Ben's Black Mk2 2.0 16v Project

[Judderi]

27/03/06

Well i have been off work for a few weeks now and have got a boat load of jobs done on the car. As always i tried to take as many pictures for you all. Day by day i will try and do a write up of each little project. Fist up is how to strip and clean a starter motor, handy to know if your starter is sticking like mine is.

Obviously you gotta remove it from the car, i covered this in an earlier post. The starter consists of 2 main parts, the solonoid and the electric motor. The solonoid basicly makes the shaft shoot out and engage with the flywheel to turn and start the engine. First you gotta remove the solonoid. This is held on by 3 cross head screws. Be carefull not to strip the screw heads, make sure you use the correct size screw driver to avoid this. Before you undo them disconect the wire that goes from the solonoid to the motor.

Once the screws are out you can simply split the solonoid from the casing, there is a spring inside which you must not loose.

Try and hook the part that is left attached if possible. If you cant unhook it dont worry cos you soon will be able to once everything is loose. Next undo and remove the 4 bolts on the opposite end of the motor and remove the cap. Now would be a good time to clean the cap and re grease.

You now need to slide off the circlip that is holding the shaft in and remove the end cap from the casing shell.

You should now see the following. You need to slide the electrical unit up and out to remove, being carefull with the carbon contact blocks. Make sure none ping off and get lost or damaged.

The next task is to slide the whole centre shaft assembly from the casing. At this point its simply held in by magnetic force, so pull and it will come out. You may end up with something similar to this.

Because mine came out with magnets all over the place i needed to clean it all and re assemble. To do this slide all magnets out of the shell. Slide! Do not attempt to lift them as they are brittle and may snap. Once the shell is bare get a wire wheel inside and clean up all rust from the inner face. Once clean slide the magnets back in and re-fit the circular cage that holds them in place.

Next turn your attention to the centre shaft. You need to clean up the contacts on the end. I used some wire wool as its not too abrasive but does the job nicely. Here is the before and after shots.

Nearly done! All you gotta do now is put it all back together. And yes youve guessed it re-assembly is simply a reversal of dis-assembly. Its not that hard really. I came accros a couple of tricky parts which i will list for you. Once you have the centre shaft back in place and the electic contact assembly in and the end cap back on you may wonder how this plate on the opposite end is supposed to sit. But dont worry because when you slide the long bolts back in you will see that it will only sit one way with the bolts slid throught the largest gaps.

Also you may wonder where about the rubber stopper is supposed to go. If you look closely you will see that there is a cut out on the casing that it slots into nicely.

Now your ready to attach the solonoid housing. Make sure you hook up the solonoid before tightening up all the bolts. I didnt and had to undo the bolts again as you have no chance hooking it on once tight.

Last but not least. Clean up the electrical contacts and re-fit the whole unit to the car. Fingers crossed it will be as good as new!

[Judderi]

28/03/06

Today children we are studying cups and balls. Gear stick cups and selector rod balls that is. After driving my golf for a year with a totally shot gear selector bushings cups balls etc i decided to do something about it. Ive had the bits needed for ages but never got around to fitting them. I bought a fixing kit. Apparently the genuine VW ones are the best to buy. You can also get stuff from this guy too though.

http://www.4crawler.com/Diesel/ForSale/ShiftLinkage.shtml

First attacked was the shifter cup and ball. Simply unscrew your gear knob off and pull up your gear gator and you will be left with something like this. I also had removed my center console but not for this job in particular. While your in the car undo the 2 10mm nuts that you can see and put them to one side. That yellow thing in the picture is a McDee's chip. Still tasted good as new after being there for about a year! 

Next get under the car. Jack it up as high as possible and support securely on axle stands or ramps. You need to remove the heat sheild for the exhaust. Its held on by round clips. Hopefully they wont be too rusted and can be re-used when re-fitting the heat shield. Once the clips are removed then twist the shield around and off the exhaust.

You should now be able to see the bottom of the shifter cup. This cup is held in by a rubber seal and to get it out you need to push it up wards into the car. Takes some effort but does go eventually. Once loosened and pushed up you should be able to remove it from within the car with a bit of jiggery pokes malarky. It sounds easy but believe me its not! I found it a little advantageous to take the 4 bolts that hold the shifter box in place out giving more play to the parts.

You should now be able to drop the whole gear stick down through the hole and out the bottom of the car. Looking something like this.

You now need to replace the ball on the end. To do this you need to remove the pin in the center holding it all together. You need about 10 hands for this bit. You need to pull down on the ball and belt the pin with a hammer till it comes out. I managed on my own but it wasn't the easiest of jobs.

Then simply re-assemble with your new ball and metal plate and pin. The finished article should look like...

Now its time to re-assemble it all. The most difficult part here was getting the new cup in place, which you do from inside the car. Apart from that its easy enough. Its also a good idea to grease everything up good and propper. Put a great big blob in the new cup and ball and all other moving parts.

Just to give you an idea of how nakered my setup was, here is a pic of the left over bits.

[Judderi]

28/03/06

Next up you should do the gear linkages. Heres what i did. First undo the clamp on the end of the selector rod from underneath the car. This will allow you to slide the U shape bracket off the selector rod. You will need to undo the little rod that attaches to it before removing it. This is just clipped on but be carefull with the clips as they break easily. This pic shows the clamp and the U bracket that it holds and one of the selector rods.

Next you need to remove the main relay shaft assembly. This is bolted to the car in 3 places. The following pics should help you locate the bolts as no doubt they will be hidden by dirt.

Next undo the top nut that hold the shifter bar on.

And remove the cirlip on the opposite end.

This will allow you to remove the relay shaft from the assembly.

Now you can pop out the old bushings and replace them with fresh new ones.

I had to install a new relay shaft ball too as mine was missing completely.

Now re-assemble the whole mechanism putting new bushes in the shifter bar too.

At this point i decided to also check out the mech for the side to side movement. This too was very wobbly so i stripped it down to have a look. To do this you need to remove the bolt that holds it in place. This can be tricky because you need to hold the nut on the underside still and access is very restrictive. But keep trying and you will get there in the end.

With the nut and bolt removed you can remove the mech to reveal the bushings. My top one was in place but the bottom one was completely missing. The kit i bought did not supply these bushings but i found that the old ones i removed earlier were a good fit and nice and tight. So i used them to replace the old and missing ones.

Now its time to fit everything back on the car and align your gears. I bought the tool from a guy on ebay and would recommend doing so yourself if your gonna do this job. I only had to align once and all gears worked perfectly 1st time. No messing about at all! So i installed my new reverse gate (the white plastic bit) because mine was missing and clipped in the gear tool like so.

Next you simply re-install the U shape bracket and clamp up nice and tight. If you look closely at the pic you will see a notch cut out of the U clamp. This is where the bolt goes. I could not see this when under the car and took me ages to figure out why i could not get the clamp back on.

Well thats it, job done. Now you should have a nice tight feel to your gear shift. It certainly made a huge improvement for mine! The only thing i missed was the relay shaft bushing because i did not have a new one. But ive now bought one and will fit it when i can.

[Judderi]

29/03/06

Next job on the list was to install the rear axle Polly Urethane bushings. To be honest i would not really recommend doing this job to anyone unless you were also replacing the OEM axle bushes at the same time. I say that as the polly ones are simply an addition to the original bushings and not a replacement. I didn't replace the OEM bushings and this is how i did it. The picture below shows the bushes for the axle on the left. The others are top mounts for the rear suspension struts.

Next jack the rear of the car up and secure with axle stands. You need to remove the bolt on either side that holds the axle.

Removing the bolt isn't as easy as it seems though because on both sides of the car it is blocked by brake lines. On the fuel pump side i had to bend the bracket that held the flexible brake line out of the way. And on the opposite side i had to cut the spring clip that holds the line secure so that i could bend the line out of the way a little. Got there in the end though.

Once the bolts are out the axle should drop enough to gain access to the bushings. Don't let the axle drop as its only supported by brake lines at this point. You don't want your brake lines taking all the weight so support the axle with something. I stuck a tin of paint underneath for it to rest on.

Now you need to drill out part of the rubber on the OEM bushing for the polly ones to slide into. Drill out enough either side of the center like so.

Now with the aid of some grease and allot of squeezing you should be able to slide on the new polly overlays like so.

Now you just need to put everything back together.

[Judderi]

29/03/06

Next up was the rear suspension top mounts. This is what the replacement polly urethane ones look like.

First undo and move out of the way the parcel shelf support. They are only held in by 4 or 5 spring clips with a 10mm head. You will now be able to see the strut top.

This is what they look like. Yours may look different to mine as i have coil overs with adjustable dampers.

First you need to undo the large nut. To do this you will need to use a spanner and not a socket. This is because you will need to hold the center of the shaft still with another spanner or allen key depending upon what fitment yours is. Once the 1st nut and the metal disk are removed you will see another nut. Remove this one in the same way.

You should now be able to lift off the top mount. You can chuck the rubber bit but keep the washer in the middle.

Now jack the car up and remove the bolt shown holding the bottom of the strut to the hub.

You should now be able to remove the entire suspension strut from the car.

You now need to remove the final nut on the top holding the bottom mount in place. Once removed the washer and rubber mount should slide off with ease.

Now its time to slide on you new bottom polly mount and bolt up with the washer in place.

Now you can re-fit the strut assembly to the car and even put the wheels back on the ground. You can then slide on the new top mount and re-fit all the nuts and washers in reversal of removal like so.

Thats it. Just repeat the whole process for the other side and your done. While i had the shockers off the car i had a good old inspection. To my horror i discovered that my springs were snapped in 2 places on one shocker and in one place on the other. At the moment I'm still running about like this but i have ordered replacements which are due to arrive in a couple of weeks costing about £100. Luckily the breaks are right at the top part where the compressed spring is. Because my car is really low this part of the spring should not really be in use so i should get away with it for a short while. Fingers crossed!

[Judderi]

30/03/06

I love the fact that i can run around on LPG at half the price of petrol but Ive never been too happy with the amount of boot space taken up by the huge tank. Its always added allot of weight which is all at one side of the car and very high up, which no doubt affects my handling loads. Plus at the moment i need boot space for a pram. So when i got the chance to swap my tank with a mate for a donut one i jumped at it. Once we move house and i buy Faye her own car again the pram will be replaced by a huge stereo install! So heres how the swap went. This is the old tank,

Under the Grey circular cap you will find the main workings of the tank. Basically you have 1 hose used to fill the tank. Another to supply the gas to the engine. An electric solenoid to open a valve for the gas to flow when the engine is running. And a fuel level Gage sender for your heads up display.

Once the wires to the solenoid are removed the tank is automatically sealed and you are safe to remove all pipes and wires like so.

Now you can take the tank out completely. My tank was secured with 2 steel straps to the cradle which is bolted through the floor pan. So when the cradle was removed i was left with 4 bolts poking through the floor. 2 bolts were re-used to secure the new tank and the other 2 were removed and the holes sealed with silicone.

Next i prepped the spare wheel well. My intention is to use sound deadening on the entire boot area. For now i just did the well.

Now for the new tank install. I went to a mates house who's dad has all the tools and materials for metal fabrication. Here i made the 4 brackets to secure the tank to the car. I was really pleased with my efforts.

Now i had to plumb in the new tank. I bought myself a brake line flaring kit to cut and re-flare the copper pipe and fit the different pressure connector for this tank. I will show you how to do this as i had no idea and struggled a little. I practiced on a bit of spare pipe a few times before getting it right. The principal is exactly the same as when you fit new brake lines. First cut the end of the pipe so that you have a nice fresh un-bend end. Use a propper pipe cutting tool to do this. Then clamp the pipe in the flaring tool, leaving about 3 mill poking out the end like so.

You then clamp the second half of the tool on and tighten down hard the spike into the pipe end.

To get a result like so

You then gotta repeat the clamping but with this little gizmo in between the spike and the pipe. This rounds off the top end for a good fit.

Then your done and should have a finished article like so. Word of warning! Put the connector nut on before flaring the end!

Now i was ready to connect all the pipes and hoses back up and plug in the electrics. Jobs a gud un!

[Judderi]

04/04/06

With the gas tank moved i can now get on with the task of sound deadening the entire boot. Eventually i will do every pannel in the car. Now i have a baby im looking to quieten the car as much as possible. The new exhaust is already on its way. So far i have done the boot floor and each side of the boot up to the roof. Looks like this.

Ive now moved house so no longer have the use of a garage. I can use a mates when i want though. My plan is to take the golf off the road while i re-build the engine. So im on the look out for a performance head. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

[Judderi]

05/04/06

My drivers door handle has been well dodgy for a while now. To open you had to push the handle towards the car and press the lever to open it. It was an skill i tell you! Anyway at the weekend it decided to stop working all together and Ive been resorting to getting in the passanger side and leaning over to open the door. Well not anymore! I decided to tackle it last night. The easy option would have been to replace the whole handle assembly. But my handles are painted so would prefer to keep them. So i swapped over the broken mech instead. Its a bit of a b!tch to remove the pin but with a bit of cutting and brute force it came out in the end. Here is a pic of the broken mech.

[Judderi]

21/04/06

Ive been spending money again! Ive bought the rest of the hardware needed to get my car pc up and running.

1st i needed a new amp to power my fronts and 6x9's as my Vibe VP2 went up in smoke. So im now the proud owner of this lovely shiney Genesis amp.












Im mounting the Motherboard in the tray under the steering wheel so needed something compact. I bought this tiny 1ghz fanless motherbord.








These are the cables for the main board - everything is on cables to keep the board low profile.



I went for the maximum of 1gb of SO-DIMM laptop Memory so that i was running at full potential and not have any slowness issues. The board is so compact that the memory clicks into place on the underside of the board!




The all important car power supply. This is the Opus 90 with remote trigger. Its a clever little gizmo that can controll all sorts of functions and safety features.






Bough this little monster to keep all my music and films on. Its a 100gb 7200 rpm laptop Hard Disk. Nice and quick!




I also got this bargain of a Slot load DVD drive from ebay. Its going to be mounted in the glove box with a custom made facia pannel. When im done it will be black to match too.

Cant wait to get playing with it all. Gonna set it up at home 1st then begin installing it all in the car. I also bought another car on Tuesday. Its a rover 200 Diesel Turbo. Got it to use while i do work on mine, then once im done the wife is going ot use it. So as of this weekend the car will be off road and the engine work will begin. Hopefully the head will be off and sent away to SP Performance Monday.

[Judderi]

24/04/06

Right! Work has begun! At the weekend i took the golf out for its last trip in a while to my mates garage. Its time to start taking stuff to bits! 1st i had to install some strip lights in his garage so that i can see but hey its a fair trade for the use of his garage. I decided to support the car on 4 axle stands as i will also be taking the exhaust off as the middle box requires welding and in general it makes it easier when i need to get at stuff from underneath.

Drag style!






This is a before shot




And this is the end result for half a days work.




To be honest i found everything straight forward enough. I reckon the hard part will be putting it all back together! This in mind i was very organized and kept bolts etc separate or even screwed them back into what they came off once removed and took lots of pictures for reference. I also made sure all timing marks were aligned up and the dizzy was marked before taking anything apart. I also took lots of pictures of the cam positions for reference so that when i come to fit my new ones hopefully i will put them in right. I will put up some pics showing the stage by stage progress.






When i removed the front bumper i was greeted with some rust under the battery tray area. I will clean it all up and weld a new piece in.










Head off






The pistons seems to have some hard deposit on them. I'm guessing this is due to the LPG either way this will all be cleaned when the bottom end is re-conditioned.






Voila! 1 Head




I then turned attention to the block and started to strip all stuff like the water pump and oil filter from it.










Ive always wondered about which bottom end i have. Everyone seems to hunt for the elusive 9A but from the looks of it mine is an Audi 11J. These pics show the stamps on the front of the block.