stripethree

Here’s a small update to Project Daily Driver GTI aka Victoria. I’ve been knocking out some things here and there…

- Got rid of the Sirius antenna and installed a new Fuba antenna. I didn’t have to pull the headliner because the wiring was present, but I still have no radio, so I bet it’s just no connected behind the headunit. Still need to pull that to remove all the old stereo wiring
- Replaced the door lock pulls, the gear shift knob, and replaced the (plastic) handbrake trim
- Added some armour door plates for some security. I am hoping between that, the Club, and the Euro locks it’ll make the car enough work to steal that thieves will just move on to something easier. In case you did not know auto theft is HUGE in Tucson and southern Arizona, mainly because by the time you realize your car is stolen, it’s probably in Mexico. Since the GTI sits in a random parking lot all day, every day, far away from me (I drive it to pick up a van shuttle for the 75 mile ride to Sierra Vista), I thought I’d invest a small amount in hopefully keeping the car in my possession
- I managed to find B pillar mounted belts. The first set I got had a busted retainer spring on the drivers side, meaning the belt would not stay taut. I found a local guy parting an ’87 GTI and got more parts off him, so now I have a working set of belts installed and a bunch of spare parts and hardware for them. So much better than the door mounted passive belts.
- From the same local guy that I got the seat belt parts from, I scored a cheap set of flawless OEM taillights since my driver’s side is cracked. I think I might use the cracked one to try some home tinting and depending on how it comes out, I want to smoke the top half of the tails.
- I also picked up a dash cover to prevent the dash, which is in pretty good condition, from cracking in the Arizona sun.
- I also scored an original owner’s manual for a ’91 off Amazon Marketplace which will be useful as it does have some small things that the Bentley does not.
- I sold the BBS wheels locally as well, so that helped fund some of the parts I’ve bought.

I’ve been daily driving the GTI and it is performing well. It made a weeks worth of rountrips to Sierra Vista when I was in training and could not take the van shuttle. I am getting nearly 27mpg on 87 in mixed conditions, not including that week when it was all highway and I was getting in the mid 30s.

I have added a few things to my list though:
- I think the reverse light switch is toast or on it’s way out. Some days the reverse lights work, some days they don’t. The switch is cheap, but I will do some more diagnosis before I deem that the problem.
- At some point sooner rather than later I will rebuild the shifter. There is some play in the shifter in every gear and sometimes it takes a try or two to get into first and fifth. It just feels sloppy. I have an mk3 shift weight on the way (unless USPS lost it…) and I think that in conjunction with a rebuild, and maybe a short shifter, it will shift fantastically.
- I also have confirmed that there is a minor coolant leak in one of the hoses right behind the front bumper. It’s intermittent; I find a small, maybe half dollar sized amount maybe once a week, and I cannot figure out exactly what conditions cause it. It is something I want to investigate before it starts really getting hot here. It doesn’t look like it is coming directly from the radiator, which is good. The temp of the car never gets higher than normal either, even in stop and go city traffic in the afternoon, and it’s already pushing 90 here some days. Imagine that, a heat wave in the desert, high next Monday is listed as 99.

April has been hectic. It did not start well, as I came down with the flu on the 1st of the month and missed three days of work and could barely get out of bed without pain on coughing. Yipiee. I’m mostly over it, but still coughing. All the doc gave me was some codeine laced cough syrup which works, but is kind of hard to take when you actually have to do things. Like drive to work. Last week I took a class for geared towards the Certified Ethical Hacker exam and certification. I couldn’t take the shuttle since the hours of the class differed from the van schedule, so I drove it, which was great because it was a long day and I would much rather have been napping on the drive home. On the upside, I drove the GTI for most of the week and it performed wonderfully. More on that in a moment. The class was okay, it reminded me of many of the things I do NOT miss about the school type setting and by Thursday and Friday I had a hard time maintaining focus and attention. The instructor was good, but there’s only so long I can sit and listen to someone talk in that setting and go through 2300 pages of text books. I pulled a lot from the class, but I don’t know if I am fully prepared for the exam, I need to study more before Tuesday. I am going to try and crack the books open this weekend, but that is going to be tough. This morning Summer and I went and picked up a UHaul and moved all her furniture to the house. We also picked up the matching couch to go with the loveseat a friend of hers gave us since they are getting new furniture. So the house is a little messy, but it will get sorted out soon enough. Luckily the majority of the move did not take that long and she still has her apartment until the end of the month to move odds and ends and clean it up before she has to be out. Tomorrow there’s a Tucson autocross with a course I co-designed with one of the other guys that has been doing most of the courses of late. Sometime this weekend I was hoping to get a few odds and ends done on the GTI since I had about a dozen and a half small parts arrive from various sources this week, but I’m sure if I will get the time. As I previously mentioned, I should probably hold off on that and devote time towards studying for Tuesday’s exam. It’s 150 questions and answering 70% correct denotes success and a Certified Ethical Hacker certification. It’s a computer based test, so as soon as you are done you find out if you passed or if you failed (and if you failed, but how much). I’m nervous about it, but I think I am still close enough to my ‘school days’ that I still have enough of the studying mentality and will be able to pass. Monday night will probably be a late night, but that’s the way it goes. Hopefully I can pass and be done with this certification so I can move on to the next one that I am scheduled to take next month. This time it will be the Certified Information Systems Security Professional, and I’m not taking a class. The exams covers a lot of areas, but only to a certain ‘depth’ so to speak, and since I am familiar with many of the areas, I’m going to take a shot at this one studying on my own. It’s going to take some work, but I’ll have a month to prepare. I think I work better doing a little bit every night rather than cramming everything in a week long barrage of instruction. We’ll see.

As I said before, I drove the GTI roundtrip to Sierra Vista for the majority of the week, and all went well. I’ve found various odds and ends to fix or remove, artifacts if you will from the previous owners, but nothing major. She’s running well and that’s all I need her to do.

The subject of this insanity is a 1991 Montana Green 8v GTI with 250,000 miles on the clock that I purchased last weekend. The engine and transmission have around 18k on them since they were fully rebuilt. I will be keeping a gallery of pictures here as I mentioned in my previous post.

The goal of this ‘project’ is to spruce up and ‘restore’, over time, a car that I intend to use as a daily driver. Hence, why I bought an example that I think has a solid driveline. I will not, will not be doing a motor swap, forced induction, or any other crazy motor work unless the motor blows up. It’s an 8v and it’s been taken care of, so I really hope it doesn’t blow up. I will also not be painting the entire car. The roof is fading, yes, and the car came with a spare passenger door ready for paint since the one on the car is dented up, but I’m not interested in spending thousands of dollars on a good paint job on a 17 year old car. I am also not turning this into a show queen, so it won’t be slammed on expensive deep dish wheels. It has to handle the nastiness of I10 and the car control things at the gate at Fort Huachuca so a super lowered car on nice, expensive wheels is pointless here. It’s already sitting lower on Bilstiens and H&Rs which I like just fine, and I really like the blackened OEM snowflakes. Plus, 14″ tires are dirt cheap.

So, if you aren’t completely disinterested by now, you are wondering what the hell will I be doing with this car. Basically, anything and everything else that will improve the car, keeping it to an OEM+ theme. Here’s everything (in detail) I’ve identified so far that may need attention or that I might want to fix/improve upon.

Mechanical issues:
- When stopped with the air conditioning on, idle fluctuates and the car almost stalls. The problem is likely a dirty, malfunctioning, or not working ISV (idle stabilization valve).

Electrical issues:
- None, but on Greg’s recommendation I plan to relay the headlights as a preventative measure.

Exterior issues:
- Driver’s side mirror glass fell out after seperating from the backing. I have already glued it back in with some Liquid Nails clear adhesive.
- Roof paint is badly faded. I plan to spray paint it black to go with the black snowflakes.
- Side mirrors have clear coat peeling. I plan to spray paint these black as well.
- Driver side door handle is broken and passenger side isn’t doing that well. Obviously these need to be replaced to remedy a pain in the ass situation.
- Driver side 7″ headlight appears to be missing some screws and/or had a broken bracket and as a result, is not aligned very well.
- Both 5.25″ lights are cracked. However, lights functions fine.
- Driver side foglight lens is broken/missing. However, light functions fine.
- Front bumper appears to be held on by screws as much as bungee cords. Broken brackets? Who knows, but thankfully, it’s on the car and solid with little (hopefully) danger of falling off.
- Radio antenna has been replaced with a crappy Sirius antenna and since no antenna is connected, the radio does not work. Thankfully, the CD player does.
- Passenger door has multiple dents that probably can’t be removed via paintless dent removal as they are right on a seam and are very close together. A spare door with primer and ready for paint, was included in the sale.
- Driver side taillight has a crack. However, light functions fine.
- Windshield has multiple cracks that are dangerously close to the seals. A new one is on order and should be installed next week.

Interior issues:
- Tear in driver side front seat bolster.
- Both door lock pulls are broken or missing.
- Shift knob is missing insert.
- Driver side rear seat latch does not full engage.

Additional ‘to do’ items/things I want:
- Another good suggestion from Greg: convert to B pillar mounted 3 point seat belts.
- Smoked banana lights and big bumper markers.
- Spare keys. I only have one and am deathly afraid I will do something stupid and break it off in a lock while fiddling with the door handles. Hopefully I can order some blanks and get them cut from the VIN at a dealer. I want to try and do that rather than copy from the key I have that has years of wear and tear.
- I need to check out the condition of bushings in multiple places on the car, including the suspension and the shifter/linkage. Might replace/rebuild where necessary as a preventative measure.

So there it is. I’ll add things as I remember, find them, or find items I desire. It seems like a daunting list, but none of these things effect the major functions of the car. It passed emissions without issue yesterday (and is now titled and registered in AZ!), it drives fine, and all the electrical stuff works. I intend to prioritize what I will do by how much stuff will cost and how much it really effects my day to day use of the car. For example, the door handles and lock pulls being broken is both highly inconvient and relatively inexpensive to fix, so that’s one of the first things I will be looking to fix.

So there’s the intro, we’ll see where it goes from here.

So I’m in week three of commuting to Sierra Vista everyday, and thus far, things are good. Except my gas bill, which is through the freakin’ roof. I knew it was coming, but it takes planning to minimize the cost, because most of the gas stations on 90, which connects Sierra Vista with the rest of the world are money hungry thieving bastards.

No matter. Next week I don’t have to drive it anymore. Next week I’m starting to take the shuttle instead. What does this mean? Instead of spending oh, around $400 a month in gas, I’ll spend $170 for the shuttle. Instead of waking up at 5ish, I’ll be waking up at 4ish. However, I can sleep for the 75 minute ride down in the morning and back in the afternoon. We’ll see how much of a zombie this turns me into. I’m optimistic though. So far the project itself is ok, I haven’t gotten to actually go much since I needed access cards, more access cards, PIN numbers, and oh, yeah, a computer. All the administrativa is taken care of though, so now we’ll get down to it (and steer clear of the politics!).

I wasn’t expecting a shuttle spot to open up so soon, so I was actively shopping a second car to save a little on gas and keep miles off my nicer, newer car that will soon be paid for and which I’d rather not drive directly into the ground. I was looking mostly at TDIs (diesel powered VWs), older VWs, and random other things here and there. The week before I was informed that a shuttle spot was opened up I went up to Casa Grande to drive a 1991 GTI I was looking at. Overall it is in pretty good shape, and the engine and transmission have less than 20,000 miles on them after a complete rebuild. The body is mostly good and other, major areas (like brakes) are in good shape also. It’s a 17 year old car and needs some help here and there of course, but what 17 year old car doesn’t. I ended up buying it regardless of the fact that I now did not need it, partially because now I have my backup should the shuttle not work for me and partially because I just flat out wanted it and it was a deal not worth passing up.

So here she is.

Yes, it’s pretty much turquoise, also known as Montana Green, a pretty rare color. The seller met me in Casa Grande again and I drove her home without issue. She’s been parked unti lI can get her title transferred officially and get Arizona tags (I blame work and the DMV’s hours) which should happen this weekend. I’m dying to drive the thing. I went over the car from bumper to bumper, found a few more minor things and made a list of all the things I’d fix or change. I won’t be doing all of them, but I wanted a record so I didn’t forget. The plan is to fix or upgrade things as they break for the most part, because that’s what 17 year old cars do, break parts. I already broke a damn door handle for crying out loud. This has the potential to be frustrating, but I want it to be fun. I have a perfectly good, newer car to drive should I need to fix something on the GTI. I’m looking forward to the challenge honestly, since it’s a completely different, and in many cases, simpler, world than the fourth generation cars.

We’ll see how things progress. Two more payments and the ’04 is paid for also, I can’t wait for that day.