shouldnt have gone in 3k miles!

the hunting sounds like an air leak to me though. get a can of carb cleaner or some shit and spray it around while its running and see if the revs go up

Here's another attempt. I'm still frustrated by the engine, but feeling like maybe I'm getting somewhere as we eliminate more suspect areas together.

First thing I did was start the car in one of those 'just in case' moments and to my surprise it ran without the lurchiness, if still quite rich (I'll sort this out eventually) and has a far too fast idle. Here's a clicky video of that action.

I was quite puzzled by this, but as the engine got warmer, the running got much rougher until after a few minutes the engine did cut out on its own. Here's another clicky video.

Of the things suggested to investigate I found the following:

Vaccum unit on distributor: Seems fine. Blew down and sucked on both pipes and met with resistance as expected. It looks tatty, but it's likely that a quick refurb of the exterior is all that's needed here.

Under carb seal - Still looks brand new. I didn't remove the carburettor to investigate further because it's only 3k miles old and I think I found the culprit for the air leak.

Carb to air box pipe - This pipe is hidden rather well, but is integral to the smooth running as I found with some experimentation. It looked okay from above and indeed, it didn't look in particularly poor condition.

Then I removed it and folded it between finger and thumb and it revealed its nasty little secret. This tiny little pipe is probably causing the air leak and it's one of the few pipes that hasn't been replaced.

So, current plan is to leave the carb adjustment for now, I've clearly cocked that up, and instead get a replacement pipe for the above and some black rubber fuel pipe to replace the clear stuff. The clear fuel pipe is fine at the moment, but after the incident with the same stuff going porous and trying to set fire to the Princess, I don't fancy chancing it on the Polo.

Here's hoping I'm not about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by expecting that little hose to fix this issue. Those videos, short though they are, took a small eternity to upload but I'm hoping they make diagnosis easier.

Something awesome happened today.

Yesterday, nothing awesome happened because we were enjoying a typical British Summer's day.

But today, the weather was bright if windy and my brother had a spare bit of time so we had another go at sorting out this engine. First thing was to replace the perished pipe with this new one, which while nice and tight on the air box end, is a teensy bit loose on the carb end so I had to add a jubilee clip.

That new pipe did in fact improve things a bit so while it didn't fix the problem it at least helped. Next thing to do was to have a look through some photographs of what the carb should look like and for any signs of obvious wear or damage as all the other air leak locations had been eliminated, which is when my brother spotted that there was a bit missing on the black screw in this picture.

That black screw controls the position of the throttle at idle and the problem I've been having is getting the car to idle. We made up a new adjuster and the car would idle properly and run, and not stall! Success!

Only one thing for it, had to take it for a test drive down the lane to see how well he'd run. WE nearly didn't because there's so little petrol in the tank it doesn't even register on the gauge but the lane isn't that long... so off my brother went.

After a while of waiting like a worried parent, I heard my little monster coming back up the lane and it served to convince me more than ever that I'm going the right route with the front end and the car as a whole. I spend that much time inside the car looking out I never see him as other people do, so it was pretty awesome to see him in motion.

Just enough fumes to get parked up safe on the drive again and now I feel much more confident about getting him through an MoT once I've dealt with the other minor issues that are outstanding. Some fine tuning is needed, but he's not far off where he was before he came off the road and, in my brother's words, 'it goes like stink', which of course I know.

fair play mate!

4th July Update

Well, I can't drive either of my cars at the moment on doctor's orders so what am I to do? I could just mope about it, or I could get stuck in and not worry about what the outcome is going to be in the hope that next month I can get behind the wheel again.

The boyfriend was here for a few days and he took the rocker cover and belt covers away to be sandblasted and tidied up for me, now that I know that the engine is probably good. He had his little sandblasting kit set up from a few jobs he was doing himself so it was handy that he could take the smaller items away with him. When they come back, I'll get some snaps of them.

Today, amazingly, the sun came out for a bit so I went to have a look at the cars to see what I could do. I could have got on with paintwork, but I was neither in the mood nor trusted the weather to behave for long enough, so instead I turned my attention to the Polo's engine bay.

Much of the Polo's engine has never been cleaned and I've never really got stuck into engine detailing. Lately though, I've been of a mind to change that. So today I took off the air box and dismantled it, cleaning it first with warm water, then with some multi-purpose Cillit Bang and finally giving it a wipe over with some Autoglym Vinyl and Rubber cleaner.

While I was at it, I cleaned up the scuttle behind the air box and cleaned and fitted the fragile cover and seal that I liberated from a Polo earlier this year.

The engine bay looks a lot better than I expected for that and eventually I'll get around all the nooks and crannies to smarten it up. I gave the brake fluid reservoir a good scrub too and once this is all clean I'll look at repainting what I can get to with some fresh black.

Looking for other quick jobs I double checked I had the spare windscreen seal that's better than my fitted one, then I got a Stanley knife to slice off the old seal so that I wouldn't break my windscreen and thus save money.

This is the best way to remove these sorts of seals if you can, there's absolutely no risk to the glass providing you're not a numpty with the knife of course. Pull the seal tight in one hand and you shouldn't need much effort with the knife to cut it free.

Then it was just a case of gently pushing the windscreen out, breaking the weak seal it still has with the remaining rubber before setting it aside. The reasons for me popping the screen out is to find a water leak and to be able to make up my new headlining. I'll have to pop out the side windows as well for the new headlining, but that can wait for the moment.

At this point there would have been pictures of the rust bubbles I found on the scuttle, but my camera decided that the lens wouldn't work anymore. This problem surfaced at the recent Waddington show but went away again, I expect my camera is ready to be replaced now so I'll be keeping an eye out for something suitable.

Under the old seal there were 3 main areas of rust, which I attacked with a wire brush before Kurusting them all. I will strip the paint back to bare metal and clean them up again to make extra sure I've got it all before repainting. Happily, there were no holes evident.

The water was getting in on the passenger side where there's a drain hole, which was partially blocked, backing up and then leaking into the car through the windscreen seal. Once I've got all this treated and freshly painted it shouldn't leak anymore.

5th July Update

This weather is driving me up the wall lately. There was a sunny enough spell during the day for me to do some more cleaning in the engine bay in preparation for paint, but not as much as I would've liked.

Most of the left hand side in this picture is good now, not much left to remove.

Even the engine mount and alternator are coming up well, though I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to detail this finally. When I started cleaning up the engine bay, this was jet black with crusty oil and dirt.

Since the camera was actually being useful for once, I got some pictures of the surface rust on the windscreen surround. I need to clean it up again in a more aggressive manner to make sure there's no holes that need welding, but it seems fairly solid here.

This corner was letting water in, I've since cleaned out the drain hole properly using a knitting needle and knocked the rust back.

The other spots were making the rubber seal lift and allowing water to sit in the channel, which can't have helped things much.

I've caught the above early enough for it not to be a problem and at the moment the car has his cover on to keep the weather out. Since I've got the windscreen out of the car doing things like refitting the dashboard and making the new headlining is going to be a lot easier.

Grab a drill and some wire brush attatchments, will sort the engine and mounts ect right out! Mine came up a treat :)

Great update as usual and nice to see you've got the car running right. I've had an air leak before but luckily it had just spat the oil breather tube out.

One day it'll stop raining, hopefully before winter sets in, then I can get out there with the drill and get the rust dealt with. Can't put the windscreen back in though, I put it safe in the house and then managed to knock it over, cracking it top to bottom. So much for saving money on a windscreen by reusing my old one, that's the fourth Polo windscreen I've broken now! Herpaderp.

Glad I started following this thread, got a few good ideas particularly with engine detailing (would never have thought to drill/wire attachment the engine mount) shame its still yes, you guessed it, RAINING :mad:

I don't know about you guys, but this weather is really beginning to get on my wick now. I only got about a quarter of the work done I wanted to because every hour or so I had to bring all my stuff in to save it from the rain.

First up, I got the drill out to blast all those pitted rusty areas on the windscreen surround.

Took them all back further than with the hand brush and wasn't afraid to be quite aggressive with the drill. I want to make sure as much as possible that the rust doesn't come back when I've refitted a new windscreen. I did find one small hole which ideally should be welded but I haven't got a welder so I'm undecided about the fix here at the moment.

Then it rained so I went indoors until it was sunny again, at which point I flatted back the paint on the scuttle and on the A pillars.

Stuck some Kurust on the bare metal and rusty bits before retreating indoors because it rained again, thankfully after the Kurust had enough time to be dry so I could throw the cover on the car. Eventually I got out for about half an hour to make some more headway on flatting the roof back.

The roof looks like it needs the edges repainting but the majority of the surface has enough paint to a regular enough finish not to need it, we'll just have to see how it continues to cut back. What a crappy day, I feel like I've not made enough progress at all.

I was looking at the engine bay and I really think I ought to remove the engine and 'box so I can get it all properly cleaned and painted in there.

Great update as usual and nice to see you've got the car running right. I've had an air leak before but luckily it had just spat the oil breather tube out.

air leak from oil breather tube? its a breather it shouldnt be airtight? lmao

air leak from oil breather tube? its a breather it shouldnt be airtight? lmao

Must've been something else then, I can't remember. A hose came out somewhere and it ran like a sack of shit.

probs a vaccum hose lol

Like the build mate I've read it before but never posted.

£1200 insurance at 30?? Who did you run over???

It came down at renewal to about £900. It's mainly because I'm self-employed, apparently, makes me high risk though I don't see how as I work from home so don't need to commute... insurance makes no sense at all.

My wrist has been playing up lately and I should be resting it, but today the sun came out and it didn't rain. Okay, so it was windy as all crap, but the SUN CAME OUT. I didn't want to risk getting too stuck into any jobs, so I started with the currently important ones which were to get that bit of the bulkhead painted now the Kurust has done it's stuff.

Then get some paint on the screen surround, somewhat quickly, as I didn't want it left exposed for any longer than it had to be. As it turns out, I could have spent my time doing a good job because it was sunny and dry all day long, if a little windy. Of course this bit of paint will need more work, but it's waterproof and won't go rusty in a hurry, which was more important to me than the smoothness of the paint when I started.

I then made use of the good weather to sort through some car boxes and trial fit some things. First up was to see just how much I'd have to chop up the dash to fit that old instrument dial I have. I'd still like to fit this, but it's going to be a fair old chunk of work to do it right.

Next was to try out the B pillar trims I salvaged from an A reg Polo. They fit easily with double-sided carpet tape on the back, which is similar to the VW method. I like how these look, I'll paint the relevant bit of the door frame satin black to match it when I get to that point.

Pushed a wheel trim on too. I love these trims but I still haven't got around to refurbing the set I have. You'll notice there's another shiny addition there too.

A while ago I bought some Austin sidelights because my Dad pointed out that the twin lights I plan to fit have no sidelights built in and they're one of those pesky legal requirements. I need to get a few rubber and metal spacers to finish things off properly, but the Desmo plinths match up nicely with the Austin sidelight units and the whole lot bolts through the old bumper alignment hole in the wing.

It's a smart, simple solution and matches the ethos of the build really well.

There's only one problem. When you look at the car from the front, the sidelight isn't visible. The light it emits will be and should bounce off the chrome of the bumper, but I'm not sure if this will be allowed. If not, I'll just pop the bumper off until I find a better solution.

So I'm quite pleased about this and this is where I was going to leave things, but the sun didn't go away and it didn't show any signs of raining.

I grabbed a sheet of wet & dry paper, my water spray bottle and a cup of coffee. Set to work on the paint on the passenger rear quarter, I really wanted to get it back to the smoothest finish I could. I know the paint doesn't need much more work to look good, but probably needs a bit of effort to look great, so this is me starting to really do the job right.

There were still some streaky bits that I wanted out, the smoother the finish the better the new coat of paint will go on, especially now I've got the hang of the roller-and-brush technique which gives a smoother, easier to work with finish. So I went over it again and again until it was properly smooth.

There's now a reflection in the satin finish, I'd say that's probably good enough for fresh paint. It also highlighted a few high spots and a few thin areas of paint. Two more coats of paint are probably required, one if I'm really lucky.

Compared to what I started with, this was quite an improvement, even if it's not shiny at the moment. I do know this paint comes up to a shine really well when you do it right and stays shiny, but only if you have a super smooth surface, obviously.

By this point my wrist was telling me to stop, but the sun was out! So I ignored my complaining wrist, munched some more Ibuprofen and got stuck in to the driver's side. This side had been given a good attempt at polishing and had come up well, but I knew I'd likely have to go back and redo it to get a super smooth, deep gloss finish.

Much sanding with the 400 grit happened and it highlighted how much I'd missed the last time now I know better what I'm doing.

As with the other side, there's a few high spots and areas of thin paint so this will need one or two coats of paint to be really perfect. This side took considerably less time to get smooth because of the work already done to bring it up to a shine.

On the whole, the paint looks like it's close to being finished but needs a fair amount of remedial work to put right some of the lazy or clumsy bits I've done before. As I've gone along I've learned better techniques and quicker, more efficient ways of getting the job done. I'm not in a rush now, which helps a lot, as there are bits like the doors which I know need quite a lot more work than a casual glance might suggest to get nice and smooth.

Today allowed me to tick off a few items on my list too, so that looks like this:

NEED (to get the car on the road)

> Refit passenger side wing.

> Refit driver's side wing.

> Refit bonnet

> Replace fuse borrowed for Princess

> Sort windscreen leak

> Fit headlights

> Fit new grille

> Paint bulkhead repair so that I can:

> Refit dashboard

> Fit horn

> Refit air box & filter

> Refit back seat

> New backbox

> Fix/replace handbrake cable

> Fit sidelights & bulbs inc. new wiring.

> Fit mirrors.

> repair back valance (gaffer tape if need be)

> Buy and fit new windscreen

WANT (to get the car where I want)

> Finish paint

> Fit pop-out rear windows

> Fit Bruce wheels

> Fit chrome trim bits

> Acquire and fit exterior sunvisor

> Whitewalls

> Smooth boot properly

> Acquire and fit spats

> Rear light mod

> Retrim new back seat

> Construct and trim new door cards

> Clean, trim and fit Lexus carpet

> Construct and fit new headlining

> Retrim boot area

> Acquire/fabricate and fit interior sun visors.

Got a pleasant surprise recently when I changed my job title and saved money. From the £1600ish I was paying when I had the car in Sheffield on the street, my insurance has tumbled. I moved to my present address and the insurance fell to £1200, with the only change to the policy being the car being kept off the road and the postcode. At renewal, with 1 year NCB under my belt, it came down to about £900 and recently, because of my change of job title (self employed manager to employed administration assistant) it's come down to just shy of £670.

I'm amazed at how much and how quickly my insurance has fallen in price, especially since the policy remains the same - 4k per year, car kept off the road, not used for commuting, mods declared - and can only hope it continues to fall as time goes on. About time I had some good news!

Decided that since the weather is overcast-but-dry and I'm feeling better that I'd do a bit of work on the car. Not done as much as I'd've liked but I learned from the last bout of sanding that I should pace myself so I don't make my wrist bad again.

First thing to do is get the cover off the car and assess what I can get up to. I noticed that the front of the car is getting a bit damp, probably down to some new holes in the car cover, and where the car is. Unfortunately, it does mean that mould is back again. I need to make some space in the house so I can take the front seats out and put them away somewhere dry, otherwise all my hard work recovering them will be undone. The seats need to come out to fit the new carpet anyway, so it's a job I will get around to.

Usefully, my housemate had the morning off work so he could help me remove the rear side windows. Two reasons for doing this, the first being to get the paint sorted a bit easier and the second to find out just how much of a gamble those Fiat pop-outs are.

I already knew I had to put a large fill in on the C pillar and had guessed the angle of the glass was close to the Polo B pillar. As it turns out, the B pillar will need reprofiling slightly, but it looks doable by someone with skill.

I also need to figure out what fixings are supposed to be used for the window hinges at this side as I'm not entirely sure and the glass didn't come with them, just the hinges themselves. I have the clip-latch for the other side and the rubber seal fits very well to the Polo window edges.

After I was happy with that, the glass got put away safe so that I could remove the headlining. In some places, the fabric of the headlining has rotted like it did on the old seat covers but I got it out intact enough to provide me with a pattern. All of the soundproofing we'd salvaged from a Ford Escort had come unglued and was sitting on top of the headlining not attached to anything.

Now the headlining is out I can paint the edges properly and drill holes for the roof bars. I think these two holes at the B and C pillars are the likely candidates for fixing the bars in as they line up with the holes on the bars themselves. Scary stuff drilling holes in the roof so I'm putting this one off for now.

I did notice before taking the headlining out that both interior B pillar trims are damaged, I'm not sure when this happened. I shall be on the lookout for a replacement pair. Passenger side is the worst of the two, the driver's side just has a crack in the plastic.

Next up, because I still wasn't sure of the weather's stability, was to mock up the spats to record and recheck the bits of the bodywork that need to be adjusted. These are simple cardboard mock-ups rather than anything refined, so the profiles aren't as I intend them to be finally, please bear that in mind.

This is a flat sheet of corrugated card from an orange box, the easiest way to cut it is by using a bread knife rather than scissors, at least for these basic shapes. The leading edge is rolled slightly to get it to blend into the line of the wing properly

The trailing end of the arch is not exactly as I expected or remembered, pinching in quite a way and meaning that if I let the card follow the line of it straight down it won't clear the tyre.

The other problem is that the vertical edge of the arch isn't vertical, it actually folds under towards the wheel. Since I plan to make a single piece spat that surface mounts to the arch this means I'll have to change the angle of the arch edge so the spat sits properly and doesn't rattle horribly all the time.

I'll get the arches modified first, the the rear valance and finally the spats made up to fit. The quarter bumpers on the back can be moved to accomodate accordingly and they too will be getting some finishing details eventually.

I took a break for a bit at this point and had some lunch and a bit of a think while I watched the weather. It looked like it was going to stay reliably dry so I hopped back outside and flatted the door shut, B pillar and rear window surround to match what I'd already done before masking up the edge of the red scoop ready for a fresh coat of paint.

I did find a small bit of rust when we removed the side window, but I haven't dealt with it yet, or painted over it. I'm gambling on how long the weather is stable and wanted to get this panel smooth and shiny without worrying about a small area I can blend in later.

The technique I'm using with the paint is a combination of advice I've got from the net and is really, really fast. The speed of the process is a necessity as I've found it shortens both the drying time and the time you have to work with the paint. Working on a patch about a foot square, apply the paint with a brush, dressing lightly in the opposite direction to application, then dress it again with a gloss roller to get as smooth a finish as possible. Quickly move to an adjacent patch until the whole panel is done. I broke this panel into small sections based on the body lines and I think the paint took me about 15 minutes to apply to this wholee area. This is before it's had chance to settle out.

By the time it's touch dry, it's a much smoother and more even, if slightly bobbly, finish than I was getting with brush or roller alone.

This is one coat in the new method on the panel to the left with I think 3 coats in the old method to the right. The difference is quite clear, and the new method requires a lot less work to flat back to smooth for the new coat or polishing.

Finally, because I had the time and weather in my favour, I got the first coat of paint on my wheel trims. These will be gloss black with red detailing. First job was to clean them and key them flat, some of them are more damaged than others, but none are beyond repair.

After the first coat of paint they look quite smart. Thankfully, the coach paint is really flexible so it stands up to a fair amount of abuse on plastic trim parts like this providing the preparation is done well enough.

Feeling rather happier about the project after today's exploits, feels like I'm moving forward with it again.

good lad, keep them updates coming. always joyous to read.

Have a surprise update, Leon

Yet more updatage, must be on a roll or something. With the old headlining carefully removed so that I could take a pattern from it, I laid it out in the living room to find out how much of my fabric it used up. this was the first headlining I'd ever made and while the finish was what I wanted, the fabric had not stood up well.

This is the tailgate end where the worst of the sun fading was, the UV rot having set in quite badly.

But not to worry. Earlier this year I purchased two pairs of horrible gold brocade curtains that I quite liked for their nastiness and shade. I wanted to find out how much of them I'd end up using, which as it happens was one and a bit so I've got plenty left over for other bits in the car like the door cards and boot panel that need redoing. It's going to be loud.

The fabric is a great quality, better than what I was using previously. The previous headlining could be done in one run, but this one couldn't, so I've cut the fabric into strips and I'll use the seams to hold the headlining wires that run across the roof and provide tension.

My only concern is how bright it is when the light hits it. I know from experience that the old formerly bright red headlining didn't reflect in my glass at all and wasn't dazzling, but this might be a bit much. I'm going to run with it anyway and see what happens, I can always spray it black if need be.

Putting this together is going to be a doddle, and since I have so much fabric left over I'm wondering whether or not to go the whole hog and have the headlining coffin pleated, like this:

I'm sticking this in here too because I found it when trying to find examples of coffin pleating and it's awesome.

19th July

Took the seats, door cards and carpets out of the car as well as all the random stuff I'd been storing in there, all of which are now stuffed into the spare room. This was in part so I could deal with the carpet as I've been planning to recycle the Lexus carpet I've been hoarding to replace the faded red carpet I'd fitted to replace the missing original carpet. I've also pulled the replacement soundproofing out and I'm wondering whether or not to invest in some Dynamat or similar when I put the interior back in.

On removing the carpet I spotted a new bit of damage in the floor well on the driver's side. I knew about a bulge in this floor pan from a previous owner putting a trolley jack under it and while it was fine for the last MoT, it's since split and rusted so I need to bash this flat and weld it up before it becomes a proper hole. Just as well I had reason to take the carpets out.

When I recommissioned the car I fitted a red carpet, an offcut of household stuff that should have done the trick. The carpet has stood up pretty well, but faded to violet on all the most exposed areas, strangely, so obviously not suitable for car use.

My original plan for replacement was to use the carpet I salvaged from Dad's Lexus as it seemed (without bothering to measure) to be more than enough for the job. Strangely, it was actually too small for what I wanted, even if I chop it about a bit. This is probably down to the differences in interior space between front and rear wheel drive cars.

Not only that, even if I trimmed a few corners off, the Lexus rug had holes in all the wrong places so I consigned it to the bin rather than trying to clean or salvage it and will now be looking out for a new plush, probably black (even though I don't really like black carpets) rug to fit in there instead.

I've kept the red carpet as a pattern for when I fit the new one. I don't want to fit a standard Polo carpet in as they're a bit rubbish for the finish I want.

20th July

Decided, when there was a break in the weather, to investigate the car and see what I can put together interior wise. I wasn't thrilled to discover there was a couple of pints of water to mop out of the floors and boot from the heavy rain last night, I'll have to keep an eye on this while the car isn't weathertight, at least I'd taken all the soft furnishings out the day before so they're safe and dry indoors.

After much consideration, and holding fabrics against seats and that sort of thing, I've come to the conclusion to make my door cards out of the same fabric as the headlining, but without additional decoration. I'm going to lightly pad them too just to give them a slightly more professional finish than my previous efforts. I found my old template and, when I held it up to the door, discovered it was the wrong shape in some places. I got the door cards stripped down and re-trialled them and found that they were the wrong shape in a different way. This was disappointing as it meant starting from scratch if I'm to get the finish I want.

Out with the paper, sellotape, scissors and a biro...

I've worked out where the old fixing holes for the door card are as I'm undecided on how I'll fit the new ones at the moment, and made a note of where the door strengthening bar is should I wish to fit an arm rest.

Eventually, I had a new paper template which I triple checked was the correct fit and made some fine adjustments to get it all to work. Unlike the previous efforts, this one fits properly behind the door release mechanism.

My plan is to build the new door card out of thick cardboard, a similar sort to mount board as used in picture frames. The previous hard board was quite heavy and not as flexible as I needed it to be, unlike the cardboard I plan to use. The old door cards highlighted where some extra strengthening will be required around things like the door pull and window winder spindle.

I'll be getting some polyester wadding sheet - I found some in my stocks I'd forgotten about, and Mum has some in her craft supplies - over the cardboard and then apply the gold brocade over that. The gold will be a good field for the black plastic trims which should help tone it down and by avoiding any fancy stitching work it should be bright, but not too distracting from the rest of the interior.

The original rear door cards I kept, so they will get recovered rather than me building new ones, as back seat passengers were finding it awkward to have no armrest in the back and it means they'll look smart and fit properly. The boot card, likewise, will be covered plainly with the original visible black fixing studs (I need two more of these) holding it all in place which should look good.

I'm lacking one or two items to get going on the interior, namely my roll of gaffer tape which I seem to have misplaced, so the current plans are on hold until that turns up. I turned my attention to the clocks.

I wanted to work out just what was missing from the Vauxhall dial and what needed transferring across from the Polo set. I'll be making a new dashboard binnacle which will feature the Vauxhall dial in the centre, a time clock to the left and a rev counter to the right, the various dash switches will migrate onto the dashboard itself and the radio will be relocated slightly higher than it was. I'll get some sketches up of this eventually, but I actually have a very clear idea in my head of how to rebuild the dashboard which uses a lot of the original stuff. I'll probably recover the top in a nice non-reflective slightly padded black vinyl to tie everything together and hide the added bits.

Going back to those dials, this is the back of them.

With the advice I've been offered, and now having looked at what's what, it does seem a lot less daunting to get the new dials set up. The key thing is to figure out which wires go to what so I can wire up the Vauxhall dial accordingly. The trickiest bits are likely to be setting up the temperature sender, fuel gauge and speedo, but I'm sure there's easy ways to do this which I shall find out in due time.

The only thing I'm not sure of is whether or not this dial illuminates as the numbers appear to be glow-in-the-dark types and I can't see any specific illumination for it. Obviously, I'd prefer this to be illuminated and I'm planning on all my dash lights to be green as it'll fit the interior theme and be easier to see at night than red or yellow.

At the moment, what I really want to do is spent time to get all the interior bits and pieces finished and ready to go back in, and to get some of the things like the custom dash sorted out while I'm in a position to not need the Polo on the road. Other plans are going to be getting the materials together to start making my own fibreglass panels, again due to some top advice I've received online, which will include the spats I keep banging on about, a rear valance and at least in part the new window surrounds. The fibreglass will also help me rebuild the dashboard and may well come in useful for other parts of the car I've not even thought about yet.

I decided to play with screwdrivers and see just how easy it would be to slot the Polo dials in the Vauxhall case. It did not go entirely accordingly to plan, unfortunately, and it's just as well I have that spare Polo cluster.

To get the bad news out of the way first, not only did I accidentally snap the needle on the Polo speedo, I then proceeded to accidentally snap the main spindle in such a way that I couldn't repair it. Great job there. I can get everything to line up, but I can't get the spindle to reglue or similar because of how fiddly it is, how unreliable a repair that would probably be, and because it just doesn't want to. In an ideal world, I'd get a new spindle put in, but I don't think that's an option.

Never mind, these things happen. If nothing else, it taught me how to dismantle the other dial to fit it into the case. Mostly, it involves unscrewing every screw and bolt on the back of the case and the black clip to the bottom left so everything can be lifted out of the cluster. It's pleasantly straightforward really.

Then it was time to strip down the Vauxhall dial. I wasn't sure how this went together, happily it was a straightforward matter of bending back the tabs on the chrome bezel and the front half of the case enough to split it into component parts and then unscrew the dials from the back. By having it stripped right down I can give all the innards a proper clean too.

This is the main dial lifted out.

Behind that there's the fuel and temperature gauges, beautifully made things and not much different in size to the Polo items. The black looking circles are the warning lights with indicator to the top left, choke or brake warning (it's a red filter) to the top right, oil to the bottom left and ignition/battery (marked IGN) to the bottom right. The filters really need cleaning to get the detritus out before I put new lights in.

The reverse of the face before I removed the speedo which is fixed with two tiny screws.

The dials all came out without any fuss or damage. Rather than reuse the old dials, I plan to use the Polo ones.

It's difficult to photograph how close a match the Polo gauges are to the Vauxhall ones in size, with the exception of the fascias on them. I'm expecting to have to trim a lot of the fascia material down to get everything to fit properly, but I'm hoping to keep the print on the Polo dials as they're not a bad match to the rest of the cluster.

The central circle - the bit with the numbers, it's the right size - will most likely be cut out completely, with the Polo dial showing through behind. This should be less fiddly than trying to enlarge the current odometer hole which is too short for the Polo odometer to display properly. It should also allow me to keep the Polo speedo needle intact and show the trip counter. It might even allow me to keep the KPH on the dial, if everything lines up. I can't think of a better way of doing this at the moment, so that's the current plan.

On the original Polo cluster there's a little bank of LEDs that serve as warning lights. I'm in two minds as to whether I should relocate them to the dashboard as they are on the old display, or if it would be better to install a handful of jewel lights as used on kit cars, with appropriate labelling beside or on them. At the very least I'll need a blue main beam light and a (probably yellow) choke light as indicator, brake, oil pressure and ignition/battery are all present on the Vauxhall cluster already. Alternatively, I could try and incorporate them into the Vauxhall display, but I'm not sure I could make it look as smart as the existing pressed in items.

The only other thing of note was me finding the gold curtain tie backs I've been keeping hold of to use as B-pillar grab handles. I don't know if I will, but I like the idea.

So... watch this space really because I've now decided to commit myself to making a custom dashboard.

What glorious weather we're having today, that normally equates to me doing craploads on the car. As it happens, I did spend a few hours working on the Polo with sandpaper again.

Started out on the driver's side. I knew this needed some work, but just how much it needed to get it to the same standard as the passenger side surprised me. There's a lot of paint on the majority of the panel, but even so getting it back to a smooth finish took a lot of that paint off. This is the price you pay for not doing proper preparation, in this instance because I was initially in a rush to finish the job when the car was in the barn.

All those shiny spots are low points in the paint, many of them were just from brush strokes, but some are quite deep comparatively and need a lot of paint removing to get the panel even which takes a lot of time. I'm loathe to use filler here because I know that's not really dealing with the problem that time and sandpaper will rectify.

Eventually, it does come up smooth. You can see from the primer showing through just how uneven the surface was and it really didn't look that bad when I started.

I did about three quarters of the driver's side and just got fed up of it, the whole thing is a bit of a slog and I wanted to do something that would make me feel a bit more confident in my abilities with paint. Over to the passenger side to see what I could do before the light faded too much.

I almost got away with the single coat of paint. The majority of this flatted bit of the panel has enough paint to polish up, but there's one or two spots, mainly on edges, that the paint is thin or I've been just a little too heavy handed and has gone through. I'm not going to patch these bits in, instead I'm going to apply a fresh coat of paint when I've finished flatting the panel back as I think that will give me a better end result.

More of the same on that passenger side, followed by one more coat of paint, should see me in a position to get the black finished on that part and up to a decent shine.

Love this thread. Great to see someone who's got their own vision of how their car needs to look and isn't afraid to go for it :)

Thanks, Yeti :)

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Another wonderful day of lovely sunshine and refreshing breeze means I was out working on the car again. Not as many hours done as I would've liked, but still made some worthy progress.

First job was to remove the tailgate so that I can tidy up the shut lines properly. Thanks to the headlining being out, I could unbolt the hinges from the body which means they're not in my way and can be removed from the tailgate to be repainted separately for the best finish. This is part of the work that makes me feel a little bit like I'm going backwards with things, the car is once again all in bits, but unlike earlier this year I feel positive about it because I know things will start going back together again pretty quickly.

What was annoying about today was finding some new dents around the car, or at least dents I'd forgotten about/not noticed before.

So it looks like I will be getting some filler out after all, just to get these spots dealt with. I was aware of this bit of damage and it too will need the tiniest amount of filler to sort it out rather than relying on multiple coats of paint.

Eventually, I did get the majority of the driver's side sorted out today. I've got the very bottom bit and the B pillar to finish off, but this is now very nearly ready for paint, I'll just have to do those minor bits of filling and give it one last look over to make sure I've got everything spot on before getting the brush and roller out.

The passenger side likewise is looking really good and will get at least one coat of paint more. If one coat is enough, I'll then work on polishing this side up.

At the moment, I'm only concentrating on the black paint with the only work on the red being getting it flat ready for whatever I end up doing with it. I'm tempted to get a special paint finish on the red areas and so only get them prepared for that rather than finishing them off with what I have in stock, especially since I'm still taken with the idea of getting them treated to a very heavy metalflake of either just red, or a red base with gold metalflake on top. I don't want to do the metalflake myself, that's something I'll farm out when I have the funds because I want it to be of a decent standard and I think a specialist job like that should go to a specialist to be done.