eiriksmil's cars

  • Thread starter eiriksmil
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Turned out well. Haven't got around to play with it any more, a lot of work these days. Bought an IC for the turbo Charade but haven't got it on yet. Made a huge list of things I need to do though. Said hi to these two
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Went to a car show with the Funcargo
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Then we went to Gothenburg and back.. Racking up the miles.. Today I planted the car into a tow hook of a Subaru though :(
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It's not too bad, but I can't for my life figure out what's wrong. GTP diagnosis time! I have head lights, fuel pump apparently, starter, power to coils. I drove the car to my shop.. I do not have wipers, heater, instrument cluster, central locking, electric windows, nothing. I don't get it. Fuses? Air bag should have deployed but didn't because of Sparco wheel-safe mode???
 
Was about to like that post because of the Funcargo at the show, but then I saw the picture below it! Hope you can figure out what the electrical fault is and fix it up. :(
 
Not a technical guy myself, but my only real suggestion would be to just break out a multimeter and fault-find from there.

Sucks to see the FunCargo like that, but hey - all the more reason to source out a WALD kit now. ;)
 
I had a look at the fuse diagram over a some beer on Saturday.. 120a fuse on the alternator circuit running various electrics but not starting power and dome lights.. Inside the positive battery hook up, eureka!
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Bought a couple of fuses, changed the blown one and removed the bits of the alternator that were in contact with the insides.. A decent hole lol
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But it worked.. All electronics is back and the fuse didn't blow so great success.. This was on Monday, bear in mind I made sweet love to that tow hook on Saturday.. Okay so progress, drove my GFs Audi past a yard and pulled in.. They had just got a black Yaris in so I collected the Funcargo and went to work.. Complete cars are my favorite
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Went back to the garage.. Not long after
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And voila
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The cover below the passenger headlight is black so I have to paint that.. The front bumper is scratched and the car threw a CEL, I have a slight dent on the intake so it's possibly sucking in air there.. Gotta get the codes pulled. The turd is alive anyway, so Nürburgring and Stelvio pass will happen in little over a month.
 
Put some ours into the GTti.. I've got a list with stuff to do made up now, it's pretty long.
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A quick mock up on how the FMIC could sit, with a push-pull fan behind the rad where the IC originally sat
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I do like my daily.. I still have to paint the panel underneath the pass. light
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Decided I was done with having a dirty car.. Long working days, using the car as a work van and trying to have a life and do car work in between means dirty car.. This was pre waxing, it's decent shiny
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Mmm freshly waxed pinch welds
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And door jambs
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The black hood needed some work.. The clay bar was diiiirty. Now it's shiny, I wave, hi GTP. Don't mind the rock chips galore, the car is driven daily on the beltways and highways in and around Oslo. My windshield has 7-8 chips and a crack, the hood will get sprayed with rocks in due time :embarrassed:
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With the euro trip planned on next week and the exhaust being a little droney, my GF convinced me to sound deaden the car.. Good girl.. I've learnt from the married guys here and their 'happy wife, happy life' antics. Perfectly driveable daily:
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An hour or so later, gutted
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Holy rust-eze
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It was for once worse than it looked.. Usually is the other way around. I hit it with an air belt sander and had some zinc primer on it.. I guess I'll open it up and sand blast it and paint in a few years.
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That took more time than expected. I had to roll back to Oslo in a stripped out car instead of a plushier one
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Carpet was nasty
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Sound deadening
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Pressure washed the carpet, threw it back in
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All together again
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My GF convinced me to run a set of proper wheels down to Italy, no rubbing, new rubber etc.. The stock steelies got winter tires on em and the stock winter steelies are awful.. So I did the only sensible thing and picked up a set of E30 Bottle Caps for cheap.. Cleaned them down a little
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150k mile oil change on the daily before we depart. Its 16th oil change. My bumper is held on by two screws at the end and one clip at the middle, instead of loads of OEM screws.. I've also removed most of the fender liners, making front bumper removal super easy.
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Raised the car a little.. I think this set has about 80-90k miles on it, still golden, threads are clean.
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Cleaned the MAF, greased the doors and the hood latch, inspected the air filter and passed it plus other minor stuff. I also had a CEL going on, I believe it was from my little bumping into a trailer hitch.. Cracked the plastic intake manifold at one point. Some days ago the CEL went off (wtf) but decided I would weld it anyway.. Before:
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After
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Still has a minor, minor leak at the intake when I spray starter fluid right on it, but it's not enough to throw off a CEL yet.. We'll see, I may have to plastic weld it a tiny bit more tomorrow.

Bottle caps test fit!
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I've been working much lately, building up a business so I can't really commit to cars as many hours a week as I'd like.

Went to Italy and back with the Funcargo, one shot from the Ring
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I've been working on getting new shelves in my garage, with dolleys underneath so I can move them around. The plan was to fix this mess:
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Last night:
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Moved it around a little bit but didn't take pics.. Will snap new when all is complete. I hope to be able to spend some more time in the garage this winter.

One random shot of the daily, I've put about 25k miles on it in a year
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Thanks, that's seriously much appreciated.. :)

The red car got a wash on Saturday and I tooled around with my shelves and tools yesterday. It came out like this, pretty pleased about it.. :)
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You took the Funcargo to the 'Ring? That's so freaking awesome! 👍

I like the new shelves too! You now have room for at least one more car in there :D
 
Yeah, I figured it would be more fun to drive that car at the ring than to drive no car at all :D

About that garage, I did just that.. Collected the Mk2 from the barn above :)
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Parked the Funcargo in the garage and tore it apart a little..
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I knew there was some surface rust on the car from 15 years of salty winters..
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So I blasted it off and primed it
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And behind seam sealer and OE gunk, I found something that looked like more than just surface
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And yes it was, I blasted a hole open
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Cut out the bad metal and made something like this
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My buddy welding, I own this guy a lot of favors
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He hasn't welded much before but it came out decent when I finished grinding down the welds.. The area inside the seam was impossible to get to, I'll have some sealer inside the seam and it should be decent.
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Next up, more priming, painting, oil spraying.. :)
 
Thanks a lot, bud.. :)

I am extremely busy these days, so I kinda forgot to take pictures of the rear wheel arch all done up. The battery was dead after sitting for two weeks, I tried to start it in gear out of the garage but failed and ended up outside with a dead car.. So I said **** it and took a picture :D
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A look at the Hybrid car made me realise jump starting with that seemed to be a ballsy thing to do. Luckily some guy passed and helped me jump start the car. I got it finished, oiled up the rear arches, raised the car for winter, etc. On Sunday I gave it a good clean and a wax
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I like my low cars low.. That sometimes ends up with rubbing through or having to remove fender liners, on this car they were toast so I just cut them up this summer and ran a 1/4 lower half fender liner, ordered some new before the weekend for the winter. Upon removing the old ones I remebered why I don't like fender liners, body molding, mud flaps and seam sealer. It all just traps ****.
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15 years of mud, grime and dirt/soil in a wet, moisty habitat. Mmmm.. You can have one guess, was the fender rusty on the inside or not? Of course it was, under a layer of dirt..
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So I sprayed fluid film on both fenders, can't hurt. The car looked a little sorry
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But it's not a Canadian so it's not sorry and it's not a b*tch so it sucked it up.. On jackstands it went.
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Fluid film sprayed on, inside strut towers, all unpainted surfaces, wheel housing etc. Also sprayed a good layer under the car and on the rockers, pinch welds etc. The more I work on cars the less surprised but more agonized I am by the fact that manufacturers don't use anything more than primer on stuff that isn't seen when the car is complete, or the fact that the top of the inside strut towers aren't even undercoated.. Looked a little nicer when all said and done
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Brand new stuff!
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All mounted up
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The trooper turned 251k km on the way back from the garage last night.. I plastidipped the fender flares and the weird rear add-on factory styling black, I'm not sure what I think of it yet.. I need to make those rear fender flares I think..
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How does the Fluid Film work for you? I have some that I want to spray on my truck this winter since here in Michigan we like to put obscene amounts of salt on the road every time it looks like it's going to snow. I mainly want to protect my wheels and frame since Toyota spends about 6 cents on rust proofing it.
 
First time I tried it, but it was relatively simple to work with.. I've heard good stuff about it so we'll see how it holds up. My car smelled good for a week. Good thing about Tacos is that Toyota gives you a new frame and hardware when (and not if) the car splits in two.. :)

I hear ya about that salt stuff, they were salting last weekend here and it was 50F.. I mean seriously WTF..
 
I do not love winter..
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I have fallen in love with the utilitarian look, with the black fender flares and details.. The car being dirty and grimey just adds to it. So much to the point where I'm actually debating raising the car and finding a set of big tires, found a dude in California making 2" spacers for the Scion xB so we'll see.. :)

I had state inspection on the car.. The windshield failed miserably on being cracked, heavily chipped and full of stickers. I need new brake discs and a new windshield plus they failed me on minor stuff like a horn not working and license plate lights.. Pretty decent for 160k mile turd.. :)
 
So we got some cold weather and the car didn't like it..

Replaced the battery on Saturday, it was 9 years old so I guess that's cool.. I had already budgeted the battery, alternator and starter for 2015, so I guess we're ahead of schedule. I have also scheduled the radiator and water pump for sometime in near future - depending if we stay out of Italy or not (as the car didn't love 44C temps last summer road trip). Will be exciting to see when something else than a battery or a windshield fails - apart from the gearbox I tore a hole in everything is original.

With a new battery the car is again a trooper.. :)
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Euro Golf Mk2s had a plate recess in the front bumper. US Golfs didn't, they have the mounting holes/screws underneath the bumper and then a plate holder mounted outside the bumper. It was OEM, but looks rather little factory if you ask me. Pics of my actual Golf in California for reference
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I designed a small plate holder and 3D printed it.. A little too far out
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Cut off the tab a little
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Tried a test fit with a plate surround and borrowed the plate from the turbo car
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The idea is something like the Golf Mk1 facelift plate setup
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Don't mind the front end is all crooked from the headlight bezel and the Nissan HB DS light and the plate holder with only one tab.. :)
 
I've plastidipped the spare Funcargo bumpers now.. One more layer on the front bumper and it should be good.
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Last Sunday I walked out to a flat tire.. So my car was rolling on a spare with a cracked windshield and generally looking beat. Enough's enough.
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Got the tire fixed on the following Monday and had a new windshield put in last Tuesday.
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Now I'm on the hunt for a real Funcargo grill and a champagne color hood just to make the car look a little more decent.. I think it will be good when I get my matte black bumpers on.

I've been looking at my GTti with very little motivation over the past year. I'm still waiting for the guy who's making the exhaust manifold to finish that and starting up a business doesn't leave you a lot of free time or disposable cash at all times. But it was time to start again.

When I bought the car the wiring was a great mess. I mean, a huge mess. A lot of time was spent just to understand the wiring, when you hit the defog switch the turn signal would come on. No it was not a ground problem, it was wired up that way by the PO. We left the alarm alone, never worked but we figured one step at the time. We concentrated on the fuse box area when I re-did the car in 2012/3. In 2014 I had some smoke coming up from the dash and with the electrical problems I had late that year when I parked it, I've figured it's time to pulled the dash and go through that section of wiring.

So out it came
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Pulling the dash is super easy, it's a matter of 9 small bolts and it's out.
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As I figured, some of the wiring was a mess.. Pardon the dark picture, but this was the alarm setup, loads of loose cables just hanging out..
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ISO headunit cables, just as bad
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And cut wires here.. Grounding nothing
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How the car sits at the moment
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If I can find some time in the next couple of weeks I will heat shrink what has been previously soldered by the PO, re-solder the ISO cables and remove all wiring that wasn't there when the car left the factory. With a clean sheet, I'll add wiring for the gauges, I've decided to run boost pressure, wideband and oil pressure. The wideband will be crucial to run this year with a new turbo, fuelling and ECU..
 
So, a little de-tour from the GTti.. It's blue Golf parts time.

One of the reasons why I bought my 86 Golf was that it is something different. It's not a GTI, it's not built in Germany, it's a stripper model built in PA (arguably to a lower-than-Wolfsburg standard). The Westmoreland (squares) front setup is different and really what separated the American built cars (late model Rabbits and early Mk2s) from the German Golfs. I will never sell the original grill or rad support, but I have toyed with the idea of trying out rounds. There aren't too many bolts.. I have to change the headlights for the initial state approval anyway (E-codes are so much better than the DOT lights) and I could have thrown in a set of squares I have from an old truck, but what the hell..

I came across a Mk2 Diesel being parted this weekend.. We returned with a set of rounds and a set of European tails, one has a small crack but this is only for the inspection. While I one day prefer squares and the other day rounds, the US tail lights have a hands down much, much cooler light pattern than the German tails.
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And the grill, I am still on the lookout for a 7-slat with a chrome stripe but they don't grow on trees.
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Another thing I think I will need is a KPH speedometer, I am unsure if they allow the MPH/KPH cluster. I have also been after a cluster with a clock for a while, the plan is to run the original speedometer and a clock instead of the tacho. I think it will suit the car's character. Ironically nobody wants the clock clusters, much like a two-spoke Porsche 924 wheel I will find for this car one day. Note the odo and its 462k km (that's 287k miles). Gotta love VW 8vs, diesel or gassers they never really die.
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I also needed suspension as the car came over on blown Mk3 VR6 struts (tall!), hencho en Mexico and the coilovers I have on the car are out of the question for a state inspection. The last strut of the TD was a little difficult, and as the sun was setting and darkness ensued, the guys parting the car were running out of patience. So I came home with four struts, a hub, one drum brake and a small part of the rear beam :D
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Used a headlight restoration kit on the Insight's lights and they came up a treat. However, I'd advise doing what I didn't and buying some kind of anti-UV spray or something to whizz over them, because in just three or four months they clouded up again.
 
Thanks bud, appreciate the tip..! Will do!

Yesterday I started wiring fun
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One of the gaskets for my US side markers were a little bad. So I drew it up and made my first 3D print with a flexible material.. :)
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And voila..
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Last time the daily had the cracked bumper
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New one on
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I think the look will look better without the black hood.. I really need to source a champagne hood..
 
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