Yeah, I'll come back to it I think. Once I'm a bit more ready to handle the G! I do love this forum and I reckon I'll hang about. I know for a fact the mrs wants a bready when she learns to drive.

Tried to get a few things done today, it was mostly a failure.

Removed my front offside coilover and attempted to sort out the camber issue. However all I managed to do was cause excess toe as well as the camber, so I went back and reverted to just camber. Better that than excessive pulling as well. When trying to adjust the toe I noted that the nut on the track rods was almost completely seized and was a real pain to get off. Makes me wonder what the garage did when I had my tracking done?

Also noticed where the tyre has been rubbing inside the arch when on full lock!

On poking around underneath I noticed that I seemed to have gunky residue around my sump. And it appears that somebody has tried to filler it in the past and it has since leaked? I don't know why somebody would do that, and I'm tired of finding bodges on this car. So it's a shame to say it but I think it will be going as soon as I can afford another car. This one is just not cost effective anymore, and I am constantly finding issues with her. :/ So it's looking like I may not even be at the Polo Social in a Polo!

I've really fallen out of love with this car in the last month. It's booked in for it's MOT tomorrow and I'm hoping it passes. But it will be going either way as tonight I may have gone and bought this...

Mk2 Golf 1.6 Driver. I've always wanted a Mk2 Golf and this is a good little base to start with. Few things need doing. It needs a new rocker gasket (something I'm fast becoming familiar with) and it needs the boot lock sorting. Doors are a tad stiff and at present the passenger side lock doesn't work, unless from the inside. The dude I bought her from seems honest. Gave me a couple of spares. Got an unmolested parcel shelf, fresh carpet to go in because it's a bit tatty and he's got an immaculate headliner which I can sort out at some point. Got a bit of work to do to her but I'm keen to get stuck in. As of the moment I know NOTHING about carbed engines but hey, best way to learn!

She's still on her original Pierberg, which I understand is bad. I've learnt from here that Weber is better.

Any feedback is welcome guys. :)

Oh, and yes the spoiler and the bonnet bra are a bit Halfords. Neither will be staying! Apparently the spoiler is quite sought after so may be able to make a few quid back.

Edited 14 May, 201511 yr by mbusby993

I'm loving that golf [emoji7]

Golf looks good, looks to be very clean.

Have a good poke around under those plastic trims though, they can hide some nasty surprises at times.

Suspension wise these are very similar to the 6n so you should feel right at home if you decide to have a play about there.

Hopefully you enjoy this more than the 6n....

I'm loving that golf [emoji7]

Thanks mate, she's a beaut.

Golf looks good, looks to be very clean.

Have a good poke around under those plastic trims though, they can hide some nasty surprises at times.

Suspension wise these are very similar to the 6n so you should feel right at home if you decide to have a play about there.

Hopefully you enjoy this more than the 6n....

She's got a few rust patches, but none as bad as the ones I had on the 6n. Got a few bits to be getting on with for now. Signed up to the mk2 golf owners forum but I'll still be around on here.

I don't think I'll fall out of love with this so easy because I've always dreamed of owning a Mk2 Golf. Short term plans are to get the engine mechanically sound and sort the rust. Raise the coilovers a touch as they're generating a bit of rub.

Long term I've got new carpet to go in, new headliner, will get some new seats as the drivers is torn. Will be taking the bra and spoiler off and selling them on. I think the banded steels will stay but I may respray them black.

Very, very long term I may consider an engine conversion. Maybe an ABF. The guy actually offered me an ABF to take away, but I didn't have an extra £200.

Looks good mate, I like the spoiler on the rear, looks very period and with the banded steelies doesn't mess up the lines in my eyes, I think you should keep it :P

thought about breaking the polo for parts? may make more money out of it that way?

Yeah, it's a bit different to other Mk2's as well.

I've thought about breaking but I don't really have the space to do it. Because I was thinking I probably could have got 100 for the coilovers, 200 for the wheels, it's got a powerflow mid and rear silencer etc. I've already had some interest in selling it whole though.

So Mavis failed her MOT. She did much better than I expected though to be fair.

She failed on;

Offside rear brake pipe excessively corroded

Nearside front brake hose excessively deteriorated

Offside front brake hose excessively deteriorated

Offside rear brake hose ferrule excessively corroded (not sure what ferrule is exactly but he showed me what he meant whie it was still up on the ramps)

Offside front wheel bearing has excessive play

Offside rear wheel bearing has excessive play

I believe the rears could possibly just be nipped up? Not sure on that. From what I hear the fronts are a ballache.

Advisories were;

Centre exhaust has a minor leak of exhaust gases

Nearside rear wheel bearing has slight play

Oil leak

He said structurally he's sound for a 15 year old car prone to rust. He did also mention that the clutch is not long for this world. Which I could have told him, it's trying to let go, I feel.

My buddy reckons we can get it all sorted for about £65-£70 quid if we do the work ourselves, so I may just do it and get her sold on for £500 or so. She's fairly sound other than those brake hoses and the oil leak, which is entirely down to the rocker gasket.

Edited 15 May, 201511 yr by mbusby993

Brake pipes easy enough to replace, a roll of rigid pipe £15 end fittings £1 ea flexy pipe £5

Rear bearings just tighten the big nut.

Front bearing is a pain, you need a 30ton press, might be quicker to source a S/H hub unit and swop it

That's not a bad fail at all. The front wheel bearing will be the worst thing as Nige says. If you are going to attempt to change it then my advice would be to buy one today and stick it in the freezer.

For the corroded ferrules (you'll likely find others are corroded) before you end up rounding them off with a spanner I'd just cut the brake pipe its attached to and then you can get a 6 point socket over it and crack them off.

Yeah, front bearing will be a pain. But I should hopefully be able to get on, will look at parts later.

About to take my first proper drive in the Golf though, I feel like a kid at Christmas.

front bearing you could take the strut off and see if you can find a local back street garage that will press it in for a drink

Can't think of any that would do that round here. They're all stingy in Cornwall and I wanna avoid paying someone to do it as I wanna get it though as cheaply as possible.

Had my first experience parallel parking a big (feels huge after the Polo) Golf with no power steering in a busy road where people leave little more than one car length.

The suggestion from the guys more car minded than me was to whack it in with a hammer, but I don't think either of them have done one on a Polo before?

Are you on about the front bearing? If so I'd not do any whacking with a hammer. Slight taps at most.

Last time I did bearings on a 6n I had the new bearings in the freezer for hours beforehand, pressed the hubs out and put them in the freezer too. Cleaned up the hub carriers and showed them a bit of heat. Took the new bearings straight out the freezer and one pretty much just dropped into the hub carrier, the other needed a little tap with a hammer. Left them a while to warm up a bit then put the hubs back in. I managed to start both of them off by hand and a slight tap with a hammer to get them straight but I did need to press them in. But managed to do it with just a 10Ton press.

Last time I asked a garage to quickly press a bearing out and in for me they charged me £30 but I had no other way to do it at the time.

This is another time you need to think about investing in tools. If you just intend on doing this once then paying a garage £30 to do the pressing bit is nothing compared to the hundreds you'll spend on a press. Even those bearing sets with the threaded bars and shims etc. will set you back £100 or so. But I have never used them so don't know if they are worth the investment.

Trust me you need a hydraulic press, on the earlier 6N's you can do the rear bearings with a hammer, heat the drum up in the oven and have the new bearing in the freezer for 24 hrs and it's quite easy to whack the new bearing into place, but it won't work on the front bearings :(

Well that's gonna hamper my efforts. The idea was to do it on the cheap, I'm not gonna get much for the car with the oil leak and the slipping clutch. Might be better off breaking? But it's on my mum and stepdads drive and he's already mentioned he doesn't want it there for long.

But I reckon at this rate I might get more back if I sell the alloys, Coilovers, cut the powerflow system off, sell the 6n2 rears and all the bits like that I've collected.

What do you reckon?

Got the hub off relatively successfully (not easily though!) But along the way managed to split the rubber cover for the track rod. So I'm attempting to fix one MOT failure we opened up another one and now that has to be replaced. If Mill Auto don't have one in stock today then I'm definitely going to miss my retest window >< the brake hoses I feared were wrong were in fact the correct ones.

So after a pikey removal of the track rod, we fitted a new one, get the pipes and hoses fitted and then had an immense amount of trouble bleeding the brakes. All the air is now out as far as we can tell and the brakes are working absolutely fine, but there's a slight hissing upon pressing the brake pedal. Used about 1.6l of DOT 4 and missed the MOT retest date. So i can't decide if success or failure. At least next time I know what we did wrong when bleeding brakes!

So this is officially my last main update in this build thread, as today Mavis has gone to her new home. She's gone to my friend George who's going to do some much needed work and get her back on the road as his first car.

Had a small incident while moving her. The total distance was probably less than two miles, and in that time a rear wheel flew off. Nice and dramatic. We're not really sure what happened as all the wheels were torqued to 120nm, but I'm pretty sure a spigot ring split and caused the wheel to wobble which shook the bolts free. Thankfully we weren't moving very fast at the time and no real damage was caused.

She's looking a bit worse for wear as she's been sat partially under a bush for 4 months. Not sure if the new owner will make an account on here but I've told him about the forums. So here's a farewell shot of her on her new driveway.

Little bit of a sad moment but at least I'll still see her about!