In my garage now, and reassembly is in progress. Gearing up my resolve to begin a task that is foreign to 914 owners -- installing the headliner!

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Arne - Looks fantastic. Are you keeping this one?

SILVER! STUNNING! The brightwork is beautiful. You do great work.

Yes, this one is for me.

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What a knock out job and in my fave Early color. Very well done

Wow, car is gorgeous, Arne! Thank you for sharing your projects here....

There's just something about a cool car freshly repainted in silver—before everything goes back on. Not sure what that is, but I've noticed it across a lot of kinds of cars.

Yeah it's a timeless color. Very "classy" no matter what the trend of the day is. Great work Arne, it's really turned out nice.

First shakedown drive yesterday. Last drive was 6½ months ago. Went well. The steering wheel was a couple of splines off, and I've got something in the back rattling a bit at idle. The rest of the car seems tight and ready to go.

After a few final details, I'm considering the exterior work to be done for now. Yes, at some point I'll start upgrading various bits of exterior trim that I reused from before the paint work, but for now it looks pretty darn good.

On to the interior now.

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Looks great!

The interior is now pretty well taken care of too, other than re-wrapping the steering wheel. (Leather for that arrives later this week.) Starting to consider all the A/C parts now. Other than the A/C, the car is ready to drive now.

While I'm not quite ready for something else yet, I am starting to sniff around for my next project. Will have to be a cheap one, as I'm not selling this car (or any other stuff) to finance it.

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Finished wrapping the steering wheel today, getting ready to go for a drive, as the Oregon rain is supposed to return tomorrow.

Scored another missing part this week, still need brackets and knobs. But tested it, and it works great.

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Nice radio!

You one of them CW, NOS parts collectors I've been hearing about?

Nope. Far more likely to buy repro than NOS. Not just the cost, I'd feel bad using and wearing out some rare NOS part.

In fact this radio is far from NOS. Rather used, in fact. I had to spend 10 minutes cleaning it to get it to look that good.

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So the 911 is now mostly complete. About all that is left is re-working the factory A/C. No rush there.

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So I've been watching for a next project to consume my time. Something fun to build, and that I can sell when done and not get too far underwater in. I think I've got it selected, stay tuned...

Good selection/choices so far - bring it!

Verbal deal made, money changes hands tomorrow.

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That'll be a fun one. You going stock? GTI trim? Always thought an engine swap to a slightly more powerful one would make that a great daily driver.

Engine swap is already done, but needs some troubleshooting and tidying. Running a '92 2.0 16v and 5 speed from a Passat. Has already been converted to the round headlight front end, too. So GTI look is a good possibility.

Oh man that's a GREAT one to start with. 2.0 is perfect. Not too crazy but it'll keep up with traffic. Looking forward to the updates as usual!

Great choice to go VW water cooled! I’ve seen a lot of nice Corrado/Sciroccos up in the PNW that get me thinking....

Nice Arne always liked those rabbit(LOL) trucks. I always wanted one for mics little stuff. Be a cool ride for sure

Made me laugh! I've got a combined 10 years in air-cooled cars, all Porsches. (Plus 8 years in Kawi KZ's back in the late '70s and early '80s. Later bikes and ATVs were all water-cooled.)

Water cooled VWs? Let's see, in order...

'78 Scirocco ('79-81)
'81 Scirocco S ('81-'91)
'91 Jetta GLI 16v ('91-09)
'86 GTI 8v ('95-96)
'90 Corrado G60 ('96-97)
'10 Golf TDI ('10-16)

So not new to water cooled, and not even new to the 16v engine.

It's a VW project that I can modify a bit, because it doesn't have to be a daily driver. I'm looking forward to it.

Sounds like a good swap. Grew up in/around one of these, but with the stock US diesel—so slower than molasse.

Saw one in the paddock at Laguna years ago and didn't think too much about it. It was white with Corrado G60 wheels and sat pretty lower (I believe he said he simply flipped the rear axle and then lowered the front accordingly) but was otherwise unremarkable...until I watched it beating up on Porsches on the way up the hill to the Corkscrew. When it passed a 928S up the hill, I really wanted to know more. Was running a G60 engine, too...and I doubt it was stock. Well driven, it was very, very quick.

Stock G60 in the portly Corrado was uninspiring. I was afraid of grenading the supercharger and didn't want to put a smaller pulley on it, but did do some simple plumbing changes (couldn't get away with them in CA) to help keep the boost up while shifting. Better, but not great, the 16v Jetta that was the family car during that time was more entertaining.

But in a lighter Mk1, if you can accept the risk of spinning the G-lader faster than stock, it could make it feel special.

But all in all, I prefer the feel and character of the 16v engines. Which should make this little truck a pile of fun.

Click to view attachment I’m planning on selling this if you would like a dumb race car

One project at a time. The Caddy will need to be it for a while.

Home now, let the fun begin...

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Is that Pre-SMOG by chance?

It has a 300hp 1.8t and diesel title

Hey now!

You should totally list that here and on the somber. I’ll touch base separately, don’t want to hijack the thread.

Love the pick up – please keep us posted on the progress

The 16v 2.0 engine is a very good engine,much improved torque over the KR 1.8 which I have in my Corrado.
In ROW spec the ABF 2.0 made the same power as the first 20v Mk4 GTI's ,it seems the US version called a 9A had some slight differences but pretty much the same unit.
These motors tune very well and provide good gains when chipped and fitted with a quality header and exhaust.

Got it running today, for a short time. After some troubleshooting I hot wired the fuel pump and it fired right up. Fuel pump relay is toast. New one arrives tomorrow.

Wiring is less than professional, I'm going to have to sort the whole thing, I suspect.

I like the 2.0 16v, and have a lot of seat time with them. We bought a '91 Jetta GLI new in '91, and used it as our family driver until 2002, and as a backup car through 2007 when we gave it to our son. He still owns it.

I don't know if this one is stock internally. It does have a header on it, and no cat.

Great to here you got it running,with the Mk1 platform the power to weight should be pretty good.
Good luck.

It should be a fun little truck when I get it done. The 2.0 16v is about twice the power of the original gas 1.7, and almost 3 times as much as the more common diesel pickups. It also has a close-ratio 5 speed with 3.94 final drive from an early GTI. So it will be surprisingly quick. A definite sleeper. The rather plain-looking factory VW wheels were original on the donor Passat, and are actually forged Fuchs, complete with the fox head stamp on the back side. They don't weigh much, extremely light. A good wheel for the sleeper look.

I got it running about a week ago, although not 100% yet. The Motronic ECU is apparently running in limp-home mode. So the AFR is way rich, and there is no ignition advance at all. Indications are that it may have at least one bad knock sensor. So no driving it yet. Brakes have been overhauled, the fronts upgraded to vented rotors. Suspension is ¾ done, will be complete before the week is out. New knock sensors on their way.

[quote name='arne' date='Sep 11 2020, 05:27 PM' post='2850221']
[quote name='porschetub' post='2846267' date='Aug 26 2020, 09:21 PM']Great to here you got it running,with the Mk1 platform the power to weight should be pretty good.
Good luck.
[/quote]
It should be a fun little truck when I get it done. The 2.0 16v is about twice the power of the original gas 1.7, and almost 3 times as much as the more common diesel pickups. It also has a close-ratio 5 speed with 3.94 final drive from an early GTI. So it will be surprisingly quick. A definite sleeper. The rather plain-looking factory VW wheels were original on the donor Passat, and are actually forged Fuchs, complete with the fox head stamp on the back side. They don't weigh much, extremely light. A good wheel for the sleeper look.

I got it running about a week ago, although not 100% yet. The Motronic ECU is apparently running in limp-home mode. So the AFR is way rich, and there is no ignition advance at all. Indications are that it may have at least one bad knock sensor. So no driving it yet. Brakes have been overhauled, the fronts upgraded to vented rotors. Suspension is ¾ done, will be complete before the week is out. New knock sensors on their way.
[quote]
Sounds like you are moving on with this,not sure if you know this but the blue temp sensor if faulty will give you the issue you have,if not working or faulty wiring there is no communication with the ECU regarding engine temp status...ask me how I know,mine was a dead wire in the loom,bought a replacement engine loom for cheap and all was good.
Good luck.

I am aware of that. The temp sensor was replaced by the PO last year. I will revisit to look at it again, but I suspect my issue may be the knock sensors, which can also cause this issue.

In any case, the wiring on this truck is and I plan to recheck the entire engine wiring loom.

Still debugging the Motronic injection, problems from sitting too long, as well as ill-advised tampering by the PO. It runs, and shows promise as being really quick. But it doesn't run right yet. Awaiting some additional parts for that now.

Beyond that, the electrical bits have been pretty much dealt with, everything now works again - lights, gauges, etc.

New brakes both ends, including an upgrade to vented GTI up front. Suspension and steering all refreshed as well.

Polished the VW/Fuchs wheels, turned out quite nice.

And now the rust exploration has begun, pictured below is the back half of the passenger floor pan. Rust is present, but not horrible. Better than I feared.

Will be expanding my work to a new area on this one, as I plan to tackle the rust repair myself. New MIG welder should be delivered any day now.

Appears you have a very rust free car there the MK 1 was known to rust rather badly,I must as I'am a little confused ask about the fuel system ? that looks like a CIS air trunking or do you have the CIS-E system which uses an ECU ?
Thanks.

Yes, this was apparently an Oregon car since new, which helps a lot on the rust front, as Oregon has never embraced salt for the winter. Our cars are typically a lot less rusty than in many other parts of the country.

I started scraping the tar mat off the front half of the passenger pan today, definitely worse, but still should be fairly easy to fix since half-pans are easily available. And there will be plenty of solid metal to salvage for patches for the rear half. And so far, looks like the rust has not progressed into the rockers.

Engine is a 2.0L 16v from a '91 GTI or possibly Passat, type 9A. The 9A was equipped with CIS-E Motronic. Full fuel and ignition control, including knock sensors. I've had to replace the knock sensors and the ECU so far, and recently determined that someone has tampered with the air flow meter, pretty drastically. I've got a line on a replacement AFM, but the guy I'm getting it from has to find time to dig it out of storage, so it's at least a couple weeks away.

Lots has happened in the last 5 weeks.

First, new MIG welder arrived.

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And several boxes of parts, most from the UK. Notable bit include a new stainless header (found some nasty stress cracks in the one the truck came with), tail lights, rust repair panels, front bumper, seats, exterior trim, mirrors, seals, etc.

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Rust repair is proceeding.

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And lastly, the replacement AFM is STILL not here yet, USPS sat on it in a Connecticut post office for over 2 weeks before it started to move. Hoping for later this week.

My dynamic duo in the early 1980's ; the 2.7/ cis turbo 9146, and 1.5L turbo-diesel 5 speed Wabbit pick-up. The truck was changed out (at 500k miles) to a 1.8L /16v gti engine, with side draft webers.
It was sold to a friend that set up the suspension, and canyon raced it

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Replacement AFM was installed, first impression was that it has fixed the running issues, but final judgement will be withheld until the failing fuel pump and partially crushed gas tank are replaced. (Tank is scheduled to arrive any day now.)

Passenger floor pan has been replaced, and more new trim is being test fitted. Second half of the floor pan project will start after the fuel tank and pump have been replaced.

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I love those little trucks. A friend had one for years; his had a topper that fit the back perfectly

I've had that same welder for years - love it.

Since the last update, the fuel pump and tank have been replaced, and the second half of the floor pan welded in. New tires next week (the ones on it now are almost 20 years old!). Starting to test fit all the new trim pieces, as I don't want to have to drill holes or tweak fitment after the truck has been painted. While there is still a little non-structural rust left to repair, I'll be talking with the painters about the job in the next couple of weeks.

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Well done! A joy to see your projects. Keep it up!

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Love this thread Arne! I don't know how you find it in yourself to sell them when you are done.

Is it just me, or is it sitting high. Did you go with performance springs?

It *DOES* look pretty tall in that shot. Partly due to camera angle, partly because I just had it jacked up and it hasn't settled yet, and partly because we are so used to seeing these cars slammed. This one is just totally stock height. I might trim a half turn off the front coils to adjust the rake a bit, but beyond that I'm going to leave it be. If the next owner wants to lower it, how and how far will be their decision.