Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

When you are dealing with a heavily modified wiring harness that some other person did and chasing electrical issues, it's probably wise to get another complete harness and replace the whole thing. Yea, it's a lot of work, but how much time do you have in dealing with an electrical issue, when your ...

I've always removed that restrictor in the line. The oriface is so small that nearly any debris in the cooling system will plug it. My Rabbit didn't have a restrictor in the line, so this didn't show up until later likely with the mk2 chassis. Even if the restrictor is removed, try blowing air throu...

All that I have used over the last 20 years all don't seem to last that well, especially when it gets cold out. But they are easy to change and fairly cheap.

After the regulator came loose from the back of the alternator and the car overcharged the battery on a trip back from Texas, we got a new battery and we drove our 82 Rabbit from St. Louis, MO to Green Bay, WI over the course of two days on just the battery. No headlights, no radio, nothing that wou...

It's been about 5 years since I last did mine (or longer), and I wasn't sure what all had to be removed for access to the water pump. That's a good catch though.

I prefer to do the waterpump and housing when I do pumps. The problem that you're going to have is getting at the AC/IP bracket to remove it or loosen it to change the water pump housing. It's not so easy on the cars with AC. I think the last time I did this I tried to keep the IP on the car but had...

I would have the alternator(s) tested and battery tested like bscutt mentioned first to know where you start. Hope that it's just two bad alternators, or a bad battery that wont hold a good charge or something. I wouldn't run the exciter wire to the battery. This is an intermittant connection and I ...

I think anyone that has some mechanical abilities can install bearings. You re-ringed it before, so you already had the pistons and rods out. You already had everything apart that you needed, just that you could have put new bearings back on the rod and cap before you installed it. At a minimum, I w...

I didn't try a bolt to move the bushing, but did a C clamp and socket. I also threaded a bolt into it and nut on the other side with the intention of trying to get the bushing to spin (to prove to me that it was in fact something that should move). That failed too.

I did try machining a washer to fit in the concave end, but I couldn't get the alternator installed without the washer falling out. Would have been different if that bushing would have moved, but it ended up being too tight of a fit.

Cranking speed does effect compression ratios (think leakdown past valves and rings etc here). I would crank it over 4-5 revolutions or until the needle stops rising. Or, you can pull the injectors or glow plugs for faster cranking. Even with a slower cranking speed (within reason), it should get yo...

I got two alternators for the job (one with a pully and one without) and used the one with the pully cuz I didn't want to spend 4 hours changing a pully, and end up damaging the new alternator). So the pullyless one is going back to the store. I just went to pull out the bushing that's machined into...

Someone could have used RTV on the gasket, which makes it more prone to movement due to the slipperyness of the RTV. That trans looks nasty like it got water in it.

I didn't try the bolt trick to try to get the bushing to move back, but I did put a bolt through it to try to tighten down on itself in an attempt to get it to at least rotate. No luck. Even though it looks like it's a bushing that's supposed to move back, I wasn't 100% certain. I thought it could h...

Before posting the original post, I went out to the two parts cars I have out back. They are non AC cars, so they are different, but the alternator mount was a similar shape and configuration as the mount with AC. Each of those two cars had this bushing, and each of them had the bushing in a differe...