1997 VW Caddy mk2 Pick-Up 1.8T

Stripping-down the suspension was almost entirely trouble-free. One of the front wishbone rear mounting bolts caused some concern as it was very tight to undo virtually for the whole of its thread. It was a big relief when it came out in one piece, but the terrible state of its thread dictated it went in the scrap bin. New bolts were added to the shopping list, as was a tap for the captive thread. Both front and rear suspension had previously been reassembled without much attention being paid to the quality of the fasteners used. They will all be going in the bin.


At the rear end, none of the suspension components looked as if they had been selected for their quality. The arrangement of spacers, shaped washers etc. in the top mounts both sides did not match. Pretty much everything will have to be replaced.

When I dismantled the rear suspension, I thought the top mount bushes looked familiar, but they had seen better days and it was impossible to compare definitively with new parts. I soon found out why they looked familiar once I started searching for replacements, and discovered they were the same part number as mk2 (and mk3) Ibiza parts. I had some Powerflex Ibiza bushes on the shelf, so I decided to fit those. Unfortunately, they did not include the various spacers and shaped washers required, so I had to order a cheap rubber top mount kit to get those. When I took this picture I had yet to realise that the two shaped washers are different sizes, and it is the slightly larger one which goes on top of the top bush.


I had toyed with the idea of fitting coilovers to the rear too, before deciding to go with lowering springs and uprated dampers. This did not make things significantly easier as good quality uprated dampers for the rear of the mk2 Caddy pick-up are no easier to find than coilovers. I found some mk1 Leon SEAT Sport Bilstein dampers for a bargain price, and bought them thinking they might fit, but when they arrived it was clear that the damper body was longer than on the parts I removed, and the threaded section at the top of the damper rod was significantly shorter. These were not going to work. I then reasoned that as the top mounts are the same as the mk2 Ibiza, that meant that the threaded section on mk2 Ibiza dampers must be the right length. As my mk2 Ibiza track project was in the workshop alongside the Caddy it was easy enough to measure the Ibiza rear dampers and confirm that they appeared to be the same size as the Caddy parts. Satisfied that these were likely to fit, I negotiated a discount on some mk2 Ibiza Bilstein B6 dampers, which arrived a couple of days later.

In the picture below, the damper I removed is at the top, the mk1 Leon part is in the middle, and the mk2 Ibiza part at the bottom.


The rear springs I decided to try are H&R springs intended to provide a 25mm drop on a mk1 Octavia. I stood them alongside the unknown springs I took off the Caddy and it is clear that the H&R springs (on the left) are both shorter and less substantial (so probably softer) than the parts I removed (on the right).

Although I was not particularly aiming for a further drop in rear ride height, I thought I would try them just to see how it looked with the H&R springs fitted.

I think the rear bump stop kit I used was intended for a mk4 Golf. Initially I wanted to use a Powerflex kit, intended for lowered cars, but I could not identify one which was suitable, so I resorted to cutting-down the full length parts. The struts looked OK assembled on the bench, and went onto the Caddy without difficulty.




Once I lowered the Caddy off the lift it was clearly sitting lower at the rear than what I wanted. I left it sitting in the workshop for a couple of days to make my mind up whether I could live with it that low, before deciding that it needed to be higher. Swapping back to the springs I had just taken off was achieved pretty quickly, but even once I had done that it was not far off from sitting on the bump stops, so the struts came off again, I cut a bit more off the bump stops, then it went back together again.

I would have included a photo here of how the Caddy looks sitting on its new suspension, but as the ride height is unchanged, it would be pointless.

The wheels on the Caddy are Renault 15" steelies, which I painted black to go on my Felicia pick-up, which was itself black. I have never really liked the look of them on the grey Caddy, but re-painting them has not made it to the top of my to do list before now. Part of the reason for the delay is that I had not been able to make up my mind what colour I wanted to paint them. The three options I was considering were the same grey as the bodywork, gunmetal grey, or dark red. I got as far as to rule-out the bodywork grey, but I was unable to decide between the remaining two options. The pragmatic solution, especially since I bought a second set of these wheels very cheap, was to paint a set in each colour.

The red I settled-on was Ruby Red Hammerite Ultima Smooth. This is a water-based paint, which I had not used before, but the colour looked perfect so I was keen to give it a go. Before I painted the fronts of the wheels, however, I painted the rear faces with normal Hammerite Smooth, also in red but in a brighter shade.


After one coat it was obvious that the coverage of the water-based paint is not as good as the normal Hammerite. If I had been aiming for a marble effect I would have been pretty satisfied, but a solid colour looked a long way off.


After the second coat, it was looking a bit better, but still nowhere near good enough.


Finally, after the third coat, I had the colour coverage I wanted.


The black wheels have Toyo T1-Rs fitted, so it made sense to put some more Summer oriented rubber on this set. I do not have previous experience of using them, but I found a couple of pairs of Hankook Ventus Evo S1s in 195/50R15 with 5-6mm of tread which I bought to try. Recently my son introduced me to the services of GetAGripMobileTyres who came to my home and did eleven tyre swaps including balancing for what it would have cost me to have had half that number done at the local tyre fitters.


Now that the red wheels are on the Caddy, the black wheels are waiting patiently in the corner of the workshop for me to paint them gunmetal.

Yeah that looks daunting. Nicely explained though. Have you cured the source of the water ingress?

I hope I have cured it by squirting sealant in around the windscreen rubber, the next downpour will confirm either way.

They used them for years, though. I think the mk2 GTI in my sig pic has one from a 2004 Sharan that'd been crashed.

When the freshly re-assembled fusebox was refitted, I tested all the electrics again. After the attention I had lavished on the fusebox I was surprised and disappointed to find that the radiator cooling fan was no longer working. When JKM did the engine transplant they reconfigured the cooling fan wiring, and I did not have a diagram of the revised circuit. In the diesel engined Caddy / Felicia pick-ups, the radiator thermo-switch switches 12v onto the fan relay, but there was no sign of 12v at this switch, nor was there any sign of it at the relay. Eventually I worked-out that the thermo-switch has been re-wired to switch to earth, meaning that the other side of the relay coil should have 12v present, which it did not.

The wire that should have been bringing 12v to the relay coil disappeared from the scuttle through the bulkhead and behind the dashboard. After much searching, I succeeded in identifying the relevant wire behind the glovebox, and traced it through to the fusebox. It had not been spliced into an existing connection, but had been added, using a proper crimp terminal, onto an unused pin of one of the standard multi-pin connectors. Clearly this was the professional way to make the connection, although it did make it a lot harder to identify.

The next problem was that the terminal now being used to provide 12v to the fan relay coil, as it is normally unused, does not appear on any circuit diagram I have. I tried buzzing through to all of the fuses on a spare fusebox, but I could not find where it should be fed from. Pretty quickly I settled on the plan to partially dismantle a spare fusebox so that I could see where else the relevant copper track is connected. Once I had done that, it told me that the 12v supply to the radiator fan relay is also the live feed to the fuel pump relay. I have a concealed cut-out switch which switches this supply, so the cooling fan was not operating because my cut-out switch had disabled it. Doh!

At least now I have a nice circuit diagram for the next time I have to fault-find the cooling fan.

All the while I have owned this Caddy, the B-pillars have been an increasing eyesore. The rust had been evident under the paint, and more recently it had broken the surface. With it being located so prominently, I was reminded of its looming presence every time I reached for the door handle. Finally getting it sorted had risen to the top of my to do list, and Nick at S&P Autos had a slot to do it. Before it went in, it had got to this state


On the nearside, it was worse because I had also scraped the rear wheelarch.


Nick was kind enough to take a load of photos throughout the work.




















There are still a few bits of the bodywork which need attention, but slowly I am working my way round.

The Caddy's previous owner had applied his particular style to the interior as much as the exterior. This had resulted in a lot of the interior plastics being sprayed pillar box red. This was one of the pictures he used when it was advertised for sale.


In my ownership, all of the red parts had been replaced with standard grey, except for the door cards and door pockets. My son had been on my case to rectify this, and I could not argue that he was wrong, but there have been (many) other jobs of higher priority. However, with the Caddy due to be in the Trucks, Vans & Wagons paddock at the Weekender, I wanted it to look its best, so the last bit of red had to go.


The irony is of course that it is a really straightforward job. After not managing to get round to it for years, it probably took less than 30 minutes a side to put it right. Several of the clips on the driver's side were missing or broken, but I had a few spares so not only does the door card now look miles better, but it is solidly attached too. The only frustration was that when I did the job I had not managed to find an offside grab handle in dark grey, so I had to temporarily fit a light grey one.


A few days later I retrieved a dark grey handle from my lock-up and swapped it.