1997 VW Caddy mk2 Pick-Up 1.8T

The rear spoiler did not last 24 hours in my ownership, and the white alloy wheels were sold to be replaced by Renault 15" steels, to which I fitted Felicia hubcaps with VW badges.




Over the course of the subsequent months, my son and I removed the vinyl wrap, spotlights, bull bar, side window tints, rear window paint (seriously!), rear step, front splitter, sun strip, and a lot of bright red painted parts from the interior. The registration was put on retention, and I assigned the personal plate I had taken off my Felicia.

Apart from a bit of attention to the electrics, no effort was required to keep it running for the next few months. The cooling was a bit marginal, possibly as a function of the non-standard front bumper, but everything else seemed to work as it should.

I do not know what make the lowering springs are, or whether the dampers have also been uprated, but the handling is quite solid and predictable, enough to give confidence that it can handle more power, which is fortunate....

Prep work complete, the Caddy, along with my Felicia 1.8T, went to JKM, where Jim and his men set about modding the Caddy chassis legs to take the mk4 Golf mounts, and replicating all of the clever fabrication that had been done on the Felicia. I had made copies of all the helpful BriSKoda posts (including the pictures) detailing the Felicia build, which I sorted into a how to manual for JKM.








All the transplant bits which had been fitted to the Felicia (prior to my ownership) with a combination of inspiration and perspiration were swapped onto the Caddy without requiring much of either (especially from me). The result is that I now have a Caddy with 1.8T power, which I am most chuffed with.






I feel a bit of a cheat, as ordinarily I am a 'built not bought' disciple, but I had to accept that this transplant was beyond my level of expertise. I hope that the guys who owned and developed the Felicia before me are not too disappointed that I have used it as a donor. It was always my plan to do so, and the Felicia's sills had got to the state where some surgery was required to keep it going, which made me feel fractionally less guilty about taking it to pieces.

Outwardly, the Caddy gives few clues to its potency, with only the side exit exhaust really giving it away.

That's sweet!
I've always fancied a Caddy pickup.

Any further plans for it? I think keeping it a sleeper is the way to go

Thanks

I have plenty more planned, some of which has already been realised (this thread is a bit behind progress on the Caddy). It will definitely be remaining a sleeper, or Q-car as they used to be called. Once the thread is caught-up I will try to add future plans too.

The 1.8T Felicia was fun for surprising people on the road (and on track), but it was still a Felicia, and was therefore always more quirky than cool, in my opinion. The Caddy, on the other hand, is cooler and more useful.

Defo keep it a sleeper best way.

When I took the Golf front bumper off, the Caddy resembled something out of Mad Max.


The crash bar had been mutilated, presumably to enable the non-standard bumper to fit. Fortunately I had the crash bar off the Felicia to replace it.


The top bumper brackets had been removed, but I robbed those from the Felicia too. After those and the crash bar had been painted black and fitted, the bumper from the Felicia went on without problems.


With the Felicia bumper and a standard grille fitted, the front end is looking much more like it should.


Both the front and rear bumpers would subsequently be getting a respray in black, but that was some way off the top of my priorities at this time. Even like this, I was really pleased with the way the front end now looked much more standard.

The engine loom from the Felicia 1.8T was spliced-in to the Caddy's original loom. As the Caddy was a diesel, we thought that might be problematic, but it was more straightforward than swapping more of the loom from the Felicia, which I had thought might be the way to go. The diesel clocks were swapped for a set from a petrol car, and the diesel dash loom had the connection from the fuse box to drive the rev counter, which works fine. I only wish the mechanically-driven speedometer was as easy, that initially proved unreliable.

When the engine and gearbox were swapped, the Caddy’s original speedo cable was re-fitted, rather than the Golf item that had been in the Felicia with the same running gear. Initially, it worked OK, but that did not last long. When I disconnected the cable at the speedo end, I found that the inner cable was broken near to the gearbox. Detaching the cable from the gearbox sender was very awkward, even after the air filter was removed and the gearshift cables were moved out of the way. The only way I could get the speedo cable fitting to turn was with mole grips, and the space was so restricted I could only turn it a tiny amount each time before I had to remove the grips and re-position them. When this had been going-on for what seemed like ages, I realised that the cable was still tightly screwed-on to the sender, and it was the sender which was unscrewing from the gearbox. Further faffing about then ensued to finally get the cable off the sender, and the sender back in the gearbox.

Fitting the Golf speedo cable was a breeze in comparison, especially at the speedo end, where the extra length of the Golf cable over the Caddy one was a game-changer. When I took it out for a drive, however, the speedo worked for just a few seconds, then stopped.

I had the instrument cluster out three or four times trying to get the speedo working again. Having struggled to get the steering column back in position after lowering it to get the instrument cluster out, I decided I needed to make it a bit easier.

I bought four M8x80mm bolts, and nuts, and after removing the steering column mounting bolts one at a time I replaced them with the 80mm bolts, with the nuts wound-up to keep the column in position.


Once all four long bolts are in place, the nuts can be wound-down by hand to lower the column so the instrument binnacle and surround can come out.


It is probably stating the obvious, but when the steering column needs to be returned to position, the nuts can be wound back up by hand until the column is where it needs to be, then each of the long bolts can be replaced one at a time with the ‘proper’ bolts. It is so much easier than trying to hold the column in place while lining-up the bolts along with the associated spacers, washers etc.

To find out if the problem was with the speedo cable, the sender, or the speedo itself, I disconnected the cable at the speedo end (again) and poked it round the side of the instruments so I could see it from the driving seat. I found a piece of heatshrink to push onto the end of the inner cable, so I could easily see whether or not it was spinning.


When I took the Caddy out for a drive the inner cable spun, but only momentarily. After pulling-over two or three times to fiddle with the inner cable, I succeeded in getting it to go further into the sender than it had previously. Problem solved.

That is really neat ! Nice one.

LOL. Yes, I was thinking more about the installation than how useful it was.