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The first car - A foray into manhood.


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Cheers Gregg but I'll probably just look into getting one of them cassette adapters. There's no radio in it at the minute so I don't need to worry about preserving it!

Thanks Oscar and John :)

Tom - To be honest, the rest of the car simply doesn't need a respray, it's a bit unnecessary - plus budget constraints. The boot is the only thing that really needs one as it's the wrong colour, and I'm buying a new door anyway.

And yeah, the Scimitar is a lovely car - rwd V6, lovely note off it.

I live a little in the country, far enough from the town not to be in it but close enough not to have to drive a distance to go anywhere. It's really handy! :)

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Great looking MK II GTI, those are a very worthwhile car to restore. Now pretend that you are an episode of Wheeler Dealers, and go all Edd China on it!

-MJS

And what is on Velocity right now?! Wheeler Dealers with a Mk.I GTi

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My first car was a '66 Valiant V100 2 door sedan. I loved that car!

Back before I had my license there was an old Volvo (the one that looked like a '48 Ford) for sale at a local gas station. The owner wanted $100. I went home to talk to my father about it. He forbid me to buy it and told me he'd have it hauled to the junkyard if I did. So I didn't buy it. Later on I hauled home a '56 Chevy. Next thing you knew he was out in the driveway helping me work on it. So I figure I would have gotten away with the Volvo!

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  • 2 months later...

I figured she's looking good enough now to warrant an update on this. :)

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Just wanna give a big, big shoutout to my Da.
If it wasn't for Da, I wouldn't even HAVE Lara, let alone have her looking as good as she does right now!
The ledge took me and ma to get her, looked her over, and drove her home from Derry to here, at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning in May. Not to mention being a fountain of knowledge as far as fixing her goes!
Bloody love you ma and da for helping me with my baby! :)
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Getting her to this condition is kinda what's been taking my time away from modelling and the site.. This is the reason for my absence lately! :P
Thanks for lookin'
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She's looking good Tomo. Like it was mentioned before....lots of pictures! That's the one thing I regret not doing. I took 1 picture of my first car and it was sent in to a magazine. It wasn't returned, but was pictured in the magazine. So, I only have the magazine picture to remember it by and it's 1/4 the size and b/w. Oh yeah...it was a 1972 Pontiac LeMans Sport. It looked like a GTO, but unfortunately it wasn't. It looked similar to the pic, but nowhere near as nice.post-9116-0-84760200-1377710575_thumb.jp

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Good looking ride you have there. I do notice something you'll want to get taken care of, though. The left front tire is installed on the wheel backwards. You'll want to get it flipped over so it rolls the proper direction, running a directional tire the wrong way will shorten its tread life, and can cause handling issues.. Whoever mounted it should have known better.

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Oh, it wasn't that subtle...it had the same whole front end as the GTO. And, with one blown muffler, it wasn't quiet either!

Haha awesome :)

Good looking ride you have there. I do notice something you'll want to get taken care of, though. The left front tire is installed on the wheel backwards. You'll want to get it flipped over so it rolls the proper direction, running a directional tire the wrong way will shorten its tread life, and can cause handling issues.. Whoever mounted it should have known better.

Thanks for the heads up! When it comes to actually getting the car on the road it'll be getting a set of 4 of the best tires I can get all round anyway.

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Thanks Andy!

So, Tomo's first day of unsupervised mechanicing didn't go too bad. I didn't die. So it must've been a success.

Labelling everything I take off and pics of where everything goes. No nasty surprises either, the holes in the battery bay seem to be the only major thing, and I already knew about that anyway.

Engine shall be coming out sooner than I'd thought.. Not having a shed and relying on daylight is BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. Can't wait to get a full day stuck in tomorrow then wait for da to give me a hand another day to get the engine out. Cars without grilles are like people without eyebrows...

Onwards and upwards!!

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Cheers!

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The motor is in great shape!

Only has 117k on the clock. Most around here have around 180k, and the 8v motors last forever.

The engine will be getting an overall service when it comes out, filters belts etc.

I'll be taking off the rocker cover, getting it blasted, then it's gonna be painted in the German flag colours, I saw someone do this before and it looked absolutely awesome. Bar that, it'll be a case of

relocating wires, fixing bits and pieces to make them more presentable and stuff. Mechanically the car is sound, it's more a case of looking over what the previous owners might have done! :)

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My first was a '48 Merc coupe, traded it for a '40 Desoto sedan. My favorites were a '55 Buick Century, I recently bought a Maisto Die Cast CHP replica that I want to try revamping. A LOT of mischief in that car! The first car I actually bought on my own was a '69 El Camino I just bought the AMT '68 El Camino on ebay.

Speaking of firsts - my first bike was a '48 Indian.

Good luck with the Golf, Tomo! I had a Rabbit once upon a time, Not one of my favorites.

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go easy on it..

get it back to original as much as you can..don't lower it too much ,it might look great sitting on it's exhaust ,but it'will drive like a wheelbarrow..

get some nice 'period' alloy's for it like the BBS rm's or some Azev A's etc..never bigger then 16's ,if funds permit a nice respray in original LY3D with clearcoat over it ..and maybe original Recaro seats from an Edition one ..

these cars are becomming more and more difficult to come by even more so without being driven in to the ground etc

and when restored right and maintained well will last you a lifetime..

don't worry to much about the 8v GTI engine..you could soak it in salt water ,throw it of a cliff, put it in a freezer ,dump it in the desert,..put it in a car ,hook it up and it will start time and time again..

i have had a fair share of MK1 GTI's (1,8l) in the past ,sometimes i would visit Club GTi events in England

drive to the ferry on Friday ,rev the nuts of them all weekend (keeping up with much faster cars ) ,get back on the ferry on Sunday ,and drive it to work on Monday

apart from 1 broken fuelpump it never gave up..

believe me you could have done much worse for a first car..

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  • 1 month later...

Engine bay has been cleaned ready for welding and repainting. Subframe will be later taken off to be blasted and then any fixing that needs done will be done, then painted black. I know, the car is definitely not without fault, but everything WILL be sorted. Thankfully there hasn't been any surprises, I already knew about everything ya can see here.

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Things aren't going too badly, thankfully! This project got more in depth than planned now, but that's the way things gotta be if you want the car perfect. As for the engine, it's mechanically perfect, so the rocker cover and sump will be taken off and blasted and painted, and then the block will be gone over too. A full service then it's back in, a full service all round, then the car will be road ready! :)

I think I maybe went a little far in for my first car and my first project but hey, gotta learn sometime. Helps having a family of mechanics!

28/9/13

So, an update. GTA V has kinda been taking all my time, heh.

Subframe is being taken out tomorrow.

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Cleaned back here a little. Surprised how good it is - one little rot hole in the spare tyre well, won't take much to rectify.

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All in all, things ain't going tooo badly. Some bits and pieces don't seem to wanna go but they came out eventually. Steady progress. Can't wait to get welding etc. done.

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13/10/13

Getting there... This is how everything stands right now.

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My rally car service station...

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The subframe doesn’t look like much, but thankfully, it’s fairly structurally sound. So, the surface will be fully removed and it’ll be painted.

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Started removing the underseal too, so I can replace it with the clear version - God knows how old this stuff is. least you can see the painted underside now!

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That's everything up to date! :)

This explains my fairly large time away from posting anything on the forum.. I'll be back soon. I've something on the bench. ;)

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Those are such sweet cars !!!I wanted one so bad when I was younger, but insurance rates here in the US made my folks say "NO" !! But on the upside, I did manage to get a Dodge Omni GLHS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_GLHS, the "square" one.. I had no idea what it was at the time, but it looked cool. I wish I still had it ..

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