UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

So I've had this car about a year now. Here's my project thread taken from my local forum (Dubnortheast)



So here's my current car. As I'll actually be keeping this one for a while I'll be doing bits and bobs to it so might as well keep a thread updated for it.

It's a 6n2 polo 1.4 tdi SE. Picked it up from Edinburgh in September and I love it! Certainly not as fun as my previous mk2s, but still a nice little car. It's pretty nice to have a reliable car for once too.


How it was when I bought it.





First things first, get rid of this bloody horrible exhaust! It was a stainless straight through system including de-cat. No boxes (the back box was hollow). The de-cat was left in and a standard system was put in.




Next was to break up the white a bit at the front. Gti grill:




Then I started on the interior a bit:




The 3m carbon vinyl is a nice product - great to work with, using a hair drier!


Then some legal dubmeister pressed plates were stuck on..

Now onto my most recent change. The ATS Cups are off and I've just acquired a set of Schmidt Modernlines! 15x8 all round, with 195,45 Toyo Proxes on. They've been painted in a slightly darker silver and I love 'em!








So next on the list of jobs is to sort out the arches! Getting a lot of scraping on corners/roundabouts, so I need to sort that out before I can get the car lower. Then the plan is to start on the interior..

So the ipod dock in the coin tray plan just isn't going to work at all. The dash shakes too much on bad surfaces. I eventually gave up on this idea. It'd probably work fine for an ipod nano, etc. but not an iphone 4s in a big thick case.

So today I've ordered some parts..


Replacement slip ring.. It turns out the part is used across a bunch of VWs, including mk3 golfs so picked one up for 15 quid delivered

Also..



I'm going to be retro-fitting cruise control to the car There are a few guides out there for it, but they all seem to say different things.. so the plan is to do a decent write-up for it.

The new indicator is also to alleviate this f*****g annoying problem!! (Click the image below for video)

So more progress today!

Picked up my new stalk from VW. £86.02, which is about a tenner cheaper than certain resellers on ebay.





Comes with a wiring loom plus instructions for installing it to a T4. Also pictured is the loom I got from ebay seller teeside_vw. Paid 3 quid for it delivered, which has now gone up to 7.20!


Biggest ballache of all is getting the f*cking airbag off!!! Haynes says to stick a piece of wire into the two holes on the back of the steering wheel to release the air bag.. f**k off is it that easy!!

https://www.youtube*.com/watch?v=q0jZHRy3t1c

That video was really helpful to working it out. In the end, both clips came free out of a fluke, rather than actually doing something. 2 hours of trying and eventually attacking the hole with a screwdriver long enough eventually unclipped it!



So once that was off, the rest was easy. Remove the three retaining screws for the slip ring, 24mm nut for the steering wheel, then they both come out. Make sure you unclip the wiring for the slip ring first though!





So once the new indicator was on, it was time to sort out the wiring. Very glad I have an original VW loom for this as it's properly wrapped and terminated! I used a gromet about an inch above the clutch. Really easy to access it and it comes out in a decent place on the bulkhead.




That's all for today! The main bulk of my work in the car is done, so just need to do the ECU wiring side of it now. Cracking on tomorrow morning to get it done!

Well made good progress today!

So first job of the day was to solder the bulkhead loom to the dash loom.



After this, the head unit came out and I took a feed from the ignition live (brown with red stripe) wire and fed this under the dash onto the above loom. Soldered that in, then wrapped it.

Next was to do the ECU side of it..

This photo shows the gromet I used:


I decided against using the usual driver's side entry (cutting into the loom, feeding it through the hole and back along the scuttle) and fed it in through a tiny gromet behind what I think was the ABS pump:



I found this in the pollen filter!



Ok, so onto the ECU wiring.. what a pain in the arse!! I tried to use part of the connectors that came with my VW bulkhead loom, which was a big mistake. I would have been better off just soldering bare wire onto the terminals.

First pull the slider to the left to release the connector, then remove the little ring clamp from where the loom ends and the plug starts. You release the connector cap by prising it off like so..


Then slide the pink clip out, after pushing down in between the connectors with a small screwdriver to release it:


And remove the pink clip from the other side of the plug. This one just lifts out rather than sliding. You can release the two connector blocks now.



So to know which pins to use, there is possibly the tiniest writing ever on the connectors! Took me some time in the sun to make out the numbers fully! It's then just a case of releasing the rubber protector, sticking a tiny flathead screwdriver in the hole nearest to the end of the connectors and centering the metal bits, then pulling the connector out. Being able to solder these out of the connectors is lovely. I was dreading having to solder them in-situ!

Keep in mind that everything has to go back in really nice and flush and the rubber thing has to sit well, to seperate the terminals from eachother. I had a problem with my connectors being bulky the first time round, so had to remove them all, slim them down and do it again.

End result:




The T4 stalk also catches slightly on the cowling, which means the headlight flasher doesn't return to its place properly. A 30 seconds with a junior hacksaw and it's sorted! I chose to cut the cowling rather than the indicator for obvious reasons.. I'm not cutting up a brand new indicator!!

Before:



After:




Then onto testing with vagcom! You have to enable cruise control in VAGCOM first. Go to Select, then Engine, then Login, enter 11463 then click Do It! You should see a letter G appear in the component field. Mine was somewhere in the middle.

Next, go to Engine, then measuring blocks and measure block 022.

Here's a video showing the readouts I was receiving when playing with the cruise control:

click me:



So now that I was happy, I could put everything back together with my new slip ring! Disaster, I've lost one of the bloody slip ring screws (silver torx ones). There's 3 of them that attaches it to the steering wheel. It has to be in the car somewhere but I can't for the life of me find it!!

I've also lost a spring clip for one of the engine pipes that I removed for better access. It pinged off somewhere down the back of the bay. :-/


So tomorrow's job is to find the missing bits, stick the steering wheel back on, put the interior bits back together and test it out! The airbag isn't going back on until I'm 100% happy. Can anyone confirm if I'm in danger of the passenger airbag going off if I drive with my slip ring connected but no steering wheel airbag?

So today I got the car washed and clayed, in prep for (weather permitting) a day of polishing tomorrow. Tried out my new Iron-X. What a product! So amazed at the work it's done. One of my wheels especially was very badly covered in black marks all over, from brake dust deposits, etc. Well a few blasts with this stuff and it's pretty much all gone! I also did the lower section of the sides of the car and all the other wheels. I'd honestly recommend this product to everyone! I was a bit too trigger happy with it though and used nearly half the bottle today! oops.










I'll take some more shots tomorrow.

So the car has been machine polished now and looks lovely! Still some swirling to get out.

I've picked up a new toy for the car.. a Parrot MKi9000 handsfree kit. Fantastic product that does everything!

Got it 2nd hand and it's great. The control unit however was a bit mucky.




So I've taken it apart to clean it up.. It's got that rubberised coating on it which was peeling off, so the plan is to strip it all off and either spray it satin black or maybe try and carbon wrap it, but not sure if that'll work!

Fitting it in the morning

So I picked my badge up today Soooo shiny!






Time to start sanding it and painting it after work the next few nights

I had some time tonight to strip the badge down:









And when I peeled the sticky s**t off the badge, I've tried to keep it so I can re-use it. Not sure if it'll be effective enough once it's put back on!



Oh yeah, the Parrot handsfree system is incredible! So so impressed and it kicks the crap out of my Dad's jag handsfree system Next thing to source and fit is a relay 99..

So the badge is finished and looks awesome! In the end I laid about 4 coats of clear, wetsanded it down to flatten it all then gave it a quick 2 minute blast with the DA



Anyway, I whipped the old badge off the car and found damage underneath Unfortunately it's in the area that isn't covered by the new badge!! Looks like the previous owner has used a flathead screwdriver to try and remove the badge and slipped. doh!

So I might as well leave the badge off for now until I can touch the paint up a bit..

So after getting excited at the prospect of buying some RMs (then finding out I was beaten to them!) I'm set on getting some RMs for the polo now.. So I decided to do a quick late night photoshop. It's pretty crude, but does what it needs to. There's a set on ebay (and a few forums) for sale at the moment in a nice red which I'm interested in..







I've lowered it some more in the photos too.



EDIT: Oh and the sharan badge is on. It's shiney.

Right, update time! So I found some wheels.


So I stripped them all down..




And cleaned them up..



To



Then split them



And chucked the bolts in paint stripper for a day..




Then took them to a local painters down in Sheffield to be made pretty.




So the plan is 0.5s on the front, 1.5s on the rear and stainless bolts. Just waiting on the guy to sort them out once he's finished with all his orders and s**t for Edition. His prices are awesome.

The car is also booked in for paint on the 7th. Got a nice set of replacement genuine wings 99% rust free, so they're getting rolled before going on and the rears are getting rolled while it's in for paint. The guy has been painting for VW for a few years and is awesome. He's set up his own business with the plan to go full time self employed so doing his work for really good rates for now, to get his name out.

Once the RMs are on, I can go lower!

So.. one of the RMs had to go in to be re-painted after I had a bit of an accident involving an iron

My painter has posted a picture up this evening of the car. Scary!



Should have it back in a few days - I can't wait!! My lips and bolts should be here around Monday or tuesday next week, then I can get them built and on the car.

And it has paint!!

And now we're up to date! So the car came back and the paint job is just fantastic. The guy has done a wonderful job and the arch rolling is just perfect. Nice having no rust spots anywhere at all on the car anymore!

The RM's are now all built up. I received my dishes and bolts which are great. Got them from someone on Ed38 called the pinstriper. Very good price and his polishing work is great.

Here's a few pictures from instagram. Username is jamlid

Before and after, polishing my BBS badges:


Wheel centres built up:


Stainless bolts:


Dishes laid on wheels in my bathroom/workshop


Shiney.



Hopefully getting tyres on and put on the car tomorrow. Just waiting to hear back from someone on doing them. I've got 165/50s for them which will be fine for the fronts but quite a stretch for the rears I think.

Nice thread good little read

Love all the mods nice choice of wheels

Maybe some GTI front fog lights and grills would look cool

Look forward to seeing the rm's on the car