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The Futrell Autowerks Team

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 So the search was on, and on, and on and lasted and lasted until the end of the year when finally another friend called and said there was a Alpine White 89 Golf sitting around the corner from his house for sale, cheap. He gave me the number and I phoned the owner, the car seemed like a good candidate so I headed over immediately. The car was a solid match for what I needed, nice paint, solid body, clean interior, well cared for and a clean title (you'd be surprised at how many cars have some form of branding on the title). It was even an elusive Golf CL, the barest of the base models, only offered for two years in the US. The CL features are so limited the car is close in specification to it's European brethren, something I find attractive in the car.

By this time the Passat was parted out and gone but I had managed to buy another Cabriolet in my search for the MK2, meaning my garage was full. I also needed to take my GTI off the road for a couple weeks for some upgrades that required parts going out (injectors balanced, downpipe thermal plated) so I opted to drive the CL around for two weeks while I rounded up some additional parts.  To start I ordered some late model bumpers, single 7"s euro light grille, and smoked turn signals.  The look I was after was the big bumper no arches GL treatment, I also ordered the factory 90-92 late model 1/2 arches that the bumpers rest up against. I had two rear hatch spoilers in my storage one without the third brake light, the other with, despite the fact the one with the third brake light was white I opted to have the non-brakelight black one painted along with the bumpers. All in all the bumpers, lower grille trim,  rear hatch spoiler, license plate light beak and a pair of mirrors were to be painted Alpine white to match the car.

Before the parts were shipped off to be painted I drove the car over to my wrecker to pick up a rear VR6 subframe they had from a 95 GTI. To my surprise they also had a 92 Corrado VR6 sitting there, well most of it anyway as the front end had been cut off from the A pillars forward. However it's rear subframe, control arms, brakes and sway bar were all sitting in front of the car.  I inspected the subframe for breaks in the paint and obvious bends but it looked good so I grabbed it, the sway bar which was a larger Neuspeed bar and the real bonus-  the complete fan shroud with both fans intact! This was a huge score as I had not been lucky in locating used fans and the prospect of purchasing this stuff new from the dealer left me cold (about $500 in parts) They even sold me the whole thing for $75 because the shroud was slightly tweaked from the accident. $205 later I called it a day and headed home and cleaned up and repaired my new parts. The fans even both turned out to have been replaced after 1/97 indicated by the build stamps on the assemblies. Good score indeed.

With the fans and subframe out of the way and the decision made to NOT use the Passat control arms, axles and tie rods I went ahead and ordered the correct parts which will actually be a nice bonus since the parts will be all new, and control arm bushings, tie rods, and CVs are all high impact parts that are rarely replaced. The car should feel really solid with the new parts so I didn't mind spending the $$$ to do the job right.  Also I've read elsewhere and have even seen a A2 swapped using Passat axles and control arms and believe me it's not pretty... think Pontiac widetrack here.  With most of the necessary parts on hand the car was ready to come into the garage for removal of it's existing drivetrain.

1/13 Was spent removing the existing 1.8L, it's management wiring, and giving the engine bay a thorough cleaning.  I wasn't able to get as much done as I'd planned on due to a series of problems with my own car, which had to take priority since the CL was now down until it remerges as a VR.  I did squeak some time in Tuesday nigh (1/16) to remove the existing subframe, drive axles, steering rack and stock brake line brackets.  Usually the rear subframe comes right out and I've never had such a struggle removing the frame horn bolts as I did on this car, the upper right bolt was too tight for even my impact gun and ultimately required a breaker bar and a lot of bolt buster soaking.   In the photos you can see the stock A2 brake line brackets are removed, this is for a couple reasons and one big obvious reason: It doesn't line up correctly with any of the VR6 brake lines.  The other reason is since the car will have ABS there is a new bracket that's used that holds both the brake line and the ABS line up against the wheel well.  The 89 car actually has the studs in the wheel well for the brackets which is a nice bonus since I was sure to unbolt them from the Passat, so now they can just be re-bolted into the CL no welding required.  The old brackets easily remove with a couple taps from a sledge hammer and a little wiggling back and fourth with a pair of pliers.  Once the old brackets are off the spot welds will still remain which can be grinded off using a dremel or other grinding tool (even a file would work).  Two holes will also be drilled in either strut tower for the correct VR6 brake line and the ABS sensor to pass through.  The VR6 subframe was attached to the new control arms and the sway bar was also attached.  I pre-assembled all of this in the garage, the control arms are easy enough to change while on the car but the rear sway bar attachment points are a down right bitch to install on the car, necessitating lowering the subframe, so if you are doing a swap install the sway bar out of car or at least before you install the motor, just to make life a little easier.   I also took several photos comparing the three control arms next to each other, overlaying one another and each alone. 

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