1984 Rabbit GTI restomod

Hi All,

I have had this Rabbit a couple dozen years now; it was my second car.  The story is long enough and varied enough that I feel like I qualify as the owner and two PO's.  I expect the story of all of it will trickle out as this post goes on.

My Rabbit is a 1984 GTI with a collection of parts from a donor 1990 G60 Corrado.  I have on-and-off been doing little bits, but I am changing gears to a hard push to do whatever hacks I need to do to get the motor to run for 3 seconds or so.  Not as a race, but I just want to hear it and I don't want to wait until the car is fully together.  Here is the car prepped for easy in-and-out of the motor:

You will notice two colors to the body work.  Just before moving to Utah, I swapped the roof for one with less rust and no sunroof.  Sorry I don't have pics of that.  Here is my list for getting the motor to fire (no particular order):

• Swap in-tank filter from diesel style to gas style.
• Install the replacement gas tank (from the same donor that the roof came from)
• Drain fuel tank of diesel, flush with some gas
• Install and plumb Corrado fuel pump and surge tank
• Fill the gas tank with a few gallons of good gas
• Install cheap/throw-away Chinese headers to the motor (I am not even going to bother with gaskets, I may or may not attach the rest of the exhaust just setting it on the garage floor)
• Put the motor/tranny back in (only a 10-15 minute in-or-out at this point) and attach starter
• Prep/connect the wiring harness to the motor and toss most of it through the windshield opening.  Wire up to some sort of battery floating around
• Pull plugs, squirt in a little atf, and let that sit a day or so.
• Give it some oil pressure for a couple minutes while occasionally rotating the crank with a wrench.  Line up and reinstall the distributor.
• Fire it up, say, "Woo Hoo," and shut it down since the cooling system won't be hooked up yet and I still need to open the supercharger.

I finally cleared off the large table in my workshop, so I threw the wiring harness on it and started pulling out pieces that I don't need.  While the unused portions don't keep me from starting, reducing wiring mass and extra bits just makes it easier to deal with.

A 1990 Corrado starts out with over 38 lbs of wiring as compared to just over 15 for the GTI.  I am down to 32 lbs with the sunroof, ABS, spoiler, and auto-seatbelt wiring removed.  I lost some time hunting for the cruise control wiring, but that is mostly a standalone system and I think is currently not attached.  Next up is pulling the wiring for the power mirrors and windows.  I really thought hard about retrofitting those in, but I think leaving them out is the better move.  I am not cutting any wires except at factory splices.  Any wire that I pull out by the pin at the connector I can put back in with no harm and no foul.  I have Corrado style pins and crimper on order, so I can take the back half of the Rabbit wiring harness and install it into the Corrado fuse block without using splices.

Well, here we go...

Matthew

Window motor wiring and power mirror wiring removed.  I also found cruise wiring, I just did not have the control module attached.  I removed the cruise control wiring.

The wiring harness still has some power connector stubs (4 inches of wire to a one wire connector), but I can pull those later.  The harness is now down to 19.2 lbs, and I still have to swap out the wiring that goes to the fuel tank sending unit, rear lights, and hatch power.  All in all, I should be pulling more than 20 pounds of wiring out.  That does not sound like a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but that is just over 1% of the vehicle weight.

Matthew

Nice project 

wiring harnesses give me heart attack

Cool project, hope you keep the updates coming. 

mr2s2000elise said:

wiring harnesses give me heart attack

While I have experience wiring automation equipment, I still feel very cautious.  Cutting an installed wire feels like cutting body metal.  That is why I really like just pulling pins.  If I want to put something back, I can plug it right in.  It really takes the fear out of it; I don't have to be certain that I don't want the wire.

Matthew

I too have a VW project that has taken waaaay too long, and I just want to hear it run.  I feel this.  Keep going!!  

I swapped in the rear portion of the GTI harness.  Here is the pin change, the new pin style on top, old style on bottom:

Here is a Corrado connector filled with GTI wires:

I made not of three pins used in the Corrado, but not in the GTI.  If I have problems, I can splice in to the remaining pin locations.  For some things, a warning light and a gauge take power to different pins, even coming from the same sending unit.

I weighed the harness, and I either made a scale mistake before or today.  Current weight is 23.4 lbs.  I am a little bummed by that, but we will see how things continue.  I lost a bit of time looking for where a single wire goes.  Eventually I moved on and almost immediately figured out the wire.  It just goes to show that if you have a lot to do, go for the easy stuff; you never know when a difficult thing will suddenly become easy as you finish off other tasks.  There are a lot of wires I am not using.  Somewhere in there are door switch wires (door open/close to turn on the interior light).  I will pull those from whichever harness is easier, but for now I really don't care.  Here is the pile of wires I removed:

I also painted the gas tank heat shield and one of the mounting straps.  On of my nicer straps is missing, so I will just use a junky second strap and replace it when I find the better one.

That is high temp paint in the heat shield and rubber undercoating on the strap.

All in all, a reasonably productive day.

Matthew

Neat project.  I always liked those first generation cars - my brother bought a new Rabbit in 1976, and later on I had one roommate who owned a GTI (and a second roommate who owned a 1979 Scirocco special edition, the one with the plaid Recaro seats.)

Progress for this week

The gas tank is painted, the in-tank filter and sending unit are both my cleaner looking pieces, and the heat shield has new little bumpers.  The gas tank still needs to have weatherstripping (padding) attached and I have a fresh piece of main fuel hose to put in (the folded/oversprayed piece is getting replaced).

The bumpers are not perfect, but are pretty darn close.  $9 for a bag of 25 on eBay.

The engine is in, but I still need to find one engine mount nut (or just source a new one).

The fuel lines need securing.  The harness and plumbing both need to connect to the motor, and I still have a few sensors to plug back in.  The hard fuel lines also need to be attached to the bottom of the car, and the exhaust is not yet on.

Sometime after starting and the motor comes out again, The battery tray and old airbox mounting will be removed.  New "airbox" (K&N and a baffle) are on the shelf and I should be able to drop those in soon.

Matthew

Look at that G-lader!  I G60 swapped my Mk2 GTi.  Once that motor is sorted, it runs really well.  I always kept a spare G-lader tho...

The VW commercial where the black and red GTI flies accross the screen was very important to who i am.  I will be watching intently.  What type of automation?  I built palletizers for several years and several other ancillary systems

In reply to Justjim75 :

My first "real job" was building automated handlers from prime wafer polishing machines (prime = polishing before printing any circuitry on a silicon wafer).  After that, I worked my way into the drafting department, but while building I learned the fine art of "World Domination Through Sufficient Application of Zip Ties."

I have since been on teams designing surgical tools, medical device manufacturing equipment (pleasting and folding of angioplasty balloons), telescopes and mounts (both innies and outies, look at the deep dark and laser cannons), and big hydraulic thermal vaccuum presses and ancillary equipment.

G60’s make me happy, at one point I had 3 or 4 chargers. Now I think I’m down to just one pg long block. 

Should be lots of fun in a mk1.

Okay, I have a few updates to wrap into this one.

1. The gas tank is in, though no point in pictures of that, yet.  I have been looking at where to put the fuel pump and I think I have it figured out.  I need a little more room, but not a lot.  My wheels/tires (including a couple of different luggage saving donuts) do not fit in the spare tire well.  I was thinking of cutting it out and making a toolbox holder, but I still need to put the spare somewhere.  If I remove the well, and mount a donut underneath like on an SUV, then I should have space for a spare and the fuel pump. I will need to fab some parts, but it should be no big deal.

2.  The hard lines are fitted.  I swapped the GTI lines for the lines from the diesel parts cart that I pulled the roof and tank from.  The GTI fuel lines route all the way across the fire wall and up to where the battery tray is.  The diesel lines end at the top of the firewall on the driver side.  Here is the end of the hard fuel lines with the original G60 fuel line to the fuel pressure regulator attached to the motor.  As you can see, pretty convenient routing now.

3.  I mounted my Air Filter, though I still need to make a heat shield and a fresh air duct.

4.  I have most of the engine potion of the wiring harness connected.

I still need to connect ground wires and wire in a battery.  Various "vacuum" lines need to be attached, and a couple of "single" wires need to be connected.  I cannot find a correct 02 sensor, so I am just going to rewire to use a generic 3 wire with a GM weathertight connector.  I did that with the original motor and it was a cheap changeover.

I am missing a spring clip for one of my sensors and I cannot find my original starter bolts.  The bolts a likely in a box of motorcycle parts (misplaced during the last couple of moves).  I may just pull "new" ones from the pic-a-part.  The clips are still available.

I had a "better lucky than good" moment with trying to fit the gas tank.  I had to take the the gas back out to remove the filler neck.  I still need to swap filler necks, but I did drain the gas again.  after a couple of gallons had been sitting in the tank for a little while, it came out looking pretty dark.  I had been assuming that I had a clean-enough tank, but I don't.  I will plumb the hard lines together and let the fuel pump (when installed) just circulate through a fresh filter.  After that, I can do another load of clean fuel.  Hopefully the lawn mower and snow blower won't mind the slightly tainted fuel.

I want to get it started soon, since BBM is running a sale on G-lader porting.  I need good engine noises before I pull the charger.  I have spares to send, but I figured I would send them all together in case anything did not pass inspection.

Matthew

I'd replace that little belt in the G-lader.  Those like to snap and there goes the blower.

In reply to docwyte :

Yeah, I have a few spares for those, too.  I was hoping to get a few seconds of idle, but you are right; why risk it?

Matthew

This block is also very amenable to turbo charging if G life gets you down.  We’ve done a couple into mk1’s and they are really fun beasties.

In reply to 84FSP :

If I want to go turbo, 1.8t's are cheap and plentiful.  I have also thought about doing a 20v G60, similar to the 16V G60, but with the more available parts.  I really won't know until I get to drive it, but the theory behind supercharged rather than turbocharged seems much more controllable on tight twisty roads.  I could always upgrade to a more durable type of charger.

Matthew

Lol, im a biomedical technician now, dialysis machines and the related water filtration systems. 

Okay, so I have a couple spare belts and a full BBM rebuild kit.  Most of the bearings are available from sources I can find, but not all.  Having a set in hand will help identify parts.

I could just replace a belt, but I thought I should go ahead and open up a spare charger and see about getting it squared away. Some 10-12 years back I bought a G-lader on eBay that came with two extra "cores."  While I am sure there are videos online showing how to take one apart, instructions take out half the fun, so here we go.

Here is the charger.  I was told by the seller that it had been rebuilt.  I have no idea if the inside was from EIP or if someone else had rebuilt after EIP, but the seals inside turned out to be the wrong material.

Complete with 68mm Neuspeed pulley

I was looking to mark the pulleys, but they come that way with little notches.

The large pulley bolt had blue loctite and the small pulley bolt had red.

The cases were sealed together, so I scrounged a nut the correct size and made a spreader.  Wrench on the middle nut and "pop."

Inside the case was "ribbon" of destroyed incorrect displacer seals. You can also see that seals are missing and the displacer is damaged. Bummer

Not only is the displacer bent, but it is cracked through. You can see the crack near my fingers and you can also see that the seals are teflon or delrin, neither of which is correct and likely the reason for so much damage.

The little brass ribbon in the bottom groove is a NLA seal spring.  Sadly not a complete set in here, and I have yet to fish this one out to check to see if it is undamaged.  This next picture shows the seals in the case half are worn down and the case has been ground. No springs under those seals, either. 

Since every aluminum part in this G-lader is shredded, I decided to open up the other two "cores."  One had damaged case halves, but at least it has more of the seal springs. The circles show bright spots of the top of the spring.

The EIP G-lader is toast, but one "core" had good halves and a dead displacer, and the other had dead halves and a good displacer.  It looks like I should be able to take the two cores and make one good G-lader.  In the meantime, I will use the dead parts to practice my bearing pulling techniques, since an "oops" won't cost me anything.

If I can build one and if the G-lader currently in the car turns out to be okay then I will have one and a spare. G-lader parts are expensive enough that when these are gone I will change to a more available charger.  I am a little bummed that so many of the parts are bad, but since I think I can build one good unit, then it is not a total loss.  I was hoping for parts to sell to fund parts for me, but no luck there.

In the meantime I will need to source a tool to pull bearings from a blind hole.  Most of the bearings I should be able to use a regular press, but not all of them.

Matthew

Par for the course on anything EIP touches.  They're totally incompetent and outright thieves.

So you like superchargers.  And you G-Lader is toast.  Ever think of a different kind of supercharger?  

Axial Flow Latham style supercharger

(Muh, ha, ha, ha....  I like spending other people's money...)

I have wondered how one of these would work on VW engine.   But I do not have the money to find out.

In reply to noddaz :

I still have the G-lader on the car, and hopefully it is okay; that would potentially still leave me with two (at best).  Regardless, if I stay with supercharger (and I think I would like to), I am not buying any more than I have now.  The idea is to run with what I have while saving up for an upgrade.  BBM seems to have a nice charger kit, so I may try to go with that.  I have nothing against learning about other options, though, so thanks.  I do want to make sure I stay with positive displacement, otherwise I might as well go turbo.  The G-lader is cool, but they are so fragile; the aluminum is not only thin, but it is also brittle.

Matthew

First time getting to work since July... I should have cleaned the shop, but it will just get dirty again anyway.  I picked a job I could finish in the time I had and I just barely made it.  Now I have room for the fuel pump...

It may seem a little drastic, but I want the fuel pump close to the original location.  What about the spare tire well?  My spares have not fit into the well sice I changed to 15" wheels.  I even have a 15" donut that didn't fit, either.  I plan on patching everything back up and then hanging a donut from underneath, pick-up style.  That will leave me with a spare, mounted low, and still have cargo space.

Matthew

You could maybe find a suitable spare tire well from some other car and weld it in (yes, I'm creating more work for you.   )