Model: Polo 1.0C Breadvan

Engine: 1043cc HZ with 3F (GT) multipoint injection, ported GT manifold, standard G40 exhaust with de-cat.

Suspension: TA Technix 80/60 kit

Brakes:

Wheels and Tyres: Weller steel wheels

Exterior Styling: Some stickers, otherwise standard

Interior Styling: G40 front seats, gauges in radio slot, stripped out rear

Comments: Will be getting a G40 transplant at some point when I have time.

Well the story of this one starts with the missus on Facebook looking through local car ads. Even though when I do that I get a lecture about how I have too many cars, spend all my money on them, not enough on her blah blah blah. Anyway she reads out to me "VW Polo C 1.0L Breadvan for sale". My immediate response was "where is it because I'm buying it" Anyway the next day I went out to view this.

It is a 1986 Polo C 1043 carbed HZ engine. Been sitting for 2 years doing nothing. Has just 86,000 miles on the clock and was brought up from England by the guy I bought it from. Even came with a whole new exhaust on it.

Couple of days later I drove it home and stuck it in for an MOT which I knew it was going to fail. But was surprised when it didn't really fail on that much. All I had to buy for it was a new fuel tank, a TCA and a new foglight switch. The rest of the failures were rotten brake pipes, emissions and the passenger front seatbelt was slow to retract.

Next was the learning curve, since I'd never owned a mk2 or a carbed car before I didn't know the tanks were different between a mk2 and mk2f and I had no clue how to adjust the carb for the emissions.

So after a bit of research I bought a new tank from ECP which was a bit of a ball ache but got sorted in the end.

Bought the TCA and foglight switch online and then took the car out to the shed to start work.

So who says you can't remove and refit a tank with the rear beam in place? Here is my proof that you can :)

Look at the 28 years worth of dirt that was sitting behind the filler neck.

New tank in.

Forgot the take pictures of the mess the brake pipes were in but after a couple days work she rolled out the shed as a fixed car.

Also what I didn't take pictures of was the MASSIVE rust hole I found behind the filler neck once the tank was out. Now I can't weld really, and the guy in the shed next to us can...but his welder was out of action. So I had no other choice but to take it back to the MOT garage and get them to weld up the hole. This kinda had an effect on the whole cheap winter runaround thing I had in mind. Infact the welding cost about the same as I paid for the whole car. Anyway needless to say I intend to learn to weld this year....

Anyway after a bit of crying and selling my body I ended up with an MOT certificate YAY!!!

So now the mods can begin.

I hated the steering wheel and I had a small spline boss and wheel laying about, so I chucked that on.

Before:

After:

Yes I know the horn button is writing cheques the rest of the car can't cash...not yet anyway.

Then I couldn't deal with not having a rev counter so thanks to robwizard on here, I got a set of rev counter clocks delivered to me.

Old clocks out and changing the speedo over to keep the mileage.

New clocks in and rev counter working.

The I went out the other night and saw one of my mates had bought my cars bigger brother....

Anyway plans just now are.

Getting it running right over the winter, it does well on the short journey to and from work but once the car heats up after about 20 minutes it just cuts out and dies. So I need to look into why that is.

Once the winter is over and I'm back in my normal daily M3 then it will be time to have some serious fun with this old girl. I have a complete G40 conversion laying around so hopefully I can transplant that into the mk2 and have a good time with that.

More updates soon :)

Very nice :-D

Cheers Mark :)

So I had nothing to do today so thought I'd make the car a little more manly.

A couple gauges should do the trick and since the radio that was in the car didn't have a front face I thought I could rip that out and stick a couple gauges in there. Who needs a radio anyway...

Radio out.

Eventually figured out the wiring and I did remove the chocolate block

Gauges in and look they work and everything :)

Didn't take any pictures of the engine bay work but I just removed one of the pressure switches, fitted a 0-10bar sender and earthed the original switch wire so the buzzer doesn't go on.

Then I made the car an official member of the Club Polo Community :)

Since the last update this thing has just been sitting outside my house doing absolutely nothing. Bit of a waste really but it let me down one night going to work and I know nothing about carbs and considering the conversion I have planned I didn't want to spend much money on fixing whatever could be wrong.

Then the other day a mate tagged me to something for sale on BookFace then the next day I came home with this.

It is a 1.3 CL 5 speed coupe which the previous owner crashed head on into one of his mates. Here is a close up of the damage.

Basically it just killed the front bumper and passenger headlight. Everything else is pretty much fine. Everything I want it for anyway. It's got the CEG gearbox, a set of JOM lowering springs and shocks and some oddly purple P Slots. Runs sweet as a nut and it one of the cleanest mk2f shells I've seen in a long time. So why did I buy it? It was only £120 and I'm going to try and swap all the SPI stuff (the whole engine if it comes to it) over to the mk2. Figured with all the bits that are on it, it would be the cheapest way to get the mk2 going again. Since it is a bit of a shame to have it sitting there MOT'd, Taxed and insured but doing nothing. And I'm not ready to do the G40 conversion on it yet.

But before we get to that, I've had these in the sitting room getting in her way for almost a month now.

So up the mk2 goes.

New vs old, I'm pretty sure nothing on the mk2 has ever been replaced. Everything is so old and crusty.

Back down on a set or Wellers I've had laying about.

Might have a slight issue on the rear.....

Onto the fronts, decided to steal the struts off the mk3 since they looked a bit newer and better.

Had some G40 TCAs laying about but one of the them had a burst ball joint boot, so I stole the boot of the normal TCA I put on for the MOT then swapped them over :)

The G40 TCAs also have green G-Ladersite bushes in the middle.

All fitted up.

The usual caster correction ARB blocks.

Also switched to the 5 speed ARB from the mk3.

Getting it all put back together.

Finally back down on 4 wheels.

I think it needs to come up a notch or 2 at the back and come down at the front. I've got some springs with a coil off so might give them a go.

Tomorrows task is to look at all the SPI stuff.

How much have you lowered it by?

It was meant to be a -80mm kit but I'm not convinced. I've since raised the rear up 2 notches and I've got 2 sets of springs which look slightly lower to try and drop the front more.

More updates soon, been busy with this since Tuesday.

Looks good anyway, hopefully get mine some lows soon

haha... too many polos. you should drop the nawty 40 into the coupe it looks great apart from the damage.

I would fix the coupe but the shunt it's had has bent the shell I think. The roof has started to ripple above both doors and the passenger chassis leg isn't sitting right at all.

whats good about the CEG box, i've had a few of them from cars i've broke

whats good about the CEG box, i've had a few of them from cars i've broke

Same ratios as 8P I think.

ah rite. shame about the coupe then, id love another mk3 gt or maybe a 40. are the 40s reliable?

whats good about the CEG box, i've had a few of them from cars i've broke

Same ratios as 8P I think.

Yes similar ratios to an 8p and they work well with a G40.

ah rite. shame about the coupe then, id love another mk3 gt or maybe a 40. are the 40s reliable?

G40s are reliable if you just give them the care they need.

Been pretty busy with this the last couple days.

Ripped all the SPI stuff off that mk3 and got it all ready to go into the mk2.

So the mk2 started off like this, still with the pooburg on it.

So started taking all of the carb stuff off.

First bit of the new loom to go in was the alternator to starter wiring.

Then I bashed on and got the mk3 loom in and the inlet and throttle body on.

Ran the bigger fuel injection lines, this was a bit of a pain but got there in the end.

Fuel pump and filter, using the G40 pump just to save me changing it when I do the G40 conversion. I didn't have the factory studs for the fuel pump bracket thing so I just drilled holes and bolted it through the floor, no pictures of that though.

Next I had to take some pins from this,

And put them into this one,

I ended up just saving the wires I needed, cutting the plug off and found a great way of removing the pins :)

All three removed.

Then started the wiring in the car, was pretty straight forward to work out after reading a couple threads on here.

Once it was done I got it all tucked away and hidden.

Now to the engine bay where I had to cut the mk3 front indicator plugs off and put crimp connectors on to plug into the mk2 indicator plug.

Onto the exhaust next, anyone with a keen eye will see it is not just any exhaust manifold on there,

Then I had to make up a blanking plate for the hole in the head the old mechanical fuel pump left, so got out some sheet ally I had and got to work.

Almost there....then yesterday I picked up a 1.0 AAU ECU thanks to Ross (citrus) and it even had a chip in it.

This morning, plugged the ECU in, double checked everything and to my utter surprise, first turn of the key, boom, it started. Was well chuffed. This is the first time I've built a car and it has started on the first try. I must be getting good at this! haha.

The rest of the day I've been just tidying bits up on it, got the rev counter to work, taken it out for a few drives. Seems to have a good bit of poke now compared to when it was running the carb.

Only 2 issues I've found so far, when it is warm, this is my idle speed.

Also the in car fan just doesn't want to work at all, so I'll have to look into those tomorrow. Apart from that though it is fine and everything else works.

The driving about seems to have settled the front end a bit too, but it still needs to go lower at the front. I knocked the rear up 2 notches and got that how I want it.

Here it is tonight just before it got dark.

So now hopefully it will be a bit more reliable as a little run about.

absolutely love this build thread great work going into this . just out of interest though how did u wire up the rev gauge mine hasnt worked since i bought my car cheers simon

Cheers Simon :)

For the Rev counter first on the coil next to the plug you'll notice a flap you can lift up. Under this you'll see two terminals. Hook a wire into the terminal marked '1' then feed this wire through to behind the clocks and connect it to the red wire with the black tracer going into the clocks.

Back at work tonight for a week so won't get to do anything to the car until next week.

But before I left I treated it to a set of Aero wipers and a sticker :)

Only just found this thread!

Need to come see this for real.

When it gets G40'd I'm sure it won't stay standard for long with all the fancy bits you've got from the black one :P

Oh Hi..

No updates, just been driving it. So thought I'd take a few decent pictures of it.

I think the mk2 has been getting jealous of all the work and money being thrown at the GT and all I do with the mk2 is thrash the pants off it everywhere and use it as a van.

So as I was driving home on Monday night, this happened.....again!!

Luckily it fell off right outside a garage with an old outdoor ramp thing, so I took full advantage

Zip ties held up well till I got home and....the alternator belt snapped.

The next morning came a quick trip to ECP and I spent some money on the mk2.

A small drop in the ocean compared to what I've spent on the GT lately but the mk2 seems happy enough.

Hopefully once the GT is finished I can put more attention into the mk2, its has an amazing oil leak now, usual corner of headgasket one. But it is still powering on strong.

Put a 12" sub in this today.....

is it possible to swap to injection in a weekend if i had all the parts?

That's how long it took me. I could have done it in 1 day but I had to wait for an AAU ECU and I left the exhaust till the next day I think. If you have a donor car or a complete conversion then it is just a case of nuts and bolts and plugging things in for most of it.

So this bad boy is due an update. Basically was used as a runabout and van until the MOT ran out at the end of 2015. Then life got in the way and haven't really touch it until yesterday when it finally got pulled into the garage.

Plan is to remove all the SPI stuff and convert it to something a little more fun.

Well that was quick....

Also while I'm changing things I though it best to swap in a GT cam and to the cambelt too :)

GT cam in and new cambelt on.

Next came time to start messing about with the GT inlet. I'm not running an ISV (as I don't have one) and I needed to figure out a vacuum feed for the FPR since there is no brake servo. So two birds...

Inlet and injectors on...awful picture, really should buy a new phone instead of car parts one day.

Airbox and intake on. Notice the perfect use of the Irn Bru cap to block off the old ISV feed :)

Next came time to junk all this that ran the SPI stuff.

Then fit this lot, which I wrapped in fresh loom tape not so long ago :)

And then some time later...

Still a few things to do and a few things to tidy up, but with the essentials plugged in I was rewarded with the sweet sound of success :)

Yes I know the battery light is on....alternator belt isn't even back on yet.

Next tasks are to tidy a few things up and put it back together. Give it a little service, oil, coolant and plugs then it is on to the bigger issue...rust.

The rear drivers arch is a bit on the crusty side, infact that whole corner of the car is. So I'll need to get some welding practice in and see if I can get it ready for an MOT :)

Engine work looks rather smart. I thought you weren't going to put the cam in straight away? :P