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Is it bad that I see that and think 'that would make an awesome picnic hamper'? You'd have to put the food in something else I guess, but all the plastic plates and cutlery could go in it. *bookmarked*
I looked up the original garage my car came from today, Spittlegate Motors Limited, Grantham.
Sadly, the company was dissolved in 2005 so my hopeful idea of revisiting the place and possibly meeting someone who worked there when my car was sold is not looking likely.
A bit of internet poking reveals that any information for Spittlegate Motors should go instead to Witham Specialist Vehicles which is nearby, so I assume that means the owners of Spittlegate Motors changed venue and business.
The old location of Spittlegate Motors Ltd. was on Spittlegate Level which still has a handful of dealerships but how I'd go about finding out which was the one my car came from or if indeed the dealership building still stood, I'm not entirely sure. This is where the original bill of sale might have been a bit more useful as it would have given me a more accurate address and the phone number on the documents I've got is too short (Grantham 66416).
Perhaps I should write to Witham Specialist Vehicles on the off-chance they know where the garage used to be?
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Last Edit: Nov 11, 2011 4:20:05 GMT by Deleted
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cianha
Part of things
aka VDubbin
Posts: 923
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You sure that the engine troubles are head gasket related? I've seen Polos suffer rough idle and random electrical gremlins after sitting up for a while, usually caused by damp. It usually take a good 50 mile run to warm it all up and drive the moisture out.
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damask
Part of things
Posts: 163
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my girlfriend lives in south witham, if you want me to run up and see them for you i can?
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cianha: It's not the usual lumpiness after being laid up, in part because he was okay when I set off but gradually got worse until it got to the point that driving back into the garage was nearly impossible because of the erratic and difficult to predict revs. Really was a mess. That coupled with the recent head gasket repair, quite a bit of water out the exhaust and a lack of pressure in the system leads us to believe at initial inspection that it's most likely head gasket. Another common fault is apparently piston ring failure at about 160k which is where I'm at. Either way, pulling the engine for a rebuild certainly won't do any harm and should see all the issues I've had resolved in one fell swoop. I hope. damask: if you would, that'd be awesome. A friend of mine tells me that Witham's is the people that provided Top Gear with the military equipment for demolishing houses.
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Bit of a picture dump this update. We made a start dismantling the engine and inspecting for damage and the like. First up was to take a bucketload of pictures for reference, I'm sticking them all here so I've got a quick and easy place to come back to for when we rebuild. Back passenger side, wiring route. Passenger side of engine main. Driver's side of engine main. Passenger side inner wing, correct wiring of coil. Passenger side inner wing looking towards front. Passenger side inner wing, wiring route. Passenger side suspension tower, wiring route. Driver's side suspension tower, brake fluid reservoir. Passenger side distributor and general locations. Note marks on distributor when rebuilding for timing. Passenger side engine main, looking towards front. Passenger side gearbox and fan housing. Note wiring locations. Passenger side wiring route and heater box. Driver's side heater box. Driver's side suspension tower from above. Driver's side inner arch looking towards front. Location of horns. So... with that out of the way it's on to what was taken off.
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Right, next phase. Before taking the above I'd removed the bonnet and discovered the limit of what I can lift post-surgery at the same time, good to know. The wings came off later and will be finished off before being put back on the car as will the bonnet. We also removed the bumper, grille, headlights and the number plate. When I rebuild I'm going to be fitting my quads and a custom grille, might as well with everything in bits. So, we pulled off the radiator, header tank, screenwash bottle, air filter box, and horns. No need to label things at the moment as the holes that bolts came out of keep hold of those same bolts nicely. When we start unplugging things the masking tape and marker pens will come out though. This is how the engine bay looks now. Car looks a bit naked, but the metal is all in superb condition having been protected by years of oil leaks and the galvanising from the factory.
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I've taken stuff apart so the next job is to start cleaning things. First thing I've made a start on is the header tank/bottle which is frankly disgusting inside and out. First off it got a good swill out with hot water before we had a rummage under the kitchen sink amongst the chemicals left behind by a previous tennant. We found this, that had a fair few warnings on it, that did an okay job. Had to improvise to plug up the holes, just as well I had some ancient spuds. After leaving it to stew for half an hour and watching the gunky blue-ish something at the bottom of the bottle slowly fall off with the help of the descaler and giving the outside a good scrub with a toothbrush and hot soapy water it was looking better, but not great. There's still a large concentration of greb in the bottom. I'm going to try using white vinegar and Bicarbonate of Soda next, something that's very good at cleaning up old wine decanters. Next job will be the screenwash bottle, which is even grebbier than the header tank/bottle. It also has a crack I was unaware of. Whenever I filled the bottle I would lose water very quickly and never really knew why. Now I do. I'll be having a go at plastic welding since this isn't a pressurised bottle. Tomorrow we'll do some more dismantling and cleaning and the house will gradually look more and more like a garage.
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Update time again. Not as massive as yesterday. Spent a couple of hours with my bro in the garage before it got too cold to do any more work. I'll likely not do any more dismantling now until next weekend and will instead spend the week cleaning up stuff that's been removed. The usual reference material, and then a question. Advance vacuum retard green ball thing reference for wiring. Wires and pipes in the coolant pipe area, back of the engine block. Spaghetti of pipes and wires between engine block and bulkhead. Coolant pipe reference. General reference. Carburettor connections and general reference. An overview of the engine. Note all the little flags with important stuff written on them. Attacked the gearbox with some Jizer degreaser. Easier to see where the bits to work on are now. Finally, the question: I'm running a Pierburg-Solex single point injection carburettor and it's RUBBISH. What suitable replacement carburettor and air filter combination could I use for this engine (it's an earlier 1043cc engine, rather than the later one)?
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Its not single point injection^^ But back on track, don't listen to the hype about weber carbs. They realy arnt all that they are cracked up to be on a polo. Get a later pierburg on their and all would be fine. Just set it up on a C0 meter and youll have an excellent little engine. I did it with all of mine and they were faultless runners. I say this but I'm not 100% on the manifold being identical. If you can find a second hand manifold for cheap it might be worth comparing the ports at the head. As for the original carb. Whats up with it? They can be good too, A clean out and setting up and it should be ok. Is the auto choke a bit funky? You can adjust that by undoing the screws surrounding the choke unit, And adjusting it so the spring inside has tension again when cold. As it heats up (with voltage) it becomes slack and lets the butterfly open in the throat of the carb. Thus letting the choke off.
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As for the original carb. Whats up with it? They can be good too, A clean out and setting up and it should be ok. Is the auto choke a bit funky? You can adjust that by undoing the screws surrounding the choke unit, And adjusting it so the spring inside has tension again when cold. As it heats up (with voltage) it becomes slack and lets the butterfly open in the throat of the carb. Thus letting the choke off. The Solex PIC is a manual choke carb so forget the above ^^!!!! ;D If the engine has lost compression and water is coming out of the exhaust it's almost certainly head gasket failure.
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retro: the carb has been reconditioned by a pro but it behaves like it's sticking. It's also a shockingly poor design from what I'm told and my gut instinct is that I'll be happier without it. As Mk2 says, I'm on manual choke with this one it being the earlier 1043 engine. Happily, if it is a blown gasket, it seems likely it's gone in exactly the same place as before and in the same way. I have no mayonnaise. But the car ran like it was cold all the time, the header tank/bottle wouldn't pressurise even after a drive and I was losing a noticable amount of water out of the exhaust. Looking at the block and head now everything is off, the gasket appears to have a warp in it on cylinder one which is the same one it went on last time, lending credence to the theory of a blown gasket. If possible, I guess the head will want another skim and, if we can't take it far enough, replacing with a new head. I still can't get over how small the engine is once you get rid of all the ancillary stuff.
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retro: the carb has been reconditioned by a pro but it behaves like it's sticking. It's also a shockingly poor design from what I'm told and my gut instinct is that I'll be happier without it. As Mk2 says, I'm on manual choke with this one it being the earlier 1043 engine. . Some earlier carbs were blessed with autochoke... My 83 1043 c had it.. On the spec rundown in the boot it was listed too As for the design , Not much wrong with that. Its just dated. Gotta remind yourself, The car would have run amazingly when it was new. With that VERY carb. Yeah fair enough it may need cleaning/tweeking a little. But theres not alot that cant be fixed in relation to one that simple. But as i said, If you go for anything else, Go for a later carb. Realy steer clear of webers. They arnt any good. They take ages to set up and never hold their settings, And if it goes t*Ts up you cant get bits . Ive had mates listen to the hype and fit them before, Only to ask me to come round and set their pierburgs up with the C0 meter as the weber was acting cack again...
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There is definitely something wrong with the current carb, it seems to stick and the friend that reconditioned it - at the garage he works at, so it was certainly done to a high standard - said it wasn't the best design he'd ever encountered. I read a lot about people having issues with them when they get to the age mine is so I'd be happier ditching it if I can in favour of something better. Going for the newer carb is probably the easiest option since a lot of the stuff needed to upgrade should bolt straight in.
I did think that if I go autochoke I can reroute the bonnet release to the old manual choke pull so that I don't need to go into the passenger footwell to open the bonnet.
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Every last piece of VAG-fitted cloth-wrap covered rubber pipe in there is suspect. Remember that.
I've had those fail, the rubber goes hard with age and cracks up despite feeling flexible due to the cloth outer.
The vacuum and fuel pipes seem to be the worst offenders for it.
--Phil
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the fuel hoses do have cracks in them now, they were one their way out when the car was on the road and up for replacement. I can get some nice red silicone hoses for the bigger pipes for the 1.3 engine and they look similar (if not identical) enough to do what I want, but they are £75 for a set.
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Insomnia. Good excuse as any to do some tinkering. Earlier today I got the dashboard out and found where the leak is coming from. Thankfully, all that's visible is a tiny rust bubble and no massive rust stains so I'm hopeful that when I remove the windscreen I shan't have a nasty surprise. Holding off on that though, not really got anything to keep the furry animals and weather out of the car at the moment. As I've been taking things off I've been cleaning them up gradually. First was the retard bottle (as I've come to call it) which was a bit grebby but actually cleaned up very easily. I've since shaved off the mould lines and the lettering, being sure not to compromise the structural integrity of course. I'm not happy with the red paint I've used for the first coat so I'm going to sand it back again and get something better next week. I'm planning to paint this gloss red with a gold band. Because I'm undecided about what I'm doing carburettor wise I thought I'd just renovate this bit anyway, for fun. The thing I've been doing tonight is playing with bottles. Namely, the header tank/bottle and the screenwash bottle. Both are pretty grim and I've already used some Ataka brand limescale and bath stain remover which, frankly, didn't do that much. I then left them to soak overnight with some extra strong denture tablets. This loosened up a lot of the crusty stuff in the bottles, but didn't do much else. Next thing to try was rice. This was much more successful. After spending about half an hour swirling each pot with rice, warm water and a bit of laundry detergent I got this. This bit of greb is stubborn. I was astonished at how much it cleaned up this bottle though. All that crusty blue-black stuff in the bottom is gone. Next was to try some course sand, I suspected the rice wasn't fine enough to get the reddish scale off. I was right too. Another half hour swirling per bottle. I'm actually quite pleased with that. I reckon they'll need another swirl with some sand before I bleach the yellowness out and they'll be ready for detailing and the little bit of repair on the screenwash bottle.
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kerrly
Part of things
Posts: 266
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Nov 11, 2011 15:16:28 GMT
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As much as i appreciate the work involved (having pulled apart many a polo in my time) things like the expansion bottle/ washer fluid bottle can be bought new for <£10
Regarding the odd running have you ever had the wax stat and drawdown unit replaced?
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Nov 11, 2011 15:27:35 GMT
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kerrly: If they don't come up as good as I want, I'll just buy new ones. A lot of this is about learning though so if I can clean them and learn why it might be better to buy new ones then than's all for the better.
I don't know what the wax stat and drawdown units are, so it's likely they haven't been replaced.
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Nov 11, 2011 20:36:42 GMT
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Take care with those bottles and too much in the way of chemicals.
Check the stamps- they may be polypropylene or similar, which won't do much for the yellowing if you bleach it. You may do better with peroxide, Oxiclean powder and sunshine.
-Phil
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I'll check for stamps, but from what I remember there aren't any. I'll be light handed with the bleach to see if it does anything, and increase the dose as required. Having seen the results of strong bleach on these bottles, I'm moderately reassured I'll be okay. Today's update is woefully small, There's not really much I can do now on the engine apart from removing it. First thing I did was to stand and stare at the engine, familiarising myself with bits I know and bits I don't and quickly working out there's very little I can now remove without pulling the engine itself out. So, I made a start by unclipping the wiring loom. I will be rerouting the wiring loom slightly more tidily I think, I'm not happy with how VW did it for what I want it to look like under here. Nothing too drastic, just a bit of a tweak, and something I'll work out when things go back together. For now, I've stuffed the loom into the top corner where it will be easy to put out of the way when I get to painting. One advantage of all that horrible crusty oil is that it's protected the bodywork. The paint does seem very thin in the engine bay so I'm actually glad of the leak and even gladder (is that even a word?) of the opportunity to repaint in here. This bit had been given a quick clean before I ran out of degreaser completely today. Removed the indicators from the front end. I've got some chrome plinths I might be using when I put them back on, though it'll require more fabrication work. The front valance is now ready to be paintstripped and redone properly, it was a rush job last time and it shows now all the clutter is removed, though not so much in this pic because it's backlit. I think I found the leak too. Water is getting into the passenger footwell when it rains a lot, especially so when the rain is driving at the front of the car. There's small rust bubbles on the outside of the surround, making the seal lift and this one matches them on the inside. I think I've caught it early enough not to worry beyond a wire brush and rust converter. I hope it won't need welding. Dashboard is out, came out yesterday. As is the steering wheel and stalks. I wasn't going to do this job, but now I have I'm glad I have as I can fix a fair few other things. We didn't put a final coat of paint on this repair and it's starting to show a few blebs of surface rust. I'll strip and repaint it properly before the dash goes back in. From the top, the battery tray repair has fared well apart from a bit of surface flash rust because, like inside, I didn't make time to put proper paint on it. So here's my dashboard and the Lexus stereo my Dad gave me from his old Lexus. I'll be wiring in some Lexus speakers too. I'm going to customise this dashboard. I want it to be padded and vinyl covered. I'm going to do away with the tray under the steering wheel and the current radio location. The radio is not in the best place, it's difficult to operate when driving. So I'm going to sink the Lexus unit into the top of the dash, blending the original radio pod into the top of the dash. When this is all covered (a tricky job, I have no doubt) it will look pretty good. The lower part of the dash will be smoothed with more padded vinyl covering it and a slimline subwoofer hidden inside it. Shonky photoshop. Whatever vinyl I use on the dash I'll also use on the new doorcards I have designed in my head. I'm really unhappy with the current efforts now since I know I can and will do better. Might need a lot of buttons and foam though.
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