Steaton's Arosa TDI

[Steaton]

Well... I'm back. Since my Arosa sport I've had an Octavia mk1 1.9tdi 108ps, a Seat Ibiza FR mk3 pd130. Now I've decided to come back to the Arosa/Lupo Club but with the 1.4 tdi. Couldn't pass up the chance of £30 a year road tax, great fuel economy and cheap insurance, especially being self employed.

Bought it last Thursday (02/01/2014), already changed the rear lights for standard Lupo's and wired the rear fogs and reverse lights.

I'll be looking to purchase a full interior if anyone is selling, as the one fitted is gray and stained. And bumpers, maybe sport ones but I'm not too fussed, I do miss having front fogs already though .

Problems I've found so far:

• Driver door dropped (replace hinges?)
• Illumination on the heater controls not working
• Floppy accelerator (I fixed this before, loose bolt on the acc pot)
• Electric window switches totally knackered (fixed this before too, rebuild the switches)
• Windows roll up and down incredibly slow
• Mid speakers do not work at all
• Tweeters crackle and cut out
• Rear bumper cracked (probably replace)
• Body damage on most panels (probably live with it)
• Few rust patches (Sand back and spray)
• Dirty stained grey interior (needs replacing)
• Curbed alloys (may be changing wheels anyway)
• Starter motor runs on after starting
• Brakes feel odd, spongy and wheel wobbles when braking hard. (warped discs? air in system?)
• Tracking looks out
• Rear offside spring has shattered (want to lower anyway)
• Key gets stuck in lock when locking the door
• Remote fob doesn't work, red LED never illuminates (I'll have to buy a couple more from ebay)
• Mats need replacing

Alterations done so far:

• Rear lights replaced for Red Lupo ones
• LED map light
• Sprayed a bunch of Oust inside it

Edited January 5, 2014 by Steaton

[Steaton]

• Lupo lights
• Removed Wiper arm and fitted a black wrapped tap hole blank

[rrdoctoruk]

the brakes feeling spongey and wobble under braking are the slider pins siezed,had this on mine. you can get new slider pins for approx 12 quid of a firm on ebay based i think in nottingham,very good service would recomend them

[Steaton]

Are those the pin/bolt things on the callipers? Will I have to replace them or can I get them off and refurb?

[Steaton]

Looks like the window switches on the drivers side are rusted up unlike the other ones I fixed. Is it possible to buy these from VW or have they been discontinued? I know there was a guy last time I bought the cambridge rear lights from. If not is the only place to get them from ebay and the scrappers (last one I got from the scrappers didn't work).

Also unable to code the remote to the car after trying at least 6 different ways of reprogramming found using Google, so I have bought a universal HAA flip key remote central locking kit from ebay for just over £15. I'll just transfer the transponder over.

[Steaton]

Aha spoke too soon, fixed the window controls.

Just needed to take the black switches out of the surround, split them in half, take the board out, clean it up, tin all the contacts with solder, then reassemble, humbrol glue and plastic weld, good as ne... well... decent, works anyway!

[Tango91]

I was about to say "I feel your pain" with regards to the window switches, but your fix sounds great.

When my driver's side switch/circuit went for the Nth time I took it to my father and we basically amputated the entire crappy jamming 'safety' circuit that VW so kindly provided, and replaced it with some big ol' relays.

Those 4 little springy discs inside the switch are a PITA though, it took forever to get the damn things just right.

[Steaton]

Well I had fixed it, but when I opened the door a bunch of water drops fell from the roof into the switches, now the driver is permanently stuck in roll down, great! I'm thinking of using similar push switches you find in pc mice or even smaller ones and fixing them inside the switch housing, wiring them to the boards and seeing how that goes. When I get time!

I'm fitting a universal central locking kit and been searching the forums for the wiring information. Found it at last from a different thread:

hello m8 heres a guide for the kit and what wires. and also just to let people no that a place in stockton on tees in north east area cuts the keys for £25. if you need more details let me no and will give them you asap thank you

The plugs you need are down in the drivers footwell, behind the bonnet pull.
You need to get the bonnet pull off (On the back of the handle, near the top is a 1 inch square,
push this in and the pull will spring off)
Remove the screw holding the cover on and pull it off towards the back of the car.

To wire it in you need to use the middle (brown) plug for most wires (+12v, Lock and Unlock)
and the blue plug is used for Window Wind Up.


Red wire (+12v) connects to the Thick Blue/yellow wire in the brown plug.
White Wire (Lock) Goes to the Grey/Yellow in the brown plug
White/Black (Unlock) Goes to the Blue/violet in the brown plug
Green (Window roll up) Goes to the Grey/yellow in the blue plug.
Black (earth) use the screw that holds the silver bracket to the kick panel next to the door shut.
Yellow and Yellow/Black - Ground both of these

This leaves you with the 2x brown wires for the indicators, which most people will just cut off,
but you can run them up the dash, into the steering column and join in with the indicator wires there
(white/black and green/black) or to the headlight switch for the sidelights.
I wired mine in to flash the full beam (White wire on headlamp stalks)
which is much more current than the device should really switch.
As an Electronic engineer I should know better, but I prefer it that way.

If you look up under the dash, under where the fuse box is you'll see a white "frame"
that holds a few connectors and relays. My c/l box fitted up the back of this perfectly!

The wiring looks to be the same so I'll get that fitted tomorrow, also the locksmiths near me will only charge £10 for both keys cut so that's good.

If it works I'll make a diagram and pictures for wiring as I always work better from diagrams.

[Steaton]

Wired up the kit I bought as instructed above, but somehow managed to set lock and unlock the wrong way around, which was easily rectified.

Also you don't push in the square on the handle you have to pull out the black square clip then the handle comes off, spend 15 minutes trying to push the thing in before I thought about pulling instead.

Keys cut and the whole thing works great, and much cheaper than going to the dealers to have 2 new keys done. Cost £25 in all including keys cut.

I've also bought the whole bottom dash section from a polo 6n2, cost me £15! I understand from what I have read it won't be a perfect fit and will be off in many places, but the car is a runabout anyway so I couldn't care less! It will match the bodywork on the passenger side.

If there isn't a tutorial I could make one?

I bought the center console, glovebox, part under steering cowl, steering cowl, foot rest, headlight switch underneath plastic, the whole handbrake as I want a black one and couldn't get the cover off. possibly some other bits, not 100% sure

I will have a go at fitting it tomorrow even though it will probably rain for most of the day :3

Oh and I've also fitted some JOM's which were relatively straightforward (as the 13 year old suspension was knackered and why not get some budget coils?), ended in the dark and rain as usual though Back is on the lowest setting with adjusters in. Front is fairly high up (90mm from the top bolt) but its still sitting lower at the front. I'm assuming because a diesel engine is heavier. Handling is fine, though the back end likes to slip out at times, i can get over most terrain but asda speed bumps still scrape >

Would like some steels now, painted a silly colour but unsure what are the best to get. I still have some center caps from a mk3 golf, so something those would fit to?

And I stuck in a couple of 56ohm resistors wired in series to the fuel temp sensor and the torque seems better, will see how much this affects my economy, as the whole idea of this car is to be cheap, hence why I am never fixing the bodywork damage.

[Steaton]

Could do with some different wheels when some come along.

[Steaton]

Wow the under dash of the polo is hugely different! I don't think a single screw hole is in the right place. I'm still going to fit it just may go back to the scrap yard and take some of the polo dash frame with me and fabricate brackets and fixings. It seriously looks like a lot of work!

The handbrake was a straight swap and the centre console also looks like a straight swap.

I've just unplugged the heater controls and going to have a look at fixing the illumination issue. The temperature knob also didn't go all the way round to hot, this was because the pink clip on the back had slipped out, works fine now its back in.