Contradiction's 1984 VW Rabbit GTI "Survivor" Build Thread

mk1's and scirocco's always had terrible brakes, well the UK ones did anyway my 85 Scirocco GTX wasn't the best and that was after a full overhaul, we didn't get the 16 valve scirocco in the UK that had to wait until the mk2 golf was released for us. The Euro bumpers are such a huge improvement of your original specification ones, your rear lights are also much bigger than anything we had over here, also look like your rear panel under the trunk opening has the swallow tail like design the we only got on the very early 70's cars. Love the interior though, we didn't get anything that bright!

Ian wrote: mk1's and scirocco's always had terrible brakes, well the UK ones did anyway my 85 Scirocco GTX wasn't the best and that was after a full overhaul, we didn't get the 16 valve scirocco in the UK that had to wait until the mk2 golf was released for us. The Euro bumpers are such a huge improvement of your original specification ones, your rear lights are also much bigger than anything we had over here, also look like your rear panel under the trunk opening has the swallow tail like design the we only got on the very early 70's cars. Love the interior though, we didn't get anything that bright!

Yeah I can't say that I miss the US railroad tie bumpers! I'm thinking about getting black powdercoated small euro bumpers for this eventually but it probably won't be this year.

Actually the swallowtail trunk panel is different then this. It makes that indentation further in from the taillights.

The interiors on the US GTIs are definitely distinctive. A friend of mine said he was looking at the pictures of my interior on facebook when I posted them and his wife happened to be sitting next to him and she said "Oh my God that interior is so 80's!" and he replied "That's why it's awesome!" LOL

Suspension is done! First time she's seen the light of day in 2 years!

For randomly choosing a height on the coilovers I'm pretty happy with the ride height right now. It's about a 3 finger gap and the control arms look parallel. I'm going to check my ground to fender measurements and fine tune it from that but otherwise I'm happy with it.

I definitely need to fine tune the alignment though because holy toe out! Besides that I need to tie up some other loose ends this weekend and get it over to the mechanic to do the brake lines.

Yes!

I'm dancing a happy dance like snoopy for you.

It's not pretty.

Looking great sir! Figure out your alignment specs?

Dusterbd13 wrote: I'm dancing a happy dance like snoopy for you. It's not pretty.

Haha, it can't be any uglier then the Snoopy Dance I did! I do that pretty much everytime I look at it for the last couple days. Can't wait to drive this thing again!

How hard is it to rebuild those rear drums?

I'm trying to decide to either rebuild drums or go to discs, I'm having major brake issues on my Rabbit.

84FSP wrote: Looking great sir! Figure out your alignment specs?

Thanks! I'm going to have to play with it a little bit more but the toe out is a lot better after I tweaked it a bit. I'm probably going to forego the string trick or the 2 tape measure deal and just eyeball it and bring it to an alignment shop after I get it back.

Still debating if I go up a little bit in ride height yet. It's about a 2 finger gap right now and 23-1/8" H for Ground to Fender. I'm a bit above parallel for the control arms. I'm going to see if it changes much if I go up to 23-3/8" or 23-1/2"

simontibbett wrote: How hard is it to rebuild those rear drums? I'm trying to decide to either rebuild drums or go to discs, I'm having major brake issues on my Rabbit.

I can't say pretty simple in 100% confidence yet because it hasn't been driven yet so I can't say whether or not I've done everything right.

In general though it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be to setup all of the springs, etc. If you have a properly assembled shoe set to reference through the process it helps a lot.

I also found 2 great DIYs.

This link is for MK3 200mm rear drums from the immortal MK3 guru Dan J Reed from vwvortex:

Dan J Reed Rear Drum DIY

This second one is from a MK1 Scirocco:

timbox.net 180mm Rear Drum DIY

The thing to remember with the rear disc setup is you need EVERYTHING from the 16v or later rear disc setup. The 22mm MC, the Discs, and the proportioning valves. Without the proper proportioning valves the discs may actually stop WORSE then the drums from what I have read. Too many people skip that detail and have problems.

I think like others were saying on your thread putting the parking brake back on may help to adjust things better, and if it's not that you might need to look at the MC. I'd start with the parking brake first. I can see how much just pulling on the parking brake arm seems to open up the wheel cylinder so I have to imagine that does something for it.

When there working on the hard lines make sure they check the proportioning valve as well. Had to do that with one of my rabbits as it had gotten stuck partially closed and I couldn't bleed the brakes to save my life. All it took was to pull it apart and work the plungers back and forth till they moved easily and reinstalled it and presto brakes worked fine. This was after replacing the master twice and the booster once plus all the soft lines and slave cylinders on the rear brakes. Found it was the only thing I hadn't replaced or blown out with compressed air.

brad131a4 wrote: When there working on the hard lines make sure they check the proportioning valve as well. Had to do that with one of my rabbits as it had gotten stuck partially closed and I couldn't bleed the brakes to save my life. All it took was to pull it apart and work the plungers back and forth till they moved easily and reinstalled it and presto brakes worked fine. This was after replacing the master twice and the booster once plus all the soft lines and slave cylinders on the rear brakes. Found it was the only thing I hadn't replaced or blown out with compressed air.

Thanks for the heads up! So I have the block style proportioning valve mounted to the shock tower on my 84 GTI which from what I understand is more of a residual pressure reducer. It isn't like the 16v Scirocco proportioning valves because the drums have less pressure and just need to reduce it some.

Is this what you had or something else on an earlier rabbit? From what I can see I'm not sure if there's a way to adjust it.

If I remember correctly it is just before the rear beam attachment points behind the drivers side rear seat. Should look like a octopus of brake lines coming in and going out. It has a spring on it that attaches to the front of the beam that you adjust for biasing the brakes.

It's for brake dive so the rears don't lock up when in a panic stop. I adjusted mine after I lowered my rabbit as it changes the geometry a bit.

Not all MKI have that rear prop valve, all the trucks do and later scirocco do.

brad131a4 wrote: If I remember correctly it is just before the rear beam attachment points behind the drivers side rear seat. Should look like a octopus of brake lines coming in and going out. It has a spring on it that attaches to the front of the beam that you adjust for biasing the brakes. It's for brake dive so the rears don't lock up when in a panic stop. I adjusted mine after I lowered my rabbit as it changes the geometry a bit.

Okay. I actually don't have that on my 84 GTI. There's a residual pressure reducer block mounted on the strut tower near the MC that drops down the pressure before fluid goes to the rear soft lines. As far as I know there is no adjustment for that. Nothing on the rear beam for me. Thanks for the heads up though.

Ok I might be thinking of a different car then? Next time I have a chance I'll check out one of my friends rabbits. Damn old age is jumbling a lot of things together.

Now that I think about it you're right I had the same thing on the inner fender of my rabbit. Reason I remember is that I had to change out one of the hardlines when it rusted and broke. Not sure of the later GTI but the earlier rabbits had the brake line run into the passenger foot well right at the bottom of the transfer up the firewall. Best feat of engineering known to man I tell you. It's very surprising just how much brake fluid ends up in the car after that first time braking.

Ah just remembered it was my vanagon that had the rear biasing valve. Guess it at least was a vw I was thinking about.

If you've owned enough of them I'm sure they all run together at some point.

Yeah that's why I wanted to replace all of my hard lines. Better safe then sorry, or to get it back on the road and then need to replace one months later!

berkeley YOU GAS PEDAL CABLE GROMMET! There, I just had to get that off of my chest.

One of the last things I needed to do tonight before towing the car to the mechanic was replacing the stupid foam rubber gas pedal cable grommet that fell apart the last time I was running the car aeons ago. Thankfully I was only in the garage when it happened and not on the road when my gas pedal came unhooked!

After taking the front seat out and laying on the floor of my car in about a dozen different uncomfortable positions I finally managed to fish the throttle cable hook through the grommet and into the pedal end. Just an FYI for anyone else who has to do this in the future you are better off pushing the cable hook through the grommet, and then the grommet through the pedal end. Anything else was just too clumsy to attempt with little to no space for my fingers.

Tomorrow afternoon she gets towed to the mechanic for the brake lines. Hopefully by Friday if all goes well I drive it home! I feel like I'm waiting in the delivery room for my first child.....

Car is at the mechanic right now getting the brake lines replaced. I had hoped to pick it up today but that's not happening. I politely asked when they think it will be done and the receptionist said probably tomorrow afternoon. So the dollar signs are increasing for sure, but he said he recently finished another brake line job for $200. I'll be happy if I walk away for $500 truthfully.

Fingers crossed that there are no issues on startup since it has not run in a long time. The only weak link I'm afraid of on the fuel system at this point is the fuel pump because I am having them swap in a new one. If that doesn't kick on and we think it's the problem I can always order one.

Hopefully I drive this sucker home tomorrow afternoon and get it dropped off for alignment on Friday or Monday!

Impatiently waiting to get the car back. They had some trouble running the brake lines (which is why I didn't want to do it!) and it sounds like it's close to being done but the fuel line from the accumulator to the fuel pump or the fuel pump is leaking from the fitting.

I had another used one in a cache of used fuel system parts I bought from someone else so I asked them to give that a try and give me a call if it doesn't help. Worst case scenario I buy the hose and a fuel pump and get it over with. It's only $$$$ right?

OUCH!!! $937 dollars at the shop but that's replacing ALL of the hard brake and fuel lines, bleeding the brakes, etc. I'm a bit disappointed that it was supposedly $306 for additional brake line and the 5/16" fuel line, but I maybe could have shaved $100 off that ordering it myself online. That seemed like it was a bit of gouging.

Oh well, the bottom line is IT'S ALIVE!!!!! I'm picking it up this afternoon after work. Going to take a nice long drive just because I can then get it in the garage and monkey with the ride height a bit after I put on the track wheels I bought used. 15 x 6.5"s that weight 12.9 lbs. I want to see how the 205/50/15s fit and make sure that everything clears when they do the alignment on Thursday.

I can't tell you how excited I am. It's like that Christmas when you tossed and turned all night, and woke up at 4 AM, and sat impatiently at the tree until Mom and Dad woke up and you opened your Nintendo!

pics or it didn't happen.

and agreed on the ouch. granted I do streetrod/musclecar stuff, but I think my average is about 450 for all lines in not stainless.

I'll have some pics in a few hours, which feels like an ETERNITY from now!

Yeah labor was $585 which was about what I expected but the brake and fuel line cost is a bit absurd. It's $105 for 25 ft. of the 5/16" fuel line from Fed Hill online.

Oh well, I can live with it. I'm just excited to be driving it!

I know the cant wait feeling. my new gauges should be here Thursday. that's an eternity....

looking forward to the drive report and flogging video.