th3_f15t '07 GTI

[th3_f15t]

Time for a January 2014 update I think! Sad to say, there’s not an awful lot of bits added to the car. In fact, nothing has been added to the car physically but the corner of my room and the bench in my garage are becoming full again.

So, before I begin, a couple of pictures of the “Veedub Family” that I have got going locally. There’s my Golf, my friend’s Fox and his neighbour’s Rocco R. There is a reason I included these pictures;


If I’m honest, in the future when I have money to waste (i.e. within the confide of my dreams), I would like to re-spray my Golf in the green here;


But for now, I’m happy with my tornado red. So happy I bought this as a pre-Christmas treat;


10 hours of my life over 2 days on the paintwork. But even I have to admit that the hype behind Meguiar’s products is true, the difference in the paint is amazing. And a proper wax makes all the difference to long term care, the dirt doesn’t cling on now so as soon as it rains it washes itself. I like that in a car.

Another pre-Christmas present was in the form of a cheap deal on another forum, the item in question: a Volkswagen approved Kenwood DNX512DAB (as highlighted at a later date, it's NOT the DAB version) stereo upgrade. About £850 new, or nearer to the four figure number from a Volkswagen dealer, but I bagged this unit for a tasty £450, minus box and manuals (but who needs those anyway?)


Sadly, it won’t be installed for a while as I will need to upgrade both my speakers and my aerial, for my current one doesn’t know how to pick up digital radio and the speakers will sound pants due to the way they work with the standard stereo.

Another forum spot came in the way of Hurdy. After a message about a carbon fibre bonnet he has picked up, he directed me in the way of a company in Kent that has some carbon fibre parts just sat about from when they took over the unit they occupy. A quick look on their Facebook page revealed they had some Mk5 parts and I happened to notice a front splitter. Called them up and the man who runs the business asked for £80 for it. Needless to say, I was quickly in the car with cash in hand and driving down the M20 to find the place.


Both Hurdy and I suspect that these parts are made by Seibon, but there’s no branding or paperwork to confirm. However, if all the parts are Seibon parts, I bagged a £370 splitter for just £80. See what you think for yourself;
http://seiboncarbon.co.uk/products/tt-style-carbon-fiber-front-lip-for-2006-2007-volkswagen-golf-gti.html

Was ironically looking at those parts before I spotted this deal, so it’s nice to see that fate has decided my plan for splitter, grill, bonnet and wings should be so.

Final purchase before Christmas (although sadly not delivered till much time after) was a set of 2008 Golf R32 rear brakes.

Calipers;


Dust shields;


Discs;


It looks as if the setup has been sat around in a scrap yard for a fair while, but to me, the most important part where the calipers which look to be in very good condition. Sadly, I think the pads will need replacing but the discs look usable for short term anyway. The dust shields look a little damaged, but if it’s just superficial scratches then I’m not concerned as I have a plan.

The calipers themselves are going to be stripped and sent for powder coating to match my front Golf R calipers which are a gloss black. But I think I may do the dust shields in a shade of red as close to my car as possible, just to shake things up a bit. Also need to obtain rear stainless steel brake lines, possibly new brake pads already (just to be safe, don’t like to take too many risks with safety items) and find time, space and help to fit the brakes really soon. I may go ahead with the fronts separately to the rears but it depends on timing right now.

So that’s it for now, another essay for you all to read on a Saturday night. I have a bottle of Southern Comfort that needs my attention, so good evening for now.

[Pikey Motorsports]

looks like an abt splitter 

[th3_f15t]

Well, two updates in a month now, it appears I’m getting my arse into gear. I got bored and wandered into my garage, which usually ends up with something being taken apart and/or broken. Which it did. Again.

I decided to start prep’ing my rear brake calipers ready to be sent into the powder coaters so I can get them done in a gloss black to match my fronts. I also plan to powder coat the dust shields, both front and rear, in a gloss red that matches the colour of my car. Was tempted to do a silver/black combo on the rear calipers to really go mad but thought it may end up over the top, but opinions welcome!

Anyway, I began with it looking like this;


Pads don’t look horrific now they’re out, plenty of life left and they’re Pagid pads which, while not a performance pad, are still quite good for my needs. Again, whether I use them or swap them for some ATE or performance pads remains undecided.

So, off come the carriers and the pins;


After a few hours of working out how to undo seized on bleed nipples and lines without damaging them, and a lot of cleaning, I had them like this;


The second caliper was dismantled in less than 15 minutes, getting quite good at taking things apart. Not so good at putting things back together though. Upon laying everything out and doing a stock check, I realised that the seller forgot to pack the brake lines! It’s a good job I planned to upgrade to stainless steel lines anyway, but still a bit annoyed. Also discovered one of the little clips that sit on the carrier to secure the pads is missing, so hoping to try and find one if they’re really needed. For reference, they’re the U shaped bits of metal just to the left and below the brake pads in the above image.

Another reason I’d planned to re-colour the calipers the whole time;


Most of the original blue has just flaked off. The caliper on the left is lucky if it has 20% of the original blue left on it. Tried a bit of paint thinner to remove the last but they will need to be shot blasted to get them fully prep’d for painting. Still deciding whether to paint them myself or powder coat them. But for now, it’s a case of getting a new seal kit as the current ones feel brittle and could do with replacing, along with the pad clips and lines. Also need to get a professional mechanic to look over my discs and pads to see if they’ll be OK for use after a bit of a clean-up.

That’s all for now, more to come soon though. I’m getting a shift on with the brakes, due to some hairy moment where I had a good look into a field.

[Pikey Motorsports]

When is the carbon splitter being fitted

[grant845]

That picture is not the DAB Kenwood. It's the DNX520VBT which doesn't have DAB, still a cracking stereo but if it's been sold to you as DAB then it's been mis-sold

[Tommyt90]

What you think off the gbf dv. I've been think about getting 1. Do you get any noise from it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[th3_f15t]

Well, February is upon us, so I feel it’s once again time to update this project. And this time, no new parts have been bought but outstanding parts have been fitted. Also bought some new tools, a VW oil filter housing draining tool and a set of VW coil pack removal tools.

This makes the job so much easier and less messy;


Changed the oil as I’ve done 85K miles and I want to re-do the service the previous garage did as they are retards and did it wrong. See my previous post about my day in AmD. Although they did manage to fit NGK spark plugs correctly, so 1 out of 4 parts replaced was done correctly. Yet to replace the pollen filter, but it’s low down the list of priorities. My brakes are making that “pads wearing out, so we’ll eat your discs” noise again. It’s only been about 12K miles!

Anyway, time for the stereo update! Before I being, I should like to point out that it’s always important to check the item you’re buying when meeting some random person is actually what they have advertised. This is something I failed to do, with regards to my stereo. I originally thought I’d bought a Kenwood DNX512DAB (indeed, the advert listed it as this) but only today, months on, did I discover that the model I own is a DNX520VBT. The only real difference is lack of DAB radio, and considering I don’t really listen to much radio, I wasn’t too annoyed. However, if I ever find the lying little scum back in London somewhere, I shall brake his hands…

Enough hate talk, time for pictures! Started by moving to a nice, sunny spot and broke out the tools;


I discovered that the aerial didn’t seem to be connected properly, noticed this;


Quick look at the wiring harness for the stereo, found a blue wire which I though was power into the unit, so stuffed the exposed copper inside, taped it down and cable tied it all together for extra comfort, and I have radio. Front facing AUX/USB as well as built in navigation are all great things, haven’t tested it with my iPod yet, but I hate my iPod anyway.

The only issue is where I removed a wire to the airbag light, I think it’s tripped the ECU into thinking there’s an airbag fault. Certainly, it beeps at me and leaves the airbag light on the dash illuminated. My rules have always been if airbag check fails, the car doesn’t go anywhere except to the garage to get fixed. A trip to VW during the week for an inspection may be on the cards.

But the finished product;

[th3_f15t]

So, time for another update and this one is part one of #insert number here#. Sadly, it’s not been good news this month in terms of progress. For anyone following the project, you may recall that back in September 2013 I purchased a cheap set of Mk6 Golf R20 front brakes. Well, 7 months on and I finally decided that having them sat in my room wasn’t practical any longer and made an effort to begin the process of fitting them. I even purchased a brake bleeding tool to help the process, more on that later.

So, the weekend rolled round, the weather was good and the driveway and garage was booked. Out came the tools, on came the overalls and so began the list of problems…

Up to here, everything went well. From here… Not so good;


Fitting the parts was really quite straight forward, except for the stainless steel brake lines. The problem was that due to the bolts in my kit not being the correct type, I had no way of attaching them to the caliper. This lead to having to use the stock ones that came with my kit, as well as routing the cable between the driveshaft and the wishbone, far from ideal and in no way a permanent fix. You can see the problem below;


A quick e-mail to HEL, who’s very friendly customer support pointed me in the direction of where to get the correct banjo bolts and also acquired some fresh hose securing clips because I think I lost the original ones in the process.

So, aside from those bolts not fitting, everything else bolted on and connected up like the theory said it should of. As a side note, when people say you need 18” alloys minimum, they really do mean absolute minimum! No photos at this time but trust me, they’re bloody big. Anyway, once the dust shields, discs and calipers with pads were all bolted up, time to bleed the system. We connected up my new bleed tool to the air supply, connected it to the bleed nipple, opened it up and became bleeding… A long while later a small amount of fluid go through. After about an hour or bleeding (using both the tools and a manual approach), time came to fire up the ignition and check the brakes with the engine on. Disaster struck again, as soon as the servo kicked in, it passed the air that was left in the system all round, resulting in no brakes at all. I pumped the pedal and built up a little pressure (enough to limp it to a proper garage perhaps) but as soon as the clutch is depressed, it loses everything and you can push the brake pedal to the floor. On top of this, the brake pad wear sensor wasn’t bridged (I thought it didn’t need to be) so my warning message for checking pads came on. I also think I failed to reconnect the passenger side ABS senor, so now I have lights on my dash for;

- Airbag
- ABS
- Tyre Pressure
- Warning Messages

Basically, if you’ve been to a sea side town at Christmas and seen the light displays, you have some idea of what sitting in my driver’s seat is like. To say I was gutted was an understatement. As it stands, I will now try and get the car drivable enough to take it into AMD to have the rest of the work done, which currently stands at;

-   Front brake pads (with wear sensors) replaced / Bridge sensor
-   Front stainless steel lines fitted
-   Rear brake conversion (to R32 setup – see below)
-   Full brake fluid renewal + power bleed
-   Health check and errors cleared

To finish the R32 rear conversion, I still need to powder coat my calipers, replace the seals, acquire new pads, discs and dust shields, then re-build the calipers and then get it all to AMD. Big jobs on now so hopefully another big update soon, with pretty pictures of a car with working brakes. I've decided to cheat and duck out of finishing this myself, as I'd prefer to just get the car back on the road. It looks like at least a month before I can get this all sorted out. Stay tuned.

[th3_f15t]

Thought I'd bring this up to date. Been a while...

[ds1984]

a bit of good work m8. bet your golf is happy bunny now:)

sent by me

[th3_f15t]

She's not happy, she has no brakes at all at the moment. You can push the brake pedal all the way to the floor there's so much air in the system. I'm hoping that I haven't got any air at all into the clutch hydraulic pump otherwise I'll loose gears too. Hoping to fix it all back up in time for a local meet on the 27th of this month.

[P3T3R]

Looks like it is coming together nicely, be good once the brakes are sorted tho.

[th3_f15t]

Thanks man. Picking up the rear calipers from the powder coating place tomorrow hopefully, got new seals on their way and all the bits to rebuild them in the garage. The original plan I had for this year was a massive over estimate, so it'll be getting revised soon to account for the total lack of money/time!

[SurreyED30]

She's not happy, she has no brakes at all at the moment. You can push the brake pedal all the way to the floor there's so much air in the system. I'm hoping that I haven't got any air at all into the clutch hydraulic pump otherwise I'll loose gears too. Hoping to fix it all back up in time for a local meet on the 27th of this month.

Just read your whole thread mate be good to see this at lakeside Sunday 27th 
Fingers crossed for you buddy looks a nice car 

[th3_f15t]

I remain optimistic about getting her back on the road by then but things are moving far slower than I'd like them to be... Hopefully getting my calipers today or tomorrow.