MK2 daily driver build up (off rego from -98)

[Sultzi]

So, little story about the mk2 which currently serves my daily driver duties.

After picking it up around end of march -23. Been off the rego all the way from 1998, with powerful 2.4l york.


Surprisingly good paint after wash (ok, there is rust but what you wan't from me? )


Story tells that this had been flower shop's van from new, so there was plywood and insulation at the back. I took everything off to see how bad it was, but to my suprise not bad at all.





Most of the severe rust was in the back (in the front there is also rust at fenders and hood, but these should pass the "mot" here still)





Got new repair panels for the rear arches with the car. Clecos were absolute savior because arches went on off many times when building the inner arches from scratch.



Main problem fitting the rear arch repair panels is the original seams from all the body panels. So I made my own fake seams with hammer and dolly, they came pretty good IMO.



Small patch for the side door opening



Also the right side needed more metal than the arch repair panel offered, so these I made from scratch (still trying to keep original look of the panels)



Both rear lower corners were full of holes after little digging, so ordered new panels from motomobil.



Finally after rebuilding inside of the rear arches and painted them with 2k epoxy. After this I glued the outer arches and lower corner pieces with 2k panel bond, rivets are only there for drying.



Rear valance was hard to get, only ones I did find were located in the UK and they didn't wan't to ship abroad. Luckily one gentleman living in Finland (from scotland) ordered the valance to his mum place and there sended it to me! Can't thank him enough for the help, there was no need to do that for me (i had sold him 8hp transmission earlier and was just asking advice how to get that valance to here).




All the repairs under the car got 2k epoxy over them and seam sealer over the weld seams.



Front end got those vented brake disc update and new 4piston calipers. Rear end also got all new parts excluding drums.


LSD from mk5 with 4.6 ratio (in the future I will transfer the LSD unit to the original 4.1 ratio diff)


Original engine was so bad, it did run so I could move the car in and out between repairs, but that was it (smoking a lot, not running with all cylinders etc). So out it came.


So what next? Well, I had W210 Merc sitting around and waiting to get it's engine to use. Engine is 320CDI (om613) and behind that I got 8hp70 transmission from BMW 5series.



Bolted together (with adapter kit from Jota5sport)


"little" bit cutting later got the engine and transmission where they belong.





Engine and transmission mounts done, engine is maybe little bit lower than the york (looking from crankshaft centerline), but not much. Transmission fits nice.




Cooling with radiator from the merc and fan from never W211 V6 CDI.



Just simple cheap intercooler.



Intercooler pipes from 60mm stainless steel (just because I had bends and straight pipe already)



Fuel lines were simple using original supply and return, engine has mechanical prepump in the front of the head, so no need for electric lift pump in to the tank.


Brake vacuum was simple with the parts from merc and transit




Battery sits now behind the seat and master switch just to help repairs.



Exhaust from 3,5" stainless steel (again, had the parts already, muffler is only I did buy new)




Driveshaft from bmw and volvo.


Original battery tray off the right side. Mounted the merc's coolant tank and washer bottle from mk2 fiesta trunk.


Intake manifold made the engine pretty wide, but I didn't want to make custom manifold now so only option was to move throttle pedal sideways and also the brake pedal. So throttle is now where brake was and brake is around were clutch pedal was.


Cover over the engine and mounted gear stick from bmw to this also (yes I know, doesn't quite fit the interior, but this is easiest way to get the transmission to work)





Heater box needed some cutting also to fit, but not bad.


License plate lights from mk7.


Before "MOT" I started to make the rear end ready for paint. Sanded rivet heads of and first layer is glassfiber filler to resist seam movement, time will tell how this goes.





After the glassfiber filler was time for normal filler. In the end prep work came out pretty good for me (not perfect, but rest of the car isn't either)






Glued old headlight glasses back (good thing they were still intact after coming off)


Engine is controlled by DID1 from Baldur and transmission by MaxxEcu (I fitted the maxxecu Mini inside the original merc tcu)







These 8hp transmissions need custom firmware from Maxxecu, so I bought necessary flasher.


So after about 5months of work (and 26years sitting) the car is finally registered again (with original plate numbers).



So next job is to paint the car and so on, will continue the story next time if somebody is still interested after humiliating this with Merc power. But got to say that stock 145kw merc engine is nice for daily driving.

BTW, sorry for bad english, not my native language

[Airthies]

Excellent build, lucky to have such a solid shell to work with.

I'm all for doing things differently so I don't have a problem with modifying and repowering as long as it's not done badly.

Keep the pictures coming and the build thread interesting

[Altransit]

Outstanding work, please keep the pictures coming

[Sultzi]

Thanks! Happy new year, time to continue with pics.

After local MOT was passed it was time to get the paint done for rear of the car. In the end it didn't come out perfect (my prep work + slight wrong colour, but this is difficult to match old paint), but that's fine because this car is made for driving daily.

Ready for paint



I don't like spraying so much so luckily friend of mine did it for me


Back together after paint, you can see the paint difference but that's fine like I said, car is still rusty etc.



Original reverse lights are rusty so I decided to add these flush mount led's in the back bumbers. Came out quite good and reversing in the dark is now so nice




Dash got 52mm Canbus gauge fitted for couple main items (gear, throttle position, speed from gearbox, boost pressure, battery volts and engine rpm). There is 6 other pages avaible to use, only one at use at the moment.



For winter I mounted couple boxes through the floor and filled them with all the scrap metal from work to help little bit with traction, it's alot better now.


Also the original H4 lights ain't nice for 6months of darkness in the morning and evening. And we have also alot of deers, moos and so on. So bought 1300mm curved led beam and mounted it on the roof. This now gives nice light to the sides and forward.


But more is more Front of the car looked little bit empty so I added 4 big round led lights more, couple of them have yellow lenses to help with bad weather conditions (snow, fog etc). Made some homemade mounts for them, looking a bit like escort ones do. With all 5 lights on the current draw is about 75A (actual).




Chinese made "5kw" water heater with short range remote, seems to work nicely and helps with the cold mornings.



Brake master cylinder broke after little bit of driving, luckily I already bought new from Motomobil with some other stuff so replacement was easy.


Put little 90degree elbow for the tank breather, little bit better now (not so much fuel comes out to the ground when fueling up). Would need some improvements still to this to make it better.

[MinorMatt]

Wow

Good Job

But how did you fit a mk5 diff to the mk2 axle? Yeah it will bolt in but halfshaft splines are different....

Mk3 one would bolt straight in