How to make a Polo Mint

Lockdown brought our restoration of the Polo grinding to a halt. With only a few jobs remaining we were stymied by the heater tube that bolts up behind the water pump and supplies the main coolant to the radiator with take offs for the heater. 38 years, 12 of them standing around doing nothing had rotted out the original tube and when we had to pull it to take the starter off to swap the gearbox it disintegrated. A search of the internet revealed this part is obsolete and unavailable new. Chances of one turning up in a scrap yard were minimal too- when did you last see an '82 Polo in the scrappy? Luckily Thomas has a friend Jacob, who is a trainee welder/fabricator, and he agreed to take on the project. So we handed him the remains of the old pipe as a template and promptly the entire country went into lockdown. With no steel suppliers open the project was on hold. On hold unitl yesterday, when Jacob arrived with a viable part - in mild steel, not the stainless steel he'd promi...

We now have the gearbox in. Not without a saga though. Just as the old gearbox fought us all the way out this one wanted a fight before it would go in. If I ever meet the man from the Haynes manual who glibly says that refitting is the reverse of removal I will happily punch him in the mouth. Lifting the gearbox into place in the tight confines of the engine bay was relatively easy, and a little juggling got the input shaft settled onto the driveplate. With the help of my assistant Thomas locating the first two bolts the gearbox itself pulled nicely into place. The starter didn't want to go back in either, and resisted, but eventually yielded and bolted into place with two bolts, with the third strangely missing, even though we had pushed them through a piece of card and labelled them all - the spares we had acquired with the gearbox provided the long lower bolt that was absent. The gearbox mount and rear engine mount bolted up nicely with just a little jiggling required to align ...

T he gearbox is finally out. It fought me all the way though, taking no less than 5 hours. That did include a trip to town though to buy new tools. For some reason manufacturers are constantly coming up with new ways of fastening things together. It was bad enough when we changed from Whitworth, AF and Imperial spanners to new fangled Metric. But at least they were still hexagonal, and the 12mm spanner was useful for ramming onto worn out 1/2" bolts. But then they started fitting Allen key bolts, then torx and now splined bolts. Hence the need to go into town, because the driveshaft bolts which I thought we T40 torx are actually M12 splined bolts. VW must have been leading that particular arms race back in the early '80's. Why do they do this? Do they seriously think the home mechanic will give up just because they fitted a different type of bolt? We don't we just go and buy the tools, and I suppose that's the point. You either pay VW garage to do it, o...

Progress but not much on the Polo today, as a leak in the kitchen and stripping the carpet in the back room and a tip run have eaten into the available daylight hours. Following the Haynes manual guidance we have removed the air filter box, washer bottle, speedometer drive and reverse lamp switch wiring, removed the clutch cable and 3 of the 4 bolts visible from the top of the engine. The last bolt also holds the starter on place, the starter had three bolts, two of which ar e easily removable straight bolts. The last one bolts through the gearbox with a nut on the end. The nut is easy to see and turn. the head of the bolt is not. It is hidden under a web of wiring plugs and heater hoses, the hose clips on which have rusted so badly that the screwdriver slots are no longer usable, and even the hex heads are dubious. They will have to be carefully cut off without damaging the hoses, and with daylight in short supply that will have to wait until our next session. So at present the car i...

After a few days distracted by a Hyosung motorcycle taking up my time I have finally got round to welding in the metal sections I made up for the rusted out battery tray area on the Polo. Working within the confines of the plenum chamber proved a challenge, and as ever my welding is functional but not necessarily pretty. It improves after being dressed , but still won't win any prizes. The tin worm had been particularly hungry, probably started by acid corrosion from a spilled battery not mopped up properly For some reason the internet is always full of people showing off their cars, with plenty of interior and exterior shots, but relatively few of the engine bay, unless it's been show shined or modified. There are no pictures of VW Polo battery trays for a 1982 model. So, I have tried to replicate the original pressed steel panel and the sprung battery retainer, but was working to guess work as I had nothing to reference from, the original having totally rotted away.  ...

It's Polo update time. A roofing repair and fence repairs delayed the start this morning as storm damage had to be put right. Then it was down to some preparatory work prior to starting the gearbox swap. Our visit to Matts breaker car yesterday yielded a spare nearside driveshaft, but it was still in the hub. Sadly he had not loosened the hub nut whilst the wheel was still on the car with the weig ht of the car to assist in holding it steady to loosen it. With the car partly dismantled he removed the full leg and hub along with the driveshaft. Our driveshaft only needs a new CV boot, but as we are doing the gearbox it makes sense to swap a replacement shaft in and then sperate ours at our convenience to recondition it later at our leisure. Separating the two components proved more difficult than anticipated though. Holding the shaft in my biggest vice (after sex, drink and rock and roll) and trying to turn the nut with a 30mm socket and wrench was fruitless. I have a length of hy...