Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

[GingerBeef]

Hello, it's me again. Yall know the drill by now... I'm back with another neglected car that I'm trying to throw together in time for Driven. Guess you could say I'm a creature of habit

This time I bought a 1990 Wolfsburg Jetta, which I've affectionately named Mlep(clay)nos (the clay is silent). So, the story on this one... It was last registered in 2009 so nobody has driven this car in the better part of a decade. Also, 2009 is right about when I started going to Close to Home with my father and brother, back when he owned my yellow Mk3. Seeing the "scene" cars at the time modified in the same style as this car brings me a sense of nostalgia, even though I've never owned it? If that makes sense? It was also 16V swapped by Lawrence (the old owner of Calgary Autoworks) very early on in its life.
Other mods include:
-Bahn Brenner fuel rail
-Aeromotive fuel pressure regulator
-ecode headlights
-H&R Cup Kit
-an almost full trophy Recaro interior: dash, door cards, rear seats, but the front seats were pillaged at some point :(
-oem GTX/GLI wing

This is the car when I first saw it, sitting in the spot it's sat in for the last decade. For some reason, the bumpers were off already...





I took the fender flares off to inspect for rust... I was shocked. But in a good way. The fronts had a bit of rust from what appears to be from dank fitment rubbing against the arches at some point in its life. But besides that, it was pretty much rust free.





The underside was quite nice too. The cherry bomb, although period correct, might have to go...





So, we agreed on a price, and got it towed to "the barn".







Did the basic maintenance for now, coolant change, oil change and spark plugs. Cranked it, and it didn't start. Turns out the fuel turned into varnish in the last decade, go figure. The bigger problem is that after some diagnosing, I discovered that the bad gas seized all 4 injectors, and the fuel pump. I've always heard that gas sitting for long time turns to varnish, but this is my first experience with it. It literally smells like the stuff you would brush on your kitchen cabinets. Insane. Anyways, after changing out the fuel injectors, fuel pump, and draining the gas tank, it fired right up. The engine sounds super healthy. The exhaust however, sounds pretty gross.

That's all for now, my last final is next Wednesday, then it's full send on this car!

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

I look forward to seeing where this goes, my Mom had a brand new MK2 Jetta in Alpine White once upon a time, I have fond memories of it.

Good luck with the exams and the driven prep.

[witchcraftz]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Wow, that's a real project car but the body looks in great shape. Looking forward to seeing the progress posts!

[Circuits]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Nice Jason. As always, enjoy watching your projects... good luck!

[Danaldson]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

props to you for all these projects! mk2 looks pretty dece! ps dylan said theres a TT 3.2 VR6 at pick and pull

[GingerBeef]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Thanks everyone!
Unfortunately I got a late start on this Jetta due to blizzards and such. So, here's the Monday update! First I moved the car over from the barn over to my driveway so I could work on it easier. Then, I went through the pile of parts that I've accumulated over the last few weeks.





So, I'm going in a little bit of a different direction a aesthetically with this build. I am trying to integrate as many OEM FAW-VW parts as possible. Just in case anyone's not familiar, FAW is the biggest car manufacturer in China (the motherland!). They have a partnership with VW there, and a product of this partnership was the Mk2 Jetta... Which was sold from 1991-2013 in China. Over the years the car was facelifted a few times to disguise its age.







Now, don't worry. I'm not doing anything drastic and swapping a whole front end. I think they're all hideous. But hidden in this forest of misery, are some pretty neat OEM+ touches.... Those are the parts I'm after. But I'll get to those as I install them!

First up is the fuel filler area! I picked up a patch panel from Concept 1 but... The body lines don't match up.



Oh well, I was planning on trimming it anyways so I had a smaller area to weld. I investigated the offending area to see what needed to be repaired. It looks like there's been a small repair a long time ago, as there's Bondo under the paint.









Then after I made sure everything lined up, I cut out the section of the car, mocked up the patch panel, trimmed it to fit better, tacked it in, and threw on some fiberglass reinforced body filler.













I threw another layer of regular Bondo on as well to smooth it all out but forgot to take any pics.
There was also a little dent in the rear quarter that I decided to tackle at the same time.



I pounded it out as good as I could with an extension, the back of a screwdriver, and a hammer. Then, wire wheeled it, threw on the Bondo Glass, then Bondo, and blocked it flat.










Then I took the tail lights, spoiler and trunk panel off the rear end so I could test fit the FAW tail lights and to do a bit of paint work on the trunk.









I'm liking these lights so far. The trunk panel needs some pretty extensive modifications to fit the FAW tail lights. I decided to go this route as I couldn't track down a genuine FAW trunk panel in time, and it's pretty simple to modify the NA one to be the same part. I think I'll tackle the panel tomorrow, today I'm gonna focus on the trunk itself. There's these tiny holes that the trunk panel bolts to, these need to go.



I took out the plastic grommet, ground the rust away, welded the hole shut, ground the welds flat, and threw on a a coat of the Bondo Glass.







Well, that's all I could get done today. We'll, technically I didn't get anything done today per say... But I sure got alot of things started! Back to the grind tomorrow... Stay tuned for another update

[witchcraftz]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Any of these would be a project done in my book, getting the fuel filler cut, fit, welded, ground and bondo'ed is a full project. I'm assuming the car will get a respray?

To be honest that silver (almost SAAB looking) jetta refresh is kinda cool.

[GingerBeef]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Any of these would be a project done in my book, getting the fuel filler cut, fit, welded, ground and bondo'ed is a full project. I'm assuming the car will get a respray?

To be honest that silver (almost SAAB looking) jetta refresh is kinda cool.

Its not done until it looks presentable haha! So in my books, bare Bondo is not done The car might get a full respray in the future, but probably not cause im lazy/ poor. Just painting what I need to for now.


Happy MKtuesday! Got LOTS done, I put in about 13 hours into this car today. It's looking good for actually having a presentable car for Driven!

Started off where I left off last night on the rear quarter panel. I took another look this morning and just wasn't pleased with the quality of work from late last night. The body line wasnt straight. I re-evaluated the situation and noticed that the dent pushed the body line up too much in one area. So, I took a grinder and hogged off the filler I added, spent a bit more time with the hammer to pound things out to where they once were, repeated what I did yesterday, and shot a quick coat of primer to check over my work. Much better!







Now onto the dreaded gas filler area. I started off by throwing a thin layer of spot putty, and block sanded it all down again. The spot putty just fills in the last of the tiny pinholes and deep gouges from rougher grit sand paper. Then I sprayed primer to make sure everything was looking good.





Then before moving on, I had to test fit the gas filler to triple check that everything was good. Unfortunately it seem the gas cap sits a little wonky. The OEM gas cap stopper thing appears to be a little worn. No worries though, I have a solution to space this out. As you can see, if I just pull on it the slightest it fits great.







Now that everything was finally looking good, it was now time to do one last block sanding of the whole quarter panel, masked it off, and painted it!







I also finished up the trunk modifications from last night. The process was pretty much the exact same as the quarter panel.







So the car came with an unpainted front bumper. The PO said that while the car was at Calgary Autoworks about a decade ago the front bumper was stolen in their yard, so Lawrence provided a brand new aftermarket one to him. Knowing it was aftermarket, I made sure to test fit it first. It fit perfectly so I moved on with scuffing it, masking it, priming it, and painting it.









I'm not usually one to toot my own horn, but I was extremely happy with the surface finish, and how crisp the masking lines turned out.





Next up was modifying the trunk panel to fit the FAW tail lights. First I filled the void where I was planning to cut with Bondo Glass from behind so it would actually stick to something. The I chopped the sticky outty bit off. Then you know the rest.. Blah blah blah sand, Bondo, primer, paint. Originally I was only going to paint the area I modified, but whatever. It was much extra work to scuff and paint the whole thing. It was worth it for a much better finished product.









And that's how you turn a North American Plate tub into a replica FAW one!

Last thing today was test fitting the OEM FAW door handles. These look like Corrado/Mk3 pull style handles but bolt right onto a Mk2 with no modifications! Personally, I think it suits the more modern styling of the big bumper Mk2s. I do prefer the original Mk1 trigger style handles for the small bumper Mk2s though.







The rears were simple, they just bolted on with no hassle. The fronts on the other hand needed lock cylinders... Which I never thought of until the moment I took them out of the box. Luckily, the internal mechanism was the exact same! So the lock cylinders swapped right over. Bless.

Welp, off to bed now! Back to working on this stupid thing first thing in the morning.

[stefan]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Great project. Thanks for all the pics.

I've had such bad luck with body work. I'd have no issues doing mechanical restoration but I'm a lousy body man... Your stuff is looking good though!

[GingerBeef]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Wednesday Update: not too much done today unfortunately. I got a tip that there was a 16v GTI at Pick N Pull when I woke up so I spent a few hours there and grabbed a bunch of tiny little things my car was missing.



This car has some interesting history... It appears that it was a JDM import. It has the eurospec/JDM turn signals, and it had what looks to be a dealer sticker from Tokyo on the rad support. I'll get a picture of that tomorrow... Cause I forgot today.
I wasn't planning on getting a round front end, but the JDM sticker was too cool so I grabbed it all. It won't be installed for Driven... I really do prefer the look of the square lights so these will probably sit in a dark corner somewhere for a while.





The JDM GTI also had these sick floor mats. I'm so stoked on these, I think they'll look right at home in my interior.



Now, onto the car... Speaking of bad luck and bodywork... The paint match is just... awful. Its really frustrating when you do everything the best you can, and something out of your control screws it up. Especially when you're on a tight deadline, and especially when you spent a good hour or two at the paint shop modifying the original formula to match the paint as best as possible. We sprayed some test cards and everything, and got it close to what appeared to be a perfect match... But clearly not. The picture here does make it look alot worse than it really is... But it's still very tragic.



Either way, need to move on for now. Now that the painted rear tub had time to cure overnight I was finally able to mockup the FAW rear end for the first time! Seeing this made me feel a little better, I think the bright red on the monochromatic black/white looks really sharp. It was a good feeling seeing this for the first time, then I tore it off again immedietly. I don't want these in the way when I'm detailing the car tomorrow.





Speaking of detailing, I got a bit of a head start on it today. I noticed when I first saw the car that there was alot of previous overspray on the front end. I used a heavy duty clay bar, and some elbow grease to remove it. I also scrubbed all the old adhesive/foam stuck on the drooping headliner. This will prep it for regluing tomorrow











I drove the car back to location B, the barn, and swapped on a set of wheels I picked up a few months ago. They're 15x8 Work Equip 03 replicas made by Axis.









Last thing today was giving the car its first wash in a decade. This was the last step in prepping the car for its full detail tomorrow. I think it will take the full day... The car is extremely rough. The car wash cleaned it up pretty decently. Lots of slime from the earth and the universe came off of it. It became a full shade whiter (but not white enough to match the god damn quarter panel).









Welp, the stage is set for one hell of a detail tomorrow. I'm excited to see what I can pull off, the final result will quite literally make or break the car for Driven this year. I really hope the car will be presentable, I think it can be done. But we'll see... I'll reserve judgment till after the jobs done in regards to as whether I'll take the car to the show, or gracefully pull out from the Eurodrivers booth. Wish me luck, ED fam.

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[witchcraftz]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

No matter what I say bring it, a bit of off-color paint is nothing major and the car looks so good!

[GingerBeef]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Day before Driven update: I'm incredibly stressed. Just gotta keep my nose down and keep grinding.

Today started with interior work. First I glued the headliner back in. This will most likely be a temporary measure though. I just have a gut feeling this will sag again during the first 30°C day we get. But oh well, I was planning on doing a black headliner down the road anyways. This looks much better, and will definitely do for now.





Next was a full interior detail... A much needed one. This car was gross. Like.. Super gross. Much better now though
I stopped doing interior detailing professionally a few years ago cause I hate it, but it was honestly nice and relaxing to do it on my own car after a hiatus.
I then threw in my dank JDM floor mats. I LOVE how these look. I've never been so stoked on pieces of carpet before haha.









Last thing in the interior today was swapping the old faded heater panel for a brand new FAW one. The logos are a little different and it looks slightly cleaner imo.. Plus, you can never go wrong with brand new parts





Then I took a break from the driveway/garage and went inside for some CAD modeling and 3D printing. I needed to make some plugs for the spoiler holes.







Lastly, I decided that the car sat too high on the FK cup kit it came with... So I picked up some FK coilovers to minimize the wheel gap and started installing. Note to self, when a car sits unmoving for a decade, bolts get pretty damn rusty. It took a stupid long time to break things free but I managed to get the rear coilovers on.









That's it for today, interior detailing took a big chunk of the day. I got alot more little projects started, but I'll wait till tomorrow to share them when they are actually done haha. My biggest concern is that I didn't really get a chance to start exterior detailing today.. So tomorrow morning I've got to wake up bright and early and get to work finishing this car in time to roll in at around 4pm. Yikes.

[GingerBeef]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

This is it. The Friday update. The last few hours before rolling into Driven, or crying on my driveway alone. Just a heads up, today was super hectic, and even more stressful so I forgot to take pics along the way for a few things. I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, and got up bright and early to finish off where I left off last night by swapping the front cup kit for coilovers.





Next up I finished painting a few things. The metal bar on the bottom of the grille was looking a little tired, so I sanded it down and reprayed it quickly. I also decided that the spoiler would look better black instead of white, so I sprayed it satin black. Lastly, I painted the gas cap with the new paint so atleast it'd match the quarter panel. (no pic)





Next up was the exterior detail. This was a huge job. The car was reprayed cheaply at some point in its past, so there are alot of sanding scratches in the paint. Also, it was super oxidized from sitting for 10 years without being washed, and above that the front end was covered with a bunch of overspray. So the front fenders and hood was wet sanded completely with 1000, 1500, 2000 and 3000 grit before polishing.
I didn't have enough time to do as thorough of a job as I wanted to (I didn't even have time to wax the car after). There's still quite a few swirls, a bit of fade in some areas, and some orange peel but atleast it looks shiny and presentable now. Below are some before and afters of the hood and roof.









After detailing I realized I had 30 minutes left to reassemble to car and bring it to the oval. Enter panic mode. This is where photos just stopped happening, so excuse this wall of text.

I started off by throwing the bumpers back on, I had a minor freak out when I realized the rear bumper rail was missing, but luckily I found out that the rear bumper rail on a mk2 is the exact same as a front bumper rail on a mk3 so that was no big deal. I also had some brand new smoked front indicators, and I decided the orange "banana" markers looked out of place, so I VHTd them lol. Don't worry, proper smoked ones are coming soon.

Then the badges got mounted, grille put back on, and the trunk area was finally assembled permanently. Then the flares went on, this is when I realized that I had 2 pairs of rear flares instead of a full set of front and back.... So after some creative trimming and strategic double sided tape I got the front flares to fit okay... I'm definitely not happy about it these are a very temporary measure. It really doesn't look all too bad though until you get really close up to it.

While detailing, I also noticed that the rockers had a bunch of poor masking/over spray on it and it bugged me way too much. So... I decided to pull the trigger and respray the bottom rockers with black trim paint. At this point I already missed the group roll in, so I sprayed it, and then immidietly ripped down to the Olympic Oval...with no door handles.
Once I arrived at the Oval I wiped the car down with quick detailer, cleaned the glass, and installed the door handles.









Well, after about 53 hours of work spread across four and a half days... I'm incredibly proud to say that I have accomplished my goal. This car is by no means perfect, or even close to perfect, in fact it's still pretty rough all around. But it's a survivor car... I like to think that I built a story more so than a car. Thanks for following along on this incredibly stressful journey, hopefully you'll get a chance to check the car out in person tomorrow. This is not the end of this car though. I want to continuously improve on it over the summer... And hopefully by the summer send off this car will actually be properly nice.


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[GINCH]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Wow, what an amazing turn around in 5 days! Well done man! Way to save a classic!

[funkin]

Re: Kickin' it (even more) Oldschool - Mk2 Jetta Project

Damn, awesome work man!