Going to buy a Mk1 Golf Gti
 

Hi all, for years ive always wanted to buy a classic and restore/modify it but for many reasons ive never done it mainly as ive always needed the car for work and not had my own home etc...

Now im 30 yrs old with a scooby, mortgage and daily runaround im ready to get my hands dirty, the car is in good nick body wise but is tatty and needs some tlc. Going to put in a g60 engine after previously owning a corrado and wanting to do something for myself....

Anybody got a haynes manual handy?? lol

my mate has just built one, its taken him 15 months of hard work, but I must say it looks amazing now! might know someone who has a haynes manual if your being serious?

been in a few mk1's with the g60 engine in go like stink with the chip and pulley changed:) i had a g60 corrado and have said to myself i'll buy another one some day mabye the vr6 and put a supercharger on it:norty:

my bothers got a mk1 with a honda v-tec engine in it that fly's

Just make sure you get a decent shell, despite the image they do rust.

G60, nah, 1.8T is the engine of choice these days, more reliable, easier to tune and more about.

I have had the 1.6 and the 1.8 normal engined ones, and they were amazing cars, loved them to bits, I also had the cabriolet version which was slower but still great to drive.

Oh the memories. :luvlove:

Fantastic motors, I've had two of these babies, and wouldn;t mind another :cool:
Don't buy anything earlier than 'X' plate, that's when they started galvanising the bodyshells, and fitting the 5 speed 'box.
The 1.6 had a very free revving engine but was somewhat lacking in torque, the 1.8 had more torque than the chassis could ideally handle :D:D but was less eager to rev. On a good road there was little to choose between them IMO, just like Mk2s have 8v & 16v champions, so it is with these.
The brakes were shocking when compared to it's contemporaries, copmared to modern cars they are downright terrifying:eek:
Most by now will probably have upper and lower front strut braces, these don't half make a difference both to the handling and the braking. Check the front suspension turrets and the tops of the B pillars very carefully for stress fractures, check especially the inner wings, sills, rear arches and rear valance for corrosion.
All except the 1.8 campaign models came with 13" rims, stepping up to 14" rims improves the handling no end (tyres are cheaper too;)) going above that just destroys the ride, although to be fair, they do look damned good on the right set of 15s :cool:

Oh yeah, Lhasa Green is supposedly the colour to buy, but I've always preferred them in Silver personally :thumb:

Had a few Golfs myself in the past!

Favourite has to be my mate's old one!

http://www.aviz.co.uk/images/vw/peachy/front.jpg
2.9 VR6 :D
http://www.aviz.co.uk/images/vw/peachy/engine.jpg

http://www.aviz.co.uk/images/vw/peachy/frontseat.jpg

http://www.aviz.co.uk/images/vw/peachy/rearseat.jpg

Nice Avi :cool:

I bet it's a bit nose-heavy in the corners though :lol1:

That is a nice bit of machinery

I bet a Mk1 would be great with a remapped PD diesel in it.

Must be loads about from crashed vw's and as they dont break they wont be that sought after. Imagine a tonnes worth of Mk1 with 300 lbs/ft

Just picked him up, amazing after a year and a half it started.... Got a new bonnet and 2 wings thrown in rest of the car is pretty solid, just needs total respray and the optional engine upgrade.

Need to upgrade the breaks for starters - rear drums WTF! lol

Smart, I love MK1 GTI's. I had one many moons ago.. my 2nd car when I was 18.

Dont forget the bell crank linkage that actuates the servo, thats where a lot of problems creep in, bloody awful arrangement, can be adjusted and it improves matters though total upgrades are where its at on mk1's, the brakes were marginal when new.

The brakes themselves work fine. It's the linkage to the servo on the other side of the bulkhead that gives them poor pedal feel. Agree that judging them against todays brakes their overall performance is poor. Other thing to check is where the clutch cable comes through the bulkhead. A badly adjusted clutch will cause the bulkhead to flex and bend. Oh and if the gearbox is reluctant to go into gear there is a cheap fix (an old 10p ) which makes it feel like new. I had 2 Mk1s, a Guards red 1.6 GTI and a Helios Blue Metallic Campaign. Still dream about the Campaign now..finding it in the garage after I'd forgotten about it...

Well done on your purchase :D

Nothin wrong with drum rears - 90% of stopping is done by the fronts so sort them instead - unless of course you cant stand the look of them ;)

I had two of them (plus 4 mk2s) and the brakes were rubbish on all of them, as new they were acceptable but once it got a bit older they went a lot worse. The Mk1 would run rings round a Capri 2.8 in the bends but the Capri would stop better, I sorted my gear change with a kit, a selection of 20 or so assorted bungs, grommets and bushes, was miles better after that. the brakes werent big enough for the car really, used to fade to nothing in hard use.

A modified Bias pedal box from a Sierra Cossie was the route I took to better braking, a lot of work, but worth the effort :D

Don't knock the drums on the rear, they are the reason Mk1s turn nicely on the handbrake, when Mk2s, with their poxy discs, won't ;)

Yes, it will, thats true, but the handbrake cable becomes the weak link, I speak from (alarming) experience and the knowledge that a Mk1 will hit a kerb hard without sustaining any major damage apart from loosing its little goatee beard spoiler :D

My Gti in the early 80's when I was in my yooof :)
Zender kit was all the rage back then although looks a little tacky now.

http://www.555subaru.co.uk/golf4.jpg

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...8/Image036.jpg

http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/m...8/Image037.jpg

Im going to keep the drums obviously refurb them - Have a whole host of problems to deal with first - just a couple of pic - if you look closly you can see my impreza in the garage (its on the drive now lol)

https://i297.photobucket.com/albums/...8/Image036.jpg

I havent seen those period Pirelli 'P' wheels for years!

Both my Mk1s and my first Mk2 had those Campaign wheels on :cool:
None of them ever had Pirelli tyres on though :D

There are two types of those wheels too, the original ones, as fitted to the later Campaign Mk1s, had the word Pirelli cast into the wheel, behind the centre cover. Those fitted to the early Mk2s were close copies made directly for VW, they didn't have the Pirelli branding cast into them, and the 'P's around the rim were slightly shorter, resulting in a bigger gap between them, those on that particular car are the later copies.
One earlier wheel will generally sell for about the same as a set of 4 of the later ones :eek:

PS, good solid looking car there Mozza :thumb:

A 1.8? Going off the Y plate resting on the dash in the second photo ;)

When you take the front wings off make sure you get all the underseal off where the inner wings join the bulkhead and the A pillar, and get plenty of waxoyl on the underside of the scuttle at the windsreen corners.

Yeah 1.8 indeed,

Yeah have 1 wing to replace and going to tackle it at the weekend.

Waxoyl? Ive never done anything like this, what does it do? sorry im a learner! lol

Wings are dead easy, trouble is what you find under it !

Done a few, they all need a patch here and there, waxoyl protects the metal, make sure you get seam sealer and clean all the old stuff off properly otherwise it wont fit, take time to line it up well otherwise it will look ropey, paint it inside with Schultz stone protect and then get busy with the waxoyl.

I was never a big fan of the Zender kit myself, the one fitted to VW's own press fleet Mk1 ruins the car IMO :nono:

I did always want one of those little tailgate spoilers Zender did for them though, they still do look the part :cool:

Yes know what you mean, although I remember in the 80's it was very popular. This was an ex reps car, I bought it from where I worked when it was about 18 months old. The guy originally wanted a Corrado but the company wouldn't let him have one, so he bought this and spec'd it up. Webesto roof and a total raid of the Zender catalogue, even had the dodgy number plate conversion on the rear.

http://www.555subaru.co.uk/Golf5.jpg

Was a great car :D

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the '80s equivalent of the Lexus tail-lights :lol1:

'Inspired' by Porsche's restyling of the 911's rump if I remember rightly :rolleyes:

They were a real favourite of the XR2/XR3i brigade round our way, a shining example of turd polishing :lol1:

excellent cars i had a mk2 golf gti i loved it so much ive got the parts in my back garden lol i used to work for vw an have to say the mk1 an 2 were vw better built vehicles now they got shoddy fall apart cars