A Hot Dusty Wind from 1981

I bought 1.5 gallons of carosel orange for 100.00 bucks and paid a tad much, it stank, when I opened it. I belive you can get away with claiming less

It was cold and rainy. The car is under a tarp roof with a tarp and plywood floor, but still cold and wet. We kept warm and dry watching a movie, while I played with paint schemes. I used a 1/25 scale model to make paper models. Simple cheap 3D Sciroccos to ruin with bad ideas.

After lunch I tried a few basic concepts out on the computer.

I came up with a concept that we like, but it's not anything like these. It's actually based on the design of one of my wife's shoes. You'll probably see it eventually.

Edit: Just to be clear, I posted these pics to show my process as I played with ideas. I don't like any of these styles and wince every time I scroll though and see them.

Nice Idea on the models, I vote for the bottom 2 pics. 

Some wires and some hoses.

Today I checked over the vacuum hoses, comparing them to a sticker under the hood, and then to a diagram in the Bentley manual. They are a mess. None of them are correct and it looks like there have been several generations of hack repairs done. I didn't do a lot of repair, today was more of an investigation (crime scene): Odd plumbing hardware, fish tank air hose, open connections, and dry-cracked rubber. It all has to come off and be replaced. Budget? I don't think budget is significant for this. Good silicone is probably about $25 and I don't plan to even have this engine in the car for the Challenge. Still, it needs to be fixed and running smooth before I pull it out and put it in a dark corner of the garage. ...right?

Video: https://youtu.be/AxYWvHeZb5U

(Can't figure out the embeded video. Just read thru this: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/help-me-embed-youtube-video/137230/page2/)

Wires were not as bad as I thought. The burned and fused wiring was for the rear wiper relay and tail lights. Once I peeled it away from the harness the rest didn't look too bad. I connected a battery to the car, then put the headlight fuses in. Headlights worked, no sparks or bad smells and all the dashboard came to life. Pushing my luck, I turned the key. The engine turned over weakly. I wanted to start the car, but here's the thing... There was no gas cap when I picked up the car and the filler tube is rusty. If there's liquid in the tank, it probably isn't Shell's finest. Should I wait and flush out the fuel system? Check over the fuel pump and replace the filter? Probably should have.... I sprayed a bunch of starter fluid in the intake and cranked her up (Fire extinguisher just inside the garage door). It actually started right up and ran smooth 'till the fluid burned out. I did it one more time to demonstrate for Vi. I love the way it smelled afterward. It smelled like ...Victory.    Before I do any more of that, I'm going to work on the fuel system.

Awesome!

Love me some Scirocco!

I haven't done any work on the car over the last week. My 7 year old grandson was in town and hanging out with me during the day. I learned a lot about Mine Craft and did some maintenance on my daughter's Boxster.

Scirocco activity has been:

• Seeing a great deal on a MK2 16 valve 2.0L and 1.8L Jetta two-fer on Facebook, but it's about a 4 hour drive each way. I just can't do it right now and it would be two trips with the trailer.
• An '02 Cabrio (Last of the ABA engines), $250 for the whole car. No reply to my messages.
• I read a lot about the CIS. I am considering keeping it. A turbo CIS looks much simpler than I thought it would be, using the Warm Up Regulator to increase fuel flow under boost. I think that I almost understand it now.
• After my grandson played in the car, we found a broken off piece of shifter linkage underneath. A metal rod with plastic sockets broken off each end. The rest of the linkage has probably exceeded it's design-life as well. For under $30 I ordered an entire linkage rebuild kit.

Am I doing this wrong?

Today for a moment, looking at two non-titled Jettas in my driveway, beside the Del Sol that I want to restore, with my back to the garage which has a Porsche Boxster partially swapped to a V8, and my Scirocco outside the back of the garage,.. I wondered does any of this make sense? I got my tools out, put on headphones with a good Pandora mix, switched from coffee to beer, and enjoyed a beautiful fall afternoon outside while I started taking a Jetta apart. Does it make sense? Yes. The stress of a busy week is gone and my world is at peace.

I picked up the second Jetta this morning from Tulsa as an engine donor. The seller, Andrew, had bought it for an off-road race, but ended up not using it. The timing belt had slipped and he had picked up low mileage replacement engine. Both engines are ABA, so now I have plenty of parts gathered to do the engine swap and upgrade the Scirocco.

Budget comes to mind from time to time. So far:

• $750 for the Scirocco. $26 for paint, $30 for linkage, maybe another $10 in misc stuff.
• '99 Jetta was $250 “without wheels”, so I think if I don't put the wheels anywhere near the Scirocco, I count the car as $250 rather than the $300 total (+ $50 for w/wheels) I paid to make it portable. Sell a couple parts on CL, FB, or eBay and scrap the chassis, it should probably zero out on the budget. Yes? At this point, I'm not even sure if I need any parts from it.
• '97 Jetta was listed on Facebook for $850 with the extra engine. I offered a max of $650, and Andrew eventually agreed. I asked him to break it down as engine and car on a receipt. He wrote it up as $500 for the car and $250 for the engine. I'm pretty sure that I gave him six $100 bills and a few $20s, but now I wonder If I accidentally slipped an extra hundred in there (pretty sure I only had six of them). It's not a bad car and if there was a title, I'd probably consider a way to fix it.

It crossed my mind that I could buy a third Jetta with a title and make it right with parts from the other two. -That's kind of how I ended up buying ten Boxsters over the last few years. No, Stop right there. I don't need a gaggle of Jettas in the driveway. Focus. Purpose. The '97 is an engine donor. It is going to be promptly ripped apart, sorted for usable parts, then hauled away for scrap as soon as possible. The '99 is driveable and makes a great mobile storage container for things going into the Scirocco. I think that I could even explain it like that to my neighbors and they will think I'm sensible. Yes?

I think tomorrow, I'll introduce the recip saw. A few strategic cuts and I may not have to take the car off the trailer at all. Sorry if you see this Andrew. Trust me, she's going to a better place.

Pulling the parts car engine...

Basic prep is done. I just needed to disconnect the wiring harness, then drop the sub-frame.

Then I realized that the engine harness was not a simple disconnect like on the late '90s, early 2000s Vw/Audi cars I had worked on in the past. This was more of a tangled mess that required tracing a few more wires to various locations. At least it doesn't have CAN.

Finally the harness was free. Time to drop the sub-frame. I like to take it all out together on these cars: engine with transmission, axles, steering, brakes, and most of the front suspension. I doubt that the Mk3 sub-frame will directly mount to the Mk1 Scirocco, but it's nice to have it all available. Six major bolts and a couple smaller ones and the whole frame drops easily.

To lift the assembly off of the trailer, I repositioned and backed it up to my hoist. This should be easy: lift it up, drive the trailer forward to clear, then lower the assembly onto a mover's dolly. Working alone, I slowly moved the trailer ahead, I heard the hoist start to roll.

I stopped, my rear view blocked by the car on the trailer. A slow scraping sound followed by a series of crashes. Not quite as smooth as I had planned, but no damage done.

The mess is all cleaned up now and the sub-frame assembly is set aside and covered. Next, I'll strip the rear suspension, brakes, and some of the fuel system from the car and probably haul it away on Tuesday.

ive had similar experiences. you're among friends here. 

In reply to AAZCD :

I haven't shown what I did to the rear of the RX7 Friday trying to unload it off the trailer by myself. I only misjudged by a foot. Carry on.  No blood no foul.

Dusterbd13 said:

ive had similar experiences. you're among friends here. 

This is the truth.  I’m sure many of us can share similar stories!

Today there is one less MK3 Jetta in the world. Mourn, or celebrate ...I leave it to you.

In other news, I drove half way to Oklahoma City yesterday evening to meet a forum member, who was in the area on a job. I really enjoyed the visit. GRM forum people are awesome in general, but it was really great to meet in person and to show my 'Flood Car' to someone who could appreciate the journey.

AAZCD said:

In other news, I drove half way to Oklahoma City yesterday evening to meet a forum member, who was in the area on a job. I really enjoyed the visit. GRM forum people are awesome in general, but it was really great to meet in person and to show my 'Flood Car' to someone who could appreciate the journey.

It was a pleasure to be in the presence of legends! I thoroughly enjoyed meeting up as well. This truly is a special community.

Since you mentioned utilizing the A3 subframe I wanted to chime in and mention that the motor mounts from the 1.7l that is in the Scirocco now will bolt up to the ABA motor, so there's no need for the subframe at all. Not sure if you've read this already but this thread is the bible (of sorts) for the A1 ABA swap: https://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4773933-MK1-ABA-swap-A1-ABA-swap-Rabbit-ABA-swap-Rabbit-2-0-swap-2-0-into-A1-2-0-into-MK1-info-thread

In reply to orthoxstice :

Thanks, I had briefly looked over that thread on VWVortex, but hadn't looked in depth yet for the details. That helps.

This is doing NOTHING to make me stop wanting a MK4 Jetta/Golf/B5 Audi... but I’m still too scared as it needs to be a DD.

Love the thread so far!

Just a short update to keep in touch...

The car has sat untouched for a while. Not for lack of interest, but it's been cold outside and life has been busy.

I did a Black Friday Sale purchase of a camshaft at Techtonics Tuning. I got the "266° [AKA 270°] - Street" camshaft. For the version of ABA engine that I have, it is recommended that I use upgraded valve springs, but on the $2k budget, I don't think that's happening. There are Lots of posts on various forums of people using this cam on my engine with no issues and I only found one post of a possible related issue. I have an extra head, I'm not worried about the risk. (Famous last words?)

There's a row of engines and transmissions along one side of my 1.5 car garage. The plan is to use the existing Scirocco transmission (and hopefully clutch), along with the ABA on the left with harness and misc parts off the ABA pile on the right. My parts Jetta is getting pretty full of stuff that may or may not be useful and has donated a few parts to the VW New Beetle that I sold - ignition coil, oil cap and breather, door latch, and some other misc. things.

Sometimes I'm a little torn over whether I want to keep this project on budget for the 2019 Challenge, or restore it back to a nice street car. I don't need another street car, but having a nice little hatch to run around in could be handy. For now, there is no need for a decision. Over the next few months I'll just deal with driveability and basics. Maybe I'll strip it down for the Challenge, then build it back up with a nice interior afterward.

I was starting to wonder what happened to the build. What color are you planning to use as the base coat and for the stripes?

In reply to tedroach :

I'm still just working with different ideas for the paint. For a solid color I like Anthracite Gray Metallic and I actually have nearly a gallon left from an old Honda project. I also like white with black stripes, then I would do my black Porsche Boxster (track project) with the stripe in white. I just received a package today with model glue and paint to start working on the model - gave up looking in shops around town. I'll probably have a better idea in a couple weeks.

In reply to AAZCD :

I’m a big fan of asymmetric paint schemes.  And Sciroccos.  Go forth and multiply!

My old roommate back in the early 80s had a 1979 Scirroco; it was special edition or Wolfsburg edition or something, it had a black exterior and the interior had black Recaro seats with red plaid inserts.  I always liked that color combination on those cars.

neat project!

sleepyhead said:

AAZCD said:

  Primum non nocere

Thanks for elevating the discourse, and making me go look that up

I haven't done challenge yet... but I wonder if converting it to MegaSquirt to start is an idea... dunno if that'll ease the 1.8T swap in the future... but probably better than fooling around with old jetronic stuff?

Please don’t be so quick to condemn the old Jetronic stuff.  Yes it’s analog rather than didgital but other than the techno Babel it works. Plus it is so easy and cheap to make it work better.  

Jaguar used 3 Jetronic units to run their V12 and all you needed to do to convert the early Jetronic system to work acceptably with a turbo charger was a $85 FMU. ( less than 1/2 that used)  

What the FMU does is measure boost and trick the system into adding more fuel.  Those Jetronic units have the ability to be adjusted leaner or richer, so instead of paying for a days worth of dyno time to set your system you do a simple trail and error approach until you’ve got it right.  

I don’t know how much the stock fuel pump will put out but there’s likely another 35-50 horsepower if you use E85 on top of turboing the engine.  Not to mention E85 is cheaper, and will cool your intake charge without the complexity of going to an intercooler.  

In reply to frenchyd :

Any additional info on where/how to make this adjustment?  No research done yet, but I was wondering if there was a way to trick the system into delivering more fuel.

Something like this in addition to the upgrade to the Audi throttle body seems like it would produce fun results.  In my head anyway...