Flash fixes continued

I left off my last post about Flash with a summary of fixes stemming from replacing my 3 seasons tires with studded snows. Today, I finish the work by repairing the not-operating wipers and getting the reverse lights to work again.

Wipers No Wiping
The RainX held us for the handful of days while we waited for the new linkage to arrive. I got new wipers and a wiper-arm puller as well. Everything arrived on a Friday night, so the next (Saturday) afternoon I tore into the job.

Before you start, make note of where your wipers are. Similar to getting your engine into TDC (Top Dead Center) firing position for cylinder #1 before you start removing things, move your wipers into the rest position (all the way down) before you start or getting things to line up at the end will take much longer. The arms remove with a 13mm socket, hidden under a small plastic cap. Save that cap and the nuts. Once the nuts are off, the arm puller popped the arms right off. Next, the plastic cowl needs to be pulled away. The rubber seal along the front edge should remove easily, leaving just the 4 snap-on bits along the rear. These pull away by getting your fingers under the plastic along the windscreen and pulling more towards the front than straight up. I have seen others post about using a pry-bar; I found that excessive and introduced more risk to breaking that plastic cowl or scratching the glass. I removed and re-installed this cowl a few times while trying out various parts, so I can say for certain that a pry bar should not be necessary.

nicked from VWVortex

With the cowl out of the way, you should see the unpainted metal linkage connected to the wiper arm bolts. It is held to the car by 3 10mm bolts. Remove the bolts, and the washers underneath and save them. The linkage should now be free, but it can't be removed until you unplug the electrical plug from the motor. It is a flat 6-pin plug with a little catch on the underside. Press the catch and pull it away from the motor. Now you can wiggle the whole operation free from under the windscreen. Note how the motor connects to the linkage. There are 3 10mm bolts holding them together and a central 13mm nut holding the business end of the motor to the operational part of the linkage. Consider the orientation of that "operational part". If the wipers were in their resting position before you started tearing things apart, the short arm is pointing directly to the right (front is front), making it difficult to get the 13mm wrench in there to remove the nut. Remember this when you're putting it all back together.

I took the opportunity to clean out the little wiper controls bay at this point. There was all kinds of organic debris in there from years of parking outside. I dug around with a stick and used my shop-vac to get it clear. I also started testing things. First, I compared the new linkage with the original. I noticed that the new and old operated the same. In fact, the old one moved more freely. So, I concluded that the linkage was not the problem. So, I plugged the motor back in, and tested its operation with the wiper switch. The motor made noise, but did not turn the threaded end. So, the motor was the bad item. I needed a new one today or we were going another week, this time a projected-stormy one, without wipers. Eek.

wiper motor

Local Auto Parts
With Discount Import Parts now 1-1/2 hours away round-trip (no, I just can't let that go), I started looking around at the common local places. NAPA reportedly had one just down the street, according to their website, but after ordering one for pickup, I was called by the store and told that they actually didn't have one, but they could have one to me by Tuesday. Hmm.. this is why Amazon is crushing typical retail; I could have one in-hand tomorrow from Amazon. I want one now. Today. Next, I tried O'Reilly's about 30 blocks away, who also claimed to have one. They did. I failed to test it before I left the store, and it failed to work, right out of the box, when I tried to install it. No motor movement; no motor sounds. By the time I got it returned, it was getting into Saturday evening, so I aborted for the day, knowing that the Hillsboro location (20 minutes away) had 2. One of them would probably work.

Sunday morning, I hit the Hillsboro store, swapped a $100US bill for a motor and tested it in the parking lot. Bad the same way as mine: motor hums but the threaded end didn't turn. I've come to the conclusion that this transition part (I refer to as a transmission) is a fail point that is not looked at during rebuilds, or at least not often enough to prevent bad parts going to stores. For reference, it's the silver section of the motor in the picture on the right, here. Anyway, the other motor they had looked much better. The transmission looked new, the paint on the motor was not all over the transmission (like the others were), and best of all, it passed my driveway test of plugging the motor in while it was resting on the hood/windscreen and flipping the wiper switch.

I had brought my old linkage and the fasteners so I re-assembled the wiper motor and linkage, re-installed them and attached it all to the car right there in the O'Reilly's driveway. That's one more plus for them over NAPA: NAPA has a big sign on the side of the building forbidding patrons from doing spot repairs in their parking lot. O'Reilly's guys will come out and help you do it. Anyway, with everything under-cowl put together, I tested the switch and watched the wiper bolts rotate. Regretting that I had not brought at least the driver-side wiper arm and blade with me, I nosed the car east and back home.

Clear Screen

Bosch ICON wipers

The finish-up of the job was very simple. Between the linkage and the cowl resides small rubber boots that I had not mentioned earlier. I think these protect the linkage from rusting, so I re-installed them. Considering how rust-free and genuinely operational the original linkage is, I think this a fair assumption. Then, I wrestled the cowling back under the hood (bonnet for my non-US friends), setting it tight along the front edge before snugging the 4 snaps along the rear edge. I re-set the seal along the front edge, and then put the wiper arms back on, snugging them down with the 13mm socket and finally pressed the plastic caps into the arms. Like all things, test before you call it done. I had been doing all this in a steady Pacific NorthWest rain, so there was plenty of water on the windscreen for a valid test. The new Bosch ICON wipers ran smoothly from park to post and back again.... and completely cleared the glass in one pass. So sweet.

Reverse Lights
The last thing I needed to fix on the old Jetta was the not-operating reverse lights. Start with the simple, obvious things first: the bulbs. While they do not fail at the same time very often, I find coincidences like that happen more often with this car than many others I have owned. Not this time, though. Next, test the switch. The switch sits under the battery tray, behind and to the left of the starter motor. If you unplug it and then jumper across the 2 pin holes in the harness, you simply turn the ignition to "run" and you should see reverse lights. If you do, the switch is bad. If you do not, the issue may lie elsewhere.

Remove and Replace Switch

reverse switch: do not use the washer

I read a few how-to's on the reverse switch, and they all sounded very involved, including removing the battery and tray, removing the air box or both. Yikes. I looked at the location and considered that I could see the hex edges of the switch, so I could probably get a spanner in there. Sure enough, a 7/8" spanner fits the switch perfectly and can thread behind the battery box, but far enough ahead of the transmission to gain purchase on the switch. Unplug the switch first. Then, just pop the spanner on that switch so it can move. I didn't have to move my spanner more than 30*. Facing the engine from the front, reach along the rear of the radiator (under the upper hose) and under the battery box until your fingers reach the switch. I had my elbow brushing the driver-side radiator fan. The switch removes fairly easily (lefty-loosey). The install is the reverse, seriously, and then snug it tight with the 7/8" spanner..

I applied some thread seal on the switch, dropped on the included washer, reached around and under the battery box and threaded it home. I plugged it in and... nothing. Huh? I backed out the switch, and tested the switch by plugging it in, holding it depressed with my new wiper arm puller and saw the reverse light illuminate. Yes, I could have asked someone inside to come out, but it was raining... and raining hard, so why get everyone wet? I concluded that the included washer is NOT for the Jetta TDI engine, but may be used in one of the switch's other applications. Great. So, I pulled the washer, re-installed, plugged it back in and... it worked. Hapy dance.

So, now, the only thing that is still broken on old Flash is the hazard switch. I have bought multiple new ones and they all arrive failed. I think it stems from manufacturing moving away from Germany and Brazil to China, lowering the quality of the soldering along the way. I will just get one from the junkyard the next time I go. I still need to solve for the heated seats one of these days, but I am content to have all of the lights and wipers working for today.

Thanks for following along, and I will be getting back to Oliver's interior now that the daily-driver is safe again.

Flash fixes

I realized that I hadn't posted on a collection of things that broke all around the same time on Flash, the Jetta, so today I'll cover what went wrong and what I did to fix them.

Snow Shoes Grow
With a plan to hit the mountain for a taste of snow over the Christmas holiday, I pulled out the snow tires I got for Flash last Thanksgiving (Nov 2017). I got them new off of craigslist for $400 already mounted on universal steel rims. I say universal because they fit the 2 standard VW 5-bolt patterns. In looking back on my old posts, I don't think I ever posted on this purchase. Anyway, they are i-Pike tires and hold firm in ice and snow like no tires I have ever owned. Since we were down to one car, I had to swap the tires after Boo got home from work, so, on the night of December 23rd I set to swapping out tires in some nasty weather. I found, however, that the brakes were in pretty shabby shape and needed to be done as soon as possible. I found some locally-sourced pads (Adaptive One brand) and on Christmas Eve I did a brake job before we left for the mountain.

Lights? Who Needs Lights?
The pads fit well, and have performed extremely well, considering I'd never heard of them, and I didn't go with one of the usual VW-friendly brands. If Discount Import was still on the West Side, I would have gotten pads there. Anyway, while I was digging around the driver front wheel, I noticed a light bulb dangling by a wire. I concluded that it had fallen out of it's holder on the front bumper on one of the many times the bumper got ripped off by a parking curb. Yes, this happens often, and apparently happens to anyone owning a Jetta MK4. The TDI engine is an engineering marvel; the body it was delivered in, however, is not. Anyway, I put the bulb into the little hole, and finished the brake job. When I went to take a test drive, though, the brakes were great... but I lost my dash lights. That is, I lost all of the lights on the dash except the idiot light telling me I needed to replace my brake pads. Suddenly that light was on now. Love you, Flash.

Mountain Fun
We drove to the mountain anyway, having no idea how fast we were going. While we were still near the city, this was not much of an issue. We just stayed with the speed of traffic. Once we got onto US26 east of Sandy, though, we were alone. So, I checked speed periodically with a flashlight. We arrived in Welches after the local grocery closed for the holiday, so we just hit the cabin for the night. Christmas morning, we (me, Boo and T) drove up to Timberline Lodge, and we rode snow until sunset. We drove down, again without the benefit of dash lights, but the traffic was so heavy it didn't matter. By the time we hit the Damascus turn-off, the traffic was so crazy it really didn't matter how fast we were going; someone else was going to come racing up from behind anyway.

Dash Light Fix
As you may have surmised, the cause of the dashlight failure was that otherwise uninteresting bulb I found hanging. A small section of bare wire had become exposed, probably when it was force-ably removed from the bumper. When any one of your running lights creates a short, it blows a fuse... which also routes 12V to the lights on your dashboard. Either side can cause this. I find it so hard to understand how a fuse box with so many fuses doesn't isolate the dashboard from the running lights. Engineering marvel. So, I taped up the bare wire, replaced the fuse and the dashboard lights returned.

Brake Warning Light Fix
When I did the brakes, I plugged in the sensor in the new pads. Apparently, the sensor doesn't work. Maybe there is not enough metal material in the pad to conduct electricity or maybe these AdaptiveOne pads are NOT that great. Regardless, I check the condition of my car often enough that an idiot light should not be necessary. So, I cut the wire from the "sensor" in the brake pad and removed it from the car. I stripped and spliced the two wires together and plugged it back in. Warning light off: but also will never light up. So, I will be sure to check my brakes when I switch over to regular tires in March, and may just add that check to my oil-change routine.

Wipers Not Wiping
No sooner were we back to having an operational car than the wipers stopped working. Seriously, I fixed the lights on a Sunday night and on Monday morning the wipers stopped working. If you turned them on, the wiper would move a few inches and then stop. You could hear the motor, and since they tried to move, but failed, I thought the problem was in the linkage between the wiper arms and the motor. While waiting for linkage to arrive, I applied Rain-X water repellent. That stuff is magic. The following morning, we were greeted by ice on our windows. While letting the car warm up, I set to scraping. The windscreen was the only glass to which I had applied the Rain-X, and it was also the window which was freed of ice the easiest. Also, as we drove down the road, the little bits of left-behind ice quickly melted and beaded away.

I'll post on the wiper repair and the other fix (reverse lights) next time. Both of those jobs have more tale to tell than I can put in one post. Thanks, as always, for following along-

New Seat, What a Treat - Part 1

I had a few days off, so rather than spend them playing in the snow or taking a personal trip, I stayed home, and re-upholstered the driver seat of Oliver, the MG. Today's post covers the start of that journey. Sorry today's post is a few hours late.

Old Seat Out
Remember when I installed the old seats on top of the new carpet (See MGB - carpeting (part 2))? Even with the nuts jammed under the seat rails, the seats placed the driver kind of low in the car. Sure, it is a little British car, so you're supposed to sit low. But, there are limits. I figure my eyes should be about 2/3 of the way up the windscreen, and I was around halfway. It felt like I was sitting a hair over the floor, suspended by the vinyl seat cover and little else. I had planned to replace the seat covers, foams, etc last Spring when I had the small win-fall that netted me the new carpet. I just hadn't gotten to the work because I had other things going on, and I wanted to drive the car. So, with this small break, I had my chance. Starting with a basic 7/16" spanner, I removed the 4 bolts which held the driver seat to the floor and removed the driver seat.

I moved the seat upstairs to the shedroom. That room is clean, and all of the interior bits are stored there, so it made more sense than trying to do it in the packed garage or in one of the general living spaces. First, the headrest needs to come off. With the seat on the floor, I stood on the seat bottom and whip-sawed the headrest: pushing it all the way down and then yanking it back up. This violent push/shove blend actually worked, freeing the headrest in a handful of reps. I set the headrest aside, and moved to the Lower Cover.

Old Lower Cover Off
The lower cover is held on with 4 sets of 4 hog rings: one set along each of the sides. I was able to work them free with a small slotted screw driver, exposing the padding underneath. The padding was orange and tattered near the edges. When originally constructed, this foam would sit on top of a 3-sided metal hoop to which 6 rubber straps are attached. This webbing creates a little give to the seat, and provides the lift from underneath. On this seat, the webbing was in disarray. Most of the ends were disconnected and tattered. Fortunately, I had a replacement set for the refresh effort. The pad, cover and webbing were tossed towards the shedroom door and I shifted to the Upper Cover.

Old Upper Cover Off

The upper cover is held on with 4 square clips along the back and 4 hog rings below that, holding the front down. The hog rings flew off with a little pressure with a slotted screwdriver. I did my best to not damage the cover. The square clips needed more coaxing, and since I did not know about them, I had not ordered replacements, so I needed to be careful with the originals. Before the cover will slide off, the seat-angle arm needs to be removed. It is held on with a Phillps head bolt. Once the 2 sets of clips and the angle arm were removed, the cover slid right off the top.

Within the cover, I could see a few interesting things. First, the original foam was orange, and had tattered along the edges. The "hard back" was cardboard that appeared to not be original, nor standard-issue. It looked like a square of cardboard had been cut from a shoe box, or something. It had been taped, with duct tape, to the orange foam. Cool. The tape, cardboard and foam fell apart without much prompting. I think the cover was holding everything together. I tossed the mess atop the Lower Cover mess.

Separate
Now, I was down to the metal. I could see the rust spots, and recognized the need to address the frame. There are 2 plastic hinge covers that protect fingers and the covers from the seat hinge. These remove with a Phillips screwdriver. With the plastic covers set aside, the bolts that represent the hinge can be removed with 1/2 inch spanners. Before I could deal with the rust, though, I removed the seat runners from the bottom of the seat. Moving the seat forward and backward had become difficult, so I wanted to get all that nasty grease and grit out of the runners. I took the seat frame and the runners downstairs, and then focused on the head rest.

Headrest

The seam for the headrest cover is on the bottom, hidden by a small plastic strip, held in place by 2 Phillips screws. With the plastic strip removed, the staples which hold the cover on can be addressed. I used a small slotted screw driver to loosen them, and finished the job with a pair of needle-nose pliers. The cover slides off fairly easily at this point, taking the old foam with it. I had new covers and new foam, but I hadn't anticipated small wood slats along the bottom edge. It is to these slats that the staples and Phillips screws attach. Not all of the wood was bad, but the bottom-most pieces were. I took one good sample from each side and cut pieces that would fit from some scrap wood I had lying around. In a pinch, you could cut up a paint stir-stick: it is the right thickness. The key is finding something thin enough to fit in the channel along the underside of he headrest.

The headrest steel was in a similar state to the rest of the seat frame: some surface rust spots, but no rust-through. I brought it downstairs as well, and moved all 3 pieces to the front porch.

Rust Treatment
Some aspects of working on cars does not change no matter what you are working on: dealing with rust. I attacked the rusty areas with 60-grit sandpaper and then sanded the whole thing with 100-grit. This left a decent edge for paint to bite into. I painted all surfaces with Permatex Rust Treatment, and let them dry overnight. The following morning, I shot them with some black Rustoleum I had in the garage, and hung everything to cure on the front porch with bailing wire.

All of the random other bits got the cleaning treatment. The seat runners, for example, were soaked in de-greaser and cleaned up. All of the little plastic bits and handles were deep cleaned as well. Even the fasteners which I intended to reuse were cleaned up and scrubbed.

I was feeling pretty good at this point. The tear down was easy, the rust invasion was not too bad. I figured the easy part was over, though. Turned out, I was right, but I'll get into that next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-