CarDomain Blog » Rabbit

Mall Parking Lot Find: Mint GTI!

Katherine Helmetag — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:32:09 +0000

I rolled into Sears a few weekends ago to hit up Tool Territory for a set of Allen drives, and what do I see but a pristine MkI VW GTI. Holy cow! Must take pictures. The owner pops up while I am snapping and gives me a bit of detail–he’s the third owner, and the second owner (of a body shop, too) gave it the fresh coat of paint a few years back. This car is gorgeous inside and out, including the immaculate (and requisitely loud) red interior. Minus any sound deadening post-manifold, it sounds as good as it looks. With 142K on the odo, this is one snazzy bunny! More pics after the jump.

Engine Out!

Katherine Helmetag — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:58:10 +0000

I dropped the powertrain out of the brown car this week. I don’t have room for a hoist inside of the garage, and it’s cold up here in Detroit, so I used the 2×4 method. To do a drop this way, you cut a 2×4 to fit in the fender rails, and attach your chain to it. Of course, you attach the chain to the engine also. You jack the engine and trans from the underside to relieve the stress on the mounts and then remove the bolts. The 2×4 and chain are primarily a safety device, but allow you to guide the engine down without dropping it or having it fall off the jacks. Once you get the engine safely out of the way of anything important, you remove the chain and jacks (one by one) to lower the engine to the ground. What I like about this method is that you can use the 2×4 as a lever to lift and move the engine around in the bay if you have to. It’s not as fancy as a hoist, but it also doesn’t take up much space in the garage. Obligatory standing in the engine bay shot after the jump.

Engine Bay Needs Love

Katherine Helmetag — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:20:56 +0000

Here’s a shot of Tip’s engine bay. Pretty nasty, huh? You can still see the grass that was growing up around and under the car. Fortunately, I neither wanted nor needed another 1.7l engine, as this one’s headless. The engine side of the wiring harness looks pretty cut up, too, so I’ll be using the one from Jinjur when the time comes. The transmission is reportedly good, so I’m returning it to the previous owner. The bell housing on this unit is too small to work with the larger clutch I’ll need once I get the G60 built.

Sound Deadening Removal

Katherine Helmetag — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:44:27 +0000

When the brown Rabbit arrived, one of the first things I did was pull the interior. Two reasons: it was trashed, and it smelled bad. The source of the smell was a bottle of Power Service Diesel anti-gel additive that had overturned under the driver’s seat. The law of unintended consequences applied in my favor – it had soaked into the asphalt-based sound deadening material (that weighs about 20 pounds!) and softened it sufficiently that I was able to scrape it off. I had a friend record the event as it seemed too good to be true. I’ll be experimenting with the other side of the car to see how to replicate this excellent mess and will report back when I figure it out. Meanwhile, check the video.

Aggressive Offset Deja VW

Antonio Alvendia — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:20:44 +0000

I was reading Yoshi Shindo’s Passat story the other day and it really jumped off the page at me when he said he had “never been the greatest fan of VWs”. Not that there’s anything wrong with liking what you like. It just reminded me of something my boy Steve told me about the VW scene awhile back. He said (I’m paraphrasing): “There’s nothing new about aggressive offset and rolled fenders. VW guys have been doing that for over 30 years.” Continue reading and view more photos on MotorMavens!

Decision Time

Katherine Helmetag — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:20:24 +0000

To make the decision about my Rabbit rot issue, I called on a few of my friends in the MkI VW world. The answer was unanimous: major frame repair on a unibody car is an expensive ordeal that is not always successful. Even if I restored the rear end, I’d still have to deal with the front end, which has its own host of rust and rot problems. By the time I got done with it all, I’d have the most expensive 160K mile VW Rabbit on the planet. I put out some feelers to see what I was looking at in the way of replacing it and turned up a tired but structurally sound example sitting in a field about 50 miles from my house. It was delivered last week for the princely sum of $50, and I’m well into stripping it bare after filling up every trash can I own with the ratty interior. It’s another 1982 (yay!) – a big plus as all of my year-specific trims will transfer over nicely. The few parts that require welding can be cut out of Jinjur’s shell. So here it is – meet my new bunny, Tip!

Frame Rot

Katherine Helmetag — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:46:00 +0000

Earlier this summer, I posted about some of the problems I’d been having with my Rabbit. My rear axle swap turned into a nightmare of cut studs, mangled metal, and major frame rot. It seemed like every time I thought I’d found some good metal to weld to, well, I was wrong. I realized that the unitbody was pretty much beyond salvaging at that point, so I faced the decision no car person likes to make: scrap it and move on, or kill myself trying to fix it. I spent two months meditating on the matter. I made my decision last week. What would you do if you were staring at this, and this was the good side?

Busted!

Rob Einaudi — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:46:34 +0000

Too much camber? Definitely looks unsafe at any speed… Via VWVortex More pics after the jump!

Mopar-powered MK1

Rob Einaudi — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:33:50 +0000

My buddy Ralf over at Chromjuwelen just sent this to me. Pretty cool. Too bad it’s not a big block. More pics after the jump!

Bolts in Captivity

Katherine Helmetag — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:55:55 +0000

Yesterday, I showed you the weld that was holding me back on my current Rabbit project. These bolts are considered the bane of rear axle work – they frequently become intractable and most people give up on the work or scrap the bodies. I posted up on the MkI forum over at VWVortex, and was told to cut the floor pan. I went out to the car and triangulated, and the welded bolt was right under the back seat pan. I shined my worklight down through a body vent, and yup, there it was on the floor, about an inch from where I needed to be. I enlarged the vent to get access to the bolts – take a peek after the jump. Next step is to drill out the welded bolt so I can weld a new one back in.