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Leon

[misc_work] 1988 1.6 Gti

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Leon

This is my third 205 GTI.

I had a week off work, I was bored, I saw a scruffy but standard 1.6 for sale on the forums and decided that I fancied another 205. I'd been driving a company car, and garaged my Opel Manta, which would need a lot of welding for the MOT. I knew within the next month or so I'd be needing a car as the company car was going back, so a 205 made sense - I had a garage full of spares and a reasonable amount of know-how.

 

steve@cornwall was the seller and after a bit of correspondance we got to a point where a sale was agreed. I'd give Steve the asking price (£350) if he was willing to make it journey-worthy for the drive back to Leicestershire from Truro. Fair play to him, he did a great job of prepping a car that has been laid up for some time and I'm really thankful - the sale would not have happened without this.

 

So I hopped on the train and several hours later Steve picked me up from the station in the 205. Money exchanged hands, tea was drunk, talk was talked and off I set for home.

 

The journey back revealed a few faults. Badly dropped doors and door latch pins made for comedy levels of wind noise. The wiper linkage wobbled around like an Indiana Jones rope bridge. Battery is too tall and insecure and shorts out on the bonnet (I had to do an emergency cable tie repair at the side of a very wet and windy Cornish dual carriageway!) and er, the brakes didn't work. Past Taunton the pedal just went to the floor, so I took it very easy and essentially coasted home.

 

In the cold, wet, "light" of day, here's how it looked:

 

01.jpg

 

02.jpg

 

The exterior is most definitely what you'd call "second hand". Both front wings have small dents at the base near the bumper. Both doors are badly dinged. The rear 3/4 panels have typical sunroof rust bubbles above the windows and show evidence of previous attempted repairs. The sunroof is an aftermarket slider and leaks profusely in heavy rain. Bonnet is from an automatic and has had a very thin coat of sort of satin black. All trim is accounted for, painted black, looks to have adhered reasonably well. Red strips are badly mangled in places. No driving lamps. Some odd rust blisters in the middle of panels. No serious upper body or sill corrosion. Speedlines are in reasonable condition. Interior all present and correct, carpet clean, plastics not bad, seats a little worn but okay for the year. Boot looks like something horrendous happened in there once.

 

03.jpg

 

04.jpg

 

The car generally drives ok other than the brakes and a slight tick from the manifold so I've decided to keep it. More to come.

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Leon

I decided to start with the important bits, naturally! PTS stripes applied. Always wanted these but they look rubbish on red cars so I shied away until now.

 

05.jpg

 

The black paint on the window surrounds had worn through to the primer, so I replaced it with some satin black vinyl. It was nearly white before, so this has made a really big difference.

 

06.jpg

 

Steve's a nice bloke but he's also a smoker, so I gave the interior and the windows an almighty scrub and then dressed all the plastics with Poorboys Natural Look which gives exactly the finish I like. Next up, let's make it stop...

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Leon

Ok brakes!

 

Firsly I replaced:

 

Rear shoes

Rear cylinders

Rear brake lines

Master cylinder

 

Then I invested in a pair of 1.9 calipers. I find these much more confidence-inspiring than the alloy 1.6 calipers which never feel "right" to me. I had carriers and bolts from a 309 GTI I broke years ago but the calipers are new. Both flexis are new so I left those as they were, I do have braided ones somewhere but I don't remember where in the shed they are hiding.

 

08.jpg

 

I finished off with OMP pads that I've had laying about for years, and some Red Dot grooved discs that I bought in a Halfords clearance for £10 in 1999 (!) They were still in the original box and I've never got around to putting them on anything. The discs on this car were horrible so it seemed the ideal time to fit them.

 

Bleeding was a bit of an arseache, in the end I used a vacuum bleeder which gave me a reasonable pedal and the car seems to stop in a reasonable fashion so for the moment I am happy.

Edited by Leon

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allye

I really enjoy these simple turn arounds of cars on the brink on death, look forward to unfolding....

 

I like how you've got all this stuff kicking about :lol: I think 205ers are the worst for hording.

 

P.S. Need a new exhaust asap!

Edited by allye

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Leon

Test driving the brakes I was sure I detected a knock from the front left. I tested that suspicion in a car park and found I was right.

So I fitted a new passenger side driveshaft which cured that. Such an easy job on the 205, especially since the balljoints always come out of the hubs reasonably easily compared to some cars. No pics of this, not really exciting enough to photograph.

 

Took it on it's first drive to work, all went well other than the door which refused to shut until I'd slammed it about 30 times. I was pretty sure this was caused by the outside handle sticking, and it was. I replaced it with a spare from my parts bin and rejoiced that it work. This made up for the skinned knuckles.

 

Next job was to fit the Group A rear beam kit - or at least the solid mounts, the bushes are AWOL at the moment.

 

I did this on the drive, nice easy job which you can do without dropping the rear beam completely.

 

09.jpg

 

Note the corrosion on the rear crossmember - that'll doubtless need some attention soon.

 

Speaking of corrosion, when I dropped the spare wheel cage, this happened:

 

10.jpg

 

That'll be time to get the welder out then.

 

Allye - will come to the exhaust shortly!

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Leon

I have a spare (bent) shell at the moment so I decided to cut a repair section out of the crossmember. I got a bit eager and didn't take any pics of this part.

 

I cut out a nice big patch, took it back to bare metal, treated with Bilt Hamber Hydrate80 to stabilise any corrosion, then painted the back surface with weld through primer. I cut out the rot on the existing crossmember, treated with Hydrate80 and painted with weld through.

 

Then seam welded the plate on and gave the whole area a coat of Bilt Hamber Electrox primer, which I absolutely love.

Once this was dry, the whole section was seam sealed, but as I say, no pictures.

 

EDIT. Found a picture. Please don't grimace too hard at my patching "skills"

 

14.jpg

 

After the depression of welding on my back under the car, I cheered myself up by hoovering the boot. And promptly put a hole in the boot floor with the hoover :rolleyes:

So I cut out the rot and took it down to the spare shell.

 

Chop chop, buzz buzz, more seam sealer, job done:

 

11.jpg

 

I'll be painting the whole inside and underside of the boot when the weather warms up a little bit, but for now the car is at least solid again.

 

So, given that my "cheer-me-up" boot hoovering failed, I decided to give the interior a good clean again. Came up much better this time, though I'd still like to get the carpet out and properly clean it.

I also fitted a USB head unit with hands free/Bluetooth which works brilliantly and saves me having to buy a Parrot. Integrated hands free is really useful.

 

I then fitted a new gear gaitor that I saw in another member's project. These are available on Ebay for around a tenner and seem nice quality.

 

12.jpg

 

13.jpg

Edited by Leon

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Leon

I then decided I could not continue with the boot as it was. Every time I opened it it made me feel unwell:

 

15.jpg

 

So, some acoustic carpet, scissors, a sheet of hardboard and some heavy duty fabric glue and the situation was improved slightly

 

16.jpg

 

I also sorted the exhaust, which was pointing at the floor. The back box clamp was loose and the whole box had rotated. I fitted a new stainless exhaust clamp, Powerflex exhaust mounts, and rotated the back box. Now it doesn't look like it's about to burst out of the rear valance any more. No pictures as it's not really very exciting!

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Leon

All was going well until I snapped a driveshaft on the way home from work last week. Changed into second, floored it, BANG, rumble, no drive.

 

Considering the shafts in these are pretty weak that's the first one I've ever had let go. The Mrs towed me home and I got to work.

 

Driveshaft had snapped off at the hub on the driver's side:

 

19.jpg

 

It's supposed to be part of that:

 

20.jpg

 

What should have been an easy job was made very difficult by 2 nuts. The 2 11mm nuts (well, they were 11mm once upon a time) that secure two hockey sticks which hold the shaft in place (not that it needs holding - it was well and truly siezed the intermediate bearing with no help from anyone) had completely rounded off.

 

In the end, after much failed effort with various blunt objects, I had to take the whole lot out - shaft and lower engine mount and replace it with the engine mount and shaft from the red car, the shaft was completely jammed in to the bearing, and the 11mm bolts rounded to absolutely nothing.

 

Hateful job!

 

While I was down there I noticed the L pivot was very wobbly so ordered some bronze bushes from BBM. Gear rods will be next but they will have to wait until next payday.

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Leon

Finally (for now) to bring us right up to date:

 

Grovelling round under the car doing the driveshaft was miserable work, so whenever I have to do something miserable I balance it out by doing something more pleasant.

 

So, I repaired my courtesy lights which weren't working (the plunger switches were corroded internally, I have replaced them with universal ones)

 

Next, I gave the carpet a good scrub.

 

Then I fitted footwell lights - I have used cathodes to do this in the past but they're a bit fragile, so I used those cheap LED strips you can get on Ebay for a quid - red to match the carpet. They are cable tied up underneath the dashboard, out of sight.

 

Quite pleased with the final result:

 

17.jpg

 

18.jpg

 

The light isn't quite as intense as the picture makes it look. It's just a nice subtle red glow. They are wired to the switched live for the stereo so come on with the ignition.

 

Next job is to sort the rickety wiper linkage, replace the wiper blades which are utterly mangled, fit the bronze bushes, seal this leaking sunroof which is giving me a damp arse in the mornings, and then maybe some new headlamps.

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EdCherry

Looking good.

 

Can't help but thinking I couldn't drive with those lights on though, handy if they came on with interior light maybe for door opening?

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Leon

I've had footwell lights in all the cars I've had for the last 7 years or so, I feel weird not having them now!

 

They work the same way as backlighting your television - reduces eye strain and fatigue :)

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EdCherry

Yer but I don't look at my feet while I'm driving...

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Lowercase

looking good leon. shame some of these 205 shells are little rotters! any more nasty surprises found yet?

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Leon

Yer but I don't look at my feet while I'm driving...

Neither do I. It's ambient lighting not direct lighting.

 

DaSneakyGit - yeah, a couple. The screws for the handbrake cover had rusted up as normal. When I finally got them off they took a chunk of floor with them as well, so that's been patched. There are also a couple of speed holes in the front headlamp panel and the inner wings themselves look very crusty, so I expect there is more welding to come!

Edited by Leon

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sensualt101

although the car has a few corosion issues and the usual 205 gti foibles to sort out i reckon for the price you have had a bargain! well done for saving another gti all credit and respect to you! ( you know it makes sense lol! ) i will keep following your thread with interest so keep up the good work mate :)

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steve@cornwall

Doing her proud, Leon! If I'd have seen all that I would have broken it!!!! Did considder a re-shell, but couldn't work up the enthusiasm... definately gone to the right home :-)

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Leon

Practical mod done today - I'm not completely happy with it, looks better in the flesh than in the pictures. We often take the cars to France and 1 12v socket just isn't enough!

 

21.jpg

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BusEngineer

I think thats a clever little mod, i like it

 

You could perhaps cover the holes with a thin piece of red carpet when not in use to match the carpet

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dodsworth_gti

get some one to cut a small section from a knackered carpet that fills the hole thing then just remove it when you need to

 

this car is a real inspiration,its just the kind im looking for at the moment

 

good look with it :)

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Leon

Cheers guys - I have a complete spare red carpet here, I might just do that.

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steve@cornwall

is that a USB charger socket too?

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Leon

Yes mate, they are 3 12V sockets and a USB socket all in one, you can get them on Ebay for about a fiver :)

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sensualt101

i am likng that mod a lot and its coverable when not in use :)

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DaveW

I do like that centre colsole mod too :)

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tunnicliffe

reading this just reminded me i have 1.9 gti in my step dads field that i havent seen for about 4 years might go up and see what state its in proberly have anough parts lying around in my over flowing garage to put it back together and make an awesome road car or maybe sell the lot

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