I'm sorry it's not a aircooler, but it's still a VW & an old one at that.
This build took me 6 full weekend's & 1 full week to complete from start to finish. The only part's of the car that I didn't touch were the paint & roof liner
Basically everything has been rebuilt, upgraded, customized to make the mk1 a nice everydayer again with some most of the part's from my crashed GTI.
Starting off making new fuel pipes for the K-Jet. These were an absolute pain in the arse to make one & then make a matching one. Also had some "AN" fitting welded onto the end's for some nice Earl's fitting's & braided hoses.
Had to remove the steering rack to fit them & also rebuilt, regreased & readjusted the rack while it was out.
Then onto the fitting the Mk2 16V booster & master cyl. & making some new brake line's which hug & hide the pipes. This took a fair while too, to match them all up.
I fitted the proportioning valve's under the front carpet & soundproofing to clean up the master cyl.
I also fitted an electric brake light switch on the brake pedal for a more reliable setup.
Then made up a nice engine wiring harness to hide as much of the wiring as I possibly could.
Removed the GTI oil cooler assembly & refitted the standard housing with my ever trusty Diesel oil filter. Worked for over 10 year's & never gave me a problem.
also diesel's have a finer filter element & can also hold over 1/2 litre more. With the increased surface area, it's act's like an oil cooler, but not as good.
Refitted the engine & exhaust & made up a bunch of bracket's to fit the K-Jet gear eg. Fitted the accumulator in the correct spot.
Refitted the short shift gear linkage assembly & gear lever & also made a few mod's to make the shifter throw a fair bit shorter. It now take's roughly 4" to go from 1st - 2nd!
Managed to find an old Gates return style radiator cap which turn's your standard non expansion tank radiator into one with an expansion tank!
Refitted the front wiring harness after making a few improvement's to the headlight/high beam system & cleaning up the wiring that didn't need to be there.
Rerouted the wiper motor wiring inside the plenum chamber out of sight.
Made up new battery lead's too!
Converted the heater box assembly over to 79 spec as well as the steering column & pedal assembly.
Fitted up the a dash wiring harness out of my old beater 79 GLD & the dash, as it is in mint condition, along with some part's from another mk1 brother with another mother.
Swapped over all the door & hatch lock's to match the ignition.
Started on swapping over the interior, which still has to be finished off, along with the front bolt thru style 1/4 glass window's.
All the wiring is in & everything work's as it should "for a mk1"
Early dash car's take note: No dash sag. Why, It's the early style "clip in" heater box's which cause this to the dashboard. The clip's weaken under the dashboard's weight & sag's as it's the heater box that hold's up the middle section of the dash.
With the later "bolt in" style heater box's, the heater box can take the dashboard's weight & not sag.
All the brake's have been swapped over to GTI, with rear disc's, braided lines etc.
The KW V3's are also under there with the 28mm rear hollow sway bar. I'm not fitting the front bar, as it's too noisey on the street.
Also fitted up the front upper & lower stress bar's.
The fuel tank has been replaced with a internally rust free Diesel tank which is getting harder & harder to find. I tried repairing one I've got here with some tank sealer & it went pear shaped. I can safely say that I took to it with a 1.6L 8V head I had lying around. It's now flat!!
All the braided fuel hoses were fitted today, filled the tank with some 98 & it finally came back to life after being silent for 6 month! Very good to hear it again.
Also tracked down the original 1976 number plates from new & had a new pair made up by Vic Roads.
I've got a bigger cam coming along with some new part's, which will be fitted as soon as I get it.
It's not finished yet & still has a bit off work & a few suprises to do before the Nat's.
After the Nat's it's going to friend to have some thing's tidied up. Also converting it to a nicely modded fully manualized auto with a stall to match the cam.
I'm starting on this once I get back.
This Mk1 may look good in the pic's, but it's now show car & it never will be. It has rust bubble's here & there with scratch's all over. It's 32 year's old & the make over is over 10 year's old. This also sat outside for most of it's life.
It's not perfect.
Just a clean everydayer with nice running gear.
Felt real good to sit behind the wheel again. It even felt funny.WABIT;162294 wrote:any updates mate? lol
wabit
I finished this car on the Thursday night leading upto the National's weekend. The wiper arm's were still being painted at 6.30pm!
The next day I drove the car straight to Syd. without one fault in convey with a few other keen waterpumpers!
Although it did burst a fuel line at the show ground's which took up the whole day to repair.
Pictures taken at this years Sydney National's.
The trip home.
A couple more pics from another road trip
