My 3rd Golf !!!

[RC84]

Thanks mate ! yeah painted in situ. Steel brushed everything and wiped the calipers and hubs with some degreaser. I just covered the caliper with a cloth and put cardboard behind the disc to cover most of the wheel arch etc and sprayed the hub with hammerite smooth silver spray paint. I just wiped the excess off with degreaser and spun the disk round a bit to get the spot that was hidden.

For the calipers I just used a tin of the red halfords paint and a half inch brush and gave them 2 coats each! Came up really well!

Cheers dude, I'm gonna do mine soon so any advice is good advice

[bluebert92]

You can't go wrong! Nice and easy way to smarten things up 

Took me from 9am to 2pm but I'm happy with the results! Thanks for the tips millar!

[millar95]

Nice one ! looks great mate ! 

[millar95]

UPDATE


So at the weekend my OCD kicked in and I decided to tidy up the front wheel arches and have a look at the condition of the sills behind the arch liners as its a pretty weak spot on the mk5 and probably alot of other cars too !

I started off by undoing all the screws that hold the liner in place and then wiggled it out...



This revealed 10 years worth of dirt and crap !

Passenger Side


When I went round to the drivers side and it was all cleaned up, I noticed a bit of surface rust in the same area...





Outcame the sand paper, primer and black paint to try and sort this out 



Once I had sorted that I got a bit carried away and decided to give the shockers and most rusty looking bits a coat of black hammerite 



I gave the liners a good clean and a coating of chemical guys trim gel to bring them back to life...

I also took the little retaining clips of the calipers gave them a coat of silver hammerite and I also painted the 2 most noticeable screws in the wheel arch silver as it gives a really clean look IMO 

I had also previously painted the steering wheel caps or whatever they are called black as they looked a bit tatty. But I decided to also paint the GTI part of the steering wheel in black as well to finish off the look    Once I had painted it black though the GTI letters didn't really stand out so I used a tornado red touch up stick to go over the letters, its not perfect but I think it looks pretty cool 

[Shoduchi]

Nice work.

PS: I think the screws in the liners you painted silver are originally black.

[millar95]

Yeah you are right Shoduci ! I seen it on a mk4 at a show and thought i'd see how it looked   

[Shoduchi]

The screws now stand out a bit more. Much like the wheel GTI badge. It's your personal customization.

[bluebert92]

I've got this thread on notify and am just completely jacking all your ideas.

[millar95]

  not a problem Bert, im glad you like everything so far 

[millar95]

After looking through the forum I discovered another relatively cheap mod I could try    The parts I decided to change were the gear linkage bushes and bracket bushes to 42DD and an ebay special short shifter as its pretty much the same as the forge one but loads cheaper! I'll try my best to show how I done it as its really straight forward all you need is a socket set and some spare time 

Short shifter
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180949054815?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

42 Draft Designs Shifter Bushing
http://www.awesomegti.com/car/vw/golfmk5/42-draft-vw-shifter-bushing-set-mk5-6s-my06

42 Draft Designs Shifter Bracket Bushings
http://www.awesomegti.com/car/vw/golfmk5/42-draft-designs-shifter-bracket-bushings



So to start with I removed the pipe for my induction kit and the battery and its tray. It saves having to work in a tight space but I dont think its absolutely necessary !









I then removed the old shifter by undoing the metal clips on the gear linkages and the side to side part of the shifter. The gear linkage on the left is for the throw of the gear stick and the linkage on the right is for side to side movement of the gear stick.



Once at this stage, I began by tackling the linkage bracket. It has 3, 13mm bolts that secure the bracket in place and underneath them lies the rubber bushes jammed between the hole in the bracket. I slackened each one off so that the bracket was lose. I then done one at a time then tightened them all up.

old vs new



I gave the bolts a lick off silver paint to tidy them up and a photo of them fitted...



Next I lined the the short shifter on the spline, its really easy to locate as the shifter and the spline both have a tooth missing to ensure they line up correctly.



old vs new


Now onto the gear linkages. They have a rubber insert thats held in place with 4 diagonal plastic tabs. In order to get them out you have to break these tabs. I used a slotted screw driver and a rubber mallet to do this. Once you pop the old rubber bushes out you can click the new ones into place.

Before


After


So I assembled everything back together...



Got in the car, wiggled the gearstick to make sure it was in neutral, foot on the clutch and couldnt put it into 1st or 2nd gear  . 3rd to 6th were fine but I couldnt undertsand what was wrong. At first I thought the new short shifter wasnt moving freely enough to select the gears to farted about with it for a bit but still no joy.

With a bit of googling I found a video on how to adjust the gear linkages as any movement of the gear stick in the car whilst fitting can throw the linkages out of sync 

To do this I prised off the gearstick surround and youll find a hole on the stick and a hole at the base. I put an alan key through them both to keep the stick in place. Back round to the engine bay and I squeezed the linkages so that the spring compressed and twisedt the end to lock them in place like so...



I then pushed down on the shirt shifter about a 1/4 inch and twisted it anti clockwise. I undone the gear linkage on the right grabed the threaded part of the cable. Then pushed the shifter clockwise and undone the left hand side gear linkage so it grabed its cable. Took out the the alan key from the car and popped the surround back on.

Immediately the gears felt alot better and smoother and i could now engage 1st and 2nd gear 

Took the car a drive and the difference was incredible ! shifts are really precise and the throw was nice and short (set at max 40% reduction). Overall great mod that makes such a huge difference for very little money imo 

Thanks for reading guys 

[millar95]

Video I used incase anyone is interested