What did you do to your MKIV today?

Pulled my skid plate off to change my control arms. Found coolant on it. Can't seem to find a leak. Any chance a head gasket can pop but leak coolant externally, and not have combustion soot in the coolant ball? Haven't seen that one on these yet.

Edit: nevermind. It's my stupid plastic flange on the side of my cylinder head. Gonna swap it out with a metal one here in a sec.

Nero Morg said:

Pulled my skid plate off to change my control arms. Found coolant on it. Can't seem to find a leak. Any chance a head gasket can pop but leak coolant externally, and not have combustion soot in the coolant ball? Haven't seen that one on these yet.

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Maybe the thermostat holder? That’s where I’ve seen it leak from that it’s not very obvious at first


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Nero Morg said:

Pulled my skid plate off to change my control arms. Found coolant on it. Can't seem to find a leak. Any chance a head gasket can pop but leak coolant externally, and not have combustion soot in the coolant ball? Haven't seen that one on these yet.

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"When you hear hoofbeats look for horses not zebras."

Check the Coolant Temp Sensor (CTS) under the coolant glow plug area. The last coolant leak in the wagon was from that. Easy to fix if it's that.

The 2 leaks in the wagon before that were both at FrostHeater hose connections that loosened up over time.

My Golf has a small intermittent leak from the hard coolant pipe that connects to the block under the injection pump (http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=132193) That one looks to be a lot more work to fix. I haven't gotten around to it yet as I mostly drive the Golf around town and have extra coolant in the trunk if it gets low (hasn't gotten low since last winter).

It's the coolant flange. Plastic is finally giving out. Gonna convert it to the metal one here shortly. In the meantime, trying to figure out how the metalnerd knuckle tool works for getting the strut out.

wonneber said:

Maybe check the resistance of both sensors while you have them out?

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Ok so I have 3 sensors, two of them read 1.500 something ohms and the other 1.450 ohms.
I also checked the harness which reads 0.00 so who knows what is going on. I put in the Audi sensor that reads accurately and it read the exact temperature, couple minutes after that it started dropping degrees and finally settled at 6 degrees below actual temperature.


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Nero Morg said:

It's the coolant flange. Plastic is finally giving out. Gonna convert it to the metal one here shortly. In the meantime, trying to figure out how the metalnerd knuckle tool works for getting the strut out.

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Where the knuckle is split, and clamped together by the 12mm bolt, you stick the tool in and twist it to spread the knuckle. You will discover that there is only a wee bit of engagement; take the replacement struts and grind a bit of the tab so that the tool goes in a bit deeper.
cheers,
Douglas

PakProtector said:

Where the knuckle is split, and clamped together by the 12mm bolt, you stick the tool in and twist it to spread the knuckle. You will discover that there is only a wee bit of engagement; take the replacement struts and grind a bit of the tab so that the tool goes in a bit deeper.
cheers,
Douglas

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Yeah that ended up working. The old one didn't want to drop out due to dirt and such. The new one literally glided right in. One side down. Neck pain forced me to stop for the evening. I'll pick it up tomorrow. Doing rear axle bushing tomorrow as well. Got the fancy tool for it.

A fancy tool to remove them? or install them??? if the former, do please take pics of it in operation.

Douglas

PakProtector said:

A fancy tool to remove them? or install them??? if the former, do please take pics of it in operation.

Douglas

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Supposedly it's both, and I definitely will. IDparts sells the tool by the way.

Just returned from a 750 mile round trip to Louisville, KY for a machine gun shoot. It was a BLAST!

JDSwan87 said:

Just returned from a 750 mile round trip to Louisville, KY for a machine gun shoot. It was a BLAST!

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yer pun is pretty OK...

M2? bigger? smaller?
cheers,
Douglas

Removed original comment to not distract from intent of thread

PakProtector said:

A fancy tool to remove them? or install them??? if the former, do please take pics of it in operation.

Douglas

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I goofed. It's solely for install. Get to beat them out with a hammer. Yay.

Mine probably got totaled today by a deer( well, assuming totaled being it's 16 yrs old and has 442k on it)- son has been using car because his '05 Duramax is in shop getting an injector replaced. He was on his way to work this morning and deer ran out in front of him and got nailed on driver front corner. Hood is crumpled good, but still can latch and release it, headlight gone,bumper cover missing piece, radiator support and fan shroud cracked, front fender crumpled and pushed back a little, as it rubs driver door when opening it. It also cracked the battery , I patched it with some gorilla tape to slow the dripping. I drove it 40 miles home, he took the GSW the last 2 miles to his jobsite. Allstate adjuster supposed to call me between the 14th-17th to set up viewing. I'll be buying it back, I'm glad I always carry comprehensive on my vehicles, and I still had collision I was going to be cancelling this week.... I do have pics, but they're on my Iphone.....

Finished my suspension refresh, minus the rear shocks, since they're back ordered. New control arms with TT bushings, ball joints, koni active reds, perch bearings/bushings, upgraded springs all the way around, rear axle bushings... While I was in there found my plastic coolant flange was leaking, due to the o ring swelling up from oil leaks at the valve cover. Soooo... Converted it to the metal flange and manual trans coolant pipe all in one go, plus glued my valve cover on. Man I'm beat.

Nero Morg said:

I goofed. It's solely for install. Get to beat them out with a hammer. Yay.

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I used the bits from the HF puller kit I got to do front bearings, a few washers, and a bit of 12mm all-thread. Going in is easy. I hope to try removal again soon with a proper hammer and bushing splitter chisel. Hopefully this weekend.

cheers,
Douglas

Installed BRM intake manifold. A noticeable difference in power, not huge but noticeable. Will check mileage after this tank to see if any improvement.

PakProtector said:

I used the bits from the HF puller kit I got to do front bearings, a few washers, and a bit of 12mm all-thread. Going in is easy. I hope to try removal again soon with a proper hammer and bushing splitter chisel. Hopefully this weekend.
cheers,
Douglas

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I just used a bearing punch to get them out. About 15 inches long and has a flat ovalled end on it. Perfect for those tiny ledges.

I installed an EGR valve that I'd had waiting for most of a year, Sunday evening.





Apparently, having other new parts on hand, but not installing them, counted as taunting the car, and induced failure.


The day after installing the EGR valve, the turbo blew the exhaust seal, which dumped white smoke out the exhaust, as well as a puddle just under the cat, since it found a split in the flex pipe and poured out and ran down the downpipe, as well as dribbling on the inner CV joint and being flung all over the engine bay.

Luckily, I did have a freshly rebuilt turbo on hand, the installation kit with braided stainless oil supply hose, and another downpipe saved from a car that was being junked after donating spare parts for another TDI owner nearby.

The old generic auto parts store battery from the previous owner gave out this morning as I was trying to leave work. Stopped by the VW dealer on the way home, got an OEM VW battery, and swapped it in the parking lot.

Actually Sunday & Monday:
Sunday, drove from Oroville to San Rafael, CA to a motel.


Monday 7:45 AM, drove over to San Anselmo to where Guru Matt Phelan has his shop for a timing belt change, 140,000 mile service, brake flush, etc. While there we found the front CV joints needed replacing so he checked and the local NAPA supposedly had both left & right remanufactured units in stock.


Well, when we arrived with the units from my car, the clerk said they only had the left side, but not the right; when he brought out the left unit in its box, we all discovered the reman unit in the box was at least 2-3" shorter than my unit! So we ended up buy newly manufactured units even though they are not as robust as the remanufactured ones.


Also, once again Matt saved the day when he discovered split hoses on the tandem pump to power brake unit; had to temporarily fix that with 3M electrical tape until I can get a new assembly.


Monday afternoon/evening drove home to Oroville via the daily eastbound CA-37 traffic -added 30 minutes to the trip.

red16vdub said:

Hi Greg
Yes I’m on the south shore. The past 4 or 5 months the cluster started reading low for whatever reason, I swap the sensor out twice but no luck getting the thing behaved lol.

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I had that happen on my 2002 Golf a few years ago - turns out the outside air temp sensor wiring was corroded pretty much all the way back to the cluster.

Given that I'd retrofitted the OAT sensor (and MFA cluster) myself, it was a pretty quick/easy replacement job.

Got the rear axle bushings done on the '04. Plastic ones, with no juice inside. The 7X rivet gun still made short work of them. A custom bit would probably have helped, but the 964 bushing splitter did quite nicely.

The old bushings had just rubbed the dust off moving axially on the passenger side. The replacements were Cupra R, and the ride is not harsh at all.
cheers,
Douglas

Got it aligned after doing my suspension refresh. It was towed in badly and slightly aimed to the right. Even though my steering wheel was turned left a few degrees... All fixed now!

Nero Morg said:

Got it aligned after doing my suspension refresh. It was towed in badly and slightly aimed to the right. Even though my steering wheel was turned left a few degrees... All fixed now!

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Now take a 5' piece of extruded aluminum angle and with the steering wheel straight, see where the improvised straight edge lines up on the side of the car when resting on the tires. Am not paying for another alignment now...
cheers,
Douglas

Nero Morg said:

.... It was towed in badly ...

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I had to read this about 3 times before I finally realized the car wasn't damaged by a tow truck, but rather it had a lot of toe-in. Or toe in.

Sigh...

PH

Powder Hound said:

I had to read this about 3 times before I finally realized the car wasn't damaged by a tow truck, but rather it had a lot of toe-in. Or toe in.

Sigh...

PH

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Toad in...or Toe'd in more appropriately...
cheers,
Douglas

Picked up the new Front Lower Bumper Retainer I ordered from the dealer. Also the metal T-25 4.8x16 screws I ordered from eBay arrived, so now I just have to make time to install the new left front fender liner, and the retainer.

Powder Hound said:

I had to read this about 3 times before I finally realized the car wasn't damaged by a tow truck, but rather it had a lot of toe-in. Or toe in.
Sigh...
PH

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Yeah I guess I should have spelled it right it sure rides nice now. I'd check the alignment myself, but I already paid for lifetime alignment, so I'm fine just taking it in.

Nero Morg said:

... I already paid for lifetime alignment,...

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Who sells a lifetime alignment?
I've spent enough on them over the years, would love to have paid it once.