That Familiar Feel of Snow

You may be happy to know that my blog hasn't been the only thing I've neglected over the last couple of months.  Today, for the first time in over a month, the family and I hit Mount Hood.  I'll touch on that and the latest page in the saga of my Jetta.  No bus news today.  I was going to test drive him this weekend, but I focused on other things instead.  If I have a dry and uneventful morning this week, I'll drive him to work as a test flight.

Flash Lives

Poor Man's Ramp

First, some context.  The symptoms were simple: little power, hard starting, seemingly no turbo and black exhaust.  For codes, I was getting a P1556: low or inconsistent boost.  Yep, the turbo wasn't kicking in properly.  Now, based on the days when the turbo wasn't kicking in on the bus, I knew the sound of a turbo firing up, but not boosting.  That was the sound I was hearing.  On Saturday, I prepared to get the Jetta (Flash) operating right.  Since I'm without a place to work on it, I set up on the street, using the poor-boy's ramp: the curb.  Once the engine is running, crank the wheel all the way so that the back of the front tire is facing the curb.  Then back-up.  Simple.  I slid under Flash and verified the connections from the turbo to the intercooler were good.  From the top-side, though, things were sideways.  The hard-pipe coming out of the intercooler was loose and grinding against the coolant pump.  We have our problem.  I drove it to Johnny, showed him the evidence, and he fixed it.  He did my rear brake pads too, and didn't charge me for either.  Thanks, Johnny.  Flash runs awesome.  Now, I need a pair of tires, and he's ready for another 40k+ miles.

Snow

C resting mid-Molly's

I hit Timberline with my boys and Boo today.  She couldn't slide, needing to grade student work unfortunately.  Turned out C had left his boots at his mom's house anyway, so he went in Boo's (they have the same size feet).  The snow was hard-packed with about 1/2 an inch of puff on top.  It was fast, but the crashes were painful.  I only spilled a couple of times (once on my helmet-protected skull, trying to follow C off a jump).  It really was what my mood needed, though.  There is nothing like a day of playing with your kids.

I Know that Feeling
We left the mountain in a bit of a rush.  T & C were due back at their mom's, so they left in the lead car while Boo and I arranged the ski equipment into the larger carry-car.  As we made our way off the mountain, we discovered an ice-patch.  Ahh... I haven't lost traction on slide-y stuff in years.  Funny how the old skills kick in, though.  Total calm, turn into the skid and lightly tap the brakes.  We righted our descent.  No side-rail impacts, no nerves even, really.  Oddly enough, the car behind us didn't hit the ice, nor were they deterred in their close traveling distance.  Bah!

That's it for tonight.  Have a great week, and thanks for following along.  I'll try to get back to this posting with a couple pictures...

Findings

I have learned a few things about the next steps on the electrical from my thread on TDIClub. I wanted to post these findings so I don't lose them (and so everything is in one place). First, I wanted to send a congratulations to Hal. Over the past few months, while I have been slowly tryingto get my bus together, he has installed a water-cooled gasser engine (VW straight 4) into his bus. This was a simpler install, but he still had many of the same challenges: radiator placement, adapter plate, some clearance issues, etc). I got an email from him the other day tellnig me that he test-started his engine. He hasn't been able to test-drive it yet, but he is very close. So, congratulations, Hal. I'm proud of ya, and you're inspiring me to keep going.

Firing the Starter
I mentioned in my last post that I extended the wire that runs from the main harness to the starter. This wire is set to 12V by the computer (ECU) when the "X" circuit is powered. This was the case on the old bus just as it is on the NewBeetle. I guess some things never change. Anyway, I need to notify the ECU that "X" needs to be powered. To facilitate this, I extended a wire from near the starter (where the original "X" wire terminates) to the ECU. This wire needs to power a pin, or somewhere in the ignition plug. I'll piece that together tomorrow.

Trigger "run" to computer (ECU)
Somehow the ECU needs to know that the main switched power has been activated. Most of the electrical system is turned on or running when the ignition switch is at this point. On the old bus, having the switch here allowed the heater blower to turn on, the windshield wipers to work and the exterior lighting. That's it. Talk about old-skool simple. With the computer system controlling everything, this is one of the more important things to communicate into the box. Like the "X", this wire needs to power a pin, or somewhere in the ignition plug.

I have taped-up a 3-wire bundle that will send this signal down to the computer on one wire, and the 12V state of the next 2 sections below on the other 2 wires. Unlike the rest of the wire bundles, this one will run inside the bus along the drivers side of the body from by the clutch pedal to the westy closet where the ECU is hiding.

Check Engine Light (CEL)
Probably the most important indicator light on the TDI engine is the Check Engine Light. This light illuminates whenever any code is thrown by the computer (ECU). In order to run safely, you need this light operational. I will be installing a small LED inside the stock bus dashpod so it is visible while driving. To power the LED, one side needs to be connected to "circuit 15" (aka switched power) which is 12V when the ignition switch is turned to "run". The other side of the LED needs to be connected to pin #43 on the ECU. When the ECU throws a code, pin 43 is grounded, lighting the LED. Otherwise, the pin is set to 12V.

Glow Plug Light
Second in importance only to the CEL, is the glow plug light. This light tells the driver when the glow plugs have satisfactorily warmed the combustion chambers. If there is a problem in the glow plug circuit, the light flashes. Next to the CEL, I will be installing an LED for this. Like the CEL, one side is powered from the switched power (15) for 12V. The other side of the LED needs to be connected to pin #41. Like the CEL, the computer (ECU) grounds the pin to send a signal, and sends 12V to turn it off.

Tomorrow is Friday which means it is early-release day. Hurrah! I should be able to get the wire bundle in and wired up. I need a pair of LED holders, and I'll have to pull the dashpod to make holes for the 2 LED's, but I'll probably wait on that until I've confirmed that the wiring works. That's it for today. Again, congrat's to Hal for getting his engine started. I hope to hear of a test drive one day very soon.

Electrical Leap

Well, the new job has this Friday afternoon concept that I'd never heard of before: Summer Hours. Basically, if you're at 40 hours (or pretty close), you can leave early on Friday afternoons - as early as noon, if you can. Now, that's my kind of company, eh? I wasn't able to leave that early, but I was still hitting the door at 3. Compared to a typical 6:PM departure, and add in the late daylight hours in a Northwestern June, I suddenly had a few hours handed to me. They weren't wasted.

Radiator Fan Wiring
First off, I figured I'd hit the radiator fans. I knew that would require the most time, or at least the most time on my back under the bus. Since the weather was accommodating, I got to it. I thought about the New Beetle fan wiring, and the fact that it needed to support an A/C condenser. I decided the heavier wire that powered the higher speed fan setting wasn't necessary, and proceeded to run the wire on the "low" setting circuit. I found that I was able to re-use wire that I had cannibalized from the harnesses for most of the wiring, using the same colored wires and thicknesses. Sweet. That includes the wires for the temperature sensor on the radiator. This picture to the right, here, sort of shows how the wiring routes along the cowling and up under the floor. After the bundling the wires with tape, I've zip-tied them into place and out of the way. In the engine compartment, I was actually able to re-use a couple body mounts for zip-ties from the old harness, so it almost looks like it was done on purpose. Some of the radiator wire zip-tying was done today (rather than yesterday) when I worked on the starter wiring.

Looming
After dawdling over coffee this morning, I dragged myself out to the bus for some more wiring fun. I started with extending a few wires to complete the battery-top fuse-block. This was a pretty simple task, just time consuming. The glow plug and fan relay wires were pretty straightforward. Rather than just extend the main electrical wire that is nestled within the main harness, I just replaced it end-to end with a new 4 AWG wire. I cut off the ends of the original and butt-spliced those ends onto the new wire. Making the splice work required crimping the splice in my vice and then shrink-wrapping with my blowtorch, so it's just as well I didn't try to extend the original.

Most of the rest of the main harness was just hanging across the rear door. I tucked it up under the rear deck where the stock wiring is, and zip-tied it into place. The switch on the starter solenoid to trigger it was extended along the underside of the deck with the main harness. So was the red/black wire at the starter (that came from the bus ignition switch) all the way into the westy closet. Last, the main ground wires were extended and mounted beside the main negative cable on the body. The picture here gives a pretty good idea of how it looks now - very few visible wires. There's just that one black-wrapped bundle hanging from the center down to the fan relay. Once the relay is mounted, it will have more slack in that bundle.

Primarily Wired
The last bit I tackled today was getting the main starter wire (2 AWG) in place. After all the main harness / bundle work above, this wasn't nearly as rough. I simply cut off the battery end about 4" from the end and butt-spliced 2 feet of new wire. The picture to the right, here, was taken before the heat-shrink wrap was torched on. The starter-end has been bolted on. The battery still does not have anything connected to the positive terminal, though. It is probably wise to leave the battery disconnected until I've finished everything.

It was a very productive couple of days. Between Friday afternoon and today, I spent over 8 hours messing with the electrical system. By the end, though, I have the main harness wired, the fuse-block wired, and the starter wired. I have a few open questions I need to resolve before I can complete the electrical.
For example, I intend to retain the stock VW bus ignition switch. To trigger all the things necessary in the new engine, I need to send a signal to the New Beetle ignition switch when the key is turned from "lock" to "run" and from "run" to "start". The New Beetle ignition has lots of wires in it, so isn't simple. I think it is just a matter of wiring a collection of plugs together through a relay to be fired by the bus ignition. While I figure out how to wire the New Beetle side of the relay, I'll dig into the bus ignition for a good spot to dip for a signal for the 2 positions. Before I route the wires, though, I'll need to consider how I'll run the wire for the glow plug and CEL (check engine light) LED's that I plan to integrate into the original VW dashpod.

That's all for now. I plan to spend Father's Day with the family (not the bus), so I probably won't make much headway before next weekend. I should have time this week to dig into the wiring diagram for the bus to spot that signal dip. Maybe I'll have time to look at the glowplug and CEL circuits to get a feel for how thick a wire I'll need to send a good signal to the dash. Happy Father's Day-

pictures:
top - weird up-shot angle of radiator fan wiring along the side of the cowling
upper middle -finished wiring after tucking it away, wrapping the sole hanger and zip-tying it into place
lower middle - battery cable example of butt-splices. 1 w/tape, 1 w/o tape
bottom - wire bundles and battery primary wire mounted with zip-ties - note the wire route along the lip of the engine bay where the compartment seal used to go