[Car_Overhaul] My 1987 205 Gti Restoration

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Hi everyone,

 

Here I plan to share the photos and stages I took to restore her.

 

This is my 205 gti that I bought in 2011. It had no mot and no tax, loads of history and looked genuine for its age.

 

I bought it home, gave it the once over and sent it for an mot. It flew through without any advisory. Happy days.

 

I ran it occasionally for 6 months when the weather was dry and then sorn'd it.

 

My plan was to renovate it to its former days and take it to shows and events.

 

There is nothing wrong with the car just gathered a lot of dirt and grime over the years. So I took the lights, bumpers, rad and all the bits I could take off to get back to the shell.

 

It soon became clear to me that there was a few surface rust on the front panel and behind the lights. A good clean wasn't going to be good enough so I decided I was going to take it back to bare metal, do the relevant repair work and re-spray the whole engine bay.

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

It soon daunted on me that this was going to take quite some time to strip all of this back, especially the tight crevasse and corners. with the combination of wire brush on a grinder, orbital sander and a dremil type one I made some good progress.

 

After a few weeks of cold nights in the garage, my moral was very low as there was no end in sight and I needed a change of scene before I lost my mind and drive for the project.

 

I moved on to the growing pile of parts that that I had accumulated. I decided that the only worth while thing to do was to strip them back and paint them all. so I acquired a sandblaster and got to work on them.

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

here are some sandblasted parts

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Got the sub-frame, bottom arms and some bits sprayed. The bilsteins have only covered short of a thousand miles so their like new. Iv also got the front speedlines primed.

 

 

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Also decided to change the door pins on the drivers side while the car is off the road. They had worn quite allot by now and rusted in quite bad. had to remove the door to get a good slap at them with the hammer and they eventually came off..

 

bought some 8mm pins instead of the originals as the holes had gone oval with time. drilled the holes to 8mm and its like new now and the door fits perfectly.

 

 

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

fitted the steering rack back on to the subframe. not going to bother with the arms as I was planning to replace them for the mot and the droplinks.

 

 

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Well it took some time and quite some patience but I finally got the engine bay etched, filler primed and painted.

 

slowly but surely putting all the parts back. nice to work with clean parts. my goal is to get her on the road for the summer.

 

The process photos are on my other mobile that's being stubborn at the moment. hope to have them soon but here how it is now. 20/02/2014

[jord294 87]

I'm impressed there seems to be so many people starting project threads

 

Personally would of had hubs shot blasted after I'd removed flange and bearings

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Looks like I'm a few weeks behind you as far as my project goes. I'm hoping mine comes out as nice as yours. It looks really good, loving all the powder coated parts.

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

cheers. The previous owner had the bearings changed before I bought it so I didn't want to remove them. I covered them in grease to catch the sand and kept the blaster away from direct contact with the bearing and got what was left off with a grinder.

 

Glad they look like powder coat, but I actually sprayed all the parts.

[Plumbob 66 1 Cars]

Ah ok. However you got it looking like that its a good job done!

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Well, have spent a good few hours in the garage last week fitting all the parts back slowly. Have managed to fit the bottom arms, hubs and struts. Waiting on new bolts for these and new flex hoses, but its good to have them in place and free up some storage space. Also been sorting out the loom, its covered in old oil from the drivers side. I think the oil cooler had been leaking at some point because the rad was also covered on that side.

 

I had a new air filter to replace the k&n one. but it seems way to big for the space iv got. Have already thrown the old one away so I'm not sure what to get. Any Ideas anyone?

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

well it looks like its going to be next month now for an mot. Time fly's and it seems I have even fewer hours spare on the project. However progress has been steady and going in the right direction.

 

Almost finished underneath the car now. Got it raised up on blocks at the moment for more room underneath.

Still fitting the odd bits back in the engine bay and started cleaning underneath the bonnet.

 

[aronw2004 4 1 Cars]

Here is the engine bay at the moment.

 

Also painted the alloys in the original pug eve paint code.