First Golf

[Special Air Service]

Bought our first Golf a couple of weeks ago, a white 1994 2.0L GL 5 door, 300000kms. It joins our '72 beetle & '89 Caravelle.

Seller did not bother to clean it at all prior to selling, covered in dirt, mud, no working brake lights, left hand blinkers, interior lights, area between bonnet / engine / windscreen, full of dirt, leaves, twigs. Interior absolutely filthy with dust & pet hair, tyres had about 15psi pressure in them, broken drivers side door lock, left hand rear power window regulator broken & glass held up with a piece of fencing wire that was twitched around the interior door handle. Front lip hanging half off.

Got her for $900 with 5 months rego.

Have already tackled a lot of these jobs, will post more as I progress through the tidy up.



Pictures are after the first quick wash.

Oh yeah.....forgot to say.......I will have lots of questions.....

[mb1907953]

Awesome stuff mate! Cleaned up well Get some silicone spray or a heat gun on those black textured parts and it'll be looking a million bucks.

Get a list of the issues up and hopefully we can lend a hand.

[veedubMK3]

Good on you mate! Looks good as! Although I am partial to white mk3s my self ahaha

[Special Air Service]

Thanks gents...

Lighting issues were a combination of fuses, bad contacts, blown globes or no globes......all lights now sorted.

Rear power window was the standard broken regulator, which was fixed using the cable tie through the regulator & around the cable trick (found on here).
Pulled the rocker switch out of the door panel at the same time & pulled it apart & cleaned the contacts, now working including the small light in the switch.
t does appear as though there is some gremlin somewhere in the power window operation. rear windows behave differently to each other when operated. one window only operates momentarily when the switch is presses, doesn't matter for how long you press it......& the other operates momentarily with a quick press of the switch, but if you hold the switch for slightly longer the window will travel all the way up or down, even after the switch is released.

At this stage I have only had one switch out to clean it, so this may change after I clean the other switch.....but how are they supposed to function? what about the fronts windows? there a bit wishy washy as well.

The inside of the door was full of really fine dust, & the drains in the bottom where clogged, so out came the hose & sponge & hosed all that **** out.


Also found this in the bottom of the door, after I had already reassembled the window & regulator. Any ideas what it is off?







Interior door panel was a complete bitch to get off, a few of these plugs pulled out of the door before, rather than the door panel unclipping from them, are replacements available for small clips like this? or am I looking for decent second hand ones.
Don't have a VW dealer in town, so where do I look for stuff like this?

[mb1907953]

Hey mate,

I'd try a new switch for the weird window. They are meant to have the weird 'go all the way up when depressed a bit longer" thing. I love it and didn't realise a car from the 90s would have that function... Makes it so much easier to put a window up when you're trying to drive.
But it could be various things. i know in my car the bloke had to replace the front witch (for the rears that is under the aircon) and then also replaced the control unit on the motor. All things i'd imagine are easy to get from the wrecker.

re/ that first photo, no idea. Havent seen it before....

re. door clips, they are surprisingly hardy. Some of mine are half broken and all munted but they pop in fine and hold the trim sturdy. So I just went with second hand ones. Probably a buck or two from the stealer though.

[Watercooled]

Welcome to the world of bad window drives and switches ,the drives are best replaced as the plastic guide clips break and then whole thing just falls to bits,no one appears to do repair kits with replacement guides that I have seen.
Yea the cable tie will work but not in the long term,usually something else will go on there also.
The main frame is availiable and you switch over to your motor,be carefull removing your old motor as you can pull the screw drive and amature out of the brushes in the body and they are a mare to get back.
The front door wiring has a habit of breaking inside the rubber door boot,peel it back and have a look in there for broken or chaffed wires,one of mine had a broken earth wire for example.
Door panel clips ? if you don't you fix the window drives with new parts these will break or pull off the door panel every time you remove it to fix old used parts .............what I'am saying is don't use second hand regulators .
If the rear window drives play up just rip them out and put manual ones in from the base GL/GLI model,you can find or make some little plastic covers up to fill the switch holes.

[The_Hawk]

The auto up/down function seems to be a function of the electronic module and not all modules to it (either that or it's a common thing that goes in them). I've swapped various modules which seemed to work perfectly otherwise with some doing the auto things and others not.

As has been said, new regs can get expensive, but then at least you know you're going to go another 10-15 years without issues!


If the door lock is busted (as in turning freely) there is a little hook in behind there that commonly snaps. You want the SEAT replacement rather than the VW one as the SEAT one is thicker and stronger.

[Special Air Service]

Thanks guys, appreciate the advice about replacing some of the stuff with new rather than patching up the old, just wanted to get it working again in the short term for starters.

Also can see what your saying about the panel clips.....

Yes busted door lock is the hook, have swapped left handle to right for the time being, until I get the replacement parts.

Where do I go looking for new replacement parts like the "hook thingy", door panel clips, & other smaller body trim clips etc.

VW dealer?
Tooley imports?
Camden GTI?

Have found some of the stuff Overseas, but would like to try sourcing in Aus if pricing is close.

is there a specific Golf wrecker around anywhere?

Cheers
Brendan

[Umai Naa!!]

Tooleys will have just about everything you need.

The trim clips you can get in bulk lots off Ebay for not very much.

They're a great little car. I've had two pass through my hands in the last few years. Would gladly take another one on. They're very easy to work on, once you figure out all the little tricks.

[Special Air Service]

Not much happening at the moment, have just ordered a bundle of front suspension parts (bushes etc), so that will be the job over the Xmas break.

I have however swapped over the wheels tyres from our Pulsar (which will be sold shortly).

16" Speedy Hyperfangs, big improvement in my opinion.





The old 14" Advanti's have also dramatically altered the look of the old pulsar, not in a god way though







Do any of you guys run a manual adjust clutch cable instead of the standard self adjusting cable? Have read that this is possible, and would like to get the clutch to be engaging at a slightly lower position on the pedal stroke.

Cheers