My first gasser. And my other junk

[RabbitJockey]

Dear diary

Been keeping some what busy with cars the past few weeks.  My girl has been driving a cabriolet for the past 3.5 years,  we got it as a temporary car when her Mini Cooper puked its cvt transmission(never buy a mini). I only paid 1300 for the cabby and did basically minimum maintenance on it to keep it on the road, wheel bearings oil changes timing belt v belts vac lines o2 sensor.  But the time has come that she financially recovered from her Mini Cooper and her cabriolet is just a worn out car with a very worn trans.  I tried to talk her into a mk3 but she wanted a mk4 Jetta.  But I told her a mk4 is fine but it has to be a manual because the automatics were crap especially in 04.  Then my daddy saw an 03 1.8t down the road from his house so we went and checked it out.  Had a good price and my parts guy looked at it for me because he knows alot about the mk4s and 20vs.  So we bought it,  my dad and I did the timin belt that weekend then I had a little battle with the thermostat the following week, crazy Andy helped a bit with that.  And now we have a nice running 20v mk4 just needs ebrake cables now.  So I have been teaching her how to drive with a standard trans.  It has 155k on it and its obviously been driven but it is really in nice shape drives nice ad everything on it works, which is all that matters.

Her brand new 10 year old car!!!!!



And a random progress shot from the timing belt job



Grenade pin tensioner, stand clear!!!



Took my rabbit to get inspected it failed for tires and wipers, then I lost my only key which delayed me taking it back after fixing both problems because I had to jimmy the door open and take the door handle to a lock smith who used the code off the door handle to make me new keys so now I can go vroom vroom again

[img=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v306/Trev0rbr/EB01A664-B565-479D-AC74-73D7CD38665A-3101-0000038DAAFA248E_zps0821b815.mp4]http://

Finally found the source of my bad fuel mileage in my mk3!!! Was a bad coil I didn't notice tho because the missing hunk was on the back side

[hillfolk'r]

Anyone wanna buy a nice mk4 jetta 1.8t std trans lol

[RabbitJockey]

Haha yeah right I just realized its been 2 months and she still isn't driving it due to not liking stick.

Serenity now
Serenity now
Serenity now

[vanbcguy]

Haha yeah right I just realized its been 2 months and she still isn't driving it due to not liking stick.

Serenity now
Serenity now
Serenity now

I just went through that with my wife... She absolutely will not drive stick.  There's tons of great affordable stick VWs around here - finding a working automatic that doesn't shift weird is quite a challenge though.  We settled on an 04 1.8T with the 5-speed automatic.  At least they are known to make it past 100,000 miles without blowing up like the 01M cars do.

How'd you find the timing belt job?  I got quoted about $900 to do the timing belt + water pump + thermostat.

[ORCoaster]

Funny that your wives don't like to drive sticks.  When the salesman tried to get my wife to buy an automatic she leaned across the desk and said " I prefer to drive my car not point it in the direction it wants to go."  She ended up with a Toyota Matrix with a five speed and a sunroof. 

[hillfolk'r]

Yea my mom wants a new Audi and none with stick. The woman has never worn out a clutch either. 
We are kind of afraid of a new vw(diesel prefered ). I told her to get an r8
Same with my woman. I threatened her and said im gonna get you a manual, but nope.
Picked up a nice 04 passat tdi auto for her though. We did average 41 on a trip to ohio. 75 mph most of the way too. This may sound like a joke but get her a garden tractor to learn clutch on

[RabbitJockey]

Haha yeah right I just realized its been 2 months and she still isn't driving it due to not liking stick.

Serenity now
Serenity now
Serenity now

I just went through that with my wife... She absolutely will not drive stick.  There's tons of great affordable stick VWs around here - finding a working automatic that doesn't shift weird is quite a challenge though.  We settled on an 04 1.8T with the 5-speed automatic.  At least they are known to make it past 100,000 miles without blowing up like the 01M cars do.

How'd you find the timing belt job?  I got quoted about $900 to do the timing belt + water pump + thermostat.

So u definitely were in the same predicament haha.  I have heard not sobad of things about the tiptronic cars try do still go bad but I've heard u can sometimes swap some solenoids and be on your way.  1.8t timing belt isn't that bad there's a really good how to on vw vortex but be prepared to spend some time on it,  everything is tight but very very doable u just gotta keep moving hoses and stuff around,  also just leave the inner piece of the motor mount floating around next to the motor but make sure u pick it up over the new parts as u install them.  Use lock tite when u reassemble some of the bolts are stretch bolts.  The thermostats not too bad either u just pull back that big wad of vacuum crap that the dip stick is attached too and down in there with a 1/4" ratchet with a 5-6" wobble extension.  Just be really careful when u tighten it back down its really easy to get it cocked and then the edge of the housing catches on the block and gets warped and leaks.  I've only ever worked on mk1-2-3 and mostly just 1.6 diesels and I didn't think it was too awful of a job.  It's mostly just removing a bunch of parts so that you can get to the engine and perform a simple tbelt change.