The Greenland Polo by the brit

10 minute(s) of a 249 minute read

Clutch is now working.

Finished welding the bolt setup for the gas tank hole, have the fancy rubber washers ready, just need someone with small enough arms to reach inside the gastank to hold a wrench to stop the nut from spinning. My wife can reach, but has grad school after work tonight so can't help..

In the meantime, today i'm going to:

install alt/WP belt, tighten down alternator bolts.
Replace return fuel line to gas sized hose instead of small diesel sized hose that is too small to fit onto the fuel line/pump fittings.
Install main pump.

It's getting close to the point of installing the radiator and front end etc.

I've got Pink coolant here, which is what the Passat ran. I do not know what the Polo had in it before. I guess I will flush the system with water before filling it up..

Ben stopped by after work, and we got the fuel tank hole sorted. I got the welding wire and welded the big washers to the nut and the bolt, then sprayed the outside of the bolt to stop it from rusting. The o-ring washers were installed on the inside and outside, and the outside was coating in a layer of plastic gas tank repair epoxy. Between the metal washers, oil/fuel resistant rubber washers, epoxy and locking nut, I feel like I've given it a pretty good shot at holding.

So, the only way to tighten the nut was to hold it from the inside. Ben couldn't reach the hole to align the nut, and then put a wrench on it, so we used a pair of vice grips which worked pretty well. Ben used his camera and flash to take a photo of the inside of the tank so we knew it was fully tightened down, which worked great.



Vice grips coming out:



Yeah, it was a tight fit:



Some small goodies for the engine showed up and were fitted accordingly:



This was the state of the coolant reservoir as it came with the car. I flushed it out with hot water and mild soap, and then flushed it a whole bunch more. All of the loose stuff came out, and it cleaned it up a good amount. I want to keep the slightly unusual Polo one, as it doesn't have a water level sender to match the car that doesn't have the wiring. I didn't take a 'after' photo, sorry.



I bolted on the radiator and the core support during the day, but couldn't get the turn signals to fit correctly. I was pretty worried that something was tweaked on the core support, or worse, the frame. If you remember back to the first page, the very first photos of the car had the turn signals hanging off the front of the car by their wires, before I removed them for their safety - so they had never fitted right. I was still scratching my head, but gave up and went onto something else. While we all (my brother is in town too) stood around talking next to the front of the car, I noticed that the headlights (which the turns clip onto) were sitting correctly.

It turns out that somehow someone had installed the headlights incorrectly. It must have really taken some doing! Note the tab behind the metal:



Now correctly in front of the metal:



Now the turn signals install correctly. Woo.

So, if you're still reading this, here's the big news. As we used the epoxy on the tank, we didn't install the in-tank pump and therefore didn't fill it with gas. But.. we hooked up the battery, and cranked the engine for the first time. I disconnected the fuel injectors as a precaution (way over cautious). Ben watched the two belts on the passenger side, my brother watched the transmission side for, well, nothing, and I watched vag-com while turning the key.

It cranked wonderfully. I took a little video, but it was dark out, and it just sounds like engine with no fuel cranking. Still, very happy that it did.

Here's the list of codes the engine's throwing:



The fuel injector faults are obviously there. The two EVAP codes are expected; none of that stuff is connected nor installed. The N75 wasn't connected either yet - I need to finish installing and connecting all of the small boost lines. So.. not too bad actually. I wasn't expecting too much; there should be a bunch more if it starts - O2 sensors etc.

Hopefully a big day tomorrow..

With Ben planning to drive the Polo to H2O for me (i'll be driving another car), which is a 200 mile journey with his wonderful fiance shotgun, I thought I'd give him some tunes. Note that I'm actually thinking it might be done in time. Probably just jinxed it *knock on wood*.

The roof mounted antenna was missing when I got the car, and it's a unusual mount for a VW (Honda etc, all with the same fixed mount). So much so that I think I took a photo of it when I got the car. I couldn't find a antenna to fit. They were all too short, and didn't match the 'flat' profile that the mount has compared to the dished/pyramid style that is normally used.

So the first antenna that I grabbed today had a aluminum base, so I ground it down so that it matches the flat base. I was using the bench grinder free hand, but it came out pretty well:



..and it fitted perfectly. Woo.

Here's the original Blaupunkt Sao Paulo headunit that I would have really liked to have used; unfortunately it didn't switch on. It even has RDS (radio data system) so I can get traffic reports the next time the car's in Europe (HA).



So out in the dark with a multimeter. Power, switched power and ground checks out. So the headunit is dead.

Fortunately in the fast when VWoA sold off their old headunits at clearance prices I bought up a few, and have some sitting in the basement.

A mk3 unit is the correct vintage:



A earlier unit is Blaupunkt, and cooler. Hmm, decisions..



Well, the old units rubber mount fits the Blaupunkt so I'll run that one. Plug it in, it turns on straight away and is already tuned to a station playing a Jackson 5 song. Loud. Really loud. Moments like this would be Discovery Channel gold if this build was being video'd.

The decision maker, which inside the house deciding:



Nope, damnit, the space in the dashboard only fits the later unit. So, unplug it, back in the house, install the mk3 style headunit (which is really the more 'correct' one to run). It doesn't turn on to radio station, but there's static, and it tunes, and plays, and sounds good, so that's that.

No flash on the iphone, but it's a headunit and it works. Iphone interface? Yeah, that'll be a cassette adapter thankyouverymuch.



Test fitting the bolt into the gas tank hole:



Strangely neat looking photo of the inside of a gas tank, with a nut in it.



Photos from Saturdays work, with Eric helping too:

New axles arrive, photos are taken. Axles are installed, no photos are taken:



Eric has a rediculous 'stache, and vacuum'd the car while things were slow:



Lunch break was Tomato Pie from a local Italian deli, with Rita's Water Ice for desert:



Back to work.

On the left, 16v oil pickup tube, on the right (the longer one) the stock AEB pickup. I'm running a non-longitudinal oil pan so the pickup is changed to match:



Both pans removed and draining:



Welded nut inside the cleaned 16v oil pan. Its for the oil return line from the turbo.



Passat B5 stock intercooler in its new home, with a stock Golf/Jetta (err.. I think) pipe running to the throttle body:



And finish off with some of Scotland's finest soda, the rust coloured Irn-Bru (made from Girders, or known as Scotland's second drink - after Whiskey). When I bring over parts I throw in a bunch of the stuff and saved this last bottle for a special occasion. It had lost a bunch of its crazy fizziness in that time though. Whoops.