Saving A Full Spec 3 Door VR6

[LouieP]

I've always wanted one of these and I even expressed that in my previous MK4 thread. I never finished my MK4 thread but the car was slammed on KW coilovers, I drove around with it until I was stopped at a RBT checkpoint and was questioned about what the car was lowered on. They had a quick look under and confirmed it was coilovers. I had no cert but the officer was nice enough to not sticker me. She told me to get it certed or remove it and sent me on my way. I never removed it neither did I cert it. I was on the edge of getting rid of the car anyway but paranoia was kicking in so the car was put back to stock and sold off. I was happy that I sold it for more than i paid for it 4 years earlier. I replaced it with a MK7 GTI which will hopefully be hybrid turbo'd by the end of 2020. Stay tuned 
http://www.vask.org.nz/index.php/topic,42023.0.html

Back onto this - I had lost interest in finding my dream spec VR as frankly it had been 5 years since I pulled the plug on the search. I was under the impression that they did not exist anymore. The ones that did come up for sale were ex-enthusiast cars (tidy, expensive and modified which I did not want). This came up however and it would have been rude for me to not snatch it up. I believe this may be the last full spec original 3 Door VR6 left and also the last that was sold in New Zealand in 1996. It all started when I took my morning 10 minute break at work when this came up for sale on VASK fb page. I immediately sent Qualitat a message and we exchanged a few messages before things went quiet. I then got a response that this car was now sold. Bugger! A few days went by and Ryan from Qualitat contacted me to say that the buyer had pulled out.I shot over first thing in morning, checked it out and took it for a spin. I was surprised at how original the car was with all the OG Blaupunkt gear in it, it had belonged to an older couple for the last 15 years or so. I've also never been in a VR6 so quiet LOL. I made Vahn an offer and did an immediate bank transfer, I came back later that night and fetched it as I still had to get to work, whoops.

I dont have big plans for this but as the title says, I will be giving it a second shot at life and it will be back up for sale after I tidy it up. The theme is OEM+ but i will de-cone the airbox and possibly build a 2.5" catless Borla exhaust for that noise 

1996 NZ New Volkswagen VR6 3 Door - Sold originally by Giltrap w/full dealer service history until 2013
Heated Leather, Sunroof, Manual
235,xxxkm

She needs some love but nothing I can't sort out over the upcoming Summer. Some key things wrong with her are:

- Drivers side window not working
- Cosmetic marks and scratches for a vehicle of its age. I will 2 stage machine polish her and ceramic coat later down the road
- Slight chain rattle although i think this is early stages as it is very minimal

Photos below of how I got her
























Rare tape box






Thanks for reading

[rambo_005]

Nice one! It's very likely to be one of the last few sold in NZ. Agree that there's not many good ones left, most were ruined by youngsters as their values dropped.

My mate has a super tidy NZ new red 3 door manual with leather and sunroof. Currently stored. He's been working away at tidying it up over a long period of time; engine rebuilt and repainted. Only mods are a custom exhaust, H&R cup suspension and OZ Ultraleggera wheels, but have the original 15" wheels still.

Love the VR6

[redvr6]

I have a 95 NZ new 3 door in Red. Completely standard apart from radio. I'm in the process of tidying it up - possibly looking for a leather interior as cloth trim looking very tired now. I hope the project goes well.

[Poonmobile]

Good work, i went and had a look, and it was too much of a project for me. So i hope you can give it a new lease of life! It definitely deserves it, and too many have been butchered and 'riced' over the years so it will be amazing once you are done with it

[LouieP]

Nice one! It's very likely to be one of the last few sold in NZ. Agree that there's not many good ones left, most were ruined by youngsters as their values dropped.

My mate has a super tidy NZ new red 3 door manual with leather and sunroof. Currently stored. He's been working away at tidying it up over a long period of time; engine rebuilt and repainted. Only mods are a custom exhaust, H&R cup suspension and OZ Ultraleggera wheels, but have the original 15" wheels still.

Love the VR6

Thanks mate! Agreed, majority of the golfs are being ruined by youngsters because of the low prices especially the mk5. I did not want that to happen to this one too.

Nice! I'd like to hear more about this custom exhaust. Do you have any pics? Maybe we should get a '3 Door Appreciation Thread' going for all the platforms on here

[LouieP]

I have a 95 NZ new 3 door in Red. Completely standard apart from radio. I'm in the process of tidying it up - possibly looking for a leather interior as cloth trim looking very tired now. I hope the project goes well.

Nice! Get some pictures up. IMO, I would look into the GTI recaros which are comfy as heck and also look nicer. The 5 door version folds forward too so they are perfect 

[LouieP]

Good work, i went and had a look, and it was too much of a project for me. So i hope you can give it a new lease of life! It definitely deserves it, and too many have been butchered and 'riced' over the years so it will be amazing once you are done with it

Cheers, I thought the same too (too much work) but then i realised that is how these end up being stripped for parts or at Zebra. Someone has to bite the bullet right

[redvr6]

Nice! Get some pictures up. IMO, I would look into the GTI recaros which are comfy as heck and also look nicer. The 5 door version folds forward too so they are perfect 

Here's one - will post more later once I've put the side skirts on.
IMG_3428 by

[LouieP]

Here's one - will post more later once I've put the side skirts on.
IMG_3428 by

Good buy! I remember seeing this for sale on vask fb a while ago

[redvr6]

Yeah, still got. Can't  bring myself to get rid of it.

[LouieP]

I've been a bit busy recently but managed to get something done. It was time to de-cone the airbox  . I opened up the airbox to find a lot of dirt and...dead bees, infact these bees were all over the car!



The filter looked nasty and was filled with leaves, dirt and yup you guessed it more bees. I did not have a new filter on hand but did blow this one out. Will order a performance panel filter from the UK in the new year



After much struggle the cone came out





Whilst the airbox was out, it made sense to give the MAF a clean with some MAF cleaner. I used the stuff below and it really helped smooth the idle especially between gear changes. I did the same on my MK4 and there was a noticeable difference with the way the car drove. No additional hp though. Will tackle the throttle body once i get a gasket.



Before



After (Looks the same tbh but check the container out)





Cleaned the airbox out and put everything back together. The internet tells me that the ducting pipe that goes into the airbox is pointless and that it should be removed. Is this correct? It doesn't help that photobucket did the dirty and now the older DIY threads on the vortex are picture-less

[80 Vert]

Nice work, good to see it being saved as you just don't see them anymore.
I've still got a new performance filter at work for one of these, cheap to help your project along.
Nice to see on the forum btw.

[the phantom]

don't believe everything you read on the internet, that duct will bring cold air to the intake, many mods put the intake in the under bonnet area where temperatures are much higher

this site is a pain to search and navigate, but there's a wealth of practical, tested modification advice, he flow tested a bunch of factory air boxes and filters with a manometer and decided that most factories knew what they were doing



http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&title=Building-and-Testing-an-Airbox&A=113248

[LouieP]

Nice work, good to see it being saved as you just don't see them anymore.
I've still got a new performance filter at work for one of these, cheap to help your project along.
Nice to see on the forum btw.

Thanks John, Pm'd reg the filter

[LouieP]

don't believe everything you read on the internet, that duct will bring cold air to the intake, many mods put the intake in the under bonnet area where temperatures are much higher

this site is a pain to search and navigate, but there's a wealth of practical, tested modification advice, he flow tested a bunch of factory air boxes and filters with a manometer and decided that most factories knew what they were doing



http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&title=Building-and-Testing-an-Airbox&A=113248

Thanks for the website. I agree that the ducting will bring through more cold air through to the airbox but I have not looked at where the ducting is coming from. I will probably remove that ducting and replace it with my own sort of custom version.

[LouieP]

Thanks John, Pm'd reg the filter

Can you please clear your inbox?

[LouieP]

The big clean...

Interior

Just like with all the cars I purchase, it goes through a strict cleaning regime. According to the receipt in the back seat the last time this car was vacuumed was circa 2009. There was dirt and old droppings of food everywhere.

I started off with the boot





Some sort of oily residue inside the spare wheel. Some more dirt and more bees.







The boot was vacuumed and worked with some APC and a detail brush to get into all the nooks and crannies


After:



The spare wheel was washed and the tools were wiped down before they went back in the car


Boot done!

I then moved on to the cabin. Easiest way to work through the inside was to remove all the seats so this was done first.

















Who knows what the heck this was! Looks like a piece of the Simpsons donut. It was stuck to the carpet and clinging on for its life


and a note pre-smartphone era Sounds serious!


The rear cleaned up and all the plastic trim wiped down. The carpet looked good as new.


Leather seats

I left the seats out in the sun for about half an hour to tighten it up. They were then vacuumed up before the APC was diluted further for the clean




Seats were worked with a detail brush



A bit of a comparison - uncleaned vs cleaned
What a difference !




Door cards were done the same way
before:


after:




How my towel looked after all the plastics were wiped down. Left is how it would looked before I started 



I put the car back together and dressed all the trim with Carpro PERL diluted 5:1 for that new car look. I did not get any pictures as yet but i was blown away with how many years the clean took off the interior. Ill whip out my camera for the shots in the near future. I still have to detail the exterior so will get it all done at once.

Till next time

[Poonmobile]

great work mate!!

[LouieP]

Not a big update but an update nonetheless. I still have not gotten fully stuck into it as yet but the small bits here and there really help things move along

Stopped by Mr Kanters to pick up an air filter and reflector blank







The new blank isn't sitting perfect but ill be removing these anyway for the exterior detail so i'll sort it out then


Also a tidy little Mk3 GL at Zebra Manukau donated its accelerator pedal 




I initially bought a throttle body gasket to change while i was here. It looked like someone tried to take it off and rounded off the last scew . I just ended up cleaning it while still attached. If anyone wants a gasket, pm me. selling cheap

Before - wasnt too bad


After - revs are now a lot smoother


There was some soy sauce that spilled on the rear boot mat so i gave it water blast which cleaned up real nice and did the floor mats too.. I've been looking for some second hand replacements but the NZ New cars came with a black more premium look material opposed to the Jap light grey color. I knew i would never find a NOS set so made do with what I had.





It also looks like someone stitched another mat over the drivers mat for some reason. It looked horrible, after closer inspection there was actually nothing wrong underneath. I got the stanley knife out and cut it off.





The interior is almost perfect (for a 24 year old car). Just the headliner left and I would really like to find a MK3.5 cabrio 3 spoke steering wheel. If anyone knows where I can get some 3-4mm foam backed headliner fabric (or a cabrio wheel  ) that would be really helpful


Thanks

[80 Vert]

The best material by far comes from a guy in Wellington but Waikumete upholsterers stock it.
Do NOT use spray can glue, it's useless.
Need to use a proper spray gun to apply the contact glue.