The "What did you do to your B4 today" thread...

IndigoBlueWagon said:

Steve, his car is 23 years old. If the foam blocks were going to cause rust I would think they would have by now.

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Maybe, but in his neck of the woods could just be slow creeping rust too.

Steve

Steve Addy said:

Maybe, but in his neck of the woods could just be slow creeping rust too.
Steve

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Dang, like I need another project. Thanks pal.

But OK I'll add it to my rainy-day list.

Felt good to un-pimp my ride with the correct wheels today. Sits about an inch lower now.

After almost three years and 80,000 miles, one of my Tygon fuel return lines off the injectors sprung a leak. I was driving to work this morning and smelled diesel fuel, so I pulled over and looked under the hood to see it spraying. I keep all my extra hoses in the trunk, so I just quickly changed them all out and drove on.\

Between theninjectors? There are different formulations of Tyron with carrying diesel compatibility.

i was looking for info to turn off the glow plugs after glow. where in VCDS and how do you turn off the after glow.
im not the biggest fan of most diesel emissions, and really see the elongated after glow as a current draw. id like to make my after glow about 30seconds after start.

im probably going to 'hot wire' my coolant glow plugs. seems wiring harness may be crumbling in places. going to have to improvise. get some wire and connectors, hardest part is getting wire into the dash. use a 90amp switch, just have to remember to turn off switch. hook up one connector to 'out' side of fuse, and other to 'out' wire. hopefully this will complete circuit. i ll get heat!

Digital Corpus said:

Between theninjectors? There are different formulations of Tyron with carrying diesel compatibility.

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It was right at the top of the nipple on the injector furthest from the pump. When removing the other hoses, one broke off at the top of the nipple. Could just be a stress point.

iluvmydiesels said:

i was looking for info to turn off the glow plugs after glow. where in VCDS and how do you turn off the after glow.
im not the biggest fan of most diesel emissions, and really see the elongated after glow as a current draw. id like to make my after glow about 30seconds after start.
im probably going to 'hot wire' my coolant glow plugs. seems wiring harness may be crumbling in places. going to have to improvise. get some wire and connectors, hardest part is getting wire into the dash. use a 90amp switch, just have to remember to turn off switch. hook up one connector to 'out' side of fuse, and other to 'out' wire. hopefully this will complete circuit. i ll get heat!

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The coolant GP's will only draw about 33 amps total but I would wire it through a relay or solenoid instead of making it direct. You can use a momentary switch and then just hold it for the duration of the time you want them to run. If you wire it up any other way you'll forget and likely do some damage to them or other.

How is the operation of the post-start glow cycle a negative? I think anything that helps to build heat in these engines early on is a good thing.

I'm not sure there's a VCDS function to turn it off completely, but maybe. I don't see anything wrong with the current draw, it only lasts maybe 45 seconds max? Why is that such a problem? Is your alternator or battery defective?

Steve

Finally got a OEM VW drivers front window regulator and swapped out the crap one (for 5th time) and now it seems to work like new. That window has never been right since the day i bought the car in 2012. Its nice to have the car all together and with clean paint and everything working again. I surprisingly get compliments on it all the time from people that know what they are and that know that most of them are rotted to the ground or already crushed. I sure am glad i saved this one 7yrs ago and plan on another 7yrs hopefully.

Steve Addy said:

How is the operation of the post-start glow cycle a negative? I think anything that helps to build heat in these engines early on is a good thing.
it only lasts maybe 45 seconds max?

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some info i came across about this made me think the after glow or post glow is extensive. the coolant glow plugs are limited to 1 glow plug in operation when post glow is active. it seemed the post glow could be for minutes and more. not just 45secs. which is ok. and with out my coolant glow plugs working, my temp doesnt even come up for more than 5minutes, maybe less than 10minutes driving time to get the gauge to register any heat. so in that case it sounded the post-glow may be extended, for engine heat and emissions. under 2300rpms the glow plugs could be active, with a cool engine.
my heat w/o the coolant GPs gets no more than ~160 dg, thats after an extended warm up time. in colder weather obviously it doesnt always get that warm.

battery is ok, and alt should be ok. i have concerns as i was trying to figure out why i had slow cranking, well as it turns out the battery had come loose from its clamp and had loosened the ground. right now im hoping i didnt hurt the alternator when the post was loose. when i got down home, the voltage read ok, but i hooked it up to a charger, it has a %age of battery display, well after the alt had a chance to charge it for some time, it was reading 25%, right now i charged it, everything seems ok. prob should get battery load tested. and get a tester hooked up to alt to be sure. like i said volts are ok.

well i hot wired my coolant GPs, they work now!! now i think i found my (heat) problem. i get heat quick. 2 minutes or less driving and my gauge is coming up.
going to have one of my guys look at it, trace the harness and he can patch it up. i get a good price there.
so i figure its the no-brand aftermarket cylinder head i put on thats causing the engine not to heat up. the things a real piece of work.. my gauge never goes over about 160dg, vag-com will read 85.x dg C but it cools quick and varies. thats the temp off the 'front' flange, coming out of the head, the lower rad hose going to the water pump is quite cool tho. its not right for such cool water to go into a block bottom thats supposed to be hot. the timing graph, when i pull this up will read coolant temp is cool, about 80dg C.
the (also)no-brand cam was doing a number on the lifters, also no-brand i think. not good, no-name no-brand parts. the febi cam and ina lifters i put in, i pulled the valve cover and took a look, they have been in for ~2k miles, no wear pattern(visible). thats good.
im going to pull that head and it ll go on the shelf, it can be a hunk of aluminum there for quite some time. i dont think its useful for anything but recycling, i dont think i can get that much for it.
got an oem core or two i can work with. may send to frank to get him to do some minimal work to it. i just need springs, betw all the parts i ve been getting together, and other things, like beetches too, they take dough and not a lil'' . need som'-mo' money to finish this.

Did an oil change. Some fresh M1 TDT

Found the literal bit to flip in a MSA15.5 tune to re-enable the clutch pedal. Yay, stubbornness! Side effects without this singular bit include depressing the pedal and cruise control staying on and if you switch to neutral while engine braking CC doesn’t disable either. Tapping the brake does turn it off like normal though.

Had a dent taken out from a passenger door of my TDI. The guy did a fantastic job. His name is Arslan. He is incredible! https://www.arsdentrepair.com

Also changed all 4 wheels at costco to Michelin. Rides very smooth. Can't be happier

Digital Corpus said:

Found the literal bit to flip in a MSA15.5 tune to re-enable the clutch pedal. Yay, stubbornness! Side effects without this singular bit include depressing the pedal and cruise control staying on and if you switch to neutral while engine braking CC doesn’t disable either. Tapping the brake does turn it off like normal though.

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Correction, engine braking to neutral doesn’t disengage it, but that’s likely on the CC end. I’ll compare a couple of code blocks to the damos to see if I can find what parameter is responsible for this. There are over 2 dozen factors involved in CC operation.

Do I smell spam?

Spam?

Today I prepped the car to sell to someone for a motor swap.

Anyone interested in some B4 underdash trays and a Neuspeed upper strut bar?

Finally got around to swapping out my airbag for a nice B3 glovebox. Loving it so far! Hardest part was, no surprise, the rearmost left side airbag mount. My Superbar did a great job of popping it loose though once I got a proper BFH to pound it with.







My two takeaways from the job:
1) Use the center hole of the top mounting bar to hold the bar in place, and just use the two end holes for the glovebox. Can't see any situation in which I'd need three screws to hold it up anyway.
2) Grab some Channel Locks to pull the two bottom screw holes into alignment. Couldn't quite get it there with my hands.

Bought some B4 seat bases for the B3V, will combine these bases with sport seat cushions and black cloth covers to bring the B3V closer to 'GT' level trim.



Steve

Out cycling with a friend saw this on the curb, thought I recognized it, went back later with the truck and picked it up, Mk3 sport seat with black leather and seat heater. The parts will come in handy.

Steve

What are the odds of that!

*grabs a calculator*
Oh yeah, this is one of those rhetorical questions!

Spring has sprung and soon, I’ll be wanting AC in the B4. The condenser has been leaking since I bought the car, in 2014 and I just top it off as needed. Last year I was topping the system off constantly.

Pulled the hoses off a few months back and finally got them flushed. Flushed a spare condenser I had, too.

The filth from the 3 step flush/back flush.




At this point, I just need to pull the nose off the car, drain the compressor, flush the evaporator, put it back together, vacuum and charge. I’ll probably use some coil cleaner on the condenser.

-Todd

Abacus said:

What are the odds of that!

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Digital Corpus said:

*grabs a calculator*
Oh yeah, this is one of those rhetorical questions!

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Yeah, that does not happen very often. At first I wasn't sure they were 'curbing' it but then when I went back it was shoved right to the edge of the street.

The seat cushions for these are the hard ones to find, they usually get worn out at the bolsters where people slide in and out. The cloth gets a hole in it and then the rest starts to go. I had trouble finding two good cushions for the striped seats I got last year, parts from this will be nice to have, especially passenger seat parts.

Appears to have come from a 97 or 98, probably a Cabrio.

Steve

Pulled the AC compressor, last night and drained it. It’s standing on end to allow everything to drain... I spin the hub every so often, to help it out.

Flushed the evaporator, tonight. Pulled out the spare o-rings, to be sure I had what was needed. Picking up some o-rings, that I ordered and the vacuum pump from Autozone, tomorrow. I always say I’m going to buy a vacuum pump, but I can’t warrant the spend, since renting is free.

-Todd

Digital Corpus said:

Correction, engine braking to neutral doesn’t disengage it, but that’s likely on the CC end. I’ll compare a couple of code blocks to the damos to see if I can find what parameter is responsible for this. There are over 2 dozen factors involved in CC operation.

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Fixed Cruise Control and it turns off when popping out of gear. I might make it more sensitive since I know what the function is, but I need to run the math on it first to see how much it matters.

I know these problems are ones of my own making and are involved in editing a tune. I do plan on mapping these out a little more reliably over in the older tuning thread others made with VAGSuite way back when.

ToddA1 said:

Pulled the AC compressor, last night and drained it. It’s standing on end to allow everything to drain... I spin the hub every so often, to help it out.

Flushed the evaporator, tonight. Pulled out the spare o-rings, to be sure I had what was needed. Picking up some o-rings, that I ordered and the vacuum pump from Autozone, tomorrow. I always say I’m going to buy a vacuum pump, but I can’t warrant the spend, since renting is free.

-Todd

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I need to do something similar with mine. When I replaced my compressor I didn't drain the whole system and put a full 2 fl. oz. of PAG oil in. THe Bently does state an approximate fill volume of which components have what percentage of oil in them when things are cycled and I'm considering draining out the appropriate amount, drawing a vacuum, and then recharging it.

2oz? The entire system calls for 4.5oz. That’s one of the reasons I always flush everything, other than the compressor. It’s hard to determine what’s still in the system.

That’s also an issue with topping a system off. Although I did it successfully for 5+ years, I was only adding refrigerant, not oil. I think the only time I added oil, was a few years back, when it was blended with the 6oz can of stop leak, I dumped in.

I never really thought about adding a specific amount of oil to each component. I understand the principle, but I’ve pulled a compressor apart, and although drained, there’s still a lot of oil left inside.

-Todd

Sorry, forgot the full volume. With that said, it’s not trying to fill each component, but knowing how much of the full volume would be contained in each component and replenishing only that amount.

Pulled the nose off the B4 and yanked the leaking condenser. It was in rough shape. The car had minor frontal damage when I bought it. I remember the condenser being a banana. I straightened it out with 2x4s and ratchet straps, without discharging the system. It’s done it’s time and doesn’t owe me anything.








While I had everything off, I installed a lower rad hose hook. This was missing since ownership, but I bought this one a couple years ago. Time to get it on.... I lost a lower rad hose, due to chafing.






Cleaned the coil and rad, since they were accessible. Rad came out nice, the coil not really noticeable. Guess this stuff isn’t for painted coils. Hold your breath when spraying...




Tomorrow night I may start reassembly and vacuum.

-Todd