The Car Thread

[george_seamons]

Just going to use the newer PD115 ecu, apparently that can be mapped perfectly fine.

Got the whole Golf loom pinned out, now working on the TT loom, then I can compare the two. 

[Haz]

Enjoying this thread of late, lots of good stuff going on with peoples cars.

[Danny]

37 minutes ago, george_seamons said:

Just going to use the newer PD115 ecu, apparently that can be mapped perfectly fine.

Got the whole Golf loom pinned out, now working on the TT loom, then I can compare the two. 

What's your plan? Fit the whole golf loom to the tt and repin the plugs to suit? Or some mash up of the two looms?

Are the looms modular at all? The Honda I had had separate engine/body/dash looms.

Also what about fuel systems? Is it just a case of changing the pump or are they completely different?

[SamKidney]

So so sooooo impatient to get my engine in. Can see me doing it Sunday evening when I get back from my parts run tomorrow. 

 

[N.Wood]

Anyone got / used a Caddy Maxi Life?

 

I want the 140bhp 2.0TDI. I presume this is the same as VAG use across the board?

How much would a good condition '03 Octavia Estate with the PD130 engine... on 197K miles... Be worth?

 

 

 

[george_seamons]

30 minutes ago, Danny said:

What's your plan? Fit the whole golf loom to the tt and repin the plugs to suit? Or some mash up of the two looms?

Are the looms modular at all? The Honda I had had separate engine/body/dash looms.

Also what about fuel systems? Is it just a case of changing the pump or are they completely different?

There is an engine loom and a body loom. The engine loom plugs into several plugs in the scuttle panel. The plugs are the same in the diesel and petrol, but the pins do different things, so I just need to figure out which pin goes where. That way the TT body loom will remain untouched, apart from the pins being in different places in each plug. The dash plugs are also slightly different between petrol/diesel (and the physical dial differences with the Rev gauge etc), again though, they can just be re-pinned.

I was originally intending to just literally swap the whole loom from golf to TT, but the 4wd "brains" is largely in the ABS pump and Haldex unit, neither of which the golf had, so swapping entire looms would be a backwards step (plus the golf was a 5 door, not a 3 door.

Fuel system wise, it should just be a case of fitting the diesel lines from the engine bay to the petrol tank, and swapping the 4 bar petrol pump to a 0.6 bar diesel pump, the actual tank itself is fine (as long as the petrol is drained out of course!)

[Danny]

Sounds like a plan. I guess you may need a few extra/fewer pins/wires adding to the body loom.

Can you buy vag plugs and pins? I'm looking for some decent multiplugs for my mini loom but most the aftermarket ones just seem shit. 

[Luke Rainbird]

You can - I found a page earlier that listed a load of them with part numbers, which you can then take to your favourite VAG dealer or online auction site. Shall see if I can find the page again

Edit; Here's the page - I was only after one small connector and thought there were more there than it seems there really are, but this may help a little. Part numbers listed below each connector

[CurtisRider]

That's well handy, cheers for that link Luke! 

George, your geekery is awesome!

[Luke Rainbird]

Longshot of the year: Don't suppose anyone has an old banjo bolt from a 1.8t (though likely most VAG blocks of the era) oil squirter at all? One very rounded in the block I'm rebuilding so needs replacing. Just the one bolt needed.

Unfortunately they've a small ball & spring type pressure relief valve inside else I'd use a generic banjo bolt.

 

[george_seamons]

Haha, thanks! I'll reserve my gloating until it's actually running though  

[tomturd]

3 hours ago, dann2707 said:

hi @tomturd

ears burning?

[Skoze]

Capri's home!

Due to pick up its new engine next week, bit of an abandoned project by someone who's just done everything I was going to do to mine (plus some oversize pistons, winning) - gonna mate it up with the other bits I was gonna use and go for gold. Storage has not been good to it though, it's *quite* rotten in some places which is pretty sad and also a major headache, but It's nothing structural so i'm gonna be a total pikey and pug it up for the MoT in lieu of a full strip down and weld up next winter.

Also worked out what was up with the land rover and why it's suddenly started having steering drop arm/ oil pipe interface issues... One of the engine mounts has ripped off and is currently chilling inside the drivers side chassis rail. Not ideal.

[dann2707]

10 minutes ago, tomturd said:

ears burning?

 

Totally! 

[Danny]

14 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

You can - I found a page earlier that listed a load of them with part numbers, which you can then take to your favourite VAG dealer or online auction site. Shall see if I can find the page again

Edit; Here's the page - I was only after one small connector and thought there were more there than it seems there really are, but this may help a little. Part numbers listed below each connector

Thanks dude.  They look surprisingly like these: http://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/superseal-1-5-series-waterproof-connectors.html

I tried some of those but for the life in me couldn't get the pins to seat in the plugs properly.  I bought them on ebay though so they could have been shit knock off's. The VAG one's seem reasonably priced.

Is there a good site to buy genuine VAG stuff online?

Edit: Success: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RO87-world?_trksid=p2047675.l2563

 

[CurtisRider]

Danny I bought the same connectors and found them to be absolutely fine, I went for the cheapest I could find too! I just used a small flat screwdriver to press the pins in, they make a little click and they are then seated nicely.

[Danny]

Ive still got some left somewhere.  I will give them another go sometime.

[Skoze]

13 hours ago, Skoze said:

Storage has not been good to it though, it's *quite* rotten in some places which is pretty sad and also a major headache, but It's nothing structural so i'm gonna be a total pikey and pug it up for the MoT in lieu of a full strip down and weld up next winter.

Went at it with a screwdriver today and it's actually not too bad, i've always known there was going to be some fun and games with the scuttle since I bought it but it's just bubbled up over the past 6 months or so. No holes anywhere visible, though i've no doubt it'll be scabby behind the windscreen. I've just sanded it down and tidied it up for the time being while it sits, but I need to make it look a little better when the weather's nicer for when i'm cruising the strip picking up gash.

Paint people (paging @Tom Booth) - how best can I sort this out with rattle cans? Specifically how should I go about blowing it into the area around it, especially when it comes to lacquer? Or should I just find someone backstreet who can do it for a few quid and save myself the trouble? I'm trying to keep it dirt cheap, just need it looking passable and stave off any more rust until the end of the year.  

[RobinJI]

15 hours ago, Luke Rainbird said:

Longshot of the year: Don't suppose anyone has an old banjo bolt from a 1.8t (though likely most VAG blocks of the era) oil squirter at all? One very rounded in the block I'm rebuilding so needs replacing. Just the one bolt needed.

Unfortunately they've a small ball & spring type pressure relief valve inside else I'd use a generic banjo bolt.

 

I MIGHT actually have one, or 4. If they're the same as in a longitudinal Passat engine then I've got a stripped block in my mums shed. I need to go over there in the next few days so I'll have a dig around. Don't rely on it too much though, it was many years ago I stripped it and if they've already been removed and are loose then god knows where they'll be by now!

 

I've used those Superseal connectors a few times and found them fine too. Not quite the quality of the factory VAG ones, but certainly not bad.

[Tom Booth]

1 hour ago, Skoze said:

Paint people (paging @Tom Booth) - how best can I sort this out with rattle cans? Specifically how should I go about blowing it into the area around it, especially when it comes to lacquer? Or should I just find someone backstreet who can do it for a few quid and save myself the trouble? I'm trying to keep it dirt cheap, just need it looking passable and stave off any more rust until the end of the year.  

Your best get if you wanna go at it yourself would be treat/remove any rust spots, run over the repair and around with something like 180/240, etch prime then high build prime. That will fill most of the pitting from the rust. Once you've primed I'd rub primer down with 600 wet and dry till your happy with the shape and it's pretty seemless, then use a scotchbrite to go about 6-8 in a big circle around your repair. This will provide a key for your blend that you can then buff back up.

Light coats of colour to start with on your repair then go a tiny but further each time till you've achieved coverage and happy. Give it a day then run over with either a buffer or compound by hand and you should be good to go! 

Id pick up a can of blending solvent/fade out too if you can, I doubt your colour will fe available in basecoat due to it's age, so it'll be either a MS2K aerosol or maybe even cellulose, notoriously hard to blend out of a rattle can but fade out shoud help. It's basically just a very slow drying thinner, apply a dust coat around your repair before you colour and it should soften your old paint up making blending abit easier.

You might find someone to do it at a reasonable rate, but there's a lot of people that'll quote you pretty high as it's not a straight forward job for a bodyshop now, most are happier to paint bumper corners and full sides ratter then small blow ins. Then there's others that'll want to do a shell off resto..

[Luke Rainbird]

52 minutes ago, RobinJI said:

I MIGHT actually have one, or 4.

Cheers Robin. Think I'm sorted now through the wonders of Facebook, but if that doesn't work out I shall let you know

[Skoze]

47 minutes ago, Tom Booth said:

KNOWLEDGE

That's wicked man, thank you! Will have a good go at it in the week and see what happens - certainly can't make it worse so may as well have a go! Got a scuff on the back of the roof too which I might tackle in a similar fashion once i've had a practice run elsewhere. \

If i could find someone to just blow it in i'd be happy to pay a few quid, but like you say i've no doubt they'll quote to put me off. The areas aren't huge at all but I can see it being a bit of a pain in the arse to make a neat job of. 

Cheers!

[CurtisRider]

My door seals were very rotten and kept falling off when the doors were opened. Andy from the owners club sorted me with some decent secondhand ones and the car looks just that little bit fresher! Shame it highlights other bad areas but it's all little steps forwards.

Old seals

That's better! I washed the new ones and gave them some tyre shine treatment

Fibreglass turbo valance needed some work so i've done little bits over the week, still not perfect but is far smoother and no bloody stone chip stuff visible! I seem to ruin front valances anyway so it won't be long before it has more paint. It's been filler primered and then had a coat of white primer and a few coats of alpine white. I had to trim a spare grille to fit as the curves on these are not right, I then gave it a quick blast with black satin plastic paint. Looking forward to getting it all fitted

 

[george_seamons]

Nothing but set backs this weekend, stuff I thought would be simple turned out to be a ballache!

Started off with the clocks, the plan was to pull the front fascia off the TT clocks and fit it on the Golf clocks (the dash binnacle is a different size/shape:

 

 

Once I got the clocks from the TT out, I realised they are 3 plug versions, not 2...first problem! All the pinout work I have doesn't mention this third plug on the TT loom, so need to find out what that contains, there's not a lot in it, so hopefully it's something additional (like radio controls etc) rather than something intricate to the loom:

 

Split both the clocks apart, and got ready to swap the fascias...bugger, they aren't interchangeable! The PCB on the Golf clocks is 2mm bigger all round, so it won't fit inside the casing:

 

Managed to get around it by drilling the hole for the 2 buttons on the front of the binnacle (for clock setting and trip reset) slightly bigger so the dials then sit flush against the PCB. I'll need to use a couple of cable ties on the back of the PCB to hold it onto the binnacle, but they are almost perfectly aligned with cutouts on the PCB, so not too concerned about that...and it's all hidden anyway:

 

Next up was swapping the gearbox guts over. The TT is 4WD, but has petrol ratios. The Golf has the correct diesel ratios, but is only FWD. They are both the same 02M box, and people often swap the petrol ratios out on petrol boxes for diesel gears when bigger turbos are used (when longer gears are needed due to boost coming in later). My plan was to put the diesel FWD gears inside the 4WD box.

Started off by draining out the oil from the FWD box (engine crane coming in handy again!):

 

Whipped all the bolts etc out, and split the casing off:

 

Then did the same with the 4WD box (one side of the casing is exactly the same, the bell housing side has additional mounting holes for the transfer box, and has oil passage ways to supply the transfer box with oil). The transfer box isn't particularly big, but it makes the box assemble a shed load heavier!

 

Stripped the transfer box off, undid the bolts etc, and split the box open, then laid the 4WD and FWD boxes together:

 

At this point, the only visual difference was the extra length of one of the output shafts on the 4WD diff (to accept the shaft from the transfer box):

 

However, this is where it all went wrong! It turns out the diesel crown wheel gear is ever so slightly bigger than the petrol one. Once the 4WD box with the diesel gears was back together, it wouldn't turn in any gears, only in neutral. Thinking perhaps I had made a cockup with the reassembly, I tried the other box, and I couldn't even get the diff in because it's bigger, so the gears wouldn't allow the shafts to sit inline. Bugger.

The only way round it is to drill the rivets out of both diffs, and swap the crown wheels over. Bit of a ballache to do, because the rivets are mega hard, but I did it before on my LCR for the LSD, so know it can be done. It does also mean £100 ARP crown wheel bolts need to be bought, which adds more cost to the project, but needs must! Today's task is to measure the diff rivets PCD to check the spacings are the same, before I get too deep into drilling the rivets out!

I ended up putting the boxes back together as they were...wasting about 6 hours of the day, slightly annoying! Just the joys of a bespoke project like this I gues! 

[Luke Rainbird]

Dude that sucks. Nice to see you're able to work around it all but a shame that you're having to. 

Stick a nice LSD in the 2wd box and donate it to me? That'll make you feel better I'm sure..