[juicedz4]

After a 3 year break Im finally getting back to this project.

I have been busy though. Ive spent a bulk of the last 2.5 years building a new place to work on my projects.

Of course I dont have a single good pic of the outside finished. Anyway, its ~2000sq ft, with a 750sqft upstairs, heated floors, 100A electrical service, etc etc. Pretty much its another house in my back yard.

Last night I cleaned out some of the crap that was just thrown inside it, moved it to the welding area, pulled the hood, bumper and one fender off.

With any luck maybe I can get the engine bay finished up in the next month or so (trying to be realistic as I need to get the MK4 back together among other projects)

Dan

 

[seanski]

This is a wicked project, any reason you didnt start with a 1.8t with 06a block and ecu/harness? or is there space constraints. I love old school vw projects.

 

[juicedz4]

Im not sure how I eneded up going 16v turbo. It just happened. I could def fit a newer 1.8T, just didnt.

I have been working on this quite a bit lately, but forgot to update this thread, figuring no one was watching. Maybe Ill up date it.

Dan

 

[heartbeat1991]

Im not sure how I eneded up going 16v turbo. It just happened. I could def fit a newer 1.8T, just didnt.

I have been working on this quite a bit lately, but forgot to update this thread, figuring no one was watching. Maybe Ill up date it.

Dan

We are always watching, even if we don't always comment

 

[juicedz4]

update time. Tossing up the last month or more of progress.

Most of the engine bay welding and grinding is now done, other than the lower core support. Ill come back to that in a week or two.

For now Im starting to reassemble everything as I seem to have forgotten how most of it went together over the past 3 years. I got a few main pieces together late last night.

Dan

---------------------------

Got a couple hours today between my daughters Irish dancing and soccer game.

Pulled the trunk, tail lights, rear bumper and top off so I now have a mini pickup...

Dan

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Found the exh manifold and turbo this weekend. Also realized that I apparently did not have the whole shifter in place when I started on the downpipe a few years ago.

Mounted the smoked headlights and grille. Also planned out wire routing and punched a couple holes here and there to get wires thru the fender area into the cabin.

Found this between the shifter and ebrake lever. Its no TVR dick bomb, but fun to find anyway.

Then last night I pulled out the ebrake and shifter and spent a couple hours with some APC, rags, and a brush and cleaned the hell out of the back seat and trunk areas. Now maybe I wont get dirty just looking inside.

Dan

--------------------------

Behind a couple days of updates. Time to catch up.

Decided I didnt like the open bracket for the brake booster. Welded a plate to the top of the bracket. In order to be able to still mount it I had to drill a couple large holes in the back of the bracket to access the booster nuts and move the top stud from the steering column to the booster bracket. Ill snap a pic of it in place soon, I keep forgetting.

Clearance holes on open bracket

Welded and ground with new mounting stud

Mounted up (obv taken before the stud move)

Stud removed from column. Its fairly easy to access from the inside.

Next, I tacked the water pipe for the heater core return. Cleaned all of the threaded studs off of it and welded up two nipples that Im not going to use vs just capping them. I pressure tested it to ~30psi, no leaks. I also tweaked the position of it a little to better line up with the hoses on the firewall.

Not perfect but powder coat should hide the rest.

Finally I redid the downpipe to actually clear the shifter, rack and alxe. (Note: pic taken only with ambient shop lighting )

Next update on wed am.

Dan

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Decided I didnt like the factory feed for the heater core so I whipped up my own. Plus I wanted a way to T water to the turbo without using a hose barb T and clamps (Im a sucker for AN fittings). My main motivation for running water to the turbo was to have an alternate water path for when the heater core feed is shut off. I figure if I was just going to put an alternate path in I may as well make some use of it.

Cut the flange on my bandsaw and cleaned up the edges on the disc sander. The tube is a piece of 3/4" sanitary tubing I bought on ebay for $20.

Still need to machine the bungs to fit around the tube, but thats the idea of where they are going and explains why the one tube is longer than the other. Im still debating if I need a mounting bracket along the length of the new tube.

Dan

-----------------------

Machined a couple of -6 bungs for the turbo water lines yesterday at lunch.

And welded them on last night. I also put a few weld dots at the end of the stainless tube to help retain the hose since I cant bead it.

Then I dug through my stash and luckily found a 2.5" 90* bend so I was able to finish up the downpipe. I still need to add an O2 sensor bung and a vband at the other end. Certainly not my best welding, but whatever, it had great penetration and will be coated and wrapped.

I will definitely need to do some heat shielding for the rack and shifter.

I also received the correct shifter bracket for the manual rack and a few more fittings from my Jegs order, which is apparently coming in 5 separate shipments.

Dan

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Had an hour last night so I started working on the short shifter. Yes, I realize this looks like the long shifter, but its not. So far so good, just need to drill a few holes and it should be set.

Compared to stock

Dan

--------------------------

Finished up the shifter bracket; holes drilled and I re-welded and smoothed out the shaft/bracket joint. Also a sneak peak of the new linkages Im starting.

Routed the fuel lines. The soft lines will connect to hard lines just above floor level near the firewall. I will probably nutsert the body for the hold downs vs just the screws I was using for the mockup.

Welded -8 fittings to the oil cooler adapter and got the lines made.

Dan

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Made a bit more progress on the strut bar. Got the sheet metal cut out, drilled, dimpled, and welded in. What a total pain that was. I had to move a pile of clamps 26 times, once for each weld. Took almost 2 hours. I just need to finish weld the mounting ends on tomorrow night then I can take it for coating.

Also finished up the new shift linkage rods including a shift weight that I made on the lathe at work. Ive seen some people just use threaded rod, but I think it looks stupid, so I bought and threaded some 8mm rod instead. The ball ends are 13mm to mate with the OEM ball mounts. Obviously I need to add two for the shift weight rod as it just used bushings in holes originally.

I think thats just about all the fab I need to do before I can start stripping the whole car down to finish any welding and start stripping undercoating etc.

Dan

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Last thrusday I decided I was close enough to pull the motor and trans back out. Also removed the doors. Probably get back to the engine bay work in a week.

I dropped the strut tower brace off for powder monday.

Accidentally ruined the radiator cover trying to shear 1/8" off the edge (forgot about the damn feet on the shear that holds the metal). Anyway thought Id try my hand at forming a radius bend at the corner of it vs having it square. Not bad for a first attempt. Rev 2 will feature this.

Bronze bushings showed up monday. Had to turn the larger ones down a little on the lathe to fit in the selector bracket. Just need to come up with a couple spacers. So now the whole shifter mechanism is rubber bushing / grommet free.

Got tired of having a whole car spread out on various benches, the floor etc so I whipped up this rolling rack last night. I just happen to have 12 2x4s, 2 sheets of plywood and a spare set of casters off my one HF tool box laying around. SO much better. (Yes, I really need to organize my scrap metal )

Dan

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Got the strut tower brace back from powder. Its a textured, flat, red.

Dan

 

[Brad91Z]

Like I have come to expect. Awesome work! Love reading your updates. Thanks for posting!

Brad

 

[34blazer]

*still watching*

 

[juicedz4]

No new progress. Been doing a bunch of other maintenance on the fleet and yard work etc. Hoping to get back to it next week. maybe.

Dan

 

[rocketeer2001]

this work. Done properly.
Good photos too!

 

[juicedz4]

this work. Done properly.
Good photos too!

Thanks.

I just use my phone for these pics. Too lazy to pull out the real camera anymore.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

Got a good start on the lower core support last night.

Before

After (just tacked so far)
The random hole to the right of the front motor mount is for the rad fan wiring.

Decided I didnt like my oil cooler mount, so I started on something new. I really want to stop at this, but I think the weight of the cooler full will be to much without more support. Still thinking it over. The idea here is to nutsert the core support, thread this in and jamb nut it. Then thread the other end to bolt to the cooler.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

Front and rear suspension removed. About all thats left on it now is the windshield, rear side windows and gas tank.

Also got a good start on the tiptisserie.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

Finished up the tiptisserie the last couple nights. I had to make some adapters for the OE bumper supports to bolt to the 2x6s which took some time. It also took some adjusting of the plywood 1/4 circles to be able to tip it up by myself. Its still pretty hard to get up to 45 degrees, but after that its easy. I think If I just shorten the legs a little that might be enough. Anyway, its up now. I did put a tie down to the wall just for extra safety, but its very stable.

Dan

 

[cahilj]

A 3 year break in this thread seems like a drop in the bucket compared to the Cav. :lol:

 

[juicedz4]

Hah. The cavy runs and drives, I just dont run or drive it.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

My daughter (10) and I have been picking away at the undercoating. Shes love scraping it for some reason. I think she put in a hour maybe and I probably have 1.5ish in so far. So I feel like its going pretty quick.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

After about another 4 hours Ive made it to here. I picked up a fine brass wire wheel that Ive been using to clean off any undercoating left by the scraper, its working great and doesnt harm the factory primer. Ive also realized that I dont need to scrap so much off as the wire wheel works so well. That seems to be saving a lot of time. Im sure Ill have a method perfected just as Im finishing.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

These updates are pretty boring, but anyway, put in another 2 hours last night, made pretty good progress.

Dan

 

[juicedz4]

Been chipping away at this project , literally...

Dan[/img]

 

[34blazer]

made some progress, looks clean.