I'm a regular lurker on this forum, but haven't really had the bottle to post my past cars up as they've all been big bumper Mk2's and not quite as retro as I wanted. Anyway, my last car, a self-converted Mk2 8v GTi 2.0L (ported and polished head, manifold etc) was rear ended and written off at Easter 
so I started looking for a VR6 Corrado and couldn't find one around my paltry £2000 budget... I spied a G-reg, early 1989 16v Golf on eBay and without expecting a great deal went to see it in Manchester.
It was in good condition - paintwork looked very good but had a couple of sloppy repairs in the wrong colour (nothing polish can't disguise though), but was almost completely rust free. 143K on the clock, almost a full service history with main dealers, very good nick inside, and with plenty of potential. It also came with leccy windows, Cobra alarm, air conditioning (fitted by the original dealership prior to it's first sale - not factory), rear turret carpets, slightly chavvy headunit, and a rear window sticker that said: 2FAST4U
It had also been lowered with a spring and shock kit (Pi springs, Bilstein shocks), but to accomodate the rear wheels sticking our past the arches it was raked approximately 50-60mm at the front and about 40mm at the back. Not 100% sure even now how much by tbh.
The only styling downsides were that the current owner had put on 16" Borbet A wheels (7.5J front, and 9J at the back!),a debadged front grille, and had swapped the original small bumpers for big bumpers (why oh why?) although it retained the original early GTi trim. It had been very neatly debadged round the back just leaving the VW badge and it looked really nice and clean all over, straight as anything with only one small ding in the rear valance. Mechanically it wouldn't go into first gear without a funny little jiggle of the stick, and was due a good service as it had hardly been used in 2years. There were a few niggles like a couple of bulbs on the dash had blown, and the coolant warning light would occasionally flash for no reason.
Here's what it looked like when I bought it:
So I set to work straight away getting stuff sorted. My aim was to get it looking more retro and true to it's age. My favourite style of Mk2's are the OEM/OEM+ variety and that's what my plan is - apart from anything it's a daily so certain mods are out of the question for practicality and cost reasons. The good thing was a fair few things had been done for me already - debadged rear, lowering - so it was good starting point for my preferred look.
First up was the gears as it was verging on impossible to drive around town as it took a good 10-15seconds of fiddling just to get into 1st gear - I lost count of the number of times I was beeped at and gestured by other drivers
I suspected the ball and socket assembly under the stick was knackered and so set about getting it apart - somehow managing to do it without removing the headshield from the tunnel - this is what I found (excuse my mutant thumb):
Put a new one in, new linkages alround, added a weighted shift rod, and bingo! The gears feel ace. How the previous owner put up with it, I do not know. Cost me about 3 quid and a couple of hours with a mates help.
Next. Added underbonnet soundproofing off my 8v, a late stiff scuttle cover, new battery and proper VW cover, and swapped all the lights for decent versions (really crappy, cheap smoked versions) off my 8v including late spec smoked rears. Also ripped out the airbox and put a new one in - why? The original had been drilled on every single surface - sounded great but looked a mess and must have done more harm than good. Lastly swapped the debadged front grille for a two lamp one I had with a black badge - two lamps on bug bumpers is not always a good look, but it was going small bumpers at some point. Put in my iPod headunit too.
Also added an Alpine underseat powered subwoofer to the boot - gives more than enough bass for my needs and keeps the boot practical.
After giving it a good service (new leads, dizzy cap and rotor, oil, air filter, oil filter, plugs) disaster struck. 10mins of driving later and it started to violently misfire, before eventually just conking out at 60mph on a country bend... not a good experience, and I narrowly missed a ditch in the process of losing PAS. Towed home by a local garage, and the driver managed to pull of my front bumper on one side in the process - damn lowered cars eh?
I later discovered that in doing the dizzy parts, I had disturbed a quite hilarious bodge - the dizzy was held together with a cable tie! The hall sender just fell off when I inspected it. So a new dizzy was bought and fitted:
Problem solved!
Next those wheels had to go. I just felt they didn't suit the era of the car, especially as I wanted to put it back to small bumpers. They also rubbed hellishly - motorway driving was just one long sequence of screeches as the back tyres hit the rear arches over every dip in the road. So they were sold. Couldn't find a set of alloys with tyres that I liked, and so went for the tried and tested solution of G60 steels instead! New Continental tyres too 195/50s - maybe needed to be a touch lower profile, but I like them. Scarily I discovered one of the rear Borbets was missing a spigot ring when I took it off - when I think back to the amount of speedy motorway driving I did...
In my opinion the car now looked miles better, and I was starting to feel happy that it's potential was being realised. Now for the bumpers.
I got a hold of some mint, but very faded small bumpers quite easily - but the lower valance panel and a 16v chin spoiler proved impossible to track down in decent condition. Ended up buying one in navy blue and repraying it myself - check out my deluxe spray booth:
Came up looking amazing - especially as it was my first go at bodywork. Really chuffed, although amusingly you can hardly even see it on the car ;D
I have to say I wasn't happy when the bumpers went on. I think it was because of how faded they were, almost white in places. Made the car look quite tatty and the shape looked totally different - I am/was so accustomed to the big bumper look, the car looked smaller and weird to me
It also exaggerates the difference in the front and rear spring heights - looks a lot more raked for some reason. Also the backbox sticks out too far - a future item to sort.
However all it took to completely change my mind, was a coating of boiled linseed oil on the bumpers and trim. From grey and faded, streaky mess to this!
Suffice to say I absolutely love how it looks now!
Got a shed load of niggle to sort out over the holidays but I really chuffed with it. Goes like a train and when the revs hit 4K it sounds superb too.
Plans? Coilovers, replace the seats with better condition versions (can feel the metal bar on the driver bolster), and neaten up some of the chips and little nicks etc. A 2.0L conversion is on the cards too. Also I'm on the lookout for a more subtle backbox - preferrably a single pipe upswept version.
Opinions etc welcome!
so I started looking for a VR6 Corrado and couldn't find one around my paltry £2000 budget... I spied a G-reg, early 1989 16v Golf on eBay and without expecting a great deal went to see it in Manchester.It was in good condition - paintwork looked very good but had a couple of sloppy repairs in the wrong colour (nothing polish can't disguise though), but was almost completely rust free. 143K on the clock, almost a full service history with main dealers, very good nick inside, and with plenty of potential. It also came with leccy windows, Cobra alarm, air conditioning (fitted by the original dealership prior to it's first sale - not factory), rear turret carpets, slightly chavvy headunit, and a rear window sticker that said: 2FAST4U
It had also been lowered with a spring and shock kit (Pi springs, Bilstein shocks), but to accomodate the rear wheels sticking our past the arches it was raked approximately 50-60mm at the front and about 40mm at the back. Not 100% sure even now how much by tbh.The only styling downsides were that the current owner had put on 16" Borbet A wheels (7.5J front, and 9J at the back!),a debadged front grille, and had swapped the original small bumpers for big bumpers (why oh why?) although it retained the original early GTi trim. It had been very neatly debadged round the back just leaving the VW badge and it looked really nice and clean all over, straight as anything with only one small ding in the rear valance. Mechanically it wouldn't go into first gear without a funny little jiggle of the stick, and was due a good service as it had hardly been used in 2years. There were a few niggles like a couple of bulbs on the dash had blown, and the coolant warning light would occasionally flash for no reason.
Here's what it looked like when I bought it:
So I set to work straight away getting stuff sorted. My aim was to get it looking more retro and true to it's age. My favourite style of Mk2's are the OEM/OEM+ variety and that's what my plan is - apart from anything it's a daily so certain mods are out of the question for practicality and cost reasons. The good thing was a fair few things had been done for me already - debadged rear, lowering - so it was good starting point for my preferred look.
First up was the gears as it was verging on impossible to drive around town as it took a good 10-15seconds of fiddling just to get into 1st gear - I lost count of the number of times I was beeped at and gestured by other drivers
I suspected the ball and socket assembly under the stick was knackered and so set about getting it apart - somehow managing to do it without removing the headshield from the tunnel - this is what I found (excuse my mutant thumb):Put a new one in, new linkages alround, added a weighted shift rod, and bingo! The gears feel ace. How the previous owner put up with it, I do not know. Cost me about 3 quid and a couple of hours with a mates help.
Next. Added underbonnet soundproofing off my 8v, a late stiff scuttle cover, new battery and proper VW cover, and swapped all the lights for decent versions (really crappy, cheap smoked versions) off my 8v including late spec smoked rears. Also ripped out the airbox and put a new one in - why? The original had been drilled on every single surface - sounded great but looked a mess and must have done more harm than good. Lastly swapped the debadged front grille for a two lamp one I had with a black badge - two lamps on bug bumpers is not always a good look, but it was going small bumpers at some point. Put in my iPod headunit too.
Also added an Alpine underseat powered subwoofer to the boot - gives more than enough bass for my needs and keeps the boot practical.
After giving it a good service (new leads, dizzy cap and rotor, oil, air filter, oil filter, plugs) disaster struck. 10mins of driving later and it started to violently misfire, before eventually just conking out at 60mph on a country bend... not a good experience, and I narrowly missed a ditch in the process of losing PAS. Towed home by a local garage, and the driver managed to pull of my front bumper on one side in the process - damn lowered cars eh?
I later discovered that in doing the dizzy parts, I had disturbed a quite hilarious bodge - the dizzy was held together with a cable tie! The hall sender just fell off when I inspected it. So a new dizzy was bought and fitted:
Problem solved!
Next those wheels had to go. I just felt they didn't suit the era of the car, especially as I wanted to put it back to small bumpers. They also rubbed hellishly - motorway driving was just one long sequence of screeches as the back tyres hit the rear arches over every dip in the road. So they were sold. Couldn't find a set of alloys with tyres that I liked, and so went for the tried and tested solution of G60 steels instead! New Continental tyres too 195/50s - maybe needed to be a touch lower profile, but I like them. Scarily I discovered one of the rear Borbets was missing a spigot ring when I took it off - when I think back to the amount of speedy motorway driving I did...
In my opinion the car now looked miles better, and I was starting to feel happy that it's potential was being realised. Now for the bumpers.
I got a hold of some mint, but very faded small bumpers quite easily - but the lower valance panel and a 16v chin spoiler proved impossible to track down in decent condition. Ended up buying one in navy blue and repraying it myself - check out my deluxe spray booth:
Came up looking amazing - especially as it was my first go at bodywork. Really chuffed, although amusingly you can hardly even see it on the car ;D
I have to say I wasn't happy when the bumpers went on. I think it was because of how faded they were, almost white in places. Made the car look quite tatty and the shape looked totally different - I am/was so accustomed to the big bumper look, the car looked smaller and weird to me
It also exaggerates the difference in the front and rear spring heights - looks a lot more raked for some reason. Also the backbox sticks out too far - a future item to sort.However all it took to completely change my mind, was a coating of boiled linseed oil on the bumpers and trim. From grey and faded, streaky mess to this!
Suffice to say I absolutely love how it looks now!
Got a shed load of niggle to sort out over the holidays but I really chuffed with it. Goes like a train and when the revs hit 4K it sounds superb too.
Plans? Coilovers, replace the seats with better condition versions (can feel the metal bar on the driver bolster), and neaten up some of the chips and little nicks etc. A 2.0L conversion is on the cards too. Also I'm on the lookout for a more subtle backbox - preferrably a single pipe upswept version.
Opinions etc welcome!
