tuffty 4 Posted June 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2022 Finally a dry day!!!... weather has been a bit of a challenge of late but the sun was out and so was the compressor!! Drivers wing was already prepped and ready... been watching a few vids on you of tube on painting and blending stuff... so thought I would give it a go... Base coat went on a bit better after faffing with the gun settings a bit... Clear coat was aerosol though, HB Body 496 2K HS Clear... its one of the nicest clears I have used and compatible with the 2k base coat I am using... it was a bit of a challenge to lay it down though due to the wind... always something with the flippin' weather!!! Its a little duller than it normally lays down but I will give it a few more coats later as ironically the weather started to cloud over and it was looking like it might rain (which it eventually did!) The colour match actually looks decent but I will see once I have given the wing a once over with the DA... either way this was more successful than the passenger side so I am going to revisit that wing a bit later and see if I can get a better result now I have had a little practice... While waiting for the wing to dry enough to be handled I moved on to the front brakes... I had noticed the rotors had started cracking in the grooves which is a shame as they were generally fairly decent still... They have had a good innings mind... Bill had retired them from the Badger Wagon some 5 years ago as they had a few micro cracks... so I fitted them to the car and been using them ever since They have lasted well but they needed to be changed so got some rotors from Reyland Motorsport... I also had new pads... Mintex M1155's like before as I kinda like them... I had cleaned up my old bells back when I fitted Bills rotors as he had gone over to a floating disc setup so I used the discs complete with his old bells (which is why they have extra holes as was drilled for 4 x 100) New bolts fitted (also from Reyland) and on they went... Just need to let the clear dry a bit longer then I can fit the wing back properly along with all the bracketry etc... I have finished off the passenger side fitting the A pillar/door jamb splash guard trim and the arch liner... Once the drivers wing is done I will be able to safely drive the car... quite looking forward to that.. <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 16, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2022 Sooooo.... I have been driving the car Front wings are fully bolted up and all relevant plastic parts are on... feels nice to be driving the old girl again... Not a massive fan of the drivers wing overall finish... in the sunlight its really difficult to tell the "blend" but in shadow its quite obvious... the paint appears to be a darker tone overall which in itself is fine but I think I may actually revisit both wings and just repaint them all over... at the end of the day they are silver, the rust has been removed and future corrosion issues mitigated (hopefully)... I had left the sill covers off for the time being as they needed a little tlc... and by tlc I mean sorting the crack that the jack made when it went through the sill!!! First up... drill a hole to stop the crack from growing... Used some aluminium tape to hold the crack together... its got no flex so holds stuff like this well The scuff up the back to help with adhesion... I had watched more than a few youtubes on plastic bumper crack repairs and there are a fair few ways to do it... some requiring a substantial investment in kit!!... so I decided to go cheap and step it up from there if needed The metal mesh is to help reinforce the the epoxy... seems to have worked ok.... There was some damage on the other sill cover too... Once that had set I took a dremel to the other side and dig out a groove for the epoxy... ...and all done Its sorely tempting to finish these off now and paint them but they are plastic and given my level of experience so far I think I will practice on some spares I have plus I will need to get some special "stuff" to allow the paint to work with the plastic shizz... I think for now I will just fit them as is though as I have plenty of other things to sort out first and in anticipation I cleaned up the screws and painted them Next up will be sorting the bottom of the doors... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 20, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2022 Decided to take advantage of the nice weather to start sorting the bottoms of the doors... went in heavy with the wire wheel to reveal what I already knew was there... Out came the MIG and I threw some metal at them... The metal was getting quite thin and was blowing holes left right and centre... trying to get a decent angle to grind back the welds was proving to be interesting too... so I will try getting her back up on stands to see if it helps... failing that I will look to swap the door with my dented spare and then work on it at my leisure... I called it a day on that work for now and just etch primed over it for now... wanting to actually achieve something today I fitted the sill covers... Also fitted the passenger side but only the front section and not the end cap as I still have a bit of filler to sand and paint on the rear arch... Looking more like an S3 every day <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted June 23, 2022 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2022 Jacking the car up gave me better access to the door... so made a small plate to fill the large hole on the corner of the door Tacked that in and then decided it would be easier to remove the window frame to get to the inside of the door... I also removed the lower crash bar to be able to see what I was doing a bit better Not pretty I know but never said I could weld While the door was this dismantled I took the opportunity to swap out the door lock... I little fiddly but pretty straightforward and works like a charm.... Back to the "welding" (I use the term loosely lol) I threw a load of metal from the inside of the door as this was actually easier to do than welding from the outside... this is where the fun began!!!... the steel seems quite thin at this point probably due to the folds in the steel stretching it a bit plus the corrosion... this meant I was faffing with the MIG settings quite a bit as I was essentially chasing blown holes in the door... the result of which is not pretty at all!!!... But it did give me a bit more to work with on the outside.. Needs a little more work and have ordered a power file to be able to get a bit more control over finishing the weld on the edge as I want to minimise the amount of filler I will end up using... I also need to get the hammer and dolly out I think as chasing the holes warped the area around the weld a bit 😕 I really don't know how this will end up at the moment... I still have some pin holes to fill and grind back and one blown hole to fill... there is also the issue with the blade mount pins... most are corroded which in itself is no biggy as there are 4 screws holding the blade in place but I would ideally like to do something with the bad ones and one idea is to use part of a nail... drill a hole where the old pin was, cut the head off a suitable nail and weld it in... that is of course assuming I can recover the door well enough... I do have another door but its dented and not sure if thats more work to sort out than what I am doing to my current door... Will see how I go but I think I will be looking out for a replacement door all the same... be silly not to get a minter if I can for the respray <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted July 2, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2022 While the weather has been a bit variable of late I cracked on with some other work... some on the A2 as she needed a little TLC and a bit on some parts for the S3.. I have a spare set of front cast arms to refurb... borrowed a bush smasher (fnarr) kit from a mate... ...and removed the old bushes... The kit won't always remove the alloy bush surround though... ...so a hammer and cold chisel made short work of those Wire wheeled and aqua blasted the arms before masking the relevant machined surfaces A few coats of UPOL Etch Primer.... Followed by a couple of coats of Manor High Zinc primer... ...and finished off with HB Body Tough Liner... All the machined surfaces were then chemically blued... ...and then fitted the Powerflex Black Series bushes Will sort the subframe out when I do the DSG swap and fit all the refreshed items then... Hoping to get the bottom of the doors painted this week then onto the DSG wiring <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted July 5, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 5, 2022 Weather was better (ish) for long enough to get some work done on the car... I removed the drivers seat... mainly to be able to make a start on cleaning the interior as its dusty AF but also to try an minimise the amount of dirt/dust that gets on the alcantara as its a beatch to clean... F$%k me S3 Recaros are heavy!!!... it was not the most fun in the world I have had getting that up into my loft office!!!... one thing I did find though was... Appears to be a limit switch for the electrics... I never adjust the seat so tbh no idea how long its been like that or which part of the adjustment this limits but I will try and fix that back on later Anyhoo... I spent a bit of time trying to knock as much of the rippling out as I could then broke out the filler... Not perfect but I actually have a pair of unmarked doors on the way so they will be used when the car eventually goes for a proper paint job... Masked up the lower part of the door and threw some paint at it... I still have a lot to learn about using an airgun and proper base coat... first attempt I think I was spraying far to much paint and it ran like forest gump on acid.... like that flash off and wet sanded back down... attempt 2 went better... a little streaky which apparently is common with silver but flashed off ok... then applied the clear coat (HB Body C496 2k clear in a can)... the C496 is great clear but a little thin so easy to get runs... which of course I did... but they will be easy enough to deal with once the clear goes off hard... Given I am a complete amateur and I am doing this outside the house on the road I am pretty happy with the results... I still can't blend for toffee of course... ...but the paint job is functional and will do for now... While waiting for the paint to dry enough to feel comfortable removing all the masking I addressed the rust repair I had done on the nearside rear arch... I had put filler in it a while back but not done anything with it until now... so flatted the filler down and primed it... Then sprayed it silver.... Yes its a rather pants match but this is the same issue as the nearside front wing... this side has had paint... its darker than the factory paint that I had the basecoat matched too... tbh its now rust free and protected... it also acts as a reminder to the bits I have attacked so the body shop can see where I have attacked it all and make a call on if it needs reworking or not... Next job will be to sort the nearside door... This side is rust free but as it was repainted before the paint is flaking off so will clean it up and give a blow over... I am less concerned about the doors now with the replacements on the way... I did want to keep the car as original as poss bodywork wise but for the sake of preservation its simply not worth it One job remains bodywork wise and to be quite honest I am not looking forward to it... Offside 'A' Pillar curtesy of a windscreen replacement prior to my ownership... pretty sure I will need to patch a bit of metal in so might try and get a complete A pillar from a scrapper and use that as the repair panel Happy days <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted July 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 I bought some doors that were supposed to be in decent enough condition... turns out that the drivers side had a similar issue as mine although not quite as bad... Wire wheeling this lot off revealed a pinhole... disappointing as I was kinda hoping not to do any remedial work on the doors other than a bit of surface rust removal... will clean up the rust as the door itself is in ok condition... has one small dent I have seen so far (PDR should sort that) and a few scratches but it would be painted anyway so not a drama... the main issue is that pinhole and pitting around that edge as ideally you don't want to use filler as it will chip off easily and while I could weld it I would rather not at this time so will present it and my current door to whoever I choose to paint the car and they can decide how they want to proceed... Looking at the work I did on my drivers door again I am inclined to see if its worth them sorting that over using the one I have just acquired Its not fantastic but it maybe more solid and need less work than the other door but I will leave that up to the bodyshop to decide... for the time being my functional painting skillz will do Talking of which it was time to urn my attention to the passenger door which as it turns out was not as bad as I was expecting... The worst bit was thankfully surface rust with not real pitting So prepped and painted it using the aerosol basecoat... The aerosol was actually fairly pants... I could have done a better job using the gun (even with my limited skillz in using it!) but the colour match this side is way off anyway and all I would essentially do is make more work for the bodyshop to prep it for paint later so its de-rusted and has paint on it... Looking more like an S3 every day <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted July 16, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2022 Busy few days despite the heat... which is annoying (I am typically British!) Finished cleaning the inside of the car... All the dustiness from the bodywork is gone and I refitted the passenger seat (still chuffing heavy!!)... I left the drivers seat out so I had more room to sort the DSG wiring out... Attaching the CAN wires and power wires for the selector... I am waiting on another fuse block to replace the 2 way one I use for WMI and inline fuel pump so I can fuse the selector power too On the subject of wiring... here is my current setup... this was derived from the one a friend of mine originally put together for his TT track car but I have adapted it a bit for my setup.. I have updated this to reflect where I connected things in my car... also as I have retro fitted a MFSW I have added CAN from the module too so the paddles will work... alternatively you can rewire them as switches and use inputs to IECU instead... The selector wiring is pretty straight forward... The illumination control wire in case its not obvious where that goes connects to the larger plug of the light switch ...which is labelled '17' and corresponds to the 58d pin on the switch With the selector wiring done it was time to move onto the gearbox wiring... I had put together a power distro/relay board to handle all this... This will handle the gearbox main power and power to the various relays I have in place so reverse light (as no switch on a DSG box), starter inhibitor (ideally needed on an auto), gearbox switched power and the two extra relays I use for the brake servo vacuum pump and turbo coolant after run pump... Power and earth is feed from the 12v battery point I have fitted previously for the battery relocation to the boot and the factory earth point on the chassis leg A lot neater than having the relays just floating about... Once that lot was done I ran the loom up past the ECU... I needed to connect a few wires there first... mainly the reverse light output (switched earth), starter inhibitor (switched earth), vacuum pump output (switched earth) and VSS signal to the cluster as the DSG has no speed sensor... Once that lot was done I ran the remainder of the wires through to the cabin... this was the CAN wires, K-Line wire and speedo signal wire... With all those hooked up I put the interior back together and refitted the drivers seat... I need to address the red power cable for the distro though... really messing with my OCD!! With the car drivable again I took her up to Bills where my box has been residing.... ...and connected it up using an extension test lead I made up... Then tested everything... clumsily... with one hand... All works There are a couple of fault codes in the box around missing messages but this is normal for this type of retro fit... Next job is to clean up the box, swap out the mechatronic cover for the new one I have and I guess its then just a case of slinging it into the car <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 21, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2022 Car is now MOT'd so no excuses for not cracking on with the DSG swap... other than lack of motivation at the moment!!... the recent rather warm weather and being a little busy work wise has numbed my enthusiasm some what coupled with spending a good couple of months sorting the body work out I feel I just needed a break... That break will be coming soon as a week off work in which time I might even build up a bit of motivation to make a start... in the mean time... I bought these... My car never had them fitted as standard (they were an option?) and have been on the fence about getting some... however these came up at the right price and are for the most part in decent nick... they were dirty obvs and had a couple of scratches on the ali covers but generally nice.. Taking them apart was a bit of a pain as one of the screws snapped off in the casting... I will address this at a later date but its not really made it unusable... Painted the inside... And cleaned everything else up... used the DA on the ali cover... which I am pretty sure is anodised... this means that it will make removing the scratches a bit more difficult so will ask a few of my engineering friends for advice on sorting this out... All looks lots better though... ...and as my car is silver they do not look too obvious either... Pretty happy with that... although I now have the gear to mod for folding mirrors and the bases won't work with the ali covers... would need to get B5 ones I believe to get it working... and tbh I CBA Next little job was to sort out the DSG selector... or more the colour of it... I have only been able to find 'grey' leather ones... the S3 8P is black I believe but they typically run to 3 times the amount of a more basic model so decided to dye the leather instead.... I got the kit from the 'Scratch Doctors' and its pretty comprehensive... Following the instructions I cleaned off the original coating then applied the black dye... Finished off using the matt clear coat they supply... For comparison this is the original grey knob (fnarr) against the now black gaiter it came with.... I also found a perforated leather knob (fnarr) that was grey... now black Put together in the modded trim... Happy with that With all that out of the way I moved a load of the kit needed for the DSG swap into the boot of the car... hoping that knowing this is there it will get the motivation going to crack on lol <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 28, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2022 Made a start :) Had to drop the exhaust and the front of the prop to get the heat shielding off the get at the selector... Now that the shafts were out I could see how they compare to the Mk1 TT 3.2 DSG shafts I have... Left shaft is more or less the same length which tbh I was expecting based on my previous measurements... I could in fact replace the left drive cup with an 02M cup and use the S3 shaft but tbh I would only want to do that if I could run the right side on a normal inner CV but the R32 transfer box I have uses the wrong drive cup and as its part of the shaft that goes through the transfer box its not just a case of swapping it out... The right shaft is clearly shorter than the S3 one which again is to be expected as the 02E (and 02Q for that matter) transfer boxes are 'wider'.. I have the TT's transfer box but cannot use that as the transfer boxe's shaft is too short for the R32 box... I also have a transfer box from another quattro (not sure which as was sold as spares/repairs) and this has the right cup for a normal CV but the shaft is too long!!... seems very un VAG like to have that many variations of the same thing but I will do a bit more research at some point as I would prefer to use normal inners over the trilobe type... On that subject... I spent today stripping and cleaning the shafts (fnarr)... the boots were questionable so I really wanted to replace those before fitting them... The outers looked fine but had to replace the boot on the right shaft so cleaner the outer joint too The inners on the TT DSG shafts are trilobe... not a massive fan of these but it seems VAG have taken to use these on more and more cars these days so hopefully they will be ok for a while given the power I am running... I do plan to look into converting back to normal inners as mentioned before though... As the R32 transfer box inner is a different pitch to the TT one I had to buy a new inner so it would fit... the design is a bit different though.. (not a genuine joint) but uses needle bearings and not spherical bearing style setup like the OE... not sure if there is any real advantage to this tbh as trilobes are generally weaker (but cheaper to make no doubt)... Left is the pattern part which is the same PCD as the middle OE one from the left shaft... the joint on the right is the right shaft inner... fits perfectly on the TT transfer box but not the R32 one!!!.. :) Motivation is coming back now... will be doing a bit more tomorrow and then on Tuesday I hope to get back up to Bills and sort out what I need to do on the gearbox to get it ready for fitting... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 29, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2022 Gearbox stuff done today.... the mechatronic cover was pretty rusty so I bought a new one to replace it with... Bottom two bolts were particularly difficult and shock (actual) horror!... ...one sheared... yay!.... (said no one ever!) Probably should have cleaned the box first too as all kinds of nasty was falling in places I'd rather it didn't... Bit of vacuuming and careful cleanage later and I was ready to tackle the sheared bolt... first job... flatten it enough to get the punch on it... Drill a hole then insert extractor... apply heat (carefully)... and bingo bango bongo!!! Phew!!!... I then chased the threads to be sure all was good... Next up was to drain the oil (what was left at least).... DSG boxes are a bit different to normal boxes when it comes to sorting the oil... manuals are typically filled for life but DSG require "regular" (if you think 40k is regular) oil and filter changes due to the wet clutch setup (much like the haldex)... Undoing the oil drain plug reveals a plastic (and fragile) filler nozzle used to 'set' the final fill depth... you unscrew this to drop the oil then screw it back in and fill from underneath (again, like the haldex)... ...there is also a process of warming the box up and going through gears etc to do but obviously I am not in a position to do that at the moment and do not want to start the engine once fitted with a dry box (fnarr)... so I plan to put about 5ltrs in to start with and then once I have tested the box is ok go through the process to top it back up... There are a few ways people say it can be done to ensure the right level... one is the measure the oil volume that came out and replace like with like but there was certainly no more than a litre or so that came out (assumedly drained before being shipped to me) I have no real way of telling how much is actually left in there so will have to make an educated guess then sort it out once running... Before fitting the new cover I had a go at cleaning up the mounting face as there were signs of corrosion and crustiness so wanted to make the new seal would 'seal' Bit of scotch bright and brake cleaner later and the face was looking better... The old cover's seal did not look healthy at all and neither did the old cover... Still... new one looks fine... I think I might add some wax protection around it too as I have seen a few of these now and they all end up looking a bit nasty after a time... Last job of today was to sort the left drive cup out... I swapped the R32 one over to the Mk1 TT DSG one as it sits closer to the box giving the right distance for the left shaft... And on the subject of drive cups... I grabbed my mate Alex's transfer box he is using for the DSG/AWD conversion on his Mk4 Ibiza... this one came from a Mk6 Golf R... It fitted up perfectly which is a good sign at least and has the right cup for a proper inner CV... The left drive cup from an 02M box (like any S3 manual) will fit onto the box too apparently (not tried this as yet) so if I can get hold of one of these transfer boxes I can use the proper inner joints... one for the watch list given they seem to carry "R" (same as BAM or RS) tax Plan to try and get the car ready to accept the box tomorrow... strip stuff from the bay to be able to access the gearbox for the swap and remove things like the clutch pedal and swap out the brake pedal too... maybe even get the selector swapped over!!!... makes it kinda real then lol <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted August 30, 2022 Author Report Share Posted August 30, 2022 Day at home doing things.... I painted the transmission cooler as it was looking a bit scabby... Then moved onto the car... first job was to swap out the old fuse box for the inline pump and WMI for a new 4 fuse setup to allow me to fuse the DSG selector power... the fuses have LED's that light up when blown as its difficult to see where I have it fitted and had the fuel pump fuse blow on me a month or so back and only noticed as I didn't hear it running Redid all the crimps too.... Now for the 'fun' part (said nobody ever!)... to remove the clutch pedal I needed to get to the master cylinder behind the heat shielding, where there was a turbo and a downpipe in the way... so removed them Much better access... the pipe has a spring clip holding it and you need to block off the fluid feed from the brake reservoir so used an M8 shouldered bolt cut down to size for that... Inside you need to undo three 13mm nuts and unplug the clutch switch then the whole clutch pedal assembly just pulls out... watch out for fluid as this will drip everywhere... This of course leaves a nice pear shaped hole... I will need to make up a cover plate for that later You can remove the brake pedal without having to remove the brake pedal assembly... however you do have to smash the plastic retainer apart to be able to do it... My TT pedal didn't have one so I had bought a new one anyway... ...but I ended up taking it back out to fit on the servo actuator rod first then fit the pedal and clip the plastic clip into the pedal after... That's the pedals done... Next job was the selector... old manual one came out pretty easy but the 6R Polo selector I am using required a bit of modding to fit (go figure)... A couple of extra holes at the back were needed... I had to mod the back of the selector to fit under a bracket that the S3 has for some reason... And cut the rear studs short as they hit the inside of the centre console... ...which needed a little modding to get the nuts on... But after all that... the selector was in... Sadly it seems that the lever sits higher than it would in an 8P (or 6R Polo I would assume) as the 8P DSG gaiter I used wasn't big enough (depth) and would stretch and pull out of the trim panel when the lever was moved to extremes... However it was fine in neutral so left it there for now Other than the gaiter issue which tbh I wouldn't have known about until I had fitted it I think the selector mods turned out quite well... Bit more work in the engine bay to do to prep for the gearbox swap now.... Need to remove the transfer box and power steering pipes (I have a DSG one to go on as they are differently routed), remove the starter motor and anything else attached to the box then I can look to bring the DSG box home from Bills and I guess just get on with it <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 1, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 1, 2022 May have a solution for the short s-tronic gaiter... fitted a spare 8L one I had kicking about and this seems to work perfectly in park and S mode positions... its a bit tatty but I have another one on the way so will look to remod the mod to get that ticked off... part of me actually likes that the lever looks like a manual with no auto display but then I also kinda like that its there for the double take Went to Bills to sort out the box... fitted a new filter and pumped 6ltrs of oil in which in hindsight was not really the best idea (more on that in a bit)... the box was pretty much empty and should take 7ltrs from dry... I added 2ltrs at a time and used a DSG flywheel to spin the input shaft as it drives the oil pump to circulate oil round... the oil cooler is thermostatically controlled and there wasn't any oil coming up through the ports to the cooler but 6ltrs is enough to get it all running and I can sort out the rest later... The transfer box has its own oil supply and takes GL5 75W80... this is different to the oil in the DSG of course and is why the newer transfer boxes no longer share oil from the box like the 02M boxes do... however... I neglected to realise that removing the transfer box (as I was going to do to fit the box) was no different to pulling a drive cup that would essentially let the box oil leak out... epic fail!!!... so I guess I will be fitting the box with the transfer box on then... hopefully!!! While at Bills I also checked if I could use normal inner cv's on my TT drive shafts... That would be a no then!!... guess I will be doing the drive shaft shuffle at some point when I finally need a right shift lol After that I went home and pulled the transfer box and PAS pipes off (DSG uses a different line from the pump to the rack)... undone all but three of the bolts holding the box on... Today I dropped the manual box... ...pulled the old spigot bearing (the engine used to be attached to a DSG, you don't need a spigot bearing for a manual) and fitted the new one supplied with the flywheel... Popped back up to Bills and flung the DSG into the back of the A2... Lifting it back out the A2 at home was well... hard!... its soooooo heavy!!... I can lift 02M's all day long but the 02E is another league! One thing to bare in mind too is that the R32 gearbox mount is lower than the Mk1 TT 3.2 DSG mount... ...so will use the TT one as thats designed for the Mk4 platform... part numbers for ref... R32 one that came on the JPZ gearbox... Mk1 TT DSG mount... After much grunting and swearing I had dragged the box under the car ready to 'plonk' onto a jack... and then it rained!!!... Much dampness and sad face followed as I rushed about clearing up my tools and wiping them down before putting them away... whilst getting wetter... So close!!!... maybe tomorrow... or whenever the weather stops being a hole of the rear... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 2, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2022 Weather looked iffy this morning but had cleared up by lunchtime so out I went.... Ended up having a go at fitting the box myself as my mate couldn't get to me until after 6pm and wasn't sure what the weather would be like... figured if it got to a point I felt it needed an extra person then I would wait... If I got it in then winna.. Getting the box onto the jack and centred enough to balance was the challenge... that way at least the jack would be doing the heavy lifting and I can use less effort to keep it balanced and more making sure it was heading in the right direction... Just in case you are wondering... the angle the jack is over at is within factory tolerances for DSG box installation... probably!!! I used the lever bar to help move the front of the jack over while positioning the box... and... ..in!!!... phew!... wasn't that hard really in the end... yes... the box is chuffing heavy but work smarter not harder right? I need to now drain the coolant to sort the oil cooler out plus tbh I want to remove a load of the pipes to be able to make sure the starter is fitted correctly and to route the DSG PAS pipework as there doesn't seem to be any room to do this... The oil cooler hoses will be easy... The hose in the top of this t-piece goes to the right of the cooler and I just need to get a 'U' shaped hose to go from the 'T' to the left of the cooler... I also need to wire in the starter inhibiter and the reverse light as well as redo the selector gaiter... I will be painting the subframe and shafts hopefully next week if the weather keeps off with the aim to get all that back together soon after... I have also noticed a small weep from the oil drain so thats coming off to be tested and fixed if need be and I have seen a crack in the exhaust manifold... no white staining that suggests its leaking but will get it welded while the car is mostly apart... bit of a shame that the mani has cracked so soon but not unsurprising given its a 70 quid aliexpress special.. Happy with the progress though... the week off work has been productive... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 3, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2022 decided it would be a good idea to drain the coolant and remove the rad to get better access to the area by the top and front of the box... Somewhat of a surprise was how much coolant came out... I collected it all as its less than a year old (changed when I fitted the CFS rad) and wasn't grotty looking... ...yep!... 8 ltrs!!! and I think there is still a bit left in there... I needed to do something with the coolant anyway to sort the gearbox cooler out but removing the rad has made working on the car a lot easier... (if I ever have to do this again the engine is coming out!!) Not sure how I would have got to the lower starter bolt tbh if I hadn't.... Access to sorting the PAS pipe was a bazillion times better too... once the starter was in it become obvious (ish) where it needed to route... I had to give some attention to the turbo oil feed pipe too as this was now quite close to... well, everything!... Attached one of the box cooler hoses, just waiting on a 180 degree hose to sort out the other side and thats the coolant stuff sorted... I wired in the reverse light to the relay panel and ran the starter solenoid wire up to its relay too... just got to grab some 2.5mm wire to run from the relay back to the starter solenoid and thats the inhibit circuit sorted... By this time I was done... for the week!... productive week off work... although a little bit of R&R would have been nice I did what I set out to achieve and behold!... the box is in With the weather being a bit on the iffy side over the coming week or so I am not sure how much I will get done but two jobs I need to sort before I can get the car running again... Spotted a weep of oil from the oil drain so will be dropping the oil and removing that for a smoke test... The other more disappointing issue is this... ...a crack... a little surprised at this tbh as the casting is quite thick and my EGT's are pretty low typically maxing out at 750 degrees measured just past the collector in the hotside... not exactly hot in the grand scheme... Been making a little progress on the selector mods too but will post about that when done... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 4, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2022 (edited) Having a chill day today as my 'holiday' is now over and its back to work tomorrow!! booooo! Got hold of a length of 3.0mm wire to finish the starter inhibit and a 'U' tube to finish the coolant system off with... I can start to put the front back together now but will drop the engine oil and remove the manifold and oil drain first... Also over the past couple of evenings I have been sorting the gear gaiter out... I obtained a spare manual gaiter and re-dyed it black... Went to try it out and hit another issue... Seems the indicator panel needed tweaking to allow the trim to fit so had it... and.... W00t!... now articulates from Park to Sport without pulling the gaiter out Happy days... hopefully the weather stays decent enough to let me crack on with some more this week after work <tuffty/> Edited September 4, 2022 by tuffty Updated youtube link Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 5, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 5, 2022 ...and now with added electricity <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 11, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2022 Things have slowed a bit what with being back at work and the weather but have managed to get a few jobs done... First up was to drain the oil and remove the exhaust mani and oil drain... ....done... took it up to Bill's and aqua blasted the mani... Sad face Alex tried to weld it but... He has a plan... will see what happens... worst case is I buy another and sort that one out in the hope that they used actual metal this time around... its a shame as the mani is actually rather decent as a 'thing'... needed a bit of modding to suite but it works... apart from the cracking of course... plan 'Z' will be to fabricate a tubular mani but tbh I am happy if I can get one of these just to work... While that saga continues on I got around to refurbing (painting obvs) some things... The front drive shafts... The subframe... wire wheels and Hydrate 80 to sort the rust Etch primer.... Zinc rich primer... ...and finally Tough Liner as the top coat... ...and the front ARB (R32 one) Along with the front arms I did a while back they all look loads better and should be a little more resilient to the elements... Manifold and maybe the oil drain are essentially holding me up at the moment so will have to see what happens with those... hopefully not too long now... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 15, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2022 I have ordered a replacement exhaust manifold... yes.. its another Aliexpress special but I am kinda hoping that this one may actually be made of metal this time... I like the manifold, it works (when its not cracking) so will give another one a go and see where we end up... I am still getting the current one welded... this will be used to get the car back on the road and the DSG tested etc... I will pull the mani off over the winter and sort it then... Other jobs that got done... Drive shafts made up, brackets de-rusted and painted... next up... I needed to mod the DSG selector cable bracket... the Polo 6R uses a different DSG box to my DQ250... the hole for the cable end needs to be smaller and the bracket need to sit back a bit so... measured and marked it up... Found something suitable to weld into the current hole to make it the right size for the 6R cable... Threw some metal at it using the hot spanners... ...and test fitted it... As the MIG was out I made up a DSG oil fill adaptor that I can use with a cheap 3ltr pressure bleeder.. The collection of painted parts is getting larger ...and I can't really fit them until the oil drain and manifold is in as it will give me better access... <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2022 Few more jobs done today... refitted the tunnel heat shielding and the front end of the prop... also fitted the left drive shaft as this wont get in my way for anything... Made up a panel out of 3mm ali to block the hole where the clutch master cylinder passed through... Fitted brackets for the DSG selector and transfer box... Fitted the engine bay heat shielding and connected up the PAS pipes... Built up the front subframe... ...and painted some more things... The list is getting smaller but still waiting on the mani and oil drain at the moment so I don't want to fit the subframe just yet as it will make it easier to sort out... Not that its massively difficult tbh but why make life hard <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 23, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 23, 2022 The replacement manifold turned up this week... pretty quick considering... Next job then was to carefully remove the adaptor flanges from the old mani so I (and by that I mean Alex) can weld them onto the new one... ...that went as expected Bit of clean up required then.... ....and bingo... After Alex TIG welded them I needed to do a bit of porting... Waved the die grinder at it... Happy days... so I fitted it Nearly looks ready to run... but it isn't... as I am still waiting on a replacement flexi sadly... maybe next week... In other news... I painted the front headlight levelling assembly <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted September 26, 2022 Author Report Share Posted September 26, 2022 As I am still unsure when a replacement flexi will arrive (they are typically made to order) I have decided to try a more available solution... I have ordered up some AN10 fittings.. 2 x stainless weld on bungs, a length of PTFE stainless braided hose and suitable fittings... PTFE hose should be fine for this application as its not got to wind past a hot manifold like a tubular 1.8t one and if it does get damaged I can replace the hose more easily or I will have the flexi to fall back to when it eventually turns up... This is all due to arrive by the end of the week so I am really hoping to get it sorted this weekend and potentially have the car on the ground next week at the latest... In the mean time I got onto a job I have been meaning to do for quite some time.... I modded a mirror a while back from a hyundai tucson... basically the same auto dimming mirror found in the newer Audi's but has a green compass display rather than a red one... To get to the display I needed to split the mirror... used blue masking tape to prevent marking the plastic... Carefully removed the "mirror" to get to the display which basically has a green filter over it... Its held on by a couple of sticky strips so can be removed carefully.. I used some red lighting gel I have kicking about for my photography to change the colour... Its a little darker than the green it seems but tbh thats not really an issue for me... if you try this it may be worth trying a few 'shades' to see how you get on... All reassembled and looks OE now... This time I actually wired it up as I had fitted the mirror a while back and never got around to it... I also wired in a 'dash cam' fitted behind the mirror while I was at it... One last thing... I bought a spare DSG box.... ...mainly because VR boxes are a bit thin on the ground, I feel a little happier having a spare of something that is known to be a little temperamental and it was actually very cheap... the other 'upside' is it has the right transfer box drive cup for ball and cage inner joints... Guess that means I will be selling the manual box after all <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted October 1, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 1, 2022 (edited) Flexi for the oil drain finally arrived so Alex welded it up... Happy days... cracked on putting the car back together... Yes... the PAS pipework isn't where its supposed to but there is a reason for that... Some idiot had put a gert gearbox in the way and not told it!!!.. I will need to get hold of the right return pipe at some point to replace this... but in the mean time the disc cutter came out to play Need to clean up the ends a bit and swage then a little then add the loop bit from the piece I cut off to it... that will do until I have a more permeant solution ready... Was quickly running out of light but managed to put quite a bit of the car back together... I still need to fill the engine with oil and sort the PAS out... then a spanner check before dropping the car to the ground and topping up fluids... Home stretch but the weather is not looking too good for the next few days... have to see how that goes... I also picked up the spare DSG box this morning... looks ok and could connect to it using my test harness with no faults other than no comms (to be expected) Looks like its a later TCU version that uses CAN only rather than K-Line for diagnostics like mine... plan is to do a full clean up on it... strip and clean the inside and inspect the clutch pack... the transfer box on this also has the right drive cup to use a ball type inner... a project for next year I think <tuffty/> Edited October 1, 2022 by tuffty missed a couple of images Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted October 2, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 2, 2022 First job of the day...well... the afternoon... PAS pipework sorted... for now Next task was to look at the brand new FEBI ball joints as they didn't appear to be tightening up despite loading them up under the weight of the car with the jack... undoing them and having a look in the daylight (was getting dark yesterday when I was doing them up) I soon saw what the issue was... Seems the taper of the ball joint is protruding past the nut face and all I was doing was tightening the nut to the protrusion and not the upright... I have sent pics and a video to the seller on ebay and ordered up some MEYLE ones this time... In order to at least test the car I drilled out the nuts a bit to try and clear the protrusion... This worked 'better' but was not 100%... but they are tight enough that I can drive round the block when the time came... and talking of which... Eeep!... I had topped off the coolant and filled the engine with oil... I had run the engine up to temp... no faults, and no leaks at this time... wheels went back on and... Seems I have an issue with the immo... I think its where I moved the column and its disturbed the pickup wiring or similar pretty sure I have had this before so will deal with that issue later... Checked the fault on the box and just got the expected one.. Just for a module the 8L doesn't have and its not important so all good... Feels very odd driving an auto after what feels like centuries driving a manual... currently my paddles aren't working so need to see what the issue is there... the module is coded and VCDS sees them operating so can only think I have got the CAN wiring wrong... Starter inhibit works, reverse light works and as you can see in the vid the speedo works... as does the gear indicator in color MFA... will sort some proper videos out once I have finished doing the snagging and topped up the fluids... still need to do a final top up on the box before I try anything more spirited.... Popped into Bills earlier this morning too... he has managed to read from my spare DSG box which appears to be the same TCU as the one in the car... this is good news and should mean he can read and flash to my installed box too... I want to get it mapped before I turn the boost control back on... I am currently running actuator pressure to give the clutches an easier time.. Happy days <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
tuffty 4 Posted October 6, 2022 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2022 Some good news with the ball joints... seller just refunded me for them which covers the MEYLE ones I have ordered... these have arrived now so will fit them at the weekend... The CAN gateway arrived today as well... fitted that after work... ...basically connected power train CAN to the power train and convenience CAN lines... power train CAN is then connected to the back of the cluster along with the DSG selector and DSG gearbox CAN lines... I also ran the CAN diagnosis lines to the OBD port so I can connect using VCDS directly... having the gateway installed means I can recode the retro fitted CAN modules directly now where before I had to use my test harness... Fired up Ignitron and made sure the ECU could see the wheel module... which it could... ...then connected to the gearbox and checked block 003 to see if the box could see the paddle inputs.... ...which it could By this time it was getting dark... again!! so will tidy up the modules tomorrow and test the flappies on the road... Happy days <tuffty/> Link to post Share on other sites
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