The Greenland Polo by the brit

7 minute(s) of a 249 minute read

I guess on that note, I'll go ahead and make it public that I intend to be driving this car to the H2O VW show in Ocean City, MD on the final weekend on September (yes, 2010). That leaves me three weekends to get the engine finished, installed and wired, and then all the other stuff bolted up and sorted, and finally to get it inspected. Anyone want to make odds on the chances of that all happening?

And now, some photos and updates from Saturdays' work:

This is how the old suspension along with the vented (good), but 9.4" (bad) rotors looked at the beginning. This style bearing hub and caliper setup is the same as mk2 Golf GTIs had, which suffer from the upgrade restriction of not having a seperate caliper carrier. Due to the car being stood and rolled around with no axles installed, it's a safe bet that the bearings are dead, so it was a two-birds-with-one-stone deal that a brake upgrade was in order. To go up in size I needed to switch out to a mk3 Golf/Jetta hub, which allowed working bearings to go in at the same time, and either 10.1" or 11" brakes depending on the caliper and matching carrier. With a quick trip to the junkyard, a nice low mileage set of 10.1" hubs etc were sourced and mated with some new rotors etc (Brembo factory rotors are $14 each new, so it's not even worse considering running used ones). If I choose to go up to 11" front discs in the future, it's now a simple task of bolting on the rotors and caliper etc, no removal of the hubs, axles, tie-rods etc.



Draining the remainder of the old fluid. Not pictured is the cleaning of the control arms, nor the installation of the coilovers. Between rusted bolts and fading light, I think all three of us were too busy to remember the camera, sorry. :



The Bentley manual confirmed that this style of ABS unit can be bled in the usual fashion, but the slave for the clutch pedal needed to be replaced. The person who removed the engine had unceremoniously cut the old one off, leaving the stump of the old hose attached. I had a spare one laying around, which was re-angled to match the Polo and then bolted up by Ben.



New fluid in, bled no problems, and a extra free shot of the wiring fun to come:



Remember that I said the bottom of the car has a amazing layer of really fine almost volcanic mud all over it? Here's some of it that's crumbled off and is coating my driveway:



Speaking of my driveway, this was how it looked on Saturday. The dark red car is my 1982 Polo (breadvan), and behind the two Polos is Eric (the other friend that helped on Saturday)'s BMW 2002. He's only had one really crappy 3 series front seat installed since he bought the car..



Said crappy seat, tilted all the way back because it sat so high that he couldn't drive it without crushing his head against the roof (so he says.. it might be because he lives in downtown Philly, and wants to fit it more.)



So, in between installing Coilovers, hubs, brakes, door vapor barriers, a door card, unloading engine hoist and engine and whatever else we did to the Polo, we also welded up some new seat brackets for his 2002. We decided that in the interests of time we would drag my welding setup away from the table in the basement and tack weld them in the car, which lead to just fully welding the things on the driveway. [NB: Protective Livestrong band.]:



And now his passengers don't all have sit in the backseat ala a old Beetle taxi in Mexico City, and his drivers seat doesn't have the gangster lean going on either. Nice period correct grey Recaros with Gold edging trim too.



Huge thanks to Ben and Eric for hanging out and helping get so much work done, and yeah, to everyone following the thread.

9/1/10

Finished drilling out the studs, tapped to repair the threads and got the new studs in.



Got the transverse turbo manifold bolted on with new gasket etc.



Ben (thanks again for coming out to help) replaced the crank seal (shiny new part) and bolted on the metal gasket thing that goes between the block and the trans (dirty old part):



While I was walking past the radiator (short style from a european market mk2 16v GTI - thank goodness I had it sitting around), I swapped over the old '80s style temperature sensor to the '90s style with the square connector:



Ben also bolted in the engine mounts to the subframe and put the drive-by-cable throttle body on, while I finished bolting up the exhaust manifold.

The AEB cylinder head fouls the turbo on two small spots, so I will remove (i.e. grind to death) those spots tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow here's the list of the next steps of work, as much for my mental wellbeing as for your entertainment:
BUY
Turbo->Manifold Bolts ($6 each, blah).
Oil return->Oil Pan gasket
Fuel Pump Setup including fittings - YIKES - car still has diesel parts, needs to be converted to gasoline.
Exhaust manifold - 3 nuts, 2 washers.

Research
Intercooler Options - how do mk3/mk2 Golf/Jettas run one? Front mount? Side mount?
Turbo lines - 2 x threaded outlets at top. 1 x banjo outlet facing block, 1 x house @ inlet
Engine mount->subframe mount bolt sizes.
Crank Pulley options - needs to line up with alt (ABF style) + waterpump (VR6) pulleys.
Fuel lines in car, which is feed and return? 1 x black line, 1 x thinner blue line.
Fueling options. Mk3 Golf/Jetta direct swap?

I've been thinking that instead of running a stock sidemount, it might be more fun and easier to run a front mount setup. In fitting with the 'only spending fun fund money' I've made a classifieds thread for lots of the leftover B5 Passat parts.. It's here, if you or anyone you know might need a spare tiptronic transmission or turbo etc.

9/5/10

Big day yesterday:





Lots more updates to come.