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Polo G40 - when black became grey


4wheeledstool

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  • 3 weeks later...

Due to the piss poor design of the rear exhaust hanger, something beefier was required. A heavy stainless exhaust made the problem of bent hooks even worse. A thicker bracket and hooks were fabbed up and bolted into position, so hopefully it'll stay where its supposed to now!

 

TMOu78q.jpg

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Aaah, my G40 had the same issue with the exhaust hanger. I had a twin 3" stainless backbox (hooked to a full stainless catback & VAG Motorsport decat) and it was heavy enough to bend those poxy little hooks down, which makes the rubbers slip off.

 

I got quite good at slipping off a sock, tying a knot in it, slipping it between the two tailpipes so the knot wouldn't pull through, and using that to hold the hot back box up to hook the rubbers back on. This was happening a couple of times a week.

 

I eventually got a load of longer, wider, different sized rubbers to make something that crossed over, so the left hook was on the right hook on the back box and vice versa. Stopped it slipping off. I've seen others with bolt hooks through the boot floor.

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04ee535803c9dec82e5a82c2bf888f45.jpg

 

Many many many moons ago I bought this lovely little 1043cc fox for my brother to learn in for 200 quid, he then pineappled it before fruit became fashionable. A good ten years ago.

 

Anyhow this was no g40 but in the end we fitted a suspension kit and I am pretty sure it was a knock up of bits that included some vectra bits in the box.

 

Also as it was silly low so the exhaust fell off every other week, I took it to pick out cat up from the cattery and a slight road undulation took the exhaust off I ripped some speaker wire out and tied it up around the boot. Job jobbed.

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I consider myself most fortunate that I've not had an exhaust part company with a car yet. It does seem to be the bane of many Polo owners lives though - many "Vorsprung durch pikey technik" bodges have been described on Polo based forums!

I particularly like the "sock trick", nice!

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

That is absolutely lovely. Can't beat some PROPER mods with actual reasoning and improvements behind them. None of this negative camber, stretched tyre shit. Bet that is amazing to drive!

Thank you kindly! It's vastly improved over a standard chassis/suspension set up, but is still greatly outshone handlingwise by more modern stuff. The car is probably more competent than I am!

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It ripped off at the centre section, then got caught and forced round. Tyre was bald anyway but was a bit shit.

I've recently bought a pair of ARB blocks for mine, yet to fit but hopefully make a difference, it's understeer central at the moment.

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  • 2 months later...

It would appear that I've been driving this around with the king lead hanging off the coil! This is the state of the lead -

 

wWtkllU.jpg

 

The terminal on the coil is similarly frazzed, somehow it still ran perfectly though?

I only noticed the disconnected lead when checking the oil!

 

New coil off eBay, and a spare king lead fitted, and its all in order again.

 

mTVySC4.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks for the repair came in the form of a puddle of gearbox oil on the garage floor. What was left in there was drained, then the bolloxed selector shaft seal was replaced - it was all going well until the time came to refill the gearbox. The fill/level plug would not come out! I must have overtightened it in the past, as it was FT and ended up rounded. As there was no oil in the box, I couldn't drive it to my unit and get it on a ramp, so desperation set in. The only other means of getting oil in there is through the speedo drive hole, so the speedo drive came out leaving me with a tiny hole to fill it through. A piece of plastic fuel pipe and a little funnel were used for delivery - 3 litres needed to go in, and each litre took 40 minutes to unload through the skinny pipe. Arse cake! It's done now anyway, check out the comedy rig cobbled together to avoid holding the bastard funnel while the oil trickled in!

 

jpyYOEr.jpg

 

Normal service now resumed.

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It would appear that I've been driving this around with the king lead hanging off the coil! This is the state of the lead -

 

20150809_183611_zps9f1e09ad.jpg

 

The terminal on the coil is similarly frazzed, somehow it still ran perfectly though?

 

I've had this too; plug from the lead broke off and got stuck in the cap, nothing to be seen inside the lead and the car ran faultlessly.

 

IMG_2512_zpstabby7aq.jpg

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Remember to get that rounded filler plug out soonish at your leisure. Or you can guarantee that'll come back to bite you on the arse .... :D

 

It's guaranteed!

 

Might be able to use a chisel and hammer to wind that plug out.

If I can't get a better angle on it from underneath, that'll be the only option! Probably leave it until the engine comes out for tarting up at some point.

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When I drained the oil out the 'box on my HDi I found Pug had stopped fitting a filler/level plug. Queue lots of panicking as I suddenly had no transport and wasn't at home. What Pug did was make the breather massive with a removable lid. The alternative is to remove the reversing light switch which leaves a ~10mm hole on the top of the 'box (no idea if it's on the 'box on a VW).

 

I notice on the RAV forums the recommendation now is to make sure you can get the filler/level plug out of the gearbox/transfer/final drive before you drain the oil out of them, not sure if that's yet another "feature" but it's possibly a wise precaution on any car.

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  • 4 weeks later...

When I drained the oil out the 'box on my HDi I found Pug had stopped fitting a filler/level plug. Queue lots of panicking as I suddenly had no transport and wasn't at home. What Pug did was make the breather massive with a removable lid. The alternative is to remove the reversing light switch which leaves a ~10mm hole on the top of the 'box (no idea if it's on the 'box on a VW).

 

I notice on the RAV forums the recommendation now is to make sure you can get the filler/level plug out of the gearbox/transfer/final drive before you drain the oil out of them, not sure if that's yet another "feature" but it's possibly a wise precaution on any car.

Fair doos!

 

Dug this out again today, thankfully a dry garage floor suggests that it's still oil tight!

 

Vdkdq5A.jpg

 

Still not sorted the fill/level plug yet though!

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

Nice work. A proper 'old school' hot hatch. That front subframe looks a good mod. I can remember driving bread vans and almost being able to feel the geometry changing at the front as you threw it in to a corner. These must be pretty rare now?

Cheers! According to HML there's still a couple of hundred left, half of which are SORNed.

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