My Golf Project

[L1J]

Yum! What paint are you using on the calipers my good man?

Halfords High Temp Engine Paint, it's Satin Black I think. Matches the powder coating I had done nicely.

Caliper has come up well, I spent an hour on prep before painting!

 

[L1J]

Tool arrived dude, I recognised the handwriting - cheers, it's a whopper!

Bet you can't break it

How did you find the paint was it the spray on stuff?

I did my crossover tubes and intake in it lastnight (Red) and it fingerprints like mad!

It was the brush on stuff.

My usual prep routine is:

Degrease
Give it a good going over with the grinder wire brush attachment to remove any rust etc
Give it a clean with panel wipe
Paint

By finger prints do you mean the paint creases? What material are your cross pipes and did you use primer?

 

[L1J]

Didn't explain myself very well, primed / sprayed / dryed overnight, but since the finish is very matt and has no overcoat it picks up... say i have a little bit of oil on my hands it picks that up and sticks like mad, can you buy high temp laquer?

Same here it does tend to show dirt, I havent seen any high temp laquer about. I can't see your cross pipes getting *that* hot so normal laquer might be ok?

 

[L1J]

The temperature tolerance of normal laquer is amazingly high. It would certainly be ok for most hot applications (rocker covers et al)

Thanks for the info L1J - contemplating giving my calipers a spring clean and paint but might stick with some hammerite stuff.

Funny you should say that, I've just given the calipers a second coat with hammerite. The finish on the high temp stuff was too matt on the calipers. Will post some pics later.

 

[L1J]

Update:

Calipers painted in hammerite satin black as mentioned in the previous post

Painted under the scuttle panel, much of this is hidden under lots of plastic covers etc so it was painted black.

Was told off for putting a dirty windscreen bottle back on the car by Dad (the most messy person ever!) so here it is soaking in bleach

 

[L1J]

I know he's right, you should just see his old Escort van!

Right half technical post coming up...

The gearbox I sourced from the Passat is coded ACG, upon checking the ratios this morning using an excellent program by Quaife, the ratios seemed a little short for road use. On searching ClubGTi lots of people mentioned the CDA box found in the Mk3 Golf GTi 16V. The ratios in this box allow you to hit 60mph in second.

Graph showing my ACG gearbox vs CDA gearbox

As you can see all the ratios are higher, 1st to 3rd more so.

After speaking to the guy that's going to rebuild my gearbox he mentioned I could swap the final drive in the gearbox I have from 3.94 to 3.68. This would lengthen all the ratios in the box.

Graph showing a standard ACG 3.94 final drive box vs a modified ACG box with a 3.68 final drive

That ones easy to work out, all the gears lengthened by changing the final drive.

Graph comparing the modified ACG box to the "ideal" CDA box

1st to 3rd are lower so should give better pick up than using a CDA box and 4th and 5th are longer.

The modified box will hit 61mph in second.

Crusing at 3500 rpm in 5th should give the following road speed:

Modified ACG - 80.5mph
Standard ACG - 75mph
Standard CDA - 76mph

Should be ideal for what I want.

 

[L1J]

Go on then, when do you expect to be finished?

RR?

First week in May hopefully, at the latest the day before the RR!

Little update for tonight:

Power steering pump, tensionner and altenator painted and fitted to leon engine

Painted the wiper mechanism

 

[L1J]

Would that Vinyl paint work on those hoses or would it crack and split with heat, etc?

I'm going to test a radiator hose on the daily driver later, will update.

woudlnt you be better off with a close ratio gearbox for acceleration.. also a longer final drive doesnt really mean you have a higher top end... you will need more power to get you where you need to go with longer gears

As Malachy posted, it's a road car, and with a turbo you have lots more torque available. 1st to 3rd are going to be close enough!

It's top speed doesnt interest me, I just wanted a 5th ratio that was happy cruising at 70mph

 

[L1J]

Would that Vinyl paint work on those hoses or would it crack and split with heat, etc?

Quick test today

Before on daily driver (it's crap but I'm getting my Mondeo back next week, so this one is going to be used as a donor to finish the project)

Cleaned a section of the top hose and gave it a coat of vinyl paint

About an hour of driving, making sure it got 'hot'

I think cleaning the hoses will be the best option, the vinyl paint doesnt seem to be absorbed by the rubbber like it does on plastic.

 

[L1J]

Quick update

I wasn't happy with the finish on the brake servo, after rubbing it down 3 times I still wasnt getting the finish I wanted so....

Back to bare metal this afternoon

Painted again, this time with hammerite smooth mixed with a little thinners (thanks Alan for the tip)

Looks much better

Also sprayed a few random bits of plastic with vinyl paint

Getting to the stage now where everything is nearly ready to go back in, need to trial fit the intercooler later.

 

[L1J]

Spent some time on the wiring earlier

I had to combine my uprated headlight loom into the original VW loom, both side by side

Once they were combined, I installed them in the engine bay to see where I need to tape up to and decide on the routing.

Will tape it up tonight, once I'm happy everything is in the right place.

 

[L1J]

Excellent work chap. Really nice to see an old motor come to life.

Thank you

Trial fitted the intercooler tonight, which in hindsight I should have done before painting..... Everything I read regarding intercoolers said the Golf Rallye unit would fit in without any problems, this isn't the case!

The area highlighted by the rectangle should be resting on the crossmember with one rubber washer between the intercooler and the cross member. The section arrowed is stopping it form doing so.

Had to take a grinder to my lovely new paint! Not that bad, it's part of the towing eye and I was very neat! Much better fit and clearance now.

That was the first problem, the second was the inlet to the intercooler. The power steering resevoir bracket is in it's way.

I'm goign to make a bracket tomorrow to lift the resevoir to this position and mount it on the heat shield. thankfully the section I'm bolting it on to is an overlap and on a bend so should be strong enough.

What do they say about poor planning........

 

[L1J]

So what happened yesterday? We need updates I tell ya !!

You lot are spoilt

Work yesterday, then arranging the 'ring trip with some friends. Crossing now booked for May 15th so a very big incentive to get it finished!

Update to follow tonight, need to go and get some parts this afternoon.

 

[L1J]

You Guys are worse than my ex

We are spoiled, but you set the tone of the thread with your excellent regular updates, so we demand excellence and regularity in return

Flattery will get you everywhere

UPDATE:

Some parts I picked up/arrived today:

Hydraulic pipes for clutch

Bigger turbo inlet pipe from the US, will compare them tomorrow to see the size difference.

More to follow....

 

[L1J]

Bracket for the power steering res that was made by a guy in work for me yesterday (I was busy!)

Bracket attached to heat shield

Res in place, plenty of room!

Picked up some "camber correction bolts" from VW. Normal ones top. The shank on the bottom ones are 11mm compared to 12mm on the normal ones which allows you to adjust the camber

Bolts in place, the "play" in the adjustment bolt allows you to move the hub to set the camber you require. Also note I took the track rod ends off they were FFFFFFFT!

There's more...

 

[L1J]

I had to remove a sheared brake disk bolt form the hub earlier

Drilled the centre of it out and used a screw extractor

Came out no probs

Also picked up some spacers I had made to widen the rear track. Two sets here one 10mm thick and the other 12mm.

Tomorrows plans:

Get it rolling again
Paint rad cowling
Borrow an engine crane
Possibly drop engine in for trial fitting

Everyone happy now?

 

[L1J]

OOooo Ooooooo a good mystery. Do tell

Not going to say anything yet, I dont know if it's possible and I need to work out if I have the time, cash and know how to make it happen! Let me finish this one first and enjoy it for a while!

Snip...

Good to hear from you Kev, I've mailed you back. I'm off until Sunday if you want to pop over and make some tea

 

[L1J]

Llyr -

Congrats on a fantastic looking project (and a detailed & regular build thread - a rarity ). I'm curious, why did you pick the golf as a project car? Did you have previous experience of working on them or was it driven by parts availablilty/potential donor engines etc?

John.

Cut and pasted from an email I sent someone:

Why I chose a Golf (Warning long boring story!)

I was coming back from Cardiff one night last November in my Mondeo. About 4 miles from home there was a big pool of water in front of me. About half way through the puddle the Mondeo stopped. I had to get out into 10 inches of water and push it to the side of the road! After a lovely 4 mile jog in the rain to my parents house (no mobile signal), Dad gave the Mondeo a tow home. Quick check over and we realised it needed a new engine.

I needed a car to get to work and I also had a job interview to attend in two days time. The next day I got the local paper and looked for something cheap with Tax and MOT. I saw a Golf Gti mk2, quick phone call and a viewing and I bought it! (now known as the black one!) It was so much fun to drive, no ABS, EBD, PAS, ESP etc. I looked into what modifications could be done to them and saw a 20V turbo conversion. I thought this would be the best of both worlds, light car and a modern engine.

I was speaking to a guy in work about the conversion I was planning, he mentioned he had a recently resprayed unfinished mk2 gti project in his shed that he wanted to sell (now known as the red one!). Went to see it, it was MINT, so decided to use his unfinished project as a base for my 20V conversion. The black one will be used as a donor car to finish the red one, once my Mondeo is fixed next week.

The rest is as posted in this thread

Little update:

ECU, modified wiring loom, MAP sensor and cable throttle body arrived from QPEng

I don't need anything else now to get it running....

 

[L1J]

Some more bots that arrived today:

Golf GTi 16V fuel pump assembly

New winder mechanisms for the windows, gone for manual ones to save some weight!

Rear brake disks

Rear suspension bump stops, covers and spark plugs

 

[L1J]

In order to fit the 16V calipers to the 280mm carriers the slider pins need to have 2mm machined from one end. Popped to a local machine shop and they did them in 2 minutes!

Brakes fitted, all bolts torqued (they have a white dot on them). Both sides done so it should be on the floor tonight.

Garage really needs a clean...