Upgrading 2001 Golf TDI

[runonbeer]

Looks great.

[bobbiemartin]

Between cleaning up tree limbs from the hurricane and other projects, I haven't done much on the Golf. However, I did find time to swap out the crankshaft damper. I decided to go with a Fluidampr.





It sure looks nice. The car seems smoother and also seems to accelerate a little quicker, but maybe it's just wishful thinking. Honestly though, it does seem to be smoother and maybe even shift a bit easier. I haven't seen any downside (other than my wallet ).

I'm really enjoying the car. I have the headliner and interior done from the rear seat back. Still working on some other stuff, it's slow but getting there.

[bobbiemartin]

The side to side shifter gate has been stiff since I put it in, especially between the 3-4 and 5-6 gate. I pulled the shifter out (which requires removal of the downpipe and heat shields). I found the inner cable had a small kink at the transmission end. I replaced the cable with another one I had and replaced the shifter bushings while I had it apart. It had a small vibration at idle, but dosen't vibrate at all now, I'm guessing the kinked cable was transmitting the vibration from the outer cable to the inner? Anyway, it works great now.

[runonbeer]

I've kinked those cable sheaths in the past because of hasty carelessness. Learned my lesson. Respect the cable.

[bobbiemartin]

Got a little more done. The original Climatronic evaporator has some issues, so I swapped it out.



It was taking longer to warm up in the morning, so while I had the cooling system open, I changed the thermostat and installed an alloy thermostat housing.


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and installed the larger oil cooler.



The Golf originally had gray interior, I've swapped it over to black. I also found a rear cargo cover!






I changed the seats to GTI Recaro seats. Still have the door panels and a few other minor parts left to do.



I installed the red stripe seat belts, a bit of a trick in a 4 door!

[bobbiemartin]

A little more done this weekend.



Changed out to the newer style battery cover and tray.


Installed my Panzer Plate with full metal jacket side covers. I bought the panzer plate used, repaired it and had it powder coated black.


Just a typical TDI engine.

[3L3M3NT]

The car's coming along quite nicely. The Recaros are a definite upgrade if you're going to be doing longer road trips or want extra lumbar support.

[benIV]

been following this with a lot of interest. looking forward to seeing what you do with the door panels.

[bobbiemartin]

I have done a bit more but have been really busy. I'll try and post more updates soon.

[bobbiemartin]

Lately I've been working on the interior and electronics. The interior is close to being done. Seats and door panels are in. Since I went with the red stripe seat belts, I carried the theme through to the door panels. I had the upholstery guy make a red welting to break up the all black door panel. In addition, I found a new old stock leather multi function steering wheel with red threads. I haven't installed the dash panels on the drivers side as I'm still doing a bit of wiring.
For the radio and cluster, it took a bit of work to get it the way I wanted, but I'm happy with the results. I particularly like factory radios, for the quality, fit and how they integrate with the interior. With that in mind, it took several different radios to find one that worked with my collection of factory and aftermarket electronics.
The first thing was the cluster. I'm using a full height FIS cluster that is likely made up from several clusters and has some reprogramming done. I like the feature where it shows which door is open, but on a 2001 this requires changing from the 1J0 to 1C0 CCM. It's a fair bit of rewiring and swapping out the power window motors to the 1C0 compatible motors. Once that is done, with a little recoding, you can get everything to work like it should. So with that sorted, I moved on to the next part, which was the radio. With the new CCM,. I went with the double DIN Delta 6 radio and it worked fine. The next step was a FIS-Control. This is a slick box that allows lots of information to be displayed on the FIS cluster screen. However, between the radio and cluster, it just wouldn't work. The radio was sending information over the canbus overriding the FIS Control. I tried everything and with a lot of emails between the FIS-Control developer in Germany and my cluster guru here, we determined the cluster was not compatible with the Delta 6 radio and the FIS-Control. Once the Delta 6 radio was removed, the cluster and FIS-Control worked fine. To further complicate things I also had plans to install a Bluestar Onstar converter. This allows cell phone bluetooth connection to the factory radio if you have an (obsolete) OnStar installed in your car. No extra buttons or add ons, it uses the OnStar microphone in the sunroof control panel. It's designed to be plug and play if you have OnStar from the factory, not really an add on if you don't. As you can probably guess, a 2001 Golf didn't have OnStar but I figured it could be added without too much trouble. Well, maybe a little trouble. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. Studying wiring diagrams and figuring out what exactly was needed, add a few wires and there you go, OnStar added! Now all I needed was a non canbus factory radio that was compatible with an updated CCM, a Frankenstein cluster, steering wheel buttons, OnStar and several aftermarket devices that connected to it. I ended up with a VW Navi radio. It works great and gets along with all the electronics. When I get a call (or want to make one), the radio mutes, I push a button on the OnStar panel. The call plays through the speakers and it is as clear as any other factory Bluetooth. So was that it? Of course not! Instead of the factory CD changer, I use a Dension controller to play my iPod through the radio. I realize I could have found an aftermarket radio that did all that, but what fun is that? My setup does exactly what I want and looks factory, because it is. I don't have the navigation part of the radio working yet, but it's coming soon. One neat feature of the FIS-Control is the ability to remotely display a Valentine One on the upper portion of the FIS screen.


Door panels with the red welting. I replaced all the plastic door hardware with non soft touch pieces.


OnStar control panel fits where the rather useless center visor normally goes. Green light indicates it is paired with my phone. The button on the left answers or initiates a call. Valentine One resides just to the right of the OnStar panel.

The sunroof panel & switch are lighted W8 parts.


Multi function steering wheel and FIS cluster. That is the standard boost screen. The upper section of the FIS screen is the Valentine One. The GPS is a Garmin with built in camera.


Navi radio and Climatronic. Hard to see but I have the Myrtle wood trim on the radio console.


Cluster shows which door is open. A not so easy task on a 2001!

I still have a bit more to go, but the car is coming along nicely. It is a great daily driver, reasonably quick and fun to drive. It needs a few more tweaks and tidying up. It is a long way from where I started!

[runonbeer]

Fantastic!