Arthur's 1983 vw rabbit gl build

[racycle]

anyone still read this? if so ill keep updating it

[Savin]

Keep updating! I might not really post on this, but I'm still a fan of watching the progress!

[kulluminati777]

I check it out when there is updates for sure.

[racycle]

So after getting the convertible running I decided to give it away to a friend and picked up another one haha.

This is how it looked when i picked it up, 3 hour drive one way.



started the drive at late dusk with no lights on the cluster. we got 10 minutes away and noticed i had no running lights. plus it was getting to the point where I couldn't see my speed. So we pulled into a gas station, spent 3$ for 4 fuses #robbed. Found 2 blown fuses and got my cluster lights and running lights back on. had to use the gas pump for my card, was going to fill up sence the needle said 3/4. I got .47cent of gas before gas started pooring all over the ground soooo my needle is off haha. My phone was about to die so I had no gps and my friend's data was about to run out so we chanced it with him leading. Sure enough 30 minutes into the drive I had to piss like hell, after about another hour of driving my friend starts using random turn signals so I'm turning mine on. Pretty sure the guy behind me had no clue what was going on. Finally we turned down some random dark road and we had a piss off at a stop sign. Car was steaming a little, noticed I had a coolant leak but nothing I could do about it right now plus it wasn't a big leak so we were back on the road. We were doing 60mph coming into a town about 40 minutes from home and ALL my lights go out and the car shuts off so I am at 60mph in the dark trying to follow his tail lights as i coast to a stop. I roll into the town to find 3 cops and a ambulance at the first house in town. (not for me, someone had a accident.) About 6 people run over to me as they saw a set of lights disappear. Another car was coming down the road at about 60mph and my car is blacked out with no lights. lucky one of them had a flashlight and waved them down to slow down and we quickly pushed the car into a driveway. Lucky the car only weights about 1800lbs and 50% of that is in the motor. Found out the ground jumped off the battery. We got it all straight and made it home haha.

First things first was to make the car street legal. It had no windshield wipers or wiper motors OR wiring. The turn signals only worked when the 4way flashers switch was half on/half off. sooooo



Ran all the wiring, wired in the proper relays and fixed the turn signal's wiring.



Next was to wire up the electric bmw seats the last owner made mounts for them.




While I had the dash out working on the wiring I figured now would be the best time to do a dash swap.






Had to use a dermal to make the dash besel fit with my mk3 cluster. Sence I removed the heater core completely I used the center vents for the cd player and the gauges in the cd player spot. wiring in the headlight switch from the 84 gti dash to the jetta switch was a real pain in the @$$ haha.

While working on the wiring I installed a early styled grill. I had to ziptie the bottom of it. Part of the metal that the grill clips to was cut off so the shallow fans would fit. Right now the Car has a VR6 motor and trans in it from a mk3 with eurowise conversion mounts and custom cv axles.



Lastly, How it currently sits.




Theres your update <3

[racycle]

Bass switch



redid the headliner





Sooo I never noticed that I didn't have the 4th motor mouth from the transmission to the frame in the back. The motor ended up bending the core support upward, torn the bushing out, bent the mount on the motor and thus pushing the radiator up and from under the metal the hood latch is on.

soooo





kind of hard to make out, I think I had greese on the camera haha but they are both bent up.