UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

The weather's brightening, warming and drying

The folks are away - brother in spain, mother in the states, and the keys to the garage/her car left behind.

Offering the polo in it's somewhat iffy state to all and sundry (here, porka, mig, an intranet sales board covering three different major hospitals, the saturday job notice board, and almost anyone I talk to) has proved a fruitless exercise - the words "pole" and "10ft" come to mind.

i'm not driving it, might be able to stand a trip up north (with the back of the astra full of plastic sheeting..), and have some ready cash that's not having any particular use awaiting it

....so the "fix it" mania is starting to descend again

is this bad?

just hope i can still find parts and i have enough swarfega to cover the entire garage
anyone know how to work a dent puller?

Do it You know you want to, Poppy deserves it

Yea and my grandad will stop going on at me for having wheels in his shed as theres an engine in mine haha

metz wrote:Yea and my grandad will stop going on at me for having wheels in his shed as theres an engine in mine haha

Ahhh - easy fix coming up

pfffffffffffffff

ok well first i've gotta convince myself to lock the PS2 in a cupboard and post the key to myself........ 2nd class........ from a postbox in Sheepy Magna.

because i got NOTHING done today (save finally transferring the photos*)..... or last night. or the night before. this has to stop.

*and finding the pendrive works flawlessly with the ps2, but not the PC

Been away a few days not feeling too well... still a bit funny.... insides are playing silly buggers and only just got my act together to get hold of some self-meds from the shop. Hopefully the second dose will work more effectively than the first...... otherwise it's off to the doc's on monday morning so that I don't, yknow, die.

Anyway.

Going to take another look at the price of gaskets etc on the GSF website.... may as well at least TRY doing this. If it doesn't work then I think the value of a polo with a non-running engine is going to be roughly similar to that of one with a barely-running engine And after all I've got this torque wrench, i may as well use it (though i could probably do with a breaker bar as well)

And also the cost of hiring an engine hoist, if i can find anywhere that says about that online. Just to compare the practicality of the two ventures.


edit................ hmmm, wonder what the difference is between a 1-piston and a 4-piston ring set that means that 1 is £6... but 4 are only £8?

£1.00 a pop for head bolts + washers (i assume sump & rocker cover bolts are re-usable?)
£3.50 for a rocker cover gasket.. "bung for cam cover bolts"=???
£7.90 for a head gasket.... £27.50 for a "head gasket set"???
£4.60 for a sump gasket
£5.50 for inlet & exhaust gaskets together
and £19.75 for a breather hose while i'm at it.. and 50p for 5 pairs of latex gloves

(all ex VAT of course)

...gee.... how much did you want for that engine again metz?

/calculator time



edit 2 ----
HSS has an interesting proposition
the whole adventure still has a ring of the uneconomics about it, but hey... you only live once... and it's better than buying the thing outright for like £200

Righto, of that lot you will need:

Head bolds + washers x10
Head gasket set x1 (all other gaskets are included in this, including cam cover bungs, valve seals etc)
Breather hose x1
Piston ring set of 4

In addition I would recommend:
More than 5 pairs of latex gloves - I got through a box of 50 in a week when I was meddling with mine
Vat of swarfega
Con rod bearing set
Main bearing set if you can actually get the crankshaft out.. I never managed as I stripped the heads of the oil pump bolts, something to watch out for..
Oil breather - regret not doing mine while the engine was out, if yours has been burning oil then this will probably be clogged up
Lots of engine oil, you'll need to coat pistons and bearings in it before you fire it up first time. You'll want to change the oil after a few hundred miles though, so probably best not to use anything too expensive
Timing belt if yours is due a change.. even if it's not, it takes about two minutes to change it with the engine out so might be worth doing.

Tool wise I would advise:
Torque wrench
1/2" socket set, ratchet and t-bar, range of sockets between 10 and 20mm, big old socket for driveshaft ends (34mm? Off the top of my head - someone please correct me if I'm wrong)
Splined socket bits for removing driveshafts and head bolts
Allen socket bits - much better than allen keys, and there are some tight allen bolts in there
Wooden / rubber mallet for knocking pistons into and out of the bores
Piston ring compressor - I'll send you mine if you want, not like it's going to get any use for a good few months at least
1/4" socket set, useful for getting at fiddley bolts
Valve spring compressor if you're planning on rebuilding the head while you're at it.

That's all I can think of for now.. most of these bits can be had pretty cheaply, you shouldn't end up spending fortunes.

I'm glad you're seeing sense, even if the sense has dubious sensibility about it

ok so i havent really read through it, but a more detailed replyamoojit in t'morro..

Don't worry, most of them are really small.. just speaking from experience there are a few tools that I would really have struggled without, and a couple of things that I regret not doing with the engine out of the car
Gives me an excuse to do that 1.3 conversion this summer, anyway

Tahrey1043 wrote:

ok so i havent really read through it, but a more detailed replyamoojit in t'morro..

ROFL

bugger, it's almost 8pm already

stupid daylight. come back... come back, dammit!

still got to tidy this bloody house up and prep for work! that's what taking things back to argos then lying on the grass with a bottle of kronembourg* does for you.

*not kronenberg.

ok gonna read that list now.... with a hard hat on

got a butt load of things to do today (tidying up, trip to ikea... lunch..?) but i might be able to squeeze a visit to GSF in. and i wonder if HSS are open weekends?? forgot to check opening hours. if not, then maybe next weekend. gotta get this sorted soon really!

still flip flopping between attempting the pistons and swapping the engine. Taking it all apart - draining oil / coolant, taking off the head, the cambelt, etc is going to be quite a job, but then so is disconnecting the engine from the gearbox and all... gotta depressurise the fuel system in either case, i'm thinking?

OK, please forgive the somewhat difficult quote-unquote format and the continual shocked interjection. Did a bit of a nut whilst reading through. I'm sure it's not as bad as all that, but some of these things, I don't even know what they are!

GroovyCarrot wrote: Head bolds + washers x10
Head gasket set x1 (all other gaskets are included in this, including cam cover bungs, valve seals etc)
Breather hose x1
Piston ring set of 4

More than 5 pairs of latex gloves - I got through a box of 50 in a week when I was meddling with mine
Vat of swarfega

easy enough.......

Con rod bearing set

a what now?

Main bearing set if you can actually get the crankshaft out..

i need to do this?!

I never managed as I stripped the heads of the oil pump bolts, something to watch out for..

...and is that likely to happen if i'm NOT removing the crank?

Lots of engine oil, you'll need to coat pistons and bearings in it before you fire it up first time. You'll want to change the oil after a few hundred miles though, so probably best not to use anything too expensive

Fair enough - tesco's 20w50 at about 80p a litre do the trick? (if not - can a diesel engine be run on it? )

Timing belt if yours is due a change.. even if it's not, it takes about two minutes to change it with the engine out so might be worth doing.

Well it was done 15,000 miles ago if not less...... do have a spare one in the garage (bought it from VW but garage refused to fit it as they "couldn't rely on the source"!), still boxed, but might have had stuff spilt on it, will have to check.

Torque wrench

yep.. though i dont know if its any good

ratchet and t-bar

???

range of sockets between 10 and 20mm, big old socket for driveshaft ends (34mm? Off the top of my head - someone please correct me if I'm wrong)

the garage is a mess - i might well have some of these. maybe.

Splined socket bits for removing driveshafts

...driveshafts? so the gearbox has to come off anyhow? or are you talking full engine removal here?

and head bolts

they need splines?

Allen socket bits - much better than allen keys, and there are some tight allen bolts in there

well i've already got a couple of those - you don't happen to know what size, by any chance?

Wooden / rubber mallet for knocking pistons into and out of the bores

yep...... somewhere

Piston ring compressor - I'll send you mine if you want, not like it's going to get any use for a good few months at least

doesn't come in the piston ring set then..... ok .... tell us what postage might be, and if i lose my head and actually do this, i'll spring for it.

1/4" socket set, useful for getting at fiddley bolts

again there's a load of random ones in the garage - any idea on the size?
could probably make up a comprehensive set of it all, but it appears my dad's strategy used to be to just chuck everything back in the tool drawer without replacing it in the box... then chuck the box in afterwards half-full just to make things interesting.

Valve spring compressor if you're planning on rebuilding the head while you're at it.

do what now?



my head's hurting again

time for lunch. dive gear washing. tidying up. phone calls to make. groceries to get in. and maybe a trip to ikea for some DVD / VHS shelves. Got to try and make 70 discs and 70 tapes tidy, as right now they're just in piles in the lounge and mum will freak if she sees it (the Argos one i got was crap!)

if i go past GSF i guess i'll have to double check with them what their returns/restocking charge is.

Tahrey, I'm not being funny with you, but from the knowledge you appear to have, I would recommend that you don't even attempt work like this on your own.

Do you know anyone with experience who can help you?

tis kind of the feeling i was getting, based on past performance etc

do i know anyone who could help? in a word? No.

For starters birmingham seems to be an utter dead zone concerning any internet forum i've even been on - ie theres no one else who browses it within 25 miles of me / 1 hour. OK, there is, but no-one who i could confirm as knowing their onions from their chips.
beyond that, i know maybe one person with the requisite knowledge who might conceivably have the free time and inclination to give me a hand with it, and they've pretty much declined. I could take it back down fairfields garage again, but even though i could afford it, i dont feel like getting shafted for about £400 including labour and parts.

but i've had a sh!t time trying to shift it anyway, so unless i can sort it, or swallow my concience and flog it on to someone who's going to find themselves stuck in the middle of the motorway within a couple thousand miles with a seized engine, it'll end up sitting on the driveway until it's taken for scrap when the MOT and Tax run out.

So, taking every precaution, i may as well have a shot. Clear up the garage. Find the necessary parts. Get a hoist if neccessary and always have someone around when i'm working underneath. Whats the most that will happen? It ends up with a non running engine instead of one that might last another couple thou miles.

hmm.

or, to start another way - anyone want any Mk3 spares? entire car to go, in august. get your bids in.