1985 VW Polo - The Novice Asks

If I were you I would use hubcentric spacers (as your hubs have centering rings) and you don't need to space the rears out too.

i think fiat/lancia is 58mm, as thats what my lada was- i had to take my front hubs off and machine the snout down for my VW fitment (57.1CB) ATS classics to fit.

Yeah, adapters would work fine, but it's not a common fitment for them, because it's close enough that most people use wobble bolts on them.

You've got 3 main options, first off, the ideal solution, would be adapters, with a 57.1mm center bore on the back, drilled with seats for bolts at 4x100mm, and then with a 58mm spigot on the front of them, and drilled with a set of threaded holes, or with a set of studs at 98mm pcd. These would probably need making for you (There's a few guys on here who could knock some up I believe.), but you might get lucky and find some off the shelf. Expect to pay ~£80-100 per pair if you find them off the shelf, maybe less if you get lucky. I'm not sure how much it'd be to have some made, but it may well be less than that if you provide some half decent drawings, it'd completely depend who made them for you though, so I couldn't put a figure on it.

The next option would be hubcentric spacers, with a centerbore on the back of 57.1mm, and a front spigot of 58mm, so the wheels are centered properly, then use wobble bolts to make up the difference in PCD. Hubcentric spacers that sort of thickness come in 2 flavors. They'll either bolt to your hub, and then the wheel bolts to the spacer, or you use long bolts that go right through the spacer and into the hub. In the second case you'll need to find wobble bolts that are long enough to go right through the spacer though. Like the adapters, these spacers are unlikely to be found off the shelf, but if you do they should be cheaper, more like £30-50 per pair. To get them made, the type with long bolts would be cheaper, as only one set of holes need drilling, and they don't need any bolt seats or threads machining into them, but the type that bolts to the hub, and then the wheel bolts to the spacer won't be any cheaper to have custom made than adapters would, so there'd be no point, you might as well use adapters and save the cost/complication of the wobble bolts.

Another option would be to use 25mm VW fitment hubcentric spacers, with a 57.1mm centerbore and spigot, and then use a spigot ring to bring the centerbore on the wheels down to size, and wobble bolts to attach the wheel. The trouble here is that you'd be after a 0.45mm thick spigot-ring, which wont exist, so you'd probably have to have the wheels machined out to a couple of mm bigger, so you could fit a properly sized spigot ring. If you could find someone willing to do it, you could theoretically also get someone to build up some weld around the centerbore and re-machine it to the correct 57.1mm.

Then there's also the option of getting the wheels welded up and re-drilled. I don't remember your wheels having centercaps that cover the bolts, so it might not be the easiest job to do neatly enough to look nice. Depends who's doing it though. They've only got to move the bolt holes out 1mm, so if there's the thickness there you could potentially get the tapers re-cut slightly deeper so they center the bolts at 4x100 without having to add any metal. Obviously you'd still need the spacers to clear the brakes though, so this would only solve the wobble bolts issues.

And breath. ;D


Do you happen to have a picture of your front brakes? If I remember right there was two types of front caliper used on mk2 Polos, and one may well have more clearance than the other. I also remember that the caliper carriers are the bit that usually hits, and are removable aren't they? I think you might be able to get carriers that will still work with your current calipers, but give a lot more clearance. If I'm remembering right these would come off some of the lower spec mk3 Golfs, and maybe a few other VW's. It's something you'd have to research a bit, as it's a long time since I've owned a Polo, but I'm pretty sure there's an option for a carrier that gives more clearance.

Edit, if your brakes look like this:



Then they're the ones I mean that are common to give clearance issues. I'm pretty sure you can get carriers that don't have the loop around the front of the caliper, so give a lot more clearance. (if it's the back of the spokes that's hitting). Like I say, I'm not 100% where to source the carriers from, but a low spec mk3 golf would be a good starting point.

The more information I get about this, the more I realise it's a good idea to ask! I could easily have marched into a cheap but curse word solution.

I don't have the loop-carriers, I have these (sorry it's a rubbish picture)


The wheels look like this.


So the ideal is really to have the wheels modified to fit the hubs, that would then mean if I wanted to use one of my 4x100 sets over the winter, for example, I could do so easily.

The info RobinJI has provided is excellent, it clarifies the options for me, so thank you for that, I just have to decide which route is the best one. The money side of it isn't an issue, the more it costs the longer it takes for me to do the job.

borednow: I'm told there's two types of caliper of the style mine is. One style pushes the brake pad evenly against the disc, the other (which is what I have) pushes it first one side then the other and aren't as good. I might be describing that badly... basically, trying to ask if you've got the good version or the bad version on offer there.

In a couple of days I'll go and do some measuring, I can't at the moment as my wrist is giving me grief today so doing much more than typing on forums isn't an option for now.

Right... I think when I can I'll be removing bits and measuring and photographing. I see what you mean about the loop type now, I'd misunderstood the first example picture and thought I was seeing a large separate loop when in actual fact I was looking at a single casing incorrectly.

I shall investigate and report back.

Your brakes are the early type of mk2 brakes by the look of them. I'm afraid you are stuck with them as they are. nless you change the brake set up that is.

So back to spacers then mate!

yeah VW I and VW II calipers are interchangable on the carriers, as the brake pads are different thicknesses for solid or vented disks. its also possible that they are earlier calipers and carriers(not sure exactly what they look like), as vw changed to using VW I calipers in 1985. looking at pics of the engine bay, its got a mechanical head on the engine rather than the later hydraulic head, so that could indicate thats its got earlier brakes too....... I've just been out to measure the spacing in my mk2 fitted with solid disks and vw I calipers



so the edge of the caliper is 110mm from the part of the hub that the wheel bore sits on, and it sticks out 12mm from the front of the face of the brake disk (I've got new brake pads on, this can be reduced to 6mm using VW II brake pads as the are the same shape, just thinner)

Had a brain wave. I remember we redid all the brakes before the MoT last year so I went back through the album to see if I could find pictures since I've photographed just about everything and...

TADA!





I'd forgotten just how nice and shiny they looked.

My F plate Coupe S did Although many people didn't believe me, and it still seems to be the exception not the rule.

Yeah, they should be about that from a scrap yard. A low spec mk3 golf should have solid discs with VWII calipers and the 'non-loop' carriers, and should be ripe in scrapies at the moment.