Project update! and catching up in general..... been kinda busy...
First off in response to MontanaGTDs post, many kudos to him. It did take him many months to scrounge a complete setup, communicated all the way was a huge help and could have quit at any time because at times it was a PITA I am sure, he is a great forum member... If he still has the left over ICs someone needs to buy them
.
Ok, Updates...
As you guys may or may not know, a month ago I took a new job and was moving to Boston.
My plan was to drive the Carat up, ordered belts and hoses to redo everything before I left but, they got lost in shipment, I was out of time, so I had to go without hoses (I Gorilla taped the iffy ones) and crappy Dayco Belts and a re-used tensioner. What I didn't say in that thread, was I had the car loaded and was literally on my way when I blew the bottom radiator hose 3 blocks from the house
. so yeah not a good idea at all.
I got it back home and loaded everything into my 03 TDI and drove up.
I had the Carat towed to
Fifteen52 in Sarasota so they could replace ALL of the coolant hoses. Once that was done and we were confident I didn't blow the head gasket, I had Brad check it over and make sure it was good for a run up the East Coast, he got back to me with a list. The brakes were iffy and the suspension, ball joints, etc were pretty much shot. Could have done without any of it or done the minimum.
After giving it some thought and weighing the fact that the place I found up here in Mass doesn't come with a garage I decided to have them redo suspension and brakes with a little upgrading to boot.
Hopefully everything arrives as scheduled and by this time next week it'll be fitted with:
Bilstein HD Shock Set.
H&R A2 8V OE Sport Springs.
VR6 Upper Strut Mount/Bearing Upgrade Kit.
New Control Arms w/ Bushings.
New Late Type Large Ball Joints.
Braided Stainless Steel Brake hoses.
A GLI 10.1" Front Brake setup
I bought on eBay, w/ new Rotors and Mintex Pads
New Rear Discs and Mintex Pads.
New GLI 22MM Master Cylinder.
Assorted sundry filters, suspension hardware, etc.
New Valve Cover Gasket.
New Oil Pan Gasket.
As of today, I have a TD pump and TD Injectors (thanks again, addautomotive!) on the way to Giles for him to work his magic on. I ordered the proper Continental belts, new tensioner, , glow plugs, etc so I can redo it all again when the pump and injectors get here and get rid of the evil that is Dayco.
Oh, and a new set of Hella door handles.
It's allot to spend on an Old Jetta and I have had some raised eyebrows from the wife but, I'll be selling my 03 TDI wagon soon. Now that I am up here and settled I don't really need a car, let alone two. besides for the original ~$500 investment in the EcoDiesel/Carat merge project, I have a bit of room I think.
Our new place is a 5 minute walk to the train station, my whole commute now is all of 30 minutes and the subway drops me 2 doors from office. I decided I liked the MkII Jetta more, Throw some $$$$ into it and keep it until I die :lol:. It'll be more fun to fix up now that I am not depending on it for daily transportation.
I am flying back down to Florida next week to meet the movers and I'll pickup the Carat and drive back up to Mass again.
Right now I am trying to track down a set of Le Castelette wheels I can get shipped to Florida in time to meet me there next week so I can get some decent tires on it before the drive. If not I guess I am coming up on the crappy steelies and the current tires., there are a couple of yards along the I-95 corridor on the way up that show some so maybe on the way.
Oh, about the pics missing from the thread, I switched hosts for ziptar.com, I need to upload them all to the new server. They'll be back shortly.
Thats it for now.