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Abandoned and Blown Up Project: 1991 GTI 16v Slow Build Thread (SUPER Pic Heavy)

25K views 180 replies 28 participants last post by  esmvdub1 
#1 · (Edited)
Figured I would start a build thread to document everything I am doing to the car. I enjoy looking back on my progress and seeing how far a car comes along. Some of you may remember my last project car, Ron Burgundy (link below). I loved that car but it fought me way too hard every step of the way. And when things I previously repaired and replaced started failing consistently (some of my own doing), I began to get deflated spending so much time, effort, and money on a base model automatic Golf that hated me. Link below if you are interested:

So, now comes along the GTI. Story all starts a few years ago (approx. 2016), a friend of mine on Instagram posted up that he just bought a 91 16v GTI with a blown motor and it was his long term project. I tried to buy it off him to no avail. I told him if he ever wanted to sell it, to let me know. Well right when I had thrown in the towel on my previous project mk2, I was looking for a GTI 16v, and that same friend hit me up. The stars aligned and we made a deal.

The story behind the car is partially unknown and also very strange. Lets just say it was in a junkyard when it was found.

Car is a 1991 GTI 16v that spent almost all of its life in California and Texas. Has about 225k miles on the chassis. Underneath the car is spotless and only rust is around the windshield on the passenger side. It appears to have been well taken care of at one point but maybe got disregarded in its later years.

So my friend was trying to downsize his fleet and offered to throw in all his spare parts (including a spare engine, and KW coilovers) and deliver the car to me for his asking price. Of course I agreed.

The plan for the GTI is going to be a period correct, OEM+, non restored, driver with the ability to be tracked. I love patina. I hate perfect paint. And I want to drive the hell out of this car. I'm on a budget cause I want to be not cause I have to be. So basically smart spending.

You can follow my progress better in instagram as I post more frequently about my cars on there. My handle id @steve_e30m3

So here she is in all her glory:
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You can see on the back window where it says "Abandoned"
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First things first. Putting on my BBS RMs. Centers will be going back to silver eventually.
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I basically started ripping it apart the day it got delivered. I was determined to know what I was getting into.

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#4 ·
Removing the log hitch support with new lift supports:
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Pressure washed the transmission. It was filthy as hell. Much better afterwards.

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Prepping to drop the replacement 16v in:

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And its in. Limited pics of the progress. I was tight on time and wanted to just get that portion done.

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Time to roll out the fleet to get Christmas decorations out. I now own all 3 of my high school dream cars. E30 M3, 91-92 GTI 16v, and a Corrado.

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#103 · (Edited)
Soooo, I have been in the mk2 world for 20 years. I love small bumpers and big bumpers, but I have always loved all the options for small bumper lips. Big bumper lip options are very limited and hard to come by. Since I was about 16 years old I have always wanted this lip for my big bumper cars. Every time I see a picture of a mk2 with this lip (which is only a couple times) I start an obsessive hunt online and come up empty. Then one day one popped up on ebay! The price was high, but I couldn't find one ever for sale on vortex or anywhere else to compare the price to. After some back and forth with the seller, we agreed on a price and I pulled the trigger. After shipping from Canada, the seller ate a ton of the shipping costs, which were way more than he thought, but he was amazing and didn't allow me to cover any of it. Shows how good some of the people in our scene are.

Oh boy!
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Here it is! Zender front lip from the late 90s from Tuning Zubehor!
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I literally couldn't wait and installed it the same day!
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Its way too nice for my car and bumper but who cares. Hahaha. I love it! Literally spent a few days sitting outside and just staring at it. The rarity and period correctness is exactly what I am going after with this car. It doesn't sit low enough to give me anxiety, but completely changes the look of the front of the car. It is perfect!

This all occurred just in time before driving it to York, PA for Vag Fair York. I'll have some pics of the GTI at that show in the coming days.
 
#174 ·
Now were into April. After getting the Diesel fuel tank, and deciding it would work but I am too OCD to put it into the GTI. I decided to take the gas tank out of the white Golf for the GTI and put the Diesel tank into the white Golf.
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Damn crack!! I figured the crack would have gone to the top of the tank and that was why it was leaking so much. But no, it was just the small crack I could see from under the car.
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Stripped the old tank. Just in case I need anything in the future. (Hoarders mentality)
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Gas is too expensive to just leave an almost full tank in the old tank.

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Finally. After over 4 months. The GTI is back in action.
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Attachments

#6 ·
At this point was a lot of buttoning up. Replacing sensors and boring stuff. So I took no pics. I took it for its first drive around my court. It needed the clutch cable adjusted and timing to be set. But its hard to get it where I want it without leaving my court. So I went and got it tagged up. Happened to be on the day of our first snow:

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My old school mentality was determined to find a metal end tank heater core. They were readily available 20 years ago, but couldn't find one for the life of me. I realize other VW metal end tank heater cores can be used. But I am too anal for non direct fit things. I ended up finding one from .......... china. Quality looks decent. To be done at a later date.....

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At this point I just needed to finish some small things before taking it for its first real drive. Started with fuel filter. I started early that day, it was freezing out and the car was covered with frozen dew.
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I finished the tune up with a replacement distributor, new cap/rotor, plugs, and some Neuspeed wires I had been hoarding for 15 years.

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My brother came over and helped me set timing. Took a couple tries due to my own error, but we got it right where it should be. And then I was off for the first drive and to get gas.

I think I have owned 5 or 6 16vs in my life. This has got to be one of the best running ones I have ever driven. It runs so good. Doesnt smoke or smell. Nice power through the RPMs, shifts perfectly. It's very exciting considering I had no clue on the condition of the 16v I put in it. So far so good.

Here are some typical gas station shots. No front bumper on since the one that came with the cars clips are broken. I will have to work on that at some point.

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Back at home resting. Front bumper just slides right on to make it look presentable.

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#88 ·
During my drive to Dubs at the Lake, my rigged repair on my Recaro lower seat mesh failed. My hip was digging into the metal seat frame and figured it was time to buck up and buy a resolution. After doing some research on replacements and tracking down OE mesh, I decided to go with a kit off of ebay to replace the mesh. It was insanely easy to install without taking the seat apart, and now I am not sitting on the floor. It was $44 shipped for new strips for both front seats. Very cheap and well worth every penny.

Failed Flex tape on the left, new kit on the right:
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Took the seat out and installed it from the bottom.
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The seat feels so much better. And now I have a kit for the Passenger side when the original mesh decides to fail.

God I love this car lol

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I have some more things planned, but I hate working in the dead heat of the summer. So might focus more on GTGs and shows for a couple months. I will update when things happen and when I take it to gatherings.
 
#7 ·
This past weekend I started to tackle the interior. There were a couple random switches installed on the car. Luckily all but 1 seem to go to nothing. At some point in the cars life, an owner decided to have universal manual locks installed on the car. So I ripped those suckers out.
Also determined one of the universal switches on the dash controlled the headlights. Which after I did some testing, figured out it was due to a bad headlight switch. So instead of replacing a headlight switch, they hacked up wiring, put an in-line fuse in, and installed a universal switch to turn them on. Sad to see, but easy to repair.

It went from following some wires to ripping half the dash out. Since I am half way to removing the dash. I figured I might as well keep going to replace the heater core.

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The dash is very cracked and in horrible condition. Thankfully the seller provided a much better red striped dash. So while I am doing the heater core, I am just going to replace the dash while I am at it.

Time to tackle this damn door membrane. I started with the driver side to make sure my work held up enough to do the same to the passenger side. This was this past weekend. So I cant report my results just yet.The weatherproof tape needs some trimming so it doesn't hang out around the door panels. Hoping to clean the job up more this weekend.

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Well that's where I am currently at today. This weekend, I hope to finish with the heater core and replacing the dash and possibly mounting the bumper somehow.

Once I get all that done, the fun stuff should start. Installing some go fast bits and of course some of my rare parts I have gathered through the years. Lots of clean up and driving as well.

Stay tuned.
 
#8 ·
This past weekend I started to tackle the interior. There were a couple random switches installed on the car. Luckily all but 1 seem to go to nothing. At some point in the cars life, an owner decided to have universal manual locks installed on the car. So I ripped those suckers out.
Also determined one of the universal switches on the dash controlled the headlights. Which after I did some testing, figured out it was due to a bad headlight switch. So instead of replacing a headlight switch, they hacked up wiring, put an in-line fuse in, and installed a universal switch to turn them on. Sad to see, but easy to repair.

It went from following some wires to ripping half the dash out. Since I am half way to removing the dash. I figured I might as well keep going to replace the heater core.

View attachment 57663 View attachment 57664 View attachment 57665 View attachment 57666

The dash is very cracked and in horrible condition. Thankfully the seller provided a much better red striped dash. So while I am doing the heater core, I am just going to replace the dash while I am at it.

Time to tackle this damn door membrane. I started with the driver side to make sure my work held up enough to do the same to the passenger side. This was this past weekend. So I cant report my results just yet.The weatherproof tape needs some trimming so it doesn't hang out around the door panels. Hoping to clean the job up more this weekend.

View attachment 57667

Well that's where I am currently at today. This weekend, I hope to finish with the heater core and replacing the dash and possibly mounting the bumper somehow.

Once I get all that done, the fun stuff should start. Installing some go fast bits and of course some of my rare parts I have gathered through the years. Lots of clean up and driving as well.

Stay tuned.
I’m “tuned” for this! Another awesome post continuing the resurrection of the vortex!
GL and fantastic Job.
 
#59 ·
More updates time.

First, I replaced the torn stock steering wheel. This is my uber rare New Old Stock Jamex steering wheel. Been holding on to this bad boy for like 15 years waiting for the perfect car to install it in. You will see I have a slight obsession with Jamex products. I love this wheel, it is super period correct, the perfect diameter, and has an amazing feel!

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Next thing I needed to tackle was a recent hesitation issue. With all the things I had already replaced, I figured it was a timing issue. After checking timing, the timing marks were spot on. We determined it may be an injector issue. They were pretty gummed up when I pulled them and back cleaned them, but from what I know about CIS/e injectors, no matter how much you clean them, sometimes they just need to be replaced. Luckily, the price of injectors seems to have significantly dropped since the last time I needed to purchase them new. So I picked up a set of 4 brand new Bosch injectors for just under $170.

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Soaked them in fuel for a 10 minutes, per the Bentleys instructions:

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Then tossed them in.

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#82 ·
Time for another one of my rare prized possessions. A Nothelle Grill Spoiler! I had one of these on my very first Golf and I sold the car with it on it. I have always regretted it! This one popped up on facebook a couple years ago for Quads and I bought it instantly! At the time I had my old Golf and just didn't think the car was worthy of such a rare piece. I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be black to match the grill or color matched to the car. Thankfully I decided to go with color match to the rest of the car.
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I know its a small grill spoiler, but I am in love with it. Completely changes the front end of the car and I can't stop staring at it.

Next I wired in the stock foglights. I had them mounted awhile ago but never wired. Once I ran wires to them and confirmed they were getting power, I realized both bulbs were burnt out. So I went and picked up some new ones and they're still not turning on even though they're getting power. I am tight on time now with only 4 days before I leave, so the fogs will have to wait for another time.

Lastly, the poly insert on the rear motor mount is pretty brutal. The car vibrates pretty bad, much more than any other car I have had with poly inserts. I read online somewhere, 1 poly insert will vibrate way more than 2. If you run 2 poly mounts, cars vibrate less. Soooooo I ordered a solid BFI front motor mount.

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Let me be the first to say, 2 solid mounts vibrate MUCHHH more than 1. That's what I get for trusting some random person that posted in a car forum in like 2004. So I need to figure that out before I leave in 3 days. I don't think the family is going to like the amount of vibrations the car has now. I feel like it was bearable before, and now its far too much.
 
#62 ·
Now that mechanically, the car was in good shape. It was time to install the suspension. The car came with used KW coilovers. The seller told me they may need a rebuild, but I have driven cars with blown cheap coilovers for years. So I figured it was worth a shot with such high quality KWs.

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Stock height.....🤢 🤮
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I was super limited on time, so no pics of the install. Only aftermath...

After some adjusting, I got the ride height just where I wanted. Not too slammed with the perfect rake. GTI rides good and coils had no leaks, so I won't worry about rebuilding the coilovers. Lowering the car has made me fall in love with the car 10 times over. I just stare at it out of my window. 😆😆😆

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I will upload more updates when I get some more free time.
 
#77 ·
Drove it to work again to see if there are any bugs:
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When I went to leave for the day, the GTI had absolutely no power. I couldn't figure out why it was getting no power. It had started after sitting for days multiple times and there was definitely nothing left on. I tried pop starting it multiple times alone. Quite embarrassing in my work clothes and in a business park haha. But I couldn't get it to start. Luckily I found a coworker with jumper cables. Once hooked up it started right up. I drove it all the way home with no issues and once I got it into my driveway and turned it off, it again had no power.

I pulled the terminals off and cleaned them up real good. They looked clean but I guess not clean enough. Cause once I hooked the cables back up, it started perfectly with lots of power. Needless to say, I will have a jump box in the trunk for awhile haha.

For my 3 hour drive to Dubs at the Lake, I will be bringing the whole family along (me, my wife, and 3 kids) and we are staying in a cabin for the weekend. Since I plan on bringing tools and lots of spare parts, I wont have room for our bags. So I picked up a cheap Thule roof box for extra storage.

About 15 years ago I bought a 1991 8v GTI locally that came with a roof rack. I sold the car shortly after buying it, but kept the roof rack. I pulled it out of storage the other day to see the condition and what's needed to mount it. After doing some research, I discovered its a Thule 305 mk2 specific made roof rack. I had no idea! Pretty awesome piece and it mounts great. I had some trouble tracking down the missing pieces, since the rack is fairly rare and hasn't been produced in 10 or 20 years. So for now, I just used some generic hardware to mount it, and I will continue to hunt for the key covers and missing knobs.

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The Thule roof box I picked up came with no hardware, so I am waiting for that to come in the mail before I can mount it. Looking forward to Dubs at the Lake. I paid to put it in the show, mainly for better parking, but this is by far not a show car haha. As long as nothing else breaks, I probably won't touch the car much before the show.

Stay tuned!
 
#87 ·
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This may be a little out of order, but as you may have seen before, I had used some plasti-dip spray tiny on my taillights. I wasn't super pleased with it, but even worse, it started pealing off on its own. So I went ahead and pealed it completely off. After doing some research I found a company online that sold pre-cut smoked film for mk2s and figured I would give them a shot. Shipping took awhile, but the quality was top notch, and looks absolutely AMAZING!

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I am super happy with the turnout of the smoked film. Much cleaner and look as good as I could have expected.

Another non mk2 change to my life. I got a new daily driver. I was driving a 2004 Passat Wagon 1.8t 5 speed 4-motion. As much as I loved that car and have been daily driving for 7 years, I just wanted something more reliable, smooth, and with towing capability. So I sold the Passat and bought a 2012 Touareg V6 Lux. Not driving a manual as my daily for the first time in my life has been an adjustment. Honestly, I can't say that I love it. But it works. Can't wait to tow some of my sh!tboxes with it lol.

Out with the old.
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In with the new:
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#96 · (Edited)
Well small but important update. I wasn't happy with my make shift tailpipe at all. I cringed just looking at it. I'm not very anal about cosmetics, but I really hate saggy tailpipes. So I took the straight pipe I installed off until I could figure something out.

While on vacation in NC for the 4th of July, I decided to hit up some local Junkyards in the area to see if I could hit gold by some chance. Although the yards had very limited euro cars. I did stumble across some gems. Found a complete e36 m3, a mk3 cabrio with cat-back exhaust and coilovers, and a mk1 rabbit shell with exhaust, coilovers, and some other cool parts. I was limited on my tools and space. But I grabbed the tailpipe off of the Rabbit.

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Unfortunately when I got back to MD, I realized this tailpipe was the exact same angle as my mk3 Cabrio one just shorter. But it did have the hanger on it that I needed. So I decided this was the time I needed to finally get my welder set up. I bought my welder at the beginning of the pandemic thinking I would have a lot of spare time to learn how to weld, but literally never touched it. Now I had the motivation to get everything I needed and just fabricate up a damn tailpipe. The car had been off the road for a month and a half just because of it.

Finally went to the gas facility and got me some welding gas.
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Got the right kind of wire and set the welder up. Due to user error it took me forever to figure out how to even get the welder to work properly before starting to practice.

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After about 3 days, I was finally at the point where I had it set up properly (with the right parts in the right places) and it was welding amazingly. Practiced just a few times before I was confident enough to just send it. My brother had some limited welding experience, so I just let him do it instead of me ruining the tailpipe. It came out amazing.

We ended up shortening and changing the angle of the Cabrio tailpipe and added the hanger from the Rabbit tailpipe. I am extremely pleased! So the GTI is back on the road!

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#106 ·
On the way out we decided to take some pics at the entrance and I pretended to know how to shoot cars with my phone. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
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All in all, it was a very successful show. Always fun to talk to other mk2 owners and see other peoples projects. I always find myself more intrigued by the mk2s in the project phase than the immaculate ones you could eat off of. We didn't stay for the whole show and I don't even think our cars were judged. Generally we park in the show for better parking spots, not to win trophies. My brother may have had a chance for 1, but guess we will never know.

I have some small plans leading up to MK2Mayday in September, but nothing crazy. More updates to come.
 
#119 ·
Now its officially MK2 Mayday time. The day before leaving, I decided to take the car to the local car wash for a quick wash. I figured I could take my time and go over the car real well at the car wash that I just couldn't do at home with 3 kids. Boy did I make a mistake:

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After I was done spending about 20 dollars to wash it, I pulled it out and started to dry it off. Only to discover the car wash completely ripped off my clear coat and dulled the car down horribly. It only seemed to mess the clear coat up on my rear quarters, the roof, and the back of the car. I'm guessing thats the only part of the paint thats original. It looked horrible.

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With limited options and less than 12 hours before I had to leave for MK2 Mayday, I decided to try and buy some quick wax and see if I could get some shine back.

Ran to autozone. You can see the difference in the clear coat behind the doors:
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Now I had to go back home and wax it with my 3 kids running around me the whole time. So l accomplished nothing by going to the car wash. hahaha.

Thankfully, it turned out decent and I wasn't too embarrassed to drive it to the show.

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#3 ·
Out comes the motor (I currently dont have access to a hoist and I have no room to own one. So I pull the motor the way I used to in highschool haha)
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Ready for take off!
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Some of the parts beginning to arrive (I know, I ordered the wrong lug bolts):

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Pressure washing the bay. It is no show car so I didn't go crazy. Just wanted it to look decent.
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#52 ·
So I had ordered a 50mm intake manifold from Germany like 4 months ago, and I believe it got lost in shipping. The seller promised to repay me if it never showed up, but when he called to check on it, they told him its still in transit. I had pretty much given up on it. Literally 4 months later after it had been shipped out, it arrived at my door step. It was in much better shape than my first one. I just had to strip the primer off it.
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Now time to get the new injector cups installed.

First, the brass cups get a bath in vinegar. Followed up by a good scrubbing.
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Nice and clean.
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Then I installed the new cups (which took me forever to track down as well)
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Before I install the 50mm manifold. I wanted to pain the valve cover.

Before:
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Pre-paint:
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Fresh paint and clear:
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Not bad for spray paint:

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#54 ·
As you can see the throttle body is missing. I did some old school modification to the throttle body. I remember reading about this like 20 years ago. And luckily I had a handful of 16v throttle bodies with the right parts. I will try to explain this the best I can. But basically this is using oem parts and pieces to create a better flowing big bore throttle body.

Here are the 3 throttle bodies I will be tearing apart:
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First thing is pulling out the proper small butterfly. For some reason (probably gas mileage or idle stability), some 16vs come with a weight on the small butter fly. It restricts flow pretty bad on the small butter fly:

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This is a normal small butterfly:
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This is the restricted butterfly:
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Also, 16v throttle bodies have different thickness inlets. The actual cast is thicker on some, but it also makes the inner diameter smaller. So I used a thin walled throttle body with a non-restricted small butterfly. Viola!!! Oem big bore throttle body...... I guess.

You can see the difference in the thickness of the walls:
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I doubt this makes much of a power difference. Maybe quicker throttle response..... who knows. But I had the parts so why not.


All done:

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Ok there are a lot more updates. Hoping to update the thread more in the coming days.
 
#60 ·
Next was a job that I was seriously dreading. After I got the motor in and running right, I discovered that I had a power steering leak coming from the rack and pinion. I wish I had known this before I put the motor in the car. Finding a new or reman rack was a mission in itself. I ordered a reman rack from a company called Detroit Axle. Promised to have it to me in 2 weeks. After so much back and forth, and broken promises, they didnt deliver after almost 2 months I think. So I cancelled my order and found one through Autozone of all places. None of the big boys online have them anymore, so Autozone rack will have to do.

Decided to replace pretty much everything while I had the subframe dropped.

New control arms and ball joints.

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Supporting the motor to drop the subframe:

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Subframe is out:

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Replaced the motor mounts. G60 trans mount, new solid rubber front mount, and an early rear motor mount with poly inserts.

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No more pics after that point since I was so dirty and so tired. But it was reinstalled with no issues.
 
#67 ·
More updates. I am still catching up with my progress, I am way behind on posting pics.

So I had a pretty bad exhaust leak and I realized the midpipe connecter had been put together pretty terribly. I picked up a later style VW connecter, which I absolutely love, to connect the exhaust properly.

At some point in this cars life, someone just shoved a pipe inside the exhaust and threw clamps on the actual exhaust.

Sensitive content, not recommended for those under 18
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After some persuasion I got the connector piece out.

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Now a proper connecter to hold the exhaust up and resolve much of my exhaust leak.

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Next thing I tackled was the rack and pinion bushing. I had purchased a poly insert before replacing the rack, but once I removed the rack, I realized I had ordered the wrong one. So I had to put the janky rubber one back in and wait for the correct poly bushing.

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I was all alone and had a difficult time holding the nuts on top while loosening the bolts from underneath the car. So I had to get innovative lol.

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Worked like a charm. All done.


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Another junkyard score from about 10 years ago, a Eurosport rear strut bar. Easy installation, so I went ahead and tossed that on too.

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#69 ·
Gave the GTI a real quick wash and drove it to the store
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Next up, another prized possession of mine. A NOS Jamex front lower strut bar. My obsession with Jamex dates back about 20 years and I have been hanging onto this for a loooong time waiting for the right car to put it on.

Still in the packaging
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Easy install
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A B4 Passat popped up at a local junkyard and I grabbed the stock head unit out of it. Went to install it in my GTI and realized I didn't run the radio wires correctly when I had the dash out. So I had to take the center console apart to run the wires.

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Radio plugged right in but it doesn't work. It blinks and the lights turn on with my headlight switch. But the radio doesn't power on. It's not because its locked, because the screen doesn't say SAFE, it doesn't say anything. Tried doing some research and couldn't find much. But its better that a hole in the dash....
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On a sad note.... When I was sliding my seat forward after messing with the pedal, the seat god jammed and I was pulling on my steering wheel to move forward and............ the steering wheel broke. Yes, my Jamex, NOS steering wheel that I had been protecting forever, broke after being in the car for like 2 months. I was super depressed after that, but I guess it will make nice wall art.

I have a bundle of aftermarket wheels, but I don't like the feel of almost any of them. I settled on a Momo Competition wheel. It is probably one of my worse condition wheels, but I like the feel of it the most. It will do for now, but I have a feeling there will be a replacement one day.

Poor Jamex steering wheel :(
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#70 ·
I picked these up. I plan on running a golf ball shift knob eventually, and thought these matching door knobs were amazing.
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All my interior door panel plastic is destroyed, but at least my golf ball knobs look fresh.
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Last major thing to do before I was comfortable to start driving it outside of my town was brake lines. I ordered rubber fronts but then changed my mind before installing and decided to go with steal braided lines. Picked up some Neuspeed braided lines. I don't have many pics from the install cause I was covered in brake fluid.

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All the lines are done now. Brakes are much better and I am no longer worried a lines going to explode on me and kill me.

Washed it again and put some Back to Black on the trim cause the faded trim was pretty rough looking. I am not a huge fan of Back to Black, but it was quick and is better than it was before.

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Now that the GTI is healthy and safe........ safer. I decided to drive it to work.

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I think I am all caught up for now.

More updates to come.

I will be taking it 3 hours into the mountains on May 21st for Dubs at the Lake at Deep Creek Lake, MD.

So Lots of cleaning and prepping for the trip in my future.
 
#76 ·
I decided to try and bring the paint back a little bit before taking it to Dubs at the Lake at the end of May. I didn't want to use a buffer since the paint was so thin and already showing the primer under it in so many places. So I went old school and did it all by hand. Claybarred it (not sure it did much of anything with the state of the paint), and then hand waxed and buffed.

You can see the difference in shine on the far side of the roof.
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Also how shiny the front fender is compared to the doors back:
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Mirrors before:
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Mirrors after:

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Finished up. Took me 4 days of doing a couple panels a day. I know its not professional job, and I probably could have done better. But I am extremely pleased. It is no longer 'Tornado Pink'
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Started to rain once I finished up and it was nice to see the water beading up.

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