to the then owners front garden,which isnt a good idea, as everyone who's owned a mk1 knows they suffer from the dreaded rust. Why tho ive never worked it
out, ive seen golf of the same age, pulled out of gardens open barns etc and they always seem to be that much better on the corrosion front...
Anyway got the old back into my lock up (which i had ment to give up) and there it stayed for a good few month's before i could do anything positive with it.
So now ive started work on her, she's a 1981 (W) storm without a sunroof, light met blue with worn out leather in blue..Its all 100% original apart from a set koni adjustable dampers & a K&N air filter.
With it back in an area i can work and strip her down to a shell the first thing i wanted to do was to remove the trusty 1.6 gti lump simply becouse i have another power plant in mind and the engine hadnt been started for a years. With the engine now removed it makes lifting moving etc abit easier on her.
With the engine removed and the engine bay sound from corrosion i got the bug to start stipping down the car and get my teeth stuck in. So i started with the rest of the front,lights bumper grill and wiring looms have all been removed and boxed up. Next up was the front wings. The drivers side came off a dodle which was strange. Strange couse what lerked was not good. The car had been in a crash at some stage of her life,and very poorly repaired, the front corner of the inner wing was not 100% straightend out and corrosion has spread from a poor repair to the front valance up to the chassis leg. After much poking around with a hammer & screwdriver i found that the chassis leg, where it meets the valance is corroded and holed..Balls. So i attacked the passengerside thankfully the wing was hard to remove and the inner wing is sound, more so around the area where it meets the front panel / chassis leg area..
Now with those areas covered and the car still on 4 wheels i started to gut the inside, just leaving the headlining. With this done it gave me good access
to knock around on the floor, inner sills, and boot space.. The end result was pretty good, front floors sound, rear floors sound,boot floor sound but inner
sills holed near to seatbelt mounts. Not bad at all i thought.
Next up was the arse. Now to jack her up on the jacking points is a nono for a car thats been sitting,so up it went via the rear beam...
Hmm a lot of corrsion and rust / rot..Big balls..
The drivers side rear chassis leg from the mount back is very rusty corroded and holed and the passenger side is getting there again from the mount back.
The mounts them selfs appear to have been repaired, bit of a bonus.. The rear valance is shot to bits on the drivers side and tender in places. The side sills
again are holed in areas with repairs in places. Rear arch's are getting tender and ive found a hole, no surprise really for the old girl.
Well now that ive pretty much covered the box section of the car for rust i'll carry on with the gutting. Abit of shame that its gone this way for the old girl, more so as the car has been zebarted (a form of rust treatment) what has worked well for her tho is under the bonnet its been undersealed ! and its sound.
Theres mountains to do and ive not even scratched the surface yet
but the ideas keep following in around the heart of the car..Being that i became a dad early part of year the car will take longer to do as my little girl does take priority...
Heres a few pics of what in faced with.....contains rust...
Well come on money's tight now fatherhood is here...
.
