[Enur]

83' Golf LX Resto-Project with pics!

Hi guys... !
I have found great inspiration on this forum, and now I want to share my own project!
I bought the car last year. The price was right, an I had though of getting a Golf project, and suddenly I was the owner of this 1983 Golf model LX. Engine is a stock 1.5 litre with the code JB.
The colour is Mars-red and the car is equipped with some extras because it is a LX model (Some of the last German made Mk. 1's)
My plan is to keep it retro/oldschool/Euro or whatever you call it

(guess it is pretty euro when i'm from Denmark

)
I will ad some chrome and extras to the car when rust, bodywork, paint and others has been fixed. Progress is slow while my friend and I have a hard time finding a garage/workshop for our cars, but hopefully that will soon change. Therefore I don't know when it is all done...
I have thought about doing a future engine swap. I have access to a complete Scirocco GTX with 1.8l DX engine in it. This engine swap could be a problem with the rules here in Denmark so I must find a way to do it legally. Therefore the original 1.5l engine will be restored first.
I might lack some techinal terms, have bad mistakes in typo and gramma, but I am from Denmark so please bear with me! Hope you will understand some of it ...

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This is the car. My friend and I drove it home, but soon with we had problems! At the first test drive (Before I bought it..) we haven'd noticed that the engine acted very weird once it got warm. It would not idle and when cruising it suddenly lost breath. The trip home was 50-60 km but it took us forever to get home! I was pretty angry with the situation, the previous owner had not mentioned this problem with the car even though we had asked him... Well Sh'it happens!
The day after it came home I took these pictures:

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When looking around the car I found that the car was in pretty good condition. Interiour is super clean, but the drivers seat is worn apart as usual.
The climate here in Denmark and the fact that our roads get salted all winter have "killed" many older cars like this one, but this one look liked someone had taken good care of it. It has some rust in the rockerpanels and a little bit in front fenders and the doors. Underside is heavily covered with rust protecter.
It still has the original sparewheel with the original tire on. It has never been used, the trunk is also clean an healthy.

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I believe I am the 4'th owner of the car. Second owner had sadly started some ***** mods on the car by adding a huge cheap fart can exhaust an neon-lights under the dash, he also started some bad work on the rear wheel arches, they are heavy widened... Exhaust and lights will be removed. Arches will be repaired if possible.

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The was bought in the fall last year - first task was to do a quick repair to those rear fenders so winter would not eat them of as they were only in primer. My friend an I brushed them of using wire wheels and then primered and painted then. We redo them again later.

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Played around with a set of 15" Mercedes rims I have lying. Thougt of polishing them, but would need expensive adapters to use them

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Soon after i found a set of 7*15" BBS wheels (From a BMW I believe)with tires to http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif price - so they came home also

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In the early winter a guy searched for winterwheels for his Cabrio and he wanted to swap with his summerwheels. I would not drive my Golf in the winter so gave him my rusty 13's with winter tires and got these instead:

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8" and 9" by 14" Steffan Cup wheels with tires, started to repair the lips as they had talked to some curbs here and there...

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Just had to try them on even though it was cold an raining that day - they fit easy under the wide rear arches

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Winter came cold an with snow - the Golf had to stay outside, what a shame

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My friends a I spend most evenings inside McD talking cars and drinking hot coffee - the red Audi A4 is my dailydriver, the Scirocco and the Mk 2 belong to 2 of my good friends

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We also used some time on fixing my best friends "new" Mk 2 in a garage which belong to another friend. Sadly there werend space for our cars to stay there permanently.

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I work at a VW/Audi garage an one day an older co-worker had good things lying around at home, I was lucky an he gave me this original Hagus mirror - had to try it on

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I also fixed up my gascap with new stainless bolts and polished the aluminium

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More updates and pictures will follow ..

- Hope you enjoy! http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif



Modified by Enur at 10:14 PM 8-22-2007

 

[The_GTi_Art]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

nice!! keep the pics coming http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

 

[9IN3TH1NG5]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif looks like you're going to have some fun

 

[Enur]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

Sometime ago i was bored on a rainy day - so i started an experiment. Had read about removing rust with the help of citric-acid, but was a little skeptic - i started with taking the belt-cover from "my" donor Scirocco engine:

Brushed the surface rust off with a steelbrush and a electric drill, after that mixed citric acid (powder/crystals) with hot water to speed up the process and dropped the cover into the mixture (Picture shows the cover after 1½ day in the mixture)

After a couple of days the acid had actually removed most of the old paint and the rust had dissapered too - cover came up once again and after a quick wash and dry looked like this

Brushed once again with the steelbrush

And primed with zink and then painted in Light Beige. The colour is a little off in the picture

Worked better than i thought it would - i like the result http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif
Hope i don't put in to much text here with my bad spelling

Modified by Enur at 7:11 PM 6-26-2007

 

[avw4me]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

Great project. Looks like those rear arches need is some grinding to smooth them out and you will be able to fit 9's in there.

 

[Enur]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

At the monent i'm trying to solve some problem - i had to take the insert out of the dash. What i believe was a bad lightswitch had made a wire burn up inside the dash, from the switch to a point behind the stearing wheel

Notice i have mounted a nice old stearingwheel made of wood - if i don't remember all wrong it is a Momo wheel (The horn-button is wrong I know..)

I believe i'm a bit lucky anyway. Only one wire was damaged apparently - but what a pain to fix wires inside the dash

Also discovered that the timingbelt was sloppy as a piece of boiled spaghetti - therefore NO "test" drives before it is changed. Will bring new parts home soon

Good thing is that when looking under the carpets this is what you see:

Maybe in the future the cars ends up something like this - undless i change my mind

Modified by Enur at 7:10 PM 7-2-2007

 

[Fein1]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

I bookmarked this one.
Under your carpet is crazy clea. It also looks like theres no deadening in place. Has someone done work in the past. The project is comming along very well.

 

[Enur]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Fein1)

Quote, originally posted by Fein1 »

Under your carpet is crazy clea. It also looks like theres no deadening in place. Has someone done work in the past.

I just looked at a high-res of the picture taken under the carpet. What you see, is actually the painted surface of the deadening. You can also see the original wax used inside the body.
I don't believe everyone have been under those carpets since the factory. Maybe i will pull out all the carpets one day, to clean everything nicely - i promise to get more pics if i do

 

[Enur]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

Progress is still slow at the moment .. cleaned more parts using the citric-acid bath and steelbrush - belt pulleys and the alternator bracket :

All cleaned up very well! Here they are just drying after being sprayed with zink-spray

One of the other projects is getting this back to former glory :

Should end up like some of the parts that are allready done http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

The table in my small workshop (Not big enough to house the car...

) is also full of parts

Re-organised some stuff the other day an found my old Schroth seat-belts in a box - they will probably go in the Golf in the future (Also a chance to whore out my work-chair covered with the leather from a R32 drivers seat...

)

Just bought the Haynes manual to get the wiring diagrams an so on, - i believe it will be nice to have around someday

My summerholiday starts 10 days or so - i hope to get some more done there - one of the plans is to go an part out an 1987 Scirocco together with my a friend. He will use bodyparts for his Scirocco, while i take engine, transmission and suspension

Car is imported an therefore in really good condition. A shame to part out actually, but the taxes havend been payed a no one wants to. Therefore it continue its life in other cars

Looks a little ruff in the picture, but it has been sitting outside for a long time. Body has little rust, still not sure if the engine can be used - but i will find out

Modified by Enur at 8:01 PM 7-25-2007

 

[2manyprojects]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (Enur)

Looks good http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

 

[Enur]

Re: 83' Golf LX Resto-Project (2manyprojects)

Quote, originally posted by 2manyprojects »

Looks good http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

Thanks - comments and cheers are always welcome! It all helps on the motivation, so keep em' coming

http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

 

[ekkoj]

I'll have to keep an eye out for this one.
Good work on the engine parts my friend

 

[Enur]

Re: (ekkoj)

Thanks Ekkoj ... !

Used a little time the other day on giving the car a good wash - tryed to bring back the original shine of the paint, by polishing. Worked out pretty good - Easy to se on the half of the roof http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

Also tryed on the C-pillar

Together with the daily driver ..

Also cleaned a set of bumpers - got them from a Co-worker who where about to throw them in the dumpster

. Also got a set of fender flares. All in good condition with minimal rust on the brackets! Nice score i think http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

Also found this shifterknob the other day - it's from a New Beetle, i like the design ...

Will go and pick some more of these one of the following days i hope - they are not that easy to find around here but have found a place

Modified by Enur at 6:32 PM 8-11-2007

 

[Enur]

Yesterday i came home from a nice weekend trip to the VW/Audi Treffen in Schafflund Germany. Around 1500 cars and lots of crazy party people, mostly German and Danish made the best of the weekend even though some rain made the entire field into a mud-bath!

I will bring more pics from the event soon in another tread, i just wanted to show some stuff i took home for the Golf :

Found these in my opinion nice headlights, they are clear black with crosshairs http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

Also bought the frontbumper turnsignals that match:

The last thing is a set of hood-lifts ..

I will ad a link once i have all the pictures ready from the meeting! I took almost 300 pictures http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif



Modified by Enur at 8:35 PM 8-20-2007

 

[Enur]

Did a little more work today - i think i made a huge difference. Started the boring job of cleaning the enginebay which is covered in old rust protection. I has done a good job of protecting the paint and body but it looks like azz!

This is what it looked like when i picked up the car:

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This is the bay after todays work

:

Stil missing alot thoug

- this is the other side:

Cleaned up pretty good -
before:

After:

Finally i sprayed the areas with this original clear VW wax product as new protection http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif

 

[Enur]

Did some more work in the bay last weekend - the other side is now pretty clean to

As i wrote earlyer i had a plan of maybe swapping the Scirocco DX engine into the Golf - last weekend 2 friends and myself went to slaugter the Scirocco. Along the way the idea of the engineswap was cancelled. I don't now the engine and if it runs so don't want to use the time on that engine. Maybe another one someday.
Instead it gave up some smaller parts of the engine that can be used on my own engine:
If this radiator works and dont leak I will use it - believe the size is and advantage - On the right is the standard 1500 fanshroud:

Also took complete ignition system, with this I get electronic ignition (Hall giver) instead of the old system using points (breakers?)

Cleaned up the distributor :

Painted some of the smaller parts that go on the side of the distributor:

Hope that i will be easyer to use and make my engine run well

Also unbolted this bracket which mount up between the front bolts that hold the swingarms on the front suspencion. Believe it will make the car more stiff when it gets lowered

Modified by Enur at 3:06 PM 9-1-2007

 

[Enur]

Re: (Enur)

Not much happent since my last update - Have a problem with my old camera, therefore can't show the pictures from our Scirocco slaugther now

Only things done since then is my ignition parts:

And a picture of the car as it sits now:

Please throw in comments or advices ..

Modified by Enur at 3:27 PM 9-21-2007

 

[sicklyscott]

Looks good! Your engine bay has inspired me!

 

[IronTrap]

wow looks like a fun project! all of my projects seem to be in the boring stages of welding/grinding/fab'ing.. i cant wait until i can just clean and paint nice parts!
-matt

 

[Enur]

Thanks guys ...

I believe i will see the boring stages you talk about too - my problem is that i keep searching for at garage where me and a friend can work on our cars - this ain't easy to find

Until now i have done mostly smaller thing to the car, while it is what i feel i can do right now.
I hope to get it indoor before winter which is coming closer. Once it is inside i will have to repair some smaller rust problems

Anyway - i look forward to these welding/grinding/fab'ing projects, and also the time when the car will hit the road. http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif