Project Postman Pat

very nice indeed young man

looking very smart

Cheers fellas. I will be glad when its got some paint on it.

Looking sweet!

awsome stuff ! gunna be one hot snot caddy !

This is such a cool little project. I may have to do the same

sweet!

Quite a productive day today, managed to buy some bargain 12" slimline fans from ebay, advertised for an Escort Cosworth but i thought it was worth a shot.

They fitted the Corrado radiator perfectly.



Had to quickly make up some supporting brackets to hold the radiator away from the manifolds but this also meant i needed to cut more out of the front panel as the radiator top outlet fouled it.





Looks a bit rough, so i need to tody it all up and give the brackets a lick of black paint.

Also fitted the Golf VR6 CAT and Lamda sensor, filled the engine with water, and started her up and let her get hot. Tested the fans cut in and out when upto temperature. Only 1 fan worked, so i manually shorted out the other fan, it worked. So im guessing my fan control unit isnt working properly, or ive wired it up wrong. Engine ran perfectly although developed a random misfire. Hoping its either leads or plugs. But considering engine hasnt been driven for a while im chuffed.
Other than that i just continued to tidy up the bay and fit things properly before i ran out of light.

Next job is to fit new Boots to the driveshafts, re-grease and fit them.
Im going to plug my Laptop into the car tommorow to see what / if theres any faults

they look like kenlowe fans zip tied through the cores ,ran these on a morris minor ,very nice ......you can buy the adjustable stat to go with them

nomates wrote:

they look like kenlowe fans zip tied through the cores ,ran these on a morris minor ,very nice ......you can buy the adjustable stat to go with them

Yeah they are only 2 1/2" thick so perfect in the tight engine bay. They came with fixings which just push through the cores and lock nuts on the other side. (posh cable ties)

Oh something else i forgot to mention, once i had fitted the VR6 CAT, i measure the inside diameter of the pipe, then out of interest measured the outside diameter of the original Caddy exhaust, 1-2mm smaller, so i think for the moment i will just adapt the Caddy exhaust to fit exactly where it did in the 1st place but with the VR CAT and not the smaller Caddy one. Ideal.

I cant imagine 1-2mm diameter will make much of a noticeable difference, i may have to cut the Caddy tailpipe off as its tiny and i dont want to restrict the flow too much, so im now on the look out for a suitable tailpipe. Thinking something simple like a 3" round one.

Well did another day on the van. Managed to fit new Boots, CV joints and grease to the driveshafts, then spent hours trying to fit them. Bloody pain in the arse job as the engine needed to be lifted right up out the way.
Also bled the front brakes and clutch, and drove it for the 1st time! Driove it about 3 meters and it didnt break down which was nice!

Then turned my attention to the wiring again, when i stripped the mk3 golf down i took photos of every single plug in the fusebox area (theres LOADS of them). I then uploaded them to my laptop, which ended up getting a virus and the pics vanished. So i have plugged in what i can remember but im left with about 10 random plugs. Ive spent ages searching the internet for some help but cant find what these plugs do. So yeah... im stumped.
I did however make up a new loom for the headlights / indicators and horn, soldered all new plugs on, looked lovely, until i tried fitted the Ibiza headlights.... Turns out the radiator is in the way. FAIL. So next job is to try and do something with the radiator brackets in order for the headlights to fit.

I dont have any pics of todays progress but will take some in the morning.

So, been pulling my hair out recently with wiring problems. I ended up confusing myself more than helping myself. I have used the Mk3 golf VR6 engine and front lighting, and steering coloumn looms, the rest remain standard Caddy. If i knew what i had known now then using the caddy lighting loom wouldve kept it simpler, but never mind.
I was having all sorts of problems with getting the front lights to work properly, it was like i had an earthing fault, i almost proved this to myself after fitting a temp earth lead to the back of the Ibiza headlights made them work properly. I was how ever wrong... there was nothing wrong with the earthing, the problem was the fact that i 'assumed' that the VR6 headlight loom would plug and play into the Ibiza headlights as the plugs were the same... but after stripping down the headlights today i realised the only thing they had in common was the shape of the plug. The wiring was completely different. So after a bit of jigging about, and soldering later the front lights all work exactly as they should! Phew!!



Thats pretty much all the wiring sorted now thank god, only problem left is i have no indicator tell tell lights on the clocks. I have traced back the cables, and im left with the VR6 loom which is plugged into the clocks and has a 4 pin plug, and that needs to be connected to the caddy loom from the fusebox which is a 3 pin plug. Hmmm... more cutting and soldering needed 2mrw.

That is all

dude ....couple of questions ...


whats the advantage in the ibiza lamps ? style /shape ....or performance ? ....if its shape then what will you do for the front grill?


also you are worried about exhaust restriction ,right? .....but what does back pressure do?,you need a certain amout od restriction right? or am I right in thinking,you can loose performance with a too bigger bore exhaust?

saw this van , looks nice with the logos on and i think the wheels are cool too.

http://www.brick-yard.co.uk/forum/mk2-van-project-no-dolla_topic53974.html

link to his thread



his works (who he bought the van from) made him remove their logos, now without signwriting

Would you want to drive round in a van that said 'Man Service' on the side??

only at the weekends

Mr Scoops wrote:

Would you want to drive round in a van that said 'Man Service' on the side??

pmsl .......brilliant......

nomates wrote:

dude ....couple of questions ...


whats the advantage in the ibiza lamps ? style /shape ....or performance ? ....if its shape then what will you do for the front grill?


also you are worried about exhaust restriction ,right? .....but what does back pressure do?,you need a certain amout od restriction right? or am I right in thinking,you can loose performance with a too bigger bore exhaust?

The Ibiza headlights are twins, i.e the headlight is seperate to the main beam section. (if that makes sense). Caddy ones are a single unit. Theres no real advantage other than the Ibiza ones look better, and the caddy ones i had originally were broken so needed replacing anyway. I have got an Ibiza GTI front grill aswell, i just havent fitted it in the pic.

Yes all N/A vehicles need a certain ammount of back pressure, the overall diameter of the caddy and Golf VR6 exhaust is very small, this wont make any difference to performance at all, its the tailpipe that is different. The Outlet of the Caddy tailpipe is literally tiny.
But saying that, after i talked to dad about it today he seems to think that i can use the Caddy tailpipe as a VR6 tailpipe is small aswell. And as the caddy was originally a diesel before the conversion, and diesels run at a much higher compression than a VR6 would anyway.

So yeah ive decided for now to use the caddy exhaust rear section.

Oh and on another note... the caddy is now on its arse!

SimonABT wrote:

Oh and on another note... the caddy is now on its arse!

PICS!!!!

Standard Ride height



Rear Axle out




The Axle originally sat underneath the Leaf springs, so i cut the flat plates off the axle, rotated them 180 degrees, and re-welded them. Then drilled a 15mm hole through the axle so that the locating pin can sit in the axle to keep it central.

Re-fitted the Axle above the springs, and trial fitted the rear wheels to see where they sat.

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.

looks very cool!

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

Shamrockez wrote:

looks very cool!

Cheers! Its pretty nice seeing it come together even though the bodywork is still terrible. The hardest part is over at least.