Amusingly, the trad custom/hot rod crowd get the impression I'm an over-eager teenager rather than middle-aged. Perhaps it's because I like the older stuff but don't have it and am not very keen on fibreglass and that sort of thing.

Definitely needs lowering, it's really wibblywobbly at stock height, just not sure how low I can go on the stock wheels, I'm thinking 2-3" or so.

Right, update time again. This weekend had that satisfying-yet-frustrating element of running out of things to do.

The first surprise for me was a Red Admiral butterfly that had got into the barn which I put outside, but not before getting some photographs first. It's the first time I've ever handled one of these, and I think only the second one I've seen outside of books and television. Usually, they're a rare sight but apparently they're pretty common on the farm.

Matches the car quite well I thought.

I spent Saturday morning fitting the covers to the the front seat and the back seat, but unfortunately couldn't fit the rear seat cover properly because I didn't have enough of these 'grippy clips'. I don't know what they're called so my searches are coming up fruitless so if anyone knows what they are called and where I might get some that would be handy. I need about a dozen.

So I bunged the back seat in the car anyway. Also dropped the parcel shelf in (it's from a Coupé so it doesn't fit properly, but it's near enough and it's black so it'll do for now). The front passenger seat got finished off too. Then Adam took the grinder to the back bumper as per my request and directly as a result of chompysnake's pototatoshop.

It took Adam a matter of minutes to fabricate the new brackets, drill the holes and trim the bumper but would easily have taken me most of the day to figure out, I think. Handy having friends who know what they're doing.

At first the plan was to move the overriders out to be under the lights, but this looked stupid. Instead, Adam put them back to where they were and using a seemingly casual glance worked out precisely where to cut the back of them off so that they clear the sweep of the tailgate. Again, this is a job that would've taken me bloody ages.

We also tackled the front end. I used tape to mock up where everything should go aesthetically.

But then Adam asked if I'd checked for clearance behind the panel, which I thought I had but I'd actually put the indicators so that they straddled the crossmember/chassis rail ends and would be impossible to fit so I had to move them. I did so, marked up with some masking tape and then tried my kidney choppers by pushing them roughly into place. I prefer the front with them, but I'm not sure on the legality even though they sit further back than the bumper.

I pulled them off again so we could do the indicators. Again Adam worked his magic and had them fitted (but not yet wired up since we needs some electrical gubbinz) in a fraction of the time it took me to decide where they should go. The number plate is screwed to the valance which looks tidy and saved us having to fabricate bumper brackets.

The interior is coming together nicely now. I'm planning to eventually fit a gold or black (or maybe gold and black) carpet to replace the faded red one. Seats are looking good, if I do say so myself, and the back seat will look better when the upright part is properly fitted.

It's pretty close now, happily, the rear quarter looking much better since it was sanded back and painted. I'll need to sand and paint it again to get it properly smooth, but the sandpaper I had wasn't coarse enough to get through what I needed to in the time we had.

Made a start on the spare wheel too. Definitely going with black centres and the gold rim will be red. Next visit I'm hoping to get the car up on axle stands so that I can paint all five wheel centres, fit them on the car and then do the red rims once the black is dry enough to mask off.

Stickers.

So, the checklist now looks like this, lots of fiddly little jobs:

-Finish fitting the rear seat cover and final handsewing to finish off trims.

-Fit the rear numberplate

-Wire up the front indicators

-Fit new number plate lights that are on order.

-Sand back and repaint the driver's side rear quarter.

-Wire up the driving lights and air horns.

-Obtain and fit new tyres (unfortunately, the ones offered by MikeD are too big :( for my skinny-ass 13" 135 wheels)

-Refit horrible original mirrors for the MoT due to fabrication required to locate new chrome mirrors.

-Pre-MoT checks to make sure everything is as it should be.

-Obtain and fit tailgate badges (possibly from retrowagen, because he's some sort of Polo parts Don at the moment)

-plug various holes left by modifications with rubber grommets to prevent leaks

-Finish interior sun visors

Also to do, though these are less important jobs and will happen over the winter and/or next year:

-Repaint all five wheels

-Cut and polish paint so it's even more awesome looking.

-Lowering springs.

-Whitewall tyres (probably Mr Whitewalls)

-Band steels

-Make and fit new interior door and boot cards (probably wood and brass...)

-Obtain and fit new colour carpet to match the new interior

-Smooth out number plate recess in tailgate

Much later down the line, but still on the want list are:

-Decide upon and fabricate rear end design.

-Convert to rear wheel drive.

-Fit Derby or Coupé rear side windows with pop outs, modifying C pillar accordingly.

-Fabricate and/or fit side exit exhausts for extra lowness ability and noise.

good effort dude the hard work's paying off

i love this.

actually truly original and very well modified. good luck to you sir!

favourite feature has to be the bumpers.

good effort dude the hard work's paying off

Thank you. Lots more still to do, but I think the really tough stuff is done now.

i love this.

actually truly original and very well modified.

:-D This comment made my evening! I love my Hillman Imp bumpers, they'll look even better when I eventually get them rechromed.

Dude you should have put the butterfly on the bonnet and lacquered it in before it got chance to move!

NOW THATS ORIGINAL KIDS!

That would've been mean, I suspect you're a meanie.

I wonder if you can get a Red Admiral in a clear resin ball to use as a gearknob? I've never seen anything like that.

looks great! not the usual modified mk2 either, very original. bumpers are ace. banded steels sound like an awesome idea

and to think the nearside rear light is actually an original part from my mk2 hehe!

Much appreciated that light is too, looks so much better than the big clear lens I did have and the clips on the back aren't broken.

For some reason it made me realise that I haven't priced up what I want to buy to improve things.

Lowering springs - £60 (Jamex 70mm, about 2 3/4" drop)

Band steels about 1" - about £3-400

New tyres - £80-120 (tyres and steels might get clumped together so I get new tyres on the newly widened wheels)

Whitewalls - £150-200 (don't want to faff about with whitewall paint)

New windscreen - £40 (Have a stone chip that's bound to get worse next year)

Door cards and fittings - £40-60

Door handle inserts etched - £25

Passenger side chrome mirror - £20

Spats - £250-300 (custom fabrication)

New carpet - £30-60 (black or gold deep pile ideally)

Bumpers rechromed - £? no idea

Exterior sun visor - £? No idea

Reprofiled rear valance - £? no idea

It's a shorter list than anticipated so I'm sure I've forgotten something.

It has been a while, but here we go with an update.

The first job before setting off this weekend was the get the sunvisors sorted out. The frames had been cleaned up and the white one sprayed black so I just needed to get the perspex covers cut properly.

Then I broke one because I'm a collosal numpty when it comes to cutting perspex.

But it's okay, the bf fixed it for me by doing all the cutting after I borked that one and I have a plan to hide the crack anyway. Some hot-glue gun action (and a headache bordering on a migraine later thanks to fumes) and I got one visor glued together.

However, because the headache wasn't a pleasant thing, I decided to do the rest of the gluing at the barn since it had much better ventilation.

Happily, earlier in the week the clips arrived for the back seat cover.

They were really reasonably priced, just the ticket for the job and delivered very promptly. I can't recommend highly http://www.bresco.com/index.html enough. These S-clips are really easy to fit and to remove when you get it wrong, which was great. My only problem was the varying thickness of the fabric cover, but that is very easily overcome. For now I'm happy that the cover is secure and smart and when I have the car back at home I'll get the cover properly finished with a bit of fettling.

So then it was off to the barn, or rather the new barn. We've moved out of the awesome barn of many tools into the dark barn of poor lighting. It's not too much of a problem since we really are on the home straight now. Adam set about the mechanical stuff while I got on with the interior bits and bobs and Hazel made some all important tea.

I'm having trouble getting the car to run at idle properly until the engine has warmed up. After much fettling it seems to be that the rubber seal the carburettor is seated on has perished and could, in theory, be pulling more air in when cold than when warm, thus causing the idling issue. It could also be a problem with the carburettor internals which is why Adam is going to give it a thorough clean and inspection. The engine in this car has never really run smoothly in all the time we've owned it so it would be nice to sort that out.

The other mechanical issue is my braking system. The system has been bled so that there's definitely no air in it and we've fitted new discs, new drums and reconditioned front calipers along with new brake lines and yet the brake pedal doesn't really firm up like it used to. The suspicion that Adam has (I know very little about this aspect) is that some inner seals have gone meaning that the system is only half working and pressure is escaping. He's going to fill me in with proper details at some point so that I can try and investigate the issue on various forums, including RR, but I need to know my facts properly before I ask how to fix the problem.

While Adam was busy mechanicing I fitted the rear seat...

...then the sun visors.

Hazel had been busy getting the wire brush to the wheels to get them ready for a quick coat of black paint just to tidy them up, I'll go back and redo them properly when it's warmer and I have better light, but they'll do for now. Adam and Hazel worked together to fit the glovebox too since I couldn't see what I was doing.

The temporary cardboard door cards were fitted to keep things tidy until I get the materials together to make the new ones...

... and the badge holes and other holes in the tailgate were plugged temporarily with some rubber gromits. Eventually I'll be doing some smoothing work on the tailgate and getting some nice badges to finish it all of, but that can wait.

Things are looking good I think.

The things left to do are mostly cosmetic things now so the focus is more on getting the car on the road at this point. To do this I need:

Carburettor to be working properly

New cam belt and possibly new water pump

1 bulb in rear light cluster

Obligatory legal stuff like MoT and Insurance.

Figure out the brake problem

Yes, I will be lowering it, yes I will be doing more cosmetic things like replacing the carpet and polishing the paint... but that's not too important just yet.

EXCITEMENT ;D

*cough*

Tonight was a happy surprise jaunt. Lankytom had been wanted to get some tyres and alloys shifted pronto and new tyres is something I've been aware I need at least shortly after MoT time but ideally before. Happily, we settled on a price I could afford and that lankytom was (as far as I'm aware) happy with. Only one problem: round things are in Gainsborough and I'm in Sheffield with no personal transport.

Queue hazelwolf stepping into the breach to help at very short notice. So, one relatively uneventful trip out and we're greeted by a friendly and very tall chap with the most adorable dog you've ever seen. Would've liked to have stopped longer for a chinwag really, but time was getting on before we even set off so I promptly paid for the round things, we loaded up the mini Peugeot and headed home on an equally uneventful trip.

So what did I get?

That's a set of 4 'tarantula' VW alloys, 13" 5.5J and they look like they've got space for bigger brakes to be fitted to the Polo, which is a bonus. Shoes are a pair of nearly new Pirelli P5000 Drago measuring 175/50 and a pair of Fulda Carat Assuro measuring 175/60 with one spare Fulda of the same sort and size.

Wheels have thoughtfully been painted to match my current colour scheme, so thank you for that.

I will probably refurbish the wheels at a later date but they're perfectly fine as they are for now. I'm thinking of doing them the same colour but with the paint I did the car in and with polished faces to the spokes. I'm also thinking I'll fit my refurbished black and red hubcaps, I'm hoping they fit but I won't find out until I have the wheels up at the car. Eventually I might look at fitting some chrome hubcaps, especially if I go the polished spoke-face route.

Normally, I'm not a fan of alloys, I certainly didn't plan to buy any, but these work surprisingly well (as the picture in my previous post shows) and it would have been daft to pass them up for the sensible money asked.

Next on the list now is some locking wheels nuts (I live in Sheffield, after all, alloy wheels have legs here) and a lowering kit since now I'll definitely need it... got my eye on something suitable.

So yeah, big thanks to hazelwolf and lankytom for helping me out with this, much appreciated.

lol, this thing is crazy!

In a good way, I hope

Still loads of stuff to do visually, but the main blanks of the canvas are there now.

Yess, this is genuinely original and cool, not seen anything like this.

New wheels will make it look a lot better, without being a typical CPer, are you going to drop it ?

Yess, this is genuinely original and cool, not seen anything like this.

New wheels will make it look a lot better, without being a typical CPer, are you going to drop it ?

Yes, just as soon as I can afford a 60/40 kit. The new wheels and tyres were really more cash than I have spare at the mo, but I couldn't pass them up when the opportunity arose. Also, when I can afford to, my old steels are getting banded to a similar size to the new wheels for when I fancy a change. But suspension and banding is about £300 I don't have right now :/

I just noticed this has been moved into the members section from the general board... that means I have 2 identical build threads here now. Er... so does you can't have a thread in the non-member bit now?

My bad, just noticed the sticky... paying attention fail, sorry about that Mods.

Edited 16 February, 201115 yr by Angyl

I know, I know, more photoshop stuff. However, this one is with good reason. I can fit those wheels since I have them, once I've finished saving up the lowering can happen too (maybe a little less severe, but it's close enough for this). I've got the hubcaps already refurbed and they *should* slot on to the alloys nicely. I can do the new red with chrome colour split thanks to Crash.

The only things here that I can't do yet and that are purely speculative are the spats (which we've already discussed) and the Lakes. Makes everything feel just that bit more complete to me.

i <3 this car

@leonh: thank you :)

Minor update this one, but a job I've been meaning to do for a while.

I'm off to the barn this weekend so I needed to get stuff together, including if possible finishing off the front door cards. I've cut out the hardboard for the rear door cards but I need to check fit before I start covering them.

First job was to take a paper template, which I did while the doors were still here being painted. That template was then transferred to some hardboard and cut out accordingly.

This let me know dimensions so I knew how much fabric to use. I encountered a problem when it turned out I hadn't got enough fabric to do what I wanted, so a bit of ingenuinity was to be had in the form of patchwork tuck-an-roll.

After some fettling I got the fabric stretched around the hardboard, glued on the back and the glue reinforced with duct tape. I'll finish putting tape all the way around when I grab some more tomorrow. The tape helps as a backup for the glue and to tidy up fabric edges that might fray. Additionally, the shiny side of the hardboard and the outside of duct tape is water resistant, which is a useful thing for the back of the door cards.

Next was to refit the door pocket. As much as it would be fun to not have them, I can't deny how useful they are. The original door card has a recess behind the pocket but the new ones don't, so I had to chop the central support down a bit to make it flush.

Then I had to locate the screw holes. To do this I put the pocket where I wanted it on the fabric side and used pins to mark where the screws should go through. Using an awl I made holes through to the back one at a time and screwed the pocket screws in from the back. A bit of fettling and it all lined up and I could screw the door pocket in place neatly. The chrome trim is some that I got for free from Crash and helps give a nice finishing touch.

Once it was all together and as finished as it can be I propped it up for a proper look. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.

These don't take very long to make even with all the sewing. The intention is to screw the door card to the door so that it sits flush with the metal work. A small slit will be made in the seam over the window winder hole before refitting the handles. For a door closing handle I was going to use these brass handles I got ages ago, but instead I've decided to use the B-pillar grab handles so that I put less strain on the hardboard and so that it's easier to fix them to the metal: they screw on from the front rather than the back.

Getting there.

Great work! Good to see someone who isn't scared of doing something different!

@customautoworks: Thank you :) This is all about pleasing myself and if other people like it then that's a bonus!

***

So, I'm back from the barn again after yet another hateful public transport experience... but we shan't go into the latter.

Got lots of 'unseen' work done this weekend in the engine bay. Learned a few things about what goes on under the bonnet and even helped do some spannering. I'm still very much a grease monkey in training.

First thing to greet me was a very, very clean carburettor. Adam had spent time getting rid of all the coke and grease and other gunge from the carburettor and cleaned it up beautifully. It would have gone on the car had the part (carburettor seating seal) I ordered from GSF arrived sooner. As it was, I just admired the clean and intricate bit of engineering and had to imagine how much better the car will run when the part is refitted properly.

Once we'd got everything sorted out Friday night, Saturday day while Adam was doing some overtime at the garage I fettled with the other front door card. Unfortunately I've discovered I need to alter the doorcards slightly to accomodate the shape of the door, but because of the setup at the barn not being ideal this might have to wait until I get the car home. No pictures of this, it's much the same as I'd done on a previous post.

When we got the barn, first job was to get on with the spannering. So off with the old brake master cylinder which was suspected to be the cause of my spongey brakes - pipes, discs, calipers, pads and drums have all been replaced with new items - and on with the new. While Adam did stuff like flanging brake pipes and some of the finer fettling, I did at least get to learn what did what and use a spanner, a small victory for me.

That old master cylinder is just about as fubarred as it looks and was definitely the cause of the problem. We need to finish bleeding the brake system - the tool we had for the job wasn't working properly - but they're already better, and should work better than they ever had while I've owned it when fully bled.

Several things were done simultaneously, including the timing belt and water pump. The car was overdue a new timing belt anyway, but it was a surprisingly quick job.

Off with the decidedly crusty water pump (right) to be replaced with a shiny new one (left). I really like the design of a lot of the mechanical components, seems a shame they have to be hidden away really.

There is obviously a minor oil leak on the engine somewhere. It's suspected to be a combination of an old seal and disuse that's brought it about but since we're not leaving little petrochemical puddles everywhere it's nothing to worry about yet. I'll give the engine bay a proper clean when I get the opportunity to do so and we'll be able to more clearly see where the oil is coming from or if it's an old leak that's just not been cleaned up after being fixed in the past.

New timing belt, water pump and brake master cylinder complete, Adam put everything back together. I'm going to give the fan shroud, timing belt cover and rocker cover a good clean up and repaint at some point too, but for now they're low priorities.

Thought I'd do some camera investigation to roughly show how solid things are underneath. The underseal is in reasonably good condition and there's no damage to remark, this we already knew from crawling around underneath in the past, but some pictures never go amiss. Quite tidy underneath really.

Bad rear arch.

Middle of the floor.

Bad side of the floorpan.

It wouldn't be one of my regular updates without some pointless cosmetic babble, so here we go. I'd already Photoshopped putting my refurbished plastic hubcaps on the Tarantulas I got from Lankytom and liked it. With some clipper abuse I modified them to work in real life and I'm equally pleased with the result. Forgot to take a picture of the full car with them on, so I've just got this rear corner.

The other side without the hubs. It's okay, but I think the hubs finish everything off neatly. I will be refurbishing the alloys over the summer in the same colour with the spoke faces polished, should look nice.

Rear end is looking healthier now. It doesn't really show up in the picture, but in real life the rear wheels seem to have an unpleasant looking camber to them. I'm hoping it's just that it's been up in the air and things haven't settled properly.

When I go to the barn again (in a fortnight) I will be taking new suspension from Mk2PoloBloke and the carburretor seal. Should get the car running, lowered and happy. Then it's time to book an MoT and soon after to get the car home. I'm quite excited.

this is a properly customised car and i love the look of it

i wish still had my mk2

leonh, you're a proper little mojo booster Come the summer there should be lots more work going into this project, the finishing touches I want to do which is mainly polishing and paint, will really make the bare bones above look properly special. It's folks like you that are keeping me on Club Polo too, so a thank you is definitely in order for that :)

it's a shame i cant boost my own mojo though :( still rolling standard everything.

i wish i had a barn......

i would have kept my mk2 in it to avoid scrappage

boo, sad that you had to scrap your Mk2. I'm really lucky with the barn, once the car is MoT'd then I won't have the barn anymore, I can only stretch the patience of its owner so far I think. In a few weeks mine will be living on the street which is where I'm going to have to do pretty much everything required. I might be able to steal some of my parent's driveway space, but that would likely only be the odd afternoon here and there.

I think space is probably the biggest problem doing any car work in the UK, there just isn't enough of it.