Another VW Golf Mk2 16v
Discussion
Stealth Racing know a thing or two about 16v Golfs- they’ll sort your fuel pressures out as part of a setup as well. Vince was always highly recommended back in the day
Well worth confirming lift & main fuel pumps are also in good order & that you are getting a solid 12v supply to the main pump.
I’ve known 16v’s to be down on power due to a voltage drop from immobilisers & the like
Well worth confirming lift & main fuel pumps are also in good order & that you are getting a solid 12v supply to the main pump.
I’ve known 16v’s to be down on power due to a voltage drop from immobilisers & the like
Not too much to report on the Golf GTI 16v, other than to say now that Covid seems to be on the wane, I've pulled her back out of storage.
We did do a lovely trip up to the the Peak District and Snake Pass last year, which was a great trip. My eldest son came along in his track set up CL (which is now faster than the 16v!)
Other than that, I'm planning to use her for occasional drives when I'm not using the Eunos - the pair will share daily driving duties depending on what I'm doing.
Short term things to deal with:
Slight mis-fire above 4k rpms. I think she needs using!
Steering rack gaiters
New exhaust manifold (current one is blowing)
Might replace the old Blaupunkt with the new Blaupunkt retro Bremen model for some in car entertainment.
Proper tune up - still feels a bit flat to me.
Adjust sunroof to sit flat when closed - lots of air noise at speed.
Longer term things:
Retrim seat bolster with minor tear
Headlining is sagging and needs sorting
Switch to coilovers? OE suspension is very roly-poly for anything approaching enthusiastic usage. Alas, no Meister Rs for the Mk2!
Very long term:
Engine out to clean the bay properly
Refurb gearbox to remove crunchy 2nd gear.
Cheers,
Drew.
We did do a lovely trip up to the the Peak District and Snake Pass last year, which was a great trip. My eldest son came along in his track set up CL (which is now faster than the 16v!)
Other than that, I'm planning to use her for occasional drives when I'm not using the Eunos - the pair will share daily driving duties depending on what I'm doing.
Short term things to deal with:
Slight mis-fire above 4k rpms. I think she needs using!
Steering rack gaiters
New exhaust manifold (current one is blowing)
Might replace the old Blaupunkt with the new Blaupunkt retro Bremen model for some in car entertainment.
Proper tune up - still feels a bit flat to me.
Adjust sunroof to sit flat when closed - lots of air noise at speed.
Longer term things:
Retrim seat bolster with minor tear
Headlining is sagging and needs sorting
Switch to coilovers? OE suspension is very roly-poly for anything approaching enthusiastic usage. Alas, no Meister Rs for the Mk2!
Very long term:
Engine out to clean the bay properly
Refurb gearbox to remove crunchy 2nd gear.
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Monday 31st January 16:03
Today's little mod. Bring the tunes into the 21st century.
I've decided I'm going to be driving the car around a bit more and while cassettes and 5 watts per speaker are all very retro, they're not very conducive to long distance travel any more.
So I treated myself to one of these.
It's a Blaunpunkt Bremen SQR46 DAB, a "retro" stereo designed to look like the Blaupunkts of old (like mine) but with modern facilities such as SD Cards, USB, Bluetooth, phone prep and DAB.
Here it is compared with my OE stereo, it's a really good match.
It has connectors for DAB, FM aerial and phono outs for an amp in the future if I want to go there. It's currently paired up with a set of Alpine speakers that fit in the OE locations in the car (dash and rear seat belt covers).
Hardest part was figuring out which wires in the car did what. Naturally, the speaker wiring in the car didn't bear much resemblance to online guides, so it was a bit of trial and error with a AA battery. Soldered it all up in the end and heatshrinked the connectors.
DAB works, looks totally period in the dash. Now has 200watts (4x50) rather than the 20watts (4x5) of the original item!
Love the way it looks in the dash, you'd probably not notice unless you were really into stereos. Allows me to keep a retro 80s feel to the car, but enjoy rather higher quality music aboard!
Cheers,
Drew.
I've decided I'm going to be driving the car around a bit more and while cassettes and 5 watts per speaker are all very retro, they're not very conducive to long distance travel any more.
So I treated myself to one of these.
It's a Blaunpunkt Bremen SQR46 DAB, a "retro" stereo designed to look like the Blaupunkts of old (like mine) but with modern facilities such as SD Cards, USB, Bluetooth, phone prep and DAB.
Here it is compared with my OE stereo, it's a really good match.
It has connectors for DAB, FM aerial and phono outs for an amp in the future if I want to go there. It's currently paired up with a set of Alpine speakers that fit in the OE locations in the car (dash and rear seat belt covers).
Hardest part was figuring out which wires in the car did what. Naturally, the speaker wiring in the car didn't bear much resemblance to online guides, so it was a bit of trial and error with a AA battery. Soldered it all up in the end and heatshrinked the connectors.
DAB works, looks totally period in the dash. Now has 200watts (4x50) rather than the 20watts (4x5) of the original item!
Love the way it looks in the dash, you'd probably not notice unless you were really into stereos. Allows me to keep a retro 80s feel to the car, but enjoy rather higher quality music aboard!
Cheers,
Drew.
On the subject of suspension, I fitted a set of Koni top-adjustable dampers and springs to my Mk2 GTi back in 2005ish. I remember them absolutely transforming the way the car felt, but remaining pretty compliant at their softest.
Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
Also, your original Blaupunkt stereo brings back some memories. My father had one fitted to his 1988 Golf Tour (small bumper, 1.8 carb'd lump) - the only car he ever bought new, and one that 5-year old me thought was the coolest thing ever. I vividly remember playing with the Tone and Balance knobs, trying to make knackered old cassettes sound better!
Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
Also, your original Blaupunkt stereo brings back some memories. My father had one fitted to his 1988 Golf Tour (small bumper, 1.8 carb'd lump) - the only car he ever bought new, and one that 5-year old me thought was the coolest thing ever. I vividly remember playing with the Tone and Balance knobs, trying to make knackered old cassettes sound better!
I remember buying one new from Castle's of Leicester back in the day. I'd had a Mk 1 and felt like a change so a deal was struck. I only kept the car a few months because any long journey became a nightmare because of the sheer volume of engine noise. The problem was that it had a close ratio box with 5th being direct drive, not overdrive.
C70R said:
On the subject of suspension, I fitted a set of Koni top-adjustable dampers and springs to my Mk2 GTi back in 2005ish. I remember them absolutely transforming the way the car felt, but remaining pretty compliant at their softest.
Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
!
Agree, Koni "Yellows" with adjustable dampening and up to 60mm lowering springs were the business. I ran Konis with Spax springs and later Eibach springs when i raised the car a bit and the only Golfs I've experience that had better setup suspension had Bilstein B14s & Ohlins which cost 3X the price. Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
!
On the current Golf GTI I have a relatively conservative/budget friendly setup consisting of Bilstein B6 shocks with Eibach -15mm springs & mk2 G60 top mounts as it's meant to be a standard looking original car rather than the "fast road/track" setups that I've gone with in the past.
I'd also recommend the Bilstein B6 Sport adjustable dampeners which come in two forms , one is a shorter body in order to be combined with lowering springs , one is for standard springs.
aka_kerrly said:
C70R said:
On the subject of suspension, I fitted a set of Koni top-adjustable dampers and springs to my Mk2 GTi back in 2005ish. I remember them absolutely transforming the way the car felt, but remaining pretty compliant at their softest.
Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
!
Agree, Koni "Yellows" with adjustable dampening and up to 60mm lowering springs were the business. I ran Konis with Spax springs and later Eibach springs when i raised the car a bit and the only Golfs I've experience that had better setup suspension had Bilstein B14s & Ohlins which cost 3X the price. Worth a thought if you didn't want to loose too much OEM-ness with a significant drop.
!
On the current Golf GTI I have a relatively conservative/budget friendly setup consisting of Bilstein B6 shocks with Eibach -15mm springs & mk2 G60 top mounts as it's meant to be a standard looking original car rather than the "fast road/track" setups that I've gone with in the past.
I'd also recommend the Bilstein B6 Sport adjustable dampeners which come in two forms , one is a shorter body in order to be combined with lowering springs , one is for standard springs.
In conjunction with 195/50 tyres (I feel like OEM was 185/55?) and refreshing a few bushes, they made a massive difference to the way it drove. To this day one of the cars I've enjoyed the most, in spite of the modest power. I ended up selling it to buy a string of Japanese turbo cars that were much more powerful and much more expensive to own.
A while since an update again! Been having a kitchen fitted, so work on cars stopped for a month... anyway!
Got the old girl through an MOT (minor advisory for oil leak which we knew about). Lots of attention at the Toyota dealer we took it too (short version - my son works there) with the usual comments "Haven't seen one of these for a while..." "My dad had one of those..." "It's surprisingly small isn't it?"
Co2 was 2.25% and PPM was a bit too low... minor exhaust leak somewhere. Nothing tragic.
All good - we were prepping the car for a 300 mile round trip cruise with the Mk2 Golf Owner's Club (South East) for Easter weekend. Two days later I went for a "spirited drive", after a while I was thinking... this feels a bit slow... then noticed a bit of smoke from the left side front... argggh!
Stopped to look and.... caliper seized on!
Waited until it cooled and it unseized, so was able to limp home. Replacement ordered and fitted. Brakes bled the night before the trip... let's hope this holds together. Then we discovered HT lead 4 was arcing on the manifold - which explained the odd misfire. Replacement HT leads bought and fitted. My son had readied his track prepped CL as well, so it was a bit frantic on Friday with last minute fixes.
Please to report that both cars made the trip without incident, as did the 15 other (mostly) Mk2s, of various stages of restoration/modification. A nice drive around Kent and East Sussex and a fab lunch at the end.
Then it was time to top up the tanks and head home.
It was a great day out... and funny how a convoy of Mk2 Golfs makes heads turn, people point and wave. Everytime we parked up we got a crowd of onlookers with the exact same quotes as above. Must be part of Mk2 ownership now!
Both cars handled the day out well, but I found that without power steering, no aircon and still (despite being almost 100% standard now) a pretty noisy thing, I was tired out when I got home.
Big thanks to the SE Mk2 Golf Owner's Club for organising.
Cheers,
Drew.
Got the old girl through an MOT (minor advisory for oil leak which we knew about). Lots of attention at the Toyota dealer we took it too (short version - my son works there) with the usual comments "Haven't seen one of these for a while..." "My dad had one of those..." "It's surprisingly small isn't it?"
Co2 was 2.25% and PPM was a bit too low... minor exhaust leak somewhere. Nothing tragic.
All good - we were prepping the car for a 300 mile round trip cruise with the Mk2 Golf Owner's Club (South East) for Easter weekend. Two days later I went for a "spirited drive", after a while I was thinking... this feels a bit slow... then noticed a bit of smoke from the left side front... argggh!
Stopped to look and.... caliper seized on!
Waited until it cooled and it unseized, so was able to limp home. Replacement ordered and fitted. Brakes bled the night before the trip... let's hope this holds together. Then we discovered HT lead 4 was arcing on the manifold - which explained the odd misfire. Replacement HT leads bought and fitted. My son had readied his track prepped CL as well, so it was a bit frantic on Friday with last minute fixes.
Please to report that both cars made the trip without incident, as did the 15 other (mostly) Mk2s, of various stages of restoration/modification. A nice drive around Kent and East Sussex and a fab lunch at the end.
Then it was time to top up the tanks and head home.
It was a great day out... and funny how a convoy of Mk2 Golfs makes heads turn, people point and wave. Everytime we parked up we got a crowd of onlookers with the exact same quotes as above.
Must be part of Mk2 ownership now!Both cars handled the day out well, but I found that without power steering, no aircon and still (despite being almost 100% standard now) a pretty noisy thing, I was tired out when I got home.
Big thanks to the SE Mk2 Golf Owner's Club for organising.
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Tuesday 19th April 14:48
Some of the noise was coming from a "not sealing correctly" sunroof. Dismantled the mechanism, poked around until I understood how it worked, reassembled and fixed the internal seal and it's (a bit) quieter.
Also fixed a broken internal door scraper and the central locking today, so that was a small but satisfying fix that really lifts the interior of the car.
Cheers,
Drew.
Also fixed a broken internal door scraper and the central locking today, so that was a small but satisfying fix that really lifts the interior of the car.
Cheers,
Drew.
Well, it's been a while since I updated this thread. Plenty going on with the old Golf though.
Took the car to the Mk2 Golf Owners' Club national meet at Curborough, where a few laps of the track seemed to be in order...
As you can see, the suspension really wasn't all that poised.... We've determined that the springs we have are the wrong ones. They're standard Golf springs rather than 16v springs, so too soft and too high. A set of -20mm Eibachs are on order.
However, that wasn't the only drama. On a lap of the track, the engine let go in rather a big way, with a huge jet of white spray emerging from the exhaust. Limping to the side of the track we found that the headgasket had catastrophically blown without warning and coolant was being pumped directly into the exhaust.
Cue the owners club pulling together to do... and I kid you not... a head gasket replacement in the paddock by the side of the track.
Once the head was off we could see the damage to the gasket - it had totally disintegrated around cylinder 3. Quite why is a mystery.
Fortunately the head and block appeared to be ok. We cleaned it up and replaced the gasket (believe it or not one of the members had one lying around unused). We had no choice but to use the original headbolts.
This wasn't ideal as they are stretch bolts, but upon reasssembly the car worked ok... and we gingerly drove it 200 miles home with no issues.
Since then it's been off the road pending repairs. I've got new headbolts and am taking the opportunity to replace a few other bits and pieces were noted were problematic, notably the strange metal cooling pipe that runs around the block - which turned out to be badly corroded.
It's now in "winter project" territory and will hopefully be back on the road in the spring!
Cheers,
Drew.
Plenty going on with the old Golf though.Took the car to the Mk2 Golf Owners' Club national meet at Curborough, where a few laps of the track seemed to be in order...
As you can see, the suspension really wasn't all that poised.... We've determined that the springs we have are the wrong ones. They're standard Golf springs rather than 16v springs, so too soft and too high. A set of -20mm Eibachs are on order.
However, that wasn't the only drama. On a lap of the track, the engine let go in rather a big way, with a huge jet of white spray emerging from the exhaust. Limping to the side of the track we found that the headgasket had catastrophically blown without warning and coolant was being pumped directly into the exhaust.
Cue the owners club pulling together to do... and I kid you not... a head gasket replacement in the paddock by the side of the track.
Once the head was off we could see the damage to the gasket - it had totally disintegrated around cylinder 3. Quite why is a mystery.
Fortunately the head and block appeared to be ok. We cleaned it up and replaced the gasket (believe it or not one of the members had one lying around unused). We had no choice but to use the original headbolts.
This wasn't ideal as they are stretch bolts, but upon reasssembly the car worked ok... and we gingerly drove it 200 miles home with no issues.
Since then it's been off the road pending repairs. I've got new headbolts and am taking the opportunity to replace a few other bits and pieces were noted were problematic, notably the strange metal cooling pipe that runs around the block - which turned out to be badly corroded.
It's now in "winter project" territory and will hopefully be back on the road in the spring!
Cheers,
Drew.
Edited by drewwa on Tuesday 27th September 14:40
Great looking car Drew
Always thought the Mk2 looked an amazing car in Red.
I had an 1991 Oak Green 16v in the late 90’s, bought it after a relationship breakup (then girlfriend had forbidden me to have a GTI so 2 days after we broke up, I defiantly bought the 16v)
It had 30k miles when I bought it and sold it with over 150k, sold for the grand old sum of £500 in 2005. It was completely standard apart from a dodgy set of aftermarket wheels and the ICE which, in typical boy racer style was loads of amps, subs and asbo loud.
One car I wish I’d have kept and looked after.
I think it’s still around somewhere albeit not in as standard form as it was - H768HAY
Always thought the Mk2 looked an amazing car in Red.
I had an 1991 Oak Green 16v in the late 90’s, bought it after a relationship breakup (then girlfriend had forbidden me to have a GTI so 2 days after we broke up, I defiantly bought the 16v
)It had 30k miles when I bought it and sold it with over 150k, sold for the grand old sum of £500 in 2005. It was completely standard apart from a dodgy set of aftermarket wheels and the ICE which, in typical boy racer style was loads of amps, subs and asbo loud.
One car I wish I’d have kept and looked after.
I think it’s still around somewhere albeit not in as standard form as it was - H768HAY
It's always interesting when I take the car for a drive, you can guarantee when you park up that someone will come across and you have a conversation which starts with one of the following:
"Haven't seen one of these in a while..."
"I used to have one of these..."
"My dad used to have one of these..."
"16 valve? Nice..."
A big part of the fun of owning one.
Cheers,
Drew.
"Haven't seen one of these in a while..."
"I used to have one of these..."
"My dad used to have one of these..."
"16 valve? Nice..."
A big part of the fun of owning one.
Cheers,
Drew.
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