Hey folks, thought I'd get round to posting a thread/blog on my 6n

bought her mid-july, got her for a good price, but you get what you pay for.

She's a 1.4 CL with a completely staggering amount of power, but as we know, speed isn't everything!

she currently looks like this:

few other pics of her before:

When I picked her up she was a little worse for wear, clutch had gone, engine hadn't been serviced CL didnt work, exhaust may have well not been on the car, and the starter was dead but I was in urgent need of a 5door car.

Bodywise she's good no major dents or scratches, few spots of rust moreso on the rear arches than anything.

got the clutch and starter and booked her in at the garage, did a DIY fix to sort the central locking out and she was a bit better.

couple of weeks later the lower engine/gearbox mount went and I shat my pants.

the bolt had come out which meant the whole engine/gearbox assembly was rocking around :/

So i replaced that and had a look at why the exhaust was blowing so much, the whole end of the centre section had come away from the silencer, so that was replaced and witha bit of huffing and puffing, stopped the vibrations too

Next on the ever growing list was running problems, cut-outs and lumpy acceleration, which I'm working on. So far Iv'e changed the HT leads, Air filter, Cleaned the Carb, Dumped some redex through her and she's got miles better, but not perfect, next Engine wise is to redo the throttle adaptation thingamabob with VCDS (it came up on a scan) and change the fuel filter. maybe after that I'll look at the pump its self and pressure sensors.

Theres some clunking noises, no idea whats causing them as everything seems fine and sturdy with a hefty shake, but its there and annoying me slightly.

Bodywise I want to clean up the rust and swirls/scratches, remove the dang rub strips and maybe stick some 16v bumpers on her, my main focus for now though, is converting the interior to 6n2 spec, which I'll detail in the post below!

I have family commitments so money is always tight, but I put what I have left into her, she's my little hobby!

Edited 6 April, 201412 yr by R10tz0r

Converting the Interior!

This is my first big project, a conversion of the interior from 6n spec, to 6n2 spec.

For the most part, its straight forward, the main pain is definately going to be the dash, I'm gonna save that till last, as it's also the most exspensive!

So initially I saw a member on here was breaking a 6n2 and was selling seat's and doorcards for a good price, contacted him and went to get those bits which is really what I've been working on this past month, aside from the engine issues.

It wasn't until after I'd done most of the work that I thought I'd document it, but the process will be explained, and if you have any queries, ask away.

Seats!

First off, was replacing the seats, this is a straightforward affair, the hardest part is manoevering the fronts out of the car.

1. Take a 10mm spanner and undo the bolt at the bottom front of the seat.

2. at the back, on the running rails, remove the plastic stoppers.

3. Pull release lever and slide the seats as far back as they will go, when you feel them drop out, lift them and rest them on top of the runners, fold the seat all the way flat.

4. Lift them out of the doors

5. Onto the rear seats, release and fold forward to about 45 degrees.

6. In between the two seats, is a bracket, with metal clips holding the pins from the seats in.

7. use a small screwdriver, prise the peg out of it's seat and simultaneously (pliers help here) pull the tab off.

8. At the far side of each seat, undo the latch, lift at an angle and pull the seat out.

9. Flip the bench seats forward, squash the wire so that it releases from the holes and remove.

Fitiing is the reverse of this process.

The finished effort looks like this:

Doorcards!

This part is a little better documented, but still, after most of the work was done

The trim maybe different but the process is the same, again, any questions, ask!

Driver/Passenger

Firstly remove the plastic trim covering the two screws that fix the card onto the door

A small screwdiver may help prising it out a little, be careful not to scratch anything!, a good wiggle and pull and it will come off.

Next, undo the two screws, one at the top, one at the bottom.

Then, unscrew the door pin and remove the plastic guide. this may pull straight out, or it might be a little stubborn, if your'e worried of breaking it, leave it in but be careful when you remove the door card.

Now, pull at the bottom of the door card, where the pocket is, a swift yoink should suffice to undo the "poppers", when the bottom 2 or 3 are loose, get your hand behind and work your way around, untill they are all loose, see this image for the location of the poppers (Black circular bits around the outside)

Now that it is all loose, pull the door lock side up and towards you, carefully, pull the door handle and guide it through the hole as you pivot it and stop!

Unplug the wingmirror switch!

Now that's unplugged, the door card should be free and you can discard it.

Now remove the rubber/felt liner that goes against the glass, these are different on 6n2's so this also needs to be changed.

Next is to remove the plastic trim where the wing mirror is, just give it a pull and it will come off.

It should now look something like this (minus the drill holes on the rivets):

You guessed it, we gotta remove those rivets, so grab a drill and some good bits. I used shitty bits and the rivets are quite hard which blunted the drill bits. 6-8mm dia. is good. Alternatively, you can just give the bracket a good old heave-ho and pull the pops out of the holes, eitherway, it should look like this:

not to worry though, because they are going to be covered up!

Next, get a flat blade screwdiver and pull the plastic tab on the door handle mount towards you slightly, whilst simultaneously pushing the door handle towards the door lock, it might be a bit stiff, but give it a bit of pressure, it will budge. Remove the handle from the wire.

Next, unscrew the plastic speaker mount, unplug the speaker, unscrew it and remove. you should end up with a bare door that will look similiar to this, without the door handle and 6n2 tweeter:

Now take the wire from the door lock, and push/bend it towards the door lock a little. this part is very important! Don't bend it too much, just a little.

Now this bit can be a bit confusing, as the 6n2 door handles are all slightly different for each door, but one will fit one door.

Firstly, take a stanley and cut into the sticky foam so that it removes a square, as shown in the image. Hook on the door handle, and then pop it into the guiding holes until the plastic tab sinks into the recess:

Wind down your window and close your door, try to open it from the inside, if the handle isn't sat flush with the mount, you've bent the wire too much, if the door handle moves, but the door doesn't open, you haven't bent the wire enough, rework accordingly.

Now, take the tweeter pod and fix it onto the door, where you removed the bracket and old plastic, you can choose whether to keep the foam in it or not, I didn't because race car.

Next, fit the new rubber/felt lining along the top of the door with the 6n2 ones:

notice how these are different in shape to the old 6n ones? The lip mounts on a strip on the 6n2 door cards.

This step is optional, but I didn't have any 6n2 speaker mounts. If you do have 6n2 speaker mounts, fit those. I took the speakers and with some smaller screws, screwed them onto the doorcards. *bodge bodge bodge*

Take your 6n2 Door card, and carefully remove the door pin guide, by pressing in on the tabs and pushing it up. It can pop, so be somewhere you can find it if it escapes.

Also, take the big black block of foam and rip it off, If I remember correctly it interfered with the original door foam and you know, race car.

Now carefully put the door card on, in the reverse way you took the old one of, so angle inwards and downwards at the wimgmirror end. This is tricky, because you have to guide it over the door handle, and also into the slot in the rubber/felt along the top of the door, take care, stop where you need to to pull the wingmirror wire through, plug in the speaker wire and check the alignment as you go on.

Make sure that the strip is sat in the gap and that the lip sits on the top nicely, and that the handle is through and flat.

If everything looks good, give it a good few taps on the poppers to pop it into place.

Now take one of the retaining screws and screw it in the top hole, the bottom screw will screw into thin air as the mounting is slightly different on 6n2's, but one will suffice anyway, pop on your plastic cover, refit your door pin and voila, it should look like this, minus the wing mirror switch:

I will detail the wing mirror switch in another reply below!

Rear Cards

These follow the same principle as the fronts, but they are a lot quicker and easier, with minor differences.

Firstly, align the window winder vertically, and push up on the ring in between the handle and door:

Then simply remove it, and follow the instructions above for removing the door card itself.

When it comes to fitting the door handles, again, find the handle that suits the door (you will only have two left anyway if you did the fronts first), you don't need to bend any wires, but the door handles themselves sit in a different position to the originals, cut the foam as shown in the image, and mount the handle in the highest mount, as shown:

You may experience a bit of fouling on the wire/mount due the higher position of the mount, it's nothing serious, but if you are a perfectionist, just file out a bit of clearence :)

Re-fit the door card as you took it off and Boom, nice sexy childproof 6n2 door cards all round!

again, any questions, ask away!

Wing Mirror Wiring

This was initially a pain in the back side, until a user here gave me a helping hand regarding wire colours, even then, you have to make sure that you have the lilac and lilac/grey wires the right way round (hence the knots in them)

So, as you can see in the images below, during the testing phase, I left the 6n connector block on the original wires, trimmed some of the insulation off the 6n2 wires and plugged them in different ports on the connector block, the brown black and grey/blue transferred straight over, but the other wires were causing me headaches, mostly because, the 6n2 switch has 10wires and the 6n switch has 8.

Removing the insulation tape from the 6n2 wiring revealed two grey wires go to a single red/white wire.

down to 9 wires, 3 of which we know are power, ground and LED.

so 6 wires on the 6n2 switch and 5 wires on the 6n loom.

I tried different configurations to no avail, I could get the mirrors to move but not in the correct way, so I popped a post on here asking if anyone knew what wires did what,

6N2
Pin 1 Blue Switched supply to Heated mirror relay
Pin 2 Red/White to Drivers Mirror pin 7 & Pass Mirror pin 7 (Grey wire)
Pin 3 Brown (ground/earth)
Pin 4 Grey/Blue Backlighting Supply
Pin 5 Black (Ignition supply)
Pin 6 Grey/Lilac to Drivers Mirror pin 8 (motor common)
Pin 7 Lilac to Pass mirror pin 6
Pin 8 No Connection
Pin 9 Lilac to Drivers Mirror pin 6
Pin 10 Grey/Lilac to Pass Mirror pin 8 (motor common)

6N
Pin 1 Brown/White to Drivers Mirror pin 2 (motor common)
Pin 2 Grey/Blue Backlighting Supply
Pin 3 Brown/Yellow to Pass Mirror pin 2 (motor common)
Pin 4 Blue to both Mirrors pin 3 (L/R motor)
Pin 5 Black/White Drivers Mirror pin 1 (UP/DN motor)
Pin 6 Black (Ignition Supply)
Pin 7 Black/Yellow to Pass Mirror pin 1 (UP/DN motor)
Pin 8 Brown (Ground/Earth)

This helped me greatly, my 6n didn't have heated mirrors (i'm not sure if any did?) so that freed up the spare wire, and told me where I should aim to connect the others.

It's worth noting that I didn't connect the LED wire up, as I broke the LED's when opening the switch

The biggest problem now was figuring out the Lilac and Lilac/Grey wires, as the 6n2 switch has two of each, whereas the 6n loom is straightforward and has a different combination for each different control, so swap and change as you see fit, referencing the image below (or above) you can see that Lilac/Grey go to 1 and 3 in the connector, and Lilac go to 5 and 7. I would suggest knotting the wires as this makes it easier to identify which one goes where when permanently fixing them together.

Now cut off the connector block, trim back the wires and connect them together using your'e prefferred method, I soldered mine and taped them up for that "OEM" look :p

I took the doorcard off to make access a little easier.

Now put the doorcard back on remembering to pull the wires through, connect to the switch and fit it in the door! Lovely!

So it's all in. Now it's worth noting that the postions on the switch are rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise, so that: right triggers the down motor, up triggers the right motor etc.

I think this was unavoidable due to a wiring difference between the looms, I'm fine with it, if you're a perfectionist...you might want to dig deeper!

It could well be that I'm an idiot and missed something, but to be honest, I spent too long fiddling with 8 wires that I was happy with near as damnit.

Edited 5 September, 201313 yr by R10tz0r

So I haven't been going camera crazy lately, but heres a during and after shot, let me tell you working in the dark with only an interior light and a torch is fucking hopeless, but I managed to get all the wiring sorted through the week, the dash wash done on a saturday while I werent at work.

Hardest part? sorting out the heater matrix, it's definately a pain in the arse, the wiring is not too hard if you understand wiring diagrams, I didn't but learnt a bit doing it and managed to sort any queries out myself.

If you have any questions regarding a conversion, shoot me a message :)

Edited 24 November, 201312 yr by R10tz0r

You're using 6n clocks though? So it's not a conversion really lol

You're using 6n clocks though? So it's not a conversion really lol

I'm not quite finished yet mate

got some lupo clocks waiting for me at home

Clocks were fitted on my dinner break! Tacho works instantly!

for anyone wondering I used part number 6X0 920 900 from a T-reg Lupo I'm not 100% sure if 901's would work too, but I've a slight suspicion they might, however I don't think any clocks that start "6E" will work.

and in the dark...

schuweeeeeeet!!

Edited 9 November, 201411 yr by R10tz0r

Thank god you finished it properly, does the speedo work too?

Thank god you finished it properly, does the speedo work too?

yeah mate all working like it should :)

Think it was a bit easier for me because I had newer style clocks, as opposed to the older style ones? but yeah it was plug and play haha

Good job, makes the interior loads better :)

I have a dragon green 16v rear bumper if you fancy updating the exterior next?

It's definitely on my ever growing list of things to do mate, but my cars bright green, not dragon green.

Generally speaking the paintwork on the car is tatty, lots of small scratches and blemishes which I'm not too keen to tackle till better weather and light rolls in, I don't have a garage to work in which sucks tbh so I can't attack it like I would like to that coupled with the fact it's my daily commuter too so bigger tasks need to be scheduled around work haha.

Aside from the small cosmetic things I do from time to time my next big plan is to get some coilovers and find a nice set of wheels, I want to get it sat how I like it, so that's flush with no stretch and about a fingers width from the top of tread to the arches.

I could maybe get away with just springs but I'm scared that they wear the standard shocks quicker.

Finding the right wheels is gonna be a labor of love haha.

Oh and one more thing, I have this running joke with a friend about it being a tank, thought about making a willys keep style grille for it and with that in mind I'd probably put steels on it.

Excuse my rambling haha

I have some wheels that would enable you to get that look :) Teledials, 15', 6j front and 7j rear, perfect for a polo.

I also have the optional green hella lights.

Basically, I think you need to come to sunny Newcastle and get some parts, might even take you out in my 300bhp 6n if you're lucky haha!

I have some wheels that would enable you to get that look :) Teledials, 15', 6j front and 7j rear, perfect for a polo.

I also have the optional green hella lights.

Basically, I think you need to come to sunny Newcastle and get some parts, might even take you out in my 300bhp 6n if you're lucky haha!

Haha, will be after christmas if I pop up!

I've seen those hella lights, I really don't think they'd suit my car probably put 6n2's in the rear and get some clear repeaters for the side, Or maybe shave them and stick them on the wing mirrors...decisions, I've already got some clear indicator lenses up front. makes it look a lot cleaner

Looking good mate, quite like the 6n2 dash conversion, probably one the next things on my list.

Easy enough to do?

How much did the dash set you back if you don't mind me asking?

Planning on a 6n2 wheel to finish it off?

Looking back at it yeah it was easy enough in terms of unbolt and bolting it in. I did it all on my own, an extra pair of hands definately would come in, some pushing and shoving, but no major work, hardest part is sorting out the heater matrix, if you do it, remember to get all the ducting in place before you put the dash in haha.

the wiring got a bit confusing for me, but managed to sort it out in the end. I think the clocks depends on what clocks you have in yours, whether it's the old ones or the newer style ones.

I bought the parts in bits from breakers yard and ebay. The actual bare dash and airbag cost me a tenner, the lower dash/glovebox and gear stick surround was a tenner, managed to snag a heater matrix for 99p and the clock cover for 99p. Got the centre piece, heater controls, passenger side window switch, light switch+ vent, hazard switch, rear heated window switch and some plugs/connectors for about £30 all in. The clocks cost me £30 but I don't mind that price as they as close to perfect for my needs as I could get, so far cost me around £80 which isn't bad considering I still have a couple of bits to get, but that's literally some non-essential little bits of trim.

and yeah, gonna change the wheel out, most probably after Xmas :)

edit: oh and mock up the loom as best you can with all the plugs where you need them to be, never knew wires could be so heavy/awkward LOL

Edited 5 December, 201312 yr by R10tz0r

Ok so long time and no update, but it's been cristmas and money has been spend on my offspring rather than car!

BUT

a chap was selling a set of valver bumpers in my paint colour (kinda rare on 6n's) in good condition so i HAD to get them

and the first dry day I had a bit of free time i ran out early doors to get so work done :)

and an artsy shot

it's not all bells and whistles though :(

when I took the old rear bumper of, it's uncovered some accident damage, which has never been repaired, so the locating lugs on the right hand side are out a little bit and the rear bumper doesn't sit just right.

I should've maybe thought something was up with the chipped paint under the light housing, but meh I'm a fool.

It's gonna be too big of a job to try and straighten the bodywork out, but I'll patch up the rust thats forming the best I can and live with it, no cars perfect I suppose.

I really need to get the arches sorted too, they are getting bad, bring on the dry weather!!!

Well things are going slowly, seems like an age until payday!

but it seems just as you fix one thing, another thing breaks!!

this time its the rear silencer and it's more than likely my own doing, but it's developed a crack where it joins on the centre section and its causing a right old din, mostly because the blow is pointing upwards towards the boot floor so in essence it amplifies it in the car.

why is it my fault? because when I replaced the centre section a few months back, i may have over tightened the clamp :/

so going to get a replacement box and be done. I could tape it but may aswell just renew it to be fair its cheap enough!

Well things are going slowly, seems like an age until payday!

but it seems just as you fix one thing, another thing breaks!!

Story of my life mate!

I've snapped two back boxes on mine this year :/ Luckily it's only about 30 quid for a new one fitted if you find the right place though.

Yeah, I can fit it myself its nothing but an hour or so on a dry day, ECP had one at £22 last time I checked

Just a little thing to keep me from being bored!

Edited 16 January, 201412 yr by R10tz0r

Hope there's enough paint on that badge!! Mines been chipped off by bugs. Going to spray mine black

Yeah, 3 coats of normal white spay and a 4th with wheel spray, which has chip protection, shouldn't need it though coz its rear badge!

Mint 6n2 rears with bulb holders and bulbs for £5

Thanks to a mate!

You must install clock from Lupo without CAN (6X0 919...) - Only !

My friend is doing :)

Edited 22 January, 201412 yr by qKk