mk4 GTi v6.0 - v8 RWD Edition

MiniDave said:

Still following - could you have bent your headers up with the new machine? Will it do the tight bends you need for those? If not, what are you planning to do with it? Roll bar?

Those are some tortured looking front control arms!

Who do you buy your header bends from? I'm going to need some 3" bends for the exhaust system on my Mini hotrod build.

I could have bent tubing, but not mandrel bent, there is a mandrel attachment for my machine, but its big money, much easier to just buy bends.  

My plans for the bender are to build new structure that will tie into the frame, strut tower, then become the tunnel.  Eventually if I want to do a full cage, I'll have the capability, but immediate use was to build the tunnel out of round tube, then start taking on site projects to make cages when I have more space.

Those are e9x OEM control arms, crazy for sure!

All these bends came from JMD Tubes (https://www.jmdtubes.com/) quality is second to none and made in USA!  everyone still loves vibrant, but it all comes from overseas now and the price hasnt changed to reflect that move, just paying for a name and fancy packaging now 

Found some garage time this weekend, mostly getting this picked up, organized before I leave for a work trip, but was able to put in a little time on the v8 car. Yanked the engine out so I could start remaking the one header runner on the passengers side that I didnt like....I was going to create a weird spot in the firewall, so I wanted to give it a new route

The runner that drops down below is the one being remade, it just kinda bothered me

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Old runner removed and broken apart

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Not the best photo, but you can see the green tape, that is the new runner in the making, its going to drop down in that gap and snake back up from under runner #2

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Also picked up some "treasure" a couple weeks ago, found a guy on marketplace that was selling off some 4.2 engine parts, in this photo you see the upper and lower oil pans, then the galley cover for the top of the engine, this part was a great find specifically so I can now start planning how to adapt for an remote oil filter and oil cooler sandwich plate, the last part is just an alternator bracket, I've already modified mine, so an extra was a good pick up for $10

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As mentioned leaving next week for a two week trip to asia for work, hopefully when I get back I can get back on this car and start making some progress.

Its the bosses busy time at work, so while she was working late last night I was able to sneak down to the garage and work on my headers a little....after a little adult lego/jenga, I think I found the combo that works

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Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

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Overall, I think I am happy with this layout/setup, going to leave them while I am away on my trip.  When I come back, if I am still happy with it, I will then go and start tacking up all the runners in more spots (most just have 2 tacks), then go back to fit them again to make sure nothing moved, if that is all good, it will be time to start welding them out

Yesterday after some house project work I decided to crack a cold beer and play in the garage for the first time since before I went to China back in July....CRAZY how fast time goes and how busy life has been.  First order of business was to assembly my new tubing sander.  I've wanted one of these for a while, I picked up this one relatively cheap, I figured it was a good test/proof of concept, then a couple weeks ago HF has these Bauer grinders on sale, so picked one up to be a dedicated tool

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Quick test piece, works as advertised!

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Once that was finished I decided to pull the Cayman out so I could bring the widebody car down and put some time into it.  I picked up this HF porta power a while back, it was an intentional purchase to help resolve an issue where it seems the heavy V-8 has "pulled" the frame rails together a bit, the crash bar and core support don't fit like they should...hopefully i can get this under control, thinking about making a lower tube to keep the rails at the distance they are supposed to....Also hoping it doesnt mess with my subframe and engine mounts...TBD

New tool test day

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Here you can see the hole misalignment 

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Putting in work

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Back from a trip to Europe with the wife, visited 5 countries in 5 days, only to arrive back to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.  first week home was sick as hell, spent the weekend cleaning up around the house/yard, not we are close to back to normal.

Good news, left the porta power on the rails while away, the rails seem to be holding in a good spot, test fit the core support and bumper bash bar, lines up like it should.  Now to get the engine back in to build a lower front brace to prevent that from happening again.  While the engine is still out I took some time to finish trimming up where the OEM firewall attached to the strut towers and the inner fender area.  Next steps will be to work on laying out and bending an upper tube that will connect the back of the strut towers that will also act as the top of the fire wall.

All trimmed up

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So much room for activies LOL

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Going to take a page from @nocones book at start trying to spend a minimum of 30mins a day in the shop to make some amount of progress.  Hoping to do this for the next couple weeks, then I have to fly to the Philippines for a week for work, once back home from that and recovered from the jet lag, I am going to try and get back on that cadence again until a week long work trip in November before thanksgiving.  After that work travel "should be done" for the year, at which point the time will be changed and I hope to start making some substantial progress on this thing

Keeping on track, actually spent a little more than 30min on the car last night.

Got the tubing bender out and dies changed over for the 1.75" tubing for the strut brace, got one length of tube cleaned up, then spent a little more timing cleaning up the back of the strut towers.  Then started sketching out what I think I want the strut bar to look like, thinking of a couple vertical supports as well to tie back into the frame rails.  I think this approach will help with building the firewall structure as well.

Crude drawing of my thoughts, as always, open to any/all feedback

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Day#3 - I have to admit, this is not only rewarding, but motivating....

That being said, I had intended to play with the tubing bender a bit and make up a couple template bends with the 1-3/4 tubing, but when I got out there and started looking and thinking about what my plans are for the tubing and the new firewall, I knew that the remnant seam sealer and undercoating that was previously in the rain tray area was going to be a problem future me did not want to deal with or have concerns of weld contamination.

All that being said, another hour'ish of wire-wheeling were spend un-doing  some of my 20-something  year old self sins!

Now I feel like I have clean slate to start working with, I plan to patch those holes that were previously in the rain tray (triangle shaped) as well as that one round hole that was previously used for harness routing/hiding during show car life 

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Its crazy how much of a mess that stuff makes....but after it was all swept up, I am guessing it was 2-3lbs of weight

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Unfortunately fell off of my 30min a day last week, but it was for good cause, lots of house chores friday and saturday, but more than made up for it yesterday, spent good bit of time in the garage and made some decent progress.

Started on the strut brace...reminder, the evolution chop saw is a great tool!

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by fouckhest, on Flickr

Got myself back up to speed on tube bending

by fouckhest, on Flickr

by fouckhest, on Flickr

Left the legs long to start

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Trimed up, seems like it will fit nicely

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Cut some 3"x3", 1/8" plates for the tubes to land

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Picked these up to help with finding the correct angle for landing the tubes

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Quick test, they work pretty well...now just need to bit the bullet and make the cuts on the real bar and get it tacked into place....did the test without the plates knowing it would be a more difficult shape, so should make doing them on the plates a breeze

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Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

Found a little time in the garage last night, unfortunately my bar is a little on the short side, so it is going to have to be remade....womp womp....but, I am going to chock it up to a learning experience for the bender and I've been thinking I might down size the tube to 1.5" and go with a DOM rather than this is a seamed tube anyways, so might as well make it out of something higher quality

Not going to have any shop time tonight, anniversary dinner with the wifey, hopefully get back out there tomorrow night to see if i can bend another tube up and get my dimensions right, at least that way when I get the more expensive material, I will be confident in the process.

Wow, kind of crazy and embarrassing that its been over a month since I've updated this thread and/or touched my car, but I guess that is life.

The week after my last post I had a work trip to my company's facility in the the Philippines, got home/recovered then spent the next couple weekends on house projects.  But in prep for an upcoming gathering my wife and I host every year, I had to start getting the basement and garage organized and cleaned up as that is our hosting spot.

I wanted/needed to get the engine back in my project car, but that came fought with moving the cayman to get the engine hoist out, which annoyed me that this tubing was laying on the floor, so utilized some scraps from a recent fence project and after chasing that squirrel for a while, I now have this handy little tubing rack!

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Untitled by fouckhest, on Flickr

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Getting strangely efficient at this...engine on hoist at 615p

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Engine bolted in car at 630p

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Hoping after Thanksgiving I can start to dedicate some time to this project again, I'd like to see some progress in 2025.

But look how far you've come with it! And all the cool tools you now have to work with too....you're doing some premium work, it will be a fantastic machine when you're done....   

MiniDave said:

But look how far you've come with it! And all the cool tools you now have to work with too....you're doing some premium work, it will be a fantastic machine when you're done....   

Thanks, Dave!  

Appreciate the kind words, looking forward to putting the tools to work for sure!

MiniDave said:

But look how far you've come with it! And all the cool tools you now have to work with too....you're doing some premium work, it will be a fantastic machine when you're done....   

Thanks, Dave!  

Appreciate the kind words, looking forward to putting the tools to work for sure!

Premium work indeed. I love seeing this on page 1.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

Premium work indeed. I love seeing this on page 1.

Thank you, good motivation for me!

Rewind back to 4th of July'ish I had posted about my new "side distraction," well, that off hand comment has come back to bite me!! LOL

In trying to ensure the ~375k mile TDi stayed reliable, I had ordered a timing belt kit, planned to do that "at some point," which was promptly expedited when the injector pump lost prime, which meant the pump needed rebuilt, and to rebuild the pump, you dont have to, but its much easier to rebuild on the bench, which means removing it from the car and its driven by the timing belt.....SO project schedule adjustment

Black Friday a buddy and I both did heater core replacements in our cars at the same time to assist each other where needed, which was planned.  Then onto the expedited timing belt, and injector pump rebuild (also small upgrade to 11mm pump vs stock 10mm, b/c while your in there)

VW Timing service mode

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Injection pump seal replacement

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Back together, buttoned up, IQ setting bumped up to hopefully give it a little more umph, while we were in there and timing the pump

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Now that the timing belt/injector pump was complete, and while most of the interior is still out from the heater core replacement, WHY NOT clean up the interior....so here we are....

Fully gutted interior (dash just sitting there to be out of the way)

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Large pile of scrubbed/cleaned/recleaned and protected very old brittle vw plastic interior parts

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Now to start the put it back together portion....going to start by getting new speakers installed, followed by the new headunit and then will get the dash back together...then clean carpet, seats and recover the headliner, pilars and door cards

New audio components

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worked on getting the tweeters installed last night....seems like they will work well

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....Thats all for now, happy holidays all!  Hope to be back on the primary distraction after the holidays, I need to see some progress on the v-8 car

Well, almost a month has gone by and while trying to keep this focused on the project as titled in this thread @captainawesome reminded me in his thread that my updates have been sparce...

That being said, my side project is getting close to being out of the shop....I was busy as h3ll over the holiday break, my company shuts down, so it allowed me some solid focus time

After my last update, decide to take a break from my side project, to take on a little side side project in the form of an xmas gift for my wife...found a photo on FB for inspiration, gathered up some scraps from around the shop/scrap bin, then headed to lowes depot to buy some cheap galvanized nuts

scrap sheet metal

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scrap chain

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nuts being tacked

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more soaking in works

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fast forward....she likes sunflowes, so here is the finished product

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Back to the original side project

interior going back together

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Creative seatbelt cleaning

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As you can see, well worth it

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Cleaning up the rear seats, nice improvement!!

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Rear seats back installed....started cleaning the fronts, ran out of cleaning supplies, so had to pause until more arrived, so moved onto mechanical work

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Project axle boot/cv refresh

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While axles were out I ordered new rotors, somehow got the wrong front pads, so the fronts got reused 

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Finishing up brake and axle install, moved onto cleaning up the old heat sheilds that were covered in soot from when someone drove the car w/o the cat 

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Just need to bleed brakes tonight and it will be close to time to get the car out of the shop and get the v8 car back in.....also have my silver 337 car getting ready for paint, so should be a nice opportunity to have a solid work space in the actual shop for the next few months!

....in the meantime, the v8 car has been living in the basement/old garage/my office.....so the good thing is, I see it everyday, the bad thing is, I am reminded everyday that I am not working on it...

Soon....Soon

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I love everything that is happening over here. God-Speed. 

Care to give us some details on your interior detailing products and methods?

And that flower is awesome. Very, very cool. 

Just wanted to add this is awesome. Nice work keeping on and not giving up!

Dusterbd13 said:

Care to give us some details on your interior detailing products and methods?

And that flower is awesome. Very, very cool. 

Thank you on the flower, I like those little projects, I've made the wife several things over the 5ish years we've been together.

Happy to share details on the cleaning process, there was a lot of learning as I go....the main cleaning product used  is called "MultiX" by Carpro, a buddy turned me onto this stuff, he is really good at searching the interwebz for the best bang for your buck stuff, this product will NOT dissapoint. (mix into spray bottle with warm/hot water for best results)

Plastic/Vinyl parts - MultiX was the sole cleaner used, this stuff with a good soak down followed by the brushes does a great job of getting into the pattern/grain molded into the plastic, which seams to be where must of the tough gunk lives.  Once looking clean, I used microfibers to dipped in warm water to do a wipe down, then repeat with multix and brush as needed. (side note, spare/old/recycled toothbrushes are great for the hard to reach spots like vents)

Seats/carpet/seatbelts - I used a Bissell "stain pre-treat" on the stains you could tell were deep, following the spot pretreat I would basically spray down the entire seat with MultiX, then would hit them with the brushes below, depending on how the stain looked I would then get the small carpet shampooer out and go over it with the "broad head" then take that off and hit any really stubborn parts with just the hose as you get a lot more "sucking power."

Noteworthy - on the carpet and seatbelts, I did use the shopvac quite a bit, they have a LOT more sucking power and really helps get some of the deep stuff out.  I may have used the shop vac a little on the seats, but tried to avoid that so it did stretch the fabric out.

Brush kit from lowes (found back by the bathroom fixtures)

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Also - here is my  thread over on garagejournal, I detailed the progress over there since that is my "catch all" thread

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/my-mini-garagemahal.460683/page-27

That flower thing is berkeleying awesome!

rustomatic said:

That flower thing is berkeleying awesome!

Thanks!