In progress mini-refresh

[wolf_walker]

I saw you posted that airbox earlier, very slick.  I used the one I did since it was handy, had to cut the bottom out
a lot to get it down as low as it is.  I really wanted a factory filter though, so hey.

[wolf_walker]

Came out decent for what little I have in it.  Got to flow better than that stock BS.

[wolf_walker]

I love spray-on bedliner.  So much.

[wolf_walker]

Soo..  this is still going on.  And escalated a bit.
The pass side rust is done, as is a bit of relatively minor in the rockers, and some below the rear window,
and all the seamsealer has been removed with a dental pick, re-sealed, primed and topcoated in a
very narrow band of black.  It's a little ratty looking from under five or six feet but otherwise is decent.
I elected not to reproduce the double wall setup VW had on the inner fender, we seam welded in the repair panels
after cutting out all the rust, and bonded the outer layer up top to that steal and sealed it, so I think it's
plenty solid.  Have I mentioned I hate unibody cars?

The TT 2" exhaust is on, and didn't fit for crap in the rear but it's fixed now.
The DP we built seems to fit well enough, not running so we'll see.

The shift linkage is hooked up, all the play is gone, every bit, except what is actually
in the transmission which is a fair bit, but it's still a lot better than anything one could do with stock
plastic and it should last basically forever.

Got the front sway bar and Scirocco K-bar fitted.

Both fenders ended up off, no rust at all on the drivers side, I poked
and scraped off a few places since I didn't believe it but it's clean.
Both sides are undercoated and primered and painted etc, etc and waiting on fenders.

The fenders, have managed to rust under the top reinforcing plate, so I bought a spot weld
drillbit and will remove and deal with that.  There is also some trailing edge rust to fix.
I still think it's better than dealing with aftermarket fenders, and they will still be mostly
the right color. 

Ordered a cheap, and I do mean cheap in all senses of the word, euro plastic front bumper from
ECS.  I think I'm getting too old to not have a front bumper at all.

Eastwood supplied a number of cavity penetrating rust preventative goo's that was used
liberally everywhere I could get the 3" flex tube into.  Fair bit of additional undercoating as well.
The rockers were ugly paint but solid, they are now primed, painted and bedliner'd like the tailgate.
Came out pretty well.

Found one of my wiper pivots was shot, ordered a set of NOS ones from Canada and rebuilt the
wiper trans with them.

Found an Italian or some such speedo cable on ebay awhile back rather than the cheap
crappy replacement everyone sells lately, hopefully it's quiet.

Found a door hinge welded on crooked, and a number of other less than impressive things
related to build quality as I removed paint and sealer from body joints.  You can tell it wasn't
built in Germany to say the least.

Got a new carpet that fit so-so at best, cleaned up the interior and treated the weatherstripping, sunroof,
etc, this evening since it's been sitting for over a year.  Still looks nice.  Seats in tomorrow and
then on to the fenders, I've been putting them off since I'm sick of paint and body work that I'm not
very good at.

Been a LOT of other little things, more than I can remember, but it's getting there.
And after all this it STILL needs to have the doors off and cleaned up, and the front and rear
glass out.  My Wife forbade me to do them till it was on the ground and running again, which might have been
wise.


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[vanbcguy]

See how you do with the flex joint there. I just had my downpipe rebuilt last week to move it from there further forward. Don't really know what else you could do with that setup though other than doing dual flex joints.

The problem I had was the whole exhaust was getting vibrated around too much and engine movements was really throwing it around. It'll get pushed downwards when you accelerate, in my case it was hitting the crossmember.

[92EcoDiesel Jetta]

Looking good!


Question: Do you have problems with mice droppings under the heater box?

[wolf_walker]

Two years later, she rides.  Fired it up yesterday, test drove today.



Installing fenders sucks almost as much as removing them.
I see why VW gobbed so much sealer in there, it's the only want to cover up
how lazy they fit.  I'm not body man and they aren't perfectly aligned, but
I really don't think they are much worse than they were to start with, and that
was factory.  Anyway, they are back on and sealed up.

Surprisingly uneventful mechanically.
Two minor coolant leaks.
No apparent oil leaks after two heat/cool cycles.
Motor mount adjustment seems good.  TT HD mounts are pleasant.
Shift linkage works, it's full of TT and delrin and weights and whatever else I could throw at it.
It's still a VW, but it shifts really, really well so far.
Nary a rattle or complaint from the exhaust, I was worried about the TT stuff as I had to cut the thing
to make it fit and make a new hanger in the rear, not even a rattle though.
The intake is a little noisy, time will tell if it drones or is too loud to live with.
Need further driving for much suspension testing.
Brakes are tight with SS lines front and rear, finally.
I added the oil/coolant heat exchanger and it seems to be aiding
in oil temp warm up just like I expected, with the previous external oil cooler, even
on a t-stat, it took forever for the oil to get up to temp. 
The late style crankcase vent stuff is working, I guess.


Had some electrical oddness, but mostly problems I created.
I put in an LED tied to the output of the cooling fan relay, and a
switch tied to the trigger pin of the relay since I occasionally want to
manually kick it on.  All that stuff works, and the fan cycles as it should,
odd part is when you turn the AC on (and the cooling fan kicks on), then turn
AC off, the cooling fan stays on until the blower fan is turned off.
Also, though I'm not sure how it'd be related, my freon has leaked low
enough that the AC isn't working.  Weird.

Electro-oddity #2 is my i-can't-leave-well-enough-alone glowplug circuit,
basically a really high quality external (ford starter style) relay with separate fuses/lines
to each glow plug and big direct power from battery, relay is triggered by the stock
GP relay.  I also added an LED on the GP power side of the external relay so I can see
when they are really on.  Works, but when kicking off it flickers, I can hear the stock
relay chattering for a second or so before letting go.  I can run wires and such but I'm
no engineer, I wonder if not having a load on the stock GP relay is somehow screwing
with it, or if the VW relay is just crapping out maybe.  I don't like it chattering though, or
the external one.  Really do not want to go to a manual setup, it's 2015... 

Other than that she seems to have come through her sabbatical pretty well.  Needs a wax job
bigtime, and I'm still dicking around with a cheap aftermarket euro front bumper I bought.







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[wolf_walker]

I was reading back through this, can't believe how long this one drug on.

Couple follow-ups.
 
The high mounted fuel filter with the Mercedes pre-filter works perfect, I primed the pump
(with two year old fuel) using my mityvac on the return fitting like always and it fired right up
with no drama after sitting for so long and being torn down to the longblock.  Good ole motor.

The shift linkage is, in a word, awesome.  (expletive) awesome in fact.
It's not perfect, it's still a VW, but holy crap is it so much better.
I'll never touch that plastic BS again, money well spent.

The airbox is noisy, like NA blurb blurb at idle and resonance at some speeds noisy.
It's not crazy bad, but it's bad enough I'd like to make it better.  I'm pondering an
enclosed airbox of some sort to go in place of the cut up A2 TD Jetta one I have on there.

The exhaust is great, the enlarged DP, well braced and with good mounts isn't hitting the swaybar, no rattle, nothing.
The TT stuff is good once I finally got it in a happy place, it's all just surprisingly fine.  I fully expected to have to jerk
around adjusting it but no problems so far.

The Koni STR.T struts are worlds better than the cheap Boge/Sachs stuff I've been running.
I suspect they are still soft for "performance" use but for a stockish height street Rabbit/Caddy I'm totally sold.


The only thing left that rattles is the steering column, again.  Still.
I've got bearings and junk for it if I ever get the nerve up to pull it out.
Again.

[ORCoaster]

Good for you.   Let me know if you get that steering wheel quiet.  I have been chasing that erattle on bumps ever since I did the struts.

[wolf_walker]

Not holding my breath on a quiet column, least not with a diesel.