The shaved 88 Shitaco

[harlerocco]

Next week \vapEr Revolution!!!!

Ready to hit the plume juice with the mod squad!!

I've been driving it around a bunch the past few days. I forgot how much I love being behind the wheel.

I have been doing little stuff here and there. Installed new seat guide clips to the bottom of the seats. Then I cleaned out and lubed up the seat rails. It's really common from old clips to break and make it almost impossible to slide the seat back and forth. So nice and smooth now.



Then went out and did some pics with my friend Anthony Sundell. Here are a couple from my phone. I can't wait to see his.





To do list is super short at this point. All that's left is to re-align my doors because I'm not happy with how they close, and re-align the steering wheel since I just eyed it when I installed it.

[harlerocco]

Great thread. Very impressed with the dedication and persistence to the project... and, perhaps unlike many on here, I love the underhood work - although, I would like to see more performance/efficiency oriented modifications (if not for freeing up unused horsepower, at least get better fuel economy).
I also hoped that, when you discovered all the previous repairs, you'd just throw on some fender flares to match the awesome wheel rebuilds you've done. But that's more likely because I'm inclined to convert it to AWD or RWD and make bulk horsepower
Subscribed to see where this build takes you Keep up the good work!

I set it up the be a fun cruiser more than anything. Something I could jump behind the wheel of and not really worry about too much. I did do a bit for fuel economy and the numbers it gets are great. I swapped out the 5th gear from a longer ratio trans so it's short ratio and fun from 1st to 4th but cruises at relatively low RPM on the highway and makes it surprisingly comfortable and quiet.

Flares would have never worked with the style I went with on this car. All the things I did to simplify the style of it would have been basically negated by bolting on big flares. I still have my widebody kit, but that's the kind of kit you build a car around and style accordingly. Also bolting on flares would have felt like a compromise, which I loathe when it comes to all-out builds.

[siopaolover]

This thing is awesome!

[harlerocco]

Made it to SoWo and back no problem. Car rides so good on air and made the trip extra nice. Also handled really well in the mountains.


Detailed the interior and bay before I left. Ended up never popping the hood when I was down there.





Got into town Thursday around 3:30. My drive was 6hrs, so it wasn't that bad. The second I got into town I pulled into the liquor store on main street and took this.



At the show Saturday I found a NOS Zender front airdam for sale. Mocked it on the car. Ended up passing on it since I'm poor.



Partied with my friends all weekend. Didn't do any burnouts. Saw some amazing cars at the show. My memories of the weekend will be defined by all the great moments, and not a couple hours of insanity on Saturday night. P.S. it's funny how the people who didn't go have the most to say about it. Shut up nerds.



P.S. if anyone sees pics of my rocco anywhere I'd love to see them!

[Earl]

Car looked really good=) I was wondering why I never saw the hood popped when I kept walking by haha

[P78]

airdam would have been nice

but imo you would need sideskirts and possibly something for the back also to make it work

[harlerocco]

So a super cool thing happened today! Feature went live, so go check out the awesome pics and hell maybe even read it. On the front page!

[storey618]

[trm-]

Read through the whole thread and I have to say you did a great job on this Rocco. I really dig the bay, curious about how the engine is gonna look with some powder coating.

[harlerocco]

Thanks for the pic from IA. Since I updated this last I haven't done anything major really besides wiring up the stereo. Doesn't sound like much but it was a huge pain because the previous owner cut off all the plugs, took out all the speakers, and for some reason took the speaker wire out too. So I had to hard wire in new plugs (used mk3 ones) and run all new speaker wire through the car. He had left a constant 12V power with no insulation on it just hanging behind the center console which shorted on something and blew a fuse the second I removed the console. I'm lucky it didn't burn down.

So now I have tunes, all new speakers, and stole the head unit out of my Golf since I'm not driving it.

Here's a picture from Import Alliance. Having a hard time finding decent pics from there.

[kittenpuncher]

favorite rocco in the biz.

[harlerocco]

Took it to Import Alliance in July.





Shortly after I took it on a big epic road trip. On August 1st I left for Dubs in the Valley, a show in Oshkosh Wisconsion. After that headed south into Chicago and stayed with a friend of mine for a few days. Took some time to fix a few little things while I was there (rad fan, ignition coil, coil wire). The following Wednesday I headed out to VAG Fair in York Pennsylvania. I stopped halfway in Cleveland Ohio and stayed with another friend of mine. The next day I finished my trip to PA and spent a little time messing with the car and seeing people. VAG Fair was awesome and I was picked to be in Madness on the Midway, which is their version of the 'top dawg' that H2O has. After the show on Sunday I headed down to Baltimore to stay with a friend that night and head back to Kentucky on Monday morning. Monday rolls around and I make it 20 minutes before the engine seizes up. A coolant hose blew and blew it all out in no-time, which got the engine VERY hot for about 15 minutes of highway driving. I was convinced I blew it up 9 hours from home and had it towed back to my friends place and started tearing into it. With some help I got a couple things replaced and inspected some internals. Everything seemed ok besides smelling like burnt oil. After it cooled down and we looped the heater hoses, it seemed to run totally fine. Tuesday morning I tried again and made it 7 solid hours without a problem. A few hours from home I stopped to get gas, started the car back up, and out of nowhere heard a terrible clatter under load. I said screw it and just drove it because I was in the middle of nowhere West Virginia and wanted to get home. I made it another 45 minutes over the border into Kentucky about 150 miles from home before I had to stop. The car had almost no power and the noises were getting worse and worse. A friend of mine came and picked up me up that night super late at like 3am, and I didn't get home until 2pm the next day. It was a pretty terrible experience but I'm surprised it made it that far.

A couple weeks ago I started messing with it again and did a compression test first thing. Cylinders 1 and 2 had zero compression... so I'm assuming I was driving on 2 cylinders for that final 45 minutes. I picked up another ABA and ordered some new maintenance parts for it, and I'm hoping to have it all back together by this weekend.

I made it 2200 miles in a little over a week during that trip, and the car did awesome up until she said 'no more'. Air ride rode amazing the whole time and made the trip so nice. The 5th gear swap I did got me 41.6 mpg between Louisville and Chicago too. So really it wasn't a bad road trip vehicle at all.













Back in the shop with the Harlequin, which isn't looking a whole lot better.



The new (used) ABA I picked up, hopefully going in quickly and without a fight.



This weekend would be really nice since there's a local indoor show that I registered for some time ago, but if not I am sure it will be done very soon in time for H2O.

Also the RS's will be for sale after H2O if anyone is interested. I have another set of wheels I'm working on at the moment and will need some money to finish them up for next season.

[Chuckdee]

Holy shit that's an awesome ass road trip but man did it really did suck at the end. Glad it almost made back at least, rather than somewhere else much further away. Really cool that you have friends from all over though to be there for you.

[harlerocco]

Holy shit that's an awesome ass road trip but man did it really did suck at the end. Glad it almost made back at least, rather than somewhere else much further away. Really cool that you have friends from all over though to be there for you.

I definitely couldn't have done that trip and made it back home with some awesome people along the way. I'm very fortunate to have some amazing friends. I owe them all!

So anyways the swap is happening. My friend Chris and I are tackling it this week. Today we stripped down the new ABA for cleaning and prep for new maintenance parts. Also got the old ABA out. I'll be reusing lots of stuff from it.

'New' ABA mostly stripped to a bare long block.


Empty bay

[harlerocco]

Spent last week from Tuesday-Friday swapping the car. Finished on Friday evening and it wouldn't run. It cranked slow and didn't want to fire. Turns out there was some oil in the cylinders, so it got blown out and the car fired up today. There's a sizable exhaust leak but that will be taken care of.

Both engines out, and I swapped a lot of stuff from the old one onto the new one, along with a few hundred dollars in maintenance parts. I cleaned up the block and painted it while I was at it. It's much cleaner than the first time the swap was done.





Did an autopsy on the old engine to find the source of failure. Headgasket said bye bye between cylinders 1 & 2, and there's a nice chunk missing from the head in that same spot.