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

[ToddA1]

There’s a microswitch built into the front handles. When you lock the doors with the key, and hold the key in the lock position, all windows will roll up. Something could be chafed and crossing signals. I’d also take a peek in the door bellow, to see if there’s any damaged wires, in there.

-Todd

 

[Abacus]

It’s a B4, they came from the factory with chafed wires in the door bellows.

 

[Steve Addy]

Sounds like you have broken or chafed wires in the accordion hose between the cowl and the door.

Steve

 

[Abacus]

Working on Snoopy Smiles B4 (the gray one) and keep finding issues. It's a nice car but someone jacked it up pretty good. Broken or missing bolts, leaking cam seal, wiring not routed correctly, missing hose mounts, and an improperly installed mark-n-pray timing belt tensioner. It all started with a leaking oil pan gasket because they never tightened the bolts, and it was a good thing because the car was a time bomb. That soaked the timing belt in oil, and it looked like the front main seal was leaking so I replaced that. It'll take me awhile to get it straightened out but I'm working on it now, just took a break for dinner. Now I'm off to replace the leaking cam seal. The timing belt roller was about to fail, you can tell the grease inside is dried up by how easy it spins, it has to be ancient as all the others I've replaced over the years still feel new. A replacement lower TB cover is on the way, as is the lower radiator hose cradle. It looks like someone forgot there was a T-bolt and just ripped it off, and the radiator hose was just resting (chafing) on the motor mount. I haven't even gotten to the broken windshield washer bottle, window regulator, fuse box, battery mount, airbox, steering rack boot (those are always fun), or rotted vacuum hoses.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Picked up parts car #4 yesterday afternoon. It's a 97 with no title, and unfortunately the interior is pretty much trashed. The seller told me he cranked it over but didn't get it to start. The timing belt actually looks really clean and it has a new starter too. Someone installed an electric fuel pump just before the IP, so I'm guessing if I yank that out and get it primed it'll run for me.







And clearly somebody cared about it at some point, because they did a great job painting the intake manifold and valve cover without getting overspray all over the place. haha

 

[stormb4]

Fixed door lock problem, just had to pull out fuse 21 and re-insert it. Must have gone into some kind of safety mode and not allowed the locks to function correctly. Also checked the wires in the door and they appeared to be fine, but doesn't hurt to check those things before they get too rough. Thanks for the assistance in diagnosing

 

[thechoochlyman]

Re-keyed and installed a trunk lock cylinder assembly in my DD. The old one broke about halfway down the lock cylinder somehow. The whole inside of the assembly was full of dirt and corrosion. I made sure the new one was lubed up nicely.



Cleaned out the new parts car quite a bit and vacuum the seat well enough to sit in it. Tried starting it a few times but none of my old batteries will hold out long enough. It wants to start but the best I can get is a very intermittent low idle before it dies. I think I'll verify the timing marks and go from there.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Yesterday was eventful. Spent several hours on the parts car getting the engine running.

Began by checking the timing and finding that the tensioner was rotated backwards (counter clockwise) and the fuel timing was off enough that I couldn't see the TDC mark on the flywheel with the pump pinned. With the pump and cam in proper position the timing mark would be rotated several teeth too far toward the front of the engine, which I believe means the injection timing was retarded. It didn't want to start like this at all, and I ended up rotating the TDC mark behind the arrow on the case (almost to where I couldn't see it) and then effectively skipping a couple of teeth on the belt. After trying this six or seven times I finally got it lined up where I wanted it. The pin would fall into the pump gear hole just about a millimeter before the TDC mark would line up.

During this process I also burned up the "new" starter on it, which I can only assume was an Autozone special. It would barely crank, and when I let off it was literally smoking. I ended up buying a new H8 battery and swapping on a good used Bosch starter I had.



Once I got it to spin fast enough it would fire off and die after a few seconds. I was getting an engine speed sensor and needle lift sensor fault. I cleaned the connectors and plugged them back in, which cleared the codes. Then I found out it wasn't sucking fuel from the tank anymore. I grabbed a new filter off the shelf and made a one-gallon fuel tank for it. Someone had previously installed an electric lift pump under the hood, which made it easy to prime the new filter and get fuel coming to the pump.



Cranked it again and got nothing. Cracked the lines and got nothing. Did some reading and manually primed my IP with a vacuum bleeder until most of the bubbles were gone. Cranked again and got squirts at the injectors. Tightened the lines down and it finally fired up on its own and sounded great! Mostly... it's missing on cylinder 3 because it needs a new injector seal. Overall it took about 4-5 hours of messing with it before I got it running.



Now I've pulled it out, and put it back in my basement nose-first so I can start pulling the engine.

 

[alanack]

Swapped in my 225,000 mile used turbo. Car runs and more importantly shuts off now
Running away on its own oil for 5 minutes didn't seem to hurt it, the engine does seem a bit loud though.

Exhaust is still full of oil so its still a bit stinky doesn't really smoke though( it used to smoke out the neighborhood)

Belt Tensioner arm looks f'D and its spraying pulverized rust everywhere, coolant flange is leaking, and it needs a full service. Brakes look rusty too, and ebrake cable is super stiff. No rust, and for 2 grand im happy

http://imgur.com/a/CeFzcFm

 

[Abacus]

Made more headway on Snoopy Smiles B4 over the last few days. The new lower timing belt cover came in so I installed it and the belts. I straightened the N18 solenoid mount, plastic welded the washer fluid reservoir, added bolts where they were missing. Added a new T-bolt, fixed the serpentine tensioner, which was rusted onto the shaft (but absent a bolt), cleaned up more oil from parts, confirmed timing, removed a bunch of RTV from the valve cover surfaces, installed all new hardware, rechecked torque specs, added a battery hold down bracket, routed hoses correctly, removed a bunch of squirrel nuts, added the missing air cleaner mount, added some metal anti-mouse screen, and started changing vacuum hoses to silicone. I also chased all the treads on bolts prior to installation and swapped out a makeshift replacement harmonic balancer bolt for an original. I suspect they snapped an original and replaced it with a chrome one.

Getting closer every day, only a few hundred more items to fix.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I took IBW to my guru for its 5th(!) timing belt service last night so I pulled the B4 out of the warehouse to drive while IBW is under the knife. Filled it with fuel: last time it got filled was in February. It still drives nice once the flat spots on the tires smoothed out.

 

[JordanTr]

Finished up the install of the 02J shifter upgrade in the b4v last night. The bushings on the old one were worn but intact and I’d find that I would struggle to get into first sometimes. This has been eliminated with the new shifter which is great. The gates feel crisper and the throw feels a bit shorter so I’m pretty happy with it!

I spent longer than I care to admit getting the shift box to fit since the mk4 box is ~30mm shorter than the b4 one. I wanted to properly seal the box to the cabin and bolt it in like the factory. I welded up a plate with a stud for the front mounting position and elongated the holes for the rear mounting. I planed down and cut out a piece of rigid XPS foam to fill the 30mm gap above. Once tightened, the foam is good and squished/sealed. I initially chopped apart the top of the b4 shift box in hopes of grafting it to a plate that bolts to the mk4 box but the were too many conflicting areas for that to be very viable.

Now, it’s all hidden under the console and out of sight!

Trans looks like it needed the oil change and got a fresh 2qts of penzoil synchromesh in the process.

Was it worthwhile? Maybe.
Thankfully the whole shifter swap setup was only $40. Would love the Polo shift box for easy install but that breaks the budget.

 

[thechoochlyman]

Got several odds and ends done today. Started off by cleaning off the areas on the bottom of my car where the rust holes are. Sprayed some Ospho on there to hopefully stop the rust from spreading and made a stainless steel plate to cover it with. Unfortunately I couldn't find my tube of windshield urethane, so applying the plates will have to wait another week.







Moving to the interior, I spliced in an additional OBD port so I could hopefully use my Scangauge II and take VCDS logs simultaneously, but apparently it won't work. At least now it will be easier to plug in VCDS when I need it.



Finally, I replaced the three upper lights in my gauge cluster with LEDs. I thought the new lights would simply plug in to the twist connectors, but apparently they are integrated with the bulbs somehow. Not to worry - some short wires and solder saved the day.





Now it's time to change the oil and front brake hoses on my brother-in-law's B5.

 

[ToddA1]

I initially chopped apart the top of the b4 shift box in hopes of grafting it to a plate that bolts to the mk4 box but the were too many conflicting areas for that to be very viable.

That’s how I did it. Welded scrap metal together to make it happen.

Sprayed some Ospho on there to hopefully stop the rust from spreading

Isn’t that just mild acid? You’ll still want to coat the metal with something…

I thought the new lights would simply plug in to the twist connectors, but apparently they are integrated with the bulbs somehow.

I used bulb bases from an old Subaru Loyale… look pretty identical. Those bulbs were removable.

-Todd

 

[thechoochlyman]

Isn’t that just mild acid? You’ll still want to coat the metal with something…

Essentially yes, but it does change the rust into iron phosphate which should stop the spread. I figure the urethane will adhere better to bare metal than to whatever paint I could coat it with first. And then I'll spread some urethane around and over the plate to blend it into the surrounding undercoat.

 

[ToddA1]

I used to use a lot of phosphoric acid when doing rust repair. It‘s always recommended to topcoat with paint. Seems like you’re trying to use (window?) urethane as an encapsulator. Every windshield I’ve ever had glued in, (the most recent was a couple weeks ago) the frame was treated with a black primer, that was applied with a dauber. I was told it‘s to seal any bare metal, and it also acts as an adhesion promoter. My frame had a couple rotted areas that needed rust repair… I sanded the entire inner frame/pinch weld with 80g, and sprayed Rustoleum. This is what I’d normally do…. never an issue. All cars‘ pinch welds are painted, prior to urethane.




I went to Ospho’s site, and they recommended its use under oil based primer and paint.

Ospho

www.ospho.com

I gave up on most of Eastwood‘s products and POR-15 didn’t wow me. I went back to Rustoleum, typically from a can, but occasionally aerosol. Everything they offer is oil based, other than their universal primer. As rough/rusted as your metal is, the paint will grab.

-Todd

 

[Starion_slider]

Having a new issue with my 1996 B4 TDi that maybe someone here can help me diagnose. I went to roll down the drivers side rear window and all the door locks in the car locked on me. After getting out of the car I went to use the driver side central lock to see if they would still lock or unlock and no luck, only unlocks the driver door. Seems that the central locking system is out of order for now, which also means fuel door wont open. Any suggestions on where to start looking, whether it be the vacuum pump in the trunk, fuses, door wires etc.? Those seem to be the likely culprit from my initial research but just wanted to see if anyone had a similar issue at some point or another. Thanks in advance

Mine does that SAME thing. Nobody sits back there so its never been a problem but I think its door harness related. Might be missing a ground or something and when you hit window button it’s stealing it from centeral lock and mabey activating it. I been daily driving mine for over 12years and I think that is one problem I’ve avoided even caring about for at least 10yrs hahaha. Gotta love B4’s

 

[Abacus]

I would not use windshield urethane, I would instead use something designed for it like 3M 5200. It's designed to adhere panels permanently and will seal out air, which causes rust. The salt water boat guys use it all the time and swear by it. It's been known on the islands of Maine to even keep aircraft panels in place. I used it to coat the welds (after the Ospho acid) to seal out the air and moisture, and coated the non-welded parts in POR-15. Not an issue having to redo any rustwork after that. I also preferred it to welding around the fuel lines and was comfortable knowing it was a permanent patch.

There is also 3M 4200, which is fast curing (the 5200 takes a week but is stronger). Both are pretty inexpensive and easy to apply, but don't get any on clothing since it's permanent.

I went one step further to prevent rust: I moved to Arizona. However, this is probably the most expensive option.

 

[thechoochlyman]

I would not use windshield urethane, I would instead use something designed for it like 3M 5200. It's designed to adhere panels permanently and will seal out air, which causes rust. The salt water boat guys use it all the time and swear by it. It's been known on the islands of Maine to even keep aircraft panels in place. I used it to coat the welds (after the Ospho acid) to seal out the air and moisture, and coated the non-welded parts in POR-15. Not an issue having to redo any rustwork after that. I also preferred it to welding around the fuel lines and was comfortable knowing it was a permanent patch.

There is also 3M 4200, which is fast curing (the 5200 takes a week but is stronger). Both are pretty inexpensive and easy to apply, but don't get any on clothing since it's permanent.

I went one step further to prevent rust: I moved to Arizona. However, this is probably the most expensive option.

Very nice, I'll definitely give that a look!

 

[ToddA1]

I looked at the TDS for 5200. Metal is a recommended substrate, but It didn’t mention if the metal could be raw. Primer is optional, but wasn’t mandated. I‘d call tech support and ask about raw metal.

I know for a fact 3M makes a 2 part panel bonding adhesive, that’s designed to be used on raw metal. My body shop’s owner came to my house, and helped me glue the front clip to a project Rabbit. All the metal I sprayed got stripped, where we glued.

It’s not cheap, then you need the gun…

-Todd

 

[alanack]

My stupid A3 broke.

Shift tower snapped right where to counterweight attached. Lost my forward and back, so i was pretty much screwed.

Wasn't too far so I got it home. I ordered one for way to much money off Fleabay, off a b3 passat 16v. I didn't match up perfectly; counterweight doesnt fit so i had to go with out. Shifts fine now...

Is there a repair kit out there? Usually the side to side plastic piece breaks, i haven't seen this failure before.

Both cable ends are fine, like i said the actual tower broke.

 

[ToddA1]

I’d take it off and weld it. If you don’t own a welder, take it to a muffler shop, and ask them to do it. My local mom and pop shop was always willing to help.

-Todd

 

[alanack]

I’d take it off and weld it. If you don’t own a welder, take it to a muffler shop, and ask them to do it. My local mom and pop shop was always willing to help.

-Todd

I should be able to mig it, not sure if I could just buy that piece new.

 

[Steve Addy]

I should be able to mig it, not sure if I could just buy that piece new.

Post up a pic of the piece you're looking for, I might be able to round something up.

Steve

 

[TDIDaveNH]

Wrapped up another repair session on I-red, started with a long overdue engine compartment pressure washing, added new left & right balljoints, a new left CV axle since the boot was torn open and I managed to log over 5,000 miles on it until it started making noise. I have the right side CV but will be replacing it at the same time I'm updating the turbo oil drain line since that would be the best time for that: when I can have the car down for a couple days if anything goes wrong with the 2 turbo bolts. Passed the 300K mark with now 304,7xx miles since its being driven daily. Did lots of small stuff; swapped out a failing serp tensioner with a used one I had in inventory, a new gates metal roller and a new PS belt since the old one was thin and I was out of adjustment. Got the ABS light to go out with the addition of a new left front ABS sensor.


Lost the clutch function to a badly leaking slave cylinder that was not that old. Swapped it out with a proven original from the stash. Thankfully the clutch did not see any brake fluid.



replaced a cracked glow harness that broke apart at each cylinder with another used unit from the stash:





Noticed the 3 wire IP harness loom was never cut back, and sure enough, had to shrink wrap a couple wires





Shortly after getting the car on the road, found a leaky brake hard line for one of the rear wheels, in the worst spot for repair, right under the booster along the bottom of the firewall above the steering rack. Added fluid for a while then got tired of it real fast. Once I can down the car for a couple days I'll fix it properly but until then...



That's about it for now and so far...It just doesn't end. Going back through the records, the TB was done 14 years and 4x,xxx miles ago so that's on the short list for next time.

 

[alanack]

Jettas shifting great.

Rolled The b4 wagon in the garage.
Tensioner bushings were so far worn down it actually ate the shaft. Replaced the shaft with a used one and installed new bushings and seals. This is a PITA!!!! Grease your Tensioner shaft periodically so this doesnt happen! Installed a good used tensioner pulley that i had, since the old is flopping around. Also threw in a used alternator clutch since the stupid 1z doesnt have one.

Battery light is flickering now, but its probably just grease on the belt or something silly.

Pulled the valve cover and discovered ARP studs

 

[Benjamis]

A replacement lower TB cover is on the way, as is the lower radiator hose cradle.

Where did you get these?

 

[Abacus]

Where did you get these?

Parts from a donor car.

I FINALLY finished with Snoopy Smiles B4, what a jacked up mess that was, and it's still not 100%. I am headed to my camp in Maine for a few weeks and will do a writeup on it when there.

 

[Abacus]

Moving to the interior, I spliced in an additional OBD port so I could hopefully use my Scangauge II and take VCDS logs simultaneously, but apparently it won't work. At least now it will be easier to plug in VCDS when I need it.

View attachment 133980

Finally, I replaced the three upper lights in my gauge cluster with LEDs. I thought the new lights would simply plug in to the twist connectors, but apparently they are integrated with the bulbs somehow. Not to worry - some short wires and solder saved the day.

I bought an OBD port splitter to use with my scangauge, and it also does not allow splitting of the signal. I have a spare kicking around if anyone is interested. It plugs into the regular port, which I left hanging under the dash, and routed one to the scangauge and the other back to the original location. I just have to unplug the scangauge to hook up the Vag-Com but it's easy.

 

[turbodieseldyke]

Are there splitters that do allow concurrent connections? I suspect the ECU doesn't want to talk to multiple scanners at the same time.