2000 Golf GTI 1.8t.... road trip car

[Superchickenn]

Hi Everyone,
With my mates annual road trip looming I thought it about time to start the car build/repair/ruin.
Recently I seem to have accumulated a few Golf’s, in fact I had 3 and there was no need for another however one came up for sale whilst I was in work one day and it was local and cheap..
This thread is about this golf, 2000 1.8T GTI
It’s a 150 bhp AGU engine.
The advert pics








Why was it cheap? Well the seller advises he hit a raised drain and damaged the sump…
It wasn’t pretty…




Apparently after it hit the drain the car was turned off “quickly after” so after paying my doos myself and Mikey (fellow road tripper) towed it back to mine.

Sump off damage was clear..

However whilst the sump was off I noticed there was metal fragment around the big end bearing.



Next step was to take the connecting rod end off and inspect the bearing.. what I found was actually really really pleasant…. You wouldn’t think this car had done 196000 miles.



Next step was to put it all together once the new sump arrived.
The next bit concerned me the most, i filled her full of oil and turned the key..

....

.....

.....

Click battery fooked

Jump leads out ... turn key... click ggggrrrr

Robbed battery from Saab

......

.....

Turn key smallest sign of life..

Go and get the TDI golf and get the jump leads on ... LIFE WE HAVE LIFE

It jumped straight to life..

Only ran it for a few mins as the sump I have purchased has got a hole for oil level sensor .. however my engine doesnt have one so I had a hole to fill... got the glue gun out and a piece of plastic (I know it will fall off but I wanted to hear it run)

I'll make a plug out of metal and replace it when I have time and I'll drop the oil in a few days time after I've started it a few times.. (I'm not going to drive it)


My only issue is on first start up she hunts on idle. .. not sure if this is old fuel or bad plugs or it just needs a good run...

However she revs up great
Whilst the weather has also been unkind I have taken it upon myself to start stripping the interior.
More pics and progress to follow

[J4CKO]

Guessing that has had plenty of oil changes by the looks of it, these are great engines let down by some pretty ropey ancillary stuff like the coil packs (Waiting for a new set to arrive for mine) and other various iffy valves and stuff. I had my sump off on my 128k, 13 owner TT recently and that was clean as a whistle as well,

[Superchickenn]

J4CKO said:

Guessing that has had plenty of oil changes by the looks of it, these are great engines let down by some pretty ropey ancillary stuff like the coil packs (Waiting for a new set to arrive for mine) and other various iffy valves and stuff. I had my sump off on my 128k, 13 owner TT recently and that was clean as a whistle as well,

The service history with mine was insane.. its got every MOT .. and also for some reason they had the spark plugs changed every year as part of the service which is mad..

Im hoping to just map it for the road trip but would like to look down the route of K04 and bigger injectors etc.. ive seen some people upgrade to the TSI coil packs but unsure of the benefits yet.

[Usget]

That was some drain he hit, was it a land mine!?

[Superchickenn]

Usget said:

That was some drain he hit, was it a land mine!?

I was glad/surprised there wasn't any other damage to the car, the remainder of the sump was still connected to the turbo return feed

[JakeT]

I had one of these. remapped AGU lump, solid flywheel and the like. I'd describe it as a cruiser. The Recaros were great.

Mine broke a LOT.

[Superchickenn]

JakeT said:

I had one of these. remapped AGU lump, solid flywheel and the like. I'd describe it as a cruiser. The Recaros were great.

Mine broke a LOT.

unfortunately the drivers side Recaro is hanging... the others are still good... either way buck seats will be going in :-)

[Chrismawa]

These are bargain basement prices now. I've just been given one and also have a thread about it. Yours looks tidier bodywork wise than mine. They seem a pretty good steer as a comfortable cheap daily driver - with the Recaros of course!

[Superchickenn]

Chrismawa said:

These are bargain basement prices now. I've just been given one and also have a thread about it. Yours looks tidier bodywork wise than mine. They seem a pretty good steer as a comfortable cheap daily driver - with the Recaros of course!

Yes they are getting very good value for money, that's how ive now ended up with 4, 2 petrol and 2 diesel.

Just had a quick look through your thread, for free that's amazing.. FYI the alternator belt may either be the tensioner or the alternator pulley. The pulley is a common fault and causes early failure on the tensioner. Easy job to do with just buying a pulley from ebay. Hope this helps

[MikeDrop]

What a nail! Wouldn't pay me for that

[Superchickenn]

MikeDrop said:

What a nail! Wouldn't pay me for that

Haha you won't be saying that when it's towing you home from Germany

[Superchickenn]

This morning I was an early bird and collected some goodies





A set of vmaxx coilovers and a 3" decat

[Superchickenn]

More presents arrived over the weekend

Not had a chance to fit yet as I'm waiting for the mounts



More work will continue this evening

[Superchickenn]

Carpets and undercarpets removed ... they were 18 years of howling ...

I also found some weight saving holes

More this evening when the kids are in bed

[Superchickenn]

More progress this weekend

New coilovers fitted

Thankfully I had a helping hand

Edited by Superchickenn on Sunday 22 April 09:48

[Superchickenn]

A little bit of progress has been made,

I have received some metal that a neighbor acquired for me to make some seat frames...

and the other evening i starting looking at 12v ports to allow the magnitude of devices that require charging on the next trip..

On the weekend i hope to weld up some seating frames

[Welsh_Meat]

soooo cool!! the wife and I have always wanted to do this and drive across Europe.

Do you plan to fit a bigger turbo for the trip ?

[Superchickenn]

Welsh_Meat said:

soooo cool!! the wife and I have always wanted to do this and drive across Europe.

Do you plan to fit a bigger turbo for the trip ?

Depends on money really, I have a KO3s on my other golf but don't want to start taking parts from one to build another, so ideally id like to find another KO3s.

also I would want to get bigger injectors as the ones in the AGU engine arnt good for much more than 200 bhp ive read.. I did consider taking the ones out of my Saab as they have a great flow rate. ..

We hope to hit 5 countries on the drive to Nurburgring and back so should be great fun

[Superchickenn]

good progress since the last upload

Interior is almost fully stripped

Wheel and boss are on... and ive made a start on the electrics

also as you can see in the rear of the car apart from the back box i almost have the full system sorted :-)







In other important news the golf passed her MOT today with no advisories :smile:





I have also started to delete the aircon, so the only thing left is the compressor, the shortened belt has arrived and i may tackle this tonight when the kids are in bed

[Superchickenn]

It's been a little while since I have put an update on..

Since the mot has passed I have been doing some trial runs which highlighted some issues.

Firstly my boy approves of the car





Next up I've started simplifying the wiring harness as I've taken out everything I didn't need





I also threw some soap and water at it because I kept getting dirty just walking past the thing



Back to the issues.. I have created another thread on here about.. I'm having oil pressure issues.. I think the 196000 miles the car has done has left the oil pump a bit warn .. running the car the pressures are fine.



However once she is warm warm the pressures drop a bit too low



Therefore I'm going to put a new oil pump in when I get a chance.. this should happen in the next few weeks hopefully.

In other news i finally refitted the gearbox in the other 1.8t I have after repearing the broken selector arm ... I had help mind



I hope the next update brings good pressures