Alex's Rabbit Project: Take-Two

[aeffertz]

Well, I finally have come across clean shell; something that I've been looking for since the beginning of time. My '79 is going to get put on the back burner and I'm switching my focus onto this. It's basically taking the place of my old shell. All my plans are the same, they're just being carried over to this since. My old thread started off as a tight budget build being I was still in school, but has escalated since I have a steady job now. Ideally, I'd like to either refurbish or replace every part on the car.

Here's the for sale ad:

**$900 takes it all**
History:
I never thought I would have to do this but I'm selling my 84 Rabbit 2 door. I had aquired it from my parents friend, they had owned it since new from Schmelz VW in Minnesota. About 12 years ago the head gasket blew on it and the previous owner took the head off, set it on his work bench and it sat there until I found it. I got it from them in March of 2009 and started strippping it down for a full rebuild. During the Summer of 2009 I put it on a rotisserie and stripped all of the old undercoating off the bottom and all four wheel wells. Then I patched up the few holes that were there, full POR15 treatment, seam sealed, and final bedlined the whole bottom and wheel wells. During the Fall of 2009 I brought it up to a bodyman my work used for some body work. He cleaned up the quarters, shaved the marker lights, filled in the two center holes for small tails. I also had him just clean up the doors, hood and hatch. He did great work. All are in primer and ready for paint! They are sitting on the rafters in my garage. It is a shell at this point but you will be getting more than just a shell! I have all the doors, hood, hatch, all glass, and much more.

The Good:
-The bottom and wheel wells have been cleaned up, welded, POR-15, seam Sealed, and covered in several coats of bedliner.
-Doors, Hood, and Hatch are perfect, in primer and ready for paint
-Most of the body have had professional body work done, Quarters and Rear panel.
-New Gas Tank bolted in
-Rear Beam and Control arms has been cleaned up and in POR15, Looks brand new!
-New Rear brakes (shoes), hubs and bearings all around
-New brake lines run around the car. The car had a set of stainless braided flex lines, but those were sold.
-All the Glass, OEM
-Door cards, front and rear, rear parcel shelf
-All the seals
-All hardware in seperate bags and labeled
-Tons of other Misc parts (mostly interior)
-Headliner with no cracks or bends
-Full rabbit wiring harness (original 1.6l Diesel)
-Clear Title

The Bad:
-Engine bay, and core support need to be cleaned up, nothing major.
The L Quarter and rear panel was damaged while unloading off Car trailer last fall. There is a small crease that is fixable ( Pics down below)
-No Fenders
-No engine

PO pictures as it sits.






Damage from the car trailer..... Its fixable though.




So, look's like it has had the rear apron switch to small tails. The damage isn't something I can't handle and should really only take me a day to straighten them out. I was never really a fan of getting rid of the rain tray, but since I don't plan on driving it in the rain, I guess I can live with it. All in all, $900 is a steal and too good of a deal to pass up. It's payed for and I'll be picking it up this Sunday. I don't think I'm going to shave the bay this time around. Not yet anyways. I figure once this is all 'done', I want to pick up a 16V Scirocco motor and rebuild it over the summer/swap it the following winter. Maybe then I'll clean the bay up a bit.

Here's some parts that I've been gathering throughout my build.

Some NOS HELLA tail lights. I just noticed one of the says "Made in Germany" and the other doesn't. All the colors seem to match just fine, so I think I'll just run them, but was just kind of confused.


NOS HELLA headlight bucket


NOS front emblem and some early chrome handles


Set of wheels and tires are on their way as well as some goodies from OldSkool VW. Some key parts I'm looking for include:

-polished ST fuel cap/NOS HELLA fuel cap
-NOS HELLA headlight bucket
-polished aluminum trim for the grill (looking for as close to mint condition as possible)
-headlight surrounds (as close to mint condition as possible)
-chrome euro bumpers

Very excited to pick it up in a couple of days!

[avw4me]

[mfbmike]

awesome dude. do work.

[sk8ordie]

sticking with the same engine you were/are building?

[aeffertz]

For the sake of wanting to drive this thing as soon as possible, yes. I'll run it for at least a year but it will eventually get swapped as soon as I gather up the courage and parts to do it.

[Vamped]

This is gonna be a nice build up!

[simon_C]

In for this. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[bmxguy]

[tgibson]

Looks like a nice start. Staying square this time right?

[rabbidmk1]

I don't think I'm going to shave the bay this time around. Not yet anyways. I figure once this is all 'done', I want to pick up a 16V Scirocco motor and rebuild it over the summer/swap it the following winter. Maybe then I'll clean the bay up a bit.


Very excited to pick it up in a couple of days!

Alex- at the point where this car is, i would think hard about working on the bay now vs. later. Maybe not go crazy but don't just rule it out completely. Its easier to work on it now than once the car is pretty and in paint.
Swapping a 16v is is pretty simple and can be done without scratching pretty engine bay paint...

Looking good and for helping a fellow EW club member...

[aeffertz]

Thanks guys! I may end up doing a slight shave again, we'll see.

I got a few things done to the motor today. Installed a new valve cover gasket and the repainted cover. I changed the stud/nut configuration for a simpler allen head bolt for a cleaner look, Loctited and torqued the bolts so that's ready to go.




Also got the airbox/fuel distributor cleaned up and looking good. Here's the before:


And after:


Started to strip down the intake and noticed it has vacuum hoses everywhere. I won't be running most of the emission stuff, so a lot of the ports are useless to me. I think I remember a guy selling gasket matched/polished intake manifolds on here, anyone know if he still makes them? I remember them being more simple than this one.


Noticed that the EGR valve wasn't doing much of anything so it shouldn't hurt to get rid of it, I suppose.



Quick question. I'll be ordering a Raceland header for the 8V and I noticed it has an option to add a O2 sensor bung. I may be crazy, but I don't recall ever seeig one my car. Was it just the later cars that had them or what?

Thanks for looking, as always. Going to pick the car up tomorrow from Minnesota. Can't wait.

[littleyan92]

looking good!!

[bmxguy]

check out scientificrabbit.com for the intake manifolds.

[wantacad]

goood deal.. and no welded fenders!

[cyclops594]

In for progress. Lookin good man. :thumbup.

[aeffertz]

Thanks for the props folks.

goood deal.. and no welded fenders!

Ha! No kidding. But that's probably just because it doesn't come with them.

check out scientificrabbit.com for the intake manifolds.

That's it! Thanks dude.

Looks like I'll be ordering one of those Stage 1 manifolds, so I set my intake aside and worked on cleaning up the gunked-up throttle body.



After a little elbow grease...



Works nice and smooth now. Had a hell of a time putting it back together. Took me a solid half hour to figure out the main spring set-up. Sheesh!

[simon_C]

remove that ceramic ring from the small side of the throttle body, it just pops out. gives you some better throttle response and breathes a little better.

[aeffertz]

No s.hit? Will have to do that. I tried working it out of there so I could clean it better but didn't have much luck, so I didn't press the issue. I'll give it another go tomorrow.

[Esevw]

Really Nice work. That air box/fuel distributor turned out awesome!

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

[rabbitnothopper]

its the egr throttle, increases pressure in the air intake manifold
to remove it you must remove the vacuum port which is holding it in
use a nail which fits in the port then grab and twist with pliers to pull the port out
then the bung should pop out easily
then put the port back in or block the port

others have said it does not at all increase airflow or benefit the engine at all either way.
what it DOES do is increase pressure to accomodate the additional vacuum lines on the air intake

you can delete the egr and block it all off just fine
warning: your warm up may need slight tweaking because of this
from a cold engine to warm up may require waiting for the engine to warm up (idling)

your fuel distributor does not have a frequency adjust valve, meaning you dont have a CIS- K-Jetronic (o2) system
you have CIS- basic, which is early CIS (no o2)

the EGR and associated vacuum system does what the O2 would have done

you can ADD o2 bung and o2 if you want, its a good idea if you intend to read the A/F of your car using a meter
i like knowing that "hey my fuel is 50/50 air" or rich/lean depending

[Kaneb]

Looking forward to see what you have planned for this one.

[aeffertz]

[bmxguy]

if thats just the stock TB id reccomend a early mk2 cis TB. same size as a nuespeed big bore but can be had for cheap at your local pick n pull or off here.

[oopseyesharted]

Looking good so far Alex!!

[Nar]

Nice to meet you today, good luck on the project. It looks like you're going to take care of it

[aeffertz]

Thanks man, you to! Getting things sorted in the garage at the moment and getting the '79 on wheels to wheel it out. It's a pretty cool feeling having a garage with two Rabbits occupying it. Even though neither of them are currently running, still feels good.



I'll actually work on it tomorrow instead of staring at it and taking stupid pictures.

[vdubmk4]

Rabbit looks good in the garage! It was really nice meeting you yesterday. Im really happy everything went smoothly and I could tell the rabbit was going to be in good hands. It will be fun to follow this build, since I started it. haha

[syracusegli]

[TyeGTI]

I was going to buy that car just needed to find time to drive and get it. Send me lots of pics and info on the 1979 and I might have to buy yours instead.

[aeffertz]

Alrighty. Check the build thread on it. Any info or pictures you'd want to see are bound to be in it.
http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...Rabbit-Project!

Got the '79 out of the garage and put under a tarp outside. Got the '84 up on jackstands and removed the wheels, suspension, A-arms, steering rack, hood and hatch.



Next I washed and degreased the engine bay. Purple Power and a stiff bristled brush works pretty well for this!


Since the rain tray has been shaved, I figured I should get the old sound deadened crap off of the firewall. Such a pain in the ass. What seemed to work the best for me was to heat it up with a heat gun and use one of those 6-in-1 tools to scrape it off.


But that's it for now. Off to Missouri for a couple of weeks now. 'Til then...

[kyleromero]

Probably missed it but what's the plan for your old shell?

[mfbmike]

Probably missed it but what's the plan for your old shell?

it's for sale in the classifieds.

[aeffertz]

Yep, it's up for sale for pretty cheap. It's really hard for me to let it go, but I'm really limited to space and sadly don't have the space for it. I've learned a lot from working on it, so that's what I'm going to take from it and hopefully it'll go to good home and someone can finish it off.

Oh yeah! Got this gem in the mail today. NOS chrome flag mirror.


Also, the car was wheeled around without the front axles installed. Should I be worried about the front wheel bearings or do you think they'll be fine?

[Jesse_717]

Yep, it's up for sale for pretty cheap. It's really hard for me to let it go, but I'm really limited to space and sadly don't have the space for it. I've learned a lot from working on it, so that's what I'm going to take from it and hopefully it'll go to good home and someone can finish it off.

Oh yeah! Got this gem in the mail today. NOS chrome flag mirror.


Also, the car was wheeled around without the front axles installed. Should I be worried about the front wheel bearings or do you think they'll be fine?

I've always heard not to move the car with out axles in or its bad on the wheel bearings. Not sure how much truth is to that. They are cheap to replace. When the car is road ready I would replace them. I'm no expert but makes sense to me.

[kyleromero]

Yep, it's up for sale for pretty cheap. It's really hard for me to let it go, but I'm really limited to space and sadly don't have the space for it. I've learned a lot from working on it, so that's what I'm going to take from it and hopefully it'll go to good home and someone can finish it off.

Oh yeah! Got this gem in the mail today. NOS chrome flag mirror.


Also, the car was wheeled around without the front axles installed. Should I be worried about the front wheel bearings or do you think they'll be fine?

Unfortunately yes you'll have to replace the wheel bearing when the axles aren't in it put stress on the bearing what most guys will do is take they're axles apart and put the lower stub in so it doesn't damage the bearings