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  • Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

    So, backstory; the white Jetta has a few panels that are in less than desirable condition and its also missing a few little random bits. I saw this abandoned, Gambia Red, 1985 Jetta GL on Facebook for cheap so I figured it'd make a good parts car. Right? Well, when I got it towed back to the barn I immediately decided that it was too clean to rip apart, and thus, I found myself in the interesting situation of now having two Mk2 Jettas to deal with as well as still kinda needing a parts car... I did a quick once over and couldn't see why it wouldn't start, so I threw in a fresh battery, cranked it, and it fired right up! Yeah... at that moment I was definitely sold on saving this car.









    As previously mentioned, this is a 1985 Jetta GL, so its an early small bumper car, with a 1.8 8v mated to a 5 speed manual, controlled by the Bosch CIS mechanical fuel injection system, a setup carried over almost unmodified from the Mk1 GTI. This car is complete, has extremely minimal rust, and unlike the white car, runs and drives perfectly fine! It also has an interesting combination of options. It is a non-sunroof car, with crank windows, but it has central locking. Surprisingly, the vacuum operated central locking is still somehow 100% functional. When you lock the drivers door handle, all the other three door handles lock, as well as the trunk, and even the gas cap! Additionally, it has manual, but heated seats. As far as issues go, the only minor problems are that the brakes feel a little vague, the tail light is smashed, and the shifter is very worn, its hard to tell the difference between reverse and 1st.
    The best part of this car though, is that its bone stock, save for the round headlights and grille (the car came with the original rectangles too, in good shape). Everything on this car has remained Stock in the 34 years its been roaming around Canada, its actually quite amazing.









    When parked next to the white one, its quite interesting to see the subtle differences between the early, and later Mk2s. I never noticed that the front windows and rear plate tub were different. The sideview mirrors are even mounted in a completely different place. I must say though, I think I prefer the look of the big bumper Mk2s.







    A few days ago I moved the red Jetta from the barn to my driveway so I could work on it easier. Here are some detailed shot of the cars current condition. The paint is extremely faded and oxidized, but the body is overall in pretty good shape. I think this car will turn out looking quite sharp once I'm done with it!













    I started off with giving the engine bay a thorough clean as it was quite disgusting looking. Unfortunately I'm an idiot and forgot to take pictures of it unmolested, I only remembered after I applied degreaser, and scrubbed it a bit. Oh well, I think the pictures still capture the difference it made.







    I've done a bit more work than that on the car, but I don't have time right now to type it all out. One last thing about this car, I actually have it "pre-sold", the car is spoken for, but its still under my custody until I finish up some work on it. This will be a new and interesting experience for me haha.
    Last edited by GingerBeef; 08-02-2019, 10:20 AM.
    Jason

    "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
    ---Samuel Moore

    Instagram: @Wangtastic
    PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

  • #2
    Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

    Jason to the rescue!!! Nice save on this one, looks like a little TLC will go a long way!
    Blair
    Former Cars: '12 Fiat 500, '10 VW GTI, '05 Smart Fortwo, '96 VW Jetta GLX, '02 VW GTI 337.........

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    • #3
      Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

      Hello again, I forgot to mention in the last post that i've named this Jetta "Ol' Greg". So, continuing on, I gave O'l Greg the classic driveway wash. There was so much oxidization on the paint that suds were turning red.. After the wash, the Jetta actually looked quite a bit better already. It still looked terrible, but less terrible. So I count that as a win.





      In order to perform a thorough paint correction of the terribly faded paint, the exterior had to be disassembled as much as possible. This meant removing the fender flares, bumpers, grille, lights, and the fragile bits such as the marker lights and badges. I decided to leave the rub strips on, as they are a pain in the ass to remove without damaging them and an even bigger nightmare to try to get to stick on the car properly again. To absolutely nobody's surprise, there was quite a bit of accumulated crap under these parts (especially in the fender flares).













      Under the fender flares, the wheel arches looked to be in really good shape. There was only one tiny spot of rust, the white splotches you see are where the paint flaked off from factory the rocker guard due to what I assume was the material shrinking at a faster rate than the paint over the years. Still, not bad for a 34 year old car with 240ish thousand kilometers on the clock.













      After I cleaned off as much of the gunk as I could with warm soapy water and masked some sensitive areas of the car, it was time to start correcting this paint. I started off with the passenger side fender, and moved onto the hood for one epic 50/50 shot. So far so good...







      All I can say is.. I love old paint. I'll shut up for once and just move onto the pictures.











      Here is a before and after of the fender that I started with.







      From my initial inspection of the body, I thought that the entire car was all original paint. Unfortunately, it turns out the drivers fender has been resprayed. The paint match is good, you cant tell from the colour match, but the paint behaved a lot differently when being polished, and the entire surface has a tiny cracked texture to it. As for the rest of the paint, I believe it was all original. The quality of finish is consistent with Volkswagen's back in the day. Also, unlike my white car, there are no signs of overspray, or masking lines anywhere else.
      Last edited by GingerBeef; 07-18-2019, 01:04 AM.
      Jason

      "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
      ---Samuel Moore

      Instagram: @Wangtastic
      PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

        Looks great, that paint shines, I think it's got better gloss than my MK7 Red paint!

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

          Wow! Nice work Jason!
          Rob

          2004 VW R32

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          • #6
            Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

            Holy crap Jason...well done....unbelievable actually!!!
            Hers 2009 Audi A4 6sp manual
            Mine....2005 Golf TDI, VNT 17, Malone tuned stage 4, Spec stage 2 clutch, FMIC, Ventectomy, NewSouth gauges, BuzzKen 2.5 turbo back exhaust, Evolution Skidplate, Helix OEM Reps retrofitted with Morimoto Bixenon mini's, ST coils, colour matched Huffs. Frostheater

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            • #7
              Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

              Unreal. So good man!!!!
              Derek

              -2008 Avus Silver RS4-Fat ass II
              -1996 C4S-Fat Ass
              -2007 FJ Cruiser-6 speed

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              • #8
                Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                That looks really good. Must be a fairly satisfying task when you see such a big difference!
                Stefan
                -> '19 Deep Black Pearl Alltrack
                -> '05 Urban Grey Passat Wagon TDI.
                -> Past rides: '14 Allroad, 06 Mazda5, '98 Jetta K2, '01 Jetta TDI, '91 Mazda B2200, '81 Toyota Cressida
                -> FutuRe Ride...??!

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                • #9
                  Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                  Originally posted by witchcraftz View Post
                  Looks great, that paint shines, I think it's got better gloss than my MK7 Red paint!
                  Originally posted by Circuits View Post
                  Wow! Nice work Jason!
                  Originally posted by Geobmx4life View Post
                  Holy crap Jason...well done....unbelievable actually!!!
                  Originally posted by GINCH View Post
                  Unreal. So good man!!!!
                  Thanks friends! Im actually quite stunned at how good the paint was under all that crust as well.

                  Originally posted by stefan View Post
                  That looks really good. Must be a fairly satisfying task when you see such a big difference!
                  Thanks Stefan, but fairly satisfying? No. It was extremely satisfying to see it come back to life. It was actually almost disappointing when I finished the car cause there was no more major work to do, but the second i took a step back and looked at the whole thing that feeling of dissapointment quickly faded haha

                  Sorry for the late reply/ lack of updates. I impulse bought a one way plane ticket to Philadelphia to accompany Jerry in driving his GLI back across America so the car is literally still sitting on jackstands like it is in the last pic. Once I'm back I need to quickly hit some of the last few areas with my smaller polisher, then ceramic coat the car, get some PDR work done, and throw it back together before I move onto a quick mechanical refresh. The car really doesn't really need anything, but I want the car to be in tip top mechanical shape, ready to be a full on daily for the new owner.
                  Jason

                  "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
                  ---Samuel Moore

                  Instagram: @Wangtastic
                  PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                    Mini update; yesterday I had some time to work on the car a bit since I abononed it half stripped on my driveway. I started by washing it off, and then I finished polishing the small areas where the Bigfoot couldn't reach.








                    Then, I wiped the entire vehicle down with alcohol and applied a layer of ceramic coating. The coating seemed to have brought alot more depth out of the (mostly original) finish.













                    I was hoping that the ceramic coating would bring more shine into the duller looking, repainted drivers side fender, but it kinda did the opposite.. Actually, it did nothing to it in terms of appearance. But, it made all the surrounding paint much shinier, so the contrast in the end result was worse. Oh well, I already knew that ceramic coating was pretty good at its job, but it isn't a miracle solution.
                    Tomorrow, I will do some reassembly, and maybe start on the interior!

                    Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk
                    Last edited by GingerBeef; 08-01-2019, 12:55 AM.
                    Jason

                    "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
                    ---Samuel Moore

                    Instagram: @Wangtastic
                    PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                      Another day of small progress. I was planning on working on this car the whole day, but life happens so I ended up only having a few hours before the monthly meet. I threw parts on as quickly as I could, and started to restore the black plastics.













                      Trust me when I say, that was extremely satisfying to do. After that, I cleaned and installed the last few little pieces like the badges, and then put on some OEM Mk1 GTI Snowflakes. I then proceeded to make it fashionably late to the monthly meet!















                      I think at this point, I can officially call this project a successful rescue, I still need to clean the engine bay more, and deal with the interior and accompanying smells.. But it drove excellently tonight.

                      Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk
                      Jason

                      "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
                      ---Samuel Moore

                      Instagram: @Wangtastic
                      PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                        A very successful rescue, the car looks great!!
                        Blair
                        Former Cars: '12 Fiat 500, '10 VW GTI, '05 Smart Fortwo, '96 VW Jetta GLX, '02 VW GTI 337.........

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                          What are you using to restore your plastics?
                          Nice rescue, the 50/50 shot of the hood is always my favorite to see. Looking fantastic.
                          | 2013 Volkswagen Golf R | Deep Black Pearl |
                          Insta @jbreen13... its not very exciting... you've been warned

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                          • #14
                            Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                            Originally posted by JBreen10 View Post
                            What are you using to restore your plastics?
                            Nice rescue, the 50/50 shot of the hood is always my favorite to see. Looking fantastic.
                            A heat gun on low heat, and Chemical Guys VRP. The VRP will make any faded plastic look brand new, but it doesn't last too long. The heat gun wasnt necessary, just used to bring some natural blackness back, so even when the VRP fades out, there's still a base that isn't bright grey.

                            Onto more updates. For those of you that didn't know, I threw out my back from simply coughing on August 11th, and have been unable to do anything for the last 2.5 weeks :(
                            Im finally feeling better to the point where I can work on cars a little bit again. Firstly, I got Aaron (HailstormYYC) to swing by and straighten out the Jetta's body. After polishing it appears that the cars been in a minor hailstorm at some point in its life. There was also a random huge dent on the roof. Aaron took out around 70 dents on this car, and it looks even better now!









                            Then, the new owner mentioned that he wanted the car to be just a bit lower (and the stock suspension was looking a little bit crusty) so I threw on the FK Cup kit that came on my white Jetta.







                            The first pic is the stock height, for comparison. But I need to redo the brakes on this car too, so it's still currently on jackstands. I'll take an after picture once the brakes are done. Thanks for following, sorry again for the little break, trust me, it's good to be back haha.

                            Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk
                            Jason

                            "You dont buy a Volkswagen once, you buy it ten times."
                            ---Samuel Moore

                            Instagram: @Wangtastic
                            PM me to get your car detailed! - Brightside Detailing

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Whoops, Another Mk2 Jetta

                              Nice, it's looking amazing, who's the new owner?

                              Getting dents out might be cheaper in Alberta than BC, I got quoted $150 for 3 dents here.

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