Haha, yeah. I haven't learned my lesson yet with buying cars. I always end up getting a car that some hack artist had, and I repair it. This mk2 I'm driving now when I got it 70% of the coolant hoses were garden hoses, the interior and engine wiring harness were jacked.. and much much more... Sometimes I just don't get people. Other times I understand why some might "make" something work, but other times it really just comes down to safety issues.
V-belts? They are a piece of cake.. when I first started working on cars I just jumped into it. Learned a lot that why. Often it was at the expense of a mistake, sometimes it would be before the mistake would happen which was always good.