My "new" Gti body

[Fatmobile]

Sorry, I can't find the bag or paperwork.
If I find it I'll let you know.

[Fatmobile]

The last couple days, there has been a red light coming on in the dash when I turn corners.
It's the low coolant level warning light I rigged up.
It's working great, since the coolant level is high enough when sitting, the light comes on for awhile when the ignition is turned on then fades out.
When it does come on it doesn't latch, it goes back out when the coolant levels out again.
It only comes on during turns, hard brakeing and acceleration.
I probably have a coolant leak,... but it's good to see the warning light is working.

[Fatmobile]

when I put this car together I threw a sloppy pump in just to get it running.
The mainshaft bushings were worn, the belt was running off the injection pump sprocket. I hadn't done main shaft bushings yet,... not the only pump with bad shaft bushings around here so it was time to learn. With help from folks on here, I was able to press the old bushings out, new bushings in and ream them to match the shaft diameter:
viewtopic.php?t=7993

I swapped the refurbished pump on today. At first it wouldn't pull fuel from the tank,... I was thinking I messed up something with the vane pump. Before pulling it apart and again I decided to see if it would get fuel to the injectors so I hooked an electric fuel pump up and primed the pump, put my foot to the floor, then tightened all the metal fuel lines.
I chugged to life and the pump started pulling fuel on it's own.
Idles a little high, I might have put the accelerator lever on the wrong notch.
Got it started and remembered it needs some exhaust work,... a little loud. Those 4 to2 to 1 downpipes seem to leak where the 2 tubes meet.
I plan to get this one roadworthy and make it my daily driver again, while I convert the 4 door project to run on vegy and maybe VNT turbo that little 1.5 before the energy fair.
Weathers getting nice, plenty to do.

[MPalm]

Great progress!
Do you have any pictures of it now that it´s (almost) ready for the road?

[Fatmobile]

It does look much better now than when I found it,... hard to imagine it looking worse .
I'll try to get some fresh pics.

[Fatmobile]

Decided to get it sounding better.
The leak was around the gasket, between the downpipe and flex pipe.
I made the surfaces flat.
I replaced the section after the flex pipe with new, the shop in this little town has a pipe bender. Welded all the joints myself.
It's nice to be able to put the exhaust in place and tack it, then remove it and weld all around it nice. To do this I had to drop the rear end. Time for the rear end to be swapped anyway...

I've been running around with/on the rear from Old Blue while I stripped and painted the GTI rear end. It was very rusty, looked nasty.
I got it painted last fall and saved up for new wheel cylinders, new shoes, new springs, backing plates glass beaded and painted,...



New bearings, inside new drums, caliper painted black;


It is so quiet now.... and the new sway bar really changes the handling.
I had the injection pump accel lever on the wrong notch it idles great now.
Injection pump done, officially has new brakes, bearings and struts/shocks all the way around.
It drives just great. Corners sharp but takes bumps very smoothly. Probably the nicest Rabbit I've driven.
Back to test driving and tuning this one,

while I make some more improvements on the 4 door project,... hopefully a turbo and vegy conversion to that one by June.

[MPalm]

I bet it´s a nice ride now, I´d like to test drive a mk1 with all new suspension parts and a rebuilt engine, just to see how smooth they can be! The rear axle and brakes looks great.

[Fatmobile]

Yeah, I love to drive it. I filled it up and am driving real easy to see what fuel mileage it is getting,.. before I start to tune the refreshed pump I put in it.
A little rattle at 2000 RPM that I'm hunting down.
There oil leaking from what looks like the rear main seal,... so I look around above to see if it's the oil pressufre switch leaking.
It wasn't that but the vacuum pump is obviously leaking oiul from around it.
Hey that o-ring is easier to change than a rear main seal.
I took my time when putting the rear main seal in so I was surprised/disappointed to see oil dripping from there.
I'll replace the vacuum pump o-ring and see what happens.
I probably didn't have an o-ring available when it was time to put the vacuum pump in so reused the old one. Something I can usually get away with because there are no moving parts against this o-ring.

[Fatmobile]

Well it's running great.
I never planned to keep this for myself.
It's too nice for me and I can't keep them all.
I'll need to put some rubbing compound to it and get some good pics of the body.

[Fatmobile]

I cleaned it up, should have taken the pics right away so it's a little dirty:

There's a dent in the driver's door,.. I haven't tried to push it back out yet.





Here's the worst rust spot:

[Fatmobile]

I was messing with this timing on this car today.
Cold starting was a pain;
White smoke, missing on a few cylinders, took awhile to even out.
That usually means retarded timing.
Pulled the lever and it runs worse,.. that could mean timing is too advanced.
I put the dial gauge in and what do you know, I put the cold start lever on wrong.
It now advances when I push it in and retards when I pull it out
Arrghh
It was set to .035 with the lever pushed in. Now it's at .039 with it pulled out,.. about 50 pushed in.
I'll try another cold start tomorrow.
I still just love the way it runs. Idles nice and low with almost not vibration inside the car.
Corners great with the GTI suspension,.. and a little weight in the back.

[CoolAirVw]

I wouldn't mind having some wheels like that on my car.

[Fatmobile]

Yeah, I had tarantulas on it and it looked weird.
Then I got some tires to go with these snowflakes, in exchange for help with a clutch job. Much better. I didn't know there were 2 kinds of snowflakes. The car came with 3 and I bought 2 more that didn't quite match,... the outside edge, 1 1/2" or so, curves inward instead of outward.

I was filling up the other day and another Rabbit diesel pulled into the line behind me. A local guy I've met before.
He said he's planning to get one of the new VW diesels,.. and I mentioned the GTI diesel is for sale for about $4000, and a 10 hour free labor warentee. He said that would save me about $21,000 and took my number.
He called back the other day, left a message and wants to come with the wife to take a closer look at it.
I suppose I should fix the small things like a leaky trany flange seal, since I found a better flange.
Reverse lights don't work,.. that can be an easy fix.
Not much left to do to it, I've been making lists and crossing things off and the list is staying smaller.

[Fatmobile]

Well they took it for a test drive and want to buy it in 2 weeks when I'm finished with the list of small stuff.
They are very local.
They know how to fix the cosmetic things like; paint, and fix the rip in the driver's seat, headliner,... etc. so they're the perfect folks to get this one.

[Fatmobile]

I remembered when looking behind the driver's seat, under the carpet by the seat rail, I saw a small crack.
...Sooo I was going to weld it up before the sale.
I removed the seat and carpet (that carpet glue is no fun to play with) and this is what I found:

You can see the small crack near the seat rail,... that was an easy fix.
The rust along the pinch weld will take some time and was disappointing to find. I thought this car was so solid.
The door cards are warped and obviously have been wet. I figure someone removed the door cards and didn't put the vapor barrier back on right. Water ran down the inner edge of the door and soaked the carpet.
The windows weren't sliding up or down well so that was on the list to get fixed too. I used bubblewrap for a vapor barrier this time as an experiment. It gets cold near the door, this might insulate the door a little.
I've been putting plastic on my house windows. Why buy it when furniture stores throw away nice thick plastic? ... so I'm dumpster diving a local furniture store and find huge sheets of bubblewrap. Not your average bubblewrap; it has heavy plastic on one side.
... so I bubblewrapped one of my west/north house windows,... and half the wall ha upgrade. Might bubblewrap my whole house this winter .
Supposed to be a cold one.
I also have a problem I haven't faced before; When cold starting, the glow plug relay (ford starter on the firewall, triggered by the stock glow plug relay) starts to oscilate (sp?). As the starter strains and lowers the battery output, the ford relay shuts off. Voltage goes back up and it turns back on again,... which again strains the battery and voltage drops causing it to turn off. BZBZBZBZBZ
I think a good battery would solve it, I have a bunch of old batteries that work great for the summer. I put my power pulse on them to rejuvenate their capacity. I should buy a new interstate megatron plus for my car this winter it's been years since I bought a new one,.. and I could use it to test my theory.
... but it might be the ignition switch dropping too much voltage on it's way to the stock glowplug relay. I should check for voltage drop across it too.