ThatDaveGuy
New Member
- Messages
- 11
- Location
- Stoke, UK
So ill preface this by saying ive spent a few hours trawling the forum, i've come to conclude that the Clarke 151TE probably makes the most sense considering how much use it will get, what it will be used for and how much I want to spend.
I was going to just lurk and absorb information, but it seems that many of the "hi, I'm a newbie" threads lead into mk2 golf ownership, so I figured id start a small build thread and document/share my progress.
So i bought the car approx 5 years ago. Sadly, I didn't know much as much about mk2's and VR6 conversions as I perhaps thought and ended up getting stung. It had just had a fancy new paintjob, and I think I was taken in by how good it looked externally. I got it home, unloaded it and left it alone for a month or two whilst I got some money together to start doing some stuff I wanted to do.
1556373_653706651358349_526020400_o by dave, on Flickr
First issue i noticed was when i took the battery off to give it some charge and saw the cables to the fan control module were being pinched under the battery
20140922_191306 by dave, on Flickr
Then unplugged the fan control module and noticed this...
20140928_160257 by dave, on Flickr
Found some redundant plugs from some other loom that bad been "spliced" into it. None of them connected to anything, just shoved down into the chassis leg)
20140928_155508 by dave, on Flickr
At this point i figured putting it on the road would probaby result in a pretty spectacular car BBQ at some point, so i decided to go through the entire loom to check it out. Needless to say it didnt get any better
IMG-20141004-WA0003 by dave, on Flickr
Then i set about hacking out all the redundant cable that didnt connect to anything..
20141004_190227 by dave, on Flickr
The deeper i dug, the more bodges i found - bits of threaded rod being used to hold the engine to engine mounts was a particularly fun one i found. The prev owner did tell me that one of the jacking points had collapsed, but following the current theme I found a bunch more issues, including one of the chassis legs, the area that the rear beam mounts to the shell, the rear turrets to name a few. During this period i also pulled the engine out and found that it also wasn't in the best shape, so that was binned off as i had an R32 lump that i was rebuilding.
At the time I had just quit work to go back to university full time as a mature student at the ripe age of 33, meaning going forward money would be tight. So i was faced with a choice to make: Try and fix the issues best I could and drive it, and let the fact that it wasnt quite 100% bug me forever. Option two was to strip the whole thing and start again from scratch, knowing that it would be a long and slow process, knocking off odd jobs here and there when funds allowed until I graduated and funds were more readily available.
I chose the latter.
IMG_20180830_172428 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20180509_151947 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20180418_175310 by dave, on Flickr
20180107_144701 by dave, on Flickr
20180107_151546 by
dave, on Flickr
20180107_144318 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20170411_145707_573 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0466 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0024 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0032 by dave, on Flickr
2015-09-14_08-46-09 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0465 by dave, on Flickr
IMG-20170410-WA0053 by dave, on Flickr
In retrospect i probably should of chased the prev owner and asked for my money back, but id already stripped a lot of the car, and half of me actually wanted to step up to the challenge. I just didnt think it would go quite as far as it has lol. I also like the idea of building one from the ground up so I know in my own mind that everything is exactly as i want it.
I was going to just lurk and absorb information, but it seems that many of the "hi, I'm a newbie" threads lead into mk2 golf ownership, so I figured id start a small build thread and document/share my progress.
So i bought the car approx 5 years ago. Sadly, I didn't know much as much about mk2's and VR6 conversions as I perhaps thought and ended up getting stung. It had just had a fancy new paintjob, and I think I was taken in by how good it looked externally. I got it home, unloaded it and left it alone for a month or two whilst I got some money together to start doing some stuff I wanted to do.
1556373_653706651358349_526020400_o by dave, on Flickr
First issue i noticed was when i took the battery off to give it some charge and saw the cables to the fan control module were being pinched under the battery
20140922_191306 by dave, on Flickr
Then unplugged the fan control module and noticed this...
20140928_160257 by dave, on Flickr
Found some redundant plugs from some other loom that bad been "spliced" into it. None of them connected to anything, just shoved down into the chassis leg)
20140928_155508 by dave, on Flickr
At this point i figured putting it on the road would probaby result in a pretty spectacular car BBQ at some point, so i decided to go through the entire loom to check it out. Needless to say it didnt get any better
IMG-20141004-WA0003 by dave, on Flickr
Then i set about hacking out all the redundant cable that didnt connect to anything..
20141004_190227 by dave, on Flickr
The deeper i dug, the more bodges i found - bits of threaded rod being used to hold the engine to engine mounts was a particularly fun one i found. The prev owner did tell me that one of the jacking points had collapsed, but following the current theme I found a bunch more issues, including one of the chassis legs, the area that the rear beam mounts to the shell, the rear turrets to name a few. During this period i also pulled the engine out and found that it also wasn't in the best shape, so that was binned off as i had an R32 lump that i was rebuilding.
At the time I had just quit work to go back to university full time as a mature student at the ripe age of 33, meaning going forward money would be tight. So i was faced with a choice to make: Try and fix the issues best I could and drive it, and let the fact that it wasnt quite 100% bug me forever. Option two was to strip the whole thing and start again from scratch, knowing that it would be a long and slow process, knocking off odd jobs here and there when funds allowed until I graduated and funds were more readily available.
I chose the latter.
IMG_20180830_172428 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20180509_151947 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20180418_175310 by dave, on Flickr
20180107_144701 by dave, on Flickr
20180107_151546 by
dave, on Flickr
20180107_144318 by dave, on Flickr
IMG_20170411_145707_573 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0466 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0024 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0032 by dave, on Flickr
2015-09-14_08-46-09 by dave, on Flickr
DSC_0465 by dave, on Flickr
IMG-20170410-WA0053 by dave, on Flickr
In retrospect i probably should of chased the prev owner and asked for my money back, but id already stripped a lot of the car, and half of me actually wanted to step up to the challenge. I just didnt think it would go quite as far as it has lol. I also like the idea of building one from the ground up so I know in my own mind that everything is exactly as i want it.