So I thought I'd make a project thread for Mavis!

She's a 5-door 1.4 8v 6n I picked up for only £380 with a few small issues including;

Broken door locks (both drivers and passenger side),

Passenger side electric window not working (turns out that the drive wires on the regulator had rusted through and snapped completely, after Volkswagen quoted me £369 for the parts and labour, I bought the whole setup on eBay for the better side of £25 and it's just waiting to be bolted in),

Passenger side wing mirror glass cracked and a dent in the read passenger side door,

Moderately severe rust on both rear wheel arches (not to mention plenty of dirt up inside the arches themselves),

Small rust patch on the sides of the sill under the door (underneath not too bad),

Central locking doesn't work,

Small hole in the underside of the floor pan which needs to be treated before the next MOT,

Leaky shock absorber.

Seems like a long list but I've already fixed the majority of them, all that's left is tackling the rust patches and the shock absorber. The plan for the shock absorber is to kill two birds with one stone and fit some coilovers as it's sitting at standard height and I fancy it being at least 40mm lower all round, but more likely 60mm all round.

Here are some pictures of the car in it's current state!

As you can see in the last photo, somebody has tampered with the airbag system and attempted to cover up the light, so that's something to address at some point.

Plans for this car are relatively simple, and not too over the top.

I want to put some FK coilovers on her and drop about 60mm all around. Lately I've hit upon the idea of replacing the standard headlight bulbs with some Phillips ColourVision bulbs in blue (although Amazon seems to tell me the won't fit my car, I'll need to look into that), I've got a badgeless grill I'm planning to fit soon, possibly fitting 6n2 rear lights and replacing the tatty and worn steering wheel.

I'll be posting photos and updates for anything I do as I go along!

Edited 24 October, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Yay, more door brother!!

I have the philips colour vision bulbs, in green, good little things, not overbearing and road legal.

Hopefully the airbag light issue is just an error code that needs clearing from memory, if the wheel has been off with the battery on it stores a fault, even though it works perfectly fine, which shows a light. If you know someone with Vagcom/VCDS its a five minute job.

Car as a whole looks relatively clean and sharp for its age though!

Is there a great amount of difference in say, the light spread, using the ColourVision bulbs? I don't want some overbearing Xenon blue, I'd like it all to be quite subtle!

I'm gonna source the cable and use the free version of the ross-tech software just to see if I can at least get the fault code.

The car is very clean! I think at some point in it's history it's had a knock on the left side, as there's the dent in the door along with the cracked mirror and a touch up on the paint. Main thing left to do is fix the rust spots up for winter.

Interior is very clean! Seats still feel comfortable for their age, it was very clean when I got it. Somebody's made a mess of the centre console area though, plastic's been cracked and the little plastic holders the screws go into for the window switch and heater dials have been broken off in one or two places.

I've fitted a new stereo since I bought it as the head unit was an old Alpine CD player and I needed an iPod/USB connection.

I plan on fitting some speakers and an amp in the back when money is available to do so.

Not actually passed my test yet, so I've had plenty of time to get cracking and most of the issues are now all sorted! Hoping for it to be on the road daily by late December.

Edited 24 October, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Just for reference mate, are these the ones you have (but in green obviously) and do they fit into your 6n without any bodging/modding? There's only one review on Amazon and it's negative but I read a post in the members section where everybody said they were great.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F3U10WE/?cstrackid=6597a712-e1f8-45e5-b64b-5a0a50b6d725〈=en&tag=channe03-21&ascsubtag=6597a712e1f845e5b64b5a0a50b6d725&

It is a very subtle light, when parked up against a white wall you can just see a green tint in the beam. The light they expel themselves is fine, I would say the spread is reduced over other similiar premium spec bulbs, but thats the trade off, I did a review on them in my thread I think.

Also, you will want H4 fitment, not H7 :) see this link - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00F3U0Z5M/

Ah okay, I wasn't sure if it was H4 or H7 I needed. Now I know!

I've got a sidelight out too, when I put sidelights on only the passenger side comes on. Not sure what bulb I need for this, so I'd best do some research and order them together!

Would these do the trick? Guessing they must be road legal...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-0730022-12929-BV-Blue-Vision/dp/B001MWZWHG/ref=sr_1_1?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1414189584&sr=1-1&keywords=philips+blue+vision+233#productDetails

Edited 24 October, 201411 yr by mbusby993

They look like they would mate yeah :)

Might pick up a set of those at the same time as the ColourVisions then!

Might as well make the whole front light setup blue tinted while I'm at it!

So here's today's relatively small update. My girlfriend and I got back from holiday last night and stayed at her mum's, where the car is, rather than at ours and this morning I fitted some of the goodies which turned up while we were away!

The electric window assembly turned up, so we (two handed job, as she keeps reminding me :p ) got that fitted and now I actually have two fully working electric windows rather than one working window and one that's held up by two planks of wood. Here's the window open properly for the first time since I bought the car, and anything up to two years before that.

The debadged grill I bought from a member of this site had also turned up so I popped the old one out and fitted the new one.

Photos of one of the wheels, mostly for reference. Rubbish wheel, rubbish tyres. Far from ideal. Hopefully gonna spray the wheels black so they look a bit less tacky and get some better tyres once I can afford to. Not happy with dirt cheap budgets.

However as the car's been sat for almost three weeks now, and the battery is quite dodgy, it needed charging up again. We had some fun trying to charge it up in the midst of pouring rain, but we got there! Now to see if it runs efficiently while we're out this afternoon.

Here are some photos of damage mentioned previously, below the door etc. I tried to get some of the arches but the lighting was crap and even flash didn't help me to capture it.

And finally here's just a shot of the whole car (from it's better side)

More soon!

Got some parts on the way soon, tinted rear lights, clear indicators and things like that.

Edited 2 November, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Went for a drive this afternoon and it was chugging away, pulled up at my girlfriend's step-brothers place, he's an engineer, builds parts for a living, and he instantly identified it as the dizzy cap being worn to hell. Got a new dizzy cap and rotor arm on the way, good thing it's not a daily car at the moment!

The car is so overdue for a service that I'm going to get one booked sooner rather than later!

Edited 2 November, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Nice saab 900

That's my girlfriend's stepdad's car. It's a pretty beautiful thing.

So we had an interesting evening!

My packages had turned up. Service parts, sidelight and headlight bulbs (Philips BlueVision sidelights and Osram Cool Blue headlights) and my USB reader so I can start to read fault codes (if the drivers ever manage to install!)

As the bulbs had turned up, I figured I go out and change them in time before it went dark. As we started, the light was rapidly decreasing.

I replaced the drivers sidelight bulb first and all was going fine, this is the difference in light,

I was pretty happy with the quite obvious difference in light so I went on to the second sidelight. This is where it all went downhill quite rapidly.

As I put the sidelight bulb in I noticed that one of the little lugs on the bulb holder wasn't in great condition, but I thought nothing of it. As I put the bulb holder back into it's socket, the bulb fell out straight into the headlight. That wasn't a fun moment.

So on we proceed, taking the front end apart to get the headlight out. I've further reinforced my suspicion that the car was knocked at some point, as the part that the grill clips into has been (quite poorly) resprayed, and as I pulled it away from the headlight, I realised that the little part where it clips together was snapped and held together with cable ties! So we cut those off, got the headlights out and removed the bulb. As we were putting it back in I tested the light and realised the power connector hadn't been connected properly and so I had to re-dismantle (after putting a fresh cable tie on) the front and get the headlight back off in order to remove the connector, and try again.

Eventually we got there, and both the sidelights were working so I went on to the headlights. In contrast to the fuss we had with the sidelight bulbs, both of the headlight bulbs just clipped straight in and were fine. Happy with the increased light output, it was much greater than the standard bulbs. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good photo of the difference, so here's the photos I have of the new bulb output.

Tomorrow, I'm onto the service!

Nice car, like 6ns in white this is one of the rarer colours. Cheap price as well.

Thanks! :)

There's still a bit of work to do, need to treat the rust patches soon, before winter makes them worse.

I'm changing all of the filters and the dizzy cap over tomorrow, I can tell there's been no service for a while.

I always loved white cars, I didn't even really know that it was a rare-ish colour until after buying that one.

She was cheap, but I keep unearthing little things. Not in the most fantastic condition. For what I paid though, still not bad!

I must have put about £150-£200 into it so far, tidying up and fixing small issues.

I'm yet to pass my test, so I've only done about 4-500 miles, so no doubt I'll keep discovering things.

Today's update is not a happy one.

We set about changing the dizzy cap and rotor arm today. The rotor arm was rusted on to the distributor, so it was a real pain in the ass to get off and in the process we managed to knacker the dizzy itself. Off to the scrapyard we went, couldn't find a Polo at first but we found a Seat Ibiza from the same year with the same engine. The distributor cap was different though so we took it off and put it aside as a backup. However on the way out we pretty much fell over a Polo that was hiding in a corner with an AEX engine. So we got the dizzy off that and went to pay. I was expecting £15-£20 but she said £2. So I pretty much took that and ran.

We got that back and fitted it but the car was still idling funny so we went to change the spark plugs. No spark plug wrench, of course. Off to Halfords to buy a spark plug wrench, we get back, turn it once and it snapped right in front of us. So we went back again and got it changed for just a socket. While we were removing the spark plugs we noticed that one was fine, two were wet and one was soaked in oil so head gasket alarm bells started ringing. We had a poke around and that seems to be what's causing the engine jerking problems. So what started out as a simple dizzy cap change has resulted in us finding out that the head gasket is on the brink of going.

It's fair to say today has not been the greatest day. Everything has to take a back burner until I can afford the head gasket parts + skimming.

Haven't had a chance to get the head gasket sorted yet, I don't even know what's going on with that.

BUT the courier did bring me some nice presents. These are entirely for future use as they have no tyres at the moment. But I figure the best way to replace my tatty 14" BK Racing alloys that were already on the car and looking like ass, is to replace them with 15" black BBS RXII's from a 6n2 GTI, right?

Anyway, here's a pic of the new rims, looking forward to the day I can get them on;

Edited 21 November, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Haven't had much chance to do anything in a while.

Got some tinted rears, clear indicator and side repeater units and a spare electric mirror to replace or cannibalise to fix mine all on the way. Was hoping they'd turn up today but they didn't, so a day with the car was largely pointless. Still waiting on the head gasket repair so it can't be driven.

However I changed the pollen filter today so that's looking nice and clean. Smells a bit funny in the cabin though. Changed some fuses too and made some progress towards fixing the rear window heater.

Another small aesthetic change, as I changed the indicators and side repeaters from orange to clears.

Nothing huge, but I'm getting little bits done while the car's not running.

Changed the HT leads last week, and it seems to have partially cured the problem. The banging/knocking stopped and I took it out for a 20 minute drive. Going for a slightly longer one today to see how it runs.

Got a couple of photos of the ice this morning!

Hope made some artwork;

I should point out that the #Mavis thing is largely sarcastic. It was an in-joke between friends and I can't stand needless hashtagging.

Edited 30 December, 201411 yr by mbusby993

Haven't put an update on for a while. Been getting driving practice in. I gave her a clean and a polish recently, but the weather's been so awful in Cornwall that she's dirtier now than when I washed her.

Had it up on a jack earlier in the week to start cleaning/sanding down the arches ready to be re-primed and painted. Not really sure what to do for a permanent fix, but just want to get rid of the ghastly rust all up the arches. On attacking it with a wire wheel however, I uncovered this.

So I got some fibreglass in there and patched it up. Seems to be holding fairly well. I've not managed to clean up or spray the arches much more than that, I don't really know how to proceed from there.

So moving on from that, the 6n2 rears I bought finally turned up, after getting to the point where I thought I'd been mugged off and had opened a PayPal dispute. Went to get them fitted but I couldn't work out how to swap the wires over. Eventually I managed to create some kind of tweezer-like device out of one of my girlfriend's hair pins. After I'd worked out how to rewire the connector I set about drilling a bigger hole into the metal of the light surround so that they'd be a bit more flush. I'm not 100% happy with how flush they are, they need more sanding and more drilling but I've got them wired in, they work and they look much better than standard 6n lights, and they look really good against the white.

Here's the original 6n units;

And here are the new 6n2 units from the same angle;

And a shot from the rear, for good measure!

So that's the update for this week.

Sitting my test on Wednesday (the 21st) so hopefully the L plates can come off soon!

The L plates are taped to the window because I've lost not one, but three of them! I've never known anybody to lose one number plate, but three of mine have flown off while driving.

Edited 17 January, 201511 yr by mbusby993

Good luck on your test, it's easy!

Lights look nice. Need to get some back to black on that splitter though! Saying that the splitters are a pain in the ass to get black

Thanks mate, I'm hoping all goes well. :)

Yeah, the splitter's looking a bit naff. I've also got t-cut on bump strips and wing mirror plastic and it's left some cringey looking white marks so I think some back to black is much needed!

She's getting there though, so that's good. Hoping to get the rusty arches and the sill sorted once the weather's picked up a bit.

Nice polo, most 6ns have rust issues I've taken to sanding down any rust, treating with rust treatment and then painitng hammerite.

Yeah, that's my plan really. Just waiting for warmer days. Not heard great things about rust treatment products to be honest. What would you recommend? Its always good to have opinions.

She's a good little car though, for £380! But sluggish on hills and the gearbox doesn't select fantastically and crunches into reverse quite violently. But other than that a good little runner.