So i think its time to introduce this again, i had a build thread but its long out of date, lots of things have changed...

So anyway some specs:

Model:Originally a 91 Polo Cl Coupe Now closer to Gt spec

Engine: Originally 1043cc 4 speed, now an early Gt engine with Gt gearbox etc.

Standard limiter chipped ecu, de-catted, de-wedged throttle body, cone filter, all painted before i fitted it, Bosch super 4 spark plugs, head rebuilt (cleaned, valves lapped i and new stem seals), all fully serviced with Castrol oil.

Suspension: -40mm spax supersport lowering springs, otherwise all rebuilt with new joints and bearings

Brakes: Standard, simply rebuilt and painted red

Wheels and Tyres: 1982 Audi 80 alloys, 14" 6j, 175/65 tyres, painted a smokey silver with mars red centre caps

Exterior: Red striped bumpers, GT/G40 arch and sill extensions, late spec smoked rear lights, smoked side repeaters, clear front indicators, 'vw' badges painted dark metallic grey, the rear badge has a mars red backing, the 'polo' and 'coupe' badges painted red, genuine Hella fogs with a homemade loom.

Interior Styling: Late spec Mk2 coupe S bolstered seats, Mk3 doorcards, Gt steering wheel, Gt clocks, universal carpet overmats, rear seatbelt 'guide' things fitted, G40 boot carpet, early mk2 4+E leather effect gearknob.

ICE and Security: Kenwood KDC-6090R headunit, jbl 6x4's in the back original positions, 3.5" Legacy speakers in the dash, electric aeriel (most peoples favourite part of the car), sub with bass control mounted in the lower passenger dash compartment (can't remember the make, it was free!), ipod to cd changer port cable fitted, cd changer cable also fitted running through to the boot but not connected (my changer died).

Comments: I'll try to keep this short skipping to the best bits; bought the polo in March 2010 as a car to run for a month or so whilst my mk2 was brought back on the road for me to learn to drive in, i told myself i wouldn't change anything on it!

Anyway it came from Exeter car auctions, we won it for £260 plus commission, so it was £311. It all seemed original apart from some dodgy speaker wiring, and a very tristed grill support panel, 77k on the clock. It looked like this the next morning:

And i feel a shot with the L plates needs to be here:

I passed my test in June 2010, thats when things started changing :-D The wheels were found at a local breakers yard, after finding nothing of interest in the alloys for sale area at said scrap yard i started digging in the scrap wheel pile and found one. None of the workers there new if there were two, let alone four, two hours later i had all four :-D

They looked like this:

I then refurbed these and they ended up like this:

Fitted:

February 2011 this finally happened:

March 2012 the GT conversion i bought in September 2011 was finally fitted:

A few odds and sods have changed since that pic^

May 2012 i rebuilt the front suspension with new legs and more importantly quiet new bearings:

And then this last week i sorted out this problem:

Yes thats the inside of the expansion bottle

And i got a bit carried away:

Those were taken last night, and now it purrs like a kitten :-D

Anyway some other pics of the general car, its now on 92k.

Plans are: more oem! Either a Hella or Votex grill and some headlight protectors would be nice, but for now, my mk2 needs the attention since this is running sweet.

I do however have a mk2 golf electric window setup ready to fit, a different passenger front wing with better paint to fit and i want some tidier bumpers.

And i think i'll leave it at that for one long post I know its nothing special, but its my baby

Edited 5 August, 201213 yr by VolksKid83

Looks awesome! wheels really suit it :)

Looks awesome! wheels really suit it :)

Thanks dude! I do like the wheels, want slightly lower profile tyres and to maybe drop it to 60mm but then it'd be fine

Done a wiked job of them wheels mate loving them!

Engine's real clean too :)

Love this, Same colour as mine!!!

looking lovely now mate! was it a bit of chop n weld for the decat or did you get a "proper" pipe from somewhere? love the fogs too! you should get the sticker for the plate recess too to go with the B pillars

Cheers guys!

looking lovely now mate! was it a bit of chop n weld for the decat or did you get a "proper" pipe from somewhere? love the fogs too! you should get the sticker for the plate recess too to go with the B pillars

cheers Corey! The de-cat actually came with the engine, its a standard gt downpipe with the cat cut out and a bit of pipe welded in, it looks like it could be a pro job though cause its quite neat! I've got a pic somehwere if you want one?

Yeah we've had that conversation before! I do want the black plate resess thing, but theres a rust blister in the bottom left corner of it so that needs sorting first, just got a colour matched aerosol so i may sort that soon

In other news, today i made the most of this soggy grey british summer with a mate and loaded up the bikes with my £3 roof racks (they have 'supra' written on them in big white letters and have yellow bits ) and my dads Thule bike racks. Two notible things from this:

1) Seeing my car parked on the moors with the bikes on the top and the fogs fitted made it remind me of the 'Trek' edition mk3 golfs (to me a good thing :-) )

2) My bike almost matches my car, and thats not on purpose, i finished messing around with my bike when i got my car. Its got a dark metallic grey frame with white wheels and red bits (looks closer than it sounds).

I quite like it with the roof racks on

Just realised i never posted the pic of this at Devon Dub Fest:

Update wise the wings almost ready to go on (got a bit carried away) and it looks like this will be relaxing in my grandads humongous garage for a few months whilst i start uni, whether or not i give it the taste of urban life i don't know.

Looking good buddy!! got any pictures of the De-cat pipe, sounds like my old one I got done, believe its done the rounds of the southwest. Also where you heading off to uni?

Looking good buddy!! got any pictures of the De-cat pipe, sounds like my old one I got done, believe its done the rounds of the southwest. Also where you heading off to uni?

Cheers Chriz! The only pic i have is this one:

Could well be your old one, it came from the car the engine came from, H reg green polo GT coupe.

I'm going to Coventry uni to study Automotive Engineering, only a slight change of scenery

Where were you yesterday? I expected to see you and your mates gt's

I'm going to Coventry uni to study Automotive Engineering, only a slight change of scenery

I went there You will have fun!

I consider it my second home now!

Good luck with Uni Matt, get the most out of it as you can! Just realised my Uni had sandblasting equipment/department... just got knocked down this summer and I didn't even realise :(

Yeah I was planning on going, but me and ads ended up being lazy as we went out the night before.. ha :/ bring on Jan for the epic meet though, make sure you come back from uni for it!

Ahh looks a lil different to my old one -

Looks great fella!

Looks awesome this dude, good work!

I'm going to Coventry uni to study Automotive Engineering, only a slight change of scenery

I went there You will have fun!

I consider it my second home now!

A few people have said that which is a good sign! I think

Good luck with Uni Matt, get the most out of it as you can! Just realised my Uni had sandblasting equipment/department... just got knocked down this summer and I didn't even realise :(

Yeah I was planning on going, but me and ads ended up being lazy as we went out the night before.. ha :/ bring on Jan for the epic meet though, make sure you come back from uni for it!

Ahh looks a lil different to my old one

Cheers Chriz, should be good, what do you mean knocked down? Yeah sandblasting could be handy for parts of certain polos :-D

Ha, ok, probably a good idea not to drive and be around loud cars after a night out! I WILL be around for the Jan meet, would be rude not too, maybe i'll finally bring the mk2 (i can dream).

Yeah my de-cat is definitely different to yours! It passed its mot with it when i thought it would fail due to the new rules

Looks great fella!

Looks awesome this dude, good work!

Thanks guys!

Time for a long pic heavy update :-D

So to begin i wanted to get the replacement wing sorted and fitted before the swdubs summerish bonanza meet, which i did :)

It had some blisters:

Even though they would be covered up by the arches they obviously needed sorting out, so they were ground off with a flap disc, treated, filled, sanded, primed, painted and lacquered.

Heres a pic taken after the filler was sanded back:

I bought a tin of 'colour match' paint for it which naturally did not match, even though i left the wing with them so they could match it...

But anyway its hidden so isn't noticeable.

The meet was on the sunday morning, after being very busy, saturday evening i cracked on with fitting it.

And whilst it was in bits and i had some similar grey paint i flatted back the strip below the grill and lights and painted that (it had gained lots of stone chips).

Once that had hardened for an hour i whacked it all back together with the new wing (naturally the wing had been SRP'd twice before being fitted :thumbup: ) the result :

I repainted the centre caps too because they were chipped, after being undescisive about the colour i did them mars red again:

Next on the to do list the rear offside wheel bearing had started to hum and make funny noises, after taking it apart there were chunks of metal in the outer bearing where it had started to break up so that needed replacing...

Fortunately it was really easy since i'd already changed it once in my ownership. Me being me though i re painted the drum mars red whilst it was off...

Yes i need to clean out the arches, the pressure washer broke

Next, after changing the wing something was up with my electric aerial, a few people heard it making some lovely grinding noises at the meet, so i dropped the arch liner, took it out, stripped it down, greased it and refitted it. More importantly however there was lots of grease sprayed inside of the wheel, grease that wasn't there a few days earlier when i changed the wing...

A quick look revealed what i had thought, the cv gaiter was split, they have both been cracked since i owned the car and its a job i've been avoiding since i thought it would be a bitch, i cleaned the split and super glued it as a temporary measure to allow me to drive to get the parts.

Much to my surprise though they were surprisingly easy to change, i was afraid i'd have to removed the legs to make access space but after releasing them from the track control arm, by simply turning the steering wheel it pulled the leg up out of the way :)

Anyway some pics:

Next was some parts whoring, i'd said i'd have some parts off of people before i went to uni and since that was a week away i did some shopping

Firstly some oem crap for this.

Genuine optional extra Fischer centre console tape storage thingy, completely useless (i have a cd player fitted) but its so flippin awesome :mrgreen: it came with quite a smart gaiter too.

Thats a genuine first aid kit bracket in that pic too^

Original Gt airbox, not sure whether i'll fit it or not, i just got it whilst there was one locally:

Early hydro head mk2 cambelt cover, these have a vw badge moulded into them whereas the mk3 covers are just blank.

And then a new rear bumper, apart from being faded and mucky i can't find a scratch on it, the side clips are intact too :-D

Then the rest came off of a mk2, to go onto my mk2:

Solid drivers side door:

It just fitted in the coupe without messing about with the seats.

Frustratingly i left it in the mk3 overnight and a snug/snail must of crawled out and crawled over every square inch of the interior of my car

Clocks with a working clock:

Door pockets and a few other odds and sods:

And now to end, i'm at uni now in Coventry and the Polos still in Devon, fortunately my grandads allowing it to hibernate in his garage, so it shouldn't deteriorate or anything, i gave it a thorough clean before it got put away (didn't have time to wax it though )

Anyway this is where it is now:

I disconnected the battery whilst its there so hopefully it won't go flat. I am having old vw withdrawal symptoms though, its been 14days since i last touched one

A fresh pic thanks to Sam Potter Photography:

Need to black the tyres and tidy up the lower part of the wing looking at that pic.

Updatingzzzzz :-D i'm at uni without the Polo so i want to do something car related other than buying parts...

So firstly some stuff that happened at christmas, mainly the fitting of odds and sods i had acquired.

Firstly the Fischer tape cassette holder, completely pointless but its amazing! Here it is in the centre console, need to find some crappy old 80's tapes to put in it:

Next up the first aid kit bracket, i don't have an oem first aid kit, but its a start...

Need to find a rubber strap to fit to it, and another black headed oem screw, a first aid kit would be handy too.

Next up i realised before christmas that one of my fog light bulbs had gone, they were standard old Halogens and compared to the Osram Nightbreaker bulbs i fitted in the headlights they were poo to say the least. It was barely noticeable if they were on or not.

So these were ordered:

And this happened:

They have made a huge difference, can actually notice if the fogs are on or not now

Then i popped home in Jan for the SWDubs epic meet, some pics from then:

Thanks to Chriz Quick, Simon Rawling and Dave Buckler for these :-D

I bought some Heko wind deflectors at christmas that you can see in those pics too.

Unfortunately it wasn't looking its best that day, only got back home with the car lunchtime on the saturday in the rain, cleaning started promptly but then my friend that owns the white 205 that was parked next to me turned up so between then and 5 when it got dark we were trying to clean them in drizzle, i need a garage!

A crappy phone pic i took of the two:

Anywho that evening i drove the polo on the longest journey i've ever taken it on back to Coventry and to my surprise it was faultless, not that i didn't expect it to be, it was just a nice surprise

Naturally whilst paying the ridicuous parking at my accomodation i took it to pieces:

I have been getting some funny looks...

The fog light had condensation in it, as can be seen in the meet pics and it was annoying the hell out of me. So it was removed, stripped, washed in the kitchen sink and dried on my radiator

A couple of pics:

No more misty foglight

Next up my cars lights had been slowly turning into strobe lights, although it was quite funky it was getting quite annoying, i figured the alternator was on its way out but fortunately after some research i was told that it was most likely the voltage regulator, after £10 at GSF and a fiddle later a new one is fitted, without removing the alternator. The lights are more consistent than they've ever been

And a couple of pics for that:

(please excuse the filthy engine )

The Polo had also developed an electrical fault, the fuel pump didn't always click in when the ignition was turned on, meaning lots of ons/offs of the ignition, it was getting worse too...

I figured it was the relay, but VW kindly discontinued the five pin ecu relay for these in 2010. I knew it wasn't the four pin fuel pump relay since i'd tried numerous spares.

So basically after hours of research and tinkering this was bought:

Mk3 Golf GTi 8v and 16v ecu relay, same circuit inside but all the terminals are in different places, fortunately since changing the positions of all the terminals its been working faultlessly, just need to waterproof it with silicone

So since having it up here i have:

-sorted 'strobe' light problem

-sorted fuel pump problem

-adjusted the hand brake cable up

-cleaned and dried condensed fog light

-cleaned dodgy head unit front panel connections

-cleaned all earths (engine, battery, rear end earth)

-Turtle waxed the whole car, including door shuts, wheels, underside of bonnet, behind the rear lights.

-Black waxed every bit of black plastic trim (forgot how much this thing has! )

I also won these on ebay last week, genuine 90's VW 'Sport Rader' locking wheel bolts, used but in excellent condition, just need a do with the drill mounted wire brush thingy, they still have the dealership sticker on the side of the box

Not a necessity i know, my wheels aren't worth much afterall, but for £1.19 i couldn't say no.

And finally a couple of snow pictures from a couple of weeks ago:

Future plans:

-new number plates, the red border on mine have faded to pink the plan is to go for some modern oem dealership ones, getting a matching tax disc holder and possibly a rear window sticker too, for a modern oem twist. The question is whether to get them from Devon, or where the car was originally supplied, Sheffield.

-clean and fit new rear bumper

-solder in a new section of cable in the engine loom (one section has the black copper disease and i think that's still causing an occasional cough), this is the main live from the ignition switch to the coil and relays.

-Fit a decent alarm/immobilizer ready for it living up here next year, not sure whether i'll have to fit central locking or not.

-remove fuel tank and sort some rust, some welding will probably need to be done

-sort the dodgily repaired battery tray

-the tyres will also need replacing this year, not to sure on the route i'll take yet

-i also want to get the mk2 Polo on the road since its 30 this year, i need to respray our old Stag for my sisters wedding in August and she wants me to work on the mk1 cabby in her garage too.

What i'll actually manage to do i don't know

Thanks for looking! Its turned into a long one again

:thumbsup:

Forgot about this so heres a couple of recent pictures, lots has happened to this over the summer including new front wheel bearings (again), rust in the floors and sills cut out and fresh metal welded in and the battery tray rebuilt. Its all on here:

http://www.swdubs.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&p=271824#p271824

But i'll put it up on here when i get a chance!

Pics:

Looks great mate, same steels i had before i crashed :(

These wheels look great.

Right so update time!

Christmas was busy as usual, partly because as always I took this to pieces :shifty: So this happened:

For a full alarm install, it had a couple of other things done at the same time too. My stereo wiring that i did when i was 17 was safe, but used the screw type 'choc bloc' connector (i know... my standards have definitely improved). This was all tidied up with soldered connections then covered with heat shrink, much neater. This has all been wrapped in loom tape.

I had also never found the OE wiring for the rear speakers in this car so had run fresh ones, with the dash out i found four wires in the stereo loom, all with stripped bare ends, excellent i thought.

Upon further investigation these turned out to be an ignition live, dash illumination live and the original stereo ground, still not sure on the last one! Looking at the diargrams these are original, I never realised these had this wiring for the stereo from new. The only downside being that these sometimes live wires were floating around behind the dash with bare ends! Shocking. They are now either used accordingly or removed.

It then had a central locking install, this is what the motors looked like with the brackets and rods all bent to shape before fitting, that was fun in itself because the first kit and the replacement kit had faulty relays, ended up driving to Birmingham where the supplier is last Friday where they finally sorted a working set out.

To run the wires properly it meant taking off the doors and drilling those and the A-pillars since these were never designed to have wires running into the doors. Naturally when one door was off it started to thunder and lightning with rain, so this had to happen:

Cable ties around the grab handle and umbrella pole, seat belt wrapped round and clipped in, with me holding it as well in the wind. Can't wait to have a garage!

The alarm was then installed (what fun!) its a decent brand Thatcham Category one (although to fully qualify it should be fitted by a pro), all joints soldered and heat shrunk, hidden back in the main loom that can't be got at with the dash in place! All i can say is the alarm itself was not cheap. Currently you walk up, press the button, lights flash, doors unlock and the interior light comes on, then 10secs after the ignition is switched on the doors lock, they unlock when the ignition is switched off. Very jazzy!

Meanwhile with the doors off it also had something completely unnecessary fitted, i'll let the pictures do the talking:

Previous centre console setup:

Yes i had to remove my cassette holder :thumbdown:

Mk2 Golf Type 19 (quarter lighted one) electric window mechanisms, loom and switches, with the switch panel from a Seat Ibiza/Polo 6N (uses the same switches) cut into the centre console to try and keep it OEM.

The mechanisms are a direct swap apart from needing three new holes drilled to mount the motors, the looms then run behind the dash and is completely as taken from the Golf apart from the removal of the spade terminals from the ignition live and earth for other fittings. The main live goes straight to a blade fuse carrier then to the battery with the correct cable. They work excellently :thumbup:

I was originally planning on adapting the loom to use Mk3 Golf rear window dash switch, that way it would fit neatly in a blank under the stereo, but after realising just how different the circuits were i would have been pretty much making my own loom using a selection of relays, i wanted to stick as close to OE because i knew it would work and be safe, safer than a homemade jobbie anyway.

I also managed to buy and fit the second new ribbon in my favourite stereo so that’s back in, 2001 Kenwood goodness:

Leaving the dash looking like this:

That ipod cable has now been rerouted so its out of the way.

Braking wise, i finally bit the bullet and ordered new discs, hoses, pads and refurbished calipers when i found that Big Red were closed all Christmas, they were roughly the same price once the old ones were returned for a surcharge, still waiting for that though…

Without the surcharge back its just over £200's worth of brakes! I get should be getting £48 back via a credit or something soon. They're VW2's, with new standard flexi pipes. The metal pipes were fun too, i've always kept them painted, but with a slight movement the paint flaked off to reveal rust... the unions wouldn't undo either :lolno:

This was on the Saturday evening when I was due to drive back to Cov the next day. Thus its currently running one MG Metro metal brake line that was the perfect length after bent to shape, and more surprisingly rust free! Then on the passenger side its still got the old pipe and flexi. These will be replaced with new lines asap, either copper or conifer. And yes i really need to clean out my arches :(

Wheel wise the steels i refurbed had 195/60/14's, i now know these are far too big for a little Polo. I ended up giving my Audi alloys a thorough degrease and had four part worns fitted, 185/55/14's. Paid £85 all in to find a pair of matching Yokohomas, and two Bridgestone’s that were slightly different models, all with tonnes of tread. I was properly pleased. However this was Saturday morning, these were fitted and Sunday morning i popped down to a friends to get a load of Polo parts he wanted rid of, i hit an unavoidable pot hole enroute which caused a bead leak on one of the rear Bridgestone’s.

After having quickfit take a look (only place open on a Sunday) they found damage to the bead, that they didn't think i had caused, simply disturbed. They tried resealing it with no success, credit to them though, they spent a while messing with it and didn't charge me anything.

The problem was this was now three in the afternoon, and i was driving back to Coventry that evening for uni, I had something at nine the next morning. In the end i fitted one of my Golf GL alloys which had a 185/60/14 on it, not text book and i hate having odd wheels, but it’s done the job. My dad has since taken my wheel back to the tyre shop and they have ordered in another Bridgestone from another depot, and fitted that free of charge with no quibble, so quite pleased with that. Save-On in Exeter by the way, i know i've heard bad things about them recently.

So this is how it currently stands:

I’m driving home this coming weekend, which means I can also pop along to the swdubs mega meet, I get to have four matching wheels too

It will be in pieces on Saturday, my top mounts like to chatter so I’ve just ordered some Lemforder replacements, a genuine VW blue temp switch and I need to order an ignition switch because someone pointed me in that direction to solve my starting problem. I was going to get all this from TPS/VW but they told me they can’t supply parts for a car this old and to try VW Heritage, yet VW Heritage don’t list any of these parts!

Anyway finally, a salty picture the morning after having to overtake a salt spreading truck on the motorway, was really shocked at just how thick it was plastered! There were even whole salt crystals sat on all the ledges in the engine bay. It has since had a thorough clean! I blacked the plastics and waxed the bodywork last week so its looking quite good apart from the odd wheel! It still had specs of underseal on it with random paint finger prints from the body repairs done in the summer :shifty: All gone now though!