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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