RIP "Old Blue"

[coke]

Heh. I remember my 90 Jetta had 2 bad plugs, I used lighter fluid to start it.

Worked good. Ran away on my once, but worked good other than that. Extremely volatile substance though.

[Fatmobile]

I tried to start it in the very cold again the other day, datdatdat hmmm. Those old slow glows are dropping off one at a time. I disconnected the glowplug sensor wire so it they would light up even when the engine is warm, and start quicker.

The mudflaps are doing their job:


I'll have to put some on the rear:


Light snowstorm pic:

[MPalm]

That reminds me, I need to get some mudflaps too! I´d like them to be a little wider and taller than they usually are, like the ones they use on rally cars.

[Fatmobile]

I put these bigger mudflaps on, I told my mechanic about them he holds no punches said, "They'll be ripped off the fenders in no time".
I told him I put extra supports pieces behind them,.. that shut him up
You can see the extra pieces of 1/16" stainless behind them. They are screwed to the pinch rail and wheel well, not just to the edge of the fenders.
He can be such a know-it-all sometimes. Good feature in a mechanic. He was right, not much to attach to normally.
I'm trying to figure out how to put big ones on the rear without leaving a pocket for crap to congregate, behind them.
Might have mentioned this before but I got a paint gun for christmas and am waiting for good weather to learn how to use it.

[coke]

Fatmobile, is that the Rabbit you pieced together and cut the back end out of it and swapped in another?

[MPalm]

Did you take those mudflaps from a bigger car or are they "made by fatmobile"-special?

I drive a lot on dirt roads and the stock size flaps don´t help much, except when your going straight forward

[Fatmobile]

Yeah Coke, that's the same car that was on it's side this summer. It's still rough, no headliner makes it loud, it really needs duraterms and a hillbilly tuning.
I was going to put the VNT15 turbo I have on the GTI diesel but this car has a 1.5 in it and I'd like to see what kind of fuel mileage I can get with it and a 1.5VNT15,... and a 1.6VNT15 has been done.

...and the mudflaps are custom, made from some conveyor belt, with stainless support plates behind them

[Fatmobile]

I've been driving this car up until about a month ago.
I just threw this motor in there to get it running, I knew the passenger side motor mount was junk,... and the timing belt started riding off it's sprocket because of worn injection pump bushings.
Sooo time to tear into the engine bay.
Pulled a yellow dot pump apart, new bushings reamed, took a couple mm off the timing piston while I was in there and changed seals.
As I was replacing the injection pump bracket with one that has a new bushing, I lowered the engine to get that lower allen bolt and wasn't watching close enough.
I set the alternator plug on the lower rad hose. The alternator housing poked through the plug and shorted it out all the way back to the battery:


The wiring is all fixed, it's running,... but the internal pump pressure is very low; I can get 20 psi if I rev it.
The timing light shows no dynamic advance as the RPMs rise,... it actually retards back to TDC

[Fatmobile]

When working with it I thought the "OUT" bolt had a restriction hole that seemed too large.

I looked through some other OUT bolts and found some with a smaller hole, will try it tomorrow, stay tuned.

[Fatmobile]

I swapped in the other OUT bolt and it didn't change anything.
So I pulled the regulator,... didn't remove it when I tore the pump down because it was in there good and might be easier to deal with when it's mounted to the block.
It came out hard, broke my tool had to make another and it was working to hard so I smacked it with a hammer for awhile,... it decided to give up and came out without a fight.

The lower o-ring was thrashed,.. last person who messed with it might have put it in dry.
I swapped in new o-rings and internal pump pressure was back in action.
I set the pressure, checked with the timing light to see if it was advancing.
It was,... a little.
I haven't messed with the pulse adapter/ timing light enough to know.
what it's supposed to look like.
The advance piston had 4 shims on the cover side, I might remove one and see what happens.

While I had everything apart was a good time to change the trashed passenger side motor mount bushing.... it din't have many miles on it, maybe 3000.
So I wanted to make it last awhile and test to see what filling the 5 holer bushing with some left over windshield urethane would do:


It vibrates quite a bit,.. not much more than the junk bushing it replaced. It will be interesting to see if it smooths out after a few hundred miles.

[rabbit_man]

Hey fatmobile, hows it runnin' these days?

[Fatmobile]

Still runs like a champ.
Vibrates too much at idle. I want to play with the governor screw and see if I can get the idle more stable.
,... and play with the timing on this refreshed pump, now that it's cold.

Cold weather helps my tuning, get it to start in the worse conditions and it will run great the rest of the time.

[VanBoy]

Wow. That is a very interesting project indeed! (I never knew the rear axle could do that.... bolts break. Now I'm wondering about the old Rabbit I just bought.....)

[Fatmobile]

The bolts on the rear end aren't what broke, the whole area colapsed.

Made it through the winter.
I put a VNT-15 on it. Running 10psi and the max fuel coller is still in place.
and it cruises real nice.
Plenty of power but it's a little noisey on the highway,
when the boost gets up there, the controller opens the turbo vanes and it gets noisey.

Everything was wrong with the driver's door.
window wouldn't roll up or down easily, handle didn't work well.
and the door cards would look better blue.

I pulled it all apart, lubed the window roller tube, stuck a piece of foam over the part that was banging on bumps,
made a vapor barrier, for behind the door card, out of bubblewrap.
It really helped keep door noise down,
and it shouldn't be as cold near the door.
The handle hadn't broken yet but the pivot rivot had worn it's bore.
Couldn't just lube it, had to drill the rivot out and put a small bolt in it's place.
The threads that hold the handle on were stripped too, so I spot welded a new nut in place.
Driver's door works great, looks good.
So I did the same to the passenger front door, minus the handle problem, plus added a door mirror that could be adjusted from inside the car.
Much quieter. and dark blue over maroon looks good.

[Fatmobile]

I still haven't gotten around to working on the rear doors,..
but it's getting a fresh 1.6 TD engine.

The 1.5 I put in it was the first VW diesel engine I ever rebuilt.
I didn't know to work it hard so I babied it,
The rings never really seated, it always used oil and with the turbo it really blew some oil out the block vent.

So that engine is getting honed and I just happen to have a proper set of rings in the pile.

Same VNT turbo that backs off with boost,.. but I will use a knob on the dash to control it instead of connecting it to the accelerator lever.