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Topic: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI (Read 2675 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #30 –
This is a job I have put off for years. I think in the first year of my ownership I got a bit close with the jet wash and managed to flake off parts of the boot decal. I was gutted at the time so bought a replacement decal, which then ended up sitting in my room for the next 4 years! Could never pluck up the courage to remove the rear glass so just coloured in the missing bits with sharpie.



So thought it was about time I got on with it (Feb 2022). Removed the three nuts holding the boot spoiler onto the glass. I think they look so strange without a spoiler.



With the spoiler off I set about removing the glass, making sure I didn't crack it. I pushed from the inside with my girlfriend on the outside to make sure the glass didn't fall onto the floor. Took a fair amount of force to pop it out at the top but once I had done that it slid out with no effort. I then removed the wiper linkage and jet.
Using a hairdryer to heat up the old decal I pealed it off in one piece. Then using glue and tar remover on a rag I removed any sticky residue left on the paint.



I sprayed the boot lid with soapy water then laid the new decal over the top and moved it into position. It soon came apparent that the decal I had bought from heritage all those years ago wasn't a very good fit. I had to heat it up and stretch it to get it to go where I wanted. With all the air bubbles pushed out I left it over night to settle. The next morning I refitted the glass using a piece of string around the seal to aid me. The seal only just sits over the decal annoyingly, so no doubt over time a gap will appear revealing paint but for now it'll do. With the wiper and spoiler fitted back up thats a job done.



Does anyone know the best place to buy the boot decal for when I eventually re-do this? Needs to fit like oem.

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #32 –
Hi mate, it was nice to meet you briefly the other week! I parked next to you at the viaduct! I got my tailgate decal on ebay seller brownstickers. I didn't fot it, I got the bodyshop to do mine but I have no complaints and it's holding up over 12 minths on. Here is the link https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185080689125?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=jxYanyovRPC&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=FpWnKlj5TtW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Also your car looks very good in person and is a credit to your hard work 😁

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #34 –
Cheers for the replies guys, I shall purchase one of the decals from that ebay seller for when I redo mine in the future.

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #35 –
Quote from: ianmac86 on
Hi mate, it was nice to meet you briefly the other week! I parked next to you at the viaduct! I got my tailgate decal on ebay seller brownstickers. I didn't fot it, I got the bodyshop to do mine but I have no complaints and it's holding up over 12 minths on. Here is the link https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185080689125?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=jxYanyovRPC&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=FpWnKlj5TtW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Also your car looks very good in person and is a credit to your hard work 😁

Yeah was good to meet you too. Always nice to put a face to a build. Thanks for the kind comments and your car is spot on. Love the wheel choice.
Hopefully see you at some other events!

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #36 –
July 2022. A cheap milltek manifold came up for sale which I bought to eventually fit to the rest of my milltek exhaust.



I'd cleaned up my front inner arches previously so thought it was about time I sorted the rears. I removed the suspension and brake callipers as these needed a lick of paint also. Cleaned everything down, gave it a key and hit with a coat of base then lacquer. With that done and the callipers painted the beam looked a bit tatty so cleaned that down and painted it with tough black. Some before and after pics, yes I'm aware the brake lines aren't the prettiest its on the to do list.



I had taken one of my mates from work out in the mk2 a while ago and he had the itch to get one. He finally found one in budget and we went down to collect it. Be rude not to go in the golf.



Pic of my mates purchase, small bumper one in ten million oak green 8v.



To round July off I went to the national meet, I hadn't been since 2018 so was nice to attend again. The standard and variety of cars is great and its awesome to see people thrashing it around the track.


Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #37 –
Winter 2022. I bought a second hand but never used Newman 272 Ph3 camshaft, the plan was to strip the head off over winter and send it away to get ported and polished, then build it back up with the manifold.



However this plan quickly got scrapped when I got carried away on ebay and won a set of practically brand new bc coilovers for what I think was a good price.



Now I would've loved to get the head done as well as buying the coilovers but I think my girlfriend would've strangled me in my sleep! I even sold my mint set of porsche door handles that I'd rebuilt to regain some funds back, gutted about it now but realistically I wasn't going to fit them as my car has armour plates (which it needs to hide the break in attempts) and I think the porsche door handles would look naff on the plates.



Once I'd collected the coilovers I got straight onto fitting them. Originally I wanted the Heritage KW v1 as I think they're the perfect oem+ coilover but second hand sets never come up. So when these bc's came up I thought it was worth a punt, they still look subtle in black with silver collars and a big plus is the damping adjustment.
Fitting them was a piece of piss as I'd only done the suspension a few years prior, I replaced the top mounts for good measure. I was also intrigued by the weight difference between a shock and lowering spring combo and a coilover, more than I expected to be fair.



All fitted and adjusted to as low as I can get without rubbing.


Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #38 –
January 2023. To start the year I thought I'd complete one of the more fun jobs (not), the sunroof seal. Mine had worn in one of the corners and had torn. I started by winding the sunroof back enough for me to pull the trim panel off, with that off I slid it back to reveal the front and rear retaining bolts. With these removed and the sprung arms at the back unclipped, I removed the sunroof. I then unscrewed the metal bracket from the back of the panel and pulled the old seal off. When fitting the new one I put a blob of windscreen sealant in each corner and by the join to avoid it getting pulled off when in use. Before I refitted the sunroof I inspected the rails to try and locate a rattle thats been present since I bought the car. On inspection I found that the passenger rail wasn't located properly, I loosened off the whole mechanism and managed to pop it back into place. The loose rail will also explain the scratch in the paint as its been rubbing on the roof. Fitting the sunroof back in is just the reverse of taking it out, although mine needed a lot of adjustment now the rail was fitted correctly. I left the sunroof shut for a week to let the seal find its new shape.



Chuffed with the outcome and no issues with its operation. The seal if anyone is interested was from Classic Vw, was so much cheaper than the genuine seal from heritage and quality was spot on.

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #39 –
We're the BCs on ebay on a white golf by any chance? I missed a set that someone had on an auction, I was so annoyed 😅
How hard was it to get the Sunroof back in and lined up? My new seal split after a few months so have a new genuine one to fit, but worried about damaging my paint or not getting it to line up properly

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #40 –
Quote from: ianmac86 on
We're the BCs on ebay on a white golf by any chance? I missed a set that someone had on an auction, I was so annoyed 😅
How hard was it to get the Sunroof back in and lined up? My new seal split after a few months so have a new genuine one to fit, but worried about damaging my paint or not getting it to line up properly

Yeah they were off a white car that the bloke had sold although the listing didn’t have any pics of them on the car if I can remember. So we could of been going against each other😂. It was around October 2022 I got them.

As for fitting the sunroof back in, I just bolted it back in place then shut it to see where I needed to raise and lower it. Made adjustments till it sat flush with the roof then very nervously opened it listening for any scrapes (I was bricking it😂). Make sure to clip the trim panel back on before winding it open as I forgot and got it stuck in the roof!

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #41 –
February 2023. Now with only two months till the golfs MOT and the start of show season, what I should be doing is the odd job and cleaning it. However I'm impatient and always like to have something on the go, so I decided that even though I couldn't afford to get the cylinder head work done there was nothing stopping me fitting the cam and exhaust manifold. It needed a new cambelt anyway so might as well do it all at the same time right (thats how I convinced myself at least).

So I set about doing the more straight forward jobs first the camshaft and cambelt. To start with I removed the airbox to give me better access and visibility. Then I set about getting the engine timed up before carrying on with anything else. I removed the cambelt cover and rocker cover. Had a fight with the gearbox inspection plug, which was tight to say the least. Ended up smashing it undone with my large lever bar.



With that out I rotated the the engine till the tdc arrow on the gearbox lined up with the mark on the flywheel, I also made sure the dot punch on the back of the cam sprocket was in line with the top of the head.



I jacked the front of the car up and removed the osf wheel to give me access to the crank pulley. I released the tension on the power steering pump and alternator, then removed the belts. Using an impact gun I removed the 4 bolts holding the crank pulley on and with a tap from the hammer the pulley came off. With that out of the way I unbolted the bottom half of the cambelt cover. With all the covers removed it was clear that I had a leak from the camshaft seal, intermediate shaft seal and crankshaft seal. So I ordered new ones and also got a new crank bolt and set of ina hydraulic tappets because it made sense to put new ones in with a fresh cam. While waiting for those parts to arrive I removed the cambelt by releasing the tensioner and camshaft by undoing the caps a bit at a time until I could undo them by hand.



To get the cam sprocket off I had to put the old cam in a vice with soft jaws and crack the bolt off using a breaker bar. Removing the crankshaft sprocket was also problematic as it was ft, I put the car in gear with the hand brake on and girlfriend in the car on the foot brake. I couldn't for the life of me get it to undo, so I gave myself a breather and came back to it and instead of putting constant force on it, I shocked it with a few quick pulls. The sound of a bolt cracking off is so satisfying! For the intermediate shaft sprocket I wedged it locked with a small extension and unbolted it. Can see from the pics the oil leak around the crankshaft seal.



I drained the oil and removed the sump as it was weeping slightly and I needed to remove a few of the bolts anyway to remove the crank seal cover. Checked the pick up pipe was clear form any blockages, was lovely and clean. Then fitted all the new seals and gave everything a clean and paint. Refitted the sump with a new rubber gasket and torqued all the bolts up. Fitted a new crank sprocket bolt and torqued it up to an extremely high torque (can't remember the exact torque).



While everything was off I noticed that the water pump was leaking from the cap at the bottom, so I got a new one and painted it and the pulley to match everything else. Also painted the crank pulley and cleaned up all the covers.
With everything cleaned and painted I fitted the new tappets and the camshaft. Making sure I torqued the caps up in sequence. Then refitted everthing else like lower cambelt cover, crank pulley etc. I then fitted a new cambelt and tensioner, checked the timing marks all lined up. Then turned it over by hand and checked the timing marks still lined up.




And with that the Newman 272 camshaft is fitted, with new seals, plenty of freshened up parts and a new cambelt. I finished up by putting a new oil filter on and filling the engine up with fresh oil. Unfortunately I can't start the car yet as I'm going to be getting straight on with fitting the 4 branch manifold. That will be my next post.

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #42 –
With the camshaft in, it was now time to turn my attention to fitting the milltek 4 branch manifold. As my car is fitted with the rest of the milltek system I just had to buy the connecting piece to join the two.
I started by spraying every nut and bolt that I was going to be undoing with plus gas to give me the best chance of not snapping anything. I decided I would remove the old manifold and fit the new one from the top instead of dropping the subframe, I wanted to refresh the inlet manifold anyway. The first thing I did was disconnect the fuel pipes from the fuel rail. Then I removed the airbox warm air pipe bracket thats mounted to the exhaust manifold, surprisingly all the nuts came undone and the bracket was pretty much in one piece (these have usually rusted away).



I removed all the inlet manifold bolts but to actually get the inlet manifold out I had to jack the engine up, remove the front mount then lower it back down till I could squeeze the manifold out. With that out of the way I removed the fuel rail, injectors and injector loom.



It was now time to turn my attention to the exhaust downpipe and manifold nuts, I gave them another hit with the plus gas and then tried undoing them. I struggled to get a good purchase on the downpipe nuts and I couldn't get them to crack loose. So I moved onto the manifold nuts, they all came undone surprisingly easily and a lot of them came out with the studs which wasn't an issue as I purchased new studs. I couldn't remove the manifold with the downpipe attached but had no patience to try get the nuts undone, so I cut through the downpipe with an angle grinder. I bit brutal but its never going back on so not the end of the world. With that cut the exhaust manifold came out the top.



With everything removed I began to clean and give everything a refresh. I also bought a vibratechnics rear engine mount to go with my front one as I don't want the engine to move too much and crack the manifold.
Here's some pics of the bits I restored:



I wrapped my new manifold in dei titanium exhaust wrap. Theres lots of mixed opinions on wrapping manifolds but I decided it was a good idea as it keeps the temp down in the engine bay and will save my steering uj boot. The titanium wrap is more expensive than the normal stuff but you don't have to wet it before you fit it. On a side note make sure you wear gloves as the wrap is itchy as. I wrapped 3 of the pipes individually then wrapped the collector and final pipe in one.



Once the exhaust was wrapped I dropped it into place and bolted it up with new studs and copper nuts along with the new engine mount.



I refitted the fuel rail, injectors and inlet manifold. I bought an engine bay stainless bolt kit to freshen up the bay as well.



One of the more nervy jobs I did was strip the throttle body so I could paint all the bits individually. Once I had it in pieces on the table I did question whether it would ever go back together and work! Thankfully it went smoothly and turned out really well.



Next on the list was the warm air pipe bracket. Most people will probably think this mod is pointless! But when you fit a 4 branch, you can't fit the bracket back on, yes I could've just chucked it but I wanted to keep the warm air pipe and didn't want it flapping around in the engine bay. So I offered it up, made marks with a sharpie as to where to cut and trimmed it using an angle grinder till it fitted into place. Plus gave it a coat of matt black vht paint.



Finally I refitted all the fuel lines (a new very expensive genuine return hose) and the airbox. It was now time to start the car for the first time since I've done the cambelt, cam and exhaust. I was rather nervous to say the least, so got my girlfriend to start the car while I was under the bonnet making sure everything was ok. It fired straight up which was great, unfortunatey the exhaust was blowing slightly from the manifold flange (very common on the milltek manifolds). But apart from that no issues, I let it run for a while to bleed the coolant as I'd replaced the water pump. Once up to temp I set the timing with a timing gun, 6 degrees before tdc with the blue temp sensor disconnected.
And with that the car was done, just in time for its MOT (which it passed) and the South East Mk2 Cruise. Now I thought the cam and exhaust would make a difference but I was surprised how much quicker it felt. It now comes alive at about 4/4.5k where as it would've been dropping off before. My mate even told me it popped a flame when he was following me which I'm gassed about! Plus I love the lumpy idle, it sounds amazing.



The exhaust leak is something I need to look into, the angle of the manifold doesn't line up with the connecting pipe very well which is causing the blow. Think I'm going to machine down the vibratechnics rear mount to drop the rear of the engine down which should mean they line up better. But thats a job for winter as I have just bought a powder coated subframe to replace my tatty one. So makes sense to do that when I've dropped the subframe. If that doesn't work I'll look at getting a company to weld a flexi onto my manifold to do away with the joint.



Thanks for reading apologies for the length!

Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #43 –
Awesome work.
I had the same crisis when I pulled my throttle body apart for cleaning!
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Re: JI31 GHG 1991 GTI

Reply #44 –
Quote from: Monkey on
Awesome work.
I had the same crisis when I pulled my throttle body apart for cleaning!
Cheers. Yeah I just took photos of absolutely everything. One of them things that doesn’t look too complicated until you start dismantling it.