Just thought I would share my build thread. This is my first little project. Go easy on me. 

 

Heres my 1991 polo Gt coupé I bought a few years back. £950. Guessing Abit of scene tax but it was the car I was after. Over all clean enough.

 

 

 

 

 

It was slammed on it dick 60 or 80mm. The sump, cat and back box had been scuffed to death from been so low. Wasn't for me. So back onto factory springs for the time being. New exhaust system fit for its mot. 

Not happy with the standard steel wheels and trims. My mates polo get was on 13" bbs RA. So looked at the same and fount these in 14" of a mk1or 2 golf.

Ride height sorted for the moment. Time to cruise about.

Itchy fingers I started to sort out all the little things that annoyed me starting with some much needed new brake pads and discs. 

My aim was to clean up everything as i go along. Starting with cleaning up the break caliper's. Went for red as Abit of a tasteful statement to go with the GT badge and bumper detailing. 

Struts looking shabby I wire brushed them back and rust protect and painted them up.

 Becoming obsessed with sorting everything out. I couldn't stand the dent in the bonnet, dent in the wind the odd rust blisters. So deep into the pocket I dived for a respray.

wanting to keep the car as crisp and as tastefully original I decided to stay with the black paint.

No more football size dent in passenger wing and dent on the bonnet.

 

Edited 5 August, 20169 yr by Jameselsworth

Some good work going on there, quite like it lowred on steels

 

Love fresh paint

I know it's original but I felt they just looked dated. And my friends polo on the 13" bbs looked smart just how I felt I wanted the car to look ??

The rust behind the arch kit looks pretty minor compared to some ive seen.

 

No hate for the bbs but i like oem+ too

Looks like a nice clean GT, loving the new paint. Makes me want to get mine done. Keep up the good work.

Now to sort out that ride height. I went for eibach 20mm lowering springs with bilstein shocks. 

Noticed that the CV boot was leaking and being a MOT failure sorted that out while the wheels where off. 

New sump bought after previous one was leaking due to big gauge from being slammed. Cleaned up and sprayed. Same for drivers drive shaft wire brushed back and a quick rattle can.

Nice new cat as like the sump it had a massive gauge in it. The previous owner did a lovely job of riveting a plate over the hole.

The previous owner had sprayed all the badged black and after some cleaning up noticed the badges had been pink at some point. Not for me. Clean up and back to how they should be.

Bumpers and trims looking faded and dull brought back to life with this paint/polish/dye.

 

 

 

Everything's looking great. Loving the new motor so much. Then boom. Lucky escape, but the lower control arm pinch joint bolt sheered and the control arm cam out from the bottom of the strut. Resulting my wheel rolling up into my nice newly painted arch. :(

Too far in to give up. Onwards and upwards. New wing ordered.

Paintwork looking full of holograms. And following a guy on Facebook. I treated the GT to a full detailing at "detailed by dale" over at Tamworth. Amazing from what you can see in my photos. 

 

Lovely motor and some quality work.

Next was handling. It felt good but could do with tightening up so with speaking with a few guys on here. Advised to get a poly bush kit. 

Back axle off to poly bush. May as well clean up all the surface rust and dirt as I go along. 

Fuel pump etc looking very tired and on its last legs.  Prevention better than the cure and all that. Bought new fuel hoses and fabricated some new lines.

Fuel tray shot too and healed together by some crazy persons idea of a fix (cable ties)

No cleaning up was saving it so started to fabricate a new shelf. 

Drums looking very tired but after wire brushing back had plenty of meat on them so just a clean up in order. 

Disaster upon bleeding the brakes. 25years taking its toll on parts. The bleed nipple sheered off. 

18 months of waiting I've managed to get myself a garage to rent ?? :)

Finally cars sorted mechanically for now. Just in time to go for a road cruise with some of the lads also with mk2 polos.

Once my holiday cruising about is over and I'm back from my 4 month deployment, my next project is the engine bay and cleaning up the block. I realy want to strip the engine to pieces and recon the engine. But many I have spoken to advise if it's not broke don't touch it. Just paint it. 

 

Any help or advice on the engine and the bay is much appreciated. Feel it's abit out of my depth but looking forward to learning. 

 

I want to keep standard as I can without going crazy. Any tasteful mods or tweaks to get it running sweet as?

 

Hope you liked my thread/build to date. 

 

Elzy. 

The picture with the ARB blocks fitted to the ARB, they are the wrong way round, hope you figured this out before fitting? 

 

Loving this thread though. Nice to see decent work going into a GT rather than just slamming them on cheap coilovers and fitting wheels that don't fit.

Yes kwijibo. It was you and dougstar21 who pointed me in the right directions on installing them.  And how it pulls the caster angle forward. Had it tracked up and drives a dream now :) 

Edited 6 August, 20169 yr by Jameselsworth

Fantastic :) Glad to hear it.

 

How do you find the Bilsteins? I'm assuming you have them installed on the front too? Can you remember which model they are?

You need to put some armour plates round the door handle, mk2 golf ones to make it harder for people to get in

 

Excellent work though

Edited 6 August, 20169 yr by kiran_182

I should edit the post and annotate it better. I used Bilstein B4 front and rear shock/damper kit. 

 

I was running Yokohama 185/60 r14's and felt the tyres looked too bulky and the larger diameter put my tyre circumstances out with the speedo. So went for 185/50 r14's so since running lower profile and the shocks and lowering springs and now poly bushes. This is The first time realy out driving it since I bought the car. The car handles firmly but like a go kart. For the infrequent times I use it I can handle the hard ride. But it's exactly how I wanted it to feel. 

 

Will have to track day it one time see how it realy feels. 

 

The wider tyres definitely feel gripier. But slow speed turnings harder (to be expected) and then once up and going the wider tyres feel they want to pull me where ever they want to go when I hit bumps etc. But that's the joys of cars with no power steering I guess. 

 

Armour plates? Are they installed internally or?

External covers around the lock part of the handle 

Do they look naff? I live on a military camp and in my locked garage. So pretty safe. But I will look into them. 

How did you manage to paint the letters GT in red without bleeding into the rest of the badge?

I used the same paint I used on the calipers and used a very little amount. It spreads as it sets like its self smoothing. So after 2 layers it looked smart so left it. It's neat enough. 

Any help on all the bits I would need for stripping and rebuilding my engine please. 

 

So far I'm thinking. 

 

Timing belt

aux belt

waterpump

head gasket

rocker cover gasket

sump gasket

spark plugs

new thermostat 

temp sensors (I'm using none Oem and having idle issues one engines up to temp)

not sure what oil seals I need?crank case?

what about piston rings?

bearings?

 

Please go easy. "My first engine"

You can get a full gasket set for about £40 search polo 86c head gasket set on ebay

if its running ok and not using oil i dont think id mess with the piston rings

 

if its a bit tired then rings , honing tool , big end shells , main bearing shells , oil pump , valve guides and seals 

Engines running smooth. Probably shouldn't mess with it. Just I'm having it out to clean it up and the bay etc. I Would just like to learn how to strip and build a engine back up. Prevention is better than the cure so why wait for it to fail if I can give it some life giving it all new parts. 

 

There is a slight screech coming from the bottom left pully. But other than this the engines running smoothly.  

well yeah if you have the time and money go for it ....nothing like all new fresh parts 

 

is the gearbox perfect?   might as well budget for a clutch and new cv boots too while its apart 

Both sides have had new outer cvs. But may as well invest on the inner cv boots. 

 

Gear box feels fine. Just the gear stick is loose in one direction like the spring from onside to help the gear stick return to centre. I imagine that's only a spring?

 

Anything I should be looking for on the box? The previous owner said he had changed the clutch but going off some of the stuff I've seen botched on this car I have a spare with plenty of meat on incase I need to sort it. 

hmm dunno on the spring , theres nothing external to do that

 

if its all working ok then new seals and oil if you decided to take it all out