Another VW Golf Mk2 16v
Discussion
A few minor bits and pieces tidied up. 
The sunroof mechanism was a complete mess when I got the car (sliding mechanism was jamming) and the deflector plate which reduces wind noise was conspicuous by its absence.
I managed to find a replacement reflector and test fitted it to the car. All seemed good.
Dismantled the sliding rails that allow the sunroof to move smoothly. These were caked in dirt and grime. With a bit of elbow grease they were cleaned up and working again. As a bonus, the sunroof now opened and closed properly.
The main supporting mechanism for the sunroof is at the front and a pain to remove, so I cleaned it up in situ ready for respray.
4 Coats of gloss black metal paint later and the deflector mounted back in with the small side lifters working...
One fixed sunroof! Leveling mechanism at the back is unfortunately broken on one side, so going to have to have a think about how to fix that. But another thing ticked off the resto list.
Cheers,
Drew.
The sunroof mechanism was a complete mess when I got the car (sliding mechanism was jamming) and the deflector plate which reduces wind noise was conspicuous by its absence.
I managed to find a replacement reflector and test fitted it to the car. All seemed good.
Dismantled the sliding rails that allow the sunroof to move smoothly. These were caked in dirt and grime. With a bit of elbow grease they were cleaned up and working again. As a bonus, the sunroof now opened and closed properly.
The main supporting mechanism for the sunroof is at the front and a pain to remove, so I cleaned it up in situ ready for respray.
4 Coats of gloss black metal paint later and the deflector mounted back in with the small side lifters working...
One fixed sunroof!
Leveling mechanism at the back is unfortunately broken on one side, so going to have to have a think about how to fix that. But another thing ticked off the resto list. Cheers,
Drew.
And a bit more stuff done today. Target is to get the Golf back on the road for May and the (hopefully opening) show scene.
Today took off all the intake gubbins to give it a good clean out. It was filthy. Managed to find a replacement lower airbox unit for the car to replace the modified one fitted. It was a Pipercross induction kit before - which made a nice induction noise... but it was a noise! Hoping the car will be a bit more civilised with the original airbox in place.
Whilst I was doing that I cleaned all the plastic components. They were filthy inside. I also discovered that the cam cover bolts were only finger tight (and one was properly loose) not sure what happened there!
Next up was tracing the oil leak in the engine bay. I initially feared we had some sort of leak between the engine and the gearbox, but the bell housing was very greasy on top, and a look around showed that the dizzy was mucky underneath as well. Going to degrease the engine there and replace the green rubber o-ring in the dizzy to see if that cures it. Fingers crossed!
With all the intake stuff off, now it was time to fit a part that's been hanging around for a while waiting to go on. The top cambelt cover. This was a proper faff - no wonder you see so many 16v GTIs without these fitted. Getting it to line up and bolt in place is really tricky. Got there in the end though. Might try and source the right oil cap... this one is way too modern! No Cat on this car!
Parts on order for the moment!
Cheers,
Drew.
Today took off all the intake gubbins to give it a good clean out. It was filthy. Managed to find a replacement lower airbox unit for the car to replace the modified one fitted. It was a Pipercross induction kit before - which made a nice induction noise... but it was a noise! Hoping the car will be a bit more civilised with the original airbox in place.
Whilst I was doing that I cleaned all the plastic components. They were filthy inside. I also discovered that the cam cover bolts were only finger tight (and one was properly loose) not sure what happened there!
Next up was tracing the oil leak in the engine bay. I initially feared we had some sort of leak between the engine and the gearbox, but the bell housing was very greasy on top, and a look around showed that the dizzy was mucky underneath as well. Going to degrease the engine there and replace the green rubber o-ring in the dizzy to see if that cures it. Fingers crossed!
With all the intake stuff off, now it was time to fit a part that's been hanging around for a while waiting to go on. The top cambelt cover. This was a proper faff - no wonder you see so many 16v GTIs without these fitted. Getting it to line up and bolt in place is really tricky. Got there in the end though. Might try and source the right oil cap... this one is way too modern! No Cat on this car!
Parts on order for the moment!
Cheers,
Drew.
Whilst waiting for parts to arrive I turned my attention to the "in car entertainment". This is period too, the original Blaupunkt Windsor SQR 38 (which even comes with the manual in the car's paperwork). For the audiophiles... it is 4 x 6 watts RMS. ie not much! An intermittent power feed was tracked to the original glass fuse having corroded with age - replacements on their way.
Speakers have been replaced with new Alpines which fit in the factory slots (original speakers were present but the paper material had rotted).
Spent quite a lot of time tidying this up and cleaning it. Head alignment and the capstans/head were a bit of mess and out of alignment, but are now back to a decent setup. Fortunately not too much in the way of old capacitors to worry about (which can be a real headache on 70s/80s stereo equipment).
In went the Fischer cassette box and it looks very happy tucked away in there. This was partly for the cassette storage, but mostly because there must have been one there before as there were quite a lot of interior scratches in the cubbyhole where the previous one had been. This covers those entirely.
Lighting on the dash is also working properly after a bit of wire tracing (it was flickering occasionally - tracked to a cracked wire). 7,200 rpm rev limit....
Little steps, but the old Blaupunkt is exactly right for the car... and if you rose-tint your memory a bit, squint and wind your mind back to the 80s it doesn't sound too bad.
I recorded some 80s music onto 5 cassettes using my vintage Revox/Sony rig in the house. Quite fun making a mix tape after all these years!
Cheers,
Drew.
An intermittent power feed was tracked to the original glass fuse having corroded with age - replacements on their way.Speakers have been replaced with new Alpines which fit in the factory slots (original speakers were present but the paper material had rotted).
Spent quite a lot of time tidying this up and cleaning it. Head alignment and the capstans/head were a bit of mess and out of alignment, but are now back to a decent setup. Fortunately not too much in the way of old capacitors to worry about (which can be a real headache on 70s/80s stereo equipment).
In went the Fischer cassette box and it looks very happy tucked away in there. This was partly for the cassette storage, but mostly because there must have been one there before as there were quite a lot of interior scratches in the cubbyhole where the previous one had been. This covers those entirely.
Lighting on the dash is also working properly after a bit of wire tracing (it was flickering occasionally - tracked to a cracked wire). 7,200 rpm rev limit....
Little steps, but the old Blaupunkt is exactly right for the car... and if you rose-tint your memory a bit, squint and wind your mind back to the 80s it doesn't sound too bad.
I recorded some 80s music onto 5 cassettes using my vintage Revox/Sony rig in the house. Quite fun making a mix tape after all these years!
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Sunday 18th April 17:00
I did consider the new Blaupunkt. It's the Bremen SQR 46, which looks like the old units but has a much more powerful amp (4x50 watt) and SD card, USB and DAB in place of the cassette. Nice feature is being able to tune the colour of the HU to your dashboard.
But it's about £400, which is a lot for a stereo I won't use very much.
Cheers,
Drew.
But it's about £400, which is a lot for a stereo I won't use very much.
Cheers,
Drew.
A few small but rewarding jobs today, funny how these little things can be the most satisfying.
Replaced the door switches with new items, the old ones were completely knackered. Surprised to discover that there is a "courtesy light delay" feature in the car. The light stays on for about 5 seconds after you close both doors. Neat.
Also replaced the electric window buttons as both were weak and failing. That's an easy one!
Also replaced the fan. This is also a very easy job, it basically just rotates out and you have to swap over the resister pack - fortunately mine was ok (original fan bearings were gone). Now I have almost silent air.
In unrelated Mk2 news, my son's CL is progressing well. He's put 1.5 degree negative camber on his trackday prepped car and lowered it 80mm along with chassis and strut braces, uprated brakes and engine mods. Makes for an interesting comparison with the standard height 16v.
For my car, just the speedo cable and the brakes/hubs to swap and she'll be ready for the road!
Cheers,
Drew.
Replaced the door switches with new items, the old ones were completely knackered. Surprised to discover that there is a "courtesy light delay" feature in the car. The light stays on for about 5 seconds after you close both doors. Neat.
Also replaced the electric window buttons as both were weak and failing. That's an easy one!
Also replaced the fan. This is also a very easy job, it basically just rotates out and you have to swap over the resister pack - fortunately mine was ok (original fan bearings were gone). Now I have almost silent air.
In unrelated Mk2 news, my son's CL is progressing well. He's put 1.5 degree negative camber on his trackday prepped car and lowered it 80mm along with chassis and strut braces, uprated brakes and engine mods. Makes for an interesting comparison with the standard height 16v.
For my car, just the speedo cable and the brakes/hubs to swap and she'll be ready for the road!
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Wednesday 21st April 17:41
Edited by drewwa on Wednesday 21st April 17:42
A quick trip for some fuel and all ok so far. Bit rattly, bit buzzy, but oldskool and all pointing in the right direction. Brakes are a considerable improvement. Speedo is still a bit ticky, but better than before. Performance is flat at the moment, but we haven't sorted the timing or set it up properly post the dizzy removal/replace, so a bit of work to do there.
But it runs and moves under its own steam and doesn't leak! Woohoo.
Mini Golf meet at Tescos with my son in his track ready 1.6 (which is now considerably quicker!)
Cheers,
Drew.
But it runs and moves under its own steam and doesn't leak! Woohoo.
Mini Golf meet at Tescos with my son in his track ready 1.6 (which is now considerably quicker!)
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Monday 3rd May 14:22
Loving this thread!
Got a mk2 1.8 KR myself and had the oil leak from the distributor you are having.
I replaced the inner seals of the distributor and the leak is solved, might be worth doing the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvHIttb6OvE
Got a mk2 1.8 KR myself and had the oil leak from the distributor you are having.
I replaced the inner seals of the distributor and the leak is solved, might be worth doing the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvHIttb6OvE
drewwa said:
A quick trip for some fuel and all ok so far. Bit rattly, bit buzzy, but oldskool and all pointing in the right direction. Brakes are a considerable improvement. Speedo is still a bit ticky, but better than before. Performance is flat at the moment, but we haven't sorted the timing or set it up properly post the dizzy removal/replace, so a bit of work to do there.
But it runs and moves under its own steam and doesn't leak! Woohoo.
Mini Golf meet at Tescos with my son in his track ready 1.6 (which is now considerably quicker!)
Cheers,
Drew.
A good setup will work wonders. A solid 2% CO at idle, 8degs base ignition advance (book says 6) combined with checking & adjusting K-Jet system & control fuel pressure (via the brass cap on Warm Up Reg) known as the WUR mod & it’ll be far more perky.But it runs and moves under its own steam and doesn't leak! Woohoo.
Mini Golf meet at Tescos with my son in his track ready 1.6 (which is now considerably quicker!)
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Monday 3rd May 14:22
From my experiences a flat 16v always felt particularly gutless lower down- & adding a couple of extra degrees of advance (combined with the above) made a huge difference...
Alternatively treat yourself to a day out to Stealth Racing & let Vince do it. You’ll be impressed
Yep, a decent setup and it'll feel great. My old one really flew after about 4k rpm. All it needed was a tweak to the mixture screw on the k-jet metering head. It seemed something was a bit stuck because all we did was wiggle the adjustment screw a tiny amount and suddenly is started perfectly when hot, idled perfectly and the emissions were spot on 
I'd have another if indoors storage wasn't a problem.
I'd have another if indoors storage wasn't a problem.A bit more work over the last weekend.
Passenger side door window mechanism decided to die... in the down position.
Fortunately the car lives in a garage, but it was a bit of a pain!
I've bought the regulator for the drivers side too, as that's bound to go at some point, and I need to source a new membrane of some kind to weatherproof it all again. But that can wait for a bit. After quite a bit of fiddling, poking and swearing, the new regulator was plumbed in and working.
Thanks to advice above (cheers!) static timing was set to 8 degrees, that combined with bedding in the brakes resulted in the car being noticeably peppier. It's still the slowest, least torquey thing I own, but it's beginning to feel like an oldskool GTI.
One thing we did have happen was on one run we came back to find oil had surged up the sump breather hose again. Fortunately I had disconnected it from the airbox, so it didn't splurge oil onto the new filter, but was concerning.
We checked the oil level again (fine) and cleaned it up. A few cautious runs up to only 6k revealed no problems at all. There was no smoke from the car either under acceleration or under trailing throttle. Compression is good.
Whilst investigations are ongoing I've installed a catch can between the airbox and the sump breather to catch any oil that traverses this route. The 16v is an odd design in that it vents the breather directly into the air filter. A review on google seems to suggest this "oil surge" is quite common (a few articles refer to oil ending up in the airbox from the factory!). There's also no cam breather like there is on the 20v engine and the ordinary 8v - seems a bit strange!
I installed with the original hose and a supplementary one, mounting the can to the slam panel, keeping it as OEM looking as possible.
Anyway. With the catch can in place, a few exploratory runs were done again, increasing the revs each time until we hit 7k (discovering that the rev limiter works - ahem) and inspecting the catch can to see if any oil was appearing. So far... none. Which is also a bit odd... so not quite sure why we had a splurge at one point.
Strategy for now is to drive it around a bit more and keep it all moving, as it's been standing around quite a bit and needs using. Perhaps there was a bit of a pressure buildup/blocked pipe somewhere that has now shifted. Might do another oil change before too long.
Apart from that, running with no issues! No oil leaks from the engine now, which is nice!
Cheers,
Drew.
Passenger side door window mechanism decided to die... in the down position.
Fortunately the car lives in a garage, but it was a bit of a pain!
I've bought the regulator for the drivers side too, as that's bound to go at some point, and I need to source a new membrane of some kind to weatherproof it all again. But that can wait for a bit. After quite a bit of fiddling, poking and swearing, the new regulator was plumbed in and working.
Thanks to advice above (cheers!) static timing was set to 8 degrees, that combined with bedding in the brakes resulted in the car being noticeably peppier. It's still the slowest, least torquey thing I own, but it's beginning to feel like an oldskool GTI.
One thing we did have happen was on one run we came back to find oil had surged up the sump breather hose again. Fortunately I had disconnected it from the airbox, so it didn't splurge oil onto the new filter, but was concerning.
We checked the oil level again (fine) and cleaned it up. A few cautious runs up to only 6k revealed no problems at all. There was no smoke from the car either under acceleration or under trailing throttle. Compression is good.
Whilst investigations are ongoing I've installed a catch can between the airbox and the sump breather to catch any oil that traverses this route. The 16v is an odd design in that it vents the breather directly into the air filter. A review on google seems to suggest this "oil surge" is quite common (a few articles refer to oil ending up in the airbox from the factory!). There's also no cam breather like there is on the 20v engine and the ordinary 8v - seems a bit strange!
I installed with the original hose and a supplementary one, mounting the can to the slam panel, keeping it as OEM looking as possible.
Anyway. With the catch can in place, a few exploratory runs were done again, increasing the revs each time until we hit 7k (discovering that the rev limiter works - ahem) and inspecting the catch can to see if any oil was appearing. So far... none. Which is also a bit odd... so not quite sure why we had a splurge at one point.
Strategy for now is to drive it around a bit more and keep it all moving, as it's been standing around quite a bit and needs using. Perhaps there was a bit of a pressure buildup/blocked pipe somewhere that has now shifted. Might do another oil change before too long.
Apart from that, running with no issues! No oil leaks from the engine now, which is nice!
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Monday 10th May 16:07
Just caught up on the thread, some amount of jobs done and what was a clean mk2 is ever better now 
8v vs 16v; I tracked my old 8v down to its new owner after I sold it in 09. We met up for a drive. On leaving him he started going for it down a bypass, affer having the 8v vs 16v chat with me so I had to humble him. Passed the 8v like he was in reverse lol i bought the car back in 2015 with knackered engine and now has a 2.0 8v in it but still no match for the valver...
Been driving my 8v since mot approx 6 weeks ago, and collected my 16v from storage last night; 8v definitely feels sprightly low down but 16v not much less initially.
I think you should get yours on a rolling road to see what power you are making. If you feel this car is slow, potentially something needs addressing. Even if nothing is wrong you will know exactly where you are at with it
8v vs 16v; I tracked my old 8v down to its new owner after I sold it in 09. We met up for a drive. On leaving him he started going for it down a bypass, affer having the 8v vs 16v chat with me so I had to humble him. Passed the 8v like he was in reverse lol i bought the car back in 2015 with knackered engine and now has a 2.0 8v in it but still no match for the valver...
Been driving my 8v since mot approx 6 weeks ago, and collected my 16v from storage last night; 8v definitely feels sprightly low down but 16v not much less initially.
I think you should get yours on a rolling road to see what power you are making. If you feel this car is slow, potentially something needs addressing. Even if nothing is wrong you will know exactly where you are at with it
Edited by rickygolf83 on Tuesday 11th May 11:47
rickygolf83 said:
I think you should get yours on a rolling road to see what power you are making, if you feel this car is slow something definitely needs addressing and even if nothing is wrong you will know exactly where you are at with it
I'll definitely get it on a rolling road at some point once all the known bugs are ironed out. I don't think it's making full power yet, but I am a bit spoilt by my other cars - standard Mk1 Audi TT 225 quattro (daily) and a supercharged mx5 (which has been dynoed at 190bhp at the wheels - track day/fun car). The 16v isn't in the same league as either of those, nor should it be. Certainly the 16v now comes on song as you hit 4k and pulls really hard from 5.5k to 6.5k.
I'll be happy if it will get to standard figures (139bhp) at the flywheel as I want this car in standard term for long term collectability.
Cheers,
Drew.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff