After some thought, I've decided to put the red one up for sale. I deeply enjoyed the project, but I just don't use it. It's been sat up for the last 5-6 months and has barely moved.
I'm after some bits for my restoration. Need to be in as good condition as possible and either posted to or close to Glastonbury, Somerset:
Front Passenger Arch Trim Both 3dr rub strips Possibly side skirts - I have some, but they're not mint. Rear Wiper Mechanism and Motor Rear Lock Barrel
Ok then, so here we go again. As some of you may know, I've got a bit of a habit of engine swapping mk2s. Over the last 21 years, I've had (until now) 10 mk2s, only 4 ended up keeping their original engines. Now my blue one, I'll never sell (unless someone offers me really stupid money for it), but it's not really in keeping with the original GTI mantra any more. So as prices are on the rise, I thought now is the best time to get a nice standard one before I'm priced out completely.
Fortunately, Paulina (my wife) thinks a very similar way to me so we started looking. We didn't have much money, so it would have to be a resto/project. After several weeks of being outbid and seeing mk2s go for staggering amounts more than I thought they would, a little gem was offered up to us. After seeing the photos, it was clear the full exterior would need paint, as someone had keyed every panel, but the interior was mint, several nice options on it and it looked like it could get snapped up by a breaker. So a deal was done and we sent up our tame car transporter to collect. Untitled by Dave Ackerman, on Flickr BTW, Jason is excellent, really cares about classic cars and is reasonable on rates too, so if you need anything moved, give him a shout.
Engine sounded sweet enough, but lots of rust everywhere, so it'll be coming out as part of the resto. Will be refreshing to put this one back in again though... Untitled by Dave Ackerman, on Flickr
A few of you already know my wife Paulina. I was lucky enough to marry someone as batsh*t crazy about VWs as me! In fact I actually noticed her car (16v Corrado) before her!
Anyhow, flash forward several years and at least 3 other Corrados and we happened upon this little 'gem' in a friends garage.
It was a Corrado someone else had a go at fitting an R32 into, but using the mk3 VR management, via a box he built himself from maplins! Untitled by Dave Ackerman, on Flickr
The car ran (kinda) but no one wanted to touch it to tune it, or even get it running correctly, so it sat in my mates garage for several years. Until one day I was looking for a Corrado VR box/subframe/crossmember etc for my 32 conversion. He had bought it years back with intention of getting someone to sort it, but couldn't find anyone willing to take on the work and offered me the bits I needed and planned to break the car after I'd been at it.
Then I found out it was a Storm.
At the time Paulina had a Corrado that used to be an 8v (bloody slow) we'd chassis swapped her old, rotten VR into. It transpired that the insurance wanted a fortune for it, as they decided it was a massively modified 8v. Despite it being bolt for bolt, identical to a standard VR.
At this point, I had an idea.
So we had the car recovered to the unit with the intention of chassis swapping the VR and interior back into the storm, once I'd had the conversion bits off of it.
To be fair, the bits he'd finished was to a high standard, The leather covering and alcantera headlining was done beautifully and to this day, I have no idea how he got a mk5 R32, running on mk3 management to talk properly to a set of mk4 clocks!
Either way, I wasn't about to finish it. So out came the interior and in went Paunlias heated set, yes it's supposed to be beige for the storm, but we had black and don;t like beige!!
This is a thread about my 10th Mk2. Bought this one back in December 2016, it went a little something like this.
Yep, finally back in a Mk2 and a BBM at that After searching up and down the country (quite literally), yesterday Cupracraig tagged me in one for sale on Facebook. It's certainly no show winner, but the astounding thing about this one was it was fairly priced! Knowing I'd have a fair amount of competition, I set sail 1st thing this morning with Paulina and Jimbo. The guy was thoroughly nice and very upfront about its flaws, so I knew what I was going to see. After a quick poke around, we were heading home in this little beaut... It's not a trick of the light, the paintwork is very flat, there's lacquer peel and a few dings here and there. But the chassis seems in good order and the interior is excellent (could do with a clean though). None of the paint bothers me, the car was well priced and has left me with a budget to work to.
First jobs to look into are paint and suspension, it's just too low for me!
Well yesterday I finally managed to have a proper look at the mk2. I noticed that the grill badge was incorrect and when I touched it, it fell off! As I was looking at the front end, I thought I'd have a look at the spot lights as one was pointing into the stars and the other was lower than the dipped beams! Ahh, that'll be why then. Fortunately, we had another grill in stock, so that went on and took care of all three problems at once. Also, put the front number plate back on.
After driving it about for a week, the suspension was about ready to kill me! The guy mentioned that it was on coilovers. I've got plans for this car that will require suspension at the right point, so I decided to raise it up in an effort to make it more livewithable for this coming year. The good news is the coilovers seemed to be a half decent make and adjusted nicely. :thumbs: The bad news was the tyres on the front were completely shot! :bad craic: I'm not a fan of stretched tyres, but I'm even less of a fan of illegal tyres (and the accompanying blowouts/crashing!) so on went the Borbets. To finish off, gave her a clean, the paintwork is still completely shot, but at least a little more presentable now.
