You could think about hill climbs or sprinting as well. :)

Yes, of course! BWARP

Think we should certainly do a hill climb

Hell yes.

A friend of mine (RyanC) has a G40 that had cracked at the bottom of the chassis leg, and Vic also reported a crack in the same place on one of his mk2's. Kiz had problems with flex in the inner wings when he modified his bulkhead so added in plates on the top.

I'm strengthening the chassis as I want it to be future proof before I get it painted, I expect to get perhaps 200bhp from my engine so I want the 33 year old chassis to be able to stand it.

I will have a full cage, yes, welded in, and it will also come through to the front turrets.

All advice and feedback welcome.

This question is open to anyone......Would a stage two subframe fitted to a mk1 polo that's running around 170bhp help to eliminate the above problems around the chassis legs?

Hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread Jim!

Edited 21 January, 201511 yr by tominator

I suspect I am probably over-reacting and much of the strengthening work I'm doing just isn't required Tom, at the end of the day if you develop a crack in the chassis it's not the end of the world stripping the engine out and welding it up, I just want to make sure mine is future proof.

Anyway, some more parts turned up.

NOS indicator lenses all the way from Greece

NOS bumper end caps all the way from Belgium.

Oh, and a pair of GRP wings.

I've seen a fair few moderately standard G40s developing cracks, with or without subframes.

Fatigue is due to cyclic loading over a time period, so making it stiffer/tougher does help, but only to a point!

Also, making the chassis stiffer in one area, means the stresses will just be moved to the next weakest point

Yup - Max is right, all you are doing is moving the stress point and loading another part of the car. Welding over the cracks doesnt fix the problem it just moves it. By doing what you are doing is improving the chassis in that area, which is no bad thing as it isnt an area designed to deal with the power the motors now generate. Top work if you ask me!

Yep. Can't go to all this effort and ignore known failure points, even if it is transferring the stress elsewhere.

Todays little job

As per usual, I HATE welding seams that have had any sort of seam sealer or cavity wax anywhere near them.

My new shot blaster has helped make the job a little easier, however.

Edited 28 January, 201511 yr by runforrestrun

Looking good, I'm gonna have to do the same om mine when I start prepping the bay as that gearbox mount had pulled apart at the seams (gotta love an 8v with a short box and sticky tyres!)

I agree about the seams being a bitch to weld. How about paint stripper on them the night before?

The cavity wax bubbles out from inside, so paint stripper won't help. Now, acid dipping on the other hand.. $$$$$

Without removing the panel and scraping off every last bit of seam sealer, then welding it back on, you'll always have this problem unfortunately.

Looking good though jim, I'm nearly on the stage of stitch welding the bay and adding required gussets, just got a few more holes to weld up!

Have you tried wire brush cup wheels on an angle grinder for paint/sealer removal?

There much more effective that knot wheels, but don't last as long.

So a few little updates.

I've mocked up my front wheel centres on a drive flange to see how much room I have for the caliper carriers (I know they will fit inside the barrels) it turns out I need at least a 5mm spacer in there. Although I won't be sure that 5mm is enough until I've bought a new set of discs and pads. I'm thinking of black diamond items from the golf mk2. They seem to have generally good reviews, I wonder if any of you have any experience of them?

I've also cleaned my ARC engine block up as it was horribly mucky. Now it can go in my wardrobe, and is one less thing to get covered in shot blasting grit.

I'm not quite happy with the inside of the repairs that I did last month, I want it to look factory at the back of the bay. A little filler required methinks.

My new goal for the moment is to get the car ready for the cage before I piss about with other bits too much. So this week i will be tidying up the back corners of the bay, treating the rust, and painting the underside of the scuttle panel, as these areas could prove difficult to do later on. Out comes the POR 15. I've also ordered some expensive Lesonal etch primer today, as well as some Terason Terostat seam sealer. Scary expensive but I have it on good authority from my painter Taylor (z3i) that they are the best of the best.

In other news, my mk1 model collection is growing. they take pride of place on the dash of my Cordoba Vario.

Edited 3 February, 201511 yr by runforrestrun

And in answer to your question Max, I have 4" wire wheels on the drill, and on the air powered die grinder, I've also got wire cups for the drill, and knot wheels for the grinder. Oh, and normal wire brushes, and a blow torch. It's still a struggle!

Top work

NOS Golf mk2 rear disc splash plates arrived from Germany today.

And took a delivery of some expensive products.

I've now shot blasted the area where the scuttle meets the A pillar, and given it the POR 15 treatment. This involved using their 'Prep and Ready' acid etch, washing it off, drying it with the heatgun, then two coats of their direct to rust paint (2 hours between coats) and then 2 coats of their etch primer (30 minutes between coats). This means I can now apply top coat paint directly to the area. I didn't get any more photos of area between blasting and paint, but it looked very good to start with. The whole paint system is very easy to use, but the top coats of etch do go off very quickly so I had to be quick when brushing it on. I won't bother showing photos of both sides as they have both had the same treatment.

I found small amounts of surface rust inside the windscreen seal seam, so I've given it a good going over with the same paint, and I will brush seam sealer over the top and in the corners too, to replace what I have removed, and protect new areas that have never been sealed before.

Prior to any paint

Following two coats of the base paint.

I've tidied up the drips now, and although I've not taken any photos, today I have brushed on the two top coats of etch primer.

Edited 12 February, 201511 yr by runforrestrun

So a little update for you all as I've not posted in almost a month. How time flies.

I've now cleaned up the stray original seam sealer in the back corners of the engine bay and given each side a coat of Lesonal 1K etch, ready for me to apply new seam sealer.

I decided to weld up the holes for the original fuse box, as I'm yet undecided if I will utilise it, and I don't want the hole to be in the way of the cage tubing (through to the turret) I decided it's easier to cut it out again later if needed than repair it with a tube in the way.

Tried to blank each hole individually but it was going to be much easier to cut out one larger hole. Using a piece of copper behind makes it very much easier to weld up holes in such a thin gauge of steel.

My twin bro came around to watch.

Welds dressed and painted.

As I'm putting a small battery in the cabin, I've repaired this small rusty section where the battery stud used to be.

And the same on the other side, where a cable tidy was welded underneath once upon a time. VW press a metal square into the panel when they spot weld these on.

Now to turn my attention to the cabin floor as this needs to be done before the cage is welded in.

I'll need to commit to a seat design, and mounting design shortly, but in the meantime there's lots of tidying up to be done from the old half done job.

Today I have removed the bitumen underlay from the floor. I had to use a chisel and a heatgun to get it off. I suspect I'll need a solvent to remove the residue as the wire wheel doesn't touch it.

Next job, removing the remains of the old shoddy roll cage mounts, bolted straight through the floor with 2mm steel. The old welding looks nice though, I have to say.

I hated that underlay stuff. Worse still was that I put a load of sound deadening in the boot and that too weeks to remove as it just went all gooey..

Contrary to other plans, I decided my next step would be to clean up underneath the roof, as it looked like this when I first got the car, which I pulled out in the first week of ownership, as it was full of mouse poo.

It has looked like this for the past year and has been gathering lots more dust from the grinder and shot blaster.

I thought I'd tidy it up and get it finished, ready for paint.

I used lots of elbow grease, a wire wheel, and white spirit. Discovered some surface rust too, so after making sure all the rubber glue had gone, I sanded it back to bare metal.

Now coated with etch primer, with the rest of the roof to go, and some more substantial surface rust at the rear to sort.

I don't plan on having a headlining, so I want this to look tidy.

Edited 31 March, 201511 yr by runforrestrun

Roof underside now finished, back to bare metal and coated in acid etch. I'm going to give it a coat of cellulose next to keep it protected until it's ready to paint properly.

I've also taken back the windscreen surround to bare metal in places as there was some pitting and surface rust.

Painted in some colour matched cellulose that I don't remember buying.

Next, to attack the nearside rear window surround.

Sanded the bottom of the windscreen surround back to bare metal, two coats of etch primer and colour later

And started the same treatment on the offside rear window surround. The paint was really poor and had blistered, so although the bodyshop will take care of it, I want to be sure that the rust underneath is gone whilst it sits in the garage, and it's less work for them to do later on. Even if they take all the paint off again, at least the surface will be sound and no hidden surprises.