2008 VW Caddy van
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Discussion

tim0409

Original Poster:

5,294 posts

175 months

Thursday 20th October 2022
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The company my wife works for has decided to get rid of their delivery van due to it no longer being required, and also because it's a complete shed!

It lived most of its life parked up in a service lane behind restaurants, and back in May they found some rats had set up home in the engine bay, chewing through some random wires in the process. A local garage fixed it up, but when they went to move it last week they had returned (it also smells awful inside); when it was driven 3rd gear was difficult to select and 5th was impossible.

I've maintained my own cars, and my wife asked if I could have a look at it with a view to getting rid of it. I've had a van in the past, and love them so now I'm seriously tempted to keep it and turn it into a bit of a project. I'm moving to a new house next month, and for the first time in my life will have a (double) garage, and my original plan was to restore a 2cv or a Porsche 924, but I might tackle this first.

Bad points;

1) Gear issues; I think I have fixed this as the rats nest was next to the gear selector cables and I've cleared it out and cleaned the linkage pivot and it now appears to work perfectly
2) The clutch is heavy; it's a hydraulic linkage so I hope that it might just need bleeding and new fluid.
3) The interior is a total mess, but a deep clean will fix that. It smells really bad when the heater is on so I need to do some further investigation.
4) It has quite a few dents, the side sliding door is broken, as is the door mirror, and there is some surface rust.
5) Front wheels need balancing and the tyres are perished.
6) There are still some electrical gremlins, which I think are related to the rat infestation - the water temperature warning comes on randomly as does the ABS light.

Good points - it has only done 74k miles and has a decent MOT!

I plan on giving it a service and a deep clean so I can use it over the next month, and then when I move into the new house start some of the work on the above faults. I really enjoy fixing things up so I'm perversely looking forward to it!

Here it is -


ChrisCh86

1,048 posts

60 months

Thursday 20th October 2022
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Looks like a good project, potentially a great find once given a bit of TLC.

Even if you have to get a new gearbox that shouldn't be too expensive from a wreckers (less than £500 for a second hand unit). Good luck!

d8666

62 posts

166 months

Thursday 20th October 2022
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I’d recommend buying VCDS (Chinese copy of it) abs light will probably be rear hubs.

ballans

870 posts

121 months

Friday 21st October 2022
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I had one these from new. Cracking small van!
Mine was the 2010 and last of this generation. It was silver with the “appearance” pack which consisted of alloy wheels and body coloured bumpers and mirrors. Apart from that totally basic. Had it for 2 years and really enjoyed it.
Worth saving I reckon. Small vans and especially VWs hold their value extremely well so you will probably make a few quid. Spares must be generic across VW so should be cheap and plentiful.
I’ve also noticed a ‘scene’ appearing recently for these caddy’s. Not something I’m into but at should mean they will always be in demand.

Demelitia

688 posts

72 months

Friday 21st October 2022
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If rats have been an issue with other bits of the car, I’d be looking to check the cabin air intake path, getting rid of the filter and sending one of those sanitising bombs through the system.
I’d probably go as far as cleaning any bits of the filter housing out with some cheap disinfectant and some pokey brushes or rags on a stick.

Id love a project like this; I could often use the practicality of a van but make do with an old estate.

Bookmarked. No pressure like biggrin

tim0409

Original Poster:

5,294 posts

175 months

Thursday 27th October 2022
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Thanks for the helpful comments. I've not really had much time to do anything much to it although I have definitely solved the gear change issue; I removed the air box and the area around the top of the gearbox was where the rats had nested so it was full of random material, which must have been impeding the cable movement. I soaked the cable pivots in WD40 and it now works as it should -



I plan on applying some Gunk then cleaning off all the mess as I think that's what is causing the bad smell; as the engine heats up the rat droppings have welded themselves to the engine - nice!

The clutch is still heavy, so I plan on changing the hydraulic fluid but I think it's likely to be the pressure plate? I've never changed a clutch but it can definitely wait till I have a garage to do it in so I can take my time.

I started to remove the old ply lining in the back, and its already made a big difference; I'm not sure what to put in its place but it needs to be functional as I plan on using it for transporting my dog.


BigHeavy10

257 posts

87 months

Thursday 27th October 2022
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tim0409 said:
I started to remove the old ply lining in the back, and its already made a big difference; I'm not sure what to put in its place but it needs to be functional as I plan on using it for transporting my dog.

Looking forward to seeing this come along.

I've done a couple of Security dog unit conversions on vans and cars, when I rip the ply lining out of the vans I almost always replace it with bathroom wet wall cladding panels in white. Cheap, simple to install, looks tidy when put in properly and really easy to clean after dogs have made a mess of the inside laugh

martin mrt

3,867 posts

217 months

Thursday 27th October 2022
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I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with this, I’m about to start a caddy project myself I might document it on here too

Your looks a very clean example, many mk3s are now rust buckets

Ted1990

24 posts

206 months

Friday 28th October 2022
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I used carpet tiles from homebase, pretty tough and looks neater than ply. Although I've since swapped this out for black carpet tiles, and ripped out the side ply panels.

tim0409

Original Poster:

5,294 posts

175 months

Wednesday 30th November 2022
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That looks great Ted.

Unfortunately my plans for the caddy have been put on hold; we were meant to be moving into our new home on the 2nd December but we received an email from the developer at the start of the month delaying the date till the end of January. This was especially unwelcome as we had previously sold our house, and then handed in our notice on the rental property we were living in, meaning we were effectively homeless till it was ready! Luckily my wife works for a company that owns hotels/restaurants/serviced apartments, so we are now sorted till then but it means the caddy is currently languishing in a train station car park.

I can't wait to get started on it again, and my plans keep growing the more I read VW forums; I saw a beautiful modified (and re-engined) caddy that had been resprayed in the VW colour Toffee brown, and it got my seriously thinking......!


Demelitia

688 posts

72 months

Wednesday 30th November 2022
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tim0409 said:
Thanks for the helpful comments. I've not really had much time to do anything much to it although I have definitely solved the gear change issue; I removed the air box and the area around the top of the gearbox was where the rats had nested so it was full of random material, which must have been impeding the cable movement. I soaked the cable pivots in WD40 and it now works as it should -
Adding some Finish line wet lube where you’ve put the wd-40 will probably improve the gear issues further and keep it that way.
I imagine the WD won’t last all that long with it being so light; I’ve found the finish line stuff to be great for things like that.

Craikeybaby

11,497 posts

241 months

Wednesday 30th November 2022
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I'm more of a Transporter guy - as I have kids and bikes to transport, but one of my colleagues has a very nice '14 Caddy.

Pieman68

4,266 posts

250 months

Wednesday 30th November 2022
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Micro camper conversion? Could you use something like a jumpbox to give you a nice cheap way to get away at the weekends?

Megaflow

10,432 posts

241 months

Wednesday 30th November 2022
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Pieman68 said:
Micro camper conversion? Could you use something like a jumpbox to give you a nice cheap way to get away at the weekends?
There was a guy at Collecting Car’s meet at Donington with a micro camper in a caddy, very clever use of space

nismo48

5,402 posts

223 months

Thursday 1st December 2022
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tim0409 said:
That looks great Ted.

Unfortunately my plans for the caddy have been put on hold; we were meant to be moving into our new home on the 2nd December but we received an email from the developer at the start of the month delaying the date till the end of January. This was especially unwelcome as we had previously sold our house, and then handed in our notice on the rental property we were living in, meaning we were effectively homeless till it was ready! Luckily my wife works for a company that owns hotels/restaurants/serviced apartments, so we are now sorted till then but it means the caddy is currently languishing in a train station car park.

I can't wait to get started on it again, and my plans keep growing the more I read VW forums; I saw a beautiful modified (and re-engined) caddy that had been resprayed in the VW colour Toffee brown, and it got my seriously thinking......!

thumbup good luck with the project!!

tim0409

Original Poster:

5,294 posts

175 months

Friday 7th July 2023
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After finally moving in to our new house and dealing with the massive snagging list etc, I've finally managed to start work on the Caddy. This is the first time I've had a garage and it's life changing smile My hand has been slightly forced as I sold our second car (Suzuki Jimny commercial) yesterday, and it would be really handy to have this as a running project.

I started by giving it a good clean as it still smells dreadful - seats out, jet washed, and the load area cleaned up really well. It has an issue with the ABS relating to the rear wheel; the rear ABS sensor cable was damaged and somebody had previously "fixed" it by twisting the wires together and then some insulating tape, so I replaced that part of the harness and the sensor but the fault is still there although the battery is is a poor condition which isn't helping with the fault codes. I then investigated the wiring in the engine bay and this is where the fun began....

The indicator on the front wing wasn't working so I took the scuttle panel off to find the wiring had been chewed through by the rats, and they had set up home in there as well as on top of the gearbox. I've stripped out the rest of the harness, and it's been repaired by the garage my wife's company had previously used, but it's all a bit of a mess. I'm in uncharted territory here, but I'm keen to learn so will take it one step at a time. I need to remove the tape from the harness and see how bad the damage is and how best to repair it.

My plan is now to get the scuttle area cleaned of all the rat debris, sort out the wiring as best I can, and get it through the MOT. Although it's in a bad way, it's only done 71k and I think it's worth saving.
Ideally I would like to -

replace the rusted wheels with alloys
replace the seats with some Golf GTi leather seats or similar
the front wings need replaced, and I'm contemplating changing the front end to the facelift model, which apparently can be done without too much hassle.
make it in to a day van

I'm a member of the Caddy 2K forum and it's a great resource, but also a bit of rabbit hole of mental modifications!





DirktheDaring

742 posts

28 months

Friday 7th July 2023
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Good thread, keep it updated.

A nice set of 18’s and some lowering springs will give it some visual appeal. cool

tim0409

Original Poster:

5,294 posts

175 months

Thursday 12th October 2023
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I thought I would give this thread a bit of an update as I’ve finally been able to do some work on the Caddy. At the moment it’s all been about giving it some TLC and working through some of the obvious mechanical issues. I’ve had a couple of threads running in the mechanics section as I’ve been tackling jobs I’ve never attempted before…

The cambelt was on the original, and after 70k miles and 15 years it definitely needed replaced - when I took the cover off it was fraying and the tensioner had unwound, so it was probably a disaster waiting to happen. I was really hesitant to tackle this as a friend took his caddy to Arnold Clark for a cambelt and it went horribly wrong, and he was in a hire car for weeks until they managed to rebuild the head. I took it slowly, although I really struggled to get the engine mount back in until I bought an engine support bar which made life much easier.

I’ve just replaced the clutch and the DMF, having managed to pick up the complete Sachs unit from eBay for £210 using a discount code. This was definitely the biggest job I’ve attempted and felt much harder given the limited height I was working at. The gearbox is heavy (certainly for one person) and after improvising with some ratchet straps I finally managed to get it back in place. The book time is around 5-6 hours, but I dread to think how many hours I spent on it! I also fitted a replacement slave cylinder as the rubber bellow was ripped, and thought I had made a mistake bleeding the system as the clutch felt so light; the pressure plate and release bearing were definitely shot on the old clutch, which isn’t surprising as it spent its entire life doing short journeys in a busy city.

My sense of achievement was short lived as 4 miles into the test drive there was a loud scratching noise; I had a horrible feeling something was wrong with the timing belt, but unsurprisingly it was coming from the clutch. When I was putting the box on I struggled and the release bearing came off the fork, and so I reached through the gap and clipped in back into place, and my first thought was it wasn’t properly seated. To cut a long story short, I had bent the metal dust gasket between the bell housing and the engine, and it’s rubbing on the DMF when hot…..apparently it’s not an uncommon mistake. Whilst not in the same territory as Ecsy’s F Pace, a thread that give me lots of inspiration about how to be positive in the face of adversity smile, I felt really desponded yesterday, but was resigned to taking it all apart again. This definitely isn’t in the VW workshop manual, but I managed to insert a long metal kebab stick in a hole at the bottom of the bell housing and move the shield far enough away for the noise to be greatly reduced. I might need to take the box off again, but it can at least wait now.

I’ve done the following jobs (which I’ve just added up to £920 in parts) -

New battery
New DMF, clutch and release bearing
Conti timing belt kit and water pump
New pattern door mirror surrounds
I found some 16” alloys/tyres on Facebook from a great chap who had bought a 12 month old Caddy California and the first thing he did was upgrade the wheels - £300
Replace all the damaged wiring in the engine bay - £20 for wire
New slave cylinder, release bearing sleeve
New front drop links
New sump (plug had been cross threaded)
Servicing (oil/filters etc). I’m currently bleeding the brakes and changing the fuel filter.

My dad was an aircraft engineer, and he was very precise about making sure everything was “right”, and I suppose some of that has rubbed off - I love replacing parts/fluids and making sure it runs well.

The plan is to run it for a while before I decided what to do next, although my plans change on a daily basis smile Ideally I would like to replace the rusted and dented front wings, and go for an updated front end from the later model, which really improves the looks. I also want to install electrics in the back and insulate/sound proof it, to form the basis of a day van/micro camper.

Here are some random pictures of the last few months -

The wheels make a big difference -





This engine mount was a nightmare to get back in position…




Edited by tim0409 on Thursday 12th October 18:35


Edited by tim0409 on Thursday 12th October 18:37

d8666

62 posts

166 months

Thursday 12th October 2023
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Nice one! I’ve one the exact same in metallic black 2008. Had it 4 years and didn’t do a thing to it. Got fed up with the heat in a hot spell during the summer I ripped it apart and did the following.
Touran xenons
New suspension all around
Cruise control
Full touran interior, dash arm rest
Solid bulkhead
15inch highline alloys
Golf mk4 6 speed gear box and new dmf
Passat B7 leather multifunction steering wheel,
Highline white clocks
And the big one retro fitted aircon!
Delighted with it now and it willl last a few more years, a lot of stuff can be picked up from breakers for a small price! Avoid the eBay rip off merchants