1980 rabbit "D" build [lots of pictures]

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

im starting a build thread for my rabbit, im out of school and have a real job now so its time to re-do the daily

this is how i got it a little under a year ago


then i threw out the unevenly cut springs, bought some racelands, gave it a little "character" and drove it like that for a while


got tired of getting pulled over all the time so i painted the whole thing and put on some bottlecaps
and it worked, surprisingly.


but now its time to fix the rust, shave the bay, paint it for real, new engine, seal it up, and maybe get some better suspension, depending on the my funds at the end of all this


day 1 i stripped out the interior and the wiring


no rust here yay!


ew

day 2 got the fenders off found some rust , pulled the front suspension, cleaned up the wells a little, and would have dropped the motor but i got my hoist back from a friend with no pins to hold the legs on so it going to have to wait till tomorrow


for the color I'm going Wimbledon white, always loved that color. was also thinking about doing some subtle OEM styled accent striping kind of like the ones on the CAT rabbit

im building an ABA for it on the side, little teaser of that

plans for that are high comp pistons, 276 TT cam, high rev springs, dual 40 webbers, TT high flow valves and guides, half a mil over exhaust valves (just cause they were out of stock size) not sure on what trans yet still doing my research for that

thats it for now thanks for reading.
updates as they happen...

[Cryser]

Hey Dooley, it's J

What engine management you using to run the engine when it's all done?

Also I know it a bit small for that cam your running but if you want my k03 when i swap it out this summer it's yours

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

probably like a msd box or something, but I'm still thinking about it. Don't need the turbo but thanks anyway

[dsm1983]

[volks trippin']

looks good, love the E.westy!

good luck!

[ick]

...this is going to be fun watching you take it back up again. Best 'o luck to you. Just that snarl of wires you removed looks spooky, but I know it probably seems worse than it is.

[Yazure]

man, i can't wait to see some updates, this is looking good so far.



good luck!

[DUBunny]

let me come over i wanna see you rip your car apart!!!

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

ha, its already apart, that's the easy part.

[Kaneb]

Looks good, i cant wait to make the jump into body work and real paint.

Early westy

[mk1daily]

Car looks amazing, I love early westy rabbits. I love the plans you have for this thing too. Good luck!

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

well i had a little time tonight after work so i decided to drop the rear beam, and pull out the exhaust, while i was under there i also drained the gas tank, i had a little more in there than i thought haha





the exhaust was something i wanted to re do since i got the car but never got around to it.


as you can see it was Frankenstein'd and not very well either...




i will end up building my own later down the line probably use the same muffler (but new) cause i like the sound. i believe its a flowmaster 40 series.

that is all.

[Cryser]

Dooley if you need a good mandrel bent exhaust I know a place that has a mandrel bender. The guy can be kinda an ass sometimes but he does great work and if you get to talking to him and he realizes your into cars he lightens up a bit

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

took an hour or two to do some work,

dropped the gas tank


looks pretty good underneath




OEM snail still in tact...


started "poking around" and found some cancer, nothing more than i expected but it always sucks to find it...



pulled off the bumper and tails


and thats it, hopefully get some time in this weekend to do some more cleaning
thanks for reading!

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

pulled the doors off, took out the windows last night
all of them came out with no issues.
pretty awesome, all the windows are non trim except one.


found some rust under the windshield. a decent amount but less than i thought.





this scares me a bit, a ton of bondo next to the wiper base and the fiberglass at the sealing point


Still have to get at it with a grinder to see the real damage

the rears looked pretty good as well




pulling the motor today and going to clean it all up get it ready for body work.

thanks for reading

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

Finally got some more work done.

Got the motor and trans pulled




My dirty bay that needs a good shave

After a quick rinse down with the pressure washer


i also picked up some wire wheels so i went to town on the suspected bad areas and was greeted with a holy front section



and rear


ordered some new sheet metal for the corners in the front, and a new front and rear apron.
I'm probably going to have to go junkyard hunting for a new center windshield section.

then tonight i decided to start shaving
got this out in all of about 10 minuets


then i busted out the welder and finished the back side of my notch that i never did because i could get to it


then i figured hey why its out...




I also straightened out my rad support a little and filled some holes.
bent...


[Insert straight picture here]

some of the filled holes


p.s. welding spoons are the shiz.

thanks for reading and more as it comes

[Irfaan]

Nice Build bro, looking forward to seeing the end product

[GruuvenNorth]

Good stuff! Keep it up!

[zrobb3]

nice work

[einszwei]

[Deathloc]

Nice build man, I WANT EARLY WESTY FRONT END! I got those gay ass side markers :C

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

finally a little progress, got lots of parts ordered though

heater shave


started shaving a little


cut off front messed up valance



getting it ready to put in


got bored late one night so i started polishing my stacks



all four after first polish


thanks for reading!

[bajacole]

Painting it didnt actually help it from getting pulled over. Remember Easter?!!?!? Great thread though

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

But that's only because he thought I was a drunk guy driving a "BMW, from their less serious days" haha

[DUBunny]

epic first post cole

[syracusegli]

nice work

[gen2fanatic]

Really diggin' the work put into this. Subscribed for later viewing

[kyleromero]

Looks like a good start I want to see more

[hd_mk2]

good work man...keep em coming

[chirocco]

Wanna do this with my 16v Scirocco.

[DEADheadDOOLEY]

Haven't updated this in a while,
First off after a long search i finally found a carb manifold for the 8v, really stoked on that

Got a harness and a new alt set up,


A bunch of other parts too, just littering my room.

Did wheel bearings, cleaned up the coil-overs and put the breaks on



Cleaned and painted rear beam, drums, and C-arms



Had Cole (bajacole) disassemble the doors



Took a trip to industrial metal supply, picked up some 3/16 steel


For this


Done-ish


Still have to do the drain plug

Took off the undercoating out of the inner fenders to prep for a patch


Found a bad spot and fixed it,




Accidentally pulled up the passenger sound deadening in one piece found this underneath...


Cleaned it up and found out its not as bad as it looks, still bad enough for me to get a pan though, even just to cut a patch out of.


Decided to take up the rest of it just to make sure this was the worst of it. Got the drivers side off and its looking promising. Don't want to get my hopes up though...



Thanks for reading

[aeffertz]

Good work so far!

[diive4sho]

Keep it goin. Looks good so far.

[BILL CARSON]

Dig it!

[Emilio Estevez]