LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Topic: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White (Read 31972 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #90 – June 01, 2021, 08:56:03 AM

Well due to more pressing jobs, patio laying and the like, the best i managed over the 3 day bank holiday weekend was to get it on stands and take a look. It's a start I suppose, and at least I'm not guessing anymore.

And thankfully, it's not as bad as they made out, at least not on the face of it, I know rust holes can get bigger when you start cleaning them up. Anyway, here's the previous repair on the nearside, front of inner arch.

I might just wire wheel it and if it looks solid stitch weld the existing plate. I'll know more once I get the under-seal off.

And the offside, same place....

No attempt at a patch here, just stuffed with cardboard. I'm not even sure if there was any filler involved, or the MOT station chipped it all away. But lashings of under-seal was hiding this little gem.

A good poke all around and it seems to be fairly limited to the mouse house size hole. So a good clean up and a patch similar to the other side and I should be good to go. And I'm happy that's within my ability as a welder, so I'll be taking this on myself. so if anything catches on fire it'll be on me this time.

Thankfully the weather seems to be on our side so I'll see if I can get a few evenings on it. Watch this space....

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #91 – June 01, 2021, 09:56:31 AM

Hey, that's not too bad at all (and rather typical locations for a mk2)

The odd thing is, the amount of effort needed to hide the bodges, it would have been easier just to repair it properly!

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #92 – June 02, 2021, 02:46:03 PM

A few pics from last night, I was hoping to make a bit more progress and update later on, but looks like it'll be raining this evening so doubt I'll do anything more.

The bodges continue. I was aware the black on the rear bumper had been painted with truck bed liner (or something) but this was not what I was expecting.

A hidden screw that had been filled and painted over. Not sure why the side bracket was in place and the bumper fit didn't seem to be effected after I'd cut through it.

After lifting the bumper away I worked out why it weighed so much...

A hacked up tow bar. and a bodged up repair on the skin. Not anything I can afford to replace yet, but I will keep my eyes open for a rear bumper with bar and brackets. Shout if you know of one!

Anyway, some good news...

Don't think I've ever seen such a clean rear end! now I know this has had a repair so it's not as old as the rest of the car, but straight and true which is reassuring at least.

Much the same for the arch

A bit of tiger seal to help the trim, but all the rivets were there so not sure why. But one thing it has done is kept the lower lip of the trim off the paint, which I'm sure aids drainage so perhaps it's not such a silly idea.

Sill looks good, but seem to have forgot a pic.

Other side.

not awful!

But a bit of crust on the lower rear corner.

But this is shocking!!!

But I think I can clean it up and finish it off, no need to strip it back and redo it at this point.

Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #93 – June 02, 2021, 05:00:55 PM

Bit of good and a bit of bad.... could have been much worse though .. and you will know it’s been done and good. That bumper though !!!!!

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #94 – June 03, 2021, 07:45:06 AM

I can't understand why someone would go to the trouble of prepping an area, making up the patch, tacking it on, but then just stop, it literally takes minutes to complete the weld from that point!

Also, would it have killed them to wait a little while and paint the repair properly??!

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #95 – June 23, 2021, 11:51:47 AM

Well I've managed to grab the odd hour here and there, and have made some good progress, still plenty more to do but I thought it was time for an update.

I poked this (nearside rear arch rear corner):

I started grinding back to find clean metal, and found filler (offside rear arch front corner):

So I ground back more and ended up with holes larger than initially expected. Pics here show freshly applied rust converter, has the blue goo:

So I ordered these:

Mocked up this (using the roof panel from the one I broke previously - I knew keeping a large sheet of metal would come in handy):

Not pretty, but solid and happy with that as my first ever real life attempt at welding:

and after a good grind and splash of protection:

too nervous to do the outer repair panel just yet I switched to the other side for a bit more practice on 'hidden' metal before going for body work.

So cleaning back that previously added patch, see last post, I decided it was crap so cut away to start again:

More roof panel, to this:

and finally this:

Now, that other hole I poked.... got bigger:

To finally this:

So my next job is back to the driver side to tacked the front of the arch, also the rear corner looks like it has some filler in it, so I guess I should really poke that one too.

In other news:

The bumper mount on the body had been cut down, because the mount on the bumper was broken and had been bodged, so I bought both of these to fix it.

The bumper mount is genuine and actually bought from long time 'friend' of the forum and eBay seller x4mgs153-mk2 because he was actually the cheapest

The mount to go on the body is aftermarket but the two slot together really well so I'm hoping the bumper will fit well once fixed.

And finally, for when that day comes that I finally get to drive it again, my son didn't know what to get me for my birthday so I said I wanted new speakers for the rear, as the fronts were decent but the rears original. I was going to get some JBL but when it came to it they were out of stock so I ended up spending a bit more for these. Hopefully they'll be worth the extra.

I know shelf support 4x6 are never going to pump out the bass, but they should at least provide a bit more sound to the rear.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #96 – June 23, 2021, 11:59:36 AM

Wow! Typical rust job, always ends up growing, good work tackling all that yourself though.

I love Rockford stuff, especially their power series.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #97 – June 23, 2021, 01:06:43 PM

Well done you… one small step for man …

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #98 – June 24, 2021, 02:23:15 PM

I am definitely going to learn how to weld... under no illusion it's a hard skill to master, but can't help think of all the jobs I could do without relying on others.

I'm getting into my own car much deeper than originally planned and it's thrown up a few areas that'd be better sorted now before they become an issue.

Was going to try and make the patches from sheet steel rather than pay for pressed pattern parts then only use small portions of them.

Be keen to see more updates.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #99 – June 24, 2021, 08:44:39 PM

Quote from: L90E on June 24, 2021, 02:23:15 PM

I am definitely going to learn how to weld... under no illusion it's a hard skill to master, but can't help think of all the jobs I could do without relying on others.

I'm getting into my own car much deeper than originally planned and it's thrown up a few areas that'd be better sorted now before they become an issue.

Was going to try and make the patches from sheet steel rather than pay for pressed pattern parts then only use small portions of them.

Be keen to see more updates.

Welding is an art form, I learned it when I was 17 and love welding but don't get the chance to do any these days, if you nee any advice hit me up, best to try on an old piece of metal and try and do a nice bead.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #100 – July 01, 2021, 08:39:20 PM

I always think welding is like golf, easy to start, impossible to master!

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #101 – July 13, 2021, 04:50:00 PM

Got some time off soon so hopefully crack on with the rest of the welding, but as a little side project I've been working on trying to make the best of the knackered rear bumper. It's never going to be perfect but until a responsibly priced one comes up local it'll have to do.

So the black of the bumper had previously been painted and I noticed some stress cracking in the paint. I forgot to get any before pics but I started to chase out the cracks with a dremmel.

and fill

and flat back

to which I discovered the true depth of the repair, anyway as said already it'll have to do.

So I dealt with a few other bits and flatted the whole of the painted black part

Replaced the bodged bracket

prepped..... and finally found a use for IKEA instructions

and emptied a spray can of black texture bumper paint onto it.

I'm not 100% happy with it, was very hard to spray and I'm thinking (since I have a compressor and paint gun) I might had been better off buying a litre of paint rather than using the aerosol. But we'll see how it looks once it's dried off and the paint has calmed down. It'll pass a 10 yard inspection at least, and hopefully will fit better with the new bracket.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #102 – July 13, 2021, 06:41:08 PM

Think you're being harsh... looks spot-on, what brand of textured paint did you go for?

The new bracket also looks perfect, it's something on my to do list - pointers on which one to get?

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #103 – July 13, 2021, 06:50:41 PM

I put the question out to the Facebook massive and got mixed answers, but ultimately this one had more than a few hands up against it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302261524788

But I expect they’re all quite similar.

Re: LUCY ‘91 Mk2 Golf GTI Alpine White

Reply #104 – July 14, 2021, 08:19:45 AM

Very interested as to what you think about the eventual finish.