Im having more questions as I start to use this car, so I figured id post a build thread with everything done so far and put my questions here
Previously I had owned an 85 Jetta 1.6 for about a year. I barely drove this, because I was careless in my inspection of the car before I bought it, and it was a complete death trap due to rust, as well as having some transmission issues. I bought it, towed it down to my house, drove it for a week, and parked it when the clutch went. The big plus side of this car is the engine ran excellent.
From then I was casually looking for a not completely rusted out shell to put the engine in and finally found one in a blown engine 1.6 powered 86 jetta.
This is the 85. This picture is very flattering, underneath it looked like the second pic. In the swap, I stripped this car of everything usable and all unrusted body panels, which consisted of one door, and the hood.
Cruising on vortex, I came across the 86-
This car has some rust on the rockers near the rear, but nothing terrible yet. Locally there is an excellent rust place that may take care of this for me down the line. It wasn't too rusty, but instead, it was BEAT to **** by the PO.
I towed it home about 200 miles, and discovered that the whole front end was effectively wiped out, and damage underneath definitely pointed to the car being airborne.
The engine had also thrown a rod. My guess from looking at the oil sticker is that the car was being abused without being warmed up, and on top of that, there was a 12,000 mile discrepancy between the last oil change and current mileage. Basically, the kid didn't change the oil, revved the engine excessively, and blew it up needlessly. I also don't think it was even the original engine, so this car has some history. In my hands, it will know love once more.
Here are some shots of the engine-
This is what I saw when I took a look at the car, don't think this engine was ever going to run again-
Pulled out and broke down the block-
found another hole behind the motor mount when I got that off, total of 3 holes in the block-
Here are some pics of the disassembled block. Path of destruction was a spun bearing, then thrown rod at #1 cylinder, which smacked into the shaft driving the vacuum pump, and pieces of that flew everywhere, blowing 3 large holes out.
The destruction was so violent that I decided that this block needed to become a coffee table. Still working on it, but shes painted and needs legs. Going to be pretty neat, a cautionary tale coffee table.
After that, pulled the engine from the 85 and started cleaning up the bay in the 86-
I mated the 85 engine to the 86 5-speed with a new clutch, and rubber coated 95% of the engine bay
Engine back in after rubber coating, 3 new mounts as well-
The 86 engine had power steering and AC, both of which I deleted since the 85 has none. I used one of those little loops available from a member on vortex- Worked great
After the engine was in, before firing it up, I deleted the leaky prefilter from underneath-
And here are some pics of reassembling the front clip. I sourced a round headlight setup and emblemless grill from another vortex member. I like the looks of this
After that, I hooked up everything, and spent some time moving over sections of the wiring harness from the 85 which I had saved. The 86 harness was completely torn up, there is still quite a bit of work to do to resolve continuing issues, but the basics have been properly hooked up.
Moving on from the engine, I next went through and replaced lower ball joints and front wheel bearings
one of the wheel bearings was a real chore to deal with, was busted and broke apart, requiring over an hour of torching and smacking with a chisel to get the race off the flange-
Also replaced outer tie rods which were also wiped out, and performed a basic alignment with a tape measure.
I adjusted the rear wheel bearings, and ended up having to replace the starter, and alternator, so both are new, but after that, she fired up and moved!
Some massive vibration problems were a really crappy exhaust repair that I replaced with a short section of pipe (this car is also missing all the heat shielding, I didn't save the rusted out stuff from the 85, so I need to get some more)-
Used the exhaust clamp trick I read about on the forums to install the clips for the down pipe, worked great-
The car has 4-bad shocks but ill be working on that later, and it needs strut bearings up front.
After this work though, it was a running driving car, I changed all the fluids, did a tune up, and have been driving it for a bit. I have a timing belt kit to also put in sooner rather than later.
here is how it currently looks-
It has 4 rusty steel wheels on it with snow tires, but when I picked up the 86, it has the teardrop rims heavily corroded and missing centercaps. I like the looks of these, so for summer wheels ill probably refinish these and put some good rubber on them-
to bring us up to the present, as of last week, I removed and replaced the rear inner and outer wheel bearings, and will be upgrading the fuel filter
Major problems the car still has-
-No heat (priority one at the moment)
-No radio
-Still Mouse infestation issues (I removed 3 nests, and have thrown away a lot of interior stuff that was saturated. I still have to remove the dash and take out whats behind there)
-Massive water leak from the windshield right above the steering wheel
-Electric fan does not turn off
-Glow plugs only light on first start up, not after the car has been running within 2 hours (maybe by design? always starts)
-Paint is terrible
-driver door needs to be rehung, some accident in the past was repaired none to well, and it sits out a bit and hits the front fender when you open the door
-rocker rust issues
bunch of other stuff as I go along ill find im sure
Currently the car is broken down because the alternator setup keeps getting loose, it threw a belt and I parked it for the moment. It was getting loose every 500 miles or so. (i have put 2000 on the car since I got it running semi-reliably)
Hope to resolve at least the heat this weekend, but I love the economy of this car. Last fuel up it returned 44 mpg! which is better than the 17 I was getting in my work van on the same drive.
If I can get the alternator tension thing permanently fixed, it is very dependable so far
further updates as I continue to improve the car, any advice/opinions much appreciated!