'92 vw caddy sport

[Jedidiah]

Congrats man! Perseverance paid off! This thing is looking awesome... please keep us updated. One of my favorite builds happening right now.

[MikeG]

Impressive. I really like what you did with the cab and the extra space for luggage...very well done.

[scott1380]

wont bore you with pictures of the flip getting done, but here are some 'after' pics







so its sitting around 25mm lower at the back, which levels the ride height out front and back, but more importantly, the loss of the drop plates means ive got a bit extra room under the arches

[scott1380]

so despite the snow and cold, the main objective was to get the axle off, though i need to look at the exhaust too. it lost its constant fight with the ground and now needs some sort of temp fix till i can get a new one.

luckily since i've been out to it a few times recently with some penetrating fluid most of the bolts came out pretty easily. saying that, most havent been there for very long lol.

drum still looks pretty decent, thought it would have rusted up again by now


these are the 6 bolts that gave me so much hassle on the other axle, really wasnt looking forward to doing these, and the worst part is, with this being lowered on plates, there are a further 6 underneath


luckily these ones all came out without any trouble, on both sides

it ended up getting dark, so i got to use one of my xmas presents


400w work light. handy as you can see what you're doing, warm up, and get a tan all at once

currently looks like this


like i said, there are 6 bolts underneath these, so i was a bit worried when i saw this


clearly there are only 4 here, and it makes sense, because the drum crosses right where these bolts are, and would get in the way. at 1st i thought the heads had been ground off, but after a good clean up with a wire brush i saw that they were counter sunk allen head bolts. 5mm ones i knew when i saw it that they would round before they came out, 5mm is just too small.

i soaked them in penetrating fluid for a whole day before trying them, and got plenty of heat into them as well, but they rounded anyway


next best thing was to drill the heads out, which worked surprisingly well on one side. had the plate off in about 10mins, but the other side really doesnt want to drill out, maybe need better drill bits lol.

dusted the pillar drill off as its a lot better than hand drills, but had to come up with a ghetto spacer arrangement to get it high enough to clear the axle.



so that should be almost ready to flip tomorrow. just waiting on some trick spring saddles from the caddy shop arriving. they've got a built in offset to put the rear wheel back to the centre of the arch after flipping, as the wheel ends up towards the front of the arch.

losing the drop plates means the axle is 13mm narrower on each side, which is going to come in handy

also got new U bolts to hold the axle on, since the axle will now pull on them i didnt trust the old ones! and got some gas charged rear dampers to replace the rubbish old ones that i currently have. apparently they make a nice difference which would be good! should also remove the rattle from from knackered bushing one of the current ones has

[scott1380]

well ive been working away on it for the past few days, but its not all going as smoothly as id hoped!

since the back could do with being a bit lower and its currently as low as you can go without an axle flip, i decided it was time to get it on top of those springs

picked up a spare axle back in december and the plan was to flip that, and just swap it over for mine, meaning the time taken to do the work and get it powercoated etc wouldnt matter as the caddy would still be moveable.

excuse the rubbish phone picture and ignore the big red clown nose, its hiding something which i'll reveal later photobucket edits ftw!




nice and rusty, but it'll clean up good

so the plan was to take this apart, flip it, and use it, but i hit a problem. the stub axle bolts are notorious for snapping when you try to remove them, so i had soaked them in penetrating fluid for a bit, and got some heat into the surrounding metal to try and encourage them to come out in one piece. the axle had other ideas



a couple snapped on me, so i was extra careful with the rest, but there's little you can do. 4 out 6 are stuck on this side

the part i found the strangest is that these bolts are 10.9 grade hi tensile steel. they should be incredibly tough, but i snapped all of these by hand using a normal racket which is about 12 inches long says a lot about rust!

i tried everything to get these out, including welding a big washer to the stud, and then a big nut to the washer and stud. using a huge breaker bar for leverage it actually twisted the stud until it snapped, rather than unscrew

so i tried the other side, having soaked it in penetrating fluid for a few days now, and 5 out of 6 snapped

i dont think anyone has ever had so much bad luck with an axle. on the caddy forum guys moan about 1 or 2 snapping, i have 9.

ive tried drilling them out, but even new drill bits struggle to get through, and ive snapped a few of them already as well. i think its heading for the scrapyard now to be honest, unless i come up with something better.

checked the bolts holding the stub axles on the caddy and all of them came off no problem, so i reckon its just the length of time they've been in there

[scott1380]

well the wheels are just about ready, so time to get the car ready for them lol. ordered up some new parts to go along with the axle flip, so that will hopefully be underway soon

[scott1380]

I stayed in High Earnock

i lived there for 15 years.... moved about 6 years ago, though im not all that far away from there now. small world.

[C.Johnston]

looooove caddys, best of luck with your build.

[T.Reed]

Love caddys.

[Minuki]

I stayed in High Earnock

[scott1380]

i'll need to get some more pictures up but i realised ive not taken any inside the cab since i changed it all, so will need to get some taken asap.

ive been finishing off the wheels recently, but having trouble with a few other things, and im not sure how im going to get past it

i'll get there eventually!

[scott1380]

cheers guys

Amazing work! I love seeing a bit of fabrication when rebuilding a car... Its.... Refreshing

yeah i got a bit carried away with it all, there was more fabrication involved than i had thought there would be, but it all worked out fine in the end.

I used to live in Hamiltion, nice to see a fellow Scot on here. Good work, i've got a soft spot for these things

thanks mate, where abouts in hamilton were you?

[Hotsauce]

I love these cars. Great work!

[Minuki]

I used to live in Hamiltion, nice to see a fellow Scot on here. Good work, i've got a soft spot for these things

[FreshEK4dr]

this thing is crazy!!! i love it! and the fact that u did all the work is even better!!!!!!