Projekt Golf Zwei

[uzumati]

Geez . I thought I was lucky to set eyes on it in the metal yesterday lol .the attention to detail is scary.the opportunity was much appreciated and great to put a face to the name.this build is next level.

[80 Vert]

Finishing detail always takes forever and certainly no exception here. Most of the engine bay finished and sorting out the last of the wiring I realised there wasn't really any room for the mk2 washer tank.
Wanting to keep the engine bay as clutter free as possible I decided to make my own and hide it in the rain tray where the stock ecu used to be and it even has a handy cover over it to hide it away completely.
Made one out of cardboard to play with sizing etc and placement to clear the wiper motor arms.

Folded it up out of scrap sheet aluminium and tig welded it together, had to make a neck for a Mk5 cap to clip on to and used the stock mk2 washer pump.
Uses the stock clips and tray mountings which used to hold the ecu to keep it in place.
Coat of wrinkle black from a spray bomb completes yet another little detail, doesn't hold much water but plenty for wofs and the odd screen wash. Never going to daily this car in winter or anything so will be just fine.

[80 Vert]

Johnnytron you absolute legend, contacted me out of the blue to say he'd found the original owners books and wallet for the Mk2 from when he used to own it. Nice to reunite these with the car after a 10 year absence.
Thanks bud, appreciate it.

[rambo_005]

That's so cool

[80 Vert]

On wards with the interior, both front floors were super solid but did have surface rust starting and the bitumen sound insulation was cracking and falling apart. Now was the right time to take all of it off, treat the rust and apply new material.
Heat gun and scraper worked wonders, passenger floor was the worst compared to the driver floor which still wore most of its factory primer.
Wire wheeled the minimal rust and treated it with Brunox, once dry new sheets of Bostik tar board went down heated and pressed in to all the recesses of the floor panel.
Rear floors were in great shape so I decided to just leave them alone, before and after.


Time to start thinking about the front end and bumper. New / used grille restored and inside of the lights cleaned a nice easy job.
The bumper not so much, obviously had fog lights as the switch and wiring was there but no lights. Bought some Ebay re pop lights which are very average in quality but do the job for now. At some stage I'd like to find some originals somewhere.
The bumper, well that was a complete mess. Every single clip and tab holding the steel reinforce to the cover was broken. Crudely screwed together with some self tappers and wood screws. Some real geniuses have worked on this poor car.
This turned in to a 2 day job to straighten out the reinforcement bar and make new brackets to attach the cover so that it fits tightly together and to the body again.
Ideally it needs a new bumper but little chance of finding a nice one here, let me know if anyone has something.
Looking at it now you'd never know how poked it was.

Using the factory Mk6 airbox I wanted to retain the oem plastic intake pipe as well but due to placement being slightly different the 2 would not meet. Looked at joining 2 pipes together but that didn't really work out.
In the end just a simple extension machined from some intercooler piping did the trick nicely.

[le mans]

Great score getting those original books and owner’s wallet. So good of the previous owner to get in touch and send those to you. And as for the rest of it, a truly epic resto-mod. Such a cool car.

[dubstar]

That engine bay really does look OEM

[80 Vert]

Front end on for the final time or so I thought at least, that was until solving the A/C became a problem.
The engine ecu has full control over the cooling fans speeding up and slowing down as it deems necessary to control coolant temps and on a Mk5/6 the Canbus handles the A/C on messages turning on the fans.
There didn't seem any way to break in to turn the fans on when the A/C was switched on, this became a real headache to solve in the end. I did get to a point where disconnecting the outside air temp sensor would turn the fans on so I thought about the A/C switch simply breaking this contact and the fans would run.
Problem with this was that the fans would run full bore.....not ideal.
The more I thought about it the more it wasn't for me, at that point I remembered I had a single factory fan from a late Mk7.5.
This could work, use the 7.5 fan for the engine and the Mk5/6 slave fan (normally driven by the mk5/6 main fan) for the A/C.
Cooling pack needs to come out......again...

Took the Mk5/6 main fan and control unit out and swapped in the 7.5 one, had to pretty much re make everything at this point including the attachment for the fan blade.
Rewired everything to suit and now the engine ecu just controls one fan however both are connected to coolant temp so that at high temps both fans can run.
Found that the Mk3 Cabriolet had the simplest wiring for A/C so I would use that.

Had to make room for some extra sensors which would go in the coolant pipe I made to run under the front engine mount, at the same time I made and added a centralised coolant drain as I was tired of the mess it created pulling a hose off to drain the coolant.
New Mk3 sensors for coolant and A/C these were wired up to a separate Mk3 coolant fan control module to run the A/C and fan for it.
This way if coolant gets too hot with A/C on its cuts the A/C off as well, nice safeguard.
Although a huge amount of work this is a 1000% better solution, besides we were in lockdown....what else am I gonna do!

[coons]

Nice one. Coolant drain plug is great, why don't they do this from factory. I remember I never got the AC figured out on my Mk3 - I kind of gave up. But being a bit of an OEM freak it always annoyed me that I knew it didn't function..

[80 Vert]

Time to start thinking about finishing the interior, the speedo cable is too long since on a mk2 it used to reside on the front of the gearbox where as now it's on the back at the firewall.
Didn't  want to wait until after lock down  to have a new one made so I decided to make my own.
Somehow I had to make the cable end square again after cutting the length down so I made these V blocks in the mill.
Once at the desired length just put the cable in the blocks and squeeze them in the press to get the square drive I need. Easy peasy.

Replacement dash from Lane without cracks cleaned up really  nicely and looks a damn sight better than the mess that was there before.
Front carpets back in as well starting to look like a car again.
The carpet looks great after 2-3 waterblast sessions and vacuuming half a dozen times.
Each time getting a bit more crud out of them.
Used a std dbw pedal to blend in with the others, wiring just about there as well.

Got a nifty unit from Tanks Inc in the states that matches any sending unit to any gauge and is fully programmable in my case matching my mk6 sending unit to the mk2 cluster.

[80 Vert]

Never thought getting the tach to work would be this difficult. Thanks to USRally team it was, they had a can bus unit that extracts an rpm signal from the can bus. I'd bought their unit after emailing them and explaining what engine I had and what I wanted to achieve with it.
After waiting endlessly through youshop I installed the unit which came with no instructions (had to google these) and it didn't work, after sales support was less than helpful. Soo typical of an American company.
Feeling fairly annoyed at this point I just needed to put that aside and move on.
Had to find a solution for a check engine light, came up with a nice solution in the end by modifying the central hand brake light and fitting the Check Engine, EPC light on one side and put Low Fuel and ABS on the other side.
When off these are completely invisible and you'd never know they are there.

As is usually the case with old cars a lot of things don't work, on this Mk2 most of the bulbs in the switches and heater controls were burnt out. These are part of the unit and can't be replaced simply.
I wanted all of this stuff to work so took each one apart carefully and soldered in new bulbs, quite fiddly but that's what is so great about old stuff you can actually take it apart and repair it.
McAllister radio repair had expertly replaced the leds in the radio so with new speakers in, all wiring fixed the period Blaupunkt could be fitted. Happy days.

Lockdown announced to drop down to level 2 soon I could almost taste a proper full test drive in a mostly completed car, In the meantime I'd found something very special for the Golf (for me anyway haha) and as soon as we were to drop to Level 2 I was planning to go pick this up.
Until then short drives in the industrial estate would have to do. No tach still but I did buy yet another unit from another supplier in the US, incidentally a unit I considered before buying the USRT one. go figure.
With the Global pandemic in full effect this would take nearly 2 months to arrive but that was the norm then, still is today from some places as I've recently experienced.

[le mans]

The attention to detail on this build and all the lateral thinking required is next level.

[coons]

Maybe you're glossing over a lot of it, but getting it to work with the Mk2 cluster (or dash in general) is impressive - obviously the tacho caused a few headaches.

Is the whole car converted to a Mk6 loom or have you spliced in a Mk2 loom for most of the cabin?

[80 Vert]

Thanks Jon, yes massively frustrating at times but a proper challenge which is what I wanted from this build.

Sam, the whole car is stock CE2 MK2 wiring with the MK6 engine bay fuse box (which powers the engine ECU) spliced in.
The Mk2 tach has its own unique required pulse signal to work which is why the USRT can bus converter didn't work, they had me wasting a bunch of time splicing it in different places but as I found out myself in the end the signal their box puts out the Mk2 tach can't read hence no worky.
The tach, Alt light and oil pressure light caused the most grief to get working, some my own failings but persistence prevailed.

[80 Vert]

Don't want to bore anyone with detail but the Alt light was a good fail on my part and can laugh about it now but it was pretty annoying at the time.
Couldn't get the light to work, tested the wiring, cluster bulb etc. Grounding the alt wire made the bulb light up so I knew the MK2 wiring was fine, once that wire gets 12V+ from the alternator the light goes out.
Had to be the alternator on the engine, but was it? Charges fine with the engine running so wtf?
After a lot of head scratching I decided to pull the alternator and change the regulator as i didn't have a spare alternator to chuck on. NOPE, nothing.....
Decided it had to be the alternator so took it off again and with it on the bench I started looking more closely at the regulator and noticed a production date of 14, hmm that's possibly MK7...
2nd regulator was also dated 13, also potentially MK7 meaning STOP / START so the light is handled by the canbus and not the regulator.
Went hunting and found a MK5 R32 engine uses a different alternator (won't fit my engine but the regulator does).
Installed that and guess what, light on and goes out as normal.
How I ended up with a MK7 Alternator on my engine is still a mystery but that's just one tale of some of the problems I came across on this build.

[80 Vert]

Once on its wheels outside in the light I felt the tail pipes were too small, I'd used dual 2" and these didn't really fill the bumper cut out nearly enough for my liking. Easy fix with a couple new 2 1/4" pipes made and welded on.
Minor thing but looks a lot better, doesn't give much away as to what's hiding under the hood.

Job done

Our lockdown had been dropped to Level 2 so it's road trip time. Been on the hunt for a wrecked Audi B2 80 or 90, much like Mk2 Golf's there's not many of them left.
I'd come close to finding what I needed a couple times but every time didn't quite get there and then heard about one at Smash Palace so I emailed them straight away but due to Covid never got a reply. Once at level 2 I got straight on the blower to them.
Yes, a 90 5 cylinder sedan! Excellent.
Parts I wanted were there and they very graciously agreed to let me remove the parts myself.
Really really great people to deal with, especially  Barbara in the office.
Sent me some pictures and we planned a weekend away on completely eemmmmptyyyyyy roads, was awesome. No traffic, camper vans........nothing.
Down via Otorohanga taking advantage of Chateau Tongarero offering cheap rates to get customers in after a very quiet Covid period.
The R was awesome, what a machine. Never ceases to amaze how each generation just gets better.

I'd gone past this place heaps of times but never stopped in so I was quite excited to finally explore this legendary place.
They had gotten rid of heaps of wrecks and changed the layout a lot to make it more user friendly and cars easier to find which was a little sad to see but it is a business after all so..
I got a good laugh at all the English junk that was there, Rubbish when they were new. All the worst English cars I remember seeing on the roads, Land Crabs, Maxi's, Avengers, Hillman's oh lordy!
Britain's finest where they all belong  Never stood a chance against the Beetle and Golf.

[80 Vert]

With acres of crap in two yards to look at this could take a while but the suffering placed on my wife would be too much haha so best to have a quick look around and get on with the job at hand.
Righto lead the way to what I came here for, through several buildings and work shops, down a narrow path to a small yard there it was sitting beside a shed.
What a thing of beauty!

So what are we here to get? Correct, its manual operated 2 way tilt / slide sunroof. Direct bolt in to a Mk2 Golf which was never offered with a tilt / slide roof.
Was a bit concerned that it would be rusty due to the length its been sitting but nothing was visible from the outside and I'd already decided anyway that no matter if rusty or not I was going to save it and make it work.
Brought a bunch of tools with me that I thought I might need. As expected the roof no longer operated, it would try to open a little but I didn't force it.
Managed to open it enough to slide the interior panel back and disassembled it from there, easy once the main panel was out.
Removed all the cables and guides as well as the crank mechanism, with just an empty hole in the roof you could easily see the metal sunroof box was exactly the same as a Mk2 Golf.
Placed an old windscreen sitting nearby over the hole, collected all the parts and job done.
Had a chat with the owners and asked if they had any other VW's, he said there's a Santana somewhere haha.... umm ok yeah maybe not. With that we hit the road, a really memorable experience going there.
Back to Auckland via a totally empty Ohakune and Taupo.
Once back time to strip the paint off, first mistake. Used a stripping disc which even using lightly put too much heat in to the paper thin metal.
Thankfully I noticed it early on and stopped, paint stripper on the rest to bare metal. Sandblasted the inside frame and acid washed the whole thing.
Found a small area of rust that needs repair, much better than I could have hoped for. The black circle is a low area most likely caused by my stripper disc as the panel was straight before I started.
Had to remove a section of the inner frame to get at the rusty area that needed repair, the main outer panel is only 0.7mm so very thin and mig welding this would distort the crap out of it so I'd be trying to tig weld this.

[80 Vert]

Next up was to take everything apart, clean everything and lube the cables and guides.
Quite a few pot metal parts, one of which was broken as were a couple of small plastic pieces.
The pot metal drop down guides were both bent from being forced at some point so with a little heat I was able to straighten those back to where they should be.
The broken side guide I copied in steel, no doubt at some point the other side will break as well so I'll make another one at that time.
The pivot pin was able to be removed from the old part and tapped home in the replacement I made. The plastic guides I made out of nylon, these still need some refining which I decided to leave till it comes apart again for exterior paint.

Mechanism sorted its back on the roof panel, tig welded the rust repair patch in and in doing so the big low spot I had I managed to chase to the middle of the roof panel and became a big boing boing high spot.
Went and saw my old school panel beater for advice, he confirmed it needed shrinking as the heat from welding and stripping the paint had expanded the metal. He said weld the inner frame back in and fold the edge back over to give it some rigidity back.
No matter how I tried no dice fixing that high spot and I wasn't game enough to try shrinking the metal as the panel is very thin and getting another won't be that easy.
Greig laughed and agreed to help this fool with his stupid sunroof, well......It was a real privilege watching a true master of his craft. A few shrinks here, a few taps there, lots of feel by hand in little under an hour its a straight piece of metal again that needed no filler prior to primer. I'm always fascinated by old school metal work and wish I possessed even some of that skill.

Couple of coats of primer later its close enough for a test fit with the GTI's original sunroof seal on it. Put the mechanism in the body and adjusted that, lucky I had one piece of headliner material left that was large enough to re cover the inner trim panel which consists of 2 pieces.
When in the tilt position a flap in the trim panel opens for air flow, bit of faffing around making adjustments but it works as expected.
The only issue I'm having is to slide the roof back it needs a helping hand but that's either an adjustment issue or down to the thickness of the trim panel material but I'll deal with that once it comes apart for paint.

[slowburn]

sweet , that is awesome.