My New Winter Jetta

[82vdub]

Thanks Odie. I have a running and driving diesel Rabbit out back that I thought about running in the winter. I'm just getting real tired of dealing with rust, so I wanted to start with something with much less rust. It's going to kill me to drive this nice of a car on the salt roads. It even bothered me with the blue Jetta, and this one's a lot nicer.

[surfcam]

I wonder if that 200 dollar cathodic protection might be worth a try. All I know is it works real well on pipe lines. There's a lot of salt water that is produce with the oil. If the system stops working. The smart pig can pick-up the lose of metal in just 6 month.

[82vdub]

I'm actually considering buying a sacrificial or anode for the car. Someone pasted a URL link to one for sale at Canadian Tire. Don't know if they are available in the US or not, but it wouldn't surprise me. I've heard they work, but with mixed results. The key is that you need them installed on the panels that you don't want to rust because just one connected to the main body may not be solidly connected with the other bolted on panels on the car. However, I'm more concerned with the main body of the car. But, at this point, I'm game to try the device once.

All household water heaters have an anode installed. You can prolong the life of your water heater by changing the rod when it is nearly all eaten up. Copper creates electrical characteristics in water systems that eat soft metals. Since the steel tank of the water heater is the weakest point, that will get eaten up except for the anode in the tank. The more copper you have, the faster the anode disappears.

[82vdub]

An update:

I checked the operation of the Aux air regulator (valve) and it was open when cold, and closed when engine warm, per the Bentley manual.

I also disconnected and blocked every vacuum hose fitting coming from the throttle body, except for the hoses that connect to the aux air regulator. Zero change. It has an irregular idle that leads to hesitation or stumbling when any gas is given (except when the additonal throttle blades are opened up in the throttle body). The rubber boot that connects the plastic air tube going from the throttle body to the fuel injection unit up by the radiator has a couple old age cracks in the valleys of the folds (like a rubber CV boot). I played around with this trying to get any RPM changes and had some different results, with no clear consensus. How often do these go bad? Any thoughts and ideas?

With an old carburetor car, I was able to diagnose vacuum hose leaks by spraying a can of carb cleaner on the connectors and listening for an RPM increase in the engine. Does anyone know if this trick works on a fuel injection car or not? I'm guessing it would, but this is the first fuel injection car I've tried to work on.

[hagar]

82vdub and ALL : IMHO (expert) the $200 crappy tire deal you could not give me one . Now for a sacrificial block of Zinc that is worth every penny. . The electrode in hot water tanks are Magnesium..

Electric protection work well on Steel Pilings in Salt water. .Even boats in the harbor can use electric.

How does hagar protect his ? every way and crossways. I spray Heavy Hydraulic oil on the underside regularly..

And a water-hose does a good job at washing off dry salt. . Nice looking car , wanna sell ? (just kidden)

hagar.

PS : rust is one thing Electrolytic is another.

[Fatmobile]

I asked a gasser guy what could cause the hesitation off idle.
Mine is doing it sometimes.
His first guess was cracks between the fuel distributor and intake.
I checked mine and they were good.
'87 Jetta GLI If I haven't mentioned my gasser project.

I had problems with the spark plug wires. I could hear them snapping.
I changed them now the snapping happens up by the coil.
I had a spray bottle and was looking for bad spots; I sprayed the coil and everything died instantly,.. but it started back up.
Spraying the newish wires caused no problem.
I plan to open the hood in the dark and watch for arching, maybe tonight.

[MPalm]

Any cracks at all anywhere between the intake plate and the engine is bad, no matter how small, because less vacuum is created and therefore the plate doesn't move down as much as it should, which leads to a lean mixture.
I think it sounds like you have an air leak somewhere, and if I'm not mistaken there's one quite large vacuum line underneath the fuel distributor/intake plate assembly?

Other than air leaks this fuel injection system is almost bullet proof as long as the fuel pressure is within specs.