Vw Caddy Van VR5 Project - We have 3 pedals!

Still haven't done any welding and still don't have any engine mounts, however I do now have a low entry trolley jack I've wanted one for ages but always had more important things to spend the money on. Anyway, I decided it was to splash out on one. I wasn't sure what size to go for and it's quite difficult to gauge an idea of size online. So to be safe I went for the 3 tonne version. Well, it's pretty big haha. The delivery guy nearly gave himself a hernia carrying/dragging it down the path.

Once I was set up I tested it out straight away and got the engine back off the steady bar so I could try and do a bit of measuring up for mounts.

Spent a little more time on the interior today. I got the centre console secured down properly, fitted the handbrake lever gaiter, gear lever gaiter and found an old Momo gearknob to chuck on there for now. I also refitted the instrument cluster and then the steering wheel.

It’s not much but it’s suddenly made the pile of bits in the footwell much smaller and the interior actually looks like an interior again

We have another update.

The van has gone to have its engine mounts made It was collected at about 10am this morning and off it went We had a slight issue getting it off the driveway (which turned out to be a flat rear tyre!) but apart from that it rolled out fine. I should have it back in a couple of days and then the fun begins!

I’ll admit that I well and truly lost momentum with this for quite a while. I’m just getting my enthusiasm back for it and I’m bloody determined to get it finished and driving!

I built a vr6 polo saloon a few years ago. Went like a rocket!
Great to see you're cracking on with it. Look forward to the updates!

I got a call on Thursday morning to say the van was being collected and would be dropped back to mine later that day

I popped home from work a bit later and helped get the van back onto the driveway. BDS Performance in Dorking have done an excellent job with the mounts and have managed to use as much of the factory engine mounts as possible When I popped to Bruno’s (owner of BDS) house the night before to pay him he was telling me about the amount of interest that had been shown in the van while it had been sat in the workshop. Keeping in mind some of expensive racing cars etc he has going through his place and the owners were interested in a rather knackered looking old van haha.

Here are a couple of pictures of the mounts. He’s left them in primer so I can spray them when the time comes.







Now that the van is back I need to remove the engine to replace some gaskets, bits of rubber hose, the big plastic coolant hose on the front of the block and finish making the EGR blanking plate. Then it can go back in, driveshafts in, finish the wiring and see if it starts. Doesn’t sound like much but with the curse word weather it might take a little while.

I used to have a marquee over the driveway when I was bringing a very high mileage, ex driving school BMW Mini back to life. After 18 months of standing strong the wind finally got it and ripped it to shreds haha.

Mrs Sammo got a puncture today so I had to get out there and put the spare on. As I was now outside I decided to do a bit to the van. I couldn’t face taking the engine out today so decided to start getting the DBW accelerator pedal fitted

If you can remember far enough back, I had a mount made for the pedal so it would tuck up next to the pedal box and sit in the same place as the original cable pedal. This involved a bit of CAD (cardboard aided design).







That was then turned into an exact replica in steel I forgot to take a picture of it until today when I was drilling the holes. First I had to drill three holes on the back to allow the studs coming from the brake servo, through the bulkhead and then through the pedal mount. Annoyingly I couldn’t find my decent set of drill bits so had to do what I could with a knackered old set and then open the holes out with the Dremel, so the holes don’t look great, but they do the job



Then I drilled three more on the front and got the pedal bolted on









Once I was happy the pedal was where I wanted it to be I unbolted it from the mount and then gave it a liberal coating of black hammerite. I’ve been slacking today and forgot to take anymore pictures so that’s all you’re getting today haha. We’re off to London to see Santa at Harrods tomorrow so that’s it for this weekend.

At about 3am this morning I woke up feeling rather unwell and then proceeded to spend the next five hours being sick! I rang in sick at about 6am and stayed in bed / continued running to the bathroom for a couple more hours. Thankfully I stopped being sick and got a few hours sleep, eventually waking up at about 1pm.

After having some dry toast (possibly the most boring piece of food in the world!) I decided to get on with extending the small piece of loom for the DBW throttle pedal. Due to the size of the plugs on each end of this loom I had to cut it, solder on an extension, feed the extension through the hole in the bulkhead and then solder the other plug back on!

Anyway, I got stuck straight in, chopped the loom and started getting it ready to extend. I forgot to take a picture of the loom beforehand. This was it after being cut and clamped ready to extend.



My soldering has improved massively over the years. This could actually be considered tidy now



Six wires and some heat shrink later and we had this.



With the extension wiring attached it was time to head outside and find a hole to feed it through. I found this one which I think is for the bonnet release cable. It was in the perfect position so it’s been hijacked for this instead. I’ll find another way of routing the bonnet release.



I fed the cable through from inside.









With the bare wires now in the engine bay it was time to crack out my gas powered soldering iron. It’s a handy little thing but takes an age to heat up!



It was really cold outside so I didn’t waste any time and just got on with it as quick as possible!



All done and heat shrinked



All that was left to do was to wrap the loom in loom tape and then get back indoors and defrost!



Only a small step again but at least it’s another thing I can cross off the list