Near the end of 2020, having been quarantined due to COVID 19, my wife and I found ourselves quarantining at our mountain vacation home. At my primary house in LA County sat the Endless Corrado G60 project in the garage. It had not been touched in 8 long years. Lots of new parts sat in boxes on the shelf alongside my Project MKII 16V GTi.
We decided it was time to make the mountain house our permanent residence and sell the house in LA County. That meant I was about to lose my garage and the two project cars housed safely inside.
I had to make a decision - Time was not sufficient to finish both cars so I decided to complete the Corrado and relinquish the GTi 16V. I reached out to Hammy Carter at Treffen VW for assistance. In exchange for some of his work, I gave him the GTi project car and the many parts I'd collected over the years.
I'd made the big push to finish this car back in 2013. I repaired the sun roof, upgraded several parts and attempted to replace every part that would normally be replaced of a vehicle of this age. At the time I replaced virtually every part in every system and refurbished everything on the outside of the long block. I still had good compression on all four cylinders so I went forward without rebuilding the engine and head. (That was a mistake) The long block had performed flawlessly over the past several years and I had no reason to believe it was about to fail. But after only 500 miles back on the road, I lost compression in the #2 cylinder. That was devastating to my motivation and the car sat idle inside the garage for the until today.
In the mean time, I'd think about it and would acquire the parts I'd need to rebuild the car once again if I'd ever got the motivation to do so. I'd bought quite a few replacement parts but never invested any time in actually working on the car. At one time, the car was simply filled with unopened boxes of parts which I'd collected over the years. I didn't even know which parts belonged to which car.
So I decided to deliver the car to Hammy with all of the parts I'd gathered and had him complete the work. He thoroughly went through my handiwork knowing I'd forgotten much of what I'd done earlier. (He also was diligent enough to confirm the integrity of my previous work - never trusting but validating the correctness of my amateurish efforts) Furthermore, many of the parts that were working when I parked it eight years earlier had failed while sitting in my garage. Hammy did not find anything of concern with the short block. I'd previously changed the oil pump, oil pan, rear main seal, and the water/oil cooler. All of the hoses, check valves, and vacuum lines were also replaced previously.
So he installed the new cylinder head, applied new belts, reinstalled the Glader, and alternator. What he discovered was that over the eight years, my brand new Peirberg in-tank Fuel pump that I'd installed previously, had died while wallowing submerged in poor quality CA gasoline. He replaced the fuel pump, cleaned out the fuel tank of any residual dirt and debris, and restored my fuel system back to operational status. Fortunately, my fuel filter prevented any of that dirt and debris from traveling forward and destroying my new fuel injectors/fuel rail that he installed up front.
Hammy also discovered that the wiring harness for my fuel injectors had crumbled while in storage. This was also true of the wiring harness to the blue/black coolant sensors up front. He hand built replacement harnesses for me and wrapped them in the genuine German black cloth tape which made them look OEM original. He also replaced the "h" hose and the water pump which had sprung a leak after starting the car for the first time in eight years. Lastly, the serpentine belt tensioner had cracked and Hammy found a replacement in a salvage yard. (Much less expensive than a new one!)
Over the years, all of the light switches had to be activated because they seemed to have corroded over time and didn't work the first time around. Some dashboard switched had frozen and had to be cleaned or reworked before they operated properly.
Hammy installed a fresh Mahle oil filter and Mobil 1 Synthetic 5-50 weight oil. Replaced all of the filters, primed the engine, then started it up. I'd not heard that sound in years. It was a delight when he sent me the following video.
Hammy is brilliant with the G60 motor. There are very few remaining who are knowledgeable with the PG engine and the Glader. Hammy timed and tuned the motor and allowed me to store the car at his garage until I arranged for a permanent parking space at the new residence in the mountains
The car passed CA Smog and has since been registered as "operational". Thanks to Hammy, I drove the car for the first time up to its new resting place at the mountain house. Unfortunately i don't have a garage up here so I acquired a nice all season car cover from SealSkin Car Covers. It is supposed to be a custom car cover designed for the Corrado but it didn't quite fit as tightly as advertised, but it does indeed provide weather proof protection for the Endless Corrado G60 project.
This summer, I will begin working on some of the smaller broken items like the rear wing, the broken dash vents, and install a stereo. I also have a cracked windshield which needs replacement. That will be another post. But it was a pleasure driving up the curves and mountain roads above LA. I missed the raw power and feel of a manual five speed FWD sports coupe. More to come...
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