Contradiction wrote: I'll have some pics in a few hours, which feels like an ETERNITY from now!Yeah labor was $585 which was about what I expected but the brake and fuel line cost is a bit absurd. It's $105 for 25 ft. of the 5/16" fuel line from Fed Hill online. Oh well, I can live with it. I'm just excited to be driving it!
Look at it this way, it's doubtful you'll ever have to do it again.
JtspellS wrote:Contradiction wrote: I'll have some pics in a few hours, which feels like an ETERNITY from now!Look at it this way, it's doubtful you'll ever have to do it again.
Exactly. I've taken a "do it right the first time" mantra with this car from the get go. I could have half assed it just replaced the bare minimum in parts and had it on the road a long time ago but that would cause more headaches down the road. I won't have to deal with any of this again now. It's going to feel like a brand new car practically.
Love this car! Reminds me of my first car, a rabbit convertible. Mine was an 84 with a 1.8 8v and close ratio 5spd.
That car was a good time!
I can't believe the condition yours is in! And those wheels look great too.
So where is the drive report and pictures?
Pending soon! I was way out of whack on the alignment so I didn't really give her hell yet. I had that done this afternoon but I have someplace to be all evening so it will have to wait til tomorrow.
I'm still paranoid about the stupid timing belt replacement I did before I started the extended tear down so I'm going to revisit the tensioning on that before I really take a long drive on it.
Basically, I'm getting a lot of "groaning" from the belt at this point and I have already replaced it along with a new tensioner.
I probably re-timed and re-tensioned it about 30 times when I first replaced the belt to no effect.
The belt tension tends to go from way too tight to sliding around loose with the slightest difference in tension. I'm going to try to do it this time with the proper tool instead of a bent coat hanger in the holes like I did last time to see if that makes any difference.
I'm also going to take the upper and lower cover off to rule out any possible interference there.
In posting up the video on vwvortex and some MK1 specific facebook groups I've gotten 1 of 3 opinions: It's still too tight, sometimes the belts are just loud for awhile until they break in, and one person said it could be a bad intermediate camshaft bearing.
If the bearing is bad (which isn't really a bearing in the sense of a roller bearing, etc. it's more like an inner race sleeve) it's a pull the motor and bring it to a machinist problem. 
I'm really hoping it's not the later and that seems like a bit of a leap in terms of diagnosis.
I'm going to change the oil tomorrow and adjust the belt and basically find out what happens. I hope I don't have to call AAA.
Keep your fingers crossed.
Just caught back up, I was autocrossing once and the circlip fell off the pedal shaft and it slid out while I was running. I understand laying on the floor trying to fish that thing back together.
Do you have a very long skinny screwdriver or stethoscope? Remove the covers and run the engine. Place the tip of the screwdriver on the bolt sticking out of the tensioner and put the handle up to your ear. Listen for noise. Or use stethoscope. You can place the tip of the screwdriver on various non moving spots to narrow down where the noise is coming from. Check the water pump also, and if it has it, the power steering. By all means be careful and don't blame me for hurting yourself!
There is a "feel" thing to getting these right. To be clear I do not possess it...
If you can just turn the belt 90 degrees after tightening the tensioner you should have it right.
vwcorvette wrote: If you can just turn the belt 90 degrees after tightening the tensioner you should have it right.
I took both covers off and left them off and tensioned it again this afternoon and I thought it was good. Looser then before and able to turn it to 90. It sounded better and my friend that was lending me a hand went home and I fired her up again an hour later to take a drive and it was just as loud.
I'm getting to my wit's end here.
I didn't see any oil or anything seeping from near the intermediate shaft so I would think that if that bearing is shot it would?
I'm going to try to get it to what feels like "too loose" and listen to it then.
Have any of you guys ever experienced the belts being loud at first but then "breaking in" over time and softening up?
If I can't get the tension fine tuned any better without it being too lose that's about the only thing I can think of at this point.
I think I've got it sorted out now! Sat I retensioned again and backed it off a bit and that sounded better momentarily but then it came back after it had sufficiently warmed up after a drive.
So I had someone else come over again today and we tweaked it about 3 more times. I found the threshold of too loose for sure and tightened up slightly from there. Groan is now gone! It does seem to have some slight side to side movement when running but it's no longer riding to the edge of the camshaft sprocket or rubbing against the outer rib of the tensioner pulley. Doesn't look as if it has any danger of walking to either side now and appears to be centered better.
I took it for a good 25 min. drive back and forth across town and it didn't get noisier. I'm going to take it for a 2 hr drive on Wednesday night for my "shake down run" before I drive it to Louisville, IN for the Euro District Car show next Saturday. That will be the big test.
Now for my limited driving impressions. It has been alternating between snowing and windy and sunny at about 1 hr. intervals since last weekend here in NE Indiana so between that and final issues to resolve like the alignment and the belt noise I haven't really "driven it to it's potential" at all yet.
I do have a few initial impressions though.
Ride height turned out really nice IMO. I adjusted the coils to about a 2 finger wheel gap and the control arms are parallel and I measure 23.5" ground to fender. That's where I had it at for the alignment and I don't see any real reason to monkey with it from there. You can no longer "put a small child's head in the wheel gap" as a friend of mine pointed out when I first bought it, and it isn't too low to be functional. Mission accomplished.
While I can hear all kind of things rattle going down the road it isn't nearly as rough as I expected it to be for ride quality! I was expecting it to rattle the fillings in my teeth loose given the spring rates and the already limited suspension travel from stock. It is surely still a "Boob Buster" as einy described his old rabbit being a few pages ago ;) but it's much better then I expected! Even train tracks aren't as jarring as I expected them to be. I'm even at full on Firm on the Koni Sports too!
I haven't really gotten to get out and put it through the paces yet as it's been between 30 - 45 degrees and snowing or raining, but so far I'm very impressed with the cornering! It's remarkably "graceful" doing it which is not at all what I imagined. There's like zero body roll and it just feels like it's gliding through the corners. All of which means I REALLY need to get some good tires under neath it and see what kind of grip I get out of this sucker and how far I can push it! I bought a set of 12.9 lb. 15x6.5s that had been on another rabbit from a friend and I plan on running Direzza ZII Star Specs on it. That will probably not happen for a couple of weeks though.
I can't say that I've really tested the limits of the brakes either. I am very pleasantly surprised that the Carbotech XP8s on the front a completely quiet though! I'll certainly credit having them pre-bedded to thank for that. So far as it's been so cold and crappy out I haven't really gotten to "test" them yet with any 60-10 stops or anything though. I am a bit concerned that for having those pads and SS brake lines I don't feel as much pedal pressure as I expected but I certainly realize that I'm basically driving track pads on the street and they haven't been warmed up on any of my drives yet.
As soon as this god awful weather subsides I'll have some pictures and better driving impressions to share!
So for prosperity’s sake and in case I decide to sell at some point in the future I can pin point when I did all of this I’m going to summarize everything that I did for the suspension and fuel system refresh:
Rear Suspension
Powdercoated rear beam and brackets
new rubber rear beam mount bushings
24mm solid Rear Sway Bar from 16v Scirocco
new hard brake lines
SS braided soft lines
new rear spindles
200mm MK3 rear drum swap with new shoes, drums, wheel cylinders, wheel bearings, etc.
new rear strut mounts
Koni Sport Struts
Ground Control Coilover Sleeves with 450 lb. Eibach springs
Front Suspension:
Powdercoated steering knuckles and new control arms
Delrin control arm bushings
Front sway bar delete
new wheel bearings
new hubs
new ball joints
new inner and outer tie rods
Bonrath early style strut mounts
Koni Sport struts
OEM strut housings modified for coilover sleeves and powdercoated
Ground Control Coilover Sleeves with 350 lb. Eibach springs
rebuilt and powdercoated Girling 54 calipers from 16v Scirocco
Brembo blank 10.1” brake rotors
Carbotech XP8 pads
SS braided brake lines
Eurosport upper strut brace
2 point lower strut brace
Other brake work:
new hardlines front to back
new ATE 20mm Master Cylinder
Fuel System:
new Fuel Accumulator
new NOS OEM fuel tank
new main fuel filler hose
new fuel pump to tank hose
new return line fuel hose
Other Misc:
new timing belt
new valve cover gasket
new water pump
new thermostat
All work completed in the months leading up to April 4th, 2016
Yay. Another Mk1VW on the road and doing well!
So how about some pictures finally?
These are kinda crappy cell phone pics but I'm sure I'll take some good ones with my DSLR this weekend at the car show.
After the first bath she has gotten in 2 years:
And here's my eventual track wheel setup:
12.9 lb. 15x6.5" Jax Light wheels. The tires on them are shot. They are Ollllllllld Falken Azenis that could have pre-dated the Obama Administration for all I know! They are rock hard and out of balance. It was like driving on Matchbox car wheels! I only put them on to get the car aligned with the wider wheels. The plan is to put Direzza ZII Star Specs on them.
And guess what else she's getting?
When I bought the wheel about 1.5 years ago I told myself that I wasn't allowed to put it on until I could drive the car again. Kinda like finishing your vegetables before you could have dessert!
I'll probably put it on Wednesday night.
Feeling very happy with the car right now. I took her for a 140 mile / 3 hr shake down drive tonight and she did the whole thing without incident! 
Definitely felt good to get her on the road again.
I would say that she's ready to leave the nest and I'm confident in driving her down to Louisville for the show this weekend.
Expect some much better pics of her come Sunday or Monday.
Fantastic news!
Congrats!! And she's beautiful, too.
Wow, what a cool car! I'd love to see more pictures, including the interior. Thanks for sharing.
Great work! Love the early Rocco wheel.
And now for the fun part, updated pictures!
The car did fine on the trip too. I had to replace the battery when I got there after it was struggling to start the car and needed to be jumped twice at gas and bathroom stops on the trip down, but that was to be expected. I have no idea how old the previous one was. 3 years at least. Otherwise it was good!
I'm going to try and do an SCCA Autocross School in Fort Wayne this Saturday with it too hopefully. Unfortunately I don't have time or money to get new tires for the track wheels, so the RAs and all season Toyos will have to do. At least I will get some good seat time with an instructor though.
That is a great looking car. Good job!
Taking her to the SCCA Fort Wayne Region Solo School tomorrow! It's been about 9 years since I did any formal autocrossing so I figure I'm due for a refresher course. Not to mention the seat time with instructors is also well worth it. I'm told there are some Nationals winning instructors so it should be worth the time!
I am bummed that I don't have tired for the track wheels yet so I'm going to be on my BBS RAs with Toyo all seasons but none the less it will be a good learning experience. I'm hoping I can get some Star Specs for the track wheels by the time I autocross again in mid May.
Were those pics from the recent VW sho in Lousiville? A bunch of my pals went down but I couldn't make it as my travel schedule has been a mess.
My work list posted on the side of the car had been modified with a couple of comments from my wife an father in law. 1. Sell to Lochness Monster for Three Fitty 2. Burn to the ground for insurance money
I decided I ought to stay home and be Dad for the weekend instead...
84FSP wrote: Were those pics from the recent VW sho in Lousiville? A bunch of my pals went down but I couldn't make it as my travel schedule has been a mess. My work list posted on the side of the car had been modified with a couple of comments from my wife an father in law. 1. Sell to Lochness Monster for Three Fitty 2. Burn to the ground for insurance money I decided I ought to stay home and be Dad for the weekend instead...
It was! Euro District on the other side of the river in Jeffersonville.
Probably a wise choice to stay home by the sound of it! At least she didn't write "Pack up your E36 M3 and start paying child support" LOL
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