New diesel owner

[sports racer]

Love this photo

[DieselMk1]

Love this photo

So do I mate

As is my luck the bloke sold it from under me, so annoying :/

[DieselMk1]

UUUUUUUPDATE


So, it's been a while since my last update. Not much has really happened with my Golf, just been driving it and enjoying the tidy stockness.

Until yesterday.













Enkei Big End Rodders, 15x7 +35 with 5mm and 20mm spacers in the front and rear respectively. The fronts poke about 5mm and the rear almost pokes so I really only want 15mm in the rear and none in the front (unless a fender roll and some camber up front bring them in) but the wheels don't clear the calipers the rear has settled since putting them on but the front needs to be brought down, happening next weekend.



The fenders need to be rolled, I have access to a fender roller but not until next Saturday so I may just do the ol' cricket bat handle trick to get me out of trouble.....maybe.

[DieselMk1]

Holy thread revival

No I didn't drop off the face of the earth! I'm here to have a quick update, hopefully I'll be posting here more often.

Anyway the last post left off with me getting new wheels. Which I loved, and complemented with a set of Bilsteins.

Not long after that I did an adult (read: stupid) decision to get a loan and get a car I could actually daily, my injector pump was starting to leak real bad and I needed to be able to work on it.

So, I did a silly thing and bought a black Mk3 VR6, at night. I quickly scored some Merc wheels from a mate and some adapters from eBay and slapped it all together. Ignore the headlights, they went away eventually.

Apologies for image sizing, computers still confuse me



(The Enkeis were lent to a friend and then once I got them back I sold them as I needed money)




The day before it sold, I couldn't put up with it breaking all the time. It had gone through a couple of not very nice owners and an engine before I bought it, info I wish I knew before buying it.


In the midst of the VR6 saga I said goodbye to the original shell. An empty hull of the car I and its previous owners once loved. I'm in the process of getting the hatch back, I want that Diesel Club sticker lol.


I then went through a couple of cars and ended up with a Discovery. Great for hauling parts, or in this case more long term projects

1960 Lloyd Alexander TS, one owner shed find. Been off the road since 1978.




Things died down for a bit but then one morning I woke up to find there was a couple of Mk1s up for auction in a large deceased estate auction comprising of mainly aircooled VWs. A $20 joke bid was made and a few hours later I was surprised by a phonecall saying I'd won one! Excellent. Another white 4 door diesel, can you believe. I can't escape them!

The thing had been unregistered since 1996 and showed it haha. With a LOT of encouragement (and Start Ya Bastard) I got it fired up. It was soon apparent why it'd been retired, it had nearly 400,000km on it and a cylinders worth of exhaust was pumping out of the valve cover. Ahwell. This car had many plans made and changed and has eventually found a home. The floors and sills are rotted to hell but the rest is surprisingly solid.

The car itself is a tad strange though. It has a button on the dash for the glow plugs (I assume this was fitted by a previous owner), it has a strange Japanese sticker on the timing cover, original starting instructions printed onto the windscreen, and no month/year of manufacture stamped into the ID plate. It also has the early style earth points above the glovebox.

What I did manage to get out of this car were speakerless door cards! After so long I had some tan ones finally.





I was going to keep the radio (as I've always wanted an original radio) but ended up swapping it for a louvre


Things went quiet again for a while. I lost motivation, again. Which seems to be a reoccurring theme.

After however long I decided I needed to get at least one Mk1 running and driving for Volksfest. After a lot of deliberation (and worry about defects) I decided to get Bam driving again. Which meant either re-sealing the pump (which I was hesitant to do), changing pumps (which I was really hesitant to do) or swap engines with one I knew ran, which is what I did do. A friend and I also had to swap hubs after I had a spacer fail and the wheel became loose, which in turn ripped the bolts from the hub and also broke the bleeder from the calliper. I have the best luck.

I also came into possession one of my favourite sets of wheels. P slots



After the hub swap me and a couple mates got started swapping engines. It was their first time working on a Golf and my first time swapping Golf engines with an engine crane (all with my limited tools) so it took us all day to get it out and (by myself) a week and a bit of after work afternoons to get it back together again. I found putting the gearbox back on the hardest part, holy crap.

2 whole days after I got it driving and registered, I had to evacuate due to the Pinery bushfire. I packed the Disco with animals and photos and had to leave the Mk1 (plus the rusty Mk1 and the Lloyd) behind. It was a heartbreaking decision but with the fire front moving 80km/h toward home and mum stuck on the other side of Adelaide I couldn't do anything, and got the hell out of there.



Luckily the wind changed when the front was about 20km from mine and it survived

Volksfest was that weekend, so once it was safe to go home I got my butt into gear and got it ready to show off publicly for the first time in more than a year. The engine I put in isn't fantastic but it's also been rebuilt at some point. It has a non genuine head, oil baffle in the valve cover, a weird temp sensor (which doesn't work with my plug), a strange oil pressure switch (which I swapped out), an extra threaded hole in where to coolant goes into the front of the head, and an extended dipstick tube. Plus the block and valve cover have been painted red. It's not fantastic in the way when its cold it struggles to start it runs on 3 cylinders and smokes hardcore, with some compression blowing out of the intake. When it's warm though it's fine and runs fantastic, although still has air coming out of the intake. A mate has suggested rings, which I thought first, but the smoke it blows when cold is black. I think its something to do with the valves, or even a crack between valves, which closes when it gets to op temp. I dunno. Its getting worse though, some days its almost as if the timing changes as it will go very tinny and clacky and be slow and then later it'll be fine. I dunno. I'm driving it daily atm until I get the Disco registered.

Anyway, after that novel, have some pics lol








We got a few Mk1s (and a couple of Mk2s) to Volksfest, so many in fact they let us have our own area


And my fave pic of it so far. I always pass this abandoned building and finally bothered to stop


I have put the original bonnet back on as well since those pics.

Oh and if you know of anyone in SA with a Mk1 or Mk2, send em over to us at Mk1 Golf Adelaide. We love having everyone in the one place on FB


Thanks for reading

[DieselMk1]

Oh and I found out because Bam is a 9/80 car, it makes it one of the last Mk1s sold in the country. Pretty cool imo

[sports racer]

Love the story, especially the ending.

Well done.

[DieselMk1]

Love the story, especially the ending.

Well done.

Thanks mate

The story doesn't end there, once the rego runs out it will finally be treated to some love. I'm taking the body to my friends house who will sort out the rust and bodywork, and we'll have to work out the paint situation. The engine, I'll probably get the 1.5D rebuilt. I want to find a 1.9TD IDI from a Mk3 but finding a diesel Mk3 whether IDI or TDI is almost impossible.

[GeorgeMK1]

Epic story haha, boy oh boy do i remember those after work "working on mk1 to get it ready for a show" sessions haha! Glad to see it didnt burn down, and the last pics are pretty period correct! Looking good man

[DieselMk1]

Epic story haha, boy oh boy do i remember those after work "working on mk1 to get it ready for a show" sessions haha! Glad to see it didnt burn down, and the last pics are pretty period correct! Looking good man

Thanks man! I'm glad too haha. Yeah I'm all about "day 1" mods and appearance. As in, how it would've looked if I modified it when it was still new with period correct things and appearance

[DieselMk1]

Also what're people's opinions on the grille? I made it using some bent chrome grille surround I had laying around