Ben's Black Mk2 2.0 16v Project

[Judderi]

8th July 2005

I didnt get the car back that night as a slight snag was encountered. The full story is this. The cause of the problem was down to the dim/dip wire rubbing on the chassis over 17 years causing the insulation to rub away and the wire to short out on the bare metal. This wire burt out also taking with it the ingition relay and wire as well as the columb switch for the main beam. The contact in the columb stalk got that hot that it melted the plastic and sunk down a few mill breaking the contact. So i need a new stalk, time to upgrade to a mk3 set i think which im going to buy from a local breakers tonight. I could have possibly had the car back last night but i decided to ask him to sort out a few other things while hes there.

1. The fog lights are currently connected to the main beam and need to be moved to their own circuit.
2. The angel eyes are powered from 1 sidelight as the other side was dead so i just ran a wire across.

You should have seen the guys face when i told him about these 2 bodge jobs 

[Judderi]

11 July 2005

Got the car back from the auto electrician friday night costing a grand total of £125 which i thought was a bit steep as he hadnt even done the extras id asked him to. Dont ask me why, like i said hes a bit strange. I think next time i will try the other sparky in town.

As usual i got a few jobs done at the weekend. Firstly the car was in desperate need of a wash as it had been parked under a tree at the auto electricians and was covered in bird poo and sticky leaves plus last weeks road grime. So in the blazing sun i gave it a wash which turned out to be a total disaster because as soon as i wet the paint the heat dried it leaving nasty streaks everywhere. Eventually i got it to a reasonable streak free state. That was it for saturday as the wife wanted to go out somewhere.

So sunday afternoon i was allowed to do a few jobs before tea. Priority 1 on the list was to sort the idle out. Ive been cutting out at lights etc lately. I was armed with the instructions i found on the site about setting the idle and co2 level. This wasnt so simple though as when i got the petrol idle sorted the LPG idle was far too high. I settled for a happy medium for now just by altering the idle screw and removing the adjuster from the LPG pipe. I couldent alter the co2 as i didnt have a long allen key. The LPG is running far too rich at present so when i go to get the tank moved in the boot to allow for my planned ICE install i will ask them to set up the fueling propperly.

While trying to set the idle i noticed that my rocker cover gasket is leaking. Luckily i already have a new one waiting to go on when i eventually swap the intake manifolds and rocker cover for the polished set i bought ages ago. Unfortunately its leaking directly onto the exhaust manifold which could cause a fire so the sooner i do it the better i think.

Other than that i just tidied up my wires under the dash ready to put the under tray back on.

[Judderi]

18/07/2005

I got bored while waiting to pick my wife up from work and found a screwdriver. I decided to attack my dash! 10 mins later i had removed everything including my clocks. The reason for this is that i want to replace all the illumination for blue LED's. Ive already had a bash at doing the various switches which are 90% done but i also wanted to figure out an effective way of iluminating the clocks. Ive seen other peoples where the bulbs were replaced for LED's but wasnt that impressed. After some trial and error i came up with a result i was happy with.

I removed the plastic bulb holder and green film completely. I then pointed 2 frosted LED's directly at the dial faces and glued them in place with my gluegun. Then to brighten up things and iluminate the remainder of the console i used 2 non frosted directional LED's in each corner pointing across to the opposite corners. I then wired them all up to the origional contacts for the standard bulbs with my trusty soldering iron. Its all a bit tricky and fiddly but the result i think is worth it. Here is a little diagram and some poor quality pictures i took while driving.

Daytime


Night

This is where i bought the LED's from. They come with the resisor already fixed.

http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=44&products_id=750&osCsid=cd5fd879d725033e56847914efd60eb6

[Judderi]

18/07/2005

I got a few other bits and pieces done also at the weekend. Mainly i sorted my running problems out. I managed to rob a few bits and pieces from the scrappy while i was purchasing a new mfa stalk. I got a load of boot clips to fill the mystery holes in the dash. i also got a new oil breather hose which cured the idle problems.

But the bigest shock i had this weekend was when my wife told me those imortal words IM PREGNANT

Turns out shes actually 3 months pregnant! Im happy but very shocked! We dont even have a home! And we wanted to go traveling. Bugger! but yey! Im confused? How did that happen? Whos the dad? Where do babies come from? How much do they cost? can you give them back if you dont like them?

HELP!

[Judderi]

20/7/05

It turns out you can also change the colour of the MFA! Have a look on the following link, they make it sound so easy. Belive me its not!

http://www.vintagewatercooleds.com/tech/Techtips/ATStechnotes/clusterlights/clusterlights.htm

What they dont show you on the picture is that you have to take the rev counter dial off completely to get to the mfa screws. All in all you have to take the whole thing completely apart! Once its apart there is a green film between the 2 parts of the MFA display. Chuck this in the bin and put it all back together.

And dont do what i did and realize you forgot 2 screws meaning the whole thing had to come apart for the second time! Once its all back together its time to start modding. Simply replacing the standard bulb for a blue LED will not give the desired effect. Again this is because LEDS are directional and the light needs to be aimed sideways at each bit of perspex that sticks out and not straight ahead at the circuit board.

So i used 2 LEDS and glued one pointing left and one pointing right then soldered them directly to the origional bulb holder contacts on the back of the unit.

The result is better than expected! Ive got a really bright blue MFA and you can still clearly read the black writing at night or in daylight! I havent yet got pics but watch this space!

[Judderi]

21/07/05

As promised the finished article! 

What do you think?

Ive also been replacing the standard bulbs in all my switches. Here is one of the electric window switches complete.

[Judderi]

25/07/2005

Well at the weekend i made a start on installing my stero. I decided to run the high power speaker cable down the centre of the car as it makes it easier to keep them the same length. So to do this i removed all the chairs. I also removed the door cards in order to pull the cables through the grommet to the doors. And also the undertrays on both sides of the dash and the centre console. So by this point the interior of the car is pretty bare and im lying on nothing but carpet. I got a few funny remarks as people passed like "i hope you know what your doing"

The trouble with me is that when i come across something else that needs sorting i leave the 1st thing i started and move onto the new thing. At one point i was onto my 4th job when i hadnt even finished the 1st. Ive been getting winged at by the wife for months now about a cold draught coming from the footwell in the passenger side. So while it was all apart i decided to have a look. The blower motor was not clipped up properly and was hanging down at the back. It turns out the clip was snapped. So i removed the whole unit and glued the whole thing together with the glue gun. Its now sealed tight and should never come apart again!

So at the moment the car is still in a million pieces but its not a problem cos ive nicked my dads audi a2 cos hes on holiday! Yey free fuel! Im moving onto the mx5 when the diesel runs out on the a2. See how i left the mx5 as a last resort! lol 

[Judderi]

1/8/05

Well after getting back in the golf after driving the A2 things feel a bit heavier but its soooooooooo much more fun to drive than any new car! Its still in pieces cos ive decided to do a propper job while im at it. Im going to dyna mat the whole of the doors before i put them back together but im a little low on funds so might have to wait till next month to complete this.  Which means im gonna be driving without tunes for a month. Ive ordered all new drilled and grooved disks and green stuff pads which should arive on Wednesday. As soon as there on its straight to the MOT centre as it ran out last month and i didnt realize.  And then when thats done i have to run to the post office and tax it as that run out today! Funny thing is i havent had a renewal letter for the tax. I will just hope and pray i dont pass any tax cameras or get stoped by the boys in blue. Hey y gotta live dangerously some times, makes y feel alive! 

[Judderi]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo i so wanna chrome my wheels!

[Judderi]

05/08/05

MOT time has come and gone so i thought i better put the car in before the boys in blue pull me and lock me up. I knew i needed new disks on the front and my rears were pretty shabby too so i ordered a full set of drilled and grooved disks combined with a set of ABC green stuff pads.

I changed the fronts no problem but the rears are a different story. I got the old rear disk off and removed the 2 bearings. But when i put the bearings in the new disks they were not a snug fit and pretty much rattled around. Has anybody else come accross this? I dont know if the disks i got are the wrong ones or im doing something wrong like not removing a shim from the old disk. Anyway i put the car in for MOT last night hoping and praying that it wouldent need too much work as i have no money to shell out on it. To my delight it only needs 1 bottom ball joint. Gonna order it today so hopefully will have it done by saturday. When i was doing the disks i noticed that my cv boot had a split in it so im gonna give changing that a go too. When they did the emisions test it was running on LPG and they were far too high, which had me worried but i flicked over to petrol and it passed with flying colours.

Prices

Ball joint = £17.80
2x CV Boots = 27.38

Total = £45.18 Not bad to get through an MOT.