Hi guys, I've acquired a fun truck from a member on here, it's in fairly good condition to be honest, year 2000 w reg with 116k on the clock

Made the pilgrimage to a place near stoke-on-Trent to collect it, the journey from hell, got the train up there and those virgin pendelino things are the most ill conceived sick inducing things going, Felt sick as a dog by the time I got to Milton Keynes, anyway I digress... Here is my latest project wagon, not quite sure exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, but you can follow my antics here, the mrs wasn't best impressed I can tell you, I don't know what she's moaning about? It's not like it sticks out like a saw thumb or anything is it? It did get me the 220 ish miles home much to the surprise of the previous owner

how can I summarise it? Overall condition is fairly straight, little bit of mayo on the bottom of the dipstick so I suspect that to be early signs of a head gasket failure, has a hideous misfire but I don't think that's related to the head gasket at the moment I think it's more down to the fact it's running super rich that is causing the misfiring, the ignition switch failed on the drive home too but I'm not too worried about all that, I'm not fussed about the colour, but I'm sad to say that I'm not keen on the quality of the paint job, I don't mean any disrespect to the previous owner but when I say this, he's obviously paid out good money in faith for it to be done but the standard of the paint is shocking, it's like they've just taken a bucket of paint and thrown it at the car..

made a start today, for the time being I'm not thinking about shoe-horning in any rediculous engines, I'm going to use this fun bus as a daily driver for a while.

I've made a mental list of all the problems I've found so far on the few days I've been using it

1. Igniton switch broke

2.

3. Rear bulkhead panel is stuck

4.

5. Clutch worn, not slipping but it is high

6. Windscreen leak/passenger footwell wet

7. Handbrake needs adjusting

8. Fuel/brake pipes corroded near at rear where it bends up towards the fuel tank

9. Chassis rails are a bit crusty near the track control arm mountings

10 outer sills at front jacking points, been carelessly jacked at some point so there's a little damage/corrosion in that area

11. Exhaust blowing & hole at centre silencer weld joint

12.

13. Rear turrets, there's more filler than metal in there going to dig it all out and inspect, suspect body shop that repaired it made a proper bodge job on it

14. Rear bulkhead anchor point misaligned.

15. Indicator cancel function not working/noisy airbag slip ring

16. Interior light switch

17.

18. Tailgate button not sitting right/.catches not engaging properly every time

19. Drivers side washe jet blocked

20.

21.

22. ghey looking wheels.

23.

24.

Edited 8 March, 201412 yr by TeflonTom
Added a few more to the list.

Got busy with the spanners today, the cylinder head is all but ready to come off now

just the rocker cover to come off, then unbolt the cylinder head, it started getting dark so I called it a day before removing it, strange thing, the timing belt looks fairly new on there but it has some really strange looking residue stuck to it in a few places that almost looks like glue to me, I didn't intent to re-use it anyway so it doesn't matter.

Not very good picture, taken with my iPad

discovered there is a massive crack in the exhaust manifold, this would explain why the car is running so rich too, it's allowing air to be drawn into the exhaust system before the lambda probe which is fooling the ecu into thinking that it is running lean due to the excess air, so hence it makes it inject more fuel.

Also discovered a few split and perished vacuum hoses too.

Not impressed, the cylinder head has been off thus truck before, but whoever did it used the wrong gasket, they used one of those cheapy compressed fibre type ones to save themselves a few quid

this is what the block looks like now after 2 hours worth of scraping etc, it's still not clean enough for my liking, needs to be spotless to give the new gasket half a fighting chance at sealing properly. What a serial bunch of bodgers have a been working on this truck

also obtained a new water pump and spark plugs plus oil and g12 coolant today too, the spark Bosch plugs that came out look new, but it's been running so rich I'm going to ditch them and put some new ngk ones in instead.

Also took the cylinder head to the machine shop to be skimmed, the head looked worse than the block tbh

it was a bit low around the sealing line on cylinder 4 and the adjacent waterway (left in pic) you can tell the presence of water in the cylinder by the way the exhaust valve has a slight bit of surface rust on it.

The cylinder head is back on now, timing belt all fitted, all I need to do now is find another exhaust manifold then bolt it on.

Exhaust manifold fitted, thanks to the mystery benefactor for that vital item, I went to virtually every breakers yard in the entire district looking for one, it has to be from a 1.6 model becuase the downpipe is specific to the 1600cc engine, other polos 1.0 & 1.4 etc all use the same manifold.

at least now the coolant is pink rather than the bucket of rusty water that came out, coolant temp sensor wiring is now fixed and it actually shows a proper temperature now no less, still suspect the thermostat is partially stuck but that can wait for another day!

fitted the original fun seats back in today too, it is so much more comfortable driving it with those in

it's been fairly rainy the last week or so, alas my fusebox is full up with water, so I need to tackle the leaky windsreen ASAP.

1.8T Fun Truck ?

Didn't that use to b rok1s fun ?

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Yeah that's right.. It's a shame he spent so much money having it sprayed gold rather than keeping all the mechanicals in order. The list of things I keep finding wrong with thing is getting bigger by the day.

I had the truck man off him u saw that fun n had a long chat with him

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I looked at the ones I have and there cracked I the same place not leaking tho...

right back to the fun truck.. Clutch kit is here now and some gear oil ready and waiting for my next opportunity to whip the gearbox out.

Got myself busy again today and broke out the spanners

Gearbox is out, also noticed that one of the track rod ends needs replacing too while I was in there, also the drivers side front suspension top mount is hangin' too.

I tried and tried and I could not remove the drivers side driveshaft no matter how much I levered it so it came out still attached to the gearbox.. Sometimes I leave them both in when changing a clutch because it saves draining the gear oil, but I intended to replace the gear oil anyway, it's quite difficult lifting the gearbox back into place with the shafts still attached because it's heavy and they get caught on stuff

New release bearing in place.

using home made flywheel locking tool, and clutch centralisation tool to assist in fitting new clutch.

Also noticed that drivers side lower balljoint needs replacing... If there anything that works on this bus?

Out with the old, in with the new. Went with a type approved cat, it's not strictly necessary on these cars but it wasn't much mor expensive tbh.

Always check new parts before fitting folks, there was a slight error here somehow

never mind back to the motor factors it goes.

I just spotted this picture on FlickR - it has to be you surely?

 

https://flic.kr/p/nAZHG6

I just spotted this picture on FlickR - it has to be you surely?

https://flic.kr/p/nAZHG6

:yes: if I'm not mistaken, it's up at 'the viewy' home of Micks Burger van. Purveyor of The Monster Burger

Edit: Micks is in the background nom,nom,nom

Tom is this yours? http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=351221425886

Yes that's it, sadly I scrapped mine. It was too rotten to make it worth saving, I did think long and hard about it before scrapping it, I've got too many other things going on to spend that sort of money on another heap.

Yes that's it, sadly I scrapped mine. It was too rotten to make it worth saving, I did think long and hard about it before scrapping it, I've got too many other things going on to spend that sort of money on another heap.

:( that's sad news

Might get the fun trims from it for my pickup.