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My Golf R Sportwagen 4Motion

20vTa4

New member
So, back in April of last year I bought a wrecked 22,000 mile 2012 Golf R from an auction in Texas. The car looked pretty bad in the pics, but I had no idea how bad until I got it. I paid for the car and arranged transportation and when it finally arrived, i was pretty shocked at how much damage it actually had. To make matters worse, the car clearly had a key included and somewhere between Texas and NJ it disappeared. The towing company was no help so basically I was s.o.l. The car had apparently taken a high hit that pushed the engine back into the fire wall, destroying the turbo, axles, and countless other parts. So now I had this Golf R paperweight with no key and way too damaged to be worth fixing sitting in my driveway.



As I was looking through the car, I found an invoice for a flat tire repair with the original owner's name and number. I decided to take a chance and text to see if they might have an extra key, no response. Two weeks later, I get a text from the owner, we chat for a bit, and he overnights me another key for free! Unbelievable. He also sent me this pic from the accident.



At that point, I decided that I would either fix and use the drivetrain for a swap or sell it off. The first step was to remove the engine/trans to figure out exactly what would need to be replaced.



Lots of damage besides the turbo which was in two pieces, but the worst was something hit the water pump shearing off the pulley and making the engine jump timing resulting in 8 bent exhaust valves. I fixed that first and put the engine all back together.





Luckily, I was able to buy most of the brackets and misc crap used, here it is mostly back together minus the turbo.



The next step was to strip the interior to be able to get the dash and full harness out all in one piece.



All panels out, wiring unclipped and pulled forward to yank the dash.



In order to pull the engine bay harness through the firewall the ABS module plug and large fuse box plug had to be de-pinned to fit through the hole.



Dash and complete harness in a heap waiting for a new home.




The next step was to find a suitable car for the swap. I'm a big fan of wagons and the sportwagen was the only car that made sense to me. I started looking around for a cheap mk6 sportwagen but it was a dilemma because I didn't want a diesel and my biggest requirement was non sunroof, which really narrowed things down. I couldn't find anything cheap enough to make the swap worthwhile. A friend from work who follows the auctions closely sent me links to a few at auction. I wanted nothing to do auctions anymore, but then one came up semi locally in MA with no body damage. It was a recovered theft with just a few scratches, nothing missing it even came with both keys. I bid and won and had it shipped down to me, besides some scratches and a few dents, the car was perfect. I had it cleaned up and drove it for a few weeks, it drove so well that i actually felt bad that I was about to strip it down.

My new to me 2011 Jetta Sportwagen S automatic

After a quick detail


And apart it came...



Next up, interior and wiring again.



Next up, install pedals and throw the R dash and wiring in.



Engine bay powerwashed and R harness in, looks good as new.



Subframe, exhaust, suspension removed, everything but the fuel lines came out



Laying in the harness, it basically drops right into place up to the fuel pumps, from there back the wagon harness had to spliced in to make everything in the back work, this took some time to figure out, especially the tail lights and the hatch wiring. In all I think it was somewhere around 50 splices but it all works as it should. It was all routed like factory, the only difference is that I used 3M super 33 tape instead of the cloth stuff.



Dash lit up for the first time as I was integrating the door harnesses.


I kept the jetta door harnesses because the R doors are different. I untaped all 4 door harnesses and added the wiring for the KESSY handles and the Dynaudio amp. This was a ton of work. I also installed the Dynaudio speakers, they were a direct swap in the rear doors, but required home made adapter rings using the old jetta speakers cut up.



Next I dropped the fuel tank and rear subframe/suspension out of the R.



Pumping the fuel out of the tank to make it easier to handle


Cut out the access hole for the saddle pump


Test fit the rear subframe in the wagon, like a glove...


There are a total of 3 brackets and 1 nut that need to be welded in. Two prop-shaft carrier brackets in the tunnel, one small bracket in the rear to accept a gas tank strap and a captive nut under the leading edge of the back seat, also for the tank. I left this to somebody that welds all the time, my buddy Keith came over and tigged it up perfectly.



Once the brackets were welded, in went the rear suframe, shifter box, heat shields and the prop-shaft.



I finished buying the rest of the engine parts including a new K04 (that was painful) and got the engine and trans ready to drop in, and in it went.



Buttoned everything up and started it up for the first time, ran great, just needed the exhaust sorted out. Called the welder back over and ended up with a temp solution for now. It's nice and quiet at idle but drones a bit on the highway, so in the spring I'll have to figure something else out. The setup for now is a SPM 3" catted downpipe and midpipe to a section of the 2.5" R exhaust mated to the factory wagon rear muffler.



My only issue with the exhaust was that the shifter cables were laying on the downpipe and ended up ruining the cables. I had to replace them and came up with this Home Depot Motorsport bracket made from some aluminum stock.



The mechanicals were pretty much done and it was time to start putting the interior back together.



I chose to just stick with the jetta cloth interior for now, because the R lower back seat doesn't work in the wagon. In the spring I'll probably make the R seats work. While everything was apart, I ordered some black oem-ish fabric and wrapped the headliner black, I like the way it turned out and I hated the white factory color.



So now the car was all together and running, I take it over to a friend's shop to get an APR stage 2+ flash and do an Autotech hpfp insert. I had just re-used the stock R clutch mainly to save some money but also because it only had 22,000 miles and I figured it was okay. I soon realized that it couldn't handle the power and was slipping. Down the trans came again and I ended up doing the "RSR" clutch and have been happy ever since.



I was really happy that I could change the display pic to a wagon using vagcom



Added mk7 style climatronic controls



I've been driving it for a few months now and am really happy, lots of power, and traction. I accomplished my goal of using as much of the Golf R as possible and I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I have no idea if it was all worth it, but I enjoyed doing it and I have a car that probably no one else has and it still only cost a little more than half of what a clean used mk6 R is selling for.



The end of the R, cut up and going to the scrap yard

 

20vTa4

New member
Winter mode pic



Added H&R sport springs (perfect compliment to the R shocks)



Last week I did a diy clutch stop and door warning lights



 

riceburner

Autocross Champion
oh snap! su-su-su-sleeper! that's awesome, seems well done too!
 

damagi123

Go Kart Champion
well if that aint just the sickest shit
 
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