Mulberry Highline Daily.

[c00k 435]

As my other VR is more of a weekend toy,

Link to my other L6W VR build ->

http://www.vr6oc.com/forum/topic/40052-golf-mk3-vr6-on-air-supercharger

I bought another one to use over winter and for more daily and wetter weather driving, as I miss my VR over winter months. I also have a newer diesel for daily.

So I bought a mulberry Highline.

Was very cheap as needs abit of work,

But I have loads of spares from owning pervious mk3, and loads of spares from building my other VR.

It's going to be on a much tighter buget than my other VR. But hopefully still a very nice VR.

It came almost standard,

With very few minor mods, just a cone air filter, but came with standard air box in boot,

a different exhaust, spax shocks and springs.

TT 5 spokes, and hella projector lamp head light. As well as the usally Highline bits, heated leather, wooden gear knob, different center console, leather gators, different badges, black ABC pillars, etc.

Came with full service history, had over £500 spent on big service and disks and pads in July this year. MOT until April next year.

Now down to the bad bits, and why I had it cheap,

Passenger wing needs replacing as it is rotten, few little bits of rust around rear side windows.

Drivers window broken, needed new window mech,

Passenger window not working, turned out to be a broken wire, so that was easy fix.

Rear passenger window not working, this was also a broken wire, so simple fix.

Leaky sun roof, passenger side drains was blocked, drivers side had come disconnected behind dash, managed to get it reconnected with the dash in place and just removing the dails, headlight switch, and air vent. So that was easier than thought.

Both front door lock barrels were snapped, and didn't have key for boot lock, but it does have alarm with central locking,

I had spare door hadles already in garage, rear ones without locks. As a quick replacement.

Ordered a new boot lock and replaced that, so I have a key and a manual way in to the car, as front handles now have no locks.

Also some pervious owner had sprayed all the black plastics matt black with rattle can. So they all needed to be changed, I can't stand Matt black painted plastic.

Luckily I had spares mirrors just needed to swap the covers. I had spare door handles, about 5-6 spare splitters to choose from and different styles.

The rear bumper will be coming off soon, and hopefully the shit paint removed and the original black plastic restored.

The engine also is on it way out, it was nocking it's tits off when I bought it, after doing an engine flush with my friend forte, and new oil and filter it's quietened down a lot, also HT lead No. 2 was loose and made it run extra lumpy, but it's still not a brilliant engine, luckily I havens spare engine in my garage sitting on a stand I can drop in soon.

The interior was stinking dirty and needed a deep clean and decent detail.

Removed the seats,

The carpet and interior before cleaning.

Leather was really dry, and need a good clean and condition, much easier to do out of the car.

Gave the carpet a good clean with some carpet shampoo / stain remover, my brush attachments of my buffer (bruch attchement made by chemical guy, and is brilliant well worth buying, under £10 if I remember right), plus wet vac'd.

Treated all the leather with a 3 stage Gliptone liquid leather, cleaner, conditioner, and finish/waterproofer. Using detailing brushes, to get in to the grain and all the stitching and joins in leather

Rear bench also had a tiny split in the leather I repaired with some leather repair stuff, I had left over from my other car.

Cleaned all underneath the rear seats,

Fitted rear seats back in.

Leather is now nice and soft, and feeling and smelling much more like leather should. Gliptone is amazing!

Edited December 1, 2015 by c00k

[c00k 435]

The steering wheels was ripped at the top, the pervious owner had taped it up neatly, I removed the tape to see what was underneath. And decided it needed replacing,

Went for a Polo GTi steering wheel, straight swap for mk3 one.

Re-dyed the top of the handbrake gator, as this was a starting to wear.

Removed the spare wheel and cleaned inside the boot,

Also cleaned all the boot carpets and rear carpet on seats, same as the interior carpet.

Much more to come soon....

Edited November 24, 2015 by c00k

[VR6Pete 1,455]

Looks a good base car to start with

[chippy 34]

Looks fairly tidy mate! hope the engine problem isn't serious though

 

i've been toying with the idea of getting a mk3 vr for daily duties! like you im missing my vr lol

[c00k 435]

Engine not a problem, I have a spare 74k engine sitting on a stand in my garage waiting.

I can lend an engine crane off a good mate of mine.

Can have old one out and new one in, in under a 5 hours I reckon.

I managed to take whole front end off my other VR in 8 mins, that was after dropping the water.

My mate wanted to time me lol and said I couldn't do it in under 10mins. That was also thanks to a well laid out and organised tool box. So I know where everything is. And owning about 5 mk3's perviously, so I know them like the back of my hand.

I even have a spare supercharger , it needs a few parts, but I reckon I could fabricate most of what I need my self. So I may end up with 2 supercharged VR's. Well see what time brings

Edited November 25, 2015 by c00k

[D11PS 146]

Engine not a problem, I have a spare 74k engine sitting on a stand in my garage waiting.

I can lend an engine crane off a good mate of mine.

Can have old one out and new one in, in under a 5 hours I reckon.

I managed to take whole front end off my other VR in 8 mins, that was after dropping the water.

My mate wanted to time me lol and said I couldn't do it in under 10mins. That was also thanks to a well laid out and organised tool box. So I know where everything is. And owning about 5 mk3's perviously, so I know them like the back of my hand.

I even have a spare supercharger , it needs a few parts, but I reckon I could fabricate most of what I need my self. So I may end up with 2 supercharged VR's. Well see what time brings

2 superchargers..that's just being greedy

[D11PS 146]

I'm sure it will look nuts like the black one

[ky_uk 304]

Finished one car straight onto another!!!!! Legend!!!!!!!!

[Chris_VR6 26]

Mulberry FTW! 

[c00k 435]

Finished one car straight onto another!!!!! Legend!!!!!!!!

Haha the black one is never finished,

I've still got loads planned.

But it's mainly there for this stage of the build.

This mulberry one won't have half the stuff the black one has done, I want to keep it more OEM looking in the engine bay, but also a nice and clean style at the same time. Keeping air con, may even fit climatronic, and possibly cruise control. Not sure yet.

Already ordered a cheap set of coolant hoses from jap land. See how these compare to the custom ones I have made for the black one. Haha

Also ordered few things to go under the bonnet.

Plus a new grill as two of the clips were snapped,

It won't be going on yet, until I get other stuff to paint at the same time like passenger wing, and few other things. And I'll paint them all in one go.

Edited December 14, 2015 by c00k

[c00k 435]

I'm sure it will look nuts like the black one

Cheers dude,

It's going to have much less done to it than the black one, well that's the plan at the mo anyway.

[D11PS 146]

That's what we all say.. and low and behold it'll have coil overs, exhaust, nice wheels in a short space of time and I'm sure it will have some nice unique touches from the spares you have from the black one

[c00k 435]

I do have spare coilovers,

I also have spare eibach springs.

And my winter wheels for the black one are splits,

But there 5x120, so I would need another set of adaptors, if I can find a cheap 2nd hand set, I'd use the TT wheels as my winters lol.

Kinda reason I bought it, I have so many spares I could use

Every VR needs a better suspension setup, and nice wheels

Edited November 25, 2015 by c00k

[D11PS 146]

You have a PM

[Bealieboy 1,625]

Hey cook, I bought some gliptone stuff after reading your earlier post. It's the best leather stuff I've used. Thanks for the tip!

[c00k 435]

No problem buddy, I've used it a few time now, and yes it's brilliant.

There is one deeper cleaner I also use made by the leather clinic - called 'leather deep cleaner' which gives a much deep clean the Gliptone. But is also more aggressive and you take the chance of removing some colour or dye if not carefull. But it's good for stains on leather.

Drop me a PM if you need any advice on leather stuff dude.

[Bealieboy 1,625]

I can't believe how much more soft the leather feels, you can totally feel the difference. Smells good too!

I did my crusty old leather gear nob gaiter and its bought the colour up and it's really soft.

An excellent product compared to megs, autoglym and similar!

[c00k 435]

Started painting a few things,

Sanded the grain off a spare inlet cover I had,

Photo is from about half way through sanding.

Bought some polo handles,

There easier to colour code, as there already painted, so no need to sand the grain out, and half the prep work compared to mk3 handles,

I have them on the black VR as well, and personally I prefer the shape of them.

But there not a direct fit, they fit in the holes, and bolt in position, but the rear catch that connects to the lock release pin doesn't line up and fit. So the lock mechanism needs to be removed from inside the door, and the release pin bent to the correct shape to make the polo handles work with mk3 lock and release mechanism.

Polo handles.

Also got a few other things in to primer at the same time. Battery tray and clamp I took back to bare metal first. Spare expansion tank I had, that was almost brand new. (I bought for my other VR ran it for under 2 months, then swapped to a top fill rad. So it became a spare.) I'm only painting the top half of the expansion tank, so I can still see the minimum level. Expansion tank cap cover. New boot lock. Set of lupo stubby mirrors,

In to primer,

Left to cure at room temperature, I don't bake primer as it can sometimes crack, especially if you build up a few layers, to help smooth stuff out, it tends to be thicker, and cracks easier if baked.

Nice sand before colour coat,

Colour coded to same as rest of car.

Left to cure for 24h. on low temp, about 20-21degrees.

Went over with an ultra fine scouring pad before lacquer, didn't sand them, as I didn't want to remove any of the metallic. The ultra fine scouring pad worked well. (Never use a heavy green scouring pad from the kitchen) mine were ultra fine. Then in to lacquer.

Left to cure for 2hours at about 60degrees,

Then left for 5days to cure at room temperature.

Original handles look rather faded an old.

Painted polo handles fitted, after removing door cards, removing lock mechanism, and modifying release pin.

Colour coded boot lock,

I'm going to paint the lock surround / boot handle soon. At the same time I'm going to paint one of the bump strips off the door, as it's missing a tiny bit of paint, a new passenger wing as the one on there is rusty, and a new front grill.

Edited December 21, 2015 by c00k

[c00k 435]

As I mentioned before I have a spare engine in my garage, but really it's destiny is for the black VR as it a very good condition 74k engine, I want to rebuild for the black one.

So.....

I started to repair the engine already in this one.

Will be giving the engine a flush after I finished doing all the work, so bought it ready.

First thing was To take the rocker cover off and look at the tappets. One of them was very noisy, loose and could get a feeler gauge at 0.05 under it. So I decided replaced all six on the one cam shaft.

Timing checked, cam's checked, cam locked with 5mm alloy plates, intermediate sprocket checked.

Cable tied one cam sprocket that I was not removing, added extra timing make with grey paint to chain and sprocket I was removing.

Removed cam shaft and sprocket in one, and supported timing chain with more cable ties, make sure not to loosen or drop off the lower intermediate shaft.

Cleaned inside the small oil passages with thin pipe cleaners. Replaced all six tappets on the one shaft. Plus check chain guides while I had the cover off. They look really good condition, but it came with history and they were chained in 2013. Under 10k ago.

Rebuilt top end back up with new gaskets as I never re-use old ones, plus the rocker gaskets was leaking badly any way.

Next will be the big end and main bearings, as one of them has a slight nock and it's only going to get worse, so I will just replace all of them and take a look at crank at same time. Plus the sump gasket has gone and need replacing any way, plus I can clean inside the sump, and clean the oil pick up.

Hopefully the engine should live on then.

Edited January 5, 2016 by c00k

[c00k 435]

Replaced driver window mech this weekend, and went round a few scrap yards looking for bargains. Didn't find that much...

Got a replacement window mech. Wasn't paying new prices for this car, as it's meant to be a cheaper run around. eBay wasn't my help either, cheapest one I could find with a motor was £60, plus postage.... £15 from my local scrappies and had fun smashing the window to get it out haha.

Also got an upper glover box, who needs a passenger air bag.

I also suspected the cat is half blocked, and restricting the system. So I may fit a high flow cat, or de-cat pipe but with a bulge so looks like it has a cat on there.

Edited January 26, 2016 by c00k

[c00k 435]

After taking a think about this car, I have decided I am going to change the engine, but not for the decent one I already have in my garage. 

So I found another engine locally, with under 100k on it. 

So decided to go have a look, hand cranked it over and it seem good condition. So I bought it. And got my mate to pick it up on his recovery truck, and store it in his garage for a few weeks. 

It's still at my mates garage at the mo, waiting for him to drop it down with engine crane this weekend. 

 

I'll compression test it before fitting. But hopefully it should be a decent engine. 

 

On another note, a few other things have be done. 

 

Votex Sunroof wind deflector 

 

 Heko window wind deflectors 

I did fit them but didn't get a photo. 

 

New TT pedals, and 911 oil cap. 

 

New windscreen washer tank. 

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by c00k

[dom.joy 87]

Couple questions. 

Where did the sunroof wind deflector come from?

And did you get the rhd or lhd tt pedals?

[bennyk 1,238]

I've got a sunroof deflector sitting in the shed waiting for the right time to put it on! Always thought they were cool since my Grandad had one on a Merc estate a very long time ago! Found mine on eBay Dom

[dom.joy 87]

Ah cool. I've seen the universal ones on eBay and always thought they could look cool. May have to have a measure up

[c00k 435]

I got RHD TT pedals. 

 

The universal sunroof deflector may fit, but they sit a lot higher / taller than the votex version. 

Also the votex version has screw fixings and clamps to keep it in place. Where the universal use double sided tape. 

I'll admit the votex ones are much harder to find, and most probs double maybe triple the price as well. Mine came from German eBay.

I looked in to both types before buying mine.  

Edited February 15, 2016 by c00k