Marcels Mk3's

[marcybro]

Hi there. My name is Marcel and im sorta new to the car scene.
Got my first car on my L's. Got it at the beginning of 2013. It is a 1997 VW Golf MK3
It has a 1.8L motor. Very slow and tired engine.

Within the first two weeks of owning her, she decided to start give us troubles.
First had a cooling problem, the thermofans werent kicking in when the temperature hit 90
after a week, decided to pull the entire radiator apart but still she was running over 110degrees
Put it back together and found a small piece of paper in one of the lines from the coolant bottle. PROBLEM FIXED!!!


after a few months, she was running fine until we ran into a oil leak problem.
Previous owner was either a very horrible driver or was speeding over speed bumps.
The oil sump bolt was half sheared off and large amounts of dents underneath.
replaced the entire oil sump, changed gaskets, PROBLEM FIXED!!!

One day the clutch decided to start squeaking, i didnt really pay attention to it
Then one early morning at 6am, while dropping my dad off that the airport, the clutch decide to drop in the middle of traffic on Tonkin HWY. :/
Hazard lights on, and pushing the car on the hwy for about 1km finally finding a clearing on the side of the highway.
The clutch cable had slipped out of its housing. :/ Very common problem with MK3's i heard. Luckily there was a construction site near by, got some washers from them, put the cable back on and drove home in 3rd for 25km doing 100km at 4500rpm. :/ Lots of petrol got burned.
Once my father got back from work, put 3 thick washers on the housing and its still going strong.

About 3 or 4 months later, my grandparents came down from South Africa. My grandfather loved my mk3, they are very popular in S.A.
One sunday morning on the way to church, heard this sound from the engine bay.
Managed to get home to have a look, heard a knocking sound coming from the pulleys. tightened it and was still knocking. Did a full overhaul with the pulley system. Changed the pulley itself, belts and it still knocks. When ever it rains or any bit of water touches it, it decides to slip and knock but still runs to this day.


A couple of months back, decided to change the the headlights and the indicators. Got clear angel headlights and clear indicator set, along with lower grille daytime runners off ebay. Looks great at night but not very strong in the daytime.
And this is how she sits at this moment, still very clean, still got the original previous owner rims, 18s.
Future plans for her are as follows:
Bought a 2.0L MK3 GL as a breaking car.
Swapping out the guts of the 2.0L into the 1.8L block - pistons, conrods, crankshaft, bore out the 1.8L block to 2.0L, more power like that.
Taking the abs brakes from the 2.0L, swapping them in
Maybe some coilovers or springs
262cams and hd springs soon.
And maybe some doseing in the future.

[Tubbs76]

welcome on board mate.

[stefcio007]

Nice. Are those headlights the Hella ones?

[Red9N3gti]

Awesome. Some cars have no problems, some cars do. But they all have a personality, and that's what makes them worth saving/repairing. Keep up the good work.

[fred27]

welcome to the forum

[anthony--t]

That's a lot of aspirations! Power to ya if you go through with it.

[marcybro]

not too sure but they were advertised as clear angel eyes.

[KI11Z]

Nice. Are those headlights the Hella ones?

Negative ghost rider, ebay goodness :p

sounds like a fun little project man, goodluck