1990 Mk2 Golf GTi 1.8T - Coronavirus Progress!!!

Bonus!

Carbuildersolutions? Rally Design?

CBS have got everything! Its a great winters day catalogue. Youll find things you never even knew you needed

My eyes have popped out!! This is great!!! you're restoring it back to original or OEM+?

I’ve had the week off this week and got my BMW to a point where it went through it’s MOT so today I decided to fit the interior into the Golf.

The Golf has been sitting out on the road looking very sorry for itself. I bought a replacement interior for it a couple of months ago which has been sitting in the dining room waiting to be fitted. The first thing to do was to fit the door cards.

This I what I started with.





Five minutes and barely any swearing later.









You can probably see in those pictures that the carpet was covered in curse word. Once the door cards were fitted I chucked a seat in, got the car onto the driveway and vacuumed the life out of it. Between this and the BMW I’ve done enough vacuuming this week to last me a lifetime.

Once it was looking clean and tidy I fetched the rear bench and got it bolted in



Then it was time for the front seats. I’d bought all new slider clips for them and made sure I greased the runners to keep them moving smoothly.





Once the seats were in I got the steering wheel swapped over. As much as I liked the wheel that was fitted it wasn’t in the best condition. I found a Mk2 Golf GTI wheel for sale a little while ago and bought it.



With the interior done I decided to get the slimline cooling fan fitted as well. It’s a Spal fan which came with all the mounting clips etc so only took about 15 minutes to fit including adjusting the wiring.



That’s about it for today It’s been a productive one.

Nope. I might have to fit it though. I’ve got some damaged muscle in my neck and right shoulder which when aggravated means I can’t move my head. After driving the car for 40 minutes earlier my neck is stiff!!

Are you on mk2 or mk3 top mounts? I found mk3 rotate easier, on my friends non PAS mk2.
Personally I wouldn't be without it, there's still lots of steering feel and it's a quicker rack too. Easier to run more aggressive suspension geometry too.
And we're all a bit soft in this day and age. But I'm OK with that!

I’ve driven the Golf a little more over the last couple of weeks and decided that everything is very hard in it. The suspension is too hard. The steering is too heavy and aggravates my shoulder and neck. The clutch is too stiff and jerky and the accelerator is too stiff and very hard to regulate.

I know it’s an old car and I really want to like it but all the effort that has to be put into everyday driving really has me struggling to enjoy it. I’ve already bought the bushes to replace the poly bushed rear beam and new front arms to get rid of the poly bushes on the front. That will calm the jittery ride down quite a bit hopefully.

In an effort to try and stop the clutch feeling quite so jerky I bought a G60 front engine mount the other day to replace the solid one that’s fitted. Seeing as it was quiet at work again yesterday I got one of the techs to fit it for me in the afternoon. He had an absolute nightmare getting it in and had to tip the engine right back. It was eventually fitted but the front of the engine was looking quite high. By that point it was home time so I drove the car home but every time I went round a left hand bend I was getting a terrifying grinding noise through the pedals and steering column! I got the car home slowly and parked it on the driveway.

Today I lifted the bonnet and had a look around. It would appear where the engine is now tilted back the driveshaft is catching the rear engine mount which is sending a vibration through the car. I wasn’t sure how this could be seeing as the front mount I’d bought is exactly the same as another Mk2 20vt I know of has fitted. With a bit more investigation it turns out the front engine mount bracket is incorrect. It looks like mine is from a Mk3 Golf which gives too sharp an angle for the engine. I need one from an old Passat which gives a much shallower angle.



A quick search on eBay and I found the bracket I needed (in Latvia!) so I’ve ordered it and hopefully it won’t take too long to arrive

After the F1 had finished this afternoon I decided to head back outside and remove a bit more from the Golf! I wanted to get the rad support, front panel etc off so it can all be sanded down and painted.

Thankfully nothing was seized so it didn’t take long and it was all off





Once the front panel was off I decided I may as well remove the boost hoses and throttle inlet pipe as well. There’s a K03s turbo sat in the boot and a silicone TIP so it might as well all come out while I’ve got access.





This left me with a pile of bits. Thankfully the van is just in front of the Golf so it all got chucked in the back of that for now







The starter motor is in a right state and I’m tempted to replace it. It whines away when you start the car too.

With all that lot out of the way I tried to find the gearbox code but there’s still quite a lot of curse word in the way!



If anyone knows where the gearbox code is located then let me know so I can find out what I’ve got

That was about it for today. As long as the weather holds up I’ll try and sand the bits down during the week and if I’m feeling really energetic then I’ll get the turbo off too