What did you do to your MKIV today?

[Nero Morg]

To be fair... My boots are held on with zip ties.

 

[SilverGhost]

Had the car up on jack stands to look at the leaking CV boot. At first I thought the boot just wasn't seated all the way, but eventually I was able to confirm that the boot is torn.

Unfortunately, I ran out of time before work, and realized I didn't have a 30mm 12-point for the axle nut. I tried to install the new locking ring/clamp which secures the boot to the hub for now, but - and this is embarrassing - could not for the life of me figure out how to get both tabs locked to secure it. FML. Hit it with a 1/4" zip tie and called it good enough to drive home on.

I think the right axle is aftermarket, and was replaced after a collision by the PO. Debating replacing the whole thing at this point - a few bolts seems a lot easier than getting that little metal ring closed!

Try slipping the boot off the CV joint, push the ends of the clamp together and slide it onto the boot (while still NOT on the CV joint), slide the boot back onto the joint with the clamp sitting in its grove in the boot, compress the clamp and check how tight the boot is. I have had some that seem loose and don't clamp tight. May just need whole boot replaced - EDIT: read too fast and missed the boot is torn

Jason

PS: from the picture of the CV boot that looks OE or factory.

 

[krazykipa]

Nice job !
How hard was it to get the rocker off?

Thanks, it was technically easy since all I used was a cutoff wheel on an angle grinder, but difficult in practice due to the unibody design. It took lots of test fitting and small cuts. I still cut off too much metal in a few spots and had to use filler instead of welding.

 

[kennethsime]

Try slipping the boot off the CV joint, push the ends of the clamp together and slide it onto the boot (while still NOT on the CV joint), slide the boot back onto the joint with the clamp sitting in its grove in the boot, compress the clamp and check how tight the boot is. I have had some that seem loose and don't clamp tight. May just need whole boot replaced - EDIT: read too fast and missed the boot is torn

Jason

PS: from the picture of the CV boot that looks OE or factory.

Thanks Jason, I'll try that this weekend if the rain clears up. Luckily, I can commute to work by bike pretty easily so I don't really HAVE to drive my car daily.

The boot seems pretty darn snug against the CV joint, and my issue seems to be that the clamp was too small for the joint itself - or that my hands were just too greasy. Every video I've seen, they just clip right on and then you tighten with a pair of pincer pliers. My clip was short about 2mm from this kind of action. Perhaps the boot it came with a bit thinner?

Maybe I'll pickup some metal zip ties like these and try again with the axle disconnected so I can get at the boot better. Certainly cheaper than a new axle, if I can get it done.

 

[Caddy 16v]

After over a year of hibernation insured the Jetta again. I'll drive it when the weather isn't totally crazy.

Forgot how expensive commuting in a gas car is.

 

[SilverGhost]

Thanks Jason, I'll try that this weekend if the rain clears up. Luckily, I can commute to work by bike pretty easily so I don't really HAVE to drive my car daily.

The boot seems pretty darn snug against the CV joint, and my issue seems to be that the clamp was too small for the joint itself - or that my hands were just too greasy. Every video I've seen, they just clip right on and then you tighten with a pair of pincer pliers. My clip was short about 2mm from this kind of action. Perhaps the boot it came with a bit thinner?

Maybe I'll pickup some metal zip ties like these and try again with the axle disconnected so I can get at the boot better. Certainly cheaper than a new axle, if I can get it done.

The way I described is how I do all my CV boot jobs. Most of the time the metal clip (band) WILL NOT snap together with the boot installed on the CV joint. Other way is to connect the ends together around the smaller part of the joint then slip it up over the edge of the boot. This method is obviously easier with the axle out.

You want the clamp pretty tight or it won't crimp down tight enough and will leak/come off. I have talked to tech line and they talked with engineers - sometimes when we think its the wrong clamp because its so tight, they found a reason and made it that tight. They won't tell us why, just it was done that way for a reason

Jason

 

[braddies]

Centered the front swaybar, what a difference!
Measured the distance between ball joint bolt and sway bar link on each side, found the sway bar was over an inch off too one side, loosened the sway bar mounts and smacked the bar over till it was centered, tightened mounts back up and test drove.

Steering wheel now feels equal resistance when turning left and right, and WAAAY less wheelspin when exiting corners, definitely worth 30 minutes.

Edit: Dug this article from the faq http://www.houseofthud.com/cartech/swaybars.htm

 

[KrashDH]

Well, I installed my Lamin-X headlight cover protectors today, I'll share some photos and tips.
Our headlights are really easy to do this on, since there is very little curvature. Have a heat gun at hand. It works really well for wrapping the material around the sharp edges at the end, so long as you keep the heat gun moving and control your heat.

Here's the first side tacked down and installed. You can see the installation tab, where you handle, isn't cut off yet:

Now, they do not tell you this, I completely spaced out though. When you are smoothing out the protector and removing the water/bubbles, you want to cover the card they provide with a microfiber cloth. This will prevent scratches on the material from the card. I neglected to do this on the driver side. BUT...it's self healing material. So I waved the heat gun around over the area, never focusing on one spot, and they basically healed themselves. They're almost impossible to see now.

Here's the driver's side complete. Don't worry about the water spots under the covers, eventually those will dry up under the film, same as window tint:

Driver and passenger side from the top:

Now, unfortunately for me, I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of stuff. So after I was complete and admiring my work, I caught a glimpse of something on the passenger side. It took the correct angle of light to even see it.

That's right, some how a small piece of hair static'd itself to the backside of the film when I was wetting it prior to install. It's super hard to tell it's even there if you're just looking at it, but in the right light, yeah, I can see it. Bugs the heck out of me. Here's a shot with my hand so you can see it, and without you can't:

I was very good about cleaning the lenses with a clean microfiber cloth, only soap and water. Repeated this 3x times. So it had to have attached itself to the film. I checked my beam pattern and you can't even see it in the beam pattern, so I'm probably going to leave it for now, but if my OCD gets the best of me I'll probably have to order another set so I can re-do the passenger side

I think this is a worthwhile install if you have glass OR plastic lenses and want to protect them. The company I bought them from said they had a few in stock when I purchased, so I let the car sit until I could install them...but they got back to me and said they didn't have any. So it literally took a couple weeks and I needed to drive my car. In that time I picked up some tiny rock chips in the glass (hard to tell unless you run a fingernail over) so my suggestion would be if you install a set of glass lenses, have a set of these ready at the same time to protect them immediately!

 

[PakProtector]

Nice Job there Krash.

Whilst installing an ALH timing belt, torque the cam bolt before *ATTEMPTING to to roll 2 revolutions looking for interference. You *WILL find interference...LOL. It is not an un-recoverable situation...just a serious D-Oh! moment. I am sure nobody else has done it, and figured y'all might use a laugh on this fine Saturday afternoon.

With timing re-established and the cam bolt torqued down, no interference presented itself...
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Zak99b5]

Not my MkIV (my son's) and not a TDI (2.slow), but we changed out his 200k+ mile auto tranny fluid on his 01M using a kit from idparts. It took 3 of the 4 bottles of fluid, and shifts/drives fine. Judging by what came out (black nasty stuff), he was a little low on fluid. The original VW lab.es filter was dated November of 2002.

Also, IDparts included a washer labeled 319? It wasn’t on the order, and we didn’t see anything Doing the job where we’d use it, as the new plug already had a seal on it.

Additionally, we installed a gps Speedo. His plastic gear in the tranny is cracked, so speed and mileage is underreported. Since his lighter plug doesn’t work, we just wired it to the 75X terminal on the relay block. Hopefully, he won’t get any more speeding tickets…

 

[gmenounos]

The wagon has been having issues lately. It started making a strange intermittent ticking noise a couple of months ago, so I mostly stopped driving it until I could get some time to investigate. Then during one drive when it started making that noise, I discovered that turning off the AC made the noise go away, so I figured maybe the AC clutch or compressor was on its way out.

Then a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn't start. I ignored it for a while, then tried to charge the battery and it wouldn't take a full charge. Eventually the charger displayed an error code indicating that the battery was no good. But the battery was charged enough to start it up and move it into the garage to deal with later. While driving it into the garage, I heard a sloshing sound. There was a half empty Nalgene bottle in the back seat so I mistakenly thought the sloshing was coming from that.

Fast forward 2 weeks. Bought a new battery and before installing it, noticed mold on the driver's seat. And the seatbelts. Opened up one of the rear doors and noticed half an inch of water on the floor on the driver's side., the real source of the sloshing sound. Shop-vac'd it out, dried the carpet as much as I could and wiped off all the mold and ran a dehumidifier inside the car for a few days to try to pull all the moisture out.

Today I installed the battery and discovered why the old one died: the right turn signal was stuck on. Disassembled the lower dash, removed the CCM. Whacked the relays with a screw driver, which unfortunately cracked one of the relay housings, taped over the crack, and reinstalled the CCM. Turn signals work properly again.

The AC clutch nut is tight but if you spin the inner wheel by hand, it isn't totally smooth and you can hear it.

The car's now in the driveway with the windows open, drying out.

 

[flying farmer]

Are we getting snow this winter? What winter tires did you get?

i drive snowtires even in summer. no changeover at all and my snowtires last about 3 1/2 years

 

[Nero Morg]

Put my replacement coolant ball on today, now I can drive my car again

 

[kennethsime]

Ended up taking the car to a (new) shop on Friday to do the outer CV joint replacement, guy's hourly was reasonable and used the Febi-Bilstein kit I had bought from ID. I was just glad to have the CV joint re-greased and sealed up before this weekend's storms.

Today I installed my new fender liners which had been shredded by tire rub. The right one is the new Jetta City model with a vent for the intercooler - stoked on that. Replaced most of the plastic inserts, some of the metal clips, and some of the screws.

There was a hell of a lot of gunk behind the fender liners on both sides - I filled up a 3 liter oil catch pan with mud and debris.

Unfortunately, I left the new-to-me OEM mudflats at home, so I'll have to install those later this week. We don't have a driveway, so I do most of my work in the back lot at work.

Also adjusted my brake pads on the passenger side, to see if there was a difference between the two. I'm pretty sure the clips are in fact identical, but the car does seem to brake just a touch better now.

 

[Andyinchville1]

HI,

I had build up like that behind the fender liner in my car too when I first took out the wheel well liner

Since I have tire rub issues with my larger tires I was thinking about pounding back some of the metal on say the bottom 3 or 4" of metal along the bottom edge of the wheel well opening.

By pounding that back , the gap between the plastic of the liner and the metal of the body will be increased and maybe let the dirt fall out easier and not build up in the first place ? (of course I would not bang back the mounting points of the fender liner otherwise the gap will close again).

Has anybody done that and found that it helped ? Is there anything wrong with pounding that area back for tire clearance (if this were not a unit body car I would have already pounded it back for clearance).

Thanks

Andrew

There was a hell of a lot of gunk behind the fender liners on both sides - I filled up a 3 liter oil catch pan with mud and debris.

Unfortunately, I left the new-to-me OEM mudflats at home, so I'll have to install those later this week. We don't have a driveway, so I do most of my work in the back lot at work.

Also adjusted my brake pads on the passenger side, to see if there was a difference between the two. I'm pretty sure the clips are in fact identical, but the car does seem to brake just a touch better now.
[/QUOTE]

 

[PakProtector]

That is about typical...did you remember to get the foam block out that is at the top of the fender arch?
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Zak99b5]

Ended up taking the car to a (new) shop on Friday to do the outer CV joint replacement, guy's hourly was reasonable and used the Febi-Bilstein kit I had bought from ID. I was just glad to have the CV joint re-greased and sealed up before this weekend's storms.

Today I installed my new fender liners which had been shredded by tire rub. The right one is the new Jetta City model with a vent for the intercooler - stoked on that. Replaced most of the plastic inserts, some of the metal clips, and some of the screws.

There was a hell of a lot of gunk behind the fender liners on both sides - I filled up a 3 liter oil catch pan with mud and debris.

Unfortunately, I left the new-to-me OEM mudflats at home, so I'll have to install those later this week. We don't have a driveway, so I do most of my work in the back lot at work.

Also adjusted my brake pads on the passenger side, to see if there was a difference between the two. I'm pretty sure the clips are in fact identical, but the car does seem to brake just a touch better now.

Sexy vented liner. On either my B5 A4 or my 02 GTi (can't remember which) I cut out a window in the liner behind the intercooler and riveted in a louvered vent from Home Depot Motorsports, painted black.

 

[kennethsime]

That is about typical...did you remember to get the foam block out that is at the top of the fender arch?
cheers,
Douglas

I left the foam block in place, but I'll be back in there to mount mudflats soon. Should I have gotten behind there? I assumed the foam was glued on, and if removed would be hard to replace.

 

[hey_allen]

I bought a set of LED strips and a switch to copy Krash's under hood lighting, and they arrived Sunday.
I then decided that the weather was a little too stormy to brave in the name of making wrenching easier. The rain was bouncing hard enough to sound like drums without having any hail in the mix.

 

[vandermic07]

I left the foam block in place, but I'll be back in there to mount mudflats soon. Should I have gotten behind there? I assumed the foam was glued on, and if removed would be hard to replace.

You want to remove and never replace the foam so your fender doesn't rust out there. You may not have the same issues as us "rust belt" guys but its still good practice.

 

[kennethsime]

You want to remove and never replace the foam so your fender doesn't rust out there. You may not have the same issues as us "rust belt" guys but its still good practice.

Ah, gotcha. I did notice the foam was wet, but did not pull it. Maybe I can get at it with just the top two screws out next time.

Car is rust-free, which is a god send. Originally purchased in Vermont, but has been a California car since shortly thereafter.

I got the mud flaps installed this morning, pretty happy with them overall.

Car still isn't a looker by any means, but I sure do enjoy it.

 

[csstevej]

What I’ve done is cut an upside down V notch about an inch wide on bottom of fender liner in that area so water and debris flow out.
Every once and awhile I put the garden hose on the cowl drain to flush everything out.

 

[PakProtector]

Did the blend doors; used the printed plug kit from ebay. It fit quite well. On the rhs door, I suggest fitting the big plugs first; this will reduce the risk of dropping a small plug through the bigger holes. Not something any of youse would want to have happen...
cheers,
Douglas

 

[Fahrvegnugen]

I clean the fenders 2x a year and put 2 nylon washers in between the liner and fender for each screw and don't screw it down all the way. The stuff still gets trapped in there. When the chucks of salt slurry freeze to the liner I kick them off and that cracks the liner, so it is like a v notch modification. Coating the fenders with some kind of oil seems to help for a while.

 

[befarrer]

I didn't do this today, but 2 weeks ago. I finished installing my Webasto diesel coolant heater. I installed a timer so it automatically turns on 15 minutes before I leave for work and after work. This morning, it was only -5c outside, but when I started the car, temp gauge was right in the middle, hot air coming out of the vents. Plan to run it to keep heat in the engine while city driving too. It's a 5.2kW unit, so equivalent to about 3.5 1500w frost heaters, but no plug in required.

 

[PakProtector]

Webasto makes some nice stuff for sure. 5.2kW is a beast.
cheers,
Douglas

 

[benmarks]

I didn't do this today, but 2 weeks ago. I finished installing my Webasto diesel coolant heater. I installed a timer so it automatically turns on 15 minutes before I leave for work and after work. This morning, it was only -5c outside, but when I started the car, temp gauge was right in the middle, hot air coming out of the vents. Plan to run it to keep heat in the engine while city driving too. It's a 5.2kW unit, so equivalent to about 3.5 1500w frost heaters, but no plug in required.

Can you elaborate? I ordered a Kufatec harness and have done a ton of research, but haven't bought the heater yet. Where did you get the heater? Is yours an independent system from a wiring standpoint, or did you get it to show up in VCDS? Did you look into the wireless option for activating it with a VW-branded key fob?

I have been able to find every MK4 part except the mounting bracket. Did you find one or fabricate one?

 

[PakProtector]

Just a bit of energy perspective... a single kW-hr is enough to get a 5 gal bucket of water from about 10C to comfortable hot coffee temp.
cheers,
Douglas

 

[KrashDH]

Decided to print myself a vent Pod for my 3rd gauge. 2 Are going on the column so I needed somewhere for the third.

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3870029

It is nice because it's angled, so when you're sitting in the driver seat it will be facing right towards you.

Unfortunately I'll have to ditch my lay-flat vent conversion on that side, but it'll be worth it to have a clean place for the gauge

Also, spent some time after work today hopefully designing a solution to mount my D2S projectors for V2.0. Figured I'd come back to it at some point.

 

[03TDICommuter]

Decided to print myself a vent Pod for my 3rd gauge. 2 Are going on the column so I needed somewhere for the third.

What filament type did you use? ABS?