Mr. E.'s 1976 Scirocco Refresh

In reply to Mr_Estrotica:

That's one fine-looking Passat!!!

Nice to see a BBS RS's in a non-stance application--although that front end is suh-LAMMMED.

Super busy with work and life lately. I should have 3 days to more or less dedicate to the floors and suspension Thanksgiving weekend. The last time I drove it the CVs started making noise, so it's parked in hopes that they're salvageable. Not too concerned with driving it right now anyways, at least not until I get the heater working again...

Anywho, I stole about an hour this morning to diagnose the fuel level sending unit. I shorted the signal wire to ground and the gauge slowly teetered up to the full mark. Wiring is good, awesome. So I pulled the unit out and blew it apart into it's component pieces. A little scotchbrite, 600 grit sandpaper, and a dash of Kroil to clean up the carbon strip and sweep. Success! No need to buy a $75 part here. Keen viewers may note the first three digits on the odometer on the right...

In other news the "spare" camshaft that came with the car has been sold, officially making the "purchase price" of the car $925. Now I need to clean up the BBS RAs that came with the car and see if we can't get that number down to ~$700.

Ok. I recovered $175 for the used Schrick cam, so I've dumped all of that money back into the car already.

Ball Joint; Front; With Mounting Bolt Kit x2

Control Arm Bushing; Front Control Arm; Front Position x2

Control Arm Bushing; Front Control Arm; Rear Position x2

Control Arm; Front without Bushings and Ball Joint x2

CV Boot Kit; Front; Inner; 90mm x2

CV Boot Kit; Front; Outer x2

Rack & Pinion Boot Kit

Tie Rod End; Outer x2

Sway Bar Bushing; Front Outer x2

Ignition Switch; 6 Pin Connection, Screw Mount

For $185.10 to my door, so $10.10 from my pretend budget . I'll blow the struts apart and install the Ground Control goodies while I'm in there.

Fresh bushings + more lowerer = Happy.

updates??? its been awhile............

Not much has been going on. I've been working through most weekends since the last update, which, coupled with our recent cold snap, has pretty much halted any progress.

Here's what has been done since then.

The car came with some decent, but crusty Cibie e-code headlights. The adhesive holding the lens and bucket together had failed on most of them, allowing the silvering to tarnish. So, I stuck them in the oven at 225*F for about 10 minutes each to soften up the adhesive enough to pry them apart. At this point I tried a variety of different compounds and chemicals to try to bring the luster back. Nothing I tried made a E36 M3 bit of difference, so it was on to plan B.

Queue the ghetto fix. High-temp adhesive backed foil tape...

This was a very early attempt, it looks like crap compared to later ones. I ended up removing all of this tape and starting from scratch. After finishing the first one I had a bit more strategy and was producing much better results. Unfortunately I dropped my phone around this time and it no longer recognizes the SD card slot and, as an added bonus, it destroyed all of the data on the card. So any pictures that hadn't been uploaded to photobucket are now gone. Oh well.

Anyways, I wet sanded and polished the foil tape (seriously), and once the lenses are on, you can barely tell. The car will most likely get E30 ellipsoids in the outer position anyways, so it was really just a time wasting project in the long run. The headlights probably aren't as bright as they were brand new, but it's a HUGE improvement over their tarnished state. I don't constantly fiddle with the headlight switch to make sure they're actually on now.

Still, it's pretty ghetto...

At some point my grip of parts arrived.

and I bundled up, braved the cold, and rebuild some CV joints. Don't worry, there is a hefty chunk of wood spreading out the load on the bottom of the jackstand. I like my face where it is, and for the most part, how it looks.

The car has also been loaded up with new control arms loaded up with fresh OEM bushings. What a difference that made! Sadly, I had a brain fart and ordered the later 17mm balljoints instead of the early 15mm ones, so I have still have some work to do. It sounds like there are some later uprights at my parents place that have my name on them. I'll likely pick those up over the holidays and press some new wheel bearings in before I install them.

Mrs. Estrotica was complaining about the empty frame that once held the Luisi wheel on the steering wheel wall in our living room, so I whipped up a little bracket to hold the stock early Scirocco wheel in it's place.

That pretty much brings us up to date.

Cheers.

Excellent work!

Just to continue in the same broken-record vein as my recent pestering, I blame you for the not-infrequent A1 searches on CL recently. Some have returned dangerous results. I went so far as to email on one, but luckily it was expired and CL wouldn't send mail (don't ask me why it showed the ad).

I have a pair if nice yellow w123 Bosch fogs that would look nice in there too!

Looking really good!

I love this thread. I want a road friend MK1 Scirocco pretty badly. One day hopefully.

Bad news first.

Some jackhole with an obnoxiously large truck and no mudflaps slowly drifted out of their lane and into the emergency lane on the freeway, absolutely showering the Scirocco in a barrage of gravely death. Luckily only the headlight met it's demise. Looks like I'll be doing the E30 Headlights sooner rather than later. The headlight still works for the time being. Shrug.

I had today off (for the most part) and made my way out to the closest Pick n Pull to grab a handful of parts off of a fairly fresh Cabriolet that they got in not too long ago. I made sure to wave at random intervals just in case I passed by Nashco's shop.

I made off with a late set of uprights and spindles (so I can finally put my new 17mm balljoints on), a spare set of the external threading front strut tubes, a passenger side motor mount bracket, and the later (and much improved) E-Brake assembly.

So, the plan as it stands is to modify the strut tubes in time to install them and their coilover counterparts this weekend. With any luck I can also get fresh wheel bearings pressed into the uprights.

So with the possibility of work on the horizon I went about taking my garage from this:

To this:

Which ain't great, but it is much better.

Nobody tell SWMBO, but I just sent an email off on this, which is less than a mile from my work.

The bad thing is, MK1 Scirocco windshields have been NLA for about a dozen years now, but I think I might know of one or two out in the wild. I'm excited for the possibility of His & Her's Sciroccos or the the possibility of flipping one of the two girls.

That looks great! And a good price too!

That looks pretty clean save for the unfortunate windshield (and transmission)...

A MKI scirocco for 1250? Wow, I need to move out there!

No response from the Scirocco owner. Looks like I'll just have to drop by unannounced.

As with most things in life, the lowerification of the Mag. Turd was postponed yet again. I worked through my weekend and we had friends in from out of town, so there was no way it was going to happen. I did manage to get the strut housings all modified and ready to go (except for paint).

So I took some stock strut housings.

And I cut off the perches.

Then I ground off all of the old spring perch weld and threw a bit of sand at them.

But I couldn't find any suitable material to make my new perches out of, so I had to get a little crafty. I found a random pipe fitting in the scrap bin that had almost the same outside diameter as the strut tube. We can make this work.

I then dug up some 3/16" or similar square stock and proceeded to heat it to a nice cherry red and slowly wrap it around the pipe fitting.

Which, once released from the fitting, netted me a (roughly) circular ring of the correct diameter.

Calling that a success I made another. I then tossed them in the press to flatten them out and then gave them a quick sandblasting.

They had just enough spring in them to snugly slip over the big end of the strut housing.

So the only thing left to do was to locate their proper position on the strut tube and MIG them solidly into place. So there they are all blasted clean, ready for a lick of paint and the final assembly.

Before I install them, I'm going to take the time to make drop plates for the rear. I've teetered back and forth on this for a while now and I think it's the way I want to go. Going this route has it's advantages. Mostly, it will keep the rear beams geometry closer to what it's intended to be, as they have a tendency to toe in when you lower them excessively. It will also keep the wheel centered in the wheel well, and it will space out the rear wheels 9-13mm depending upon what material I use. Also, going this route means I can effectively lower two cars with the materials that I currently have.

That's how the rear of the old car was, and I think it's fitment was absolutely spot on.

Nice work! Man, I have no skills...

For you Scirocco junkies (NMNA):

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/cto/4285847540.html

If I wasn't on the East Coast, I'd be all over this. How hard would it be to find a nice right front fender?

Burrito Enthusiast wrote: I made sure to wave at random intervals just in case I passed by Nashco's shop.

I wondered who that was!

Bryce

Oh look. A full two weeks without an update. I've done absolutely berk-all since the last update, except drive the car (so I guess that's a good thing?).

The No-Name-Motor's Ignition Switch that I put in the car when it came home crapped out on me on Saturday when I was running the errands way Southwest of Portland. I was able to limp the car around all day by putting the key in the "ON" position and shorting the 12v supply on the starter to the bendix to get it to crank. Naturally, when I was leaving the VW dealership there was no less than 7 people looking at a ricey GTR that pulled in next to the Scirocco. They all looked a bit surprised when I fired the car up with crusty screwdriver and a shower of sparks.

Such is life, I guess.

More than anything right now I'm looking for a nice slice of shop space so I can get some real work done. If anybody in the Portland area has some open work space and could use a few bucks extra every month, do let me know.

A buddy was renting a garage in Milwaukie for $300/month. Good sized garage, short on accommodations.

Too bad I didn't get my shop built, I would have had oodles of space.

Well, the Passat just rolled off into the sunset (that's a lie, it was actually dark). This means two things: There's more money in my pocket and more free time on the horizon.

Things are looking up!

In reply to Burrito Enthusiast:

Nice! It sure does feel good selling a car, doesn't it!

this is one of my favorite build threads on here. and if I had been in that dealership parking lot that day I doubt I would have given the GTR a second glance in the presence of a mk1 scirocco. cant wait to see it lower. party on