Saving a Coupe

[getamongst-it]

So, this may seem a step in the wrong direction to some but I plan on wire tucking the car this winter for a few reasons. 1) I'd like to get some road time on the car before then. 2) I don't even have the time to take that on right now.

To me, you're always better off setting small goals for yourself and making little projects. That being said, here's the bay with the hideous stock harness in place. What's great about Digifant II fuel injection is there's really not many sensors or wires in general. There's the CTS, 2 oil pressure senders, a knock sensor, the AFM, & WOT. The lighting wires are even sectioned in there. That tangled mess you see on the front right is the A/C section of the harness which I plan on removing during the wire tuck this winter.

[getamongst-it]

got some shit done last night.

A sad update is that this car may not make it to H2O, not because it won't be ready, but because of some registration complications with the CT DMV. Everyone knows how much of a hard time they can give you when you're trying to reg a new vehicle In my case, some missing plates from a truck I junked 4 years ago are the problem.

We'll see if I can get that sorted out or not but it's not looking too good at this point.

Anyways, this is how you fix your heater box so you don't get foam in your face after it's deteriorated for 25 years. A little bit of air can escape around the outer edges of the plates with no foam on it, but if it proves to be too much it's super easy to pull out a non-AC box. Anyone who's ever owned a MKII knows the AC boxes are a nightmare. I also cleaned up the box and partially disassembled the blower motor to test it. to my surprise it works even though at one point there was water in there.

Laid out all the interior wiring. Planning on completing that tonight possibly.





test fitting the alternator setup. it's nice spending money to get OEM parts.



Replaced the seal on the 5th gear end of the trans, it's actually pretty clean inside much to my surprise. My buddy Mike stopped by and helped me swap to the 100mm axle cups with new seals installed as well. He made up a little tool that gets the job done because they have a serious spring underneath them. Originally I was going to split it but with the amount of special tools required I'm not going to bother. I plan on pulling the plugs and douching it out really well.

[LaneRaymond]

Build is coming along very well dude, sub'd to see awesome progress!

[kittenpuncher]

man bummer about H20i I am still holding on to a glimmer of hope that the coupe will make it good luck man.... borrow some plates from a friend

[getamongst-it]

man bummer about H20i I am still holding on to a glimmer of hope that the coupe will make it good luck man.... borrow some plates from a friend

If anyone has some dealer or repair plates I'd GLADLY insure this thing and slap them on haha. I'd say for me to make the full effort and get it done I'd need to have that locked down this week.

If I don't bring it down I'm gonna try and bring down my 81 C70 Honda Passport scooter to bang around on

[getamongst-it]

Build is coming along very well dude, sub'd to see awesome progress!

thanks man!

[getamongst-it]

fitted and gapped the euro fenders tonight. awesome quality stuff imported from Europart by APtuning. Note the lack of "banana" lights on the front end of the fender. The European cars have side markers but those will be filled as well, I love the look of a clean fender on a MKII.





also cleaned these out to get filled. after I get that stuff done the whole car will be DA'd to take all the crap primer off, then legit primed. The infamous Connor Mahoney was in attendance for a few, he took some sandpaper and started going at the rear fenders to see how they look. Much to our surprise pretty damn good, shouldnt need much attention other than being rolled well.



and just for the hell of it I have my old wheels sitting around... I would never bag a MKII because I tend to beat the shit out of them and not having a front swaybar would be bad for me. That being said, the car will roll hard static but I just had to imagine it bagged for a second haha.



I also decided my washer resevoir is way too ugly & stained to allow under the hood so I'm going to order this. Gotta love German Auto Parts. At some point I'll get a brand new one for the brake fluid res too but those are like $75.

[244Brick]

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

[Matt]

wooo

[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

[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.

[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]

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]

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.)

[tdilynch]