1988 MK1 Golf GTI Cabriolet

This MK1 Volkswagen Golf GTI Cabriolet, was bought for my girlfriend as a daily driver. It had 160000 miles on the clock and was generally in not bad nick for a 20 year old car. On buying it and driving it back I noticed it wasnt really warming up properly and the temperature gauge wasn’t reading correctly.

So work was started and initially the thermostat was replaced along with the water temperature sender and this did the trick in sorting the temperature issues. The rocker and sump gaskets had slight leaks so were replaced and were treated to some new paint. The usual rotor, cap, leads, plugs etc. were all replaced, but we still noticed a slight hesitation on the throttle after much investigation all the vacuum hoses were changed and it now drives really sweet. A known problem on MK1's are rusty fuel filler necks, ours had already been replaced but one of the fuel pumps did appear to be making a bit of noise so we replaced both the pickup and push pumps along with the fuel filter to make sure there were no rust particles floating about in the system always a good idea.

Unfortunetley during the bout of heavy snow that winter I slid into a kerb damaging the nearside front wishbone and driveshaft along with buckling the wheel. It wasnt a particular bad shunt and probably did us a favour in honestly as it exposed some corrosion on the wishbone. After replacing both the wishbones, bushes, driveshaft and top mounts, along with all new front bushes, decided to put on a set of coil overs while we were at it and picked up a set of original 15" VW sportline BBS alloys with new 175/50 cooper tyres. This made a dramatic change not over giving it a much nicer lower stance but it tightened up the steering and made it an absolute joy to drive. The MOT was coming up so fitted new rear drums, shoes and hand brake cables to the rear and the next step was the interior but then my girlfriend (now wife) decided she wanted to sell because we had a little girl on the way.

The car has since sold it had lots of interest and the new buyer said it did miss a beat on his trek home down in deepest darkest Kent, I hope he enjoys it as much as we did.