The truck required a total restoration on the body and I found a great local guy who invested about 150 hours of work in removing the rust and installing all-new metal. I have found that most of the trucks I have seen in the Southwest have rust in the same spots mine did but most of them are just hidden under layers of bondo or paint.

Word to the wise... if you are buying one of these trucks be prepared to put aside the money to pull the truck down to bare metal and find the rust before it gets to be too bad to salvage. Here are some examples:

Anyways, the truck was completely gone-through from a body perspective and we painted it with some high-end Dupont paint. The truck has been professionally buffed and aside from a few minor nibs that need to be sanded down and buffed it looks fantastic. I ordered all new exterior stickers for the truck and am awaiting the final buffing before installing them.

Pardon the fuzzyness of the photos; they look horrible when rescaled.

Anyhoo, after getting most of the metal trim off of the truck (handles, etc) sent off to be powdercoated in a matte black wrinkle finish I took a good, hard look at the interior and after many years of neglect and use the seats were shabby and just beat up.

I am fortunate to have at my disposal a GREAT place nearby called oddly enough "The Interior Shop." They have a local hard-core hotrod following and the owner is a great guy. I deviated from the traditional grey Tristar stuff and went with black custom carpeting and a black headliner.

The best part of the whole thing however was the seat material; I was fortunate enough to beg my way into some of the material used on the MkV generation GTi seats known as "Interlagos Plaid." I had about five yards of this material at my disposal and so far the seats have been done and a small bit of it has been used on the custom doorpanels in the factory spots.

rear seat bottom:

rear seat detail:

front seats:

The front headrests are being re-done in black leather to match the rest of the seats.

At this point we are upgrading the brakes to the Audi 5000 kit with upgrades to the rear drums as well along with all-new front end components to freshen everything up. The big step next week is going to be the removal of the trusty yet noisy 2.1 wasserboxer and in its' place is going to be a mildly-cammed rebuilt 2.8 VR6. The transaxle is going to Arizona Transaxle is going to be freshened up and a taller 3rd and 4th gear installed to relax the truck on the highway. I am also on the lookout for an electric front transaxle de-coupler to install just to make sure it ups the fuel economy as much as possible.

After we get the truck up and running for a few months with a new radiator and all new hoses and things we are going to retrofit the truck with a modern air conditioning system along with some new electronics and stereo equipment.

If you are all interested I can take pictures and notes of the steps we take along the way until it gets on the road and running.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

Modified by Paul@VWvortex at 10:10 AM 12-24-2008

I really like the upholstery you chose. The seats should look right "at home". IMHO

Keep the photos coming.

I will take more pics of the exterior next week once more progress is made. We sourced a rear Vanagon Carat bumper and the goal is going to be to paint the front and rear bumpers red with a contrasting black stripe in the center. We are also going to source some era-appropriate A2 center molding to run down the center of the truck at the same height as the bumper stripes to tie the whole thing together. We are going to make an appropriate beveled cut in the strip to acommodate the treasure chest. I am also going to leave the bottom of the truck red rather than making it black again; the flares are being painted black again to provide a nice contrast and we are going to shoot Wurth gravel guard on the lower rockers to make it more resistant to chipping.

Bob ('89 blue tristar)

Nice to see one more renovated TriStar.

I like the interior too.

Keep on with the work.

And to all TriStar owner don´t forget to join the TriStar register.
http://vw-tristar.web.surftown...r.htm
Regards from sweden.
Patrik http://www.vw-tristar.com

Home page www.vw-tristar.com

Dave I have most of them located here in my iserve account and will double check in the next few days to make sure all the critical ones are in dere.

http://iserve.vwvortex.com/isg...=6727

What did he do with the seams and are you doing anything to the underside of it?

Basically all of the seams were dug out and treated with POR 15 before it went into primer. As for the undercarriage we have sprayed all of the dirt and crud off with a power washer and some of the spots that had some scale on them we used a sand blaster to remove the crud and then hit with POR 15. I actually have an undercarriage sealant from POR 15 that we are going to spray the entire underside with once we get to that point.

Did you have any other suggestions? My research showed that as a rust inhibitor the stuff would do very well over the long haul.

nope, I'm basically doing the same thing.

Aha! Well I just wanted to make sure that you weren't holding out on me.

The interior is finished as of today and I am going to get up there to pay the guy and take some pictures. The next step is taking the motor and transaxle out this weekend.

Does anyone have any suggestions on if a front transaxle de-coupler is a worthwhile upgrade? I have read that it does reduce the strain on the front drivetrain components and will increase gas mileage but I wanted to get some additional input. Is it one of those modifications that will pay you back at resale time? I am planning on doing a change to 3rd and 4th gear to make them taller for better fuel economy on the road but wanted to see what the concensus might be on the de-coupler.

I still need to source a good pair of front headrests to re-dye and there is a ton of vinyl dying to do on the various armwrests and stuff but it looks okay so far.

The decoupler is a great item if you plan to do mostly on road driving. When you need the AWD, it's only a pull of the knob away. You can engage it on the fly, up to 70 mph. I'm saving my pennies for one to go on the Jagd.

I really dig the black headliner!

The black interior is looking really good. How did you do the headliner? Not sure if the Tristars were different than a standard Doka, but my 85 had one of those awful fabric headliners that was kind of droopy. Not sure how to describe it. Anyway, mine looked ratty, and I wasn't sure exactly how to repair or replace it.

Yessir, before doing any of the interior work we put sound deadening all the way from the base of the windshield all the way to the top of the rear seatbacks. I also installed it (B-Quiet just for the record) as high as the middle points of the doors on the b-pillars and then inside every door on the inside of the outer skin. When the headliner came down we did the top of the roof as well. There is some sort of headliner mat that the interior guy did on top of that sound deadening material as well as a new more modern carpet mat between the B-Quiet and the carpeting.

Quote, originally posted by iamsuperdan »

The black interior is looking really good. How did you do the headliner? Not sure if the Tristars were different than a standard Doka, but my 85 had one of those awful fabric headliners that was kind of droopy. Not sure how to describe it. Anyway, mine looked ratty, and I wasn't sure exactly how to repair or replace it.

Thanks for the compliment! Ya know interestingly enough the headliner was a source of much debate between myself, the interior shop and another person who is helping me with the restoration/modification of the truck. The original headliner was just bad enough to warrant replacement and was sort of puffy and droopy and browned from years of tobacco smoke stain. From what I am led to believe there are metal reinforcement support rods that run the width of the truck much like an A1 headliner and Todd (the interior guy) basically emulated the factory headliner with the same material found in the 20th AE GTi's with a combination of sewing and gluing. I can ask him more detailed questions when I see him again next week.

This is one of those things that you will need to collect info on and then make your best decision. It is a little like politics and religion in that people get really heated when discussing decoupling a syncro.

Craig

will the engine cover fit over the vr?

steve

Caveat emptor

Not a ton of progress made this week other than getting the rear glass and the two rear side windows back in. I am going to give up my search for power front window wiring and regulators for the time being and focus on rebuilding and cleaning up the wind-up models that came with the truck. I also need to source some cooler window handles from a MkII car while I am at it... unless anyone has any great suggestions.

steve

Caveat emptor

Official mop boy of the train room

BTW, good luck sourcing the raised red GTI-style body moulding. I searched everywhere for it for the Second Chance GTI project. I ordered what I was told was the last replacement kit in the system, but what showed up was a set of flat red-on-black vinyl stripes. The front fender pieces were missing and I had to replicate them with graphics vinyl.

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I like your approach, it is a beautiful ride. I am, very jealous.