Having made good progress before Christmas, JJ gets stuck into the serious job of fitting the front suspension, brakes and steering

Having sorted the brakes on the Mk2, next on the ‘to do’ list was to fit my GAZ Gold coilovers to the rear axle. The only drama here was undoing the rear suspension only to discover that a pair of collars illustrated in the Haynes manual were nowhere to be seen. Thankfully my other Mk2 shell had them and it was simple to swap the parts over to the GAZ struts. Back on the deck, the stance of the rear end was looking much better. All that was left to do was attach the OMP rear upper brace to the top mounts and torque everything up.

My old Mk2 GTD daily driver had been fitted with a rear lower strut brace across the chassis, just in front of the rear beam. This steel item bolts into some pre-machined threads, though one of them on the Driver was bent and needed some gentle heat and re-working to bring it into line. The GTD also provided its engine bay undertray for this project as the design of the diesel tray was actually used as a sump guard for the Rallye Golf. It also cleans up the aerodynamics under the front of the car

It’s taken almost nine months to fix the Loop after its disastrous respray episode. Why? Because whoever put it back together again had the dexterity of an intoxicated executioner in charge of a very large axe...

Regrets. We all have them but are often told we shouldn’t have. To be honest though, when I was talked into having the Loop resprayed by the cheeky Essex chappy who had clocked up 26 years at the same prestige German marque dealership, I naively thought my car would be in safe hands. Until he was sacked, of course, part way through the job. Then all hell broke loose. His colleagues were suddenly in denial and claimed they knew nothing of the (obviously invisible) VW Lupo GTI pushed into the corner of their workshop. After two further weeks of heated discussions, stress and aggravation, (including being involved in the dealership’s HR ‘internal investigation’ – yep, things did get rather bizarre) the Loop was ready to leave, but not until I was forced to pay up more dosh so they’d release the keys. Seriously. But it wasn’t until we returned home that the troubles really started...and one of those, as written about previously here, was the fact I was deadlocked in the car. Six hours of investigation later on the same day, we discovered the door handle cables had been refitted past maximum.

Name: Ian Cushway
Job: Editor
Drives: AmD tweaked A6 1.9TDi Avant

What’s occurring?

I tend to slob out big time over winter, so this January I resolutely promise to spend more time on the bike and less time gorging myself on wine and runny French cheese. In terms of my waistline, I think it’s now or never. Car-wise I am going to take more care of the A6, not let the kids use it as a mobile wheelie bin and maybe get some sexier rims because the 18in Sportlines are now looking decided scruffy...

Progress has been swift since the last instalment and with a nice dry garage found to escape the worst winter months, JJ’s build is finally back on track...

Progress since my last report has been rapid and surprisingly easy going. Since settling on a new shell last time – and recovering the tidy black ’91 Golf Driver from t’North – all manner of go faster bits have been bolted on. First up was the polybushed subframe that had been sat in my shed for the past year. Thankfully the old subframe dropped out with ease, thanks to a lot of 3-in-One penetrating spray. Popping in the reconditioned frame with the help of a trolley jack went well, despite having to drop it a couple of times to line up the steering rack. Finding out too late that a Driver’s steering gear differs from a GTI, I had to lower the subframe a second time and replace the bottom steering column section with the one from my last Mk2 shell sitting at the back of my drive. I’m seriously glad I held onto this now as despite stripping the panels and other non-transferable bits for sale, the fundamental mechanical spares are still proving useful for the current build.