Project Postman Pat

very nice to see this takeing shap, nice and low

SimonABT wrote:

lucky wrote:

Looks sweet. All caddys need to go from builders hack to underststed cool is a hard slam and some rims. Get some dish on there. I have some to 2" lowering blocks if your brave enough to go lower.

2" lowering blocks would be cool IF i could do it. At the moment the rear is about an inch lower than the front which looks a bit gash, and the sump is scary close to the floor already. May have to fab up some kind of sump guard if i intent to drive it this low.
I didnt want it as low as some of my previous cars as i could never 'drive' them as much as i'd liked, and this van will be a bit of a work horse so will need to carry stuff in the back

why not run some thicker rubber on the rear to bring it back up again.... bury them in the arches

Wurz wrote:

why not run some thicker rubber on the rear to bring it back up again.... bury them in the arches

I might have to i think when i start carrying loads in the back. But at the moment i am skinto so cant afford to replace the tyres. (the current ones are nearly new)

what about some air bags, like gungey has on his van.
you can trim your ride height and put more air in when carrying loads.

andy

joker 67 wrote:

what about some air bags, like gungey has on his van.
you can trim your ride height and put more air in when carrying loads.

andy

I guess that means installing compressors, etc? Dunno if i can be arsed with that. Im just about to go work on the van a bit more, might wind the front coilovers down an inch or so and just have a look to see how low it actually goes. Hopefully wont be too low for MOT time

FTW!!!

Awesome!

The T4 airbags, work on a car tyre valve, you just top it up at the petrol station (or buy a foot pump and stay trim!! lol

but trying to get them back along was like finding rocking horse shit as for awile people just binned em,

Mine are still on mine!! lol

sweeeeeeeeeet

Considering i had a hangover and didnt start work on the pat van till mid day i got loads done.

1st off i made a sleeve so that i could join the caddy exhaust to the VR6 front section, the van is now so quiet, like literally its silent!!
Maybe im getting old but i actually quite like it this way now...

Then i made up some new brake lines for the rear, fitted them and bled the rear brakes.

Also i managed to get another rear engine mount, i cut the rubber and centre shaft down half an inch, re-tapped the shaft and fitted it to the van replacing the standard VR6 mount. The engine now sits level and more importantly the bonnet closes!

Oh and when i started working on the van earlier i noticed one of the rear tyres was flat... so i pumped it up and submerged it in the water but. Found i have a leak where it isnt sitting on the bead properly. So i need to break the bead and re-fit it.

Well its been a while since i updated this.

So heres a quick pic of a standard VR6 rear engine mount, and the one i shortened



The top of the engine was painted Gloss black for a cleaner look.



I re-drilled and tapped the rear drums from 4x100 - 5x100 PCD.



The Van then went for MOT and failed on an anti-roll bar link, so £15 and 5 mins later it was back in for a re-test and it passed. Well happy!
Tax and insurance were sorted and ive been driving it round ever since.

No problems at all with the engine 'yet' but the wheels were catching the arches really badly when i hit a bump. So to solve this im in the process of making some wider arches...

thats good news on mot very good job, now your making wider arches can you make it lower

HRD wrote:

thats good news on mot very good job, now your making wider arches can you make it lower

Thats the plan!

sounds good to me, can wate to see this when its all done!

I had a few issues with the Mig welder burning more holes in the wing, so ended up just spot welding it, then using the gas welder to seam weld it. Doesnt look too bad considering the state it was in. The wing hardly warped too which means i could shape it really well using hammer and dolly so when i come to skim it in glass and filler i shouldnt need much.
I have ground it back and cleaned it up (no pics yet) and it looks so much better.




Consider ive never gas welded before i think i did alright.
Need to do the other sde now before doing the filling.

Looks good! Are you taking it to CTTP?

Shamrockez wrote:

Looks good! Are you taking it to CTTP?

When is it?

SimonABT wrote:

Shamrockez wrote:

Looks good! Are you taking it to CTTP?

When is it?

sunday

Ah bugger. thats a no then. Im supposed to be going to watch the touring cars at Donnington (i think). Got VIP tickets, and get to watch it in one of the boxes.

Seen this machine yesterday , looked awsome , cant wait to see it painted

Side repeater holes.....



.....gone!

And how it stands at the moment

Also, since driving it about for a few weeks it seemed to be down on power, at 1st i thought it maybe because i was just used to driving my old Mk2 Golf (VR6) which had huge amounts of work to the engine, but after putting the caddy on VAGCOM at my cousins, it threw up a few fault codes including lambda sensor faults, fuel mixture faults, and some other sensor faults. After hours of head scratching and looking through wiring diagrams, turns out the crankcase breather hose was split, causing un-metered air to be sucked into the engine (bypassing the air flow meter). So i bunged up the hose, and the faults cleared.
The car improved, but was still not quite right, until last week i decided the exhaust was a little on the quiet side, so made myself another rear section. The system now exits the engine, into the CAT, then a centre resonator, and then straight through into another resonator used as a backbox. It is LOUD... a bit too loud, but i have now cured the problem of lack of power! Seems the caddy backbox may have been restricting it slightly.

Im happy with the power its got now, responds nicely, and goes well enough for a van shaped like a brick. But the exhaust is far too loud, so im on the look out for a nice rear silencer.