Saving a Coupe

[getamongst-it]

It was great meeting you in ocmd love what your doing with the coupe, keep it up I'm jealous!

definitely! Can't wait for SoWo to see all you guys again. This time with my car

So I realized I've lent my 12-ton H-frame press to a buddy, he's had it for so long I forgot I even owned one so I couldn't put the transmission back together tonight, but I'll be right back on that tomorrow night.

Tonight I got all of the wiring connected to the fuse block and ran the bulk of the wires inside. I used the rear harness that was already in the car, and just had to match up one color and splice that in. I also removed the circuit that doesn't let you start the car without your seat belt plugged in.

As for the rest of the dash harness, I've been pulling it apart and re-routing it as I see fit. When all is said and done it should snake much nicer through the dash than it did from the factory. Put the column in and hooked that up too.

[jacbo]

Those things are broken 9 times out of 10.

It annoyed me too but if Broke says its not necessary, it's probably not necessary.

[airkooled]

It was great meeting you in ocmd love what your doing with the coupe, keep it up I'm jealous!

[getamongst-it]

I'm sure you're sick of seeing transmission pictures by now but I gave this thing a good goin over with a hot pressure washer, let it air dry for a bit then doused it all with some PB just to coat it quick. She's ready to go back together, operating smoothly now.



The one hold up is I gotta find another one of these. You can actually put it back in broken, but I'd prefer a whole one. It's a VW revision part referred to as a conical thrust washer. It basically functions as a spacer behind the trans flanges/springs/washers to fill a spot that resulted in driveline noise in previous transmissions. You can see where it goes there. After talking with the guy at BrokeVW.com (who really knows his shit) VW sells these things for $30!!! holy crap. He has some used ones though so I'm gonna get one from him most likely.

[getamongst-it]

SO, tomorrow morning I'm heading down to OCMD and I'll be there till Monday. I'll be cruisin my old Honda scoot around or hitchin' rides with people so say hi!



When I come back I'm gonna finish the trans and put the motor/subframe in. Finish the wiring and Connor is helping me finish the body work and prime the car then it's off to paint.

[getamongst-it]

We have a celebrity appearance from the man that supplied the grille I'll be using for this car

Wow. Definitely some dedication going on to this. In for more.

thanks man, I'm gonna keep at it.

[BavarianTurd]

Wow. Definitely some dedication going on to this. In for more.

[tdilynch]

[getamongst-it]

this is called VW Special Tool # gofckyourself. I had to make this because there's actually a special tool so you support the input shaft as you press against it from the top & pull the housing upwards off the end bearing. Got all my info from http://brokevw.com/teardown.html awesome source.





Anyways, it worked. It's kind of mind blowing how simple these things are until you have one open and see what's happening in there. It's dry inside and there's a good amount of grit in the shift fork area, confirming my thoughts that the blast media got in through where the reverse switch was I should have sealed it up better.

The good news is that the transmission looks PERFECT inside. The bearings all feel good and the synchros are in great shape. I've shifted it through all the gears and the detents are not worn either. I'm going to give it a thorough cleaning to remove anything that's in there and put it back together (sigh of relief.)

[getamongst-it]

I've been taking my time a little more since there's no longer a deadline for this. But I'd like to stay on top of it as best I can. I want to drive this thing next month and be able to enjoy it before winter hits and it goes back inside to avoid the elements.

Last night was rather frustrating at the shop. I removed the drive flanges from the transmission with use of this little tool my buddy Mike whipped up. You have to compress the cups inward against a spring to remove the retaining circlip.





Removal of these 4 little bolts is the next step. They are very tight, very shallow, and a 6mm "serrated" bit aka "triple square". Connor came over with a set of good-quality serrated drivers, 2 of them popped loose and the other 2 wanted to strip. Gonna have to pick up an impact driver today and hope for the best, otherwise I'll be drilling these fuckers out or maybe welding a nut to the top of them. I've figured out a puller setup that will work to split the tranny from an external puller I had and some bolts so that shouldnt be an issue.

After being annoyed by this, I put the car up on jack stands off the dollies so I could get under it and also disassemble the rear brakes. I dropped the hood on it because I was tired of having any shit fly into the bay as I've been cleanin stuff.

As you can see in the 2nd picture the car at some point was undercoated heavily, and not that cheap shit either. This is that super heavy, thick oily stuff that really saved this car from rotting. I'm so thankful because all the hard lines are perfect all the way back. You can make out the patch I did in the floor as well.





Only 16v GTIs, GLIs and some special edition cars such as this Pirelli edition had disc rear brakes stock. Believe it or not the cables are good. The passenger caliper was seized but I'm replacing everything because I'm like that. lol

I also marked out the spots I will be filling in front of the rear wheel where the quarter flares don't have mounting tabs. The line you see behind the rear door marks the bottom of the fat trim. There's a very slight dent in that spot that I'll be fixing but it's pretty much completeley covered by the fat trim I'm using.

[getamongst-it]

so initially tonight I thought I'd be mounting the tranny and puttin the motor/subframe in.

boy was I wrong.

I had this transmission sandblasted over a year ago, and I painted it. I sealed up every possible hole, but somehow grit had managed to get in there. My plan was to just flush it out with a parts washer, so I did this and a good amount of crud came out.



I had the trans on the ground and the shift selector wasnt sliding as freely as it should be, so I decided to pop out the reverse switch, detents & the gear selector and just make sure it was clean. look what I found hiding behind the gear selector cover. In the 2nd pic you can see the tops of all the shift forks.



Needless to say after finding that I decided there's no way around it, I need to split the transmission. This is something I didnt want to do and I'm certainly not prepared for. I'll have to acquire a few special tools to do it but I think it's necessary. Worst case scenario is that I get another transmission and swap the 5th gear from this one. The main reason behind me wanting this transmission in the first place is that the gearing is longer. This whole thing is really frustrating but at this point I know I'll have a clean transmission and I can see what the syncros look like while I'm in there.

5th gear housing removed. I need to get a 6mm serrated bit to continue.

[getamongst-it]

Wow, this is a quality build.. in for more

thanks!

Shoulda just deleted it! Who needs washer fluid anyways? You can just use that super smelly wash fluid shit they have at gas stations with the sponge/squeege on a stick

I deff could have, when I wire tuck it I'm going to get a smaller one and relocate so it's hidden, for now it'll stay. I'm way too easily annoyed by a dirty window. I'm just picturing those hot nights where a giant bug smashes your window and smears directly in your line of sight, lol. Plus it's kind of awesome that you can pour an entire gallon into these things hahaha.

soooo this is a slight upgrade in swaybar size. haha the smaller of the two you see pictured is actually a MKIII swaybar (19mm) which is a few mm bigger than a stock MKII (17mm I think). The big one is an Autotech (huge) and it'll deff be interesting to see how it affects handling. It will not limit low/travel whatsoever. The best part about it is that it came on the car attached to the VR6 subframe.



also manual rack with fresh poly bushings & Autotech subframe tiebar (also came with the car).



finally the subframe back together. I'm saving the GLI 10.1" brake upgrade for this winter, this setup is less than a year old so i'll run it for now.

[C-Hutch]

Shoulda just deleted it! Who needs washer fluid anyways? You can just use that super smelly wash fluid shit they have at gas stations with the sponge/squeege on a stick

[Matt]

wooo

[244Brick]

Wow, this is a quality build.. in for more