Hey well been sorting this polo out for ages cost me a grand total of £111 off ebay when i bought it but have then spent well over a grand restoring and buying new parts and chopping out rust and welding in replacement parts put I'm now quite happy with it but its a long way from finished so just thought i would get some pics up finally and see what you guys think. Got alot of plans coming for this just time and money well more money atm as my gf is at uni i have shed loads of time lol. Just had to flair the rear arches to get my new wheels to fit as the mk1/2 golf arches are welded slightly off central as can be seen in pic but il be cleaning it up soon and it fits nice now.

so far i have:

Replaced petrol tank and sender unit.

Moved inner sill wall away from filler neck to stop dirt trap

New full copper brakelines

New large bore copper fuel lines

80/60 phil j kit

New pads and disks front

new pads and drums rear

new rear brakecylinders

Mk1/2 golf arches fully welded on in all four corners

stripped out rear seats

New bootlid with spoiler (as old owner reversed into a skip)

new rear crystal clear lights

De bumpered

new front dome indicators

new rear bottom panel welded in.

removed tow bar (for sale if anyone wants)

resprayed matt black

undersealed all four arches

modified handbrake to fit around new mk3 petrol tank tank

twin headlight grill put on

Painted front calipers red

1.5 degree negative camber shims on rear

Flaired rear arches pikey style

Newly resprayed weller mattigs put on 7j front et 020 175 60 tyres 7.5j rear et 005 185 60 tyres

cant remember anything else atm and il do a proper build thread when i have time.

Thanks for looking guys hope you enjoy its been alot of hard work for me but well worth it in my eyes.

Edited 23 June, 201313 yr by StinkyPete

tht looks pritty sweet how you piky the arched out?

Mole grips to pull it up then a small wood plank in the gap then me and my dad sitting in the boot and bending the wood up and have also rolled the lips too before i welded the arches on.

looks like you've done some nice work there bud!

get a build thread up :)

also could you tell me how you modified the handbrake to fit around the mk3 tank? interested to see how you did it. I've welded in a Mk3 handbrake mech to mine.

and which Mk1/2 golf panels am I looking for/where did you buy them? I'm planning on doing the same with the arches next year when I do the bodywork, reckon you could pm me with some advice plz?

very nice to see someone not following the crowd nice work bud will be great when finished

not massively to my taste, but having a mk2 bready myself, i know how much of a bastard them arches are, the rear ones look mint!

the only thing i suggest is....

more photos

Edited 30 October, 201015 yr by Prox

well the handbrake was a complete bitch as i suddenly realised it was a mk3 tank 3 days before the mot which was on a thursday and the friday morning i was meant to be driving to NASS to ride the pro bmx comp. So what i managed to do was space the pulley for the rear cable down by an inch to move it out the way of the larger tank. i then realised the original front cable was no where near long enough anymore for the re positioning of where the front cable had to pull the rear cable so i took the original to my good mates at Wilko car store and spent an hour searching through all of their handbrakes to find one with similar cable ends but longer once i had managed to find one i then had to weld in a bracket underneath to work as an outer cable stop for the different routing of the front cable. I then tooko out the handbrake lever and modified how it would hold and pull the cable and then modified where the cable went into the car so it would act as an outer cable stop for the innner wire to move and pull freely. the trouble then was as this new handbrake cable came off an old car the thread for the adjuster at the rear end was M7 x 1.0 thread and i coudlt for the life of me get hold of a nut to fit. Luckily being an engineer by trade i went an bought a new M7 x 1.0 tap and drilled and rethreaded some m6 nuts. to my relief the handbrake passed the mot amazingly well so am pretty proud of myself but i will at some point strip it all out and fit a full mk3 rear handbrake setup. so any info on this would be great thanks.

I may also have this new tank and sender for sale soon as i should be getting a custom made alloy fuel tank to fit in the rear spare wheel well .

For the MK1/2 rear arches i bought rear golf repair panels from http://www.volkswarenhaus.de/ great website and quite cheap on some things as both rear repair arches came to like £54 delivered from germany the front ones wings i bought from monkeypolo on here i finished welding them properly and then spent alot of time bodyfilling and smoothing them it also took alot of work bodyfilling and smoothing the rear arches and they still need alot more work.

hope all this helps lol

http://www.typ-17.de/index.php/cat/c1532_B...rts.html/page/2

link for front and rear arches the rears are repair panels the front are just arches you will see them the rears are 16 euros each and the front arches are 15 euros each. so with postage should get all four for less than £100 posted roughly but the rears are alot of hassle to do as nothing lines up properly and it takes alot of fabrication as you have to fully change the shape of the inner arch from square to round profile. I would put up pics of all the processes that i have done for everything on the car so far but i lost all the pics when i smashed my phone so was really gutted to lose all of that.

new pics and update.

painted rear drums red today and also sorted out most of the rear arches just needs bodyfiller and respray on them but going to wait for now and also wired in stereo properly fitted to two new speakers in each front door card sounds amazing no pics of speakers yet tho.

Edited 31 October, 201015 yr by StinkyPete

them rear archs look mega mate :-)

Nice thanks for the info dude, really appreciate the links to the arches. Might be something I plan in advance, reckon it could be done in a week (7 days)?

well the handbrake was a complete bitch as i suddenly realised it was a mk3 tank 3 days before the mot which was on a thursday and the friday morning i was meant to be driving to NASS to ride the pro bmx comp. So what i managed to do was space the pulley for the rear cable down by an inch to move it out the way of the larger tank. i then realised the original front cable was no where near long enough anymore for the re positioning of where the front cable had to pull the rear cable so i took the original to my good mates at Wilko car store and spent an hour searching through all of their handbrakes to find one with similar cable ends but longer once i had managed to find one i then had to weld in a bracket underneath to work as an outer cable stop for the different routing of the front cable. I then tooko out the handbrake lever and modified how it would hold and pull the cable and then modified where the cable went into the car so it would act as an outer cable stop for the innner wire to move and pull freely. the trouble then was as this new handbrake cable came off an old car the thread for the adjuster at the rear end was M7 x 1.0 thread and i coudlt for the life of me get hold of a nut to fit. Luckily being an engineer by trade i went an bought a new M7 x 1.0 tap and drilled and rethreaded some m6 nuts. to my relief the handbrake passed the mot amazingly well so am pretty proud of myself but i will at some point strip it all out and fit a full mk3 rear handbrake setup. so any info on this would be great thanks.

I may also have this new tank and sender for sale soon as i should be getting a custom made alloy fuel tank to fit in the rear spare wheel well .

For the MK1/2 rear arches i bought rear golf repair panels from http://www.volkswarenhaus.de/ great website and quite cheap on some things as both rear repair arches came to like £54 delivered from germany the front ones wings i bought from monkeypolo on here i finished welding them properly and then spent alot of time bodyfilling and smoothing them it also took alot of work bodyfilling and smoothing the rear arches and they still need alot more work.

hope all this helps lol

http://www.typ-17.de/index.php/cat/c1532_B...rts.html/page/2

link for front and rear arches the rears are repair panels the front are just arches you will see them the rears are 16 euros each and the front arches are 15 euros each. so with postage should get all four for less than £100 posted roughly but the rears are alot of hassle to do as nothing lines up properly and it takes alot of fabrication as you have to fully change the shape of the inner arch from square to round profile. I would put up pics of all the processes that i have done for everything on the car so far but i lost all the pics when i smashed my phone so was really gutted to lose all of that.

The handbrake sounds like a right mission! This is what I did, just uploading the rest of the photos now:

http://www.clubpolo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=219421

Tbh to be done in seven days would be a right mission are you on about like full days each day working on your car or would it be around work and for the first arch it really is sort of hit and miss and you need to be a very competent welder. also it needs to be fully seem welded because if its just welded in seems here and there to hold it in place it is now an mot failure the whole thing will have to be fully seem welded. also matching the inside of the square arch to the new larger round profile i had to cut the inner arch back and then slot it to bend it up this left gaps after welding which you can weld plate into or do what i did which as they were small gaps i filled the inside so above the arches in the car behind the rear door cards with expanding foam two reason it adds as soundproofing and insulation put also gives you a solid surface behind the gaps i then used tiger seal to seal the rolled lips and all over the welding where i joined the inner and outer wheel arch on the inside to smooth over the welds and hide them and then i used it to fill the small gaps and it pushed against the expanding foam. reason for using tigerseal over bodyfiller is that it flexes with the car chassis where as bodyfiller doesnt and as its a wheel arch it will get vibration off all the road bumps. i then undersealed over all of this just to make sure of no rust.

the other problem will be that both rear arches will be different to do as one side has the cut away for the petrol tank filler neck and the other side doesnt i tried to match both sides equal and they turned out ok. and also the mk2 golf arches are bigger and you can see on mine my wheel doesnt sit central but thats how my arches matched up to the bodywork its not great but i like it because its different .

if you need any more help mate let me know i was going to do a full build thread and step by step with pictures but i smashed my old phone with all the pictures on so was pretty much proper gutted lol.

Right new update time i guess no pictures atm but a mahoosive list of new parts so here goes.

well finally got my hands on an AFH lump not bad £150 with new waterpump, cambelt, tensioner and idler pulley all included ready to fit.

Headgasket kit

Headbolts

MSD Blaster 2 coil

oil catch tank

home made carb inlet manifold

steel sheet for rear window and boot smoothing

CBR 600 FN carbs

Mk3 gold dizzy

MK2 golf ignition module

Smiths fuel gauge

Facet competition fuel pump

inline fuel filter large capacity

fuel pressure regulator (with gauge)

Carb Trumpet socks

H4 HID kit (just waiting to get later model headlights that are H4 fitment as mine are the older PR45)

these are all ready for the AFH conversion I'm just currently stripping and rebuilding the engine with all new gaskets and seals. and also going to port match the head to the manifold and give it some DIY port and polishing.

Have also fitted cobra fixed bucket seats and cobra 4 point harnesses.

Remote central locking with alarm system and Remote start fully working and wired in.

Also just made these things at work as you notice my rear wheels sit at the back of the arches due to the golf arches not lining up with the polo bodywork properly so at work i cnc machined some stub axle spacers?movers that will move the stub axle 30mm forward to centre the wheel which will reduce tyre rub round corners and allow me to go even lower if i want.

Pics

Hope you enjoy il get pictures of stuff when i can.

Peter

cant wait to see all this go together

I hope your joking about those spacer things?

Where is it you plan on putting them? in between the axle and the brakes?

got any pics of the front arches at all? cos i have done my rear archs, but still need to do the fronts.

I hope your joking about those spacer things?

Where is it you plan on putting them? in between the axle and the brakes?

What's wrong with the drop plates tobes? (or in this case "forward plates")

Only thing i would recommend is welding some additional supports from the axle to them, or some kind of triangulated re-enforcement.

Good work

To me, it just looks like an accident waiting to happen?

You moving the weight of the car off the axle and onto a small bit of metal... I can just see it going horribly wrong.

Please prove me wrong though lol.

I know what you mean, But if its done properly it should be fine.

The biggest worry is the fact that your creating a moment around the centre of the original mounting place for the stub axle,

In other words, The bolted on plate is always wanting to rotate upwards due to the weight of the car pushing down on it, and in theory could shear the bolts.

To get around this you need to weld some angles in there to create a triangle of some sort (strongest shape)

How thick are they btw?

They are 20mm thick mild steel plates and as its only moving the stub axle forward a little it will still be mainly reinforced by the rear beam. I have sat at work and worked it out and will be using high tensile bolts to bolt the plate to the rear beam and then the stub axle and drum brakes will be bolted to the plate. No reason why it shouldnt work and will only create a little extra strain. I have checked it over with other engineers i work with so if there would be a big problem I'm sure someone would have picked up on it.

and il try get some closer pics of the front arches what are you looking for on them.

ohh and when i get a new rear beam with an arb i will be looking at extra reinforcement for them just to make sure but as i said due to them only being moved 30mm forward and it will still be mainly pressed inbetween the rear beam mounting and the stub axle it should not create too much of an extra moment.

and il try get some closer pics of the front arches what are you looking for on them.

just a few close ups really from the fronts, backs and side on like. (if that makes sense)

Takes some balls to do that to your arches yourself .

Not a bad lil project this , look forward to seeing it progress

Another update more parts bought hurray but actually need to get on and start doing more but i have managed to do some things this weekend.

New parts are:

Original Tinted green windscreen

G-lader ARB blocks

5 Speed ARB

5 Speed Gear linkage

5 Speed 8P Gearbox

MK2 flywheel (to be lightened at work :grin: )

G-lader rear beam bushes

Coupe s ignition module and loom

Right this weekend i have drilled out and removed my spare wheel well to give me extra clearance.

In the hole that is left i will make a new tray that doesn't go as deep to fit an alloy fuel tank (being bought next payday)

I have also then swapped the boot locking mech off of the boot door and mounted it to the car and have also fitted a boot popper solenoid to work with my remote central locking.

The reason i have swapped the locking mech to the chassis from the door is so that i now have no wires running into the boot lid. as it will be flushed soon and the rear window is being removed and I'm plating over the window opening to make it a van basically.

Next plans are to take off rear beam and clean it all up. bolt on my new stub axle forward plates then weld these on to the rear beam and reainforce where they hang over the mounting face at the front by boxing it up with steel plate. Then repaint the beam with black hammerite, and install G-Lader rear beam bushes. Clean up under the car and underseal if needs be. And finally put the rear beam back on and admire my wheels now sitting in the middle of the rear arches hopefully.

Also i will be welding up my carb inlet manifold at work and lightening my new flywheel and also stripping the afh head and putting new valve stem seals on then rebuilding the head back up and port matching it with the inlet manifold.

still alot to be done but trying to get the engine in around mid march so unfortunately il miss ultimate dubs but oh well cars more important atm.

hope you guys like and i have a mk2/3 rear spare wheel well for sale its in good condition just pm me.

thanks

Peter

oh forgot to add a while ago i have removed number plate from boot lid and have put a motorbike sized square one below the boot in the centre with motorbike number plate light bolts looks pretty good and will look alot better once the boot is smoothed.