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Hi guys, this is my first Caddy and my first project build for a while








She is a late 2006 1.9tdi SWB with 140k on the clock, it’s been mechanically looked after in its past life but neglected visually! With no MOT I paid £600 all in!

I bought the van to use as a daily work horse, as I’m currently using a supercharged Range Rover and the fuel consumption is not ideal! I do have use of a van from the company I work for but I do sometimes need to use my own vehicle and the Range is just not practical. I also plan to use it for and to promote/expand my personal business ventures.

The idea of the build is to have this Caddy looking and driving as best as it possibly can, but by spending as little as possible in keeping with the theme of the price tag! As I believe it was probably the cheapest running caddy for sale in the uk! All labour and work will be done by me and a friend, Ive good mechanical knowledge and fabrication skills and he preps and paints supercars for a living so between us I think we have it covered. [Y]

I welcome any comments, tips or general chat!


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First thing on the list was to give it a clean, I didn’t take any photos before but the interior was full of mould and dirt and rubbish.

Took the seats out and cleaned them with Vinegar and a standard fabric cleaner to try and get the mould and stains out. Worked okay for now, some
Of the stains were impossible but leather seats will be going in soon so they will do!

Took all the rubber mats out of the car and jet washed them all down, used some fairy liquid and a scouring pad for the tough bits, there was multiple cups of tea and coffee spilt behind the seats and never cleaned. (Cause of the mould I guess)

Did all the interior plastics with a waterless wash solution and dashboard cleaner, removed all the centre console and cleaned on the underside too to get all the mould.

turned out alright for a 13 year old work horse


I then turned to the cargo area, the van was ply lined and it was in pretty good condition but the bed had a lot of oil spilt on it at some point and the smell was quite strong. Pulled up the ply from the bottom and discovered about half a bin bags worth of dirt and grime so using a crowbar, screwdriver and a dustpan and brush I scraped it all up. I’m also going to take the sides off and then clean the whole inside with a waterless was solution


The van is booked in for an MOT later today, I’ve given it a good check over and I can’t see anything obvious that it will fail on, and it runs and drives really well so hopefully it will fly strait though!



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Great. I'm looking forward to following your build

Okay so it failed!

But only on 3 minor things, and for a grand total of £50 in parts! So that’s today’s job, new front pads, rear ARB bushes, CV boot and a number plate light. Retest is booked for Thursday.

Total cost for a 56 caddy with 140k no mechanical faults and 12 months MOT will be £670, can anyone beat that?




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HELP NEEDED!

Hi guys, sorry for the slow updates on the build! I've been mega busy with work, not spending much time at home and not having any time to work on the van! But I've finally been able to get the bits done for the MOT... with some complications!

2 of the 6 M8 spline bolts that hold the driveshaft into to box were rounded off and I couldn't for the life of me get them off! So I couldn't get the shaft off. Tried to separate it while it was on the car and had no luck so I ended up taking a grinder to the bolts and cutting the heads off, took the shaft off and then got some grips on the remaining studs and took them out. This meant that the driveshaft itself got a bit chewed, up so I bought a used one on eBay for £30 and job done! out of interest I tried to separate the driveshaft anyway while it was off and it still proved to be impossible! Somehow it was seized solid!

Moving on to possibly the easiest job of the lot (undoing and redoing 4 bolts) the rear ARB bushes, apparently not! Soaked nicely in penetrating fluid, 3 of the 4 bolts came off a treat, one did not! with only the smallest bit of pressure on the spanner the head on the bolt snapped clean off. I drilled a hole in it and tried to use a extractor bit to pull the bold out, that also snapped clean in half! I ended up having to weld a nut onto the back of the bolt and pulled it out from the other side, job done.

Lastly the front brake pads, old ones off and new ones on with no problem at all, however I now have a brake pad wear indicator on the dash. When removing the old pads I didn't see any sensors or cables and before I changed them there was no indicator light on the dash, so I snipped off the sensors on the new pads, popped them in and job done, but now I have this light? would anyone have an idea why possibly? help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

So the caddy went off the road and work began, unfortunately the pandemic hit, my work was incredibly busy and I pretty much worked around the clock for 2 years strait. The van just sat looking sorry for itself on the drive... until now, Ive decided to find the time, give it my all and get it built!

Ive started a YouTube channel documenting the transformation and ill be posting regular updates on here. attached are a few photos of where its at at the minute and please check out the channel, Ive got a full walk-around video on there laying out the plans for the van and a couple of videos on the progress so far. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjnjFi ... UsLDxH4K0Q

Ive attached a couple of photos on how its looking at the minute, please if you can take the time to check out my channel, like the videos and subscribe I would be very grateful!

Any and all comments and help are welcome and if anyone wants to ask me anything ill be happy to help out!

my brother come to you, it will be very good for me
ix your project. because I'm starting in 2 months. everything open 2006 my caddy now i have my proj 2013 1.6 tdi manuel caddy . Ok I want to give you some self-criticism.If you accept.???

That will be some nice front end. Skipping one facelift and going straight to MK4. Must be quite pricey with all the parts involved.

Yes mate hopefully, I'm trying to do it as cheap as I possibly can but with all the parts i have at the moment and including the cost of the van im only about £2000 in, I bought a crashed touran for alot of the bits and made the money back breaking what was left. The doors are the biggest cost, looking at £650 a piece from VW new so its definitely an ebay job for those and they probably will need some work doing. I'm also after some DRL LED lights and they are pricey so just bought the halogens for now to get it together. All labour is done by myself so thats a big saving!

Just watched your YouTube videos. Will be interesting to see it come together.

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Thanks for watching mate! ive got alot to do over the next few weeks but im just waiting on parts to come in and trying to find some time between work, ive got a replacement rear axel to go on, new discs and pads front and back and most of the missing interior bits, ill get photos and a video up hopefully this weekend

Love your work.

We're going through the same facelift procedure as each other currently.

Found your videos very interesting. Definitely going about it in slightly different ways, but the results will be the same.

Thanks for sharing.

Id be interested to see how your doing yours? have you got a build thread?

Ive made abit of progress this weekend...



New bumper fitted, headlights fitted properly, Had to attach some new brackets to the inner wing to support them from the rear and ive started putting the interior back together

as always a video is out on my youtube channel so please give that a watch!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjnjFi ... UsLDxH4K0Q

That front end conversion is epic. I got a facelift version so I assume it would not be as involved but still surprised how many parts changed for mk4.
Keep it up it is a nice caddy!

Jdfixter wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 9:23 pm Id be interested to see how your doing yours? have you got a build thread?

Instead of trimming down the outriggers of the mk3 style. I'm going to spot weld in new mk4 out rigger brackets.

same goes for the lower headlight mount.

Aside from the 90 degree brackets that go onto the top of the guard mounts (i've something else planned for that), I'm trying to keep it as factory looking as possible.

You'll find my build thread at the link below. I will have some video content about the front end conversion there hopefully in the next few weeks.

https://caddy2k.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44137