it's at its new home.

so a while ago, i bought an '86 n/a diesel golf.
got it from a dude in north carolina, said it was good, no rust, great shape, etc...
went to north carolina ( i live three hours away in ga) and this is what i found...
lot's of positive camber on the front:

a wiring treat:





if you look closely, you can see the cracked pulley bracket here:


the shifter bushings were all shot, the axle boot was torn, the a/c was repaired using various home door fixtures (strike plates, etc), the radio didn't work, every bearing/bushing/nut/bolt/brake on the front end of the car was completely worn out, and the alternator wasn't really charging the system back up.
there was also a different colored fender on, which I asked about, and was told that "it needed a new fender". boy, did i miss out on that one.
basically, it was in need of some fixin'.

so, with the help of some fine friends, i went aboot fixing the mother****er.
i'm only about a third of the way done with what i want to do, mind you.
so:
cleaned up the ol' taillights:


powdered up some ol' parts:


and went to work...


turns out the cracked bracket was due to the previous owner putting a power steering bracket onto the non p/s car, and hand filing the a/c compressor/tensioner pulley bracket to fit it over the wrong piece. ugh. here is the replacement, all powdered up with new hardware (except for the pulley)

put new seals on all of the dash stuff



also fixed up the blend doors, and ran some of this weather stripping on the head of the firewall to help prevent squeaky dashboardoliosis. soldered the radio harness in as well, so as not to use the lowes depot twist ties wire connectors that were in there.
also, this past week, discovered that the frame rails were about an inch off of each other, which is why my front end always had a smirk, and the panel gaps got regressively smaller as you went up the side of the car, and why there was a dent ("oh, i banged my canoe on the roof" - previous owner) in the ol' roof as well. so off to the frame straightener it went...
from:


to:
will be updated after i finish puttin' in the refinished westy core and grille we found locally.

oh, and now, the front stuff went from this:





to this:



brain and eric and eddie and Yoyo and a lot of other good souls have been helping me get this **** all together, and i couldn't be happier. i'm stuck on some dumb little **** right now, but should be all bolted back together by saturday... then the girl comes back in town, and i'll be out of the loop for a while.

so yeah. that's what's happening now. i moved into a new place, i've got no garage, no driveway of mention, and i park in the street. viva independence!