The Bachelor Bunny

[benjaminobscene]

Today: spent the afternoon sanding and respraying the bay. I was able to shave a few more brackets off the firewall, so I wanted to get those filled and painted in hopes of keeping the momentum going.







I went back out for a bit tonight and wrestled with that passenger rear brake line some more. After seeing how easy the Autozone pre-made lines are to use, I ended up just cutting it out.

Finally, I routed the rear lines to the master cylinder and cleaned the over spray off of them.



During my adventures under the car though, I found a third line that routes along with the fuel lines. It was wrapped up underneath the car, but looks like it's meant to come through the same opening. Any idea what this little guy is for?

[MattRad]

Hey man that's a vacuum line that runs back to the fuel tank. I'm not sure if you'll need it or not but for my aba swap I removed the whole line and capped the bung on the tank. Getting the cap on sucked but is doable. as for your fuel lines, I'm not sure if you can see them in the picture but I took matt's advice on placement and used a tubing cutter to cut them down.

[benjaminobscene]

Thanks, Matt. I'll likely do the same then. Can I borrow your tubing cutter some time?

Tonight: FINALLY finished rebuilding the braking system. Using 2 pre-made Autozone lines and a union, I pieced together the rear passenger line and bent it into place. With the lines secured and snug, I greased the wheel bearings and slid the drums back on. Weeks ago I had hit them with some Chassis Black which really helped bring them back to life.

Did the nuts up, popped in some new cotter pins, and adjusted the parking brake. Wow, did that all just happen? Actual results? Now I just need to wait for an unsuspecting soul to wander into the garage to help me bleed the system.

With time left in the evening, I pulled the valve cover off the motor to replace the leaky gasket.





Everything looks ok in the head, but one spot on the cam has me a little concerned. Is this something to worry about or no big deal?



Anyway, I cleaned off the old gasket and put the new one in place along with the plastic cover.



While the valve cover is off, I also cleaned it out, sanded, and primed. Looking forward to having more fun with paint tomorrow

[MattRad]

Yes sir you can borrow my tubing cutter. Good work on the bunny hoping we will have both of our cars done for spring time

[gti1977]

Everything looks ok in the head, but one spot on the cam has me a little concerned. Is this something to worry about or no big deal?

use sandpaper number 600 with some oil
if rust is deep you should change camshaft
if only surface you can use it still

[benjaminobscene]

[benjaminobscene]

A few exciting (to me at least) updates with the car.

Ever since I installed the new manual steering rack, I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why the steering column joint would no longer reach the knob on the rack. For months I thought it was because I am using an early westy steering column with a late westy steering rack. After searching and searching for a longer U-Joint, I finally typed in the correct query terms here and found that my shaft could be collapsed.

I found the it's meant to be 22" long and after pulling everything apart again, my shaft came up a little short

Got that sorted and performed a quick zip-tie remedy for the lower bearing, and we're now able to turn the car!



This was the last piece of the puzzle that was keeping us from dropping the motor in. Hopefully I can source enough orange soda to convince Jamie to stop by with the engine lift sometime this weekend.

While I was in the garage I also started some other project areas that I've been putting off. I'm planning on having heat in the car, so tonight I cleaned up the blower, added a new strip of foam to seal it, and installed it into place.



Question: I picked up a used heater core a few months ago, but I'm not sure if I have the right size. How tight should it squeeze into the rectangular opening of the blower box thing? Right now, my heater core seems like it's too small... I'll grab a photo next time I'm out there.

Finally, I pulled the headlights out of the bucket to start bringing them back to life. They had some pretty gnarly surface rust, but luckily they are still solid enough to use. They cleaned up ok after some wire wheel action, but I'd still like to spray them with rust converter once I pick up another can.

[the brit]

Hopefully I can source enough orange soda to convince Jamie to stop by with the engine lift sometime this weekend.

Question: I picked up a used heater core a few months ago, but I'm not sure if I have the right size. How tight should it squeeze into the rectangular opening of the blower box thing? Right now, my heater core seems like it's too small... I'll grab a photo next time I'm out there.

You should have said earlier that Orange Soda was involved.

On the heater core:

1. It should have a 1/2" of foam wrapped the whole way around it. Maybe that would fill the space?

2. Why are you using a used heatercore? They go bad, and a PITA to replace once everything's installed. I just checked and was surprised how much they cost (my cost is just under $50) but it's so easy to do it right at the moment. Maybe someone has a link to a cheaper source??

[benjaminobscene]

The used one was mega cheap and I think I bundled it with the brake calipers and some other parts. GAP charges $65 which is what I was comparing against.

[IronTrap]

The opening between OE A/C equipped cars and non-a/c is different. A/C cars had a larger opening. If your car was originally an A/C equipped car (2 big square holes in the raintray one in the center and one on the passenger side) you'd need to make filler plate that screws into the large A/C opening, but has the opening for the Non-A/C box if you want it to fit properly.

[benjaminobscene]

Big day yesterday.



The motor went in surprisingly carefree. While Jamie was over we also tried to bleed the brakes, but with a completely empty system it was taking forever so we moved on to the motor. I also snapped off a bleeder valve which keeps things fun.

For now, all the other valves are open and gravity is doing its job.

[benjaminobscene]

Not much going on lately. I started cleaning up a bumper and ordered a bunch of maintenance parts.

[benjaminobscene]

Quick question:
I'm confused about the clutch cable grommet at the firewall. I think I have it figured out, but would greatly appreciate some reassurance.



In digging through my box of grommets, I pulled out a grommet with "clutch cable" scribbled on it. It looks exactly like item 34B. This grommet, however, is both too small to fit in the firewall hole and too small to slide over the end of the clutch cable.

After seeing this diagram, my hypothesis is that 34B is the grommet for an automatic transmission car (which my car was) and 34A is the appropriate grommet for the manual transmission cable.

Is the simple solution to just order a 34A?

Thanks!

[IronTrap]

yessir, sounds like you are missing the correct one. Any A1 manual trans car should have the same bushing. Could try one of the Mk1's at one of the local yards? Not sure if that part is obsolete or not

[aeffertz]

Big day yesterday.



The motor went in surprisingly care free.

Looks good man!
You install in through the top or bottom?

[benjaminobscene]

yessir, sounds like you are missing the correct one. Any A1 manual trans car should have the same bushing. Could try one of the Mk1's at one of the local yards? Not sure if that part is obsolete or not

Thanks, Matt. I found the part here: http://www.jimellisvwparts.com/produ...171721380.html for only $6. Shortys has been disappointing in the mk1 supply lately

[benjaminobscene]

Looks good man!
You install in through the top or bottom?

Thanks! Very carefully in through the top.

[IronTrap]

Thanks, Matt. I found the part here: http://www.jimellisvwparts.com/produ...171721380.html for only $6. Shortys has been disappointing in the mk1 supply lately

Oh nice! I need to stock up on some haha

[benjaminobscene]

Quick test fit:

[benjaminobscene]

I didn't have a whole lot of time this weekend, but tried to get as much done as possible in between yard work and running errands. Saturday morning, I added a few walls to the "paint booth" to try and minimize the mini blue dots accumulating on everything in the garage.



Also, while the sun was out warming everything up I laid out the nice new brown carpet courtesy of saddest6day66 to try and loosen it up after being folded in a cardboard box for years.



Back inside, I spent a lot of time sanding and cleaning out the rear part of the interior for some baby blue treatment. While that was drying, I got a little ahead of myself and test fit the carpet.



Fast forward to today, the paint was dry so pushed the car out into the sun and laid down some chassis black in the spare tire area. I'm very pleased with how this turned out. Almost looks like the black is there on purpose. Once that was dry, I started messing around with the battery location kit I ordered from Summit.



I then started to arrange some of the wiring but quickly got overwhelmed with that and decided to install the new driveshafts. Passenger side went in nice and smooth, but unfortunately I was unable to get the nut off the drivers side. The car has been rolling around on cut shafts so it's really hard to keep the wheel steady as I throw all 135lbs into the breaker bar..



Stuck again, I decided to fit the headlight buckets and threw the grill on for fun before wheeling it back into the garage for the day.

[82vwRabbit]

Quick test fit: http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/v...t/IMAG1270.jpg

Great build, very inspiring and keep it going! Mind if I ask, what wheels are those? And what size are they?

[benjaminobscene]

Great build, very inspiring and keep it going! Mind if I ask, what wheels are those? And what size are they?

Thanks. They are maserati biturbo wheels. 14x6" et6 with 165/55/14.

[benjaminobscene]

Update: the car is finally one color small victories lol

Up next: figure out how to connect my battery relocation and get this baby wired up.

[IronTrap]

Update: the car is finally one color small victories lol

Up next: figure out how to connect my battery relocation and get this baby wired up.

Are you using junkyard bits for the battery relocation or what? I've found BMW E34 and E36 cables and power distribution boxes work perfectly for doing the conversion. Then just buy a cheap battery box and you are set

[benjaminobscene]

Are you using junkyard bits for the battery relocation or what? I've found BMW E34 and E36 cables and power distribution boxes work perfectly for doing the conversion. Then just buy a cheap battery box and you are set

I bought the fancy kit from summit but still need to raid a mk4 for a distribution block

[benjaminobscene]

also if you and/or Mr. Rad would want to stop by sometime and give me a crash course in MK1 wiring I would be resplendent and fully stocked with palmers and pbr

[IronTrap]

also if you and/or Mr. Rad would want to stop by sometime and give me a crash course in MK1 wiring I would be resplendent and fully stocked with palmers and pbr

Haha I'd be down sometime, just need to find the damn time to peel myself away from my own garage!

[aeffertz]

Hey man that's a vacuum line that runs back to the fuel tank. I'm not sure if you'll need it or not but for my aba swap I removed the whole line and capped the bung on the tank.

I always thought you needed it to vent the tank. even if you don't run it to the canister in the passenger wheel well, I just thought it would cause your tank to burp fuel back at your while trying to pump it. But I'm not positive.

[benjaminobscene]

A couple quick pictures from last weekend:



+



=



and back into the freshly cleaned out garage:

[Rockmonky]

rattlecan!

how's the paint looking?

[benjaminobscene]

rattlecan!

how's the paint looking?

Amazingly the baby blue rustoleum lays really nice and smooth. I'm awful with bodywork and painting though so eventually I'd like to clean up some of my bodywork and respray the car. As you can see from the pics though there's really not much to complain about from 5ft.

[benjaminobscene]

Frustrated after last night..

I scored a pressure bleeder on clearance from HF and set up to try bleeding the brakes again. It is a vacuum type setup so I filled an empty bottle with brake fluid and connected it to the open bleeder screw on the cylinder/caliper then disconnected the brake line from the master cylinder.

Popped the clear vacuum hose onto the open brake line and let the master cylinder gravity bleed a bit.

1. If fluid drips out of the MC ports that's a good sign it's "bench" bled right?

So then I proceeded to pump up the vacuum to 15-20psi and let the suction pull brake fluid from the bottle up to through the line. When the hose showed all fluid, it released the pressure and reconnected the line. Repeat x2.

I say x2 because the bleeder screw is broken on my passenger front caliper. For this line I just disconnected the brake line from the caliper and stuck that into the fluid bottle to draw the fluid up through the line.

2. Anyone sitting on an extra passenger front caliper?

After making a royal mess I reconnected everything and went to test the system. The pedal has some resistance and returns to the up position, but I couldn't get it to actually activate any kind of braking.



Going to try the old fashion way again this afternoon if I can recruit a pedal pusher.

[IronTrap]

I have some calipers laying around I think. Not sure if any of them are the style you need.

I am willing to bet money you just need to spend a bit more time the "old fashioned way" jumping around the car bleeding to get the air out. I've had cars that took an hour or so of jumping around the brakes to finally get a remotely firm pedal.. Rad's car being one of them

[crehner]

When you get the brakes all bled and they hold the car, just have somebody stand on the brakes while you break the axle nut loose. That is if you hadn't found some other way already. Progress is looking good!

[benjaminobscene]

When you get the brakes all bled and they hold the car, just have somebody stand on the brakes while you break the axle nut loose. That is if you hadn't found some other way already. Progress is looking good!

Weirdly enough, that's my main motivation to get the brakes bled. I tried to brace the hub last night with a giant screwdriver through two lug bolts.

The screwdriver sprung out and shot across the garage and now I have crooked screwdriver