Repairs at Richard's

I had a fellow tdi owner ask me how much I have invested in the NB now.
wow that is a great question. Lets just say I have spend just about all the money I have gotten from working on TDIs for the past 1 1/2 years. Believe me that is more then $5.00 , if I were to do this work for someone else it would be, labor and parts, $30,000 plus. lol way more than it is worth, but I would do it all over again.
What I have left to do in: tires, alignment, windshield, audio system and some interior work. So another $2-3,000. It runs like a bat out of he$$. and it gets super mega mileage. The best I have gotten so far is an amazing 80.2 mpg as indicated on my scangage II Yes I have calibrated it twice and installed it on another tdi and it appears to be right on. The head I had "Headbytes" build is just way out of the ball park for workmanship and quality. More to follow and lots of pics If I can just figure out where to find the URL. I have the pics in the tdi photo book but still do not see something called a URL

Have great news, I am having a full "airlift performance" air ride suspension with the "autopilot V2" control system delivered and this should be in next week. I will of course document the entire install and will try to get the photos up here on the tdi club thread. I must be the dumbest a$$ there is for uploading pics. lol Now everything is so small you can't see them when posted. Thumbnail. pics. wow. this is such a hassle to me. lol I have hundreds of pics that need to be posted for this entire buildout.

Can't wait to see to photos, you might have to hook me up with an airlift.

be happy to Tony

A few questions have been sent to me about the "air lift performance" system.
The tank will be mounted right behind the back seat in the "trunk" and I am thinking about mounting the manifold right above it, as it needs to be higher than the tank. I will be mounting the lines inside the car until they get to the fender wells, then grommets thru the fender wells to the steel braided lines. that way no chance of them being caught on something in the road.
I am the official installer of the "air lift performance" systems for "Bora Parts" in the south east so if you are looking at getting a system I would be happy help you thru the purchase and then install them for you.

lol when they say a kit for built for several different cars, even if they all are MKIV VWs, plan on doing a lot of things that are not as directed in the install manual. lol
With NB the rear bags mount differently than the other mkIVs and the same with the front struts. NOT even close, but I am informing the tech department on the needed changes in the manual. The are very receptive to getting the information. I will have a full install series with pics as soon as I can get the pics uploaded to my satisfaction.
If you do not have tools and a good working knowledge of cars I would not advise you to take on this mod.

80mpg and the power you are getting is unreal. I cant wait to see it in person soon Richard. Will try to ride down there in the next 2 weeks..

Great Job!

I can't thank you enough! Saved my behind today . It's unbelievable that my IP was hanging on by a single bolt. Sorry for all the extra work you had to do. The Motor is running great now. Purge in morning.
Best Regards,

Ferdy

My pleasure bro. Happy driving.

Waiting for a couple parts to come in today for my NB. 2 bulkhead air fittings for the air ride and a front crank seal, this time I am installing a spring seal and not the PTFE seal. Hope this stops the front seal from leaking. It will be running again with air lift performance suspension installed and, lol, hope no front seal leak.

Richard, so what kind of real life MPG have you been getting from miles driven/gallons to fill? I am interested in this head of yours. Hope to see you at Daniels.

It's consistently in the mid to upper 70s.

Thanks Richard

I have a 2005 Golf TDI that was getting terrible fuel mileage . It had a timing belt install not long ago where they done a mark a pray type thing and it was a tooth off.
Richard put in a new timing belt , water pump , stretch bolts and pulleys . He also looked further and found my cam and lifters were badly worn . He in stall those. And thanks to him everything is well with my car. It went from 29 mpg to 38 to 40.

I appreciate that Richard


Thanks Tim

I think all the bugs have been exercised,lol, out of the air lift system and it appears to be doing a great job. Again this system can not be installed on a NB using the install manual that is provided with the kit, so if you do get one of these systems feel free to call or PM me and I will let you in on all the secrects for this installation.
Aligned the front end yesterday and the shop had the brand new Hunter alignment system and I was the very first customer. I got to watch as they aligned the NB and wow it is right on now, both front and back. It drives great now. Sweet.

wow car was running like crap. QA way off the charts each morning and it would not run until I went into vagcom and reset the QA. What a hassle.
Got 2 500cc cans of liquimoly diesel clean and went to town. It alive again, what a great product this is. Starts right up in the morning, idles great and goes like heck again. Must have had a sticky QA adjuster and it is now spick and span clean.
Sweet

I did have one challenge with the air lift performance bag system and it was not their problem but mine. I did not know where to start with the dampner part of the system. It was just hit and miss for me. The car rode like a train on tracks. If was so rough. I discovered that a simple adjustment meant the difference between loving the ride and hating the ride. I wanted a system that could ride like a Cadillac and raise up to get over any objects in the road. These systems are made for the "slamers" not for the driver that wants to jet over things. lol, but after doing several adaptations it is now exactly what I am looking for and now other can do the same thing, if they want to. lol.

Ok, so I have a tiny oil leak, lol, front crank seal will not stop leaking. I have installed 5 different seal, both PTFE and spring seals and still no joy. I even sent off and bought the seal install tool, thinking it might be me, but still no joy.
So I called a couple of auto machine shops and they said this happens all the time. Thanks but how do I fix it short of installing a new crank. It seems there is a Timken seal repair sleave that goes over the front crank. I sent off for it and now am about to install it. Will post the results as soon as I get it installed. I'll take pics and if I can get them up you will all see the process..

On other engines I have had success holding fine sand paper with a piece of wood against the shaft while someone else runs the starter.
Basically polishing the shaft while it's still in the block.

I like that answer, I'll try it if the repair sleave doesn't work. thanks.

well the seal still leaks, I am really getting an attitude with this one. lol I guess it is time to repull the engine and find out what the heck is going on

We lost a great tdi friend last night. Papadoc lost his fight with cancer and passed. I will miss Wesley and know he is now driving his tdi in Heaven. What a great guy is was. Fun to be around and make you laugh at the drop of a hat. See you later Papadoc.

Very sorry to hear this, my condolences to his friends and family.

Richard55 said:

We lost a great tdi friend last night. Papadoc lost his fight with cancer and passed. I will miss Wesley and know he is now driving his tdi in Heaven. What a great guy is was. Fun to be around and make you laugh at the drop of a hat. See you later Papadoc.

Click to expand...

I changed his user title to reflect his passing. My condolences to his survivors.

Thank you VeeDubTDI

I am looking at doing a GTG in the next couple of months. I was at a dyno shop yesterday and they are open to a GTG on a saturday. They will open up their shop and their dynojet 225 for us. They will give great discounts for the club. Of course you don't have to get a dyno run to come.

I will have a BBQ and lots of room to park and enjoy our cars.
The location would be in Covington Ga. east of ATL about 40 miles. This is where they filmed the TV series "Dukes of Hazzard".

If there is an interest for a GTG in February or March. Let me know.

This will be a great time to really find out what the tune is doing for your car. Compare different makes and different stages of the tunes.

It is an indoor dyno and you will be warm if the weather is cold or raining. They have two lifts and I will try to get access to both of them. This will ge a great GTG

Bring your old parts for a swap or sell meet also.

light maintance can be done. LOL no clutches ect.

I just want to give credit to Richard who completely rebuilt my 02J and "YES" it shifts like "BUTTER" again. Richard also did some suspension work while he had the tranny out. I could not be happier with the results. It is a real pleasure to drive this "QUIET" and smooth shifting Jetta again. I am looking forward to this GTG.

Thank you for the kind words.
I am building a hybred 02J trans right now for my NB. Custom gear ratios, it should be a great trans for a high performance tdi car. Not for a stock engine as 1st, 2nd and 3rd will be a little too high for the stock motor. I'm thinking about taking it to the GTG March 14th and show how they are rebuilt. If anyone is interested in this let me know. If I don't get any response I will go ahead and rebuild it and install it in my NB before the GTG and drive it over there.

I'm bringing a ton of swap stuff to the GTG. Didn't realize how much I had until I started putting it into totes. lol

I've got some stuff I can bring too. Good idea!

Bring everything