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yep it has an angle vice thing..though at this point even straight cuts would be an improvement 😉
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I like your rotisserie btw, is it made or bought?
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just bought a mitre/chop saw which should make all this pipework stuff a lot simpler. Finally some actually square cuts \o/ (with a bit of luck)
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Pics of the (w)underbar in progress. It’s only tacked together at this point and the front “prongs” won’t protrude beyond the cross beam as they do now, and there will be a couple of cross beams to strengthen it but hopefully you get the idea from these. It mounts/locates onto the front wishbone bolts and will hook onto the subframe so that in the event of a hard impact the two bolts don’t bear the full brunt of it (or you’d be walking home!). The bottom half should be hardly visible under the regular big bumper skin (tho it has the lowest bit removed for clearance)
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welcome back! – nothing done?? looks like you’ve done loads. That’s some fairly major work you’ve done 🙂
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Much to my surprise the “(w)underbar” is coming together nicely. Bit fiddly to make but actually should end up a lot simpler and stronger than I initially thought and should be almost invisible under the front bumper when all finished.
There’s two main beams which run either side of the engine, made form 30x30x2.5mm box section steel which will have a main cross-brace from the same, and some additional cross braces from L-section. So far clearance round the left side by the PAS pump, sump etc seems pretty good with about 1.5″ all around.
It was dark by the time I’d finished yesterday so no chance for pics but will take some today hopefully. It doesn’t remove any ground clearance and should provide pretty decent sump protection. I just need to find a couple of slightly longer bolts for the front wishbones as the wunderbar mounts onto those to fit flush with the subframe and that doesn’t seem like somewhere I’d want to lose 5mm off the thread depth.
I’m waiting on more cutting discs before I can do much more on that front.
Annoyingly though, my downpipe appears to be leaking where it bolts up to the 16v manifold so am thinking I’ll have to either cut a new manifold mating plate out of thicker steel or possibly slice the original plate off a 16v dowpipe..though that looks like it might be cast so not sure how weldable that’ll be (assuming I want it to stay intact).
It might be time to break out the plasma cutter on some 6/8mm sheet which is fine, except it will mean unwrapping the heat wrap which is kinda annoying…but c’est la vie I guess, it needs to not leak. If I’m having to re-do that part of the downpipe I might see if I also can make a nicer twin-pipe version which would mean longer, smoother secondaries which should be better for power than merging just after the stock 16v manifold as it does currently. I’ve got a little pipe flaring tool so hopefully should be able to hack up a couple of 16v downpipes to make little sections which fit over each other and mean I can mock the pipe up in situ before TIG welding it up. It is *very* tight in there though.
pics to follow..
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that seems pretty cheap actually..not sure what they cost normally but I guess that’s if you can even get a pair here.
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towbar for the front has been shortened and adapted to fit to the front, actually looking like it should fit nicely inside the existing bumper. So far it’s just tack welded in place with the mig and will stay that way till I’ve got all the underside/sump protection mocked up too, then will take it all off and tig weld it up properly.
The underside bit looks like it will be a bit of a challenge but should be doable. Need to get a few more bits of metal first though.
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towbar for the front has been obtained, seems like the chassis legs on the front are a little bit closer together than the back so will need to chop and re-weld it a bit but that’s lots better than if they’d been wider. It’ll need the actual towar bit chopping off too. Time to test out the plasma cutter I think 😉
the towbar is a bit on the heavy side so might see if i can fab up some sort of more lightweight reinforcement for the bumper instead but don’t currently know how possible that is. I’m still trying to figure out the lower half before hacking anything up.
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Actually I think I’ve figured out an alternative plan for mine since with it being a regular syncro the country bars would need modifying anyway. Still good to take reference pics tho for the future since there don’t seem to be m/any available
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Following on from the country bull bar conversation (https://forum.vwsyncro.co.uk/forums/topic/country-bull-bar/) I’ve been experimenting with electrical conduit and actually managed to get some decent looking bends. I started mocking up one side just to see how it would look and then stumbled across a plan.
So as to remain legal I think I’m going to use the frame of the bumper as a base to work from and mount a centre section out of thicker pipe, then protection for each of the lights out of 25mm conduit. I was planning to do the “wraparound” bit like on the country bars using slice-and-weld since there’s no way I can produce bends that tight but as it turns out the bends I can make are almost exactly the same radius as the headlights and it looked like it would actually fit better without the wraparound bit, plus I guess it’s a little less drag too.
The bumper itself is a wee bit flimsy for my liking, especially as I would like to add a lower section too to protect the sump etc, but I’m thinking if the frame rails are the same distance apart at the front as they are at the back, I might be able to use the ‘girder’ part of another mk2 golf towbar minus the actual towbar bit and mount everything onto that, inside the metal part of the bumper. That should solidify things nicely at the front and provide a secure mounting for upper and lower sections of the bars too.
With this design the bars will not protrude further forward than the actual bumper and there’s no sharp bits whatsoever, plus the “wings”, whilst providing pretection from shrubbery and stuff offroad would collapse back in case of a collision (e.g. with pedestrian or bike), likely even providing a softer & rounder impact than if one were just hitting the bumper/wing.
I *love* how the central section looks too, and that should be continued down below the bumper, turning into a plate/section which flushly mounts up to the front of the subframe…protecting the sump, pas pump etc from kerbs, rocks etc when venturing off the tarmac.
Re the pics – some imagination needed to see how it’ll all fit together but all looks surprisingly doable, and as long as the fit is nice and tight, using my new tig welder should mean I can do subtle, neat welds.
Does anyone happen to know if the frame rails are the same spacing on the front as the rear? I’d rather not have to take the rear bumper off again just to check.
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I’ve not been but then I’ve not had a running golf for a long time now…though it’s running now so you never know, next year may be a possibility 🙂
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ah I didn’t know they made one already.. hmm interesting. Do you know roughly what would need to be changed to do a TDI conversion on say a golf driver? They already have the GTI look and I would imagine there wouldn’t need to be too much changed.
Do you know what sort of management/ecu the GTD has if at all? TDIs tend to respond very well to a remap (e.g. like my audi) but I presume only if they have a computer 😉
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I’ve been doing some digging on this and I think potentially 25mm electrical conduit might be the way to go on recreating the main “wings” of the country bull bars, especially since there’s conduit benders available for not unreasonable money which look like they could potentially do bends of a suitable radius.
The “wraparound” bends would probably be too tight to bend and would need to be neatly cut and welded but the other bends look like they could be done with a bender. I’m thinking mate that to a sturdy cross-beam and vertical “nudge” bars which join the front frame arms alongside the bumper (a bit like the US cop cars) and which would extend below the bumper, either side of the sump and bolt onto the subframe much like a lower strut brace would.
I guess it could all be done with slice-n-weld but using a bender where possible should give a nicer finish.
If it’s done right it should all be nice and flush, barely reduce ground clearance, and add some sump protection too thanks to a plate bracing the two vertical struts as they head down to the sump, just like the OEM country.
Obviously I doubt the conduit parts would be quite as strong as the OEMs but in my case it’s mostly for looks and a bit of light protection, though conduit does seem to be relatively sturdy and looks to be galvanised inside and out so would be good from a rust prevention perspective.
I’m working with big bumpers on my syncro (lowest valance removed) but it should work equally well for small bumper. Will post some pics once I’ve had a play with some pipes and got something to show.
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Do you reckon the syncro box will fit with all the turbo gubbins hanging down there? looks like it would be pretty tight back there. I bet the wiring would be a lot simpler than most other engine swaps tho.
Given the fun (and mpg) I get with my audi I kinda want one of these GTD motors to experiment with but some might argue I have enough engines kicking about already so 3 more might be a bit overkill 😉
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