[greenraVR6]

Last year I put together a 1.8t new beetle convertible to flip but then my 11 year old daughter saw the finished product and said "I want that." I told her we could probably work something out but the car is basically already done and obviously she has a handful of years to go before she can actually drive it. I asked her what she thought about spending some time with me in the shop and learning a thing or two about cars and she's all in. I told her I would look for something we can work on together and this is what I found after a quick search on marketplace. She even made the 7 hour round trip with me to pick it up.

1980 diesel caddy with a veggie oil kit installed. Hardly runs but is pretty clean overall. I looked into it a little bit today and I've decided it's full of very old diesel (reeks like varnish) and most likely clogged fuel filters. Plan is to drain the tank, replace the filters (it has 3 for some reason) and some hoses then see where we're at after that

I was a little worried after I removed the bed cover, although I did laugh when I saw the crinkle cut fries box laying next to the grease tank. The junk is fine but that wet carpet "bedliner" could be hiding some ugly secrets. Yanked it out and was pleasantly surprised. A quick vacuum and a wipe with a damp towel and it doesn't look too bad.

Under the hood has more hoses and janky looking wires than you can shake a stick at. That's going to need to be addressed and I'm kind of leaning towards removing the grease setup altogether to clean things up

Luckily the interior looks much better. The carpet is pretty nasty and there's no headliner but not too shabby overall. I'm no expert but I'm not totally convinced that's the dash that originally came in this truck. Looks more to be a dash from a cabby or something?

So after we hopefully get it running good we can dive into some other stuff like suspension and brakes and whatnot to see how things are looking. It's got a big crack in the windshield and the usual bits of rust on the A pillars so will need to take care of that. Regardless of how it turns out I just hope my daughter enjoys this and picks up some life skills along the way. And maybe she'll carry on my love of old vws

 

[bwdysart]

Awesome truck! I like the two tone tail gate


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[ToddA1]

Wow, other than the mess under the hood, that thing looks amazingly clean and complete.

That dash and center console appear to be Jetta or Cabby.

-Todd

 

[greenraVR6]

Awesome truck! I like the two tone tail gate


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The tail gate does look pretty cool. They tried to carry that theme throughout the truck but made some very interesting choices. Gray rocker panels the whole way but not the doors?

Gray roof but why like this?

Theres some rust on the A pillars and some bubbles under the drip rails and the rear window so after we take care of that it'll need some paint work. Should probably do the roof gray again (the whole thing this time) and finish off those doors.

I've been sitting on this for years (I have another rusty caddy) so might look into doing the conversion. I am NOT a westy front end fan even though this one is quite nice the rounds just look so much better IMO

 

[greenraVR6]

Wow, other than the mess under the hood, that thing looks amazingly clean and complete.

That dash and center console appear to be Jetta or Cabby.

-Todd

Dude I got it from (selling for a lady who's husband passed away) said she told him it was most likely from a jetta. I looked at some pics online and I couldn't find any that had the 2 glove boxes like that. And that middle gauge is a boost gauge for some reason but I'm pretty sure there's no turbo here...

 

[thegave]

What a cool dad, and garage. The early Westy fronts are special so take your time removing it and you should be able to flip it for some cash.

 

[slats]

“Save The Squares”

 

[greenraVR6]

I promise no squares will be harmed during this project

 

[ToddA1]

I looked at some pics online and I couldn't find any that had the 2 glove boxes like that.

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-Todd

 

[mokoosh]

As the father of an 11 year old daughter who swears that she wants my Rabbit truck for her first vehicle, you are tugging at my heart strings.

Save the squares! Or sell them to me. I wanted to convert to a 1980 style square, but ended up buying round parts because they are far more common.

 

[eurowner]

“Save The Squares”

Save the Rectangles.

 

[greenraVR6]

I’m actually starting to rethink the round conversion. The squares are not my style, I honestly have always hated the look but ultimately it’s my daughters decision. I’m just along for the ride and to turn the wrenches. If she wants rounds we’ll go rounds, if she wants wants it lowered we’ll get some coils and drop plates, if she wants a tdi we’ll get a donor car. I’m letting her call the shots on this one

 

[greenraVR6]

Save the Rectangles.

I am a big fan of rectangles on certain vws. Have put smoked ecodes on most the mk2s I’ve had in the past and even though the light output is atrocious I love the look on my vanagon

I’ve got a corrado in the stable too and it’s rectangle central

 

[98'GTI]

This is great on so many levels. Congrats.

 

[greenraVR6]

Finally got a chance for the 2 of us to put in a little work today. Showed Melia how to properly put a mk1 up on jackstands without smashing the metal on the bottom side. First on our list of things was to drain the nasty old diesel out of the fuel tank but that didn’t go as planned. I popped off the feed and return lines and got not much more than a dribble out of each.

First thought was maybe it’s nearly empty so filled a 5 gallon can but when I dumped some in the filler neck it came spilling back out all over the ground and did not flow into the tank. Clearly there’s something funky going on in the tank so looks like I’ll be pulling it out to have a closer look

 

[esmvdub1]

great thread

 

[greenraVR6]

So I told my daughter I would handle the fuel system issues as it’s a pretty nasty job. I started by dropping the stock fuel tank and every hole in it was clogged with crap. Cleaned it out as best I could and moved on to removing all of the grease setup. Reinstalled the tank, blew out all the lines with air, hooked everything back up how it came from the factory, new fuel filter and a couple gallons of fresh diesel and she fired right up!
Runs really good and hardly smokes at all. Dumped in a bottle of heet fuel treatment and a couple more gallons of diesel then took her for a spin. Obviously not fast but it goes easily through all the gears (5 speed) and gets right up to highway speeds no problem. That said, she needs some tlc. The clutch and brakes feel good but the shifting is vague, the shocks are toast, front wheel bearings making tons of noise, none of the lights on the driver side tail light work and I’m sure there’s more. I think we’ll just go through each system and replace anything that’s not up to par. At least mk1 parts are still fairly cheap

 

[rabbitnothopper]

people will paint weird and unsual places on their cars. that roof & fender gray looks interesting

i found a black cabby in the junkyard where they liberally silver painted random interior and exterior parts (very badly painted)

 

[greenraVR6]

people will paint weird and unsual places on their cars. that roof & fender gray looks interesting

i found a black cabby in the junkyard where they liberally silver painted random interior and exterior parts (very badly painted)

The more I look at it I think the doors and hood were added after the paint job because in direct sunlight they really don’t match at all. The other parts of the body are real shiny but the doors and hood are quite faded. This pic doesn’t show that very well but it does show how odd the paint scheme is

 

[greenraVR6]

A few pics of the grease setup I removed. It seemed like there was about 50 different connection points with hose clamps along the way. And this awesome zip tie job under the bed on the lines was interesting. I guess a few well placed ones wasn’t going to work so just hodgepodge throw half a bag at it

Then the lines were zip tied to the bottom of the frame rail going forward at pretty much the lowest point possible which doesn’t seem like the best location to me

Funky coil of coolant line wrapped around the goldenrod filter to heat it up

And the coolant connections under the hood I need to undo. The one is a brass ball valve with a on/off handle and the other has a plastic garden hose fitting at the bottom and I clamped a mk4 lug bolt into the hose to block it off for now until I can get this area put back to stock

And this bed setup kills me as they drilled an extra hole for a hose to the filter and a big hole for the grease lines. I removed everything from the bed but the holes remain