Figured I may as well go ahead and start a build thread. Even though nothing is being "built" at the moment, and the car was mostly "unbuilt" when we got it.
Here's the car:
'86 Golf N/A Diesel, bought off of a member on here in Columbus. Car is actually in really good shape overall. She gives off a good "vibe" so it should be a great little car. The engine was already out of the car when we got it, apparently it needs rings as there was a lot of blowby, according to the P.O. The tranny actually grenaded itself, which is why it was taken off of the road. The injection pump has been recently rebuilt, and it has an aftermarket "Topline" cylinder head, that actually looks quite good. Wiring is all stock and un-molested, interior is in great shape, there are some dings here and there but no evidence of an accident, and the only rust to worry about is around the windshield. Car even has power steering and A/C, both very good creature comforts for the Wife.
I also have a decent head unit with aux. input that was in my Scirocco when I bought it, I was going to junk it but it looks like it will fit in this car nicely.
First things first, I found an ACN tranny (.75 5th, 3.67 final) from a nice fellow just down the road in good working order. Next, time to tear down the engine.
Cylinder head: Looks good! No cracks.
Pile of junk that all eventually needs to find it's way back on the car:
And the bottom end:
Everything looks really good in there. Rods and mains are all tight, I did find out why it had an aftermarket head though- there are valve indentations on all of the pistons. :roll: No big deal. I'll have the machine shop give them a quick skim. If it's in the budget, they will also be Swaintech coated. There was a lot of oil on the #4 glow plug so I'm going to assume that was the cylinder that was not sealing properly.
So.... I have a T3 that needs rebuilt and a 1.6TD manifold that was originally going to get used on my M-TDI build for the Scirocco, but I was thinking how nice it would be to use it on her car. Not going for tons of HP, but she likes to drive- I have a plan for building a boost-enrichment device to use on the N/A pump, the aim is for around 100hp- would be a good little runner. It all depends on the budget. Hope to have the engine fully stripped down this week and off to the machine shop for a measure/hone/hot bath and I'll have the pistons skimmed and probably get the crank checked and polished too.
If we could get this car on the road by December we will be in business!
Stay tuned-
Brendan