: DAY ONE
It all has to start somewhere. Usually it only takes a few hundred quid to get your hands on a project like this that ends up costing.........well, you have to wait to find that bit out. Here's my start to the Project Infinity. £400 outlay for a fine Mk1 Golf specimen.

: ENGINE REMOVAL
So, on with the work.  The car was stripped and the old 1.1 heap was chucked, making way for a sweet 1.8 poached from a rear ended soft-top from VW-Audi Spares in Manchester.  The work's hard but I guess that's the point.

: TRYING THE KIT
Luckily got hold of an original Clipper kit at GTi '99.  Just thought I'd roughly try it on. It looks good but it's going to be a long time before it's fitted properly. The engine bay needs spraying first to accept the engine, so here it is, strapped up and ready to go to Avant Guard for a lick of paint.

: STARTING THE RE-BUILD
So, back from the sprayers and I'm dead chuffed with the colour, what do you think? I made sure the engine stuff was polished, chromed, powder coated and painted ready for the rebuild. Some sound proofing was the next job and it's not so bad once you've heated the sound proofing in the oven for a minute by you apply.

: STEREO WOODWORK
I've finally started with the stereo install and so far it's going well. I'm not having any back seats so there's tonnes of room in there.

: IN WITH THE NEW ENGINE
So the engine is finally rebuilt (thanks to uncle ray - left), and it looks great. A full 2.5 inch 4-2-1 system with twin 2.5 inch rolled pipes either side was made and fitted by Tony Law Exhausts and they've done a pukka job. After a nervous month or so at Pioneer Tuning, in the educated hands of Doug, the engine is purring and sounds ready to go.

: OUT OF THE SPRAY SHOP
Things are finally starting to move on. 6 months in the spray shop and my little project finally begins to take shape. I have worked very hard for 3 years and finally I have a car, that looks like a car. The spray job is professional work and under close inspection I have no complaints. Cheers Jason (J.E.T. Autos bottom right). The car came straight out of the spray shop and straight into Poineer again for final engine and brake work.

: CLOSE TO THE END
Ok, so now I actually have a bloody car. It starts up first time....it drives forward and backwards and looks the bollocks. I took a long week off work and attacked the stereo. I've changed the design a little bit to accomodate for some Kenwood 7x10's for rear-fill. They sit either side of the main amps rack and battery box in the back. Just behind the seats (finally fitted) are two 12" Denon subs. Hopefully they will rip off ears and turn stomachs into bloody messes.

: CLOSER TO THE END
A couple of pictures from my last weekend home. The woodwork is sort of finshed now and just needs a covering with silky blue Alcantara. The amps and stereo stuff is finally in place in the back and can you spot the cunning trick in the amps reflection? :) The last picture is something I knocked up recently....a bit hopeful maybe but check out the first pictures at the top and I think how far I've come so far.

: THE GARAGE
Everyone one needs a place to stay. Here is where the car lives (and how it sleeps).

: IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS
The detailing here shows the bonnet catch, the glove box switches (and wiring) and the chromed pedals. The 2rd row shows the interior woodwork and door pods in there final state ready to be covered in Alcantara hopefully soon.

: POWER SUPPLY
Here are some recent shots of the engine; some bits are going to need some more work but at this stage the most important thing is to get this Project on the road. Then on row 2 is a close up of the license plate, the Mk4 golf header tank, the beautiful wheels, and me swearing in the reflection. Finally at the bottom is Doug's (mechanic) Mk1 8v which he keeps meaning to start work on; then there's Doug working on Dwane's Uno Turbo and finally is the car that I "get to drive" when I am at home (don't laugh). It's the Ced Francis mobile.

: THANKS TO PEEPS
A quick thankyou to people that have helped along the way. Starting with Chris and Dan who I bought the car with; Andi who comes over most weekends and helps out (he seems to keep getting his cars stolen); My dad who is just amazing at every single kind of job; my mum was desperate to help out with some fabrics; Jason (welding) who resprayed the car and is going to have to do it again; doug (mr punctuality) who got the engine running and the brakes sorted; and my uncle Ray who rebuilt the engine. More to come.

 

: QUICK UPDATES
OK, another quick update....here are the beautiful new wing mirrors, which are not staying chrome!!! and the golf rallye splitter.

The blue material has started appearing in the boot and looks smart against the black.

Spot the space for the PlayStation2 and the left draw that lets you swap cd's. The 2 batteries sit snuggly underneith and can be disconnected from each other at shows to protect the driving battery from the stereo battery. Then there's the interior....which is the last you'll see it before it's covered in more blue fake alcantara.

One sunday day in 20. Chrome locks and a bit or boredom. :)

 

: THE TRIP TO MJ INTERIORS
An 8am start to a cold sunday morning...but today was not going to be another routine sunday in the garage. Today we're taking the car down to MJ Interiors in Shipley for the interior to be covered.Shane turns up about 9am and the car is loaded onto the trailer...it was a close call with the garage door support and the car roof. In the car is Shane (left - just had a baby and is generally Mr Organised and therefore vital for the trip), Ady (middle - excellent at lowering the tone and showing us the boobs in the Sunday Sport), and me (right - stupid enough to keep saying "it's almost finished"). Stopped off for grub and air. Excellent photo opportunities.

Some tosser didn't tie the straps down properly....tosser. Anyway, let's not worry about who's fault that was :). We got pretty lost around Shipley and I ended up biting this guy's wrist until he gave us the right directions. Finally we arrive at MJ to see a tiny double garage....with all the hype I was expecting a huge warehouse with squadrons of workers beavering away day and night....anyhow, don't judge a book by it's cover.

Car looks wicked and I'm starting to change my mind about the mirrors...maybe they should stay chrome..I know I was going for the clean look but they for some reason look really good in chrome....please tell me what you think. Mike turned up and we went through the list of jobs that needed doing. He seemed pretty confident he could do everything I wanted and for the millionth time he reasurred me the car would be fine :). Finally on our way home after what ended up being a 5 hour round trip. Thanks so much to Shane for giving me the lift....I owe you one buddy. Moo.

 

: BEAUTY IS ON THE INSIDE
After a month of anticipation, I was finallly heading up the M62 to pick up Project Infinity with it's new interior. The car has been in the trusty hands of Mike at MJ Interiors and what a job he's done (roof lining, sub encolsure, exhaust chamber, dash cubby holes and door pods (still working on). The quality of finish is stunning and the material really sticks to all the tight curves. The flash on the camera has made the material appear really bright in these pictures; it's a little less loud in the flesh. The last pictures shows a couple of the dials I've bought to go in place of the golf's original instrument panel.

 

: ALARMING STUFF
Ok so the project's progressing quite well now and it was about time to get an alarm sorted. I rang around a few places and was quoted up to £600 and they wanted to keep the car for a week....hmmmmm...nah! So I rang a friend of a friend at ERG Vehicle Security Systems on 07774499395 and he quoted me around £400 for the Toad Ai606...and the best thing was he could come in his van and fit it in one day and specialise it to my needs. Since I'm removing the door handles altogether, I got him top make one of the buttons on the remote pop open the drivers door......which is what the buttons underneith the wing mirrors do (only when it's unlocked)......mint!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: CLOCKED IT
I Um'd and Ah'd about what to do with the dials. Did I get some white dial backings, or some with little vw's on them? Maybe make my own? Nah....why not buy the best individual dials and create my own facia to put them in. DemonTweeks do a nice range of dials and the white ones you see below are perfect for the job. I measured up the hole in the dash and cut MDF to fit....then the slow and accurate job of cutting the holes for the stereo cage, the heater controls and obviously the dials. The dials were tested for fit and then the panel was covered in the same material as the sub enclosure. In the last picture you can see the PS controller ports...read on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: TAKE CONTROL
Ok, so having a PS2 in a modified Dub may not be that unusual now a days but it's still a nice feature. The installs that I have seen before always seem to have controllers and their wires just sort of hanging around in the cockpit. BRAINWAVE, why not have controller ports at the front so you can just plug the controllers in and out when ever you like. Wish I'd thought of it but Shane (moo) takes the credit for this one. So I went out and bought a broken PlayStation for £15, unscrewed the controller ports, fixed them into MDF and placed this where the ash tray used to live. Then 9 core cable was soldered onto the contracts at one end and soldered to the plug end of the controller at the other end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

: TAX, WASHERS, WINDOWS AND SCREENS
The first picture, of the tax disc, may not mean very much to a lot of people, but anyone who has fully rebuilt their project car will understand why I'm proud to show it off. Got some new bits for the engine bay (a power roah, dipsitck and strut top covers from Trimsport). In the third picture is the Fiat bravo rear wiper I used for the front single wiper, and tucked underneith it is a Mazda 323 washer jet. In my hand is the washer bottle which I made from an old Mk1 brake servo and a washer motor. This is hidden away under the dash and can be pulled out to fill.

The electric windows were a real pain to fit but they are in and working now. The buttons are located in the centre cuby holes of the underdash compartments. Teh picture of the gear knob is showing how the centre console used to look, with a piece of wood in the hole, ready to be converted to accept the tv screen. Teh last row of pictures shows the steps taken to fibre-glass the provide backing into the console. I pick up the centre console, covered in blue material, next week. I'll post up more pics when I get it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: PAST-PORT
There's not much left to cover now and the interior looks mint. Here's a few more pictures of the interior for you to feast your eyes on. Notice how even the area inside the sub boxes (in the port) is also covered in the same blue material, that wasn't easy! The last picture gives an example of just how much work is involved in the wiring of the stereo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: LIFE STARTS AT 45's
I totally lucked apon a sat of twin weber 45's that had been in someone's garage for a few years and I got them for free...THANKS MARC, they'd previously been on an escort Mk2 rally car. They needed a bit of love to make them look like they do now....bit of bead-blasting, polishing and chroming and now they'd fit nicely in any engine bay. The manifold was £50 and after about 3 hours of polishing and reshaping it has a mirror finish. I just these carbs aren't as hard to set up as everyone says they are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: PORKY PIES
I luckily found a set of Porsche 928 S2 wheels going cheap at VW Action this year....£90 for the set. They're 16x8's so it's going to be a struggle to get them under the arches but I'm planning on very thin tires which might help. The wheels were anodised so I took them to my local chromers Karl Russels in Hull and he stripped them. Then it's a process of slowly polishing the wheels. After only a couple of hours work the wheels have come out looking like mirrors. Just have to buy the hub converters and the tyres now....! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...that's it so far, please come back for regular updates.

 

 

'NUF RESPECT TO . . .

Trimsport - 01460 242294 - Supplied many parts for the engine bay and interior. Excellent quality
ERG Vehicle Security Systems - 07774 499395 - Home delivery and fitment of the Toad alarm
MJ Interiors - 01274 533370 - Do they need an introduction? :) They stick material to stuff in cars
Martrim - 01606 834480 - All Material in car
Kaygee Enginerring - 01482 326281 - I was able to use their machinery and expertese
R&A Design - 01472 811711 - Loads of advice and many body extras
Leigh Trowsdale - 01482 847074 - Use of tools and much body work
Karl Russels - 01482 589838 - Chroming and teaching me how to polish - Karl is king, top job
Tony Law Exhausts - 0113 **- Excellent custom exhaust build (**somewhere in Leeds)
Pioneer Tuning - 01482 227848 - Getting the old girl running, and a lot of other unexpect tasks
Jason Turrey - 0831 596455 - The sprayer. Very good work and nice guy

Thanks to my mates for their "you'll never finish it" encouragement. Thanks especially to Chris and Dan for starting this project off; Ben and girlfriend and Callum; Bazman for....well just for being Bazman; Andy for lots of very helpful nights. And last, but not least, is thanks to my dad, who's support, encouragement and planning has been the backbone of this project. I couldn't have come this far without him. Ta . . .