Today I finally passed my practical test.

First attempt, 5 minors.

I'm so giddy I could explode!

Edited 17 March, 201115 yr by Angyl

well done! i remember the joys of passing, sorting out the insurance, running to halfords to buy a battery, fitting said battery, driving along exhaust falling off , battery cable coming off and clutch dying.

i didn't have a good first day driving.

Thank you :)

I have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs at the moment. Cant' jump in and go yet! I'm also struggling to get a decent policy for under £1,400, but I'm still looking. Hopefully I can find someone willing to insure me for closer to £1k without wanting a £600+ excess or crap cover. I'm definitely open to suggestions on companies to try.

I am now a happy, happy Polo owner, even though there was a bit of a cock up this weekend.

Usual drill for me heading to the barn is to check through everything I need to take, relying on public transport means you can't very well just turn around to pick up something you forgot. So I made my checks, remembered to put the important stuff in my bags and off I went... only, about 10 minutes into the car journey from the station to Adam's I remembered I'd forgotten to pack the carburettor flange seal.

D'OH!

This meant my engine didn't get sorted this weekend. But Adam was a star and after we did the other job on Saturday, Sunday he drove me home so he could collect the missing part in return for a Sunday dinner and some petrol pennies. It turned out he could also pick up the roofbars that I got from Retrowagen too so it wasn't an entirely wasted journey. The roofbars had arrived on Friday before I was due to set off, but for some reason UPS delivered them to my neighbours, and by the time I checked for a note they were out at work.

All was not lost, I had remembered to lug the 60/40 Gmax kit I got from mk2polobloke so we got to fitting that. Oh yes, my car now sits at the proper altitude.

Only real nuisance was the tie rod end bolt and nut threads decided they didn't want to exist anymore, but other than that it went very smoothly with Adam being the expert at undoing weird fastenings and doing the job faster than I could. I helped by being a third pair of hands and feeding Adam pork pies, this seemed to be a sensible arrangement.

You probably want to see the new ride height. I'm pleased that it all got to the height I wanted it straight away and even if it settles a little lower, I'll still be happy.

We dropped the back end first. No reduction of bumpstops or anything like that, just a straight swap over of the old suspension for the new. Could do with having the same profile tyres on the back as on the front, but other than that it's all good. Front is at stock height here.

Next was the front. This required big tools and a lot of brute force to unfasten the struts and get the old dampers out. We did find that the old oil dampers were pretty worn out, with the driver's side having very little oil left in. Probably just as well we upgraded it all.

He's looking much better, is far less bouncy. I've not had chance to drive him yet, of course, because we couldn't get the engine back together and have him running because of the above.

Rear valance really needs widening and reprofiling now. It could do with some repair on it anyway due to a few small non-structural rust holes so it seems a good opportunity to tackle some modding and some repair simultaneously come the summer.

Front looks really good, apart from my bent bumper.

There we go, that was my weekend. Adam has said he'll get the engine back together, get him running and get him through an MoT before next weekend. I look forward to the report on that one. I don't know when I'll get the opportunity to clean all the crap off the car, there's no washing facilities at the barn, so I may end up making his maiden voyage looking like he's a barn find custom, which is kinda awesome.

:-D

what are you planning to own up to on the mods for insurance

cant see them being too friendly for a new driver

All mods declared - interior, paint, alloys, lowering kit - and it only adds an extra £100. I say 'only' because my premium is going to be about £1200 fully comp anyway so an extra £100 doesn't seem like much of a jump.

I think that because I've not got any performance mods on the engine the insurance doesn't hit me so hard. I'd decided from the off that all mods would be declared and that anything I did to the car would be reversable if it turned out that stock standard was going to drop my insurance below £1000.

Edited 29 March, 201115 yr by Angyl

Got some good news yesterday and forgot to update here. He passed his MoT without any advisories. Now the race is on to get Tax and Insurance sorted this week so I can pick him up and drive him home via the seaside and grandparents next Sunday. Should be awesome.

the insurance isnt too bad then (or it is, depends on age really.) when i was 17 my insurance was 967 quid on my mk2.

good to see its nearer getting on the road

Well insurance has ended up being £1400 through a company called The Green Insurance Company - they offset my carbon footprint by planting trees and donating a percentage of their profits to charity - who got me covered via Sabre. The quote of £1200 fell through when I called and because of the amount the car is lowered, I could no longer get that policy, weirdly.

So tomorrow, all being well, my paperwork arrives and I get the Road Tax which means I'm all set for the drive home on Sunday. New drivers expect to pay £1500 on a 1ltr anything these days, it sucks, especially since at 29 I'm *still* classed as a young driver! Ah well, get this first year through without incident and hopefully my policy will reduce nicely.

my mates boyfriend passed last year and managed to get insured for around 400 quid on a 1982 Volvo 240 Saloon in mustard yellow with a brown interior, he's 26!.

i would have thought your insurance would be cheaper due to your age, its the same price as the insurance as i've got on my current polo and i'm 10 years your junior!

but i suppose that the carbon offset programme they offer is pretty cool, i've been contemplating some eco mods for my car and there is a few you can do to yours.

for the past 8 months i've been developing an electric turbocharger for my university project which would be used only to provide extra torque at low down RPM to increase efficiency of the engine and can be craftily adjusted to provide more power or another mod that is a bit less of unknown is converting your car to run on ethanol, which can be bought wholesale from chemical suppliers or brewed in your back garden using a prohibition era moonshine still and mixing the ethanol (made from lovely corn or other waste products) with petrol can reduce emissions and increase power and not to mention improve economy which with high fuel prices would be a godsend. you can run on 100% ethanol but that is the eco equivalent of race fuel! a common mix is 85% ethanol to 15% petrol.

you may be thinking if ethanol is so wonderful why dont we use it all the time? in south america most cars are fuelled by ethanol and in the UK our standard pump petrol contains arouns 2-5% ethanol, you should consider it but expect dirty hands.

@leonh: Interesting stuff...

Well, Wilhelm is now home and I had a little road trip yesterday to get him back of 170 miles (plus another 70 in Dad's Lexus on the drive out, phew!). So here's a double post for that. Road trip story over here: http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?...p;thread=102250

Not a massive update today, but an update nonetheless.

Had a few errands to run for the family and it gave me the chance to experience driving entirely solo. Was interesting, and surprising how much more my intuition/memory and road sign reading took me the right way than the BIAB* or the map I'd printed out.

However, it was another lovely, if slightly muggy day so some photographs happened. Got my first chav-heckle from a couple of guys in a tatty Saxo who shouted "Take it to the scrapyard" out the window... irony hypocrisy.

After getting out of Sheffield I could enjoy some B road driving. I love B roads.

Stopped in at my old flat too (top of the block to the left with the lace curtains), place looks a lot nicer than it did when I had to live there with the new windows and fancy front door.

Then I went to see my bro (chompysnake) and have a neb at his new project that he bought recently from MikeD.

Then I went home. Interesting moment sat on the approach to a roundabout when I managed to get my handbrake stuck for long enough to warrant putting my hazards on but apart from that it was uneventful, as driving ought to be. I've learned that unlike my driving instructor's car, my handbrake should not have the button pushed as it is pulled up, otherwise it gets stuck on.

Did you spot the difference? Oh, and I figured out how to use my parking light too, which is neat.

*Bitch In A Box, a.k.a. Sat Nav

So, today I went on a little photoshoot with the local club Motornutz, there's a thread on it here.

Later on I did the rounds of my friends and noticed that my temperature guage was a bit higher than usual, drove carefully and it seemed to sort itself out. Not losing water, car behaving, seemed okay. Later still I went to visit my parents and accidentally ended up on the Motorway.

Some people are fine with Motorways, I'm not. I find them intimidating, too fast and generally an all round unpleasant experience. However, it did highlight I actually did have a temperature issue as I ended up doing a steady 65mph with the window wide open and the heaters on full to keep the temperature down to something like healthy :/ Not good. Got to the parents and having assessed everything under the bonnet with my Dad we've come to the conclusion that the 25 year old radiator is actually shagged. Funnily enough, it's one of the few things that weren't replaced when we recommissioned the car.

Not happy that I've got to fork out about £40, but I'd rather have a car that doesn't overheat than £40 in my wallet.

In happier news, while gardening my parents found the old boot badge from the car. For ages I've been saying my car is 'just a Polo', that is to say it's not a Polo C, or a Polo with any sort of suffix. Proper poverty spec car, rare but not valuable, but now I have the badge to prove it.

I'll restore it, looks like it had a bit of a fight with a lawnmower which seems likely, the badge was removed, presumed missing about ten years ago.

my mk2 used to overheat! but it just went on and on and on whilst being in the red.

my mk2 sounds very similar to yours.

but its looking great

Well hopefully my overheating woes will soon be over. Replacement rad is due to arrive tomorrow *yay*.

I went to Halfrauds today and picked up a mini socket set, ideal for what I want, for only £9.99. Nice quality tools too, Halfrauds hardware has never disappointed me before. While we were there I got some 1500 and 2000 grit paper so that I can get the paint polished when I've got myself a polishing machine sorted out.

Here's some pictures.

Last night I did some work on the Polo badge for the boot. To do this sort of thing you need some filler (Milliput, in this instance), a file and a fine tool for applying the filler with.

Took a bit of time to file down the high spots of the damage so that the whole badge was nice and smooth-ish.

Then applied a thin skim of filler where needed and built up the damaged corner.

Once the filler had cured it was sanded back smooth and I applied the first coat of paint. Most of the imperfections have gone and those that are left will disappear with some flatting and repainting. Eventually the badge will be black with a gold facing to the letters. I'll be relocating the badges at the bottom of the red section on the tailgate once I've had it smoothed later this year.

While we were at Halfrauds I got myself a silly bit of tat, in part because I didn't have an aerial bobble.

Wire brushed the crud off the fan shroud and gave it a couple of coats of gold paint both sides. Looks much smarter and is a cheap short term alternative to powder coating.

Just got to figure out what else to detail in gold and what to do in black under the bonnet now. Lots of cleaning and painting to be done.

I really like that mate, nice little personal touches

i've got a flag like that!

very shiny rad fan housing

@robbodred: Thanks :)

@runforrestrun: I have to get another one, mine's disappeared at some point.

@leonh: it is, seems to be heat tolerant too, I was expecting some crappiness where the fanimold is but the paint all seems fine.

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.

sounds like my mk2 driving days still, i used to have the heater on hot at all times with the windows opened. not perfect but i loved that mk2. keep up the gold work (get it, gold work instead of good work) looking forward to more updates.

@leonh: I'm keeping an eye out for a suitable 'top hat' air filter box so that I can keep up the gold work... and maybe get it pinstriped too. Which reminds me, I must remember to pull out the instrument panel surround to repaint it so it's all fresh for 'striping on Sunday... more on that after the event.

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.

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.

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.

Edited 10 June, 201115 yr by Angyl

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).

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?

Wasn't fond of this car when it started to be honest but I love it now. Nice to see something different, I'm not keen on the headlight cover things though.