1985 Polo Mk2 Bready - 08/03 - Secret Progress

Long story short - I've been messed around by insurance companies and a wrist injury which means I've not been able to offer updates lately or do much to the car.

Here's the update I should've made ages ago. Happily, my wrist is well and truly on the mend so I can do some things like driving again which I couldn't earlier this week. Still not allowed to use tools or paint things for another week but it's been raining a lot lately anyway, so it's no huge loss.

So, after the trip we made to Ladybower there was an altercation with a speed bump and my overheating issue was getting steadily worse. This meant that I had to sort things out on the car before heading off to a convention at the start of May (where some other RR's saw the car but didn't connect it to me at the time) so I wouldn't have any troubles.

After said incident, my exhaust was blowing and I was by now bored of driving everywhere with the heater on so I took the car down to my parents' so that my bro (chompysnake) could do his magic on the exhaust and my Dad could help with the radiator change. Annoyingly, I couldn't do anything because of my wrist being bad, I was banned from using tools and had to watch instead.

So, first job was to inspect the damage. When I went over the bump it made a really nasty amount of noise and actually pulled one of the exhaust joints apart. It also bent this clamp.




Next job was for bro and neighbour's son to manhandle the exhaust off the car.


Some scraping was evident, but this was all from the one speedbump.


Hmm.. backbox is a bit shagged too. The backbox was going to have to be replaced this year anyway, but it has got slightly worse than it was for MoT. I didn't have the spare funds for a new one, so it was bodge time.


Milk bottle tops, exhaust paste and a blow torch, the latter kindly provided by the neighbours.




Also had to replace the rear hangers. The exhaust always sat low at the back, it was annoying. I don't have a pic of how it sits now, but it's much better. We still need to do the centre hanger but we ran out of time, at least the exhaust no longer bangs about like it did after the altercation with the bump. Old hangers on the right, new on the left.


Exhaust sorted and engine sounding MUCH healthier (thanks muchly, bro) it was time to move on to the radiator. I knew my old rad was knackered, the fins had become very brittle and fuzzy and there was crusty stuff all down one side. First job was to flush out the system, bearing in mind this was done at the farm only a month or so previous. Out came Bovril instead of water and it took a while backflushing the system to get it all clear.


Mk2Polobloke (Rich) is a top fellah and he stepped into the breach to save me spending lots of money on a new rad. Cost of postage (and some delay thanks to the courier being... retarded) got me a newer radiator than my old one. New on the left, old on the right.


Now with new on the right, old on the left.


There was also opportunity to replace the Thermostat.


The car now runs hotter than it used to, but it runs smoother and my fan kicks in and actually prevents any overheating. The refitted exhaust has given me back some lost oomph which I was glad of on the Snake Pass and all was well. Dad warned me to keep an eye on the radiator hoses and such for leaks, it was dark when we finished the job and we had to do it by torchlight.

I was a bit of a numpty and while I remembered I needed to check the water I forgot to top it up and whatnot at the pub on the Snake Pass which meant I broke down in the middle of Stockport. Lol. Waited for things to cool down, topped up the water and when we got to Manchester I tightened up the top hose so I didn't lose more water.

Everything has been lovely plain sailing since then.

exhaust was a minor problem for a dub that m8 u wanna see the state of the footpath outside my house frm where my last polo scraped the sh*t out the pavement wen pullin it on me drive....even had to dig a trench in the drive so i could get car on

Heh, yeah, most VWs are far lower than mine. I didn't even think I could scrape mine on stuff and normally don't, but whoever thought it was a good idea to put a high bar speed bump on a downhill corner in a car park ought to be shot.

same wiv alot of stupid speedhumps theres one on a slope near a mates house that i got beached on in me green polo saloon ....had to get a mate to push me bk off ,lol

speedbumps, no need for them really... happily, I've never been beached but I did get caught out by one of those island ones yesterday. Happily nobody was on the road so I could take last minute evasive action, but it wasn't comfortable!

Been a while since I updated here, but there is a little something to update with.

Lately I've been having an odd intermittent fault that's been gradually getting worse. Usually, it happens coming up to road ends, and sometimes when at idle in traffic, and it's rather frustrating. Every now and then, the car will cut out on me, without any drama, it's just like it's stalled and I have to then restart the engine to get things going again.

After much deliberation it's been decided that it's probably some of the 26 year old spark providing components rather than a fuel issue, so on Saturday it'll be time to buy all kinds of sparky things, or maybe just a new coil, to try and fix the problem. As we work through the car more small problems appear but it's to be expected since he's spent 10 years not being used and he's getting on a bit now. So I'll update on that when we've sorted it.

In the meantime because even I've got fed up of the draughty noisy interior, I decided to do a bit of interior part shopping. Both front door cards are ready to be fitted, but I've been dragging my heels about how to fit them. Today I made the decision to give velcro a try as recommended on a couple of forums. In theory, if I run the velcro around the edges it should stay nice and snug and will certainly cut down on the noise and draught up front.



The other item was some pull handles. To shut my doors I either grab the metal framework where the doorcard should be, risking sliced fingers, or more normally wind down the window and pull on the quarterlight bar. Today I grabbed some green cut glass door knobs and some washers. I'll cut the brass bolts down so they don't foul the window and then have to tighten up the bolt blind, which I'm sure will be a frustrating job. Green matches the dash lights, but if I could have got some red or gold/amber glass knobs I would have instead. These will be fitted somewhere on the metal frame of the door above the door cards.





Here's hoping for a dry spell so I can drag electrical stuff outside and get some interior fitted. Next thing on my shopping list once this is all sorted is going to be a polisher so I can get the paint sorted out, another job I've been dragging my heels about.

glad to see u havent lost heart wiv it.... and still havin fun wiv it

Makes great reading this thread mate. Are all the overheating problems sorted now then?

@cotney05: I've been held back recently, I was in hospital for a week (better now, mind) because my appendix exploded on me, which was fun. Finally seem to have a bit of spare cash too so I can get on with stuff, it's just finding the time and the energy lately to get stuff done.

@smiggy: thanks Overheating problem completely resolved now. Replacing the thermostat and radiator and tightening everything up seems to have done the trick nicely. Runs hotter than he used to, but not so much that it's causing any problems. The new problem is sparky stuff, but we'll get that sorted out soon too.

it all costs money no matter wot in life ur into its just whether its worth the sacrifice of goin wivout or wot av u....i am a man of few pannies and always create a head turnin ride alot of it is in the effort ......obviously sh*t breaks and u av to buy another always a barsteward...i got a few bits like that on me van as in the brake master cylinders knackered but im strugglin along pumpin the brakes for now....thats dubbin....keep at it like smigg says there aint many proper project threads on ere and urs is a good un

@cotney05: That's precisely what I post on build threads for, hearing that other people are getting some enjoyment reading about what I enjoy making, gives me a happy face. There'll be a gold related update later on, just waiting for some paint to dry...

Progress!

Between thunderstorms I got some things done today. Nothing massive, but it's something and that makes me happy.

Today my curb feelers arrived happily, so I've stuck those on. Should help me out when I'm parking, which is something I'm rubbish at.




Then it was time to get the doorcards and fit them... except I discovered that they need a bit shaving off the tops and one bottom corner before they'll fit properly. I'd forgotten to take into account fabric thickness when I made the template and I think there's a slight difference in the way the oilboard works compared to the cardboard of the template. Not a big job, but a necessary one. So I thought I'd fit the new grab handles, but I couldn't find the hacksaw. :

So I got my gold paint and assessed what would be good to spruce up in the interior. I didn't want to go mad with it, I wanted to choose bits to paint wisely, sticking to interesting textures, shapes and focal points without things look too gaudy.

Easy first choice was the window winder inserts. I'm either painting the recess on the round section gold to match or I'm going to try and get some large green glass stones/gems to set in there to match the grab handles.


What else to paint... well the centre console sections are too big to pull it off, the air vents would look clumsy, but wait, what's this? Hmm, yes, I could very easily have a Flash Gordon console in front of me. I like this a lot more now. Nothing else was suitable for repainting, so I left the rest black. See my restraint (or not, since I didn't take a shot of the whole dash)!



Next thing was to finally sort out my tailgate badges. They went from this...


... to this. I'm going to be refitting the badges after the tailgate is smoothed in this way too, I like how it looks.



You can see the whole process here.

I feel better for having done something productive.

lovin the kerb feelers how much and where frm

Lime Bug on eBay and they were £12.45 including postage.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150476137082

Bit fiddly to fit, but easy once you've got all the bits together.

With these updates I'm really spoiling you...

Today I wanted to sort out my weird cutting out issue. I probably didn't need to replace everything I did, but it seemed sensible since the car has now done about 1100 miles since being put on the road after an off the road period of a decade.

First thing was to get to my brother's and get some parts. Then go through and replace everything. First thing was the rotor arm. The old one (left) looks a bit worn compared to the new one (right). Probably best to have replaced it.


Same story with the distributor cap. Old on the left, new on the right.


The main culprits of my odd cutting out problem were suspected to be the fuel filter and the coil. The coil looks okay here.


Pulled off the lead and found a chunk missing. I don't know if this would or wouldn't affect performance, but it seemed sensible to replace it.




Old on the left, new on the right.


To get to the other culprit, we had to remove the air filter box and I seem to be getting oil in it from the breather pipe. I'm told this is normal, but I'd like it not to be.






Fuel filter looked okay, but as we all know appearances can be deceptive with car parts.


Until we took it off.


You wouldn't know it from this side, but it was full of silt and bits of red paint.


The last under-bonnet job was to sort out the bonnet prop. All the catches for the bonnet prop are broken and missing, but I had the velcro in the car so made a new temporary solution.


Then it was on to the interior. It's looking pretty good, apart from the obvious missing bits.


Chompysnake saved me some time and effort by doing something I failed to do: fitting the door pulls in the old door pull slots. Turns out they're a perfect fit.




Last thing to fit will be a gift from Chompysnake, these lovely 6x9 speakers. They're probably going in my rear doorcards or in the rear parcel shelf supports. They're a bit on the large size, so finding anywhere to squeeze them in on the car is tricky. They're certainly nicer sounding than the originals.

hope all that fixs ya cuttin out problems...as it is i think u've covered all bases

u cud get a breather filter n put that on the pipe rather den bak onto the air box n blank off the hole were it used to go in the air box it will stop the oil gettin on ur air filter dats wot i did

@RussMk3: That's one of the options we're considering at the moment. In the meantime, I'll just put up with it. Eventually I intend to go through the engine bay and replace, repair and detail the lot, just need to find the time really.

I managed to get a job done today that I'm very happy to have finished, even if it took me all day to do.

I'm off to a show in Batley, which Slacker put me on to, tomorrow. I was going to be giving Slacker the gold bits from my interior to stripe, but a bad reaction with a lacquer I tried out on the winder handles means I have to find other things to give him to do instead, which I have got of course.

Since getting the car on the road I've been driving with a patchwork interior, only one doorcard up front (until recently when the other carboard temporary gave up) and only one doorcard in the back. Car was a lot noisier and draughtier and smellier and it finally got on my wick enough to do something about it.

Picture time now, obviously.
Rear doorcard area with nothing in. Nice flat surface to apply double sided carpet tape - which was a bugger to cut in half, spent most of its time sticking to all the things I didn't want it to - and the membrane.


The membrane could have been expensive automotive specific stuff, but I need this done for Sunday and I'm tight/poor so I bought some rubble sacks and converted them into plastic sheets with a pair of scissors. Do the job very nicely. Should be a nicer place to sit back there too, for the rare occasion when people squeeze into the back of the car.


Then it was on to the front doors after a thunderstorm broke out. Remove all the trim bits and get busy with the double sided tape. Another rubble bag and job done.


I didn't know how long it would take me to get the door card ready, so just in case I wasn't done by tomorrow morning I put the useful trim back on.


Turns out I got the cards done fairly quickly. New templates were made, measurements carefully taken, original cards altered and retrimmed... stuck the sticky-back velcro on the card in preparation for attaching to the door. Another brief shower was brewing so I had to be quick.


I learned that the Polo interior door card space isn't perfectly flat fairly early on, but the cardboard I'd been using for templates could deal with that. Unfortunately the hardboard needed more persuading so the cards don't fit as perfectly as I'd like, but most people won't notice that unless they look really hard. I need to remove the top right corner of the cover on this card and just let it out a bit to be the proper profile, but that's a job for another day.


I got the cover spot on with the other door, but as you can see the streetlights had come on so it really was the last job of the day for me.


Tomorrow I refit my gear knob that I've cleaned more muck off - I swear, I've cleaned it twice and it still keeps revealing shiny leather through yet another layer of polished muck in different places - and the dash console which has been given a fresh coat of paint ready for slacker to work his magic on (hopefully).

We think we have fixed it.

Checked the system, power at coil and HT leads, opened up the distributor to inspect the points. Not sure what that blob of white is there...


Oh, it's the melted plastic components of my old points. That might be the root of the problem.






I did take pics of the whole process of refitting the new points (barsteward of a job, especially on a steep road with cars driving past everytime you get things lined up and then have to move, dropping the retaining screw AGAIN) but my camera ate them for some reason.

We got the new points refitted and gapped, I say we because my housemate who has no experience of working on cars helped me out. Turned the key and hey presto, it started! I let out a cry of "hooray" and the people walking past gave me a funny look >.> I hadn't seen them.

So, to make sure all was well I tootled around the block and instantly noticed there was more perkiness to the engine. However, I also noticed that the repaired backbox was starting to blow, so that's definitely top of the car shopping list again as it saps all the top end power.

Went for a proper drive out into the peaks just to check everything was okay and keep an ear and nose out for anything amiss. Apart from having my temperature light coming on - I suspect I knocked the plug on the fan because it wasn't coming on, but a wiggle reinstated it - it went without incident.

There was also a rainbow.






Now on the list are:
Backbox - blowing again as expected.
Windscreen and seal - both damaged.
Rear tyres - want them to match the front.
Tailgate - remote lock and smoothing to repair damage.

Was feeling a bit grotty today, so I cheered myself up by tinkering with the car and then going for a pointless drive. Feel much better now ;D

First of all, I wanted to give the Swarfega Jizer (name lol) engine degreaser I bought a try. There was an attempt to steam clean the car shortly after buying it, but it didn't really work very well. So there's about 20 odd years of grime and oil built up all over the engine. The look, smell and feel of old engine oil and road muck when you're under the bonnet is not so great.

Before.


After. Looks like I'm going to have to paint the engine bay, you can see it's blue now :


Spent some time cleaning. To be fair, I need to get in there with some tools and a toothbrush to do the job right. For now it was kitchen towel and a bit of water to wipe stuff down. There's much less of an 'old car smell' inside the cabin too now, which is good.


Then decided to go on a bit of a drive, see if I could find some photo opportunities. Helped me unwind a bit too.





Found a tank!








Nicole?

I took a video with my camera today, I think it sounds okay. Timing is a bit off and I think my tappets need tweaking. I know the rocker cover gasket is leaking slightly on the bottom right corner so at some point I'll pull the whole thing apart and renew. The slight blow on the backbox probably isn't helping matters.

Anyway, what do you think, good or bad, anything sound amiss?

Clicky Video

Did a bit more on the car today. The easy stuff came first.

Badges on the back. I'm just waiting on an auction to see if I win some gromits to fit the other badge before that goes on. Don't look too bad in situ.


Then I put my Rat-look dogtag on the car. Been meaning to do this for ages. If it *really* annoys me I'll find somewhere else to put it.




Got this leather gear gaitor from the Bay of E for a very small sum. Pops over the original split rubber gaitor and looks much nicer.


Then I had to get to fitting the condensor which, typically, required removal of the entire unit to do because VW fitted it to the underside.


I found this particularly daunting because it meant I'd have to set the timing myself, something I've never done and always been nervous of doing with this car. The condensor is important to the system so I knew it had to be done so I bit the bullet and removed the unit, giving it a damned good clean before refitting. I need to give it a better clean still much like everything else under the bonnet. Bish bash bosh it was all reconstructed and put on and, using the marks made on the unit, I lined everything up and tweaked it just a little bit to get the car running nicely again.


I'm not even sure what I was so worried about now.

Confidence boosted I moved on to something fun for myself. Took the old duck's fart horn off. Not because it was broken, just because it was rubbish.




Took a bit of effort, the nuts had seized, got my housemate to lend a bit of brute force to my ignorance. Once off I fitted the new horn after bending the old bracket accordingly. It's a tight fit, but it doesn't rub or knock on anything so should be okay.


Sounds fun too, makes me smile. As did this discovery: My car's so goth, &c.






... I should probably give him a wash.

I'm very definitely going through a productive spell with the car at the moment, so there's likely to be lots of little updates over the next few days just like this one.

My replacement mirror arrived and while it's a bit smaller than anticipated it will do the trick. Some strong adhesive and preparation work and I now have a bodge-fixed passenger wing mirror ready to be fitted.


Parents gave me a lift down to Halfords to pick up some polishing gear. Went with the G3 and some Autoglym polish (because I'm an Autoglym whore) so I could crack on with having a go at polishing. Best of all, there was a 3 for 2 offer so I saved myself a tenner.

Decided to experiment to see how things work. I've not done this sort of thing for a while and G3 is new to me, as is having a machine polisher. I put some G3 on the rear quarter and gave it a go over and then applied polish. It came up great. The paint is nice and shiny with a good depth, but it's not flat, obviously.


This meant I could try out the recommended method of flatting back the paint down to 2000 grit before using polishing compound. I picked on the roof as it's the biggest, flattest panel. I was a bit heavy handed and took too much off in places with the 600 I started with but once I got the hang of how much to take off and how much to leave it went much better. Then it was a decent application of G3 which lead to a lovely satin finish before giving it a dose of finishing polish.


My extension cable wasn't long enough, so I could only do half the roof, lol.


However, I am happy with how it's come up. I need to invest in some small rollers to get a final smoother coat of paint on the roof after cutting it back again and doing this all over again, but I'm feeling more confident about how to work with the stuff. Having a machine polisher certainly makes life easier.


Some bits I went too far with, you can just about make out the slightly darker spot where the old paint shows through. I'm not going for patina here, but if I were I'd leave it as is.


And the doomy sky that made me stop work.



I've got a fortnight to get the car all shiny and shipshape, I reckon that I can do it if the weather is kind.

Update time again. I'm getting fed up of the weather, I really am. was supposed to be a lovely day all day, but I keep getting the odd spot of rain, a lot of cold wind and doomy clouds, so I've downed tools until tomorrow.

All was not lost though. I did get the whole roof flatted back ready for yet another coat of paint. With the way the roof is going I suspect it'll need another 2 or 3 coats before I can polish it up properly and there's bits on the rest of the car I'm noticing where I've clearly not done a good enough prep job, probably because at some points I was a bit rushed.



Then I stripped down the Type 4 headlamp units I've got. The original sealed beam lights will be binned and replaced with new modern units instead.




Although I couldn't fit these permanently yet, it gave me something to do. Had a good check to see how easy or difficult it'll be to slot everything in and it looks like I just need to modify/replace the old headlamp mounting brackets with something a bit further forwards. Should be fairly easy to do but time consuming.

Here you can see how the original bracket fouls the adjusters. It's the same issue both sides.




Thankfully, the new units aren't wide enough to foul the radiator or restrict any air flow.


They're also nice and shallow front to back.




I'm not sure what I'm doing with the original trims, they'll clearly need a lot of trimming down to fit especially since I couldn't even mock them up into place in stock form. I also suspect I might need to alter the shape of the bonnet edge a bit and maybe even the bit of metal below the lights. For the chasm between the new lights I've got some aluminium grille bars from a Triumph that I'll polish up and fit once they've been trimmed accordingly.

The last job I attempted was to fit the passenger wing mirror. But I think I've cross threaded the bolt and when the mirror jumped as I was unfastening the bolt and gouged a chunk of paint off I decided to just leave everything alone for the day before I made it any worse.

would it not be easier to buy the four headlamp mk2 polo grill?

I'm all for fabrication but getting a grill to work for that will be very difficult!
easiest option would be south african t25 quad grill cut down to fit. the plastic welding would need to be professionally done though else it'll crack.

Looks like this,



Jon.

I have the headlamp-with-spots 4 lamp Polo grille and I don't like it or the plain 2 light grille. I want to ditch the plastic grille and I'm not that fussed about it being more work to make right. Now I've got the mock-up done it's not actually that much work to make fit, it just needs some clever thinking.