Project Tatty - Mk4 Golf Resurrection

[Purple Tom 0]

Hey,

 

I don't quite know where to begin this project thread to be honest! How I came about acquiring a very neglected 2003 Mk4 Golf TDi is a bit of a long (and probably quite boring) story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. I know it's not a Corrado but its still a VW so I hope you don't mind :)

 

As you may or may not know, I've just finished building a VW Corrado TDi. Here it is:

 

 

 

Prior to me TDi-ifying it, it was a lowly 2.0 8V that I ran as a daily driver for quite a while, including through the winter, subjecting it to conditions like this:

 

 

 

Yes - on its winter tyres it drove in and out of that parking space :) Once I'd finished TDi-ing it, which took a lot of work and eventually resulting in me pretty much rebuilding the whole car, I started to think that running it through another winter or two might not be conducive to keeping it in a decent condition. It's already got the odd age-related blemish or two and 3 or 4 months of exposure to salty, wet, freezing conditions really weren't going to help. So I started to think about picking up a cheap car to use through the winter months.

 

About the same time as I started to think about this, a work colleague of mine started to think about getting rid of his Golf. It's difficult to describe exactly what sort of attitude my work colleague had towards this Golf, but basically, in a nutshell, he could not give a flying **** about it. He's 23 and had owned the Golf for 5 years, it being his second or third car - he reckoned he'd looked after it (as in washed it, maintained it etc) for about a year, and for the next 4 years he just abused it, only fixing it when it literally wouldn't move anymore, never servicing it, putting oil in it only when the low level warning light came on...etc etc etc.

 

Part of his reason for him wanting to get rid of it was that he decided he wanted a 4x4 to run through the winter, with the eventual aim of saving up and buying a BMW (E46) 330Ci. It was also because he was 'fed up' of the Golf and its lack of power. I should explain that it has the PD100 (100bhp 188lb/ft) engine, which another friend has in a Bora and is quite capable of moving the Golf along fairly well. My colleague had been driving the Golf for about 18 months with no boost - a problem I was aware of before I bought the car, but the fact he hadn't attempted to fix it is fairly typical of his attitude towards the car - it still moved so why bother mending it?!

 

Soooo....he started to make noises about selling the Golf. I was feeling a little deflated after finishing the Corrado TDi build and sort of in need of another project, so I enquired as to how much he may want for the Golf. I went and had a closer look at it and had a long discussion which eventually led to us agreeing on a VERY CHEAP price and me wondering whether I'd be able to actually rescue the thing. At that time it was running on a set of quite nice looking 18X8 replica BBS Splits, lowered, which gave the car a nice wide, low stance. I don't have any pics unfortunately.

 

However, he decided that he'd use these wheels to part-fund the purchase of his winter 4x4 (a fairly knackered Daihatsu Fourtrak - another story!), so he asked me if I'd got a spare set of wheels that he could borrow to run the car on until he was ready to sell. (I should say that he needed to get the Fourtrak on the road before he could let me have the Golf, and I needed the Golf before the tax ran out on the Corrado, so it was a bit of a case of getting the timing right with the purchase). As it happened, I'd managed to pick up a very cheap set of Audi 15x6 Pepperpots with tyres, in anticipation of getting the Golf. I let him borrow them for the last month or so of his ownership. He bought the Golf down to work the day before I officially took ownership of it, and even thought I hadn't actually bought it I couldn't help but give it a quick wash to see how it came up with a tiny bit of TLC - bearing in mind he hadn't washed it for about 6 months...here is the car:

 

 

 

So...it's a 2003 VW Golf 1.9 TDi PD100 'Match'. The match, I believe, is a sort of limited-edition runout Golf that was produced right at the end of the production run before the Mk5 came out in 2004. It's got a reasonably decent spec, including A/C, MFA and all the other Mk4 stuff.

 

I'll give you a rundown on some of the external 'modifications'...firstly there is that front bumper - this was chopped apart to fit an FMIC about 4 years ago, and then riveted back together when the car stopped producing boost and he took the FMIC back off. There's also the bonnet, which was nicely modified by a brick which was thrown at the windscreen by some lasses boyfriend who wasn't very happy with my colleague at the time:

 

 

There's also a few little scratches but nothing too major, however what he did do when he cared for the car at the start was had the bump strips and door handles painted body colour rather than the usual black - a nice touch which just makes it look like a PD130 or 150 I guess.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Purple Tom

[Purple Tom 0]

Where do I start with the interior...it hadn't been hoovered for years, stank of diesel because a jerry can had leaked on the carpets, was full of quarry dust and other stuff...and yes, those stains on all of the seats are what they look like I'm afraid (he's a man who likes ladies who aren't too fussed on where they have a bit of fun...):

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took those pictures immediately after he'd emptied the car - prior to him doing that it was FULL of rubbish...we filled two bin bags before I got it to a photographable state - there were sandwich wrappers dated 2008 in the rear footwells!

 

So, that's pretty much how the car is cosmetically. Mechanically....it's about the same:

 

- The exhaust has snapped just after the cat, meaning that the car sounds rather like a tank, although its not an entirely unpleasant noise!

- The discs and pads have never been changed so the front discs are literally about 12mm thick, the backs even thinner.

- It's had an issue with the N/S/F wheel bearing for years and rather than repairing it he just whacked a new hub and caliper on without bleeding the brakes so there's hardly any pedal.

- Its never had a cambelt or tensioner, or water pump - mileage is 135k.

- It produces NO boost.

- The ARB isn't attached to the N/S/F wishbone as he overtightened the droplink bolt and it sheared in the wishbone

- The DMF is juddering

- The starter goes "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeccccccchhhhhhh" once the engine has caught

- The front top mounts are knackered

- There's probably more...but that's enough to be going on with.

 

However, on the plus side, the engine is fairly quiet and smooth (despite having no boost) and the gearbox engages all gears - great.

 

So, you can see the extent of the work required, and also you get an idea of the work required to bring it back up to something like my required level of mechanical soundness - and its exactly the sort of thing I love to do :)

 

You can see though that at some point he did spend a bit of time and money on the car as he went to the trouble of spraying the engine cover silver:

 

 

Also...just to prove that this story isn't made up, here's a picture of the Corrado and the Golf together, the night before I bought the Golf home:

 

 

So, the next night, after a quick trip to the pub for a lemonade and a dose of bravery, I decided to have a go at driving the Golf home. I was expecting the onslaught of warning beeps and bongs when I turned the ignition on, but it was pretty funny that literally every warning possible came up, one after the other, on the MFA:

 

- Service Now!

- Brake Pads Low!

- Oil Level Low!

- Fuel Level Low!

- Something Else That I Can’t Remember!

 

Now, bearing in mind that the lad had been driving this car for 18 months with no boost…I had a go at driving it home (once I’d bunged some fuel in it). Climbing up the hill out of the town where I work it would not do more than 30mph, no matter what gear I was in or how much I put my foot down. Turning the A/C on resulted in a noticeable decrease in the power output and the noise from the exhaust just drowned out any other noises that the car was making! The handling was amusing to say the least, what with having no front ARB and knackered top mounts. I’d already spent an hour hovering the interior and trying to clean the seats a bit but even so I put a seat cover on to keep my clothes free of the combination of contaminants on the drivers seat. Anyway, I coaxed it home through the back lanes so as to avoid drawing any attention to myself in the car of doom and I parked it up next to the Corrado for the night. I sort of like to think that if cars had feelings then the Golf would be feeling a bit like a dog that’s been rescued from one of those houses you see on RSPCA adverts….bruised, smelly and unhappy, but with the prospect of a brighter future:

 

 

As that was a Friday night, I woke up early the next morning and decided to take the Golf down to my garage to have a quick look at it, even though I already had taken on another project for a friend in the form of an SPi Mini Cooper that needed rather a lot of work. Handily, my friend with the Bora asked me if he could come and use my tools and brain to help him change the cambelt on his car on the same day:

 

 

Having the Bora there was very useful. Not only was it the same engine code (ATD), it also was new enough to feature the same cambelt tensioner (without the hydraulic damper) as the Golf, so I was able to familiarise myself with a PD cambelt change on a car that hadn’t had a lifetime of neglect! I was also able to compare the engine bay on the Bora to that of the Golf, just to see what might be missing or broken on the Golf.

[Purple Tom 0]

First things first, I decided to have a look at the easy stuff – air and pollen filters. Here you go – they’ve been changed recently do you think?:

 

 

 

When I removed the airbox to investigate a stray red wire I discovered a PD tuning box fitted in the wiring loom which no longer had its power source…”ahah” I thought – could that be why the engine has no boost, a tuning box with no power that’s fitted to the loom, obviously not giving the ECU any signal, let alone a modified one…off it came:

 

 

I took the car for a quick test drive…hardly any difference, so back to the drawing board and onto a different job. For some bizarre reason my colleague had got annoyed with the noise the worn out rear wiper blade made on the rear screen. So…rather than replace the blade (a fiver?) or take the arm off, he went to the trouble of removing the bootlid interior trim and disconnecting the wiper motor electrical plug – weird or what?! So I took the trim off, plugged it back in and the rear wiper worked again.

 

I then decided to have another quick look at the lack of boost issue. My colleague had commented that he’d replaced a section of vacuum pipe at some point – here it is…bright yellow so fairly obvious:

 

 

I disconnected the yellow pipe from the vacuum reservoir and had blew down it, expecting to meet resistance, but all I could hear was air leaking out of the vacuum system somewhere. I quickly tracked it down to a fairly large hole in a cloth braided vacuum pipe right at the top of the engine near the inlet manifold…I cut out the section of damaged pipe and replaced it temporarily with a bit of thin plastic vacuum pipe from an old Polo GT:

 

 

 

(You can actually see the how small the section is if you look at the engine bay pic a up above). Took it out for another quick test drive and wow – boost problem is no more! It felt so much better, loads quicker (and I mean loads), with the VNT pulling right round to 4000rpm. Once I’d done that a couple of times I remembered that it had never had a cambelt so decided to take it easy on the way back to the house! Having the engine’s power back also showed just how bad the brakes and handling were too – a bit of work to do there I reckon J

 

Once I’d fixed the boost issue I called it a day on the Golf and cracked on with the Mini. However, the next day I went and picked up my first purchase – a Bora Sport interior complete with doorcards, in mint condition for a very good price – they’re the later spec seats with the side airbags too which is what I need. I’ve only got one pic but they should suit the Golf quite well...obviously they have headrests etc:

 

 

That’s about it in terms of progress, but I’m sure you’re bored of reading by now! I’ve got a week off work next week so I’ve made sure I’ve got plenty to do, which includes:

 

- New discs and pads all round

- New N/S/F outer CV boot

- New N/S/F wheel bearing

- New top mounts both sides front

- Refit standard height springs

- New cambelt, tensioner and water pump

- Single mass flywheel conversion with VR6 clutch

- Remove carpet and thoroughly clean

- Refit carpet along with replacement interior and doorcards

- Fit replacement front wishbones along with R32 bushes

- Replace broken bits of interior trim

- Fit new bumper, bonnet and O/S/F wing

- Full detail, inside and out

- Lots of other jobs that will no doubt come to me as I work on it.

 

Overall I hope to end up with a usable, reliable Mk4 Golf daily driver that has still cost me way less than £1500 which includes the purchase of all of the replacement parts.

 

I’ll update this thread over the next couple of weeks once I get stuck in on the project properly.

 

Thanks for reading!

Tom

[ben_wooduk 0]

Thats a whole lot of neglect!!

 

You can clean as much as you like, you'll always know about those stains!! New interior, good chioce :lol:

[budhilton 10]

Yeh totally agree. New interior needed !! I like the Mk4 having had one in that colour. Looks a good project for you. I will watch with interest. Good luck

 

Andy

[carter711 0]

Great project and thanks for sharing! I never thought I'd say I'm looking forward to hearing progress on a derv golf but indeed I am!

[Jim 1]

I love reading stuff like this. I also don't understand how some people can be such plebs with their cars... food wrappers from THREE YEARS ago in the car? Disgusting...

 

Keep posting updates.. it's great to see something like this being bought back to life :) One thing I did miss - did you get the car for free, or a nominal charge?

[davidwort 0]

great read :)

much as people moan about mk4's I reckon they are very easy cars to live with day in day out, I'd do something with the headlights if you are driving it throughout the winter though, they are pretty dire (spot the VW trait) but as they have separate main and dip bulbs I'd at least swap the dips for phillips extreme or something similar, this benefits main beam too as the dip beam bulb stays on with the mains.

[Dox 22]

I'm breaking a Toledo V5 if you're after VAG platform bits and bobs. Half leather / alcantara electric memory seats maybe?

[coullstar 0]

I had a 115tdi a few years back that was quite tatty, I abused the hell out of that car and did nothing more than minimal servicing. I also didnt wash it properly over a whole winter but I had not one problem with it. These lower power Mk4 Tdi really do make sense as a winter hack now as there mega cheap. Its also very enjoyable taking something so abused and with some simple changes make it a lot better. You should not let the guy see it till your finished.

[Purple Tom 0]

Thanks for the replies everyone :) I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it, I think once I get started I'll find a pretty reasonable car hidden underneath all the neglect.

 

Jim - I paid a nominal amount for it; not silly cheap as at the end of the day its book price is around £2500, but enough to make it too good an offer to turn down.

 

David - thanks for the advice on the lights, I'll sort out some decent bulbs!

 

Coullstar - I'm not letting him see it until it's finished and back on the road, as you suggest ;)

 

I'll keep this thread up to date with progress over the next couple of weeks :)

[VR6 Lee 0]

l88king good, I love the mk4 Golf

[Supercharged 2]

Good work - you had it on VAGCOM yet? You can see what the injectors are doing and look at the timing etc - very useful!

 

Other thing to do is delete the EGR valve and associated vac pipes - you might find taking off the inlet and cleaning it will also bring back some more power

[emu 0]

wow, lots of work is waiting for you

 

Just picked up my winter tdi golf in silver a week ago

 

 

Not abused as yours one and cost only 1050 quid so you couldn't pay more than 300-400 quid. Fact, it's estate and don't have aircon but it's what I needed to carry my dog and cheap drive in winter time. Winter tyres already fitted :)

[VW_OwneR_85 1]

i used to have a black 3door 2.0 gti mk4 which i realy liked! but sold it for the corrado which i dont regret, i will own another mk4 for sure at some point...

[Laser Mark 0]

Nice buy Tom, yet again I think this is going to be another good read.

 

Rado and a Golf, good choice on cars. Although I'm going to be biased on that front.

Nice to see a car being given some TLC after years of neglect.

I do think though that not washing it for 6 months isn't neglect, the longest I've left mine is about 2 years!:bonk:

Although it has never wanted for parts or service.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do in the coming weeks.

[chrisspencer 10]

Long time no see mate! great read and a nice little project here, be a nice little run around when you've finished! That list of jobs makes me feel about the odd bit I'vee got to do on the corrado! Good Luck

[Purple Tom 0]

Well, thought I’d best make a start on this car, been as though it needs to be on the road next Tuesday (1^st November). The tax on the Corrado runs out on the 31^st so I really need the Golf to be up and running by then.

 

I had a week off work last week, booked off specifically for me to make a start on the Golf, however, as usual things didn’t go to plan and I ended up working on the Mini until Friday night. As a result, the Golf has been untouched since the last update. The Mini is now done, all fully rebuilt and back on the road though, so I got the Golf in the garage and have made a start tonight.

 

I don’t know if I mentioned, but the previous owner had spilt some diesel in the N/S/R footwell about 6 months ago. We have a wet and dry vacuum cleaner at work and he tried to use that to ‘hoover up’ the diesel. It didn’t really work, resulting in the vacuum cleaner stinking of diesel for about 3 months, and the Golf not really much better! When I drove it home and smelt of a mixture of diesel and vanilla magic tree….quite a heady combination!

 

Soooo, the job for tonight was to get the carpet out so it could be cleaned. As well as the diesel, the carpet contains a mixture of carrot juice (he used to carry carrots in it…don’t ask), bodily fluids, bogies, grease, oil, fizzy drinks and pretty much every other fluid you can think of. I spent a little while removing the seats and interior trim and was left with a pretty bare Mk4 interior. Working on this car is a dream compared to working on the Mini; no “that’ll do” engineering – everything comes apart without breaking and its obviously designed to last! Compared to British Leyland engineering of the 1970’s its light-years ahead:

 

 

I tell you what, I was surprised by the amount of money that makes its way into the interior trims of a car. I found three £1 coins, a 50p piece, a 10p piece, a 5p piece, a 2p piece and 3 pennies! That’s knocked a considerable amount of money off the purchase price and means I’ll be able to go upmarket and have posh sandwiches for dinner at work tomorrow J As well as that I found some other stuff hidden behind the trim, here’s a random selection:

 

 

I got the carpet out of the car in about an hour…it’s nice how quickly things come to pieces, I’m really lucky to have a nice new car to work on compared to the Mini!

 

 

Once the carpet was out, the diesel spill in the N/S/R footwell was easy to spot:

 

 

With the soundproofing lifted up you could really see the extent of the diesel damage to the sticky sound insulation…you know how people who strip cars always say how much of a bugger it is to get off? Just soak it in diesel for 6 months and you’re laughing! Oh look, there’s another £1 coin:

 

 

Here’s a close up, complete with 7p J You can see the fingermark in the sticky insulation which is as soft as nearly melted ice cream:

 

 

Here’s the N/S/F footwell, with 10p! How this money gets underneath the carpet I’ll never know. You can see the difference compared to the rear soundproofing:

 

 

I ripped out the rear soundproofing and took it, along the carpet up into the garden and spent a good while hosing it out with the high pressure hosepipe. Hopefully this will help to lift some of the diesel out and I plan on treating it with a decent wet vacuum then leaving it to dry for a few days. Hopefully that’ll sort it!

 

---------- Post added at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 PM ----------

 

I thought I’d get a few pictures of some other bits I’ve acquired too. Here’s the reflex silver bonnet, wing and bumper which I bought from a guy who’d just done a Bora front end conversion. Came up at the right time and it’ll come up really well with a good clean once it’s all back together – got it all for a bargain price too:

 

 

 

As well as that I also went to a local breakers and got the following items:

 

Brand new spare wheel and tyre

Full tool kit

Boot carpet

Parcel shelf

N/S dashboard air vent

Rear door speakers

Centre console surround trim

Double DIN cubby hole

Both front arch liners

Full set of standard height springs

Spare N/S/F bearing carrier with hub etc

 

Paid £40 for the lot – well chuffed! Here’s a quick picky of the stuff, all piled up ready to fit:

 

 

I also made a start on modifying my Audi centrecaps too. I plan on making them more VW with some cheapy eBay special sticky centre caps. Decided to fill in the Audi bit with some filler, I’ll rub them down smooth, spray them silver then stick the centrecaps on, should look reasonable:

 

 

So, that’s about it, I’ll update this again once I’ve done some more stuff!

[Jim 1]

Great stuff :) Keep the posts coming mate!

[James. 7]

Most people wouldn't think twice about flicking a match at the car and walking away. But I nod in your general direction sir. A true car enthusiast you are.

[Laser Mark 0]

Nice to see you have made a start mate.

Looks like you've got a fair bit of work ahead.

Keep the thread going.

[Purple Tom 0]

Sorry that I’ve been a little while updating this thread, its been a very hectic few weeks. The outcome is that the Golf is done, but there’s lots of pictures and bodgery so I think I’ll carry on where I left off J

 

You saw the state of the carpet, well the only real way to sort it (short of buying a replacement carpet) was to give it a good clean with a proper wet vacuum cleaner. That was done, and here’s the colour of the water that came out of it:

 

 

Minging or what?! There two or three bowlfuls of water like that, but it eventually started to come clean…you could even see the diesel floating on top of the water, not pleasant. I acquired a replacement rear soundproofing set from a local breaker (for free), cleaned the floorpan properly to get rid of the diesel and all the other crap, got that fitted and it looked a lot better straight away:

 

 

 

Then I refitted the carpet and the new trim that I’d acquired. I also fitted the glovebox properly and sorted out all of the little fixings that the previous owner had disturbed. It was nice to finally get it back together with nothing loose or rattly. I managed to get hold of a rear centre console section that had a springy cup-holder thing which might not sound very exciting but I’ve never had a car with a cupholder before! I also removed the armrest as it was broken, I might refit it later. Anyway, pic:

 

 

I decided that it’d be a nice moral victory to get the interior completely in and sorted, so set about fitting the seats. Started off with the rear seats and got those in with no problem. Started on the front seats and was soon confronted with a problem – the airbag plugs. Turns out that the Bora uses a different multiplug to the Golf for some reason, so it was out with the soldering iron. Luckily I hadn’t chucked away the knackered original seats at that point so I was able to rescue the plugs, got that done, here’s the difference:

 

 

After that it was plain sailing and I got the interior in and fitted. I also changed the doorcards for the Golf GTi doorcards that came with the Bora interior. I didn’t really need to do that but it allowed me to check behind the doorcards for any rubbish/damage (of which surprisingly there was none). The material from the GTi doorcards also matches the Bora Sport interior nicely, as the original Match spec doorcards were a bit rougher.

 

So, after that was all sorted and done I was pretty pleased because I could sit in the drivers seat and make engine noises. Unfortunately there was still a lot of mechanical work to do!

 

My mate Steve came round on a Saturday afternoon and set about stripping the front end down for me as I wanted to do a lot of work there. Luckily he’d had some practice (his is the blue Bora pictured at the top of the thread) so I left him to it. Off came the bumper:

 

 

Here’s a close up pic of the bodge to the bumper after the previous owner removed the FMIC that he’d fitted. It wasn’t a bad job, strong, but unsightly!

 

 

 

Here’s a couple of other bodges for you. About 6 months ago the previous owner had a problem with the alternator pulley. It came loose on the alternator shaft and partially shredded the drive belt. He replaced the pulley (£40-odd), but decided that as the drive belt was still half there he’d reuse it – it did well!

 

 

Also, when attempting to solve a problem with the N/S/F suspension he fitted a new hub. Why he needed to remove the ARB to do this I don’t know, but he did, and he admitted that when he tried to get the bolt back in the thread in the wishbone stripped out. So rather than sort it with a new wishbone he just left it. Cue lots of body roll and slightly odd handling:

 

 

---------- Post added at 09:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:05 AM ----------

 

While Steve was cracking on with the front end, I decided to change the rear springs, discs and pads and have a look at the rear shocks. Luckily there wasn’t too much bodgery at the back, just some very poorly bumpstops:

 

 

I purchased some more of those and then fitted everything. I think I’ve got it right, seems to be the same as all the other mk4’s that I looked at. I kept being surprised at how easily nuts and bolts came undone, then I remembered that it’s still only an 8 year old car! Anyway, rear end done:

 

 

 

I decided to change the front arch liners too as both of them had been damaged by some massive 18” wheels with tyres that were too big for the car:

 

 

When the O/S arch liner came off we were surprised to find roughly half a ton of crap up inside the wheelarch:

 

 

Got that out, here’s the pile of crap next to a ¼” drive ratchet…I think about a second will come off the 0-60 time now all of that’s gone:

 

 

One of the other problems with the car was the very noisy exhaust. The car was obviously lowered by the previous owner and at some point a couple of years ago he caught the cat on something and snapped the exhaust. Rather than fit a new cat and downpipe he just sleeved it which lasted for a month or so, he then drove it for ages with the exhaust exiting just after the cat:

 

 

Here’s the old one next to the new one. As the car is post-2002 it has to be a type approved cat but luckily I was able to wangle some discount from my local motor factors so got it for a good price:

 

 

We called it a day at that point. The following day my mate Mark came round to help. We got the cambelt and water pump changed which all went well:

 

 

We then made a start on getting the gearbox off:

 

[Purple Tom 0]

After lots of work, including removing the front suspension, driveshafts, exhaust, selector cables etc etc, we got the gearbox off:

 

 

 

Obviously the car was fitted with a dual mass flywheel which was beginning to show signs of failing – a noticeable off beat judder at idle. The clutch was also totally shagged:

 

 

So, on went a single mass flywheel and very low mileage VR6 clutch which came out of a VR that I broke a little while ago. I have the same set-up on my Corrado TDi and its great. Went on with no problem:

 

 

Got the gearbox back on and the engine mounts bolted back up, job was a good’un:

 

 

I then removed the wishbone bushes from the wishbones (one of which I’d replaced because of that stripped thread) and pressed in the R32 bushes using some special mandrels that my mate Dave designed and made at his work (well, Dave designed them, Mark actually did the cutting out on the laser cutter – I’ve been told to say that!) I always put R32 bushes in wishbones now, improves the handling and doesn’t adversely affect road noise at all. All went well:

 

 

 

I then rebuilt the driveshafts. The previous owner had big trouble with the N/S/F hub nut constantly coming undone, causing big problems with the wheel bearing. He replaced the hub a couple of times but he didn’t diagnose the problem which was a knackered CV joint. Fitted a new CV joint and boot to the N/S shaft and a new boot to the O/S (the O/S joint was fine):

 

 

I also changed the O/S wing because the original was dented and also damaged on the inside lip where those massive tyres had rubbed. Didn’t take long – I love how these modern cars come apart!

 

[Supercharged 2]

Loving this thread!

 

Don't know what your mate would have done when it came to MOT time - scrap the car?

[Purple Tom 0]

I then nipped over to my Dad’s industrial unit and he helped me press a new wheel bearing into the spare N/S bearing carrier that the previous owner supplied with the car. The spare carrier is what he said he’d removed from the car when he was having trouble with the nut coming undone. Got the carrier stripped down and found a bit of a problem with the drive flange/hub:

 

 

Knackered!

 

Luckily I’d taken the carrier with me that I’d removed from the car…we pressed the hub out of that one and fortunately it was all ok, no tapering or wear on the bearing mating surface. So we went ahead and pressed the bearing into the SPARE carrier (not the one that I removed from the car…that bit is important!), all went well and the bearing went in with no problem:

 

 

 

Took them back home and I rebuilt the shocks with replacement standard height springs and new top mounts. I half expected the front shocks to be knackered, but they were fine! Goes to show how resilient they are really, they’d put up with being -40mm for a long time without any ill effects. I’ll see how they stand up being back up to their standard height:

 

 

Before I carry on anymore, I’ll just show you a few pics of the front suspension/braking components. Here’s the wear on the O/S/F disc. I firmly believe that this is original…136k worth of wear, it must be a good 5mm thinner than it should be:

 

 

Here’s the inner face of the disc – literally covered in rust. God knows how long it’d been like this, but it wasn’t good. Next to it is a brand new disc for comparison:

 

 

Also, here’s the N/S/F pads and N/S/F top mount bearing. When I got the car it made some very horrible noises from the spring area – this is because the top mounts were completely seized so the spring was rotating on the spring plate! I enquired with my colleague (the previous owner) as to what might have happened and he said “oh yeah, I went over one of those ramps (where they plane a few inches off the road surface during repair work) at about 70mph in the dark because I didn’t see it, after that the steering made funny noises but I just left it” – obviously the impact crushed the bearings! New bearings and rubbers have sorted it though: