Gord's 2015 Caddy Maxi

[grs]

Hey all,

Thought I might aswell start a thread since I have a lot planned for this van. Let me introduce my 2015 64 plate Caddy Maxi. I bought it in order to haul about my missus and her supermoto racebike as she starts her first proper season after training for a year. We test fit the bike last night and yup, Husqvarna FE350 fits in the back of a Caddy Maxi, just need to take the reggie plate off it.




It used to have a wrap but they never took it off properly.


Wee bit of rust on the door runners, but nothing that can't be fixed.


And I imagine that this will come in handy from time to time.


The missus suggested that I nick the alloys off her POS Beetle project to get rid of my steelies for now, so... maybe?


First order of business is putting an auto headlight sensor on since its one of those nice quality of life things. Just waiting for the parts to arrive then at the end of the month, get a new head unit in there and think about making the cabin a bit more comfortable.

[Dodson]

Just a note mate, I think the beetle wheels are 5x100 and the caddy is 5x112 so wont fit.

Looking forward to seeing your progress though, I use mine for Mini-twin racing... SV650 fits nicely in the back too.

[tonyhill]

Also, the wheels and tyres probably won't be load rated (insurance requirement)....best to leave them on the Beetle.

[grs]

Sorry I haven't been around much the last few months, been exceptionally busy with work and then working on my Fiesta.

Thanks for the heads up fellas on the wheels. She found out my plans and said I can't have them anyways if they did fit. So since that thing is useless and taking up drive space, its heading to the scrappies.

So after its first proper outing at the end of July, the door cable came loose from the handle. Utter PITA.


So took apart the door and found a few surprises. But not as much of a surprise as it was putting the thing back together. Was a bit finnicky. Just make sure to duct tape the glass up and loosen the 10mm bolts that clamps it in place to the runner.


Mainly, how the handle wasn't springing back towards the door because this silly plastic bracket broke.


Wee bit of epoxy later and it was sorted once it cured.


In addition, also fitted some auto headlamps, real simple job. Just plug the sensor into the switch, hide the wire and plop it at the A pillar window. Works a treat! Don't think I have any picutres of that, but it was literally a 2 minute job. Switch comes out no bother once you know how! Just put it to sidelights, push it in, twist to the right and pull. Slips right out.

[grs]

So I'm back to doing stuff again with the Caddy. I have to be honest. I've hated this van for the longest time. Its been nothing but a never ending source of grief and problems though I did a bunch of trips in it down to England and back in 2021 and only had a single injector blow. Luckily I kept a spare in the van and changed it right on the border of England and Wales on a scorcher of a day. Never buy an old Dyno Rod van chaps and chapesses, they just run them into the ground. So... where are we at over the last nearly 3 years?

2020 to 2021 I managed to get 10K miles out of it. Not bad. Shortly thereafter, I got fed up and just bought a Ford Ranger in December 2021. Now I'm selling that (honestly probably for an imported F-150) and the Caddy has slowly been creeping its way back into my life with all the little ideas I have for it as a project. But first things first... get it back on the road after being parked up for forever, get it an MOT and get it to Volksfling in Biggar, Scotland in two weeks for a camping weekend. Ambitious since its been sat for over a year. Amazingly, battery was still fine!

But here's the list of problems from its MOT failure:

• Anti-rollbar droplinks knackered both sides
• Front springs broken both sides
• Airbag light fault due to the stupid clockspring ribbon cable breaking

Droplinks I done easily enough, the springs I wasn't going to tackle since the spring compressor I had access to was made of Chineseium and I didn't want to end up pinned to the back of my garage like that episode of The X-Files "Syzygy". Toolstation were out of stock in them so I've palmed that off to my pal at the MOT place to deal with where the van is right now.

The clockspring... christ, that was an adventure. So as we all probably know, its a PITA to fix. The image below is the state of the clockspring ribbon cable as I found it when I disassembled the thing. It ripped off the little pathetic spotwelds they did to a connector. Inside was filthy with dust and hair attached to the grease inside the clockspring. VW really needs to get these parts to be sealed so no dirt can get in.



So, first things first, clean that up, scratch off some traces and give it a go.



However I messed up when disassembling and broke one of the clips on the clockspring, so I needed a new housing. In comes a scrappy with a 2011 Scirocco listed. The thing was smashed up, there was water everywhere inside and that's where the clockspring was soaking. So I said to the guy I'll buy it for £190, dry it off, try it and if it doesn't work, he can give me a partial refund and I'll just keep the plastic housing. He agreed, and score. But first I had to get up to it.





Next I cleaned it up, dried it out and took off the back cover and swapped in my PCB from the Caddy and replaced the Scirocco's. The Scirocco's PCB is in the foreground and the Caddy's is in the background.



Reassembled everything, cleared the code in VCDS and problem fixed!



So if you ever have a clockspring go out, just buy the plastic housing and negotiate it down. Look for ones that have had airbag deployments because AFAIK, the PCB's on those are useless after it. Total clockspring fix? £20 + diesel + a bruise getting into that Scirocco.

Next up, take off the poverty spec wheels and shove on something I found on marketplace. Looks a lot tidier!





Interesting sidenote... The fella I bought the wheels from is the CEO of the last remaining Scottish car manufacturer, Raptor Racing. Managed to score a nice little tour of the place.

So now, all I have to do is wait a couple of days, get the van back from my pal at the MOT place and get ready for Volksfling at the end of the month. Tent, power inverter and a few other toys arrived today from Jeff Bezos, so I'm looking forward to playing with the van this weekend.

[grs]

Time for a small update. Van was in the garage for a week getting new springs because they were a massive pain and a whole lot needed replacing. Once that was done, passed its MOT fine. I've also ordered up new rear shocks and rear anti-rollbar droplinks because just looking at them, they're going to need done soon.

Since we're away this weekend for Volksfling, I've been testing a simple 100Ah LiFePo4 battery, solar panel and MPPT setup before expanding it out. The solar panel I bought is supposed to be 100W, but its already pulled down 120W. I have no idea how that's happened or maybe they've sent me a 150W panel. Either way, I'm not complaining.

Wiring is a bit janky right now since this is a test setup, so apologies to any sparkies that might be cringing. Because its a 12V system (final system will be 200Ah 24V system), and I don't have the right gauge wire to connect the battery to the MPPT, I've limited the current on the MPPT to 5 amps for now. If I have time before heading out on Friday morning, I'll make up a bracket for the solar panel, but I'm fine just slapping it on top of the roof or having it sit on the windscreen temporarily. Since I'm so happy with this system thus far, I'll expand it to three panels and then get to properly building it out.

Before I go too crazy on the interior though, I want to engine swap it, probably with a CUNA 2.0 TDI and I desperately need a DSG, I just can't be bothered with manuals anymore! So hopefully I can get that done before the end of the summer. Also want to swap the dash for a 2016+ dash and facelift the front too. But we'll see what pops up on ebay / copart.

[Ma2]

Looks good, nice neat job under the seat there.

I’m planning on Solar soon but would like to go with the flexible roof mounted option.

Problem then is having a roof box on sometimes would shade it. Have seen people add the panel to the lid of the roof box but I won’t want it all the time.

Your solution looks good, just park it on the windscreen and get a free sun shield!


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