Changes to my beloved Golf Mk2 90'
Before I jump into my new big project, I want to take a step back and literally move back in time to the very beginning of this love-hate relationship.
Beginning of the year 2015, an acquaintance of mine offered me to buy his old and very shabby Golf Mk2 CL 1.8 90PS with a very bad black paint for a low 3 figure price and since I had nothing to lose, I went for it. I then started to completely strip the car to its bare bones to then realize that the chassis wasn't worth saving. Unfortunately I already spent so much money on rebuilding the engine, that I didn't want to give up on it. This is when I started to look for a rust-free chassis with a broken engine. I managed to find another black 1991' GL chassis with NO rust, and started all over again!
Anyway. Long story short, I merged all the good parts from both cars into one, and started building a road-legal car from there. The journey to the car you see above took 3 years of sweat, blood and tears - and money. But, I couldn't be happier with the outcome, especially considering I am no mechanic and had to go through a tough learning-by-doing experience.
Let me give you some stats from back when it was first drivable after the overhaul in 2017:
Chassis 1991' GL (rust-free!)
1.8L 90PS RP petrol engine from 1990'
Completely rebuilt engine (not worth the money to be honest)
Refurbished axles, brakes, steering, etc.
New exhaust
-180mm H&R Deep suspension
7x17 ET48 Mini Cross-Spoke wheels (with 15mm spacers at the front and 20mm spacers at the rear)
Red Fifft taillights
Small-bumper conversion
Wooden Momo steeringwheel
Very soon though, I came across my first oil-pressure problems which were caused by a faulty FEBI oil pump. Unfortunately, I had to go through 2 more oil pumps to find out that I was supposed to only use Volkswagen OEM parts AND that my aftermarket ignition distributor was putting too much pressure on the oil pump rod, leading each oil pump to disintegrate from the inside. Lucky enough did no oil pressure problem lead to any other engine failures ever again since.
And now that that problem was solved, why not AGAIN start from scratch? I found out that the 90PS were not enough and accidentally stumbled across an offer for a 1.8T swap I couldn't resist!
And this is where this story begins...Stay tuned.
