What did you do to your MKIV today?

Someone broke into my TDI a few months back and stole my old alpine head unit. The one that fit into the oem mounting brackets and matched the oem dash board lighting colors. After failing to find the same headunit and failing at wiring a different alpine with a similar color scheme, I installed an oem radio.


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Oil change, drain and refill trans fluid, air filter and fuel filter.......

However, my car hates me because after I got everything all cleaned up, the drivers side window clips broke and the window fell into the door. Back into the garage it goes, hope to get to it in the next few days...

Picked up the first 2 components for my alh manual swap today!

Egr trans _ 156k miles
Manual starter same vehicle.

Yesterday the FK street lines came in... The ones actually for a Bora.

To be installed later next week (together with about half the car teardown...)

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Southbend stage 3 clutch gave up a few weeks ago, couldn't apply more than 20% power without it slipping. Not sure exactly when it was installed, but I've put almost 150k miles on it just myself since purchasing the car. There were no signs of any unusual wear or broken springs (clutch disk had decent amount of life left as well), but the pressure plate was definitely not right. You could feel the unevenness in the clutch pedal. Replaced with same unit and resurfaced flywheel. Was hoping the latest design would be quieter at idle and maybe a lighter pedal...no such luck, exactly the same!

And finally replaced my two front fenders, very pleased with the color match. Not perfect, but close enough for this 300k mile/17yr old car!

Gratuitous post-detail photo:


The old car still cleans up pretty well.

Washed and waxed the old girl today. Winter was not good to her and the body has some rust forming but the frame is thankfully okay. I’m hoping to get another 4 years of service out of her. I’ll be driving 20k miles so that’ll take me to 330k and I’ll decide what do from there. Id love to get a Mkvi GTI at that point!

My car is a love hate relationship.... got door panel back together (turns out I have the upgraded window clips, they were just loose), functioned everything electrical, buttoned up and took for a test drive. Did great, shifted great, felt planted at speed..... then I smelled brakes.... came home went to open the door...... and I'm locked in (I forgot to hook up the door cable)... lasered the rear rotors and the right rear is seized... and i just did both rear calipers not long ago...joy...

JDSwan87 said:

My car is a love hate relationship.... got door panel back together (turns out I have the upgraded window clips, they were just loose), functioned everything electrical, buttoned up and took for a test drive. Did great, shifted great, felt planted at speed..... then I smelled brakes.... came home went to open the door...... and I'm locked in (I forgot to hook up the door cable)... lasered the rear rotors and the right rear is seized... and i just did both rear calipers not long ago...joy...

Click to expand...

Ditto. I fix one thing and something else needs attention just a short while later. But for some reason I just can't give up the "habit". My wife says I actually enjoy it when something breaks so it gives me an excuse to buy upgraded parts and spend time with the other "lady" in my life. She probably has a point.

I installed the cupra rear axle bushings, and pulled the shift tower off the tranny and cleaned an greased it up. Both marked improvements. Joined the 300,000 mile club last night. Time for a timing belt job as soon as i have time.

Over the last 3 weeks I've replaced the front rotors and discs, replaced the strut isolators and inserts (Bilstein TC), and removed and cleaned the intake. I still need to put the intake back on, should be this week/weekend for sure.

It should be the LAST time to clean that intake since EGR will be permanently disabled from now on. It's been enabled periodically during winter and emissions test time, and in 100k miles it's almost as clogged as when I first bought the car at 70k miles.

JDSwan87 said:

My car is a love hate relationship.... got door panel back together (turns out I have the upgraded window clips, they were just loose), functioned everything electrical, buttoned up and took for a test drive. Did great, shifted great, felt planted at speed..... then I smelled brakes.... came home went to open the door...... and I'm locked in (I forgot to hook up the door cable)... lasered the rear rotors and the right rear is seized... and i just did both rear calipers not long ago...joy...

Click to expand...

Finally got time to address the door panel handle issue, all is well now. Now I wait for the ebrake helper springs to arrive from IDPARTS.

Put new rotors and pads on the rear. Replaced brake fluid for all 4 corners and clutch too.

hitman1985 said:

Picked up the first 2 components for my alh manual swap today!

Egr trans _ 156k miles
Manual starter same vehicle.

Yesterday the FK street lines came in... The ones actually for a Bora.

To be installed later next week (together with about half the car teardown...)

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Click to expand...

That ain't an ALH starter sir!

Not strictly MY Mk 4, but my wife's 2003 1.8t Jetta has been constantly showing the coolant red blinking symbol, and the windshield washer fluid low symbol. It was getting quite annoying to her, so today I decided to take care of it. I had to play with it prior to its inspection anyway, and it needed the snow tire studs removed, so away I went.


I decided that since the fluids were OK - wwf topped and coolant within the marks on the recovery ball - then it must be the sensors. So I carefully brushed the 2 exposed wires in the ball, and the wwf tank. The brush is a metal bristle brush made for cleaning stuff (fine brass wire bristles). The coolant ball was fairly easy, but the wwf tank was a problem. I ended up dumping the fluid so that I could get to the sensor wires, and did the brushing in place using a pair of needle nose pliers to hold the brush. Then I refilled the wwf tank.



Fired up the car - and the idiot lights are now off. Yay!


Then I spent a couple of hours pulling the studs. We're not going to be using those tires next winter for snow tires anyway, so time to pull the studs in case we cross the border in that car. NH allows studs year round (don't ask me why) but nobody else does. A regular flat blade screwdriver (about 3/16 at the tip - #2?) allows you to push the blade down the side of the stud and then angle the handle toward the center of the stud continuing pushing and you'll feel the blade skip past the stud mushroom at the bottom. Then you pry it out. It is surprisingly fast once you get the feel of it.


I rotated the tires at the same time and found it a lot easier to turn the steering wheel so the working tire is turned outside. Since it was easier to do the front wheel, rotating the wheels at the same time naturally helped everything along.


Anyway, a few hundred studs later, the car is much quieter, even though it still has noisy snow tires on it.


Next up: on Monday I'll spend the holiday figuring out why my 4-dr's a/c won't work. All I know at this moment is that the fans won't command on and the system still has adequate refrigerant pressure so low pressure isn't what is causing the problem.


Cheers,


PH

I just spent the day on a wrecking yard road trip with a couple of friends.

50% off for the weekend at the Pick-n-pull yards prompted finding a replacement grille, bumper, GLI tail lights and good bulb carriers, a shift knob, and a spare shift linkage weight to be modified for short shifting.

That said, there were a couple of TDI 5 speed cars in the yards, if anyone is in the Portland, Or-Vancouver,Wa area and needing to do a trans conversion.
One Golf in the Vancouver yard, and one Jetta in the Sherwood or North Portland yard.

KCTDI said:

That ain't an ALH starter sir!

Click to expand...

Found out the hard way thank you for the heads up though... That's what I get for just picking and running pretty much ... Had to drive 50 miles back to the guy but he made it right.

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I replaced the rusty front fenders on my indigo blue Golf with new ones ($48 each from Amazon). Got close on the paint color but have a pint of the specific color to put on later. In replacing the front bumper I failed to properly secure one of the side grills and lost it on the road, so removed the other one so at least it's now symetrical. The fenders on my tornado red daily driver are still fine as is the rest of the car -- rust free after almost ten years in the Snow Belt (and closing in on 700k miles in a couple more days).

So, during trouble shooting my inoperative a/c for the 4-dr, I found that there was sufficient refrigerant (well, pressure-wise anyway), the compressor clutch works fine, the compressor is commanded on and off, but won't stay on for more than a few seconds, and both fans will not run.

Yes, the fans are fine. At one point I was going to pull the coolant temp fan plug at the radiator, but true to most weather-sealed connectors, I was unable to get the plug out. My fingers just aren't that strong and there's too much in the way to get a screwdriver in there.

So I decided to re-check the fuse. It looks perfect. The fuse, anyway, so I figured it would be a good idea to pull it and check closer.

It would. NOT. pull. out. Kinda like the weather sealed plugs, only this thing still held even after destructive pulling with a pair of pliers. The one blade came out, but the other, the one on the load side, refused. I was finally able to get it out and found the blade covered with a black substance which greatly resembles the black plastic surrounding the socket. Or rather, the plastic that used to be in the shallow crater surrounding the now pulled blade. Looks like it heated enough to melt the plastic and foul itself.

I was going to replace the whole fuse carrier on top of the battery, but the only spare I have comes from an auto-transaxle car, so it is missing the 5th fuse for the coolant warmer plugs. Sigh...

Anyway, a new fuse and now the coolant fans are running again. I'll test it tonight and see if the a/c problem is corrected.


Update: it worked! Cool air, just in time for summer. Or, what passes for summer way the <bleep> north.



Cheers,


PH

I have to clean that fuse about once a year for that reason. First time I went to use the AC this year and it cut on for a few minutes before quitting. I imagine it will need replacing at some point, but a free fix is always nice!

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So it wasn't today but it was recently... installed an updated (actually downgraded) tune for my now .216 nozzles with a 22 PSI tune and she runs quite well. I do need to lengthen the actuator rod on the turbo to dial in the new tune, but I am now 12 days post knee surgery, so I won't be crawling around/under the car for quite a while. I still need to install the high-carbon rear discs and ceramic pads as well as the MOOG wagon rear springs I recently purchased. I may be able to persuade a mechanic buddy of mine to do the springs and brakes for me. I will keep you posted.

Replaced the blower motor resistor after lost all AC, and settings 1, 2, and 3 on HVAC.

Passed Massachusetts state inspection, finally. After having the car tinted 10 years ago and having it pass every year, this year it was rejected for the tint being too dark. Massachusetts now monitors the inspection process with cameras, so inspectors can't look the other way on anything. I had the tint removed on the windows that go down and replaced with 40%, which, with the VW factory tint, takes the windows to 36. 35 or higher is legal. Car doesn't look any different to me.

Irony is that if your car is more than 15 years old the inspection is safety only. So the inspection doesn't care about the missing EGR cooler, euro tune, and no CAT.

Installed new headlights (Depo R32 style with halos and fogs), installed lower fog lights (Spyder), 2 new fog light harnesses, and new VW euro switch. Everything working as it should, looks real good and LOTS of light.

With summer coming, I added more freon to the system and replaced the window switch.


Next project: blend door foam fix.


Now where's that thread that talks about fixing the foam without taking apart the dash?

I went ahead and installed the front bumper, bumper foam, and grille that I bought from the wrecking yard this weekend.
It's nice to have one attached properly, instead of with sheet metal screws and dry-wall screws, like the prior owner had done to this car...


Now to rebuild the shift bushings, modify the shift weight for TT shift pivot point and install it.

Blew off an inter cooler hose yesterday. The clamp broke. Put a worm gear on so I could go and get the proper t-bolt clamp. Today pull the headlights to get new lenses installed.

Powder Hound said:

So I decided to re-check the fuse. It looks perfect. The fuse, anyway, so I figured it would be a good idea to pull it and check closer.

It would. NOT. pull. out. Kinda like the weather sealed plugs, only this thing still held even after destructive pulling with a pair of pliers. The one blade came out, but the other, the one on the load side, refused. I was finally able to get it out and found the blade covered with a black substance which greatly resembles the black plastic surrounding the socket. Or rather, the plastic that used to be in the shallow crater surrounding the now pulled blade. Looks like it heated enough to melt the plastic and foul itself.

Click to expand...

I would do an amp test going through that fuse.
If it's more then 80% of the fuse amperage I would dig deeper.
Also a bad connection s/a the socket the fuse plugs into being slightly loose could cause the connection to heat up.

Dropped it off to get the side skirt reinstalled.

Started swapping out the gray cloth seats and drooping cloth door cards for the black leather replacements, and was thankful again that I have a Vdub.... Got two front seats done now need to find time to do the door cards and the rears....

Finally got a chance to do my 300,000 mile timing belt. Dropped a Frank06 cam and nitrided lifters in while I was in there too. Seems to pull a little harder, a bit less valvetrain noise too. The original lifters looked brand new on the tops still.