The "What did you do to your B4 today" thread...

[Digital Corpus]

Hey y'all! It's been a while and I've missed you all very much
After a long tough breakup with my son's mom at the end of summer, I moved to a new place with a garage and am gratefully and warmly back in the TDI saddle.

Anyhow, I figured out why I've been calling the B4 sir clunks a lot recently. Ole poly LCA bushings were beyond worn.<snip>
<snip>
Of course the oem ones still look decent. Gonna swap em anyhow <snip><snip>

Tried putting on my INA Fluidampr but it looks like the motor will have to be lowered to get it on there. Any tips or advice? I do have new mounts to put in if that is the only route.
The lower timing belt cover is loose and wore down the old harmonic balancer pretty well. Hopefully the T-bolt will fix it.<snip><snip>

Huh, when did you buy yours? He wasn't planning on doing anymore due to their time expense.

Before you start, did you buy a smaller v-belt? What lengths of bolts did he send with you? the ones for the spacers and pulleys that he sent me were okay, except that one set was 16 mm, which might be able to go in 1 full thread. If you keep the stock belt setup, you need 6x25 mm M8 fasteners for the water pump and power steering pulleys.

Couple notes:

• The pumps use a torque of 15 ft*lbs and the balancer + belt attachment itself uses 18 ft*lbs.
• The bolts for the power steering pump are all 15 ft*lbs.
• You will have to lower the engine and bend the side sheet metal. To lower the engine far enough you'll have to remove the 3 bolts between the mounts and their brackets & the front engine bracket and the rear engine bracket.
• Place a jack stand under the trans when it is free and use it as a pivot.
• I used the old v-belt looped on the water pump and a 6", 3/8" drive extension that was wedged on the air box and the injection pump mount. I then vise-gripped the belt onto the 3/8" drive and used a c-clamp to increase the belt tension in order to hold the pulley still and break free the 3 bolts. I can jig it up later if you want a photo.
• You'll need a V-belt that is between 755-765 mm long depending on manufacturer. I've already found one brand's measurements to be low and another to be high. The Duralast 15295 will fit if you remove one pulley and tightens down fine. It's narrower than desired though. I'm going to test 3-4 more belts and 2-3 other brands before posting more.

Where did all of this info come from? I *just* finished installing my fluidampr from INA . I'll be doing a write up of it later in my own thread. Let's just say things would've gone smoother if Issam communicated better.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Came out of work last night and my rear window looked like this:

Not sure how it happened, no visible damage. I think perhaps someone bumped the wiper a while ago and yesterday it just decided to give up. Tint is probably keeping it together.

Dropped it at Kraftwerke today and replacement is scheduled for tomorrow. This is why I like glass coverage with no deductible.

 

[Technician!]

Tempered glass is funny. Even a small scratch can wait a while...then it explodes.

 

[TDIL3dad]

After job completion, please tell us what make or brand of rear windshield do they have and where are they made.

 

[tdidieselbobny]

Came out of work last night and my rear window looked like this:

Not sure how it happened, no visible damage. I think perhaps someone bumped the wiper a while ago and yesterday it just decided to give up. Tint is probably keeping it together.

Dropped it at Kraftwerke today and replacement is scheduled for tomorrow. This is why I like glass coverage with no deductible.

Is this the Golf or IBW?

 

[WestVa304]

Huh, when did you buy yours? He wasn't planning on doing anymore due to their time expense.

Before you start, did you buy a smaller v-belt? What lengths of bolts did he send with you? the ones for the spacers and pulleys that he sent me were okay, except that one set was 16 mm, which might be able to go in 1 full thread. If you keep the stock belt setup, you need 6x25 mm M8 fasteners for the water pump and power steering pulleys.

Couple notes:

• The pumps use a torque of 15 ft*lbs and the balancer + belt attachment itself uses 18 ft*lbs.
• The bolts for the power steering pump are all 15 ft*lbs.
• You will have to lower the engine and bend the side sheet metal. To lower the engine far enough you'll have to remove the 3 bolts between the mounts and their brackets & the front engine bracket and the rear engine bracket.
• Place a jack stand under the trans when it is free and use it as a pivot.
• I used the old v-belt looped on the water pump and a 6", 3/8" drive extension that was wedged on the air box and the injection pump mount. I then vise-gripped the belt onto the 3/8" drive and used a c-clamp to increase the belt tension in order to hold the pulley still and break free the 3 bolts. I can jig it up later if you want a photo.
• You'll need a V-belt that is between 755-765 mm long depending on manufacturer. I've already found one brand's measurements to be low and another to be high. The Duralast 15295 will fit if you remove one pulley and tightens down fine. It's narrower than desired though. I'm going to test 3-4 more belts and 2-3 other brands before posting more.

Where did all of this info come from? I *just* finished installing my fluidampr from INA . I'll be doing a write up of it later in my own thread. Let's just say things would've gone smoother if Issam communicated better.

DC, you are the man!
I bought mine Oct. 2015 and received it Oct 2016. Still waiting for the CCV puck lol. If I would have known it weren't plug and play I would have not spent so much money and time waiting for it. Let's hope it's worth it.

I did mine yesterday and didn't see your post until last night. So I figured out at the end that a shorter V-belt will be needed Kudos for having the selections ready.
<edit> My bolts also were the incorrect lengths to use with the spacers on steering and water pump pulley. I will grab the size you recommend for the. <edit>
I was already doing LCA bushings and decided to do sway bar bushings so the subframe was disconnected. It sure takes a whole lot of lowering to fit the pulley housing over the fluidampr.

DC, did you also receive an extra pulley for the serpentine? I'm not sure what it is for. I guess if doing an AC delete it would go on the power steering.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

IBW. I'm picking it up today. I'll check replacement brand. The same installer put a Sekurit windshield in the Golf. Probably that or PPG.

Sorry for putting this in the wrong thread!

 

[ToddA1]

Recently received 02J shifter pulled from an early 2000s Jetta.

What bushings, gaskets etc or other "wear parts" should I replace before installing in the B4?

VW part #s would be helpful.

Dieselgeek sells upgrade parts. Kind of makes sense to do it now, but the parts cost add up quickly.

Mixed reviews about the 02J stuff. Is your 02A stuff worn out? If not, I'd leave it alone.

-Todd

 

[Windex]

I haven't seen any "mixed" reviews about the 02j shifter swap...?

Having lived with my B4 for 4 years, half with the original shifter mechanism and half with the 02J shifter, by far it would be the very first mod I do if I ever get back into a B4 or Mk3.

It's that much better.

Check with Abacus - he has one of each.

 

[ToddA1]

I'm one of the mixed reviewers.

I also have both and for the work involved, I wouldn't consider it worthwhile.

-Todd

 

[TDIL3dad]

Dieselgeek sells upgrade parts. Kind of makes sense to do it now, but the parts cost add up quickly.

Mixed reviews about the 02J stuff. Is your 02A stuff worn out? If not, I'd leave it alone.

-Todd

Last year and out of necessity, I swapped an 02J into my blue B4V as the original 02A was very worn and sloppy.

The original 02A in my daily driver black B4, is recalcitrant about shifting into first gear, and overall feels loose in comparison -- albeit it still works.

I will be swapping the complete "Plus" suspension in the Spring and figured that while I have the front end taken apart, I would do the 02J at same time.

 

[ToddA1]

If it's worn out, and you have the car apart it makes sense to replace the 02A stuff or at least rebuild it. I got sucked into the reviews and did the swap when I pulled the dp for a repair.

I'd probably opt for the rebuild, although I've never looked to see if parts were available. I guess my 02A parts weren't too worn out.

-Todd

 

[iluvmydiesels]

i had posted a few weeks ago i had blocked off my egr. so i have an other adjustment to make first to finish up work on car. (ahu). what i noticed is i hear turbo at idle, that is out of gear, revving it up, not much and turbo whines, i can see if its in gear. were in vag-com can i make an adjustment to turbo? im wondering if blocking off egr is sending extra exhaust thru turbo, and i want to adjust.

 

[sootful]

Diagnosed coolant leak to oil cooler, swapped it out. Noticed tensioner jumping, swapped it out. As of early this morning, 5 miles from home (damn it's cold at 5am in Illinois in January) my oil pressure sensor light went ballistic and started to flash and beep. Will put a guage on it later today or maybe next week. Ordered a replacement high pressure oil switch as this probably just failed but I'll know definitely after testing it. Whew. Why this crap doesn't happen when it's nice weather?

 

[TDIDaveNH]

Changed the oil in the transaxle, used Redline MTL, drained a little bit of oil from the intercooler, changed a badly clogged fuel filter...for the last several hundred miles it was struggling to maintain 70 on the highway. I thought it was an air leak since there was a prodigious amount of air in the IP feed line. Tightened the PS belt after it had a couple thousand miles from new to properly 'season'. Seems to be the soonest I can get to repair stuff is 500 miles, lol..unless the party stops or is going to stop then it's an emergency.

 

[PD41]

On my 96 wagon I have been hearing a clunk under acceleration and some pulling to the right under acceleration. Yesterday I jacked it up thinking it was a motor mount. WRONG !

Turned out the passenger side CV Joint was loose. One bolt was backed out 1/4" and the rest were 2 - 3 turns loose.
They were changed by the previous owner at a shop in Florida.

 

[Bob S.]

The salt is off the roads, took it out for some errands to give the truck a rest & same some dino remains. Serviced drivers door latch.

Has anyone tried laminating a hard, low friction pad on the door latch mechanism lever and replacing the white lever roller with something a little harder slippery. Looking at the handler & roller & the lever that it strikes against got me to thinking... Always dangerous.

 

[TDIDaveNH]

Finally got to dial in my timing via VCDS a couple days ago and slap on the OEM belly pan for the winter. Also a couple weeks ago finally wired in my battery blanket & block heater to a common thru grill plug using a terminal strip

 

[c3k]

Today I added more coolant as it was looking low. That's about all I've had to do on the car in 4 months and its kind of nice.



On an unrelated note, I recall a thread that talked about a TDI scammer located in Raleigh, NC similar to Nice Cars out west. An individual who buys beat B4s, spruces them up and sells them as "mint" and "only 2 owners" etc. I peruse through Craigslist from time to time to see if there are any B4s being parted in my area and I consistently find this guys ads.

Anyway, I found an ad this afternoon for a 2 owner '96 B4V and instantly recognized the car. 2 summers ago I saw this very car go up at auction in Raleigh and sell for pennies on the dollar. The car listed in the ad has the same Borbet wheels and paint peeling/rust bubbling from the white B4V on auction I remember.

They claim it has a clean title yet it had a salvage title at auction and if I remember correctly from the CarFax search I did the vehicle had 4 prior owners leading up to the auction, not just one as he claims in his ad.

Here's the link: http://raleigh.craigslist.org/cto/5962059581.html

If this is one of you guys and I'm mistaken please let me know!

 

[ToddA1]

I like the fact that the paint is coming off in sheets, showing a lack of prep. Wonder if they just painted over the rust.

I noticed a little bubble action happening on both of my sedan's front doors, after I took it through the car wash. I guess the car will be getting dropped off at my local body shop, for some love.

-Todd

 

[deecee]

That wagon has been advertised for a long time off and on.

 

[Steve Addy]

I like the fact that the paint is coming off in sheets, showing a lack of prep. Wonder if they just painted over the rust.

I noticed a little bubble action happening on both of my sedan's front doors, after I took it through the car wash. I guess the car will be getting dropped off at my local body shop, for some love.

-Todd

Prep is the one place where people will cut corners because 1) it's easy and 2) it takes a while to show up and hopefully the owner sold that thing by now.

I agree Todd, it looks like someone has done some rattle can work over the existing rust. I can't believe with rust under the surface that prominent that it hasn't broken through yet.

Steve

 

[WestVa304]

Because diesels love 10-30

 

[Steve Addy]

Because diesels love 10-30

Well there is that too...lol

Steve

 

[Matt-98AHU]

On Saturday, I upgraded the AHU style injection pump to 11 mm... without removing the pump from the car I had a spare 11 mm pump from a customer, QA was sticking and it was leaking from the input shaft.

But first, I decided to take a couple measurements with an earlier 1Z smooth sided pump with my 11 mm pump head and cam plate as well as how far the piston extends into the bore of the stock 11 mm pump, get a baseline to see what it is I should be aiming for.

Measuring the total movement of the 11 mm pump's plunger. 0.131" was the result.

Seeing where exactly in the bore the plunger is when fully extended. Just about to the bottom of the chamfer at the very end of the bore.

Just seeing how far the plunger in the smooth body 1Z pump goes to the bottom of the bore. A lot further away from the end than the 11 mm!

At first glance, not a ton of difference between cam plate profiles. The 11 mm upon very close inspection appears to ramp up a smidge quicker, but I couldn't verify if it actually caused it to move further until I tried the identical pump head and plunger with both cam plates and measured total movement.

With the original 1Z cam plate but with the 11 mm pump head, plunger and washer on the back of the plunger, total movement was 0.120" maybe verging on 0.121". So, about 0.010" less than what was measured with the 11 mm cam plate.

The rollers behind the cam plate also mic'd out as being identical between 1Z and 11 mm ALH pump, so those aren't affecting total movement of the cam plate and thus the plunger.

Just a comparison of the two plungers. There was a difference in thickness of the washer between the two. I kept the 11 mm plunger's original washer.

For comparison of the two cam plates:

Full extension of the 11 mm pump head with the 10 mm cam plate.

Full extension of the same pump head, but with the 11mm cam plate, BUT, it doesn't appear to quite get as close to the end of the bore as it did when installed in its original pump.

Fortunately, once I swapped cam plate and pump head assembly into the AHU pump in my Passat (which I need to make a thread about... it's a 95 VR6 wagon chassis "Nicecars" swapped a TDI into and had so many issues, the owner gave up on it and now it's my problem child) it appeared to protrude just as far as it did in its original ALH pump body:

Once I was finished, I did have to re-adjust pump base timing as the pressure builds to pop the injectors significantly quicker... Once I dialed timing and injection quantity in, I have a very eager starting 1Z motor with a bit more pep in its step. The injectors are still holding it back quite a bit. Clogged up something fierce.

Kind of been wanting to see what an 11mm would do on an early motor with stock manual trans injectors or at least very mild upgraded injectors. Still get the nice boost in power, but less smoke and every time I do a manual swap on an ALH, the owners report back mileage numbers that tend to better a stock manual ALH on average.

Either way, I'm just glad this car gets out of its own way a little better now...

I was able to do the cam plate and pump head swap without removing the pump from the car, as well. I've got a lot of practice resealing pumps via removing the pump head as an assembly with plunger, too, so I knew what I was in for and how these all go together anyway. I like my method better than the whole stretching the o ring around the outside of the pump head...

Anyway. Fun times. I retain the original method of adjustment of the pump and the stock wiring, but I get the 11 mm pump performance in the same package.

 

[ToddA1]

I've read about this a lot.... I was under the impression that bolting the 11mm distributor and head on a 10mm pump would not make it a true 11mm pump.

If I read your post correctly, you're stating the 11mm cam plate is required to get full plunger protrusion?

Did you happen to notice which cam plate was in the 11mm pump?

The QAs are the same between pumps?

-Todd

 

[Matt-98AHU]

I've read about this a lot.... I was under the impression that bolting the 11mm distributor and head on a 10mm pump would not make it a true 11mm pump.
If I read your post correctly, you're stating the 11mm cam plate is required to get full plunger protrusion?
Did you happen to notice which cam plate was in the 11mm pump?
The QAs are the same between pumps?
-Todd

From what I can see, yes, the only extra difference beyond the pump head bore and plunger is a small extra shove from the cam plate.

Mind you, I'm playing with 3 different pumps. I'm not sure if the numbers mean anything that I can see, but the original 1Z smooth body pump's cam plate says DE053 on the back. The AHU pump's cam plate says DE110. I don't recall exactly what the 11 mm pump's cam plate said, but I'm pretty sure it was a DE14x or DE15x. Again, not sure if those are the numbers of significance or not, but they were the only numbers that were different between the three. The only other number was on part of the plate facing the plunger, they all have the same 440 number there.

Not sure what about the QA would possibly be different amongst the 3 pumps, but also bear in mind I'm not going to a max power setup here either... I have done the swap where you machine out the pump bracket and backing plate to fit an ALH pump onto an early motor before, and while it's nice once done, actually less of a fight with the timing belt, I was just curious if I could get the same effect by swapping pump internals. As far as I can tell, yes, that's the case. The cam plate was needed to get the full amount of travel of the plunger and as you can see, it otherwise appears that the plunger's full travel is at the same position between the ALH and AHU pumps, but was a little shy of the bottom of the chamfer in the bore on the early 1Z pump. So maybe the 1Z pump internals are spaced a little differently. The rollers behind the cam plate measure identical.

The full protrusion of the plunger could be had by obtaining a slightly thicker shim for the back of the plunger (they all have a shim there...). But where would you find one? Call DFIS maybe? I would just as soon avoid the early 1Z pumps anyway. They're harder to work with when you're messing with pump internals thanks to a smaller opening where the QA goes into and engages the fuel control collar.

 

[Matt-98AHU]

I suppose the most important thing when doing this in the future is yes, do use the 11 mm cam plate along with the head, plunger, collar etc. And once installed, take a look at the plunger's position at max extension with the triangle plug removed from the pump's head and just make sure it's not protruding too far. To the bottom of the chamfer is probably as far as it should go and you definitely don't want it to extend out of the bore altogether...

 

[Matt-98AHU]

Who's gonna start scouring for used 11 mm pumps with bad QAs?? Lol

 

[Digital Corpus]

DC, you are the man!
I bought mine Oct. 2015 and received it Oct 2016. Still waiting for the CCV puck lol. If I would have known it weren't plug and play I would have not spent so much money and time waiting for it. Let's hope it's worth it.

I did mine yesterday and didn't see your post until last night. So I figured out at the end that a shorter V-belt will be needed Kudos for having the selections ready.
<edit> My bolts also were the incorrect lengths to use with the spacers on steering and water pump pulley. I will grab the size you recommend for the. <edit>
I was already doing LCA bushings and decided to do sway bar bushings so the subframe was disconnected. It sure takes a whole lot of lowering to fit the pulley housing over the fluidampr.

DC, did you also receive an extra pulley for the serpentine? I'm not sure what it is for. I guess if doing an AC delete it would go on the power steering.

Just an update for everyone. Looks like the belt size might depend on vehicle a little bit, but by more than expected. WestVa304 here has a 11A0745 belt and I have a 11A0755 belt and they're both tensioned to the same mechanical point.

Mine:


His: