MYGTI's car journal

[MYGTI_MA]

***WARNING*** LOTS OF LARGE PICTURES IN THIS THREAD PEOPLE WITH A 56k CONNECTION MAY HAVE ISSUES


1997 2.0

Picked this up off a friend of a friend last summer for $500.00 because the exhaust manifold had been cut off with a sawsall and the kids mother wanted it out of their tiny garage because it was just getting moldy and hadn't been anything more than a space waster in the past 5 years. I knew VERY little about rebuilding cars when I started this but I had two friends who helped a lot with it up and running. I will elaborate more on this build with more pictures later but I wanted to get up and on this forum.



Winter 2011: So the above was true until about this past summer when I decided that just having the car running wasn't enough after I started poking around on the Vortex and regularly attending the Volkshore (gtg, meet, club, UNO's drinking team, fundraiser, event) From there the project kinda got out of control. It's been fun I have learned a TON about mk3's and I'm still no where close to done. I wish I had taken more pictures of the early days and have vowed to not miss anything as I have gotten a ton of pm's from others who have stumbled into this thread which is why i added the bandwidth warning to the top of this post.



Summer 2011 She made it to Dustoff and Dubs in the Sand and outside of a few issues shes been running strong. been kinda slacking on making any real progress as I am just enjoying driving her after the long winter of working on her in the cold. But with some major shows coming up the finishing touches need to get done.



Fall 2011 It had been a great season but all the coolant issues were getting old so time to tear her down and figure out whats up.

Winter 2012
So even though I was hoping for a winter off from working on this car things don't always go as planned. Long story short the coolant issues have been tracked back to headgasket issues so with the motor torn apart it looks like I will be going the rout of a 2.0T. This will likely be a year long build and the '83 will likely be my 'show' car for the earlier part of the season.

Spring 2012
The car is still on jack-stands waiting for a motor and the "well while I am here" list keeps growing as parts I have wanted for a while keep falling into my lap. The plan to build the rabbit got sidelined as getting that running will not make me as happy as having MYGTI back. The hope is to have the motor in and the other issues (brakes, suspension, wiring) sorted out by the time the summer really kicks in. Plan to see this car at H20

Summer 2012
The car is still motorless as I have brought in professional help but that is seeming to take longer as the budget gets thinner and thinner. Major changes have stretched to a TDI 5th gear and a ... Turbo Current plan is to be ABA-T by H20i and at the moment we are on track for that.





Fall 2012
The car is up and running!!!! but without a turbo in it. Motivation has gotten a bit low to tear it apart as I have barely put 500 miles on it this year. Changes in transmission plans as well as uncertainty about which turbo setup I want have been a bit of a setback.

Winter 2013
Car is still running but other elements have kept progress to a minimum. Currently waiting on funds to get a LSD and possibly a better/bigger turbo.

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions.

[jstn]

head to braintree, ma wednesday nights!

Volkshore

[MYGTI_MA]

Sweet I will prob either this or next week. Trying to get the last few issues ironed out before the 12th so i can get the car inspected. but yeah braintree is easy since i work in randolph.

[dankvwguy]

i miss Massachusetts

[Pedmaster]

It's over rated from October to May

[beyondkustom]

braintree? what kind of a name is that?

[MYGTI_MA]

yeah i got nothing on why you would name anything BrainTree

[Pedmaster]

It was named after Braintree in Essex, UK...

[MYGTI_MA]

Some early pictures of the car

This is how I found the car


This is how I found the engine


This is how I found the interior


This was some of the metal I removed from the engine

[MYGTI_MA]

I will have more pictures up this weekend.

[MYGTI_MA]

[mkIIIVDUB]

it cleaned up nicely

[Roketdriver]

Cleaned up really well, I like the extra fogs you have on there. Looks like a rally car

[MYGTI_MA]

still needs a real wash and some touch up paint. the rear hatch has some rust so i have picked up a replacement from the junk yard too bad its in silver so i need to have the glass removed and then prep and paint. also the tint job is utter **** so ill be saving my .02 and getting factory tint at somepoint.

Floor mats are ordered and I am trying to track down brackets for these seats. I picked em up for cheap but didn't really research them >.<. If anyone has a link to where I can get the mounting brackets that would be super helpful.

[brobs is back]

those seats are gay as AIDS

[porschenvy]

It's over rated from October to May

'tis a silly place
autozone has those seats new for like 150 ea.

[gianni versace]

you had me with the possibly votex grill

but lost me forever at tenzo R seats

[MYGTI_MA]

are they really that bad? cause i was on the fence about them. I was looking at corbeaus.

[SundaySON]

pretty much summed it up with gay as aids , they belong in some chicks integra

[MYGTI_MA]

Thanks for the info. Still a huge n00b when it comes to car tuning. and VW's

[DukeDKT442]

Talk about a good turn around. I quite honestly would never have considered taking on that project, looking it that engine bay how you bought it. :thumb

[MYGTI_MA]

thanks. my advantage was that I have a DD so it didn't have to rush this and could let the marvel mystery oil do its work

[MYGTI_MA]

No longer Rejected!

turns out there was a leak from the gaskets at the exhaust header so i replaced those and she passed. Now to track down that missing trim and some other cosmetic stuff.

[SuperBacon]

I have a blue tenzo R office chair

[MYGTI_MA]

so this morning the oil temp light comes on apprently there is an issue with this and its just buggy as the previous owner had replaced just about everything and I have found that once the car gets up to temp if you turn it off and back on then it goes away. Don't really know if there is a real issue here that i should be concerned about....

But the real fun was that the check engine light is back on again no clue why this morning and now one of my fog lights works and so does the light in the rear defroster. wtf.

[.yuk.]

Where did you get new floormats from? I need a set of black ones really bad for my cabrio.

[MYGTI_MA]

http://www.volkswagenpartspeople.com...20681663670988

I went with the rubber cause well its MA winters here are messy.

[MYGTI_MA]

got the floor mats in. turns out those are only the rears because i didn't read carefully its a bit unclear in the description though because it talks about front and rears. Whatever they look nice.

wirewheeled/naveljelly/primed/Herculined the spare tire well because it was a rusty mess. I will take a picture of that later. Also got my friend to weld a new clip for the rear bumper molding.

next is some smoked side markers and fixing up the rear hatch.

[MYGTI_MA]

So did the rear brakes painted the calipers and also replaced the hatch with a new one from the junk yard. got lucky and the new one had the in spoiler rear light. Now just need to get rid of the parking stickers and then re tint the rear to match the rest of the car. Still missing the drivers side molding and the front reflector fell off again so i need to find another of those. and the new hatch didn't have a wiper and because I am a nub i couldn't get the old one off. not sure its even worth it because the wiper seems busted. (links to how to remove the rear wiper would be nice )

rear calipers before paint and wirewheel

Rear calipers painted and on the car

Hatches in the grass the one on the left is the old one.

Hatch mid panel swap.

The brackets needed to be glued back on

the panel with all the points being glued on

[csrgti]

I couldn't get JB weld to keep those mounting bolts on ( All of mine were broken). I ended up using longer bolts to keep my license plate on and drilled corresponding holes through the sheet metal inside the hatch. It holds the tub on nice and tight no more rattling or leaks.

[MYGTI_MA]

i had a few intact and then cut a few from another plate and glued them on. then ran a tube of black sealer around it to make it water tight. far better than my last hatch that leaked like it wasn't even there.

[1337cshacker]

Ya the seats are ultra fail others are much lighter and deeper, and might even save your life. Chicks integra, lololol.


GTI 2.0? What? all mk3 GTi's are vr6/5speed nay?

[Insan3Vr6]

GTI 2.0? What? all mk3 GTi's are vr6/5speed nay?

No they made GTI 2.0's. Usually they are referred to as a Golf Sport since they are exactly the same as Golf's, just with two doors..

[McDubin]

Those seats wouldn't actually be that bad if the blue seat belts were black, and the headrest area didn't have big multi-colored Tenzo R logo's.

At least get black seat belts, and grab yourself a big ol' magnum sized sharpie and start colorin' that logo in.

[MYGTI_MA]

seats are being sold and the 4 point went to my friend who has a blue wrangler