My free a4 tdi project

scha0786 said:

My next project is going to be cutting out the cat. I debated buying a new down pipe from a local shop but 300 is pretty steep, so I am going to remove the down pipe from the car, cut and weld in a new straight piece and bolt back in with a new gasket and clamp.

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Don't worry about the downpipe gasket, I've reused mine ten times now, and it's under pressure. No telltale soot stains to show leakage.

scha0786 said:

finished putting new control arms with ball joints, sway bar bushings, sway bar links and new tie rod assemblies. I haven't been working on this car as much as I would like because my truck needed new u-joints and a new rear pinion seal.

But now that I got that stuff done I am going to get a lifetime alignment from my local shop for this car. Pretty sweet deal, you get two alignments every year for the life you own the car at a one time price of $180.

So Ill get one now and then before winter I am going to put new strut assemblies and tires and get the second one.

My next project is going to be cutting out the cat. I debated buying a new down pipe from a local shop but 300 is pretty steep, so I am going to remove the down pipe from the car, cut and weld in a new straight piece and bolt back in with a new gasket and clamp.

After this work I am saving up for my timing belt service and new crank/cam seals along with some internal work that the local shop recommends at that mileage.

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I can't believe you've done all the OTHER work and STILL haven't done the TIMING BELT SERVICE

TB done in post 1. Must be willing to trust the guy who gave it to you.

JDSwan87 said:

I can't believe you've done all the OTHER work and STILL haven't done the TIMING BELT SERVICE

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this^^.... good thing about that is, if it fails, the car will be worth everything he paid for it

some pictures of the new suspension parts (control arms with bushing, sway bar links and bushings and inner/outer tie rods)





also while under there I noticed this bolt was loose but has been for quite some time, probably was forgotten when they installed the new turbo a while back



Also, I called up the shop that did the tuning and got a quote for their 300k overhaul.

So I have that in the near future, probably around fall time. It includes a whole slew of stuff to get replaced and yes the timing belt will be done at that time.

Oh and I forgot, last night I plasti dipped the rims, lol.

hello all, its been a couple months but I am back at it again.

getting ready for another minnesota winter:

ordered 4 new glow plugs with harness from fixmyvw.com along with some glove box and arm rest repair kits (getting really tired of them falling all over the place)

Tried to pick up a new downpipe with no cat but midwestmotors sold them all, lol. He is having more welded up as we speak.

I've got 259k on it now and have been driving this a ton for work so I am way in the positive on this again.

So I will be pulling the trigger this fall on the midwestmotorworks 300k tune up and new tires

stay tuned....

installed a new cabin filter last night, pretty sure that has never been done for its whole life.

I also cleaned the snow screen on the intake tube, totally plugged! Now I will be getting all kinds of fresh cold air from the head light, check it out

This weeks progress

installed arm rest fix
installed glove box fix
installed new trunk gas struts
installed new hood gas strut
installed new antenna and base

ordered a new cd player for this too, kenwood unit with built in HD radio tuner

also will be taking all the gauges from my 6.0 turbo diesel and installing them in the jetta.

boost, EGT, voltmeter and temperature (it is set up for transmission right now)

does anyone know where I could install an 1/8" NPT sensor to read the manual transmission temperature?

thanks,

How'd the timing belt service go?

scha0786 said:

.........................Tried to pick up a new downpipe with no cat but midwestmotors sold them all, lol. ....................

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pretty sure fixmyvw has those

i see that they do sell it, thats alright, I'll wait and get the pipe local.

does anyone know if there is a 1/8" NPT I can tap into for transmission temp gauge?

scha0786 said:

does anyone know if there is a 1/8" NPT I can tap into for transmission temp gauge?

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nothing on the car is going to be a standard thread, not even bspt, closest you'll get is the bastard thread on the valve stems, it is an inch dimension thread, but not a standard diameter

you could drill and tap a drain/fill plug or weld a bung on the side cover, but really you don't need to monitor the temp of the mtf at all. If you're concerned, slap your hand on the bottom of it after a long drive, the P/S line that runs alongside it will be hotter.

update......

installed downpipe with no cat in it.
HVAC blower fan switch took a dump when I was 300 miles from home when OA temp was 8F out.

Ended up logging on here on my phone, ripped apart in a tractor repair shop parking lot and bummed some JB weld to fix my fan selector BI metal strip.

Let it cure and on the road I went and good as new, lol.

Next project.....

new front strut assemblies, wheel hubs with bearings, rotors, pads, drive axle boots.
then new set of cooper CS5 ultra tires
alignment

and finally, what everyone has been harping me to do

Timing belt service
and midwest motorworks 300k over haul

When they do the 300K over haul, i'll have them retune it for new injector cups and shortly after i will install my EGT probe, batt volt and boost gauge

debating if I should have them install a new clutch with a single mass flywheel and seals as long as they have the motor ripped apart, hmmm will have to think about that one.

pics of front suspension tear down.



old parts coming out


new parts ready for install

Got it all done:

I love fresh parts that are rust free! Made a world of a difference on ride height in the front (1.5" higher now, lol), steering and braking.

Tomorrow I'm getting new Cooper CS5 tires installed and alignment done.

couple pics of fresh parts

Tires and alignment are done! Holy crap this thing rides super smooth now.

Well I finally bit the bullet and installed power plus 520 nozzles. Took it into the midwest motorworks and got the 300k over haul done (includes TIMING BELT CHANGE) and had them throw in a single mass flywheel along with a stage 1 clutch pack and replace the crank seal while in there.

Going to get the injectors POP tested with the new nozzles and have them reflash the computer to take full potential of EGR delete, Straight pipe and bigger nozzles.

Next on the list is a VNT17 turbo and the next stage of tuning.

In between this though I will be doing a dyno run to get a baseline before the turbo swap.

After that I think I am done in the upgrades world and will be in maintenance mode.

stepping back into wrenching on the jetta again. Had some home projects to get done around the house and not to mention had a baby girl thrown in there.

So I ordered up some parts and have a pile of them sitting in the garage, on the list is:

-new rear shocks and mounts
-new rear springs
-new rear hub assemblies
-new rear stub axles
-new rear wheel speed sensors
-new rear parking brake cables and guides/supports
-new rear hard brake lines
-new rear soft brake lines
-new rear axle bushings (went with the cupra R style)
-Also bought new front fenders and will be painting and installing these also fix some rust issues on the rocker panels. FOr this I will be using POR 15 and top coat with the jetta silver paint.

I plan on tearing into this tonight and will take pictures. Depending on time, I will try and paint the axle with POR 15 also.

scha0786 said:

Had some home projects to get done around the house and not to mention had a baby girl thrown in there.

So I ordered up some parts and have a pile of them sitting in the garage, on the list is:

-new rear hub assemblies
-new rear stub axles
-new rear wheel speed sensors
-new rear parking brake cables and guides/supports

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First, congratulations on the new addition.

I'm curious.
Why the hub and axles?
How bad were the speed sensors?
One of mine is bad.
I just put the new heaver parking brake cables in. Was the easiest upgrade project I ever did.

Rich W.

Whenever I touch something on older cars I typically just replace it all.

Since I do all my own work myself, I can afford it. From what I have researched, when you go to pull the wheel bearing on the old rusty jettas half of the bearing stays on the stub axle and then you are stuck with cutting and grinding to get it off. Since mine looked pretty rusty I decided to just replace the whole dang thing, start fresh.

Well I dove into this head first last night after the baby went to sleep and got the wheels off, drivers side ripped down to the axle. As I suspected the wheel bearing split in two but with a little heat i was able to impact off the stub axle bolts.

I did have one snag when working on it last night, when going to remove the brake line from the frame to axle connection it broke the hard line on the frame of the car. Not a big deal, I will just have to put in a union up stream at an accessible location and hand make a new line to the axle connection. From there I have all new stainless flex lines and hard lines to the caliper. Hopefully when I go to do the passenger side I will be more careful as that side is not so easy to install a union as it runs above the gas tank.
I do have new gas tank straps that I am going to install but really don't feel like dropping the tank at this point.
here is some pics from the 1 hr of work last night. My plan tonight is to slam out the other side and pull the axle, then this weekend I can start on the painting process of the axle.

like my mud flaps, lol. Its all that fleet farm had at the time

scha0786 said:

Whenever I touch something on older cars I typically just replace it all.

From there I have all new stainless flex lines and hard lines to the caliper.

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I do the same with a lot of things.
Do it once, do it right. (sorta)

Where did you find the stainless, or do you do your own?
Stainless is not easy to work with.

Rich W.

huh, I've seen your hooliganmobile on 35W, heading south of the industrial/st.anthony blvd exit. Last year, early spring.

I was in a ford, so I didn't chase after and hooliganate in a conspicuous manner as I would have had I been in the golf.

lol awesome! I love seeing other TDIs on the road. Mine is pretty easy to pick out from a croud.

I love hyper mileaging around and then every once and a while I smoke out a brand new Tesla or Mercedes, lol. It makes me giggle.

The stainless lines are just the flex part, I bought new hard lines from ID parts (I dont think these are stainless thought) for the chunk on the axle part.

Update!
Last night I got the axle yanked out and ran into another snag. The hard line on the Passenger side was even worse than expected. I tried everything in my power to not snap the hard line but she is frozen solid with rust. So now I am going to have to redo the whole rear brake lines! Yuck. I just got done doing this on my wifes grand prix this spring, but that car I did all new brake lines front to back and fuel supply/return and evap lines!

So my issue is I have to pull the gas tank down/out to get at the passenger rear line because there is no way I can sneak the new line above, any help on what is involved here would be great. I've tried searching but not a lot of luck.

well here are some pics from last nights beer and wrenching time.

Heres some pics

Got a little more work done this weekend.
Got the gas tank out, luckily I ran it down to the low fuel light so it was nice and light, lol.
Also ordered a new fuel level sensor without a check valve and new fuel lines on the tank. Figured this is a good idea as to remove the tank to replace those lines would be a pain in the butt.
I worked on practicing my bubble flares on some of the old lines on the axle and think I got it down.
Bought a roll of 3/16" copper nickle brake line and a bunch of M10x1.0 bubble flare nuts/unions.
I also dropped my axle off at a local sandblasting place and should get that back in a day. Then I can paint it with POR15 and top coat with jetta silver.
Here are some pics.



Pic of how rusty the old hard line was



Pic of my bubble flare test piece, feel confident now to do it on the car now.



Ill post some more pics once I get the new lines all bent up and installed in place, the copper nickle stuff is awesome to work with.

Had another snag last night, couldn't get the stock brake line to bubble flare. I have a really nice OTC professional flare kit but it wont do it. So now I am stuck with replacing the whole line set from the front to the rear!

Not that big of deal just more time and material.

Also, the stainless flex lines (rear inner) I ordered from IDparts wont work either. THere is no notch/flange for the spring retainers to keep them in place on the brackets. Kinda pissed about that because they were $30 a piece and there was no note or anything on the website about that. Oh well, live and learn. I did write a review about that on the website to hopefully save the next guy.

Well I did get some brake lines bent up last night, here are some pics.

You do a nicer job bending the lines then I do.
I don't have the patients.