Francisca - The Red Lady.

[Smeeeb]

Hey, most of you already know me but for those who don't my name is Jordan i'm currently a 17 year old highschool student in year 12. I'm just about to start my trials so this is me procrastinating/rewarding myself for not doing anything. I earn little to nothing a week so progress is slow but well thought out (usually).


I have always been a VW guy, originally i wanted a beetle or a Kombi but for the money i had i couldn't afford anything without it being a major project which i didn't have the time, resources or knowledge to take on such a task. So i ended buying my first car which was this lovely Black Magic Four door GL.


DSC_0306 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

It was getting to a stage of completeness and only needed a little here and there. Unfortunately i was being stupid and going to fast in the rain and span which caused me the break several important parts of the car.


DSC_0345 by Smeeeb, on Flickr


These things made dad and i decide it would be easier to just buy a new car and start again rather than repair everything that was broken. So i set off on the various car sale sites and started searching for a nice little golf to drop my parts on or start again. I hadn't decided yet. Whilst browsing eBay auctions one night my father stumbled upon a very poorly worded ad for this little gem.


DSC_0350 by Smeeeb, on Flickr


DSC_0349 by Smeeeb, on Flickr


Both dad and i messaged the man via eBay then the day after the next we set off the a little settlement 20kms out of Canberra to the old girl in the metal. After some inspection the came up pretty clean apart from a scratch here and there, some odd dents. We took for a test drive, and Christ this thing is slow in comparison the VR we drove down it literally feels like it will never be able to get to 100kph but everything worked the engine seemed well maintained for the most part. It being an eBay auction the man didn't want to part ways with the car till the auction was over, so we set back off home and deliberated as to whether or not we wanted the car. I made the decision i didn't want it originally being an auto and all. So i put my dreams of owning a two door aside and continued our search into other fields.

Alas the night of the end of the auction came and my father reminded about the car and said **** it lets see what happens, we put a bid for $1000 on the car and left if we were outbid, we were outbid. To my honest content we weren't outbid. Again the day after the next we set off on another trip to a little settlement 20kms outside of Canberra and met the man again, who owned a new TDI Toureg i may add. We swapped money for documents that state the car was now under our ownership shook hands and i drove the little two door terror the way home. I then proclaimed myself the new owner of this lovely 1995 Red two door CL.

The drive home was terrifying seeing i had to pull out onto the highway from a standstill, the car seems to hit the barrier at about 30kph which is terrfying pulling out into holiday traffic in your newly purchased child. the drive home apart from that was drama free and very relaxed thanks to an aftermarket cruise control unit installed by the owner before the one i bought the car off.


DSC_0357 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

Odd little thing it is, very easy to work to my delite though.

Since arriving home i haven't done much to her apart from today, just drove around the place enjoying my last school holidays as a public school student.a

Today though i was sick of not having a working headunit and pulled the old one to discover after some electrotherapy that it had a blown fuse. I then installed the old headunit out of my car.

I went from this old retro and radbutnotworkingness.


DSC_0348 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

To my relatively new working pioneer headunit.


DSC_0360 by Smeeeb, on Flickr


As for plans for the car the always the basics, low, wheels and loud. Apart from that i have a almost perfect 2.0 manual engine with timing chains, belts and waterpump recently done sitting there collecting dust, so after i figure out what i need, i shall be enlisting the help of a few friends and attempting to smash that out over a weekend. I also have my lovely vento front which will most likely grace the front end of my car but needs painting again....

I also have a mass number of bumpers sitting around so i shall be attempting my hand at making a shaved bumper. How that will go i am unsure of but i hope well.


That will be it for a couple of weeks seeing i am about to start my trials and commit suicide in the english essay portion of the exams, who's smart idea was it to make 17 and 18 year old write 3 essays on different topics and authors in a crowded hall in 2 and half hours. Who ever came up with it, i hate you.


For now i am off to destroy my liver at my best friends 18th birthday.

Thank you for reading, chow until next time.

[Surfpig]

look forward to seeing it evolve!

[anthony--t]

Can the cl really be that much worse than the gl? I've never driven one although I guess being auto wouldn't help and probably the main issue.

Good stuff on a cheap 3 door. I still think it would've been perfect for the girlfriend.

Judging by that first post you have no dramas writing essays. Lol

[veedubMK3]

Awesome 2 door mate. Look forward to seeing where it goes.
Have fun!

[decksla]

looks sweet and is that retro fitted cruise control?

love the plates " BO 2 U"! hehe

make it look like this! by far one of my fave mk3s evah

[Surfpig]

Can the cl really be that much worse than the gl? I've never driven one although I guess being auto wouldn't help and probably the main issue.

Good stuff on a cheap 3 door. I still think it would've been perfect for the girlfriend.

Judging by that first post you have no dramas writing essays. Lol

my girlfriends auto is heaps laggy and just so slow.

[KKK VR6]

Looks good, bargin price
Needs a cut & polish, ask any painter/ detailer an there'll tell u red is the best paint to learn on!
Should just primer the side strips, then wet sand so its smooth, then have shot at painting, if u screw it up, sand it back down, then pass it on to a painter.

+1 for throwing the 2L in there

[Smeeeb]

look forward to seeing it evolve!

Awesome 2 door mate. Look forward to seeing where it goes.
Have fun!

Can the cl really be that much worse than the gl? I've never driven one although I guess being auto wouldn't help and probably the main issue.

Good stuff on a cheap 3 door. I still think it would've been perfect for the girlfriend.

Judging by that first post you have no dramas writing essays. Lol

It's crazy how bad the auto greabox is, the 2.0 is exponentially faster.

looks sweet and is that retro fitted cruise control?

love the plates " BO 2 U"! hehe

make it look like this! by far one of my fave mk3s evah


[img]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7361/8725725348_a3c5f38f5f_o.jpg[/ig]

I have talked to that several times, he has a great thread on Stance I Works. The man is a wealth of knowledge about mk3s, also has lots of a nice parts.

Looks good, bargin price
Needs a cut & polish, ask any painter/ detailer an there'll tell u red is the best paint to learn on!
Should just primer the side strips, then wet sand so its smooth, then have shot at painting, if u screw it up, sand it back down, then pass it on to a painter.

+1 for throwing the 2L in there

That's the plan broski, i just need to do the manual swap first and get that ****ery out of the way.




I may also being gaining lows and loud earlier than first expected if all goes swimmingly.

[Smeeeb]

So yeah

[Smeeeb]

Hello again,

So since my father wants to get all the wrecks off our property so our house looks less like a scrapyard. This caused us to start properly stripping down everything we will be using for the two door. This meant removing the engine, this is the second engine removal i have done and the third time I've been properly pulling apart the engine bay. The others being putting a clutch in when i got the car and the second the being a swapping the front engine mount not that long ago.

As a whole the removal went quite easy without to many dramas apart from some bent engine mount bolts

It has been so cold here lately that working past 6-7pm is not happening the temperature drops down to close to zero degrees so this whole process was done in three afternoons with the assistance of my father of course.

Day 1 - Unplugging things removing hoses


DSC_0380 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

Day 1 End - Everything unplugged front bar removed, radiator air con


DSC_0382 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

Day 2 - Undoing engine mounts and undoing exhaust manifold bolts

(I don't have a picture of this for some reason, it looked pretty much the same as the above picture)

So if you have never removed a 2.0 i'm not 100% whether it is the same for the 1.8 and VR. Getting the down pipe from the exhaust manifold off is dumb and should feel bad about it self. For one of the bolts we had to put the fitting on the bolts then feed an extension between the exhaust pipes to reach the bolts and have a decent amount of leverage to crack the nuts. So after had done this all and cracked everything and undone them we called it a night as it was 0 degrees.

Day 3 - The removal

Now everything was off and the engine was ready to come out. I came home from work ready to get it done but my grandparents were down for lunch so this delayed it a few hours, lucky my granddad decided he wanted to give a hand so we had some extra brain power and muscle to help us along the way.

One problem we had was the positioning of the car, it was facing towards the dirt driveway which is quite steep so we couldn't really get the engine crane up there. This created a problem.


DSC_0388 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

Which was solved my a use of a swing sort of motion, which worked the second time

THE ENGINE IS OUT YAY


DSC_0390 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

It's surprising how substantial the engine seems once you actually get it out, it takes up basically the same room as the VR engine in the shed. Which is both good and bad.

There's so much room for activities!


DSC_0392 by Smeeeb, on Flickr

This means the engine swap will be happening some time soon hopefully, i just have to sort out what else i need for it to just drop in and what needs replacing on my old engine.


Also thanks to my old man for being a source of knowledge and cracking all the nuts i couldn't.


DSC_0383 by Smeeeb, on Flickr


Till next time.