The Transplanter 0 Posted February 24, 2007 Report Share Posted February 24, 2007 I dont where to start this off really 8-| The begining would good guess so go and get a beer now (Well, initially I was going to swap a whole Lancia Integrale running gear into my mint J plate Caddy! The reason being was because at the time I was fitting a VR6 into my brothers VR (B1GVR) and I wanted to be a little different, and with instant tuning potential and pre Lancia experience it seemed the obvious choice was to tuck the 2.0 16V Turbo Lampredi unit into the Caddy bay. But my plan went tits up when I was offered a 1997 VR Golf with 60k and full VAG history that had unfortunately been rolled by its owner, £750 later and I was the proud owner of a bent mint VR :-d OK, so now im committed to the VR so 1st thing to do was strip the poor ole girl down, I sold tons off stuff from the doner and quickly made double back on what I paid for her! Plus I had everything I needed for the conversion. "RESULT" :-p At this point I had just finished my brothers VR Caddy which included fitting a Corrado dash. Now just having completed a VR in a MK1 shell using custom mounts etc. You would think the next one would be a doddle!? Well yes and no, I decided to go gung ho on this one by cutting the front of the Caddy chassis off an re-fabricating it to accept the MK3 Subframe But I wasnt brave enough to cut up my mint J plate so I managed to blag a bruised but solid Caddy off of EBay for £75 ^o) this truck was previously owned by Wiltshire county council and I swear I had half of wiltshire attached to it along with laminated "foot & mouth" posters :$ I got to work and started to strip it down and cut off the parts that were not required.The engine bay as you would reconise itAfter putting the angle grinder to work!Now I just had to work out the correct position for thisWell once I worked out the correct postion I had thisEngine installed for the 1st timeAfter lots of work I got rid of the horrible mk1 brake linkage by moving the servo to the drivers side and fitting the ABS pump where the old servo wasNext it was time to tackle the MK3 dash install, at this point I had it in my mind to also fit the MK3 pedalbox and adjustable steering column, so I did!In this pic as well as the dash crossmember you can see the partial part of the MK3 tunnel, it made sense to fit this as it gave me mounting points for the gear shift box and centre console, and it also allowed me to move the h/brake back to the corect positionThe fabrication work was now done for the best part, so I needed to turn my attention to the bodywork, this was the bit I wasnt looking forward too as although the Caddy was solid it was knocked about and didnt have one straight panel on it!Now the paint is done it was time to start on the interiorat this point the project was taking soooo long that I thought fcuk it I'll fit the climatronic :-p Time to make use of that false bulkheadInterior pretty much finished aprt from some detail18 months laterThe caddy has been in use every day now for nearly 2 years and over 20k miles without a single glitch, so in November I locked myself in the gargage for 2 days and fitted this:Theres still more work to do on the turbo side of things but needless to say im over the moon with the results so far Al Link to post Share on other sites
sparkz 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Quality!!! Link to post Share on other sites
mike 6 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 supurb work there mate, a vr6 turbo is special enough but a caddy is even rarer! iv seen one with metal beams in the back for suport, u considered that? Link to post Share on other sites
rodney 17 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Blimey.... Link to post Share on other sites
mkoneboy 1 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Seen this in the flesh, its mint, Al - you are a true inspiration to us all. Link to post Share on other sites
tubby 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 TREMENDOUS Link to post Share on other sites
Earwig 89 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Love reading things like this !Superb work.Looks like a stunner, lots of hard work gone into it. Always nice when it pays off though. I also think yoyu made a great choice in color ! Looks stunning :-)What sort of power do you have or what figure are you aiming for ?Mark. Link to post Share on other sites
The Transplanter 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 Thanks for the positive comments guys.Ive not had it on the dyno yet, I would be happy with 300bhp as I use the Caddy every day, im going to to relocate the I/C but the engine has to come out as I need to modify/remove the MK1 front crossmember, I was going to fit a short runner intake to tidy up the pipework, but for the above BHP its not necessary. I have just moved so dont have a garage at the mo which is a real PITA coz I want to get this done and start another project :-p The colour is Met Urban Grey BTW. Its a 2000> Passat/Touran colour [blockquote]iv seen one with metal beams in the back for suport, u considered tha?[/blockquote] You mean the roll bars? (see below) If so nahhh, because they just add weight and no integraty to the chassis. Them is for builders Link to post Share on other sites
petervr6 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 hello mate if i recall are you from the race course northolt? Link to post Share on other sites
The Transplanter 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 hello mate if i recall are you from the race course northolt?I grew up there yeah, and the best part of the fabrication work was done there Link to post Share on other sites
Chrisdut 0 Posted February 25, 2007 Report Share Posted February 25, 2007 total quality mate Link to post Share on other sites
IbiVR 0 Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 V nice. I love caddys.Tom. Link to post Share on other sites
dstyrrell 0 Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 awesome!! Link to post Share on other sites
petervr6 0 Posted February 26, 2007 Report Share Posted February 26, 2007 ye i remeber seeing the white caddy being built there when i was driving past i used to drive patjust to see what had been done to it.lol i used to live by oldfield circus in northolt Link to post Share on other sites
VR40 0 Posted February 28, 2007 Report Share Posted February 28, 2007 Interesting climbing frame! lol! Is this one yours too?! Nice black rat on the tail! You ARE the caddy man!!! top work on your conversions!! Link to post Share on other sites
lee060 3 Posted February 28, 2007 Report Share Posted February 28, 2007 awesome project!! top quality work , cant wait to see it in the metal keep it up!! Liam Link to post Share on other sites
mike 6 Posted March 1, 2007 Report Share Posted March 1, 2007 wasnt thinking a massive frame like taht! just one that stays level with the back storage space , dam i had a pic aswell cant find it. Link to post Share on other sites
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