1991 Mk2 Golf GTI - the journey so far

Another cgti head here, and a 91 Tornado red gti driver too!

2010

Rustproofing. The whole underside liberally coated with Dinitrol products.



















New tailgate picked up to replace the rotten one



Headgasket goes. No doubt aided by the escapades of the day I picked it up. Refurbished head bought and fitted along with a stainless Jetex exhaust system.





Polishing Tornado pink to within an inch of its life (looks so much better in these pics than it did in the metal!)















Have to break into the car as the one and only lock matched to the key packed up One of the handle screws had worked loose meaning the lock would not engage or activate the central locking. Fortunately, I'd prepared for this by sourcing a new genuine lockset but typically hadn't got around to fitting it. Revel in the fact I now have a car that has one key for all locks (previously never had a car with one key - it's the simple things right?).



Pick up a set of ropey Ronal LS with monster truck tyres. Fitted some 45 profile Rainsports and got them on the car.





Carpets and interior stripped. Gone is the worn grey material, in with black.


























Cracked the windscreen. Replaced it. Cracked it again a week later on the same stretch of road

Picked up leather G60 steering wheel in average condition for reasonable money. Set about re-colouring it using a kit from the Furniture Clinic.









Poormans garage!

2012-2013

Mk2 gets retired from daily duties. Duff oil pump sees off the 2.0 8v.

Spend a few weeks debating whether to burn it OR push it off of a cliff. The decision is made to do what I should have done to start with and fit a 2.0 16v ABF engine from a later Mk3. Begin the search and figure as I need the loom etc it was better to buy a complete donor car. Having only ever done one engine swap on a Beetle this was going to be a steep learning curve!

Enter the yellow peril. A chav chariot, sorry, '99 Ibiza Cupra 16v ABF. Complete rot box but with all the bits needed - ECU, engine, spare box and bonus of some 280mm G60 brakes. Even had a few months MOT to put the engine through its paces. Shot discs, ditchfinder tyres and a steering column bracket that decided to sheer itself from the pedalbox made for an interesting driving experience!





And the bit I'm interested in.



Last pic before it met its demise. Felt a little bad tearing it apart but in all honesty it should never have been on the road.



The teardown (sorry for the poor pics)










Engine loom liberated. Bit of a pain Seat tie their looms together (vw have a seperate engine loom) but we got there!







Borrowed an engine crane and out the engine and box came

















End of Jan it was time for the Ibiza to leave and the Mk2 to enter. Now the real work began.

Up in the air



About an hour later all slam panel off, coolant drained, oil drained, power steering fluid drained, bumper off, lights disconnected.



Stripping and labelling all the electrics (wiring puts the fear of god into me)





Ghetto engine dolly







Dead 8v liberated







To be continued

Shame about the cupra.
Always fancied one in the light green they did.
Nice golf though!

Lovely little project. Never knew the Cupra shared the same engine as the Mk3 Golf. Makes sense really!

An AbF is so good in a mk2, makes a great car

lovely. did you pull the brakes from the SEAT too? should have 280s on there, it'll need them

Cheers guys



Sure did, still got 6 odd years of updates to come

A previous owner had done the sump plug up so tightly I decided to just drop the sump. Picked up another sump and plug which gave me an opportunity to inspect.









Mk2 header tank was looking generally minging so bought a Mk4 one. Better cap design and significantly cheaper than the Mk2 one from the dealer.



New dizzy cap, rocker cover gasket set on.



Sorting the coolant system out. I replaced the oil cooler hose that had disintegrated before and fitted the amazingly expensive metal water pipe (45 effin quid with no pattern options available!):







Front flange (snigger) had had it so that got replaced.





Bolted up the inlet with all new gaskets and bolts and popped the HT lead cowling on.





Dooms day arrived for the Ibiza. Yes the neighbours loved me. There really wasn't a lot left on it when it went. Driver did a pretty good job of ninja'ing it onto the truck too considering it had minimal front running gear.










Goodridge brake line upgrade, 280 discs and stainless bleed nipples fitted.



Old and new. Nothing wrong with the old 256mm setup but as Ibiza had 280's it would be rude not to.



Despite being the factory colour the red of the Ibiza calipers was not my cuppa so stripped them down to be repainted.



and on:



Radiator back in, accelerator cable, speedo cable and clutch cable all connected up and starting to look more like a car again.











Fitted the lambda sender:





As the MK2 airbox wouldn’t work Picked up an Ibiza airbox to replace the sh*t induction kit my Ibiza came with so cleaned that up and fitted:



Taking a break from the front end, I decided to whip the back bumper off to check for rot and to see if I could align it any better. Replaced a broken bumper bracket. Also cleared out the filler cap. Amazing how much curse word hides up in here:















I’m not brilliant with wiring so my MK2 loom and the Ibiza loom got sent away to be merged. Rubjonny, a well-known legend in the VW scene sorted it, arriving back on my doorstep. Lovely.



Fitting:











Slowly but surely getting there - front end and lights back on, all connected up:





Then time for STARTUP! Turned the key, nothing. Hmm. An investigation revealed the problem was a lack of fuel getting to the injectors. After stripping down the manifold etc again I realised muggins here had put the fuel hoses were on the wrong way around. Oops

Sorted that and saw fuel getting through and a glimmer of hope as it turned over. Unfortunately, the factory immobiliser kept cutting in despite using the correct chip/coil reader etc from the Seat. Few evenings spent getting to grips with VAGCOM and multiple different coil readers and chips from the scrappy and still no joy. Decided to give in and send the ECU off to Stealth Racing to defeat it. Came back and the car fired up the first time.



Rewired in the the VDO worry senders:



Up and running!



Fresh bleed of the brakes:







A few finishing touches added to the car now it had 8 extra valves:





MOT time:





And here’s where things went bad… to be continued!