I'm gettin' too old for this old car BS...
Back when I was 27 I did stuff like replacing the water pump in the dark by flashlight on my Cooper S so I could make the 50 mile round trip to the vocational school next day. The truck driving skills I learned there got me a good job that paid for my first new car, a Golf diesel, a year later and provide me a pension check every month now. Maxxed out my 401K/TSP and IRA every year, drove TDIs, and lived in an old house in the 'hood so I could retire early with a six figure nest egg. Bought a nice house in a tiny town for cash in southwest Minnesota and have lived here the last decade. I get up in the morning, enjoy the view out the window with a lengthy breakfast, then check my stocks when the market opens. Then I dutifully head out to the shop and try to fix the 17 year old TDI I could easily replace. Must be in the genes, half my great grandfathers were blacksmiths...
So after the Sunday morning talk shows I'll drag myself back to the shop and make another attempt at getting a firm brake pedal on my '03 Golf TDI. Recapping my previous post, after replacing all 4 calipers the new lines/hoses couldn't be fitted and the master cylinder looked like too many things to go wrong to replace. So hooked up the power bleeder and after several tries the pedal sinks even worse than before. Hooked up Vag-Com and after reading the old threads sorta figured out how to work it, got a firmer pedal but not good enough to be drivable. Dug up some more info at this
old thread, gonna give it a try.
And yes, this is an excellent example of how these jobs on old cars get way more complicated than expected- In the middle of the job I find out I need a helper/COVID-19 spreader to do the job and not just one but two brake bleeder drain tubes and catch cans! I've got at least two 11 mm. wrenches and hopefully some tubing of the appropriate size too, if not I'll just put a couple improvised catch basins downstream and make the best of it. The A4s TDIs were great cars, only 2% of cars make it past 200,000 miles but around here that's middle age for a TDI... But unless you've got the tools, parts, and skills to fix them they're just another dying two decade old car...