How to make a Polo Mint

We now have sounds in the Polo. Musical sounds that is, not knocks, clunks and bangs. Removal of the wheelarch liner allowed removal of the old school wing mounted retractable aerial (remember them?) and for the fitting of a new one, purchased for a princely £4.50 of f the shelf of a local motor factor who still stocks all sorts of stuff that nobody really buys anymore. Threading the new cable through into the cabin was a piece of cake, where it connected up top the twin dial radio cassette player. Powered up and with a bit of tweaking the irritating tones of Graeme Norton soon crackled into the cabin. At higher volumes (loud enough to hear over the engine) the old worn out speakers crackle and hiss, unless that was Graeme frying up some breakfast. It might be period quality, but I think we can do better, so it'll be a search for some oval speakers to fit in the rear shelf supports to improve the sound. Some young lads might be tempted to cut holes in the door cards and parc...

Only a half day on the polo today as it's our works Christmas Night out this afternoon. (Yes, I know it's March tomorrow, that says a lot about the organisational skills of the people I work with.) Anyhow, after much juggling of the instrument panel I have managed to remove it and replace the bulbs that light up the dash. The Haynes manual says after removing the screws swivel the instrument panel down to release the multiplug connector and the speedometer cable. For swivel, understand that it means wrestle, taking all the skin off your knuckles on the surrounding shar p edges. Anyhow, whilst I was in there a squirt of switch cleaner restored full functionality to the headlamp switch, so you no longer have to jiggle it to get dipped beam. With that done attention turned to the rear fog lamp tell tale light issue. Had the Polo been a couple of years older it would have been exempt from the requirement for a fog lamp at all, but as it needs one it also needs a tell tale lam...

A little more progress today as I started to attack the electrical Gremlins. The non functional offside rear lamp was nothing more than a simple blown bulb, so an easy repair - well it would have been if Volkswagen hadn't put the washer bottle for the rear windscreen immediately behind the lamp cluster, making a 2 minute job far longer. The offside number plate lamp also proved to be a simple bulb replacement, complicated by the fact that the screws holding the covers in place had rusted to the point where slots for the screwdriver no longer existed, the screws had to be carefully drilled out and replaced with new. As the nearside was similarly afflicted I did that at the same time to make future bulb replacement easier. Next it was onto the troublesome front nearside indicator. Remaking the joint where contacts had corroded had failed to restore function. Running jump wires straight to the unit failed to illuminate so it was time to pull the unit out and che...

Today the news you've possibly all been waiting for.....we have a runner, repeat we have a runner. But as ever, not without a trauma. The day started with a check of the fuel tank and supply lines to the carburettor. The tank, including the filler neck is sound, unusually so for any Polo, but especially so for one that has stood idle so long. The supply lines are plastic so has survived well up to the filter, where they change to braided rubber hoses. These had perished, so were cut out along with the filter which was filthy, a replacement all ready to go on waiting in the parts stack. Before that though a blow through the main supply line to the tank with the air compressor revealed it was blocked at the tank end. Any fuel residue that had remained in the tank must have gummed up since the car was laid up, but I suspect there wasn't much - the tank was completely dry when we picked the car up. With some fresh fuel in and the airline attached the fuel was soon bubbli...

It is now exactly a month since we brought the Polo home and began it's rejuvenation. So far we have spent £349.40 on parts and out around 36 hours of labour into the project. Works completed so far; Complete refurbishment of the seized braking system, new cylinders, refurbished callipers, new brake pipes to the rear. Interior fully replaced with later seats and panels as ours were beyond redemption at realistic cost. We still have them and may look at restoring them eventually, but for now the later ones will do; they look smart and the car will be serviceable, and its a sensible upgrade. Nearside door mirror fitted - ours is a poverty spec early Polo 1.0 L model so didn't come with such fripperies, but as Thomas will be driving as a new driver and is used to such modern convenience it makes sense to add one. New boot floor made out of plywood - a pallet donated the ply to go under the rubber mat fitted as standard to make a substantial floor covering. Body T-cut to bri...

A little more work completed on Project Polo today. The new wiper motor arrived so it was off with the old and on with the new. Not before cleaning up the old rack and pinion workings and painting the frame with Hammerite though. Inspection shows no wear, no it was just a smear of grease on the ball joints and refit. The arms have had a quick spruce up too with nice gloss black paint - should be satin really, but I only had gloss on the shelf and it'll do for now.  New wiper motor, bargain £18.50 off ebay Wiper motor rack painted up in Hammerite, that should keep the rust at bay I'm still waiting on the wiper blades from Eurocarprats, but a quick test shows everything in order for once they arrive. Wiper arms freshened up, still awaiting blades While the wiper motor was out I was able to start to tackle the only bit of serious corrosion on the car, the battery tray area. This has a thick coating of black rubberised sealant on it, but I suspect acid has spi...

We done the brakes ! We now have fully working stoppers on all four wheels and a handbrake too. The brakes refused to bleed with my one man bleeding kit when I tried earlier in the week, and I was at the point of condemning the master brake cylinder as faulty. I thought I'd have one my try this weekend with Thomas assisting, and doing the old fashioned two man method of bleeding. With all four brakes having been off the car for new seals to the front and new complete cylinders to the rear there was an awful lot of air in there. The fluid that we pumped out was fairly clean, although it's at least ten years old, so we flushed a whole bottle of DOT 4 brake fluid through there, replenishing the entire system. The result is a satisfyingly firm brake pedal with no creep under pressure, no leaks and a firm handbrake with no binding. It took time, patience and a few false starts but the brakes are now finally off the to do list. Also today we have removed the rust and repainted th ...

Well, I managed to get a little more done on the Polo project, finishing the interior fitting. This wasn't as simple as just bolting the front seats in, as I'd first hoped. Our car is an '82, the replacement interior comes from what on the face of it is an identical Mk2 but an '89. For some reason, somewhere in between the two years the seatbelts, which mount tot he seat frame were changed, and the seat squab subframe was also changed with the slide mechanism being moved from left to right on each seat. Had the seatbelts not mounted to the seats then it would have been easy enough to swap right for left, although this would have left the tilt lever in the centre of the car instead of by the door - an inconvenience, for sure, but not and MOT issue. But the seatbelts forced the issue. So the question is, will seats from a Mk2, (prefacelift) go into an earlier Mk2? The answer is yes but no but yes.  Looking at the old seat and the new, other than the slide mechanism...

A mixed results day working on the Polo. The brakes seals finally arrived from Germany. They seem to have taken ages, but then they are for a 38 year old car and not an everyday item, so I can excuse that. They are still quicker than the windscreen wipers and oil filter I ordered from Eurocarparts the same day which are only coming from Tamworth. I could have walked there and back by now, so I don't know what the delay is. I'll be chasing them up soon, as I need that oil filt er. The brake seals, a fuel filter, and the air filter (small box on top) arrived in this incredibly large carton from Germany. I suppose that's why it is £8 postage. Lesson learned is fill the box, so I'll be making a list of what else is needed and buying it all at once if it's from AutoDoc Germany. Meanwhile however I spent a couple of hours this morning fitting the seals into the callipers and mounting them onto the car. The callipers are an unusual design in that the cylinder fl...