Great work so far ... I'm very new to the polo community but now have a 93 mk2f breadvan. Been building aircooled for years.. just going through some bodges myself and getting them fixed. 

Brilliant :)

Quick update, managed to get more time on this lately. Suspension and brakes finished off. 

 

 

Even had time to do something a bit funky with the fan cowling.

 

 

It is now orange! haha.

 

 

Started on the wiring too.

 

 

I still love how easy these cars are to wire up, still baffles me how so many conversions end up with hacked up wiring that is just a cut and shut mess with crimp connections every 5 inches. It took me no time at all to route the wiring, plug it all in and the car turns over, fuel pump primes and I have spark all on the first try. Haven't tried to actually start it yet though as there is only a manifold on it and I didn't fancy waking the street up.

 

 

Also got all the front end back together, a nice clean set of headlights as the originals were covered in scratches and overspray plus an OEM grill, black VW grill badge and some tinted indicators I had laying around. I think the front end looks pretty decent now :)

 

 

The list now isn't very long at all, set gear linkage, bleed the brakes, fit exhaust, fit wheels and drive to an MOT. Hopefully I'll get that sorted over the weekend.

So today exhaust sorted, gear linkage sorted, brakes bled then it was time to turn the key with everything connected.

 

It RUNS!!! first turn of the key and she fired up. Couldn't be happier, just let her sit and run up to temperature to get the air out of the coolant. Everything went well, no odd noises apart from a couple small exhaust leaks which were quickly fixed. Ran up to temp fine and the fan kicked in like it should.

 

 

Once I was happy that everything had been nipped up I dropped it back down on its wheels. Couldn't take her out for a drive due to lack of MOT and the drive is full but she goes into gears fine, moves around ok, brakes feel as good as Polo brake can feel so all in all I'm pretty happy. No leaks from anything and everything feels tight so it should now be MOT ready.

 

 

 

Once MOT'd I'll get something sorted for a matching set of wheels and try and get some more of the bodywork tidied up. 

Looking good so far. Man, that archwork is savage though. Shame they don't make the bready arch trims any more. 

Thanks Steve, I've kind of accepted that the rear arches will never be pretty. I have toyed with the idea of replacement quarter panels but new ones are worth more than the van and used ones aren't likely to be as rot free as the ones on the van. 

 

I think the best course of action is to flat them off, smooth them into the body and space out the rear wheels to suit the new lines.

Doing some good work, i got alot of flak for trying to stop this van being done over 

Yeah I remember the thread well, fair enough at the time it was his van so he could do what he wanted to it. But I still question his logic. The van is surprisingly clean despite how it looks, yes it was painted nato green to start with but it was actually done very well by the looks of things. So to me there is no logic to completely ratting it out after that. But regardless it is mine now, I'll do what I can to tidy it up. It will never be perfect, it will never be a show winner but as long as I can keep it on the road and make it look half decent then I'll be happy. 

 

It has now been rolled out the garage ready for it's MOT which I'll take it in for tomorrow.

 

what a transformation You proper saved this rare van. I can imagine if you never saved him. He would have been ratted out more with even more bodges and most probably been scrapped. Keep up the good work  and good luck with the MOT     tomorrow

Nimal

Thanks a lot Nimal. I had to save it, no doubt if anyone else bought it (especially one of the mk1-3 regulars) it would have been slammed and ratted then put up for sale once the MOT was out for a ridiculous price then eventually broken and scrapped as no one would take it.

 

I won't lie it has been a lot of work so far and lots of people including myself at some points have questioned "why?" but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. 

The change between when you got it and now is stark. Such a shame about those rear arches though!

Might be worth replacing them in the future, financially it won't make sense but it'll finish the van off.

On Sunday, August 07, 2016 at 20:42, kwijibo_coupe said:

Yeah I remember the thread well, fair enough at the time it was his van so he could do what he wanted to it.

 

True but when he sold it to you he should have told you he wrecked the brake lines and you should try not to have a fatal accident

 

 

Found a link when it was white before it was ratted out

http://www.dubscene.net/forum/topic/4209-po5-bmxs-mk3-polo-van/

 

Cheers for the link above. Shame it will never be as clean as that again. I know that was back in 2011 but it was clearly well looked after back then so how someone can decide it deserved to be ratted out is still beyond me.

 

Anyway a few days late but the van now has a years MOT on it.

 

Some 'adjustments' were required for it to pass, a rookie mistake on my part but sorted now. 

 

 

So got it home and finally got it on a matching set of wheels. They are 14" BBS RAs 6J ET42 I believe and I have a 15mm spacer up front and a 30mm spacer at the rear. Fills out the arches nicely although I may have to reduce the rear spacing with I come to tidying up the rear arches.

 

 

Getting it to this point has taken a lot more work, effort and money than originally planned. Still a long way to go with it too, but for now it will be driven and just the odd bit of tidying up done when I have time. But I have other cars and projects to tend to while it is still summer and I have the change to work outside as well as in the garage.

 

Big big thanks to Ross @citrus for all the parts and time he has given to help this project along so far. 

You just keep telling yourself you need to sort the other projects out when actually you put all your time in the van haha. Not a bad thing that's what everyone wants you to do. I can see this being a beaut in a year or 2 :)

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Looking good mate! Round arch rear

conversion? You got a differnt garage now?

Good work mate :)

50 minutes ago, Buxton said:

Looking good mate! Round arch rear

conversion? You got a differnt garage now?

 

No I'm really not keen on the idea of cutting out arches to weld new ones in. My welding skills especially on thin bodywork is poor at best. So some taps with a hammer and a few skims of filler will be the way forward for me.

I've got a garage at my house so just doing all my work there just now. 

 

16 minutes ago, MartinB said:

Good work mate :)

 

Cheers Martin :)

Some arty shots...

 

I've been using this weapon as a daily since it has been MOT'd again. It is pretty much perfect as a daily driver, it is reliable, economical and nippy enough.

 

But when I've had time I've been tidying bits up here and there. Started with the seats, pulled the GT seats out and gave the carpet a good clean.

 

 

Then replaced the seats for a pair of G40 items. 

 

 

The GT engine had sprung an oil leak from the cam cover gasket. I wanted to change the cam cover anyway so managed to kill two birds with one stone.

 

Old cam cover

 

Removed and everything cleaned up

 

Mk2 alloy cam cover and new gasket fitted. Much happier with how it looks now, plus no leaks 

 

Then today was nice outside so got her up in the air for a quick oil change

 

The oil I now swear by in Polos, seems to be perfect :)

 

One thing that has been annoying me is the state of the pedal rubbers.

 

So when I was ordering the oil and filter I ordered some new pedal rubbers too :)

 

Much better!

 

The outside still looks the same and overall it is never going to be a show winner. But I'm happy using it as a daily toy for just now. 

Got a couple things planned that I'd like to do or try out plus a few more bits to tidy up. Also got a set of VW11 brakes to fit soon and going to paint some more bits when the garage is clear.

10th September? Thought I'd updated on here since then! Well a week after the last update there was a drag racing day on at my 'local' (if you can call 100 miles away local) drag strip. 

 

Here is a video of a few runs.

 

 

Best time of the day was a 16.8 @ 80.4 mph. So clearly not quick by any standards but a good laugh non the less.

After the day at the drags there was a local car meet looming, it was a meet for all VAG makes and models so since I had some free time I decided to 'try' and make the van look a little more presentable. 

Most of the pictures so far show the good side. But unfortunately the passenger side and the boot still looked like this.

 

 

A right royal mess!! So I'm no painter, but I think I can make it look better than that. Out came the masking tape, sandpaper and a little touch of filler.

 

 

Then some paint

 

 

Also decided to get the rear arches a little bit of work too. Like I've said previously they are ruined and have no chance of being pretty again. But I can make them a little more presentable.

 

 

The passenger side got the same treatment with the arch and also the whole panel sanded back ready for paint.

 

 

Then painted to match the drivers side with some satin black, the reason for this is mainly because I don't have enough Alpine White to do the whole back end and I don't think the colour will be a good match to the 25 year old paint on the front panels.

 

 

Once the paint had been applied and all the masking was off and everything back together it was time for some little touches to try and smarten the van up.

First off was a set of Club Polos new number plate holders :)

 

 

Then the day of the meet I got these in the post :)

 

 

So a wash and some finishing touches :)

 

 

 

Then a photo from the meet

 

 

At this point in time I'm actually fairly happy with how the van looks. Still not perfect but it never will be, at least now it looks like a fun little toy rather than just a horrible ratty mess.

I'm going to try and spend less time on this from this point on as I need to do a few jobs on the GT and get that fighting fit for next year. But once that is done I have a few ideas for the van I'd like to try. I'm just down to the two Polos now, this and the GT but I have a G40 conversion and a 6n2 GTI lump sitting in the garage. The original plan with the van was to G40 it eventually but I fancy giving bike carbs a go, so I may experiment with bike carbing the GT lump then move on to the GTI lump after that. Who knows, plans change, but that is what I'm thinking currently.

 

 

Looks alot better the more White gets put back on it!

Serious effort going in, getting better.

 

Enough fiberlass and filler and the rear arches can look original, just alot of shaping to get the lines in

Yeah it is getting the lines right I'm finding hard, doesn't help that they were literally pulled out with vice grips. So there are the marks from the jaws to cover up as well as the unevenness of the arch as the metal has obviously been stretched slightly so when I try and hammer it back it is just full of ripples. It is good enough for now, I'm not a bodywork guy at all so it will do. If it ever gets a proper respray then I'll just pay for them to get tidied up at the same time. But that is unlikely to happen for a couple years yet. Until then I'll just do my best to protect against rust.