stripethree

Before the trip to Nebraska (more on that in a bit), I dropped the GTI off at Stuttgart Autohaus here in Tucson to get all the transmission shifter linkage bushings and various other wear items in the shifter replaced. I have had the bags of parts for a while and wanted to tackle this myself, but I recently discovered that there were bushings badly in need to replacement, and very soon, being very near the state of falling apart and rendering the car inoperable. So last Tuesday I left the car in hopes it would be back in shape in no time. I was almost right, and the results made me glad I took it to a shop rather than tried to do this myself. There was an additional bushing not included in my kit which the shop tech, who has been a VW certified tech longer than I have been alive, recommended also replacing while things were apart. The part was relatively inexpensive, it would just take a few days to get it. No big deal for either party involved, so while Summer and I were off in the midwest, the GTI sat a few miles from home waiting on parts.

The bushing arrived and everything was finished on Monday and I picked it up this morning before work. What a difference. The shift action is extremely smooth and precise with no doubts about getting into the desired gear, especially with first and fifth. I couldn’t be happier with the results. While I would have liked to have gained the knowledge and experience in replacing these items myself, sometimes these things are better left to the professionals.

While I wait for results to be posted from today’s Arizona Region SCCA event, I will post a short update on a couple things I got done with the GTI this weekend.

First, we rewind to last weekend when I originally attempted to paint the roof of the GTI black. I say attempted because, well, it did not turn out as planned. I succeeded in changing the color from green to black, but the quality of the paint job left a lot to be desired. I’m no artist with a rattle can, but knew I could do better. I’d never sprayed something as large as a car’s roof, and thus, had to pay a lot of attention to keeping things evenly coated. I took a second shot this weekend and while not perfect, it looks a lot better than my first attempt and a lot better than the state of the original paint. I didn’t take pictures of the process, too much risk of chemicals, dust, and crap getting into the camera, but I did get some interesting looks from passersby about why I had a car wrapped in plastic tarps under my carport. Hey, if you don’t want paint on it, you better tape it or wrap it in something! I’ll get some pictures of the results up soon. The final verdict: I’m satisfied, for now, since it looks much better than it did. It’s spray paint and I’m an amateur painter so I kept my expectations realistic.

I also installed a new headlight wiring harness I purchased from EuroWires after it arrived on Saturday. Why a new harness? Well, better light output for one and two, more robust wiring, proper relaying, and not having power for the lights run through the headlight switch in the dash. With aftermarket lights that pull more power than the original equipment, the headlight switch can quite literally burn up. As in dash fire. No thanks, I like fire to cook delicious meats on my grill, not my car. The headlight switch still controls the lights, but the power is pulled directly form the battery or via connections to the alternator or starter, depending on how you choose to hook things up (I choos the battery). I thought about building a harness myself but I do not have the highest confidence in my wiring abilities which is why I went with a kit from EuroWires. The harness took less than an hour to install, including having to remove the grille and all the front lights, and involves no splicing into existing wiring so it’s just as easy to uninstall should the need arise. The quality is top notch, it really looks as good or better than a harness that would have come from the factory. I could not have put something together myself this well. The results were immediately visible with lighting output well improved for both the low and high beams. As with the newly barbecued roof, I’ll get some pictures up soon.

This weekend was a wiring weekend. I finally, finally bolted and wired up the fog lights that I have had sitting in a box for the R32. In case you didn’t know, I have had these ‘sitting in a box’ since before I moved to Arizona. Yeah, that long. Wow.

I am very pleased with out it worked out, the lower bumper grilles still fit perfectly and it basically looks like they came from the factory this way. They are wired through a toggle switch in the dash, same as the auxiliary radiator fan. Also the same as the fan is the power/switch setup with the trigger for the switch running through the fuse box before the toggle switch so that when the car is not running, these accessories are switched off even through they are powered off the battery. This way, they will turn off when the car is turned off, even if I leave the toggle switches in the ‘on’ position.

I also got the gauges I have had for, probably a few months, installed into the GTI. Oil pressure, oil temperature, and a voltmeter were installed in a three gauge panel where the half working stereo head unit used to be.

So now I can monitor some vitals, since the dash warning lights don’t really provide anything more than ‘something might be wrong… you should spend hours trying to figure out what’.

Completion of these projects whittle down the list of pending things I have for both cars. The only thing I have outstanding for the R32 is the brake bleeder screw issue in the front passenger caliper. I’ve had spare parts, which I may not even need, sitting for months. For the GTI, I have parts awaiting for a rebuild of the shifter linkage, some new coolant lines and overflow tank, and of course, the roof waiting to be painted black. All in due time, all in due time.

Oh, I almost forgot, there is one new thing on the R32 list – the alarm LEDs mysteriously died, both of them. The alarm still works and it happened after an autocross, so I am thinking a connection in the driver’s door came loose, meaning I get the take apart the door cards and break more of those crappy plastic clips again.

Here we had a long overdue installment for the GTI, due in part to a mechanical mishap, a decision to upgrade, and being patient for some parts. It all started with the attempted install of the oil temperature and pressure senders into the oil filter flange. I managed to shear off the brand new temperature sender in the flange which left the poor car undriveable. Make no mistake, this was one of those bone head, lack of patience and paying attention mistakes that left me wondering ‘crap, what did I do, and how much time and money is this mistake going to cost’. Starting the GTI resulting in a lovely spray of oil all over the engine block and all attempts to extract the broken piece from the flange failed miserably. The use of an easy-out proved fruitless, as the tool itself broke off into the flange as well. This sealed the already high chance that I would have to find and install a new flange. Luckily I found someone in Phoenix selling parts off the exact same motor, as he had decided to swap a different one into his Jetta. I got the flange and new gaskets and once I had everything seated correctly all appeared well, as still is this far. The car is driveable once again, doesn’t spew, leak, or drip oil (knock on wood), and the senders are installed properly awaiting the necessary wiring to be run.

When this mishap occurred, I remove the entire front bumper and lights from the car in order to more easily access the area where the flange was. I realized the stellar (sarcasm) shape the lights and bumper were in and decided some changes would be in order. I ordered new lights from Black Forest Industries and decided to do some reconditioning on the bumper. I removed the lower trim piece, stripped the chip-riddled paint, and hit it with some black spray. I also redid the stripe around the grille with new pin striping since the red had long since faded to something between pink and, well, certainly not red. I also cleaned up the black areas of the bumper and refinished it with Kiwi Leather Dye, a trick that I read about over on VWVortex and was also using to bring the door trim and fender flares back to near their original glory. I also had picked up some Lamin-X film for the new lights, I figured that if I was going to spend the money on brand new glass lens lights, I might as well protect them. One needs to only look at the lower edge of the hood, fenders, and the grille to see how rock chips can quickly do damage. It was also the reason I was replacing the lights in the first place, so it made sense.

So once I got all the parts in hand, back together she went. I also had to swap the connectors for the outside lights as the new units take a different bulb. Easy enough, thankfully. I wouldn’t say the front of the car looks showroom new now, but it certainly does look better.

I am very happy with the results of both the face lift and the oil flange nonsense, even if I created the latter of those two out of my own stupidity. The front bumper itself is not more properly and securely attached, held on my two carriage bolts (not pictured) rather than a slew of steel cable and bungee cords. The bumper already had a handful of small holes drilled in it, so I really didn’t care about drilling two more for the sake of keeping the bumper on the actual car.

Of course, the question as always is ‘what is next’. I have some fog lights on order that will replace the banged up and broken units currently on the car and restore more of an original look, better fitting in to the bumper openings. This will complete the front end makeover. Now that I know my small hand sanded will strip the paint quite well, I’m more motivated to get cracking on striping and redoing the roof, a slightly bigger project than the grille trim. Now that the senders are installed, all that’s needed for my gauges is wiring, so I should get on that also. Nothing like having hundreds of dollars of parts just laying around waiting for time and motivation.

Last weekend was another Tucson event and another reminder that I need tires. Badly.

It was a short course because of a drag racing test and tune going on. I did not fair well and I can’t fully blame the tires. I need to learn how to drive in order to compensate for these things. I finished third of three in STX for the second straight month with times of 47.367, 45.293 (+1), 45.907, 45.924, 46.006 though I swear I thought my 4th run was a clean 45.294… we’ll see. It doesn’t change my place in my class though and even if it was a 45.294, that’s a full second behind the class leader. Afterward, a few folks stayed behind to do a test and tune to prepare for upcoming national events. I took a ride in a fellow STX car, a Subaru WRX and it certainty seemed more tossable than the R. I also got a wild ride in an XP Lotus Elise, and drove an FS Mustang GT. That drive sold me on Dunlops because they simply would not let go.

As for the GTI, I traded some speakers I no longer use for a rear strut bar from Black Forest Industries and also started to bring the bumper and door trim back to life. So far, the black Kiwi Leather Dye seems to be doing the trick and the trim is looking fantastic. Pictures will come once I get it completed, right now it’s about a third of the way done. It will have to wait though, as next week I am off to San Diego with Mom, Dad, and Phil.

This was a month long project of sorts. I picked up a set of used Borbet Type Ts in 15×7 piecemeal. One guy had one that was brand new, another guy had three that needed some minor work. Once the wheels arrived they were shod with tires, as recommended by the refinishing company since the work they needed was minor. Then they went off to Alloy Wheel Repair in Tucson and were brought back to new. I was extremely happy with the results and the wheels went on the car this evening.

They sure do look small for 15s, maybe it is just me, but either way I don’t think I’d go any larger on a Mk2. The problem now is that I visualize how hot it would look if the car was slammed. I do like the car as it sits with these and I certainly don’t need to spend money on the already upgraded suspension.

Ever since I was driving along one day not long after I bought it and was greeted by a little black box falling into my feet, I have been playing a game of wits with the aftermarket alarm that was installed in the GTI. Not only did the alarm not really work, but it prevented the car from starting at times and it was a wiring mess.

As you can guess, all that didn’t tuck away very well near my feet and the pedals, so it probably wasn’t the safest thing to have in the car. At least the electrical connections were good and there was no risk of fire (feel better Mom, it looks worse than it was). What was really a pain was that whenever I tried to tuck the wires away or if I accidentally stepped on them, a connection would break and the next time I went to start the car, it wouldn’t even crank. For the sanity of my family that may be reading this, don’t worry, none of this wiring would cause the car to cut out or die on the road once it was already started.

I am not a wiring person. I have enough trouble with ‘righty tightly lefty loosely’ sometimes so the concepts of current, resistance, and volts/amps/ohms are mostly beyond my grasp. Don’t tell Mr. Moats, my old AP Physics teacher. After a few failed trial and error sessions, all of which ended up with me in the mindset of, ‘oh great, can I just get the car to start again so I can leave this for another day’, I got a little smarter about it. I found a copy of the original installation instructions online and also documented all the wires how they were installed in the car. Of course, the actual wiring did not match the instructions, but they were close, and I discover that there was really only one key wire that needed to be addressed in order to remove the entire system. Today, armed with more knowledge, I took on the task of ridding the car of this nasty wiring mess.

I mostly succeeded. All the alarm wiring is out and the car starts. If the battery is disconnected, I have to do a little trickery to get her fired up again, but it’s nothing that takes more than 2 minutes, and I shouldn’t have the battery disconnected much anyway. Once that’s done she fires up just fine over and over. Hopefully I can fix this quirk another day, as it will require burying my head into wiring diagrams and pulling the dash to reach the one, rerouted wire that is the culprit. Neither of which I look forward to. Right now I’m satisfied with the wiring being gone and the car being operational. One step at a time.

I spent the better part of Saturday starting at the underside of my cars. I have handfuls of parts for the GTI, mostly maintenance related items, and I got started whittling down that pile. New distributor rotor and cap, new ignition wires, new spark plugs, new leather gear shift and emergency brake boots, new wiper blades, an added rear sway bar, and a few other odds and ends got taken care of. The partial tune up has the car running even better, I still would like to change the oil but am waiting until after I can pinpoint the small leak as well as clean the air filter, change the fuel filter, and throw on some other new parts.

I also finished up an install I started on the R32 last weekend, an auxiliary radiator fan to help with the engine cooling. The kit is pre-built but the wiring is setup to run whenever the car is on, which is not exactly what I wanted. So I routed the wiring through a hidden toggle switch that I mounted so that I can manually control when the power is on. I also got a little creative when I had to cut the fender liner to provide a vent for the fan.

That was all well and good and things went well with both cars. Working on the Mk2 is a little slower because I am not as familiar with some of the challenges it presents, and I end up spending a good amount of time with my head buried in my Bentley manual.

Yesterday was the second event for the summer series autocross in Tucson. It was not my best showing. I (partially) blame the tires, my nearly bald Falkens, especially the ones on the rear end of the car, as they caused me headaches trying to fight to find the right pressures and find some traction.

Competition times: 40.779 (+2), 41.648 (+1), 41.526(+1), 41.960, 41.417
Time only: 42.645, 41.471, 41.286, 41.354, 40.945

That put me in 3rd of 3 in STX, 22th raw, 20th PAX, 924 points. I was three tenths off 2nd in class, a half second off first. I am trying to hold off on buying new autocross tires for the fall series, as as I was planning on running in Tucson, Sierra Vista, and Phoenix, so at least 9 events. I don’t know if I can wait that long though, there’s two more Tucson events before that and one more Sierra Vista event (their fall series starts in August, not September, but I’ll be in San Diego and will miss is anyway), so we’ll see. Either way, yesterday was a learning experience. It took me all day but I figured out what pressure can help combat the oversteer that occurred with the rear tires having almost no tread. I still faired ok, I suppose.

Video of yesterday’s event should be up soon, seems my usual video hosts are having some issues.

I originally looked for spray tint to do this, but local auto parts stores didn’t carry any. So I took the driver side taillight that was cracked and tried a light coat of paint and was pleased with the results.

The test run:

So tonight I painted the top halves of the tails, the bananas, and the bumper markers.

Process:
- thoroughly cleaned the lights with Simple Green Max automotive de-greaser
- lightly scuffed the surfaces with 1000 grit sandpaper
- cleaned the lights again to remove any dust from the previous step
- masked the lower part of the tails and other surfaces I wanted paint free with 3M painter’s tape
- one light coat of satin black paint, by ‘light’, I mean three passes over the surface with spray
- wet sanded the black paint once it was dry, 2000 grit this time
- two light coats of clear coat, allowing the first coat to dry before the second was applied
- lastly, to make ‘em shine and to provide some protection, hit them with meguairs polish and wax

Very pleased with the results. Dark enough for the smoked look I was shooting for, but not super dark; the light output is still excellent. The pics above were taken right about sunset, so the lights look darker.

An up and down day working on the Mk2, I guess.

Pulled the kneebar and some other interior bits in order to pull the stereo wiring. Manged to get the wiring out, but discovered there is additional crap in there for an alarm system/kill switch. Attempts to remove this met with the car not starting so I gave up on that and got my under dash pockets installed. Better functionality, and even more important, more knee and leg room. They fit pretty well, but it could be better. Need to figure out how they can be attached to the center console. The wiring crap was frustrating because it is all spliced and electrical taped and is going to be a pain in the ass to remove.

Also figured out the idle issue, which was ISV related. Now once she’s warm she idles at about a grand and when stopped, if I turn up the A/C full blast idle drops slightly for a split second then stabilizes at a grand again. Perfect. Lastly, I solved the issue with my horn; the contacts were too close and some times the vibrations from the car would set it off. Cloth tape in a few places and bam, done.

I also got the patched autocross tire back on the R in preparation for Sierra Vista’s event tomorrow at the airport. Also did an oil change on Summer’s Vue for her before she heads to Mexico; seriously the easiet oil change ever. The 2.2 Ecotechs take a filter insert and the cartridge can be accessed from the engine bay. Combine that with enough ground clearance for me to get to the oil pan draing plug without putting the car on ramps or stands and things were a piece of cake. At least something today was easy!