The Bachelor Bunny

[benjaminobscene]

Hey everyone,

I suppose it's time to take the plunge and change my typical "" posts to "help!" posts. My name is Ben, and I'll be doing my best to restore/reassemble this rabbit over the next few months.

My goal is to have the car finished and ready to be the Just Married car at my wedding on October 14th. If everything goes well, I'd also love to bring it to some end of summer shows. This is my first attempt at such a project, and I'm lucky to have some really good help (www.orchideuro.com) ready to assist and guide me through it. I'm calling the project the Bachelor Bunny as I'm hoping it will be a fun adventure to close out my single life.

On to the pics:

At the end of October I made the decision to daily an older car with hopes of saving some money for this damn wedding. I originally hoped to find a decent running MK1 that I could work on and commute in. This brings us to Scranton, PA and this gem of a GTI:



The seller listed the car as not running, but with only some fuel pump issues and floor rust. No biggie, just redo the fuel system and patch the floors right? Well it's never that easy, and the floors were in pretty bad shape, but we'd driven all the way to Scranton so we did the deal and brought her home.



As if by some kind of bad omen, we also managed to run over a large dead deer on the drive home. The bad news is that plenty of the deer's insides came home in the GTI. The good news is he kind of helped remove the rotted floor panels.





So finally home safe, it was time to evaluate the future of this car.



Unfortunately, the floors we nearly all gone with a lot of rot already spread into the structural areas as well. Most of the suspension and rear of the car had rotted away too. It was surprising, because the body was a decent 10 footer so my guess is that the car was left sitting in tall wet grass possibly.

So the decision was made to find a solid rolling shell for which to transplant the good parts over to, and the car pretty much sat in my garage until now.

Through some friends I was able to find this shell nearby and arranged to buy it once the seller's busy holiday work season was over. The shell has been sitting for nearly 10 years, but luckily it was primed and kept hidden from the elements.

Early Saturday morning we arrived and got to work freeing the car from its den and assembling a front suspension to roll it on. A few hours later it was ready to tow, and we strapped her down to the trusty Eurovan.



The body of this shell is nearly perfect and will make a great foundation for which to build up from.







So here we are and the to-do list is pretty long. There are a few areas to patch and plenty of spots to fill and sand. I have absolutely no experience with body work so this ought to be interesting. I've spent a good bit of today stripping and sanding the engine bay. I'm thinking it will be best to get that sprayed and then go about with the mechanicals and finally come back to the body later.

Here's my progress today in the engine bay:



Most of the work is already done so I'm basically going over any rough spots or missed spots and just giving the surface a quick sand.

I'm pretty excited for the next few months and will do my best to take plenty of pictures. Thanks for reading!

[Big CADDY]

keep at it. looks like a nice shell.

[The Python]

I would suggest ( strongly ) to knock out ALL the body and paint work while you have the shell empty. You will avoid the hassles of taping isht off and cleaning up overspray, and you will be happier if your floorboards, bay, underbody, and exterior share the same hue.

You will be happier.
Good start, and to deadlines.

[ienjoysnails]

i wondered why my dog would always go straight to the trailers and smell them. no kidding i must have yelled at him 2 or 3 times, "stop licking the trailers!" that deer explains everything! then i sent it to texas and the people said it wobbled. lol

[benjaminobscene]

i wondered why my dog would always go straight to the trailers and smell them. no kidding i must have yelled at him 2 or 3 times, "stop licking the trailers!" that deer explains everything! then i sent it to texas and the people said it wobbled. lol

Haha your dog must have loved it. Thanks again for your help with the truck and trailer!

[vento86]

[toadman_1990]

Nice shell, that will save alot of work

[punkvideo81]

good luck with it

[VRJunkie]

nice project dude. glad to see another gti getting saved
workin on one myself

good luck with it!

[MattRad]

Looks good Ben. What are your plans for the motor?

[benjaminobscene]

Looks good Ben. What are your plans for the motor?

Thanks Matt, plan is to fit a euro 8v with single point injection.

[boxylooks27]

Looks good !

[boogs]

i wanna drive it

[benjaminobscene]

i wanna drive it

stop by and we'll hook a steering wheel up.


Not much exciting progress lately. Been doing some more sanding. Hopefully getting a grinding wheel this weekend. Any tips for re-routing the fuel lines to the passenger side?

[the brit]

Any tips for re-routing the fuel lines to the passenger side?

1. Make sure the engine needs them on that side.

2. Bend them gently, use a pipe bending tool or gently work with hands/around a suitable size can to maintain the radius. Wrap the lines with replacement rubber where you pass them through the clips.

3. Cut, flare and use correct fitting on the shortened fuel line. Re-use or replace with standard fittings for the joint.

[Haynie]

Nice!

[D.E]

Thanks Matt, plan is to fit a euro 8v with single point injection.

Why? Crappy injection system and only 90hp.

[benjaminobscene]

Why? Crappy injection system and only 90hp.

I like the overall simplicity of this setup. Also, im often accused of driving like a grandma so horsepower isn't exactly a priority for this car.

[benjaminobscene]

Little bit of progress tonight... I finally picked up a grinder and some cutting/grinding wheels so tonight I set to removing the washer fluid bracket and battery tray.



Not sure if I was doing it wrong or something, but wow grinding is much more involved than it looks. You guys make it seem so easy over the internet!



Gotta clean it up a bit more and smooth everything out still

[justrave]

hahha no it is not easy to get the battery tray out. ****s ridiculous

[Haynie]

more pics and updates!!

[Haynie]

?

[benjaminobscene]

?

Sorry for the lack of action. I've been out of town for work but should be able to make some progress this weekend.

[Haynie]

cool

[Haynie]

?

[wilm13]

Advice.

Fix car. Don't get married.

[youngunavw]

Advice.

Fix car. Don't get married.

hahaha made my day

[slats]

Advice.

Fix car. Don't get married.

Better yet get married first and she will be home to help work on the car!

[16v_HOR]

Better yet get married first and she will be home to help work on the car!

Great idea! With any luck you'll be able to finish the car from all those nights you'll spend sleeping in the garage after she kicks you out of the house, and then you can sell it to pay your divorce lawyer. Sign me up

[benjaminobscene]

Great idea! With any luck you'll be able to finish the car from all those nights you'll spend sleeping in the garage after she kicks you out of the house, and then you can sell it to pay your divorce lawyer. Sign me up

Hahaha! Never a shortage of experience in the mk1 forums

[Haynie]

no big updates on the car..
but would you give us updates on your last few days of single life, keeping this thread current?
like the upcoming royal wedding, and you and the wife inviting your Exes to the ceremony?

are you going out with a "bang"? he he.

-H

[benjaminobscene]

Haha, I wouldn't say it's single life by any means as we already have the house together. Been doing a cleaning and grinding in the bay here and there. Going to drop the motor out of the donor car soon to steal the motor mounts. Also need to get the ass end up in the air and switch out the rear axle.

Mk3 daily is leaking coolant still so a radiator swap will delay any fun this weekend.

[benjaminobscene]

Quick update:

Got a little more work done this afternoon. I think I've got most of the grinding finished now and primered some more spots in the bay. Need to grab some rust converter and encapsulator before painting though.

Also recently picked up a great set of doors thanks to Haynie:

[benjaminobscene]

I had some help this weekend and we got the wiring harness and ECU sorted for the new motor and started pulling the existing wiring from the car. Lots of taping and labeling left, but the bay is almost ready for paint

[benjaminobscene]

Spent some time over the weekend pulling apart the donor car. not much fun since everything is either rusted away or covered in spiders. I was able to make progress though and got the rear beams swapped and some more of the wiring sorted.

less than five months left!