Shade Tree with Gramps

Today's post is about some efforts on cars that are not mine, around the cycles of applying Bondo, sanding it down, applying a guide coat of sand-able primer and repeating. This is all so I can get the panels as smooth and flat as I can before I get into the paint. Recall, I am still waiting for the body kit, so I am in a holding pattern anyway.

Shade Tree

I have mentioned in passing a few times that one of more of the kids we know will drop by to work on their cars in our driveway. They are new to car ownership, have few tools and a little experience. Boo and I call it our "Shade Tree" where they or their friends can come to get after some work on a car in a safe place with the tools they need, WiFi and an extra pair of hands. We bought a couple of car port canopies last year, and those serve as the base for this Shade Tree concept. Nearby, we have parked Hapy, and set up like DriveWay Fest: lot couch pulled out, seats strewn about, camping table set up. So, when you need to take a break, there's shade, a comfy seat and a cold beverage.

For me, this is an opportunity to hang out, wrench on some cars and help a friend or two out. If I could, I would do this every day. Fortunately, as the kids get more into their respective cars, this is happening more often.  I have not posted about these moments, but with my time dedicated to the Bondo cycles, I am not generating material... just lots of dust. So, today's post is about a weekend afternoon spent with a couple of kids and their cars.

K2 - Gramps

stock image, not Gramps

K2 got my parent's old Jetta3 when they decided that they should not drive anymore. That was a great decision, and for a base grocery-getter Jetta, Gramps was a pretty good little car. It does not have air conditioning, and it suffers the 2-dot-slow engine (non-turbo), but that should make it easier to work on, since there are fewer parts. Still, those parts which remain can be a PITA. Case-in-point, K2 wanted to do a simple tune-up, replacing the spark plugs. Well, to do that, you need to remove the intake plenum because the sadist engineers at VW located the sparkplugs on the fire-wall side of the engine, underneath the big air intake. To remove the plenum requires considerable flexibility, so this basic maintenance has not been done.

With that backdrop, we learned a couple of weeks ago that Gramps was not running. It turned out that Gramps was running, but he would go from everything-is-fine to suddenly overheating within a few minutes after achieving normal operating temperature (NOT). So, K2 drove Gramps over and pulled him into the front spot in the driveway nearest Hapy. He explained that he was sitting in a drive-thru and steam started billowing out from under the hood. After popping the hood and noticing a new hose clamp near the outlet flange, we learned that shortly before the overheating, he had removed and replaced that clamp. Why that was done was not explained, however, we concluded that maybe it was related.

The symptoms were interesting. Like I said above, the engine would run fine for a while and then water would start bubbling out of the overflow bottle as the engine temp climbed above normal. I felt the hoses. The top hose heading into the radiator was hot. The radiator was not, nor was the lower hose. That indicated water not moving, so I figured that there's either a blockage or the pump isn't working. Once the engine cooled down a little bit, we added water, but the issue repeated. I thought maybe there was an air pocket stemming from the prior hose clamp removal, so we remove the upper hose from the radiator. No water came out. I was able to run 1/2 a gallon of water into the top of the radiator before it was full, so I felt like we were approaching the solution. With the upper hose removed, and the open end held below the top of the radiator, we continued to put water into the over flow bottle, squeezing the hoses by hand to force water through. Eventually, water started to drip out of the upper hose, so we re-connected it. Then, we performed a repeating process of adding water, running the engine to get the bubbles out, turning off the engine, adding water, etc. We discovered very early that the radiator was now getting warm, so the circulation had solved. The fans, however, were still not firing. Still, the car was able to not overheat enough for him to drive it home and on short trips until he had time for another visit and diagnose of why the fans were not coming on.

G - unnamed

sort of what G wants
it to look like

K2's best friend, G, recently bought a late-model Jetta. I don't know the exact year, but it's possibly the newest car among those we have clowned on. A few months ago, I helped him remove his old stock muffler to install a fart-can. He knew then that he would need a cat-back exhaust system to get the sound he wanted. Since that time in the driveway, he got and installed a cat-back system. It has a sporty rumble to it now. On this visit, G wanted to replace his coolant, and do a little customization of the front grille. G had found a step-by-step online where you could cut and fab lower grilles from wire mesh as a replacement for the little slotted-looking vent things. He had built and installed them, but they looked kind of weak. To improve the look, he first removed the front bumper cover. G taped around the little grilles and then shot the grilles and the bumper covers inside the grilles with black spraypaint. We talked about cutting the fog-light supports out, but decided that just shooting black was enough to hide the body color and now he had the option of installing fog lights later. The coolant was fairly straightforward. He loosened the lower hose from the radiator, and drained into a pan. He re-connected the hose and filled the overflow bottle. So simple. These take about 1.5US gallons of 50/50 G12 (or G40) when completely emptied. Since he had not opened up his heater, that coolant did not get drained. So, his refill only used about a gallon. After driving it around, the level didn't drop, so we're confident that he filled it.

Zed

Of course, I continue to perfect Zed's body. I had a mishap with the Bondo where I believe I mis-mixed the hardener in. The symptom: it never fully hardened, and when I sanded on it, the Bondo came off in rubbery strings. I ultimately had to remove all of that layer of Bondo, and start over. Fortunately, I have been mixing smaller and smaller batches, since the areas which need attention are also shrinking. So, much of the areas I fixed that day were quite good. I mentioned at the start that I used a guide-coat. It was after this cycle of Bondo that I did that. I shot a light coat of sand-able automotive primer on top of the areas I had just sanded and then scuffed with 220 grit paper. I found 4 spot that I had not sanded sufficiently and about a dozen small imperfections (dips or gaps) that needed another round of filler. Around helping K2 and G, I sanded down the handful of high spots, vacuumed and re-shot with primer. I will scuff that guide-coat and fill the tiny spots next.

I am starting to wonder if that body kit will arrive after I am past ready for it. I expect I will focus on the hinges and other stuff, as well as shooting primer on the parts that will not be impacted by the kit (like the hood, doors, tailgate).

If you're in the area and need a place to tweak your car, come on by. We'll help as best we can. All we ask is that you lead on your work, the car leaves (but my tools don't) when you do and you check your politics at the curb. So, that's it for this week. Thanks, as always, for following along. 

Injector-Go-Round (Part 2)

Today, we continue and complete the efforts to get old used stock injectors from Hapy to work in Flash, and then brand new higher-performance injectors installed into Hapy. Fun with injectors starts.... now.

Injector-Go-Round

Now comes the fun part. With the wedged-nut extractor tool I mentioned in part 1 (See Injector-Go-Round Part 1), I pulled the injectors out of Hapy, Then, I pulled the old injectors out of Flash and installed Hapy's old injectors into Flash. That sentence took less than 10 seconds to type, and I feared it would take all weekend to do. It was actually fairly uneventful and quick. On Friday night, I set myself up by putting Hapy and Flash near one another, and then shooting the injectors where they enter the head with the trusty old Kroil penetrating oil. The next morning, I cleaned around the injector-to-head points, took my slap-together injector puller / slide hammer and all 8 injectors popped out with little effort. Seriously, each injector took fewer than 5 pops with the slide-hammer, and none of the "pops" had much force at all behind them. Honestly, I was being gentle because I didn't want the wedged nut to fall off the hammer. So, I held the slide between my index finger and my thumb and gently pop-pop-popped, moving the slide less than 4 inches each time with a flick of my wrist. I think the Kroil really helped, though I expect there will be some who bristle at the thought of letting some penetrating oil slip into the engine. 

I carefully arrayed the brackets, bolts and washers (excepting the one I lost) so I could re-install them in the same spots. In Hapy, I left the injectors loose, but still in their respective holes while I completed the extract on Flash, cleaned the holes and the head mating surface. Then, in one move, I pulled the injectors from Hapy, carried them across the driveway like a cat's cradle and set them into Flash's head. Ideally, I would have replaced the copper crush-washers on the injectors, but I didn't have replacements on hand, and this was the day I had to do this. *Dumb short-cut actually taking more time warning*

The install of the new-to-Flash injectors was fairly straightforward. Once the injectors were set in, I cleaned each bracket, rested it into place, and then lightly threaded the bolt through. Once I had all 4 in place, I threaded them down finger tight. I plugged in the 3rd-injector plug, set the glow-plug harness under the hard-lines and then re-connected the hard-lines to the tops of the injectors, but only barely threaded on. Once the lines are in the right spot, the compression fittings on the pump can be tightened down. Then, I wrenched down the brackets to around 10 foot-pounds (spec says ~15), snapped the glow-plug harness onto the glow-plugs and connected the return line to the injection pump.

Drift, Torque, Repeat

At this point, I test-cranked the engine to force air out of the hard-lines. There are a few ways to do this, of course, and the video I mentioned in part 1 is as good a way as any. He did the injectors in pairs while I did them one at a time, tightening the hardline at the injector end as each injector-to-hardline point spat out fuel. My one-at-a-time method moves from injector to injector based on the way they are connected to the injection pump: closest-to-the-ground one first, highest one last. My thinking is that any air in the pump will work its way up that way. By the time I was on the last injector, the engine was trying to fire.

I got that last line done, and Flash started right up. I could see some vapor puff-puff-puffing above the head, and could hear a "psst-psst-psst" noise, so I knew there was a leak. Boo helped me here, by jumping into the driver-seat and starting the engine while I looked and felt for the leak. It was around the #2 injector, but not at the hard-line mate point. It was around the injector near the head. Engine off, I grabbed a socket extension to use as a drift. I lightly smacked either side of the #2 injector bracket near the injector. Then, I re-torqued the bolt. I was surprised by how much more I could turn the bolt (like 3/4 a turn), so I repeated the process on the other 3, and continued to do this until the bolts torqued down at 15 ft-lbs and would not accept more after more drift-smacks.

This process worked very well. When we test fired it again, Flash started right up, made no funny noises (nor puffs of vaporized fuel) and ran strong during the test drive. The biggest indicator of our success was the near-immediate start the following morning and no cloud of smoke. He had been getting harder and harder to start in the morning. I now conclude that his old injectors were leaking (evidence of that was found upon their removal, as they leaked all over the paper shopping bag I set them on), and the fuel system needed to prime every morning, causing the long hard-start effort. I decided to change his oil immediately, while waiting for the delivery of the new injectors from KermaTDI.

Priming the Injection Pump

During the oil change, I discovered that the #2 injector had actually leaked at the head again during the test drive, and concluded that replacing the copper crush-washers (or injector seals) is not optional. I got a replacement set from the local parts store (not DIP, still bummed about that) and re-did the removal / install. This time, I did a pair of injectors at a time, starting with #1 and #2. Oddly enough, the injector pump lost it's prime in the few minutes the system was open this time. Half as many injectors, loosened the lines less and it still lost prime when it didn't the last time when I did all 4. Ah well; just shows that luck is a factor. With the MityVac, I applied vacuum on the low-pressure return side (no more than 7 pounds so the seals inside the pump were never in jeopardy, and more vacuum would not have tangibly sped the process) of the injection pump until fuel appeared in the MityVac collection cup. Then, I buttoned things up, cleared the hard-lines of air by cracking the connections one at a time (bottom to top, like above) until Flash started. Again, I see no puffs, but I did the #3 and #4 injector seals anyway. Fool me once. After letting Flash sit for a few days, he lost prime again.

So, I ran another round of MityVac priming and got him running. I let him sit an idle while I got a really close look at the injectors. I noticed that #1 had fuel appearing around the injector mount-point into the head. The #1 injector is unique in that it has a cap on one of the return bibs. That cap was leaking. I didn't have a real one, so I made one from low pressure hose and a bolt. This helped, so after letting Flash sit for a few days he would start, albeit roughly. Believing that the low-pressure return lines I moved from Hapy were no longer viable, I considered my options for replacement.

Hapy Injected

Once KermaTDI had the injectors set up, they FedEx'd them over with a new set of copper seals. They arrived mid-week, but with the dicey weather, I waited to until the weekend so I could have a nice big block of time. Hapy's head had been cleaned when the old ones were pulled and I had stuffed rags into the injector holes so it would stay clean. With the injectors in-hand, I could at least prepare them for install by removing the "T" fitting from Flash's old #3 injector, and moving the low-pressure return lines onto the replacement set. The kit from KermaTDI delivered with brand new low-pressure return lines so the set up of the injectors was that much easier. With the injectors set up, and a new weekend day, I followed the same process I did with Flash, except for skipping the test-start parts. I am having issues with Hapy's ECU, so this is as far as I could really get.

I'll describe the test-drive once I have Hapy buttoned back up. Between then and now, I need to get his ECU sorted but at least the exhaust is back on. There's never a shortage of things to do. Couldn't be Hapy-er.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

Injector-Go-Round (Part 1)

I got back outside and started playing on the TDI's (Hapy the camperbus and Flash the daily Jetta) as the weather has been somewhat hospitable, though not consistently so. Since Hapy is running so well (still no codes, accelerator responding as one would expect, etc.), I decided to step up his injectors and get that Malone Tune I had dreamed about for years. In contrast, Flash has been making a plume of black smoke when he starts in the morning (after a long start cycle), so I figured his injectors had gotten pretty clogged up. My thinking: I can upgrade Hapy's injectors and put his under-100k miles injectors onto Flash to extend his life. Today's post is about picking, and removing injectors. I'm still perfecting both Flash and Hapy injector installs, so I'll post part 2 on that once at least one of them is running right. Good times.

Injector Selector

PowerPlus 764

For the uninitiated, like me, the world of diesel injectors or nozzles is cloudy and the choices not clear. For one thing, the manufacturers all suffer with varying quality because of their efforts to get them constructed at lower costs. As is true with any market, there are always new players. Some new players build good stuff, but have little recognition. Others are simply trying to turn a dime and build garbage, but have flashy advertisements. Like I said, all markets are like this, but for a product about which you know little, how do you avoid overpaying or getting garbage? This is where your trusted vendors are so important. For TDI stuff, I go to KermaTDI and IDParts first and then some others like PartsPlace or TuneMyEuro to see what they are selling. When they are all selling the same subset of the market, you can be fairly sure those are the better quality-to-price. In many cases, your greatest gains from an injector upgrade require an ECU tune, a turbo upgrade, or both. Regardless, my research indicates that they need to be balanced / pressure checked / set-up or you will probably not get the performance you were expecting.

To help me through the maze, I worked with the folks at Malone Tuning and researched my 2 usual forums: TDIClub and VWVortex. There really is nothing better than true end-user feedback, but in most cases, the folks who replaced their injectors were going from clapped-out original stock injectors to something new, so, of course, they worked way better. And, they only did that one set ever, so they only had the old crappy ones to compare against. Still, the forums helped steer me where KermaTDI and TuneMyEuro were already taking me: Bozio injectors are the market leaders right now, but even they have quality issues. So, having them set up will best ensure a high-performing set. I decided to have mine set-up by our friends at KermaTDI since that brought with it better guarantees and some things are just best done as a unit.

DLC 1019

I spent considerable time toggling back and forth between the DLC1019 and the PowerPlus764. I ultimately went with the PP764, but, in retrospect, they are both great injector nozzles from everything I have read. Here is another write-up of the PP764. Both injectors appear to have the DLC protective coatings that extend the nozzle life against lower quality and low-sulfur fuel. Knowing that the quality of diesel fuel varies across the country, this is important. The PP764 also has hardened surfaces, etc. to extend its life relative to the stock injectors (the DLC1019 probably does as well), and have a higher upside in terms of HP potential with additional upgrades. Ultimately, the TDIClub seems to feel that the PP764 may produce more smoke, but more power than the 1019, but again, as in so many things, your mileage may vary, and with all the other variables at play, it is very hard to distinguish between these nozzles... except for which one can handle larger modifications: the PP764.

I had Kerma set them up at the lowest "pop" stage, so they are fairly tame, which parallels the stock-for-now turbo. I should be able to replace the original VNT-15 turbo with a stock-in-some-VW's VNT-17 and the PP764 injector set up can remain the same. The 1019 may not embrace the higher boost as well as the PP764. Again.. who really knows? This feels like a job for MotorTrend's Engine Masters, if they ever give a whiff about performance in otherwise not monster engines... and diesels in general.

Injector Removal

still from KermaTDI vid

I had a rain-free, beautiful Saturday morning, with a forecast for decent March weather (read: spotty rain) all weekend, so I had my opening. KermaTDI co-hosts a great video on YouTube for how to remove / replace the injectors which I mostly followed. So, I am not going to go through all those steps in great depth here. Instead, I will highlight what I found particularly interesting. In the video, the glow-plug harness was removed at the very beginning. It was easier to remove once the injector hard-lines were moved out of the way. Getting a good angle on the bottom compression fittings on the injector pump was difficult, but not impossible, especially during initial removal. With the hard-lines out of the way, for the Hapy removal, I then had to remove the vacuum ball and the bracket holding it to the head in order to get to the clips for the 3rd injector plug-wire. This bracket did not interfere with the plug in Flash, but his plug was very difficult to get out of the bracket. With that unplugged, I shifted to the injector-hold-down brackets. On Hapy, I lost concentration for a second and pulled the bolt out of the 4th injector bracket independent of the bracket, causing the dished washer to disappear into the engine bay. This momentary lapse cost me some time searching.

I never found that washer, but it was nowhere near the injector so I moved on. Finding a single replacement washer took some time, though. For posterity, it is either part number N0231312 or N0237314. With the brackets removed, the injectors would not budge (no surprise). So, I cleaned up around them as much as I could with brake cleaner and a slotted screwdriver, getting as much black gunk off as I could. I felt this would minimize the risk of that hard yuck falling into the open injector port once the injector came out. I applied a short burst of Kroil penetrating oil around each of the injector-to-head mating surfaces to help in the extraction.

Injector Removal Tool

no worky

The injector has a M14-1.5 thread where the hard line injector fitting attaches. Metalnerd makes a slide-hammer specific for removing this injector that threads right on. As of this writing, they cost around $45US. Back when I was working on the dents on Zed (the 1978 Datsun 280ZX), I got one of those stud welder / dent slide hammer kits from Harbor Freight. This kit includes a 2-pound slide hammer with a single thread-on attachment that is designed to grab onto one of those studs. The thread on the slide hammer is M14-2. Soooo close to the injector thread, but not. I would rather re-use a tool in-hand rather than buy another rare-use tool. So, I got 2 nuts from the hardware store (M14-1.5 and M14-2) and JB Weld'd them together. I would have Mig welded, but welder one I used on Oliver's floors has disappeared into the tool collective of Travis' friends and I didn't want to wait. Besides, I'm not sure welding these nuts would have been a slam-dunk anyway. Turned out, the JBWeld failed on the first injector, so my tool became just the one M14-1.5 nut: I force-wedged it onto the slide-hammer and threaded the other end into the injectors. Yes, this cross-threaded the nut at the slide-hammer end, but it served it's purpose.

I'm going to stop here, and pick up the actual removal and install experience in the next post. Like I said above, the removals were actually quite easy. Like so many things, destruction is easy; construction is hard.

Gramps Clutch

Unrelated, I mentioned the clutch replacement for Gramps (2-dot-slow Jetta 3) a few weeks back when I was considering what work to do next. K2 decided that he wanted to hire that out, so we called up Courtney over at MobilePdx. We have called on these guys a few times over the years when our workload was more than we wanted to handle at once, and they have never disappointed. He and his guys (Lou and Joe) knocked it out, replacing the clutch, flywheel (old clutch blue'd the friction surface), throw-out bearing, the throw-out bearing cover, etc. Before they started the tear-down, the engine got a de-greasing. Once everything was apart, they replaced the rear main seal on the engine. With everything clean, they were able to lubricate things (like the shift linkage), and confirm the oil leak was the rear main seal. All in, it was a ton of work, but Gramps is running like a champ again. And, he is no longer marking his spot every time he parks. Thanks MobilePDX!

Last, an early shout-out to my local-to-NW Oregon friends: Hapy turns 50 on 3-September-2021, so to celebrate, we will be camping at LL Stub Stewart State Park that weekend. If you have little else to do for US Labor Day weekend, we (Hapy, Boo and I) would love to see you.

Thanks, as always, for following along and I'll post again once at least one of the 2 injector beneficiaries is running right.