a little deeper (pics down the page) and a few issues that could become life threatening to the car soon appear.

These are cars worth putting the time, money and effort in to.
 
Mowflow said:
Good thread. I've been running a restoration thread of my 205 GTi over on another forum for a number of years now. I looked into getting a mk1 cab just before buying the 205.
Click to expand...

Octane magazine have just run a feature on the 205 GTi and Mk1 Golf GTi as modern classics - don't know whether you caught it?

Love a good resto thread - linky?
 
update from 15th December

ok so ive had the car back a few weeks now and although the work has been done to a great finish there are some areas that it will need to go back for.

not great after just a few weeks!

the car was today taken to the garage to have the gear linkage replaced. but turns out ive got the mk2 kit and not the mk1! so thats something ill have to re buy! if anyone needs a mk2 gear linkage kit let me know!

the car was also running very rough for a few days last week. after some investigation it turns out that the dizzy cap had come loose at the bottom and resulted in the rotor arm spinning round and making a mess. anyway new rotor arm on, dizzy cap cleaned up and new fuel filter also fitted and it seems to be running much better.





however to me the engine still needs some work and it still feels un smooth sometimes. its also using oil. im thinking that biting the bullet and having a full new head gasket set along with stem seals will be on the cards soon.




ive also got some new carb filters coming and also taken delivery on a new boot strut.


ive also fitted a new battery!


On the other hand she looks fuc**ng epic
 
update from Febuary

well not updated anything for ages!

new headlights have arrived and soon ill be fitting them. also making some calls about having the valve stem oil seals done along with the head gasket. any advice on other things worth changing while doing the head gasket?

currently having issues with no power to the radio and the clock on the cluster has gone out as well. assume they are connected for some reason.

once ive got the new lights in ill try get some more pictures up.

the car will have to go back to the bodyshop at some point as there are some bubbles coming through from the repair work. ive spoken with the company and they are more than willing to sort it out so this is good news
 
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