Hi everyone.
I decided that i want to post a topic of my cars restoration project.
I bought the car in 2010 10 march.
It was in very bad condition. The engine was completely taken apart and was in the trunk of the car. The car had big rust problems. And had front springs cut down half way and the rear beam was completely dead and the car was sitting almost on the ground. The previous owner had done loads of bad things to the car. The original seats and wheels where gone as well.
So I decided to buy the car and wanted to restore it to it`s orogonal condition.
That's how it looked like when i started to work on it.
First i decided i need to start with the engine. So i bought a complete 1,9l engine.
And after short time i first installed it in the car.
As you can see the front end of the car is nothing but rust.
Shortly after the engine was started for the first time i understood that the engine had oil problems.
So the engine went straight back to it`s seller.
And working on the car i understood that i need to weld new front end.
So i stripped all the car and found more and more rust
Taht was just the rust at the front end.
The rust was also at the side skirts and rear of the car.
After long period of welding.
The car needed to be primed and painted.
The car from factory had electric windows and central locking. Before me someone had changed the doors and had cut the wires. Since then the car had manual windows, but i knew that i will put the electric windows back in.
I toed the car to the painters garage. And he did a complete respray. Except for the engine bay.
The car had two colors. but i didn`t like that.
I wanted it to be just red.
I didn`t like the red paint that it had. It seemed to me that is too light and looked a bit pink or orange.
So i found the red tone that i liked.
It was the paint from volkswagen. Tornado red.
In the time when the car was painted i started to work on the engine.
I send the engine to my friend who is a big 205 gti fan and also a good engine builder.
He helped me with the engine rebuild.
The engine is standard 1,6 with a head with big valves.
I had problems with the electrics in the engine compartment. I didn`t know which wires go where.
And the engine didn`t run when i hooked up the wires. And there where some empty wires as well.
So i got an electric to help me.
He had to work pretty hard to fix some bad wires and get the car working.
Sometimes i thought that this project will never end cause i always could find something broken, or something i had to redo.
It was 2 years already since i started working on the car and finaly it started to look like one
All this time my car had no exhaust. So i had to custom build a new one.
Starting from the downpipe all the way back we welded a stainless steel exhaust 60mm in diameter with the back box from magnaflow.
My plan is to finish the car till summer. Get the original recaro seats, and drive as much as i can.
Sorry for my english. I hope it was interesting for you guys to read
John