[Vwdiesel] What' I've been up to...

[lbaird119 at aol.com]

  I've kinda forgotten what all I've done.  Somewhere back this Summer, I did rear brakes on our Passat.  I'd checked the pads (cursory glance) and they were fine.  A few days later my wife says it's making a terrible noise.  Sure enough, outer pad had 1/3 to 1/2 of the pad left, the inner was to metal.  New pads, frozen pin bolts, flushed the fluid.  Replaced the failing ignition switch, which is already needing a "lift" to start half the time, as well as things I no longer recall.  Think I did some  brakes on Dad's Passat but finally DID do the timing belt.  Was then able to dial back the fueling and still have driveability.  Timing had been WAY retarded, almost off the scale.

  Our Passat had new injectors a few weeks/months prior and I lost 5 to 6 mpg.  I dialed back the IQ as much as I it'd go and got most of my mpg back (42 in town, 45 highway, originally).  It has some surging on hard acceleration, which would likely be much better if I turned the fueling back up but I experience that very little while the loss of mpg is all the time, so I live with it.  Maybe big exhaust would  help.  :-)

The pickup got struts, brakes, a CV boot, and a front wheel bearing.  Our foreman is pretty good with cars so he helped so that it all actually (finally) got done.  I still need to do the timing belt.  He didn't tighten down the Axle nut, which I noticed from several feet but having faith in him, brushed it off as a thicker nut.  Nope, wasn't all the way on so I got to put on a new wheel bearing again.  Rear brakes were a pain, the old shoes were half backward which kept new ones from going small enough to get the drum on.  Hardware kit had wrong shaped retainers so Jose ground down the new springs to fit.  Grrrr.  I had to pull them back apart and use the old retaining springs and retainers.  New drums too.  :-)  I now have the best parking brake I've ever used but bias is still too much to the front unless I pull the p-brake two clicks, then no more locking the fronts.

We picked up an '86 5KTQ in really nice shape, for $500.  I offered it to my son, who  had no running car and he passed, even passed on an offer to let him borrow it!  Too nice of a car to let go so I HAD to find someone to care for it!  A friend's sub-lessee wanted it so we bought it.  While doing some of the critical fixes (ignition switch and passenger window regulator repair) Dad said HE was keeping it.  Well, he really didn't HAVE it but I told Mike the bad news and Dad gave me carte blanche to repair it for Winter!  Mike still gets to use it for a time anyway, soon as it's aligned.
New strut boots, tie rod ends, one ball joint, rear tie rods/upper control rods, one rear, lower control arm bushing, hood struts, flush the brakes, turn the rotors and new rear pads.  Dumped the hydraulic oil and replaced it after flushing the reservoir.  It starts instantly, has good tires, no dents, but he didn't keep the old lock cylinders when he replaced the handles, so 3 keys plus the missing gas cap.  :-(  Going to see about having the doors re-pinned to match.
  It had several alerts showing up.  The "brake" one disappeared after I did the ignition switch.  Go figure.  The brake one got better after filling the hydraulic oil but still came on too often so I was told the "fix" is to disconnect the switch on the master cylinder.  Typical problem that wasn't a problem so just turn it off.  Oil warning come on at idle, when warm, so need a new pressure sender most likely.

  It still has an intermittent battery drain and needs an alignment and upholstery.  All the seat bottoms, except the driver's, shrank and split (leather).

  Was offered a nice, clean, similar to the Quattro, Audi 200, to put my '83 5KTD's engine into.  It'd be a lot less work, a newer car, better suspension, probably quieter, etc.  My daughter's decision if she wants the engine transplanted into a newer car (last year the 200 was made) or back into her nostalgic, '83 5000 (after it's rebuilt).

  Our MF 135 would only go into R & 1st gears.  Nobody was quite sure but speculated it had to do with the shift rail detents.  Had to split the tractor and soon as Dad touched anything, we had 2nd and 3rd but no 4th.  He was ready to put it back like that and I said NO WAY!  We had to split the tranny off of the rear next and there was a stop  plate with a corner broken off.  That let one shift fork go far enough forward so that its gear would hit the next one in front of it, send it into gear while that one was already in gear and tada!  You're locked in two gears and couldn't move!  The loss of the upper gears was a missing ball on one end, between the 3 shift rails.  Since this was the first time ANY major work  had been done to this tractor, that ball had been missing since new and was also responsible for some of the lockups.  Put a new clutch disk in while it was split (over 4K hrs on the original and only did the brakes two years ago.  That's all the work it's had done in over 4,000 hours!  Even has the original starter, however the solenoid is a replacement.

  I've been given an '83 GTI that needs a lot of littles as well as a clutch.  I'd like to put original interior back in it, or something close but...  I need some more projects!

  We just finished harvest finally!  We've had 3 ro 4 days off since mid August and most of those were in the last few days, due to rain.  Anybody want some Fujis?  We had to leave over 100 bins on the trees.  The price TT pays for processors, dropped to the same as juice, $40/ton.  It cost more than that to pick them so they hang.  Everything's cleaned up so if it dries up long enough, I can weed spray, winterize a few things, do a head gasket on the forklift, radiator on the other MF135, jets in the 454...

  Oh, picked up an '87 YZ250 for $250.  It needs a clutch, throttle cable, chain, plastics, seat cover and head nuts.  Sounds reasonable except plastics are $250, stupid nuts and washers are $6+ and $3+ respectively!  Oye!  Seat and cable are cheap on ebay as well as the clutch (compared to dealer).  I'd like to have plastics but it's not a valuable bike.  Don't mind so much on my '77 YZ125 (if I ever get the rest of it back).  It's at least worth something fixed up.   This one's worth more but not yet collectable.

  There it is, "what I did on my summer..., (no vacation!)
    Loren