1997 golf vr6 project rebuild.

[Jakesy 10]

Hi all been a member of the club for a couple weeks now and have realised I haven't posted anything about my vr6 build, so here goes!

 

I've bought a 1997 mk3 golf vr6 for £550 so a bit of a bargain, when the shell is pretty solid apart from a couple rust patches, however it came with next to no interior a set of bucket seats rear brace and some sparco harnesses! 

 

So as you can imagine for someone who has never owned a VW before it was a bit of a daunting task but I like a challenge! 

 

So when getting the car I knew very little about it more off a punt if you like 19 year old car with 120k on the clock with no paperwork..... great! So here comes the guess work! From what I've been told the fuel pump has been tweaked to allow more fuel to flow however don't know if the pump has actually been changed. It revs very hard and flys through the gears making me think maybe some uprated/high-rise cams maybe? If this is the case I can probably assume it's had a remap as well. It's pretty lively! The car has been lowered on coilovers with some 16" bbs alloys and had a home spray job in army green! The exhaust has been made into a side outlet and is loud straight through pipe, I haven't looked closely enough to see if the manifold is standard or not and if it's been de-catted. It's loud! 

 

So onto what I've managed to do so far, I've ripped out the bucket seats and the harnesses sourced a full interior (seats, plastics, seatbelts front and rear and even a headliner allbeit without the sunroof cut out out but I'm sure I can make it work! ?) A new central locking pump and extra door looms (present ones had been snipped ?) got all that for £60 and a couple hours work down at the scrappies. 

Ive also decided to go for a front big brake upgrade so on the way i have got 312mm carriers and callipers painted red with kinetix grooved and dotted discs, HEL braided hoses (all 6 gotta help out the rears as well! ) and to finish it off brembo brake pads. So I got all this however thought I'd better concentrate on the inside before anything else! 

I took one look at the interior and got to admit I thought to myself what have I got myself into! Like I said the bucket seats and harnesses came out and I've fitted two normal seats, had to do a bit of fettling to get them in as the rails had been a bit chewed from previous owner fitting the bucket seats "/. Finally two seats in secured and ready to rock! Then go in the front seatbelts, all sorted and fully functioning! Not gunna lie I was quite proud of myself as I was crapping it trying not to set off the airbag inertia bar whilst fitting! So now I can drive it even if it is a shell! Now onto the central locking and electric windows. So previous owner thought it more than acceptable to snip the whole loom at drivers side rear door so that got pulled out and replaced from the one I pulled from the scrappies, I then plumbed in the central locking vacuum pipes along with the pump fitted in the boot and connected it all up and BOOM success! However I've managed to snap the connection for the vacuum chamber inside the door so got to come up with a repair for that! But I'm happy in knowing it all works! Here comes the slightly embarrassing part I got the electric windows all connected up and ready to go put the ignition on try the switch....nothing.... change the switch......still nothing......change the switch a third time..... still nothing! I'm about to burst at this point! The brother in law comes over and I explain to him and he laughs presses the window lock button on the centre console guess what starts working -.- I'm not living that one down for a while! ??

Next job was then to look at the floor below the rear seats the two grommet holes were badly rusted so had to chop all that out with a grinder felt a bit sketchy being so close to the fuel tank but hey I'm still here writing this so all good! Made some square plates with 23mm holes in the middle, welded down and grommets and cables refitted nice and snug and no rust! Going to treat the metal and spray with shutz to protect. On doing this I've notice for whatever bizarre reason the front seat mount has been grinded completely out and also the rear seat mounts, now I'm started to think the guy before was a complete imbisile!! He hasn't even treated the metal so there starting to get surface rust which I've sanded away now and I'm going to find a way of either fabricating my own front and rear mounts for the seats on find a donor car and grind the same portion out and weld back into the vr6! Pissed off isn't the word! The final bit that I've done is removed a makeshift metal plate with two switches attached the switches controlled a high power LED internal light which I've adapted the original light to hold and works a treat, and the other switch is for a second fan that is fitted to the car. Those switches have been relocated next to the OBD port where they fit nicely pull what remaining cables are behind there and find that unnecessarily again previous owner has chopped the whole loom for the radio! By this point I want to find the guy and just ask why lol and maybe several other things! Sourced a loom from an original mk3 head unit and re-wired the whole loom and hey presto I now have a working radio and a tidy looking centre console! Well that's what I've managed to do in about a weeks worth of work I need to take more pictures but and upload more but here is some for now and i shall endouver to carry on and share with you guys my progress!

 

hope you liked what you've read and any tips you can give me would be much appreciated! 

 

Many thanks 

 

Aaron

[Jakesy 10]

All back seat done and grinded all rust out found another fairly big hole above where the fuel filter is so that's going to be fun cutting all that out and welding in a new piece! Oh and my rear window is going down but not going back up, think it's come off the runner so got to fix that again! Haven't got pictures but sprayed all the floor in primer just to protect it before sanding down again finishing off the welding re-painting with zinc primer then going to use shutz under seal to finish off, double protection from rust and has sound dreading properties so should be a little quieter and a lot stronger. On another note callipers and carriers and my braided brake hoses have literally just arrived so may have to go have a play and squeeze these monster 312's behind my bbs 16's! Like Christmas come early! 

 

Keep tuned for further updates over the coming weeks! 

 

Cheers K's guys and girls 

 

Aaron

[rickygolf83 9]

Long time since last post, but any updated pics of it?