Bit of a background about myself, im 30 and have always been into my motors. I spent 8 months travelling aound your amazing country 5 years ago and want to come back one day. Hence i thought i would lookup the VW scene over in Australia.
Here's a bit of a project thread for my Mk1 GTI Karmann Cabrio. Just interested to see what you all think over in Australia. I'm lovin' the VW modding scene you have over there and the sublte differences to how we do it in England.
It all started may 2005 when for some reason i came up with the idea of buying a cheap convertible for the summer. Just a cheap ****box to runabout in and thats it. So the searching started for a Mk1 cabrio. I had a look at a couple, including a really dodgy one in Basingstoke, Hampshire, that had 17's (couldn't steer it!) and half the wiring hanging outa the dash and he still wanted £2K for it, muppet. Anyway the urge just to get one was getting the better of me so when i found this one and i managed to batter the guy from £800 down to £450 (approx $1k aus) i though i couldn't go wrong. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
Despite it having 4 flat tyres, had no MOT (your equivelent to Rego) on it for at least 3 years and he hadn't run it up for months i STILL embarked on driving it the 11 miles home. 2 near death experiences later, NO BLOODY BRAKES virtually and i had already fallen in love with it. That was it, here started the plan to do it all up, starting with a rebuild on the engine and then on to the bodywork.
Heres some pics a couple of days after i had got it and given it its only wash ive eva treated it too.
Engine was v messy and seemed to have loadsa bits missing, split or broken.
So after a couple of days i started realising that perhaps this wasn't the bargain i originally thought it was going to be. Apart from all the brakes needing to be replaced i'd found a split CV boot, rust in probably all the usual areas (see pics) a completely split and knackerd steering rack gaiter, no rev counter and most of the other dials working intermitantly, needed all new tyres as rotten and the list continues......
Grot
Grot
... more grot!
Next stage was to start fixing a few of these problems, starting with the fact that it was puffing out abit of smoke, i was reliably informed that this was probably the valve stem seals so a strip down and clean up of the engine insued. See pics. I reground in all the valves, a job i hadn't done for a while, painted the block and generally spent hours and hours getting all the crap off the entire engine bay that had built up over the almost 20 years. Replaced various hoses that had split, fitted a new earth strap which straight away sorted out all the dodgey dials, they work now! Also decided to fit a K&N filter and a fast road cam (Kent Cams) which i got from, the now no-longer, Auto Technic Southampton. Anyway i forget how many bits i had to source, including a metal water pipe which even had my local main VW dealership stumped, as to what it was. It even had a VW part code on it and they still couldn't find it for ages.
Engine in need of hours of cleaning and tidying up.
1.8 head looking all clean and shiney.
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Originally Posted by itsbazza
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