Progress has been steady with the jetta lately. We got the insurance and registration back up to date on monday, and I took the car down to the exhaust shop to have the rest of the pipe mated to the headers. I had a flange installed between the downpipe and flexpipe so that the shifter box can still be dropped if need be. I have made a lot of observations to many of the new changed and for the most part, I am very pleased with the setup. Even though it is finally running and driving, I am starting to feel far from finished (cosmetics aside)
First, the oil dipstick tube is making a mess out of my beautiful engine! I DO have the metal shim in there but I believe I was given the incorrect o-ring. It is misting everything on the front of the motor with oil and then spraying back on my nice clean subframe! I think I am just going to slather it in form-a-gasket and be done with it. Also, the dipstick that I have doesn't lock onto the tube at all. It is measuring the oil at the correct level but today it actually backed out of the tube a good 6 to 8 inches while I was driving! Yes, I have been driving without a hood. It is nice to be able to keep an eye on things AND R.O.R-2.0 can't diss my "hot air intake" with the nice cool breeze flowing into it
I also need to finish running wire for the lights, fan and glow plug relay. I was planning on stealthing the lighting wires in the frame and bumper but have not really gotten started on the endeavor yet. I THOUGHT the fan was hooked up but it isn't running. It might be as simple as a fuse but I haven't gotten too intimate and started testing everything yet. I have a feeling that I will need to do minor surgery to work around the lack of A/C.
I started to wire up the glowplugs individually with with some good wire, separate fuse block and starter solenoid but I misplaced a length of the wire. Just to get by temporarily, I ran the glowplugs in 2 pairs through 2 fuses. There is sadly too much current for the 20 amp fuses to take. I was just trying to do a temp setup until I found the rest of my wire (which I did). I grabbed some 35 amp fuses today and I am hoping that they will keep me going for a little while.
I also ordered an inline coolant filler neck so that I can delete the coolant bottle and convert to a vented system. The engine bay still looks a little too cluttered to me. I also want to build a nice clean tray and bracket on the passenger side of the engine bay for my filters and such. I am running an old fuel filter that I flushed out a bit and two prefilters until I am done with this first tank of fuel. I did not flush the tank after all the sitting that it has done so this is my lazy way of cleaning it out. There may have only been a couple of gallons at the bottom but who knows what was growing in there haha. I have a brand new factory filter ready to throw in but down the line I may experiment with other aftermarket filters and veggie processing. I have always hated seeing old 240's and 300's coming into my old benz shop with ghetto ass setups and it has always inspired me to try to find a better way. Not in a hurry to set that up yet, but you know.... just in case of zombies or whatever.
I have also noticed some unfortunate movement in the passengers side of the suspension so I will be doing some control arm and sway bar bushings soon. It looks like the old diesel leak already did it's damage to some rubber. I am leaning towards the g60 ones instead of poly but I am looking forward to experiment with both somewhere down the line. I may do some experimentation with motor mounts and inserts as well because I can hear the exhaust hitting pretty hard if you let the clutch off a little to quick under too much of a load.
Now the transmission... holy COW! I replaced all of the shift bushings (even that evil on in the front of the shift box), installed my neuspeed short shifter and weighted shift rod (Complements of the local junkyard) and filled the tranny with Lucas gear oil and some syncromesh. Butter. Sweet, saucy, buttery goodness. I thought the short shifter sounded like a bit of a gimmick given the normal price of the item brand new, but since I got both pieces for $10, I went for it. The shortened throw actually helps out since the recarros that I got are so puffy and invasive. The seats still got in the way of shifting when they were almost all the way back but now it is a bit better off. Every gear soars right in. The CHE ratio thus far is great for cruising. I haven't put in my 0.71 5th gear yet and now I am in no hurry to do it. So far it feel good enough to live with the 0.8 for a while. It can be a little sluggish on big grades but I still have to get the final setup on my pump. I am leaving the fuel turned down moderately during the break in period. I don't want to flog this thing from the start. I still desperately need to get a fuel pressure gauge. I believe I had my timing set at .95 or .96 and I have the max fuel so there is just a kiss of black smoke when you snap the throttle. One thing I need to look back into is one of the mods that I did when I FIRST got the car....
There was one mod listed on the vortex long ago about taking off the front cover on the pump and doing something with the washers in there with the spring. I remember that I had the "green" spring and I did SOMETHING with the shims but I cannot recall what I did. I didn't really think about it again until recently and I didn't really take note of it when I had the pump apart. I believe the article said something about there being 3 shims and to remove the thickest shim. Whatever I did, it seemed to work for me back then. Now, I want to know what I REALLY did! What value did I REALLY change. As a youngster, I just saw it as a modification for more power. Now I am thinking numbers.
This is also my first engine break in so is there any crucial advice that I may have missed out on? I have been pretty gentle with it except for running out the gears a couple of times. I have also been doing occasional spurts of acceleration and then backing off to let the engine slow me down a little. I have not revved the motor too high but I haven't been able to see my RPM's to give any examples. I still haven't put my tach in! I need to do a repair to that stupid ribbon cable of a circuit board that they use!
From memory, I believe that I have seen this car move quicker and I am pretty sure it was LOUDER without the headers...but it still sounds goooooood! I am sure it will make more of a rukkus when I get the fueling all dialed in!
Topic: Dub Nasty- The rebirth of the dirty diesel (Read 31617 times)
