Little Red Ryder (hood)

Knuckles cleaned and bearings fitted.

A lick of paint.

Hubs cleaned and strategically painted. I had to drill out and re-tap the disc locator screw hole on one of them but no biggie.

Just waiting on new wheel bolts - of course the old ones won't fit the new wheels Also need 40mm due to the front needing 15mm spacers (also awaited) to clear the calipers. It was cheaper to order a set of 20 40mm than 10 40mm and 10 23mm. I shall just cut down the ones for the back. Locking wheel nuts are also ordered, we don't want them disappearing the first time it gets parked in aa public place............
Oh, and tyres being fitted on Saturday. Some nice Yokohamas all round
We are nearly ready to go!

 

Shiny. What did you clean them with?

 

Wire wheel on an angle grinder. Can't beat getting covered in film of rust and grease and dirt That reminds me, I need a shower....

 

Good job!

 

Nice work there Phil, will be a good improvement, all new bits and upgrade for future plans.

 

Calipers and carriers before


And sort of after....... I decided to dry fit everything just to be sure and I'm very glad I did. With everything in place the disc simply would not turn! The outer edge was locked against the inside of the caliper so I had to grind back the relevant area. It actually needed to go back by a couple of mm in areas. Also, because the caliper slide I had to grind back a wider area.


Ignore the vertical surface, this was not painted as it's where the pad sits and clearly you don't want any contamination/stickiness here.
I then put the pads in, or tried to. They were still too thick so had to be skimmed down some more, to about 14mm or just over. Once this was all done it all rotated nicely. With heat expansion it may all rub a bit more but that should wear with wear, if you see what I mean.
Everything is not touched up again and drying in the garage.

We would have been putting this all together this weekend but Black Circles let us down with the tyres and I don't want to start without having everything ready to finish in a weekend.

 

In other news we stripped another arch and found this

It's rotten at the bottom edge too, where it joins the outer wing. So as soon as we have done the other side is stripped back we will order one or two repair panels. Weather was too rubbish today but no mad rush. In the meantime I replaced the ARB drop link on our Honda CRV which was causing a horrible clonking noise. Clonking gone, happy days

 

Mine needed a bit of clearance on them, but not quite as much, shame Black circles messed up, when I ordered my toyos I booked it all in online then the local garage I had chosen called me to apologise that the booking wasnt available as no communication with them about a slot, think was asda tyres but similar to blackcircles, offered me another time, but I asked if could drop wheels off and collect when ready as not on the car, got chatting and one of the guys has a mk2 16v, had a call day after took rims there and was all sorted.
Nice when curing a noise is a simple(ish) fix.

 

Well, had a few hours spare today so decided to fit the new immobiliser. I wanted to get it done as number one son is going away for the weekend.
Thanks to Rubjonny's most excellent thread on all the fuse boxes and what wires do what and from what plug, front and rear, I identified the permanent live and the two ignition lives I needed. I carefully marked up all the wires for future reference but not in a way that would explain to anyone trying to bypass the system.
Found a hidey hole for the box of tricks.
I then started to connect, ign live done, next one done, 1st earth done. Then it all went wrong. I decided to connect the second earth but my mind then thought I was connecting the permanent live!!!!! Plugged the earth into the permanent live, mucho heat and smoke, both earth wires melted all the way back to the box of tricks.
So, gave Cobra a bell and asked if they thought I had ruined the box of tricks, yes, probably, was the answer
Cut out what I had done, removed box of tricks, new immobiliser ordered
Not a complete waste of time though. I have left "tails" so connecting up next time will be easier and quicker.
What a buffoon..........................

 

Happens to the best of us! My old Sigma alarm was fitted by a "professional" in the early 2000's and when I came to remove it it blew me away how the car hadn't caught fire. They'd ran the starter solenoid through it which is states you're specifically not meant to do and they'd left the wires so long you could cut and twist them to totally bypass it. Such a joke

 

Oh no, not so good

 

I effing HATE aftermarket alarms. It's about the only electrical work I won't do in work.

 

New front brakes fitted today. I just copied this over from the other thread so apologies if you have already read it

About nine hours all told.

Before.


Dismantled and lower ball joint position marked before removal.


Rubber on the old lower ball joints was completely mashed.


Mmmmm, lovely and clean and shiny. The three mounting bolts are 35Nm.


Caliper and hose removed. Rubber hose attached to nipple and clamped to prevent brake fluid all over my work space (the road ).


Replacement bearing carrier on. For clarity I understand this part by various names, bearing carrier, steering knuckle and hub. Whatever you want to call it the torques are as follows. The two blots that secure the bearing carrier to the suspension upright are either 80Nm if it's an 19mm nut and 95Nm if it's a 18mm nut.
The steering tie rod nut is 35Nm. The lower ball joint which attaches to the underside of the bearing carrier is secured with a pinch bolt at 50Nm.


Disc on and the caliper carrier. This is bolted to the bearing carrier with two bolts (see below).


The two securing bolts are 125Nm - tight!
The two nuts with the rubber bellows are where the caliper mounts. They are the slide pins. Grease before installing them.


Caliper on with pads installed. The caliper bolts to the rear of the caliper carrier via the slide pins and the bolts are 25Nm.
To fit the pads I found it easier to undo the top slide pin bolt, hinge the caliper down, place the pads against the disc and then raise the caliper into position. Make sure that the resistance springs that are attached to the pads are seated properly.


Then it was a case of connecting the new brake hose. Top tip, attach the hose to the caliper first
Second top tip, put copper grease on every thread, you'll thank yourself one day (pat on the back emoji).

Wheel on. A bit blingtastic for my liking but number one son likes them. These wheels required 15mm spacer to clear the calipers which means they are on the absolute limit for width with standard arches. A bit to wide for my taste, but hey, see above
Of course don't forget the hub nut at 265Nm, or in other words "as tight as you can get it with a four foot pole attached to your ratchet"...............


After the other side was done I replaced the brake master cylinder with a 22mm jobbie. This is a hateful job. On our car, a 1.3, you need to remove the air filter housing, then empty the brake fluid reservoir and remove the reservoir to gain access to the rear brake pipe connection. Of course the reservoir is never really empty so fluid goes everywhere. Then undo the two nuts holding the cylinder to the servo (25Nm) and pull it out. Happily all the connections came undone relatively easily.
Then you have to bleed to the master cylinder. To do this I bought two M10x1 spigots and two M10x1 blanks. Blanked off the unused side and put the spigots on the other. Mount cylinder in a vice. Fit reservoir and attach rubber hoses to the spigots. Fill the reservoir. Stick the open ends of the hoses in the reservoir and then pump the plunger. Keep topping up the reservoir. This is a laborious job because if you pump too fast or too hard you end up sucking air back into the reservoir. It's also very messy .
Then take the lot back to the car and mount the cylinder back on the servo making sure you get the actuating rod into the plunger correctly. Then of course you have to empty the reservoir and remove it to access the rear brake pipe. More fluid everywhere. This process wasted 500ml of fluid.
Finally, connect brake pipes, refit reservoir and refill, bleed brakes.

The verdict. Well clearly the pads need to bed in but there is a huge increase in braking performance as is to be expected.

Of course it doesn't end there. The rears look too narrow compared to the front so some stub axle spacers required there. Also, very annoyingly, the rear bearing cap protrudes too far through the wheel to to fit the wheel cap. Some 3D printing may follow. But it's another job jobbed

 

Good work my friends, time consuming but will be worth it.
Noticed on mates mk3 which has my old polo sport alloys that he has removed the caps due to the grease caps protruding, the other mk3 we stripped actually had caps missing so the wheels fitted!
Sounds like a good time to upgrade to polo rear hubs, haha, I'm like a little seed planter for more work for you.
Really was noticed when did same job on my mk2, after bedding in.
May possibly have a set of spacers that were on mrs doddgys car somewhere, could fit them on rear to space out and clear centres, I'll have a look tomorrow if like.

 

Thanks Dave. I'm wondering about the extra stress on the bearings with spacer on the drum. I like the idea of the inboard spacers but they won't solve the protruding cap problem. I expect it will go over to discs at some point and the bearings are easy to change so perhaps outboard will be ok?

 

Could be a stop gap until you did fit discs and inner spacers.
One thing I did wonder about a while ago is has anyone swapped to polo rear drums with the upgrade bearing, the hub and stub axle on the 9n3 are same whether disc or drum, the drum backplate bolts between stub and beam. Unsure of diameters at moment but, maybe its possible to fit 9n stub axle with 6n2 hub and drums.
Similarly a mk2 caddy can be converted to 5 stud rear but still drum by swapping to a Octavia brake drum, they are mk4 derived. vw love digging in the parts bin, like rover did.
If drum is same size on polo 6n /ibiza 6k (4 stud) may be worth investigating further, wouldn't need an adaptor plate to fit calipers, but is same when want to swap to discs, just need to fit plate then.

 

Mk2 is smaller than polo 9n or 6n rears by look of it, but could get 9n backplate and stub axle, 6n hub and disc.
That combination would probably be easier to get 9n/3 stuff from a breaker, then 6n hub and drum new, that's what I did for my rear 4 stud disc setup, got whole rear beam with discs off an ibiza 6l for £30, chopped plates off to modify, stub axle and calipers complete, then saved those hubs for 5 stud conversion and bought new 4 stud 6n2 hubs and discs for the golf (stage 1).

Attached, mk2, 9n, 6n drums

 

Not many updates here recently due to engine swap going on over on another thread.
However, little update to keep the thread live.
Part of the engine work has meant a new grille and that means swapping over the spotlights. Of course the adjusters were US and had already been butchered by the PO. So new ones were in order. How much !?!
£16 for three so £32 in all!
I decided that utmost care was needed in the fitting of the new and some action to prevent corrosion setting in too soon.
New ones.

They slot in and twist into position so copper grease added to assist both sides of the spotlight mounting hole.

Lots of copper ease added to the ball joint socket, clip and threads.

The adjuster slots in like this.

And then you have to turn it 90 degrees until the lug locates between the two raised metal bits. It takes a fair bit of force with a pair of pliers but it nice and snug and secure.


The black sockets then push into the grille mounting holes, adjust spotlight, job done
The spotlights can only go in one way round which helps.