People were making comments about not much going on, so I thought I would post up some of my build progress as it happens, but first I have to catch you guys up…
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We will start with the how the builder of the car had it, and some of you might have seen it for sale on vortex:
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The bay was actually pretty clean at one point in time:
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Needles to say the car moved on and made it St louis where this happened…
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In this stage in the cars life it made it from Pennsylvania to St louis then sold to a different person in St Louis, and then to a guy up in Springfield Illinois. After a number of potential problems with the car causing it to change hands many times it ended up with a set of d2 coil overs installed improperly and a bad slave cylinder swapped out for another bad slave cylinder, oh and a crazy misfire issue.
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Within a short while of getting the car home, I had the body kit off, the dash removed, a bracket made to hold up the gauge cluster, the slave cylinder replaced, and a couple grounds fixed. The next issue was the odd misfire, after some reading, and realizing a miss reading oil pressure gauge was actually wrong, was saying 60-70psi at idle, probably was closer to 10-15 psi cold, I got the pan off to replace the oil pump. Not sure how many of you have dealt with mk3 vr cars, but the engine sits rather low, with quite a bit of pan just hanging down there for potential trouble. Well in a lowered rabbit it sits very very low and the pan had smacked the ground a few times before it made it into my hands, and actually smashed the pan up into the oil pick up enough to crunch the oil pickup, and cause the pump to not pull in enough oil, and cause low oil pressure. Swapped a new pump in, massaged the pan significantly and put it all back together and the rabbit was alive and running well!
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It didn't last too long, within a few weeks of dealing with the super stiff suspension of the coil overs I decided to pull them off to adjust the ride height, which is separately adjustable from the spring perch height. Well the installer didn't know this and had cranked about 2" worth of threads of preload into the rear springs to get the ride height he wanted and basically made a solid suspension in the rear. Here is a picture of the car parked on a 2" pile of gravel:
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Well that got adjusted out and the ride height got set to eliminate rear tire rub:
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So the car was becoming more and more road worthy and getting driven more and more, so the 4 point harnesses that weren't installed properly were swapped out for some later model cabrio 3 point harnesses with new style buckles to match the late model cabrio seats that were in the car.
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Then the master cylinder failed… it only took bleeding the slave a dozen times to realize that it was holding pressure and then it would push back through the seal on the master into the reservoir. Well I converted it from the mk3 GTI to the passat one I got a junkyard and was very happy, until the banjo broke off… Well, back to the drawing board. I milled out a slip fit style banjo and got it installed the system working again, and it worked way better! until the welds on the bracket that the builder installed started to break…. but it still held, just popped every time you pushed the pedal, well I went and realigned everything and got it to work just a little better, but sadly the damage was done and the bracket just kept popping…
*
By this time the car had the exhaust upgraded to 2.5" the rear track was widened with some spacer blocks under the stub axles and I was happy with how the car looked and performed, and took it autocrossing and had a blast with it.
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Then the next big one, driving down 291 in Indepenence at about 45 I was compression breaking into 3rd to slow down for a red light and I heard a few pings and pops and the clanking and clattering behind me, well I just knew the axle bolts holding it to the cup on the transmission had all broken off. I managed to cost to a parking lot and sure enough I had 1 good axle and one hanging from the wheel. A few zip ties later and a tow rope and I drug it home. Well, I swapped in a new axle and did an 02J shifter swap and took it for a drive. The new shifter was amazing and I was estatic about how great it shifted! But sadly I got home and the car was just leaking transmission fluid like crazy… Got underneath the car to find this:
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Some JB weld and a popcan later and the whole was patched and fluid was back in and the car was on the ground, and drove it that way for about 2 months.
*
Well times change, and you want more power, and I didn't want the fuel cell in the back anymore, and I wanted to fix the clutch issue, and the new brake master cylinder I installed started to act up, and then the tune started getting bad as it got colder, running rich and just all around sluggish, and it started pushing oil into the intake pretty bad… Then the nail in the coffin, the thermostat housing started leaking, and the timing chain cover started leaking, and the chains finally got noisy enough that I decided to pull it all out!
*
This post is getting alittle long winded, Ill start in on the next post…
*
We will start with the how the builder of the car had it, and some of you might have seen it for sale on vortex:
*
The bay was actually pretty clean at one point in time:
*
Needles to say the car moved on and made it St louis where this happened…
*
In this stage in the cars life it made it from Pennsylvania to St louis then sold to a different person in St Louis, and then to a guy up in Springfield Illinois. After a number of potential problems with the car causing it to change hands many times it ended up with a set of d2 coil overs installed improperly and a bad slave cylinder swapped out for another bad slave cylinder, oh and a crazy misfire issue.
*
Within a short while of getting the car home, I had the body kit off, the dash removed, a bracket made to hold up the gauge cluster, the slave cylinder replaced, and a couple grounds fixed. The next issue was the odd misfire, after some reading, and realizing a miss reading oil pressure gauge was actually wrong, was saying 60-70psi at idle, probably was closer to 10-15 psi cold, I got the pan off to replace the oil pump. Not sure how many of you have dealt with mk3 vr cars, but the engine sits rather low, with quite a bit of pan just hanging down there for potential trouble. Well in a lowered rabbit it sits very very low and the pan had smacked the ground a few times before it made it into my hands, and actually smashed the pan up into the oil pick up enough to crunch the oil pickup, and cause the pump to not pull in enough oil, and cause low oil pressure. Swapped a new pump in, massaged the pan significantly and put it all back together and the rabbit was alive and running well!
*
It didn't last too long, within a few weeks of dealing with the super stiff suspension of the coil overs I decided to pull them off to adjust the ride height, which is separately adjustable from the spring perch height. Well the installer didn't know this and had cranked about 2" worth of threads of preload into the rear springs to get the ride height he wanted and basically made a solid suspension in the rear. Here is a picture of the car parked on a 2" pile of gravel:
*
Well that got adjusted out and the ride height got set to eliminate rear tire rub:
*
So the car was becoming more and more road worthy and getting driven more and more, so the 4 point harnesses that weren't installed properly were swapped out for some later model cabrio 3 point harnesses with new style buckles to match the late model cabrio seats that were in the car.
*
Then the master cylinder failed… it only took bleeding the slave a dozen times to realize that it was holding pressure and then it would push back through the seal on the master into the reservoir. Well I converted it from the mk3 GTI to the passat one I got a junkyard and was very happy, until the banjo broke off… Well, back to the drawing board. I milled out a slip fit style banjo and got it installed the system working again, and it worked way better! until the welds on the bracket that the builder installed started to break…. but it still held, just popped every time you pushed the pedal, well I went and realigned everything and got it to work just a little better, but sadly the damage was done and the bracket just kept popping…
*
By this time the car had the exhaust upgraded to 2.5" the rear track was widened with some spacer blocks under the stub axles and I was happy with how the car looked and performed, and took it autocrossing and had a blast with it.
*
Then the next big one, driving down 291 in Indepenence at about 45 I was compression breaking into 3rd to slow down for a red light and I heard a few pings and pops and the clanking and clattering behind me, well I just knew the axle bolts holding it to the cup on the transmission had all broken off. I managed to cost to a parking lot and sure enough I had 1 good axle and one hanging from the wheel. A few zip ties later and a tow rope and I drug it home. Well, I swapped in a new axle and did an 02J shifter swap and took it for a drive. The new shifter was amazing and I was estatic about how great it shifted! But sadly I got home and the car was just leaking transmission fluid like crazy… Got underneath the car to find this:
*
Some JB weld and a popcan later and the whole was patched and fluid was back in and the car was on the ground, and drove it that way for about 2 months.
*
Well times change, and you want more power, and I didn't want the fuel cell in the back anymore, and I wanted to fix the clutch issue, and the new brake master cylinder I installed started to act up, and then the tune started getting bad as it got colder, running rich and just all around sluggish, and it started pushing oil into the intake pretty bad… Then the nail in the coffin, the thermostat housing started leaking, and the timing chain cover started leaking, and the chains finally got noisy enough that I decided to pull it all out!
*
This post is getting alittle long winded, Ill start in on the next post…