Franken-TD for an '84 Coupe: Like i need another hole in my build thread

[TimpanogosSlim]

Well, i am at a point where i can get it to turn over and then die

My gut feeling is that there are still air pockets in the IP. Earlier today, after reorienting my silly horizontal return banjo so that the return-to-tank is higher than the return-from-injector lines, I had the return line completely flushed of all but the tiniest bubbles.

In the last hour, it picked up about 6 inches of air pocket at it's high point.

Pretty annoyed by the coolant dripping from about 3 spots on the core support. I hope i don't need a new radiator. The hoses and fan switch seem to be tight.

.:Sent by pneumatic tubes

[TimpanogosSlim]

Also, I've got oil pressure -- the light turns off during cranking even. I forgot to re-tighten the lower hose clamp on the turbo oil return after re-sealing the pan so i know I'm getting oil through the turbo. Water is flowing. IR thermometer tells me that the glow plugs are making the head warmer. well, at least #4 is, so i make assumptions about the others i guess.

It roars to life, the turbo whistles, and then it stops.

[TimpanogosSlim]

It's hard to see from inside the cabin, but it seems like if i crack the injection lines at the injectors, 1 and 4 are squirting but 2 and 3 are not. They still get wet with diesel, but it's hard to compare the amount.

Are there any tricks to bleeding stubborn injection pumps?

[TimpanogosSlim]

Resolved my starting issues here: http://www.vwdiesel.net/forum/index.php/topic,35281.0.html

Libbydiesel is a gentleman and a scholar and i am in debt to him. The beers are on me if he finds himself in Utah.

apparently i forgot that the previous owner told me the radiator leaks. I mean, he's a good honest guy and has been completely straight with me and everyone i've met who knows him -- he's part of the greater motorsport community out here and we have a ton of mutual friends.

I ordered a new radiator via amazon prime which will be here tomorrow for all of $56. I wish i could do that for my fiat - nobody makes a cheap radiator for a 124 spider 1800.

anyway, in summary, it starts and runs, plenty of smoke due to no exhaust system. there's a muffler shop in town that i will talk to about having a custom downpipe fabricated and tied into the original exhaust system. I can't spend three bills on a techtonics exhaust just now. I might ask the exhaust shop to make a 2.25" DP though, so they don't have to make it twice.

I want to recenter the engine before i take the car down off the jack stands. Found my crowbar so this won't be a big deal. I'll probably have to re-adjust my shift rod after that.

I also kinda want to not have a puddle of coolant under the engine when i do that. two buckets under the radiator for the past day or so.

but it looks like I'm on track to go register the car on Monday. I'm under the impression that a 1984 model year qualifies as "more than 30 years old" which in utah means i can get a plate with a drawing of some generic old-timey vehicle on it and never have to have so much as a safety inspection. Though of course the fuzz can and will pull me over and give me a fix-it ticket for any blatantly unsafe configuration.

I'll need an alignment. First drive will be around the corner for a tank of fresh diesel, but 2nd might have to be to zukgod1's shop over in saratoga springs. alignment is better with friends, I'm sure.

[TimpanogosSlim]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tPpyJJW-yQ

[libbydiesel]

Congrats, but you'll probably eventually need an accelerator lever. 

[TimpanogosSlim]

Congrats, but you'll probably eventually need an accelerator lever.

Everyone is a critic

left it off to get a good idea of where the spindle needs to be. will fit the lever and linkage again tomorrow.

[Gizmoman]

Nice and tidy sir - sounds good as well
Congrats

[TimpanogosSlim]

Well I re-centered the engine and transaxle as far to the right as i could for exhaust vs. shift linkage clearance, got a belt for the power steering pump, got over my amazement that the belt tension is adjusted by putting shims in the pulley, put the belt on, and got it back on the ground.

No small job. My floor jack has a range of 3 to 26 inches, and i needed 6 inches of wood block on the jack to get it up off the stands, in stages. That stuff makes me nervous, but I'm a big guy and the added height helps working under the car a lot. the HF 6 ton jack stands were a great purchase.

Also went and made an honest car of it. Personalized vintage vehicle plate "KOHLE" has been ordered. 90 day temporary permit applied. About half of my actual human socialization these days is with a bunch of european car enthusiasts and i am resisting pulling the trigger on a "euro" plate bearing "SCHLEPPER" for the front bumper. Also considered "KOHLBRENR" although that seems to be a surname meaning something like "stoker" or what in the days of steam powered trains was called a "fireman", while "staubbrenner" (dust burner, referring to a furnace that is fueled with pulverized lignite) is too long to comfortably abbreviate (stau being deutsch for "congestion"). Utah is pretty lax about front plates - they were briefly required during the year in the 90's when we had photo-cop cameras, until they were found to violate the state constitution. Can't be pulled over for no front plate and most cops don't bother to list it as a secondary offense unless you have really made them angry. And I'm in the habit of not getting pulled over, at any rate. I do not have personalized or 'euro' plates on my mk5. but i made a point of not bothering to install a front plate on it when i replaced the grille.

I'd hoped to take it around the block or maybe down the street and around the corner to fill it up with fresh diesel, but it was dark by the time i had the pump re-adjusted (now with linkage!) and i haven't actually reinstalled the dash bezel yet (no headlight switch -> no headlights!), and the clutch cable needs to be adjusted.

Also i learned that it is a very bad idea to decide to adjust the smoke and idle screws while the engine is billowing white smoke right out of the turbine housing (because i forgot to pull the cold start lever). I hope my lungs forgive me. The white smoke is very very bad.

[TimpanogosSlim]

Today was about wiring. I didn't crank the engine over at all.

Stupid mistakes were made when i built my relay harness for the headlights. I've got new "e-code" h4 and h1 housings. Hella H4, "autopal" h1. the autopals are half the quality for half the price. But since the inner set of lights is redundant i don't care.

after figuring out the right way to plug stuff into the original headlight harness, i have headlights. Actually i might have two different sets of high beams, need to look into that. And the passenger side autopal is dim. have to figure that out.

I'm not a huge fan of the way the wire diagrams were done in the bentley manual and I'm not convinced that my car matches the 83/84 jetta diagrams. the factory manual for my land cruiser has really readable flow-chart style diagrams for each system that are really easy to understand. It took some time for me to figure out what i was doing. I just want to run power to the oil pressure gauge, egt gauge, and stereo in a manner that won't start a fire.

Also dimmed illumination power to the new gauges. I'm really confused that i don't have continuity between the gray/blue on the headlight switch and the gray/blue on the cigarette lighter harness.

A lot of the gray/blue illumination wires have been Very Hot and there is evidence of chicanery. I also for some reason assumed that the cig lighter power would be switched when i have childhood memory that this is not the case in a mk1 and adult memory of being annoyed that it was the case in the mk3 that was the first VW i owned.

The dimmer on the headlight switch is toast anyway. Ordered a new one. Anybody else think it's weird that mk1autohaus can sell it for $19 but the brick and mortar stores want $200?

Anyway the sins of the previous owners and my own mistakes mean i'm not done with the wiring. I found unused 30 and 15 terminals on the back of the fuse panel and ran 12awg power and ground for the head unit in the console, and hooked up the door speaker wiring. Gonna need an amp for the 6x9 speakers i want to put in the rear deck. I'm even installing the car-side harness that would exist in a mk3 for future generations to put a stereo into.

I will probably tee off of the hazard switch for illumination and power for the extra gauges. it has a nice fat 15 amp circuit that shouldn't mind at all powering a couple gauges. Plus for some goofy reason it's a loose wire rather than part of the big connector so i can make a neat little harness that inserts without having to cut stuff up.

There ain't enough antenna cable to reach the head unit. by inches. I'm gonna make like a 10 inch long extension cord. or get lazy and stick a 6 foot extension cord behind the radio.

It might actually be long enough (jack on the HU is way on the right) but not enough length to plug it in with a human hand while the console is pulled out.


Also I'm gonna have to put 'sport' springs on this thing strictly because I'm kind of a big guy and the car visibly lowers when i get in.

[TimpanogosSlim]

I really wanted to drive the coupe to the local european car nerd GTG. I didn't quite make it out of the driveway.

Runs but doesn't drive basically. As the clutch engages the engine stalls. I managed to move it about 80 feet under it's own power in maybe half an hour.

One of the times it stalled, all i did was turn the steering wheel sharply. This makes me believe that the power steering pump is toast. That and the telltale squeal of a bad power steering pump. I guess i should take the belt back off and see if things get better. i will probably start getting the manual steering rack refurbished for the car.

The alternator seems to be intermittent or just plain bad. Sometimes the battery warning light would turn off sometimes it wouldn't. sometimes the tach would react to the engine revving sometimes it wouldn't. The last time it stalled, the starter was able to get off just one sorry rotation. At that point i had front wheels in the street, and had to push it back up the (flat, level) driveway to jump start it to make sure it was an electrical issue and not something that had gone horribly wrong.

Going to look into how involved changing to the 90a alternator is. I've got the 65a now, and the 90 is actually cheaper. Different hookups of course.

I have no turn signals or hazard flasher. going to have to go through the diagnostic in the book.

What i did to power the extra gauges, didn't work. maybe i blew a fuse. have to check my work. The mechanical boost gauge (Di Pricol - very well made! and no useless vacuum range - I'll be replacing it with a CoolingMist control unit in the summer if anyone wants to call dibs) showed 6psi at the peak of my revving to get the car through some of the terrain between it and the flat of the driveway. I have an NXS manual boost controller that i haven't fiddled with, just installed it the way it was when i got it.

Temperature gauge behaves normally, fan turns on and off at what look to me to be normal intervals based on what i read with the IR thermometer. Oil pressure light doesn't blink or illuminate if the engine has recently turned. fuel level gauge is buried-needle empty which can't be right (bad sender?) though i have no idea how much fuel is in the tank, despite having found a receipt for 1.5 gallons or something in the glovebox.

Three out of four headlights work fantastic, the other is so-so. The Hella H4 housings w/ Hella 55w bulbs work GREAT on the relayed power harness i built. They may actually be brighter than the Autopal H1 housings which came with Autopal 100w bulbs. One of the autopals is dim. have to figure out what is going on there. Autopal = half the quality for half the price, but in a redundant high beam i don't care. I'm almost surprised i didn't just put in new sealed beams (the old ones were so old they had lost their silvering and taken on water).

[libbydiesel]

The vac side of a vac/boost is not useless at all.  The most beneficial reason to have auxiliary gauges is to quickly detect and diagnose mechanical issues.  Vacuum shown on the gauge is due to a clogged or semi-clogged air filter or some other form of restricted intake.  It is very important to recognize it quickly as it can cause/exacerbate diesel runaway by pulling harder than normal on the crank vent.  While it is true that a diesel will not normally have intake vacuum, it does occasionally happen and when it does, it is extremely beneficial to know it as quickly as possible.  Saying that the vac side of the gauge is useless is a lot like saying the top 1/4 of your temp gauge is useless because under normal operation the needle never goes there, but when it does go there and warns you of imminent disaster is when the gauge is most valuable.

[TimpanogosSlim]

Last couple days were all about electrical.

at some point something had gone horribly wrong with the illumination wire behind the dash. like fire wrong. from the headlight switch to wherever the Y split behind the steering column and to the cluster was damaged but sort of ok. From there to the cigarette lighter harness was pretty much gone, and surrounding wires were stuck together.

following that investigation and the replacement of both the cooked headlight switch and the first few inches of wire from the headlight switch out, I removed the bare burnt wire from the cig lighter harness back to behind the steering column and then installed an inline blade fuse holder behind the headlight switch and a new wire from that to the cig lighter harness.

I now have working illumination all around, after making a new, better illumination harness.






The green there is a dozen 5050 size warm white LEDs replacing the two 1w bulbs. this is turned all the way up, i can turn it way down too. I think the bulb behind the oil pressure gauge is a wedge base, and i hope it's a W5W so i can replace it with a much dimmer 194 or something.

I'm gonna need to fab up a bit of cardboard or something to cover the heater controls so the wiring doesn't get caught in it.

[TimpanogosSlim]

Well i put on the snowflake wheels, re-re-re-aligned the shifter this time using a cassette tape as an SST, plugged in the block heater for a couple hours, turned up the fuel, jump started, and drove around the block!

I turned up the fuel too high, it revs too high when the clutch pedal is down. also i may have spun the clutch cable up too far. So there is some fine tuning to be done.

I need to find the clip for the cold start aid cable housing, or buy another, or secure it some other way.

There is still some electrical oddity though it might be because the battery is marginal.

Oh, properly grounded, the fake vdo oil pressure gauge swings all the way to 80psi on a cold start. I am given to believe that this is normal behavior with the mk2 oil pump. I'm gonna buy a real vdo gauge and sender when funds allow.

[TimpanogosSlim]

Got the brass tee in to replace the rubber cap. Gonna take a while to get rid of the air in the system.

3/8 e-clip works to secure the cold start aid cable.

Discovered my taillight gaskets leak profusely. Bought some 1/4" weather stripping to build them up. Successful install on the left, too rainy to do the right now.

Hope to adjust fueling and clutch tomorrow and go for a drive.

Personalized plates arrived. Woo.