Project Tatty - Mk4 Golf Resurrection

[Purple Tom 0]

After rebuilding the front struts Mark come round to help again so we fitted the driveshafts and front struts etc. Got the O/S/F discs and pads on without a problem and then when I came to fit the N/S/F disc it just wouldn’t go on – major problem!

 

Turns out that the ‘spare’ carrier which the previous owner had given me with the car that was supposed to have been taken off the car wasn’t off the car at all – he’d obviously got it from a breakers because it was for a Golf fitted with the smaller 256mm discs. With earlier cars (Corrado’s, mk3’s etc) this wouldn’t be a problem because you’d just change the brake caliper carrier, but the mk4 (apart from cars with 288/312mm brakes) uses a bearing carrier with a built in caliper carrier. Sounds complicated, but the difference is clear to see in this picture (256mm on the right, 280mm on the left):

 

 

This was also a disaster because obviously I’d have to press the hub/drive flange out of the 256mm carrier and fit it into the 280mm carrier. Unfortunately when you press the hub out of the bearing it invariably destroys the bearing because the ‘outer’ inner race remains on the hub/drive flange and you have to pull it off. The only way to pull it off is to grind a couple of notches in it so you can get hold of it with a special bearing race puller. So that meant I had to buy another front wheel bearing….very annoying as the one in the 256mm hub hadn’t done anything at all!

 

It was quite late in the evening at this point and I was pretty ****ed off. However, not to be put off I decided to just leave the O/S/F alone and concentrate on getting the car started as everything else was ready to go. Filled it with oil, coolant and gearbox oil (good old Redline MT90), connected a battery and turned the key…

 

It fired straight up! I was well pleased, at least it proved that the cambelt was ok etc. I let it run for about 30 seconds just to build up the oil pressure etc then turned it off as I had an airbag warning light on inside. This was because of the change of seats – Vagcom soon sorted that out – just cleared the faults and all was ok.

 

I then went to restart the car and it just wouldn’t go – crank, crank, crank, leading to the clocks screaming ‘STOP’ at me, presumably because of the oil pressure dropping off.

 

Much brain wracking ensued and then it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard the lift pump prime when I switched the ignition on. I’d changed the fuel filter so I expected a bit of rough running while the air bled out of the system but I didn’t expect it to just not start at all. Normally with PD engines you hear a little bit of a squealchy noise when you turn the ignition on, or a low ‘hum’ as the lift pump primes and it definitely wasn’t doing that. So when I first started the engine it obviously ran on what little diesel was left in the lines from the fuel filter to PD pump (on the engine). I diagnosed the lift pump as being faulty and I wondered if it had been like that for a while but maybe that the PD pump had just enough suction to maintain fuel flow from the tank – changing the fuel filter had allowed air into the system which the PD pump just couldn’t shift. I can’t imagine the lift pump breaking while the car was sat in my garage not doing anything.

 

After all of that drama in one evening I closed the garage door and went home a pretty annoyed person! Not only did I have the wrong carrier I also had a knackered lift pump…not good L

 

I woke up the next day and contacted VW to find out how much a new lift pump would be – they proudly informed me that they actually had one in stock and it’d cost just £225 + VAT! I proudly informed them that I’d let them know and thank you for the help and put the phone down wondering if any local breakers might have a diesel lift pump. I went to work and called in at the breaker that I’d used for all of the other bits and asked them. Now they deal almost exclusively in 1.8T cars which is great for bits of trim etc but not so good for diesel specific parts.

 

They let me into their storage facility and allowed me to root throught the pile of lift pumps that they had. 1.8T and TDi lift pumps look identical but its all down to the part numbers – 1.8T pumps run at a far higher pressure than the TDi pumps because the PD engine only needs fuel at a low pressure (something like 1.5 bar, I can’t remember off the top of my head) so a 1.8T one wouldn’t be any good. There were loads of pumps all with the same part number (ending in H) which I deduced would be 1.8T pumps, but hidden amongst them were two pumps with a different P/N. I cross referenced them on Vagcat and found that they were indeed TDi lift pumps, so I was happy. They let me take both pumps for £25 just in case one of them was faulty, on the promise that I took one of them back once I’d got it sorted – it’s nice to still have some trust and I’m an honest person so I wasn’t about to mess them around after they were so helpful.

 

Before going to the garage I had to go to Dad’s unit again to sort out that stupid carrier out – which I have to add was all my fault for just not looking at them and assuming they were both the same. My Dad has a lot of engineering tools and he likes any excuse to use them so we turned up a special holder for the bearing carrier which makes pressing the bearing into the carrier very easy – we didn’t do this the first time as it was only a one-off but we decided to do it properly second time round:

 

 

 

When we pressed the hub out of the 256mm bearing carrier we noticed that the ‘outer’ inner race (the one that stays on the hub) already had a little flange on it which made pulling it off very easy as we didn’t have to grind a slot onto it! It came off intact and amazingly the seal on the bearing wasn’t damaged at all because we’d been very gentle in removing the hub from the bearing. We pushed the race back into the body of the bearing after checking it was all clean and it went back together perfectly! So….the long and short of it was that we were able to reuse the bearing, which is the first time ever and it made me happy as I didn’t need to use the new bearing that I’d bought (which meant I could get my money back!). So, we pressed the new bearing in using our specially made carrier support – I’ve kept this tool as I might have another mk4/leon/a3 one day!

 

 

 

So after all of that, I took the correct carrier home with me and fitted it to the car, along with the new fuel pump. Unfortunately the fuel system took a lot of priming as obviously a lot of air had got in, so the missus helped start the Golf using her Polo (1.4 TDi):

 

 

 

---------- Post added at 10:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:19 AM ----------

 

Once all of that was done and the car was running it was simply a case of a quick test drive to make sure everything was ok, which it mostly was! It needed the tracking doing because I’d disturbed the geometry when sorting the front suspension etc, and I used Vagcom to turn off the annoying brake pad warning light which was still on despite fitting new pads (must have been because the plug was exposed for so long and had corroded).

 

I also activated the auto-locking function, which locks the doors when you go above 10mph. I don’t know why, I just like having it on. It unlocks when you turn the ignition off – I’m sure this is normal for people who have modern cars but this is just about the newest car I’ve ever owned!

 

So, here’s a couple of pictures of it as it stands now, I still need to sort the centre caps but that’s not important. It drives really nicely and everything works, which is great J

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brand new spare and toolkit J

 

 

 

The temperature gauge is a bit on the low side and only climbs up to 90 degrees when stationary for a while so I’m going to do the thermostat in the next week or so, but other than that everything is sorted, so, I think, project done!

 

Ironically, after all of that work I’ve ended up with a mk4 Golf that’s roughly the same as all the other mk4’s out there, but there’s an element of satisfaction at having rescued it and also it was nice to have something to occupy my time for a couple of weeks :D

 

Thanks for reading, and I'd like to say thanks to my Dad, Mark, Steve and Dave for their help along the way!

Edited November 19, 2011 by Purple Tom

[Jon_vr6 1]

Great job Tom you and your mates have done a blinder there:thumbleft:

[Supercharged 2]

Great read mate - you might find that tool maybe of use on the Corrado as the bearings are the diametre I think - just MK4 ones are thicker to take the torque of modern engines.

[Purple Tom 0]

Jon - thanks :)

 

Supercharged - in reference to your post somewhere in the middle - yes, he'd have scrapped it when MOT time came, either that or he'd have sorted a dodgy MOT and driven it for another year. In fairness to him though he's seen it now and is really happy with the outcome, saying that he just wouldn't have been bothered to do the work. The thing is though, if he'd just sorted stuff when it went wrong, and looked after it then it wouldn't have deteriorated like it did! And I've already got some tools for doing the Corrado/Mk2/mk3 etc bearings ;) But yes, I shall be keeping them!

[aide 0]

you're the man Tom, looks like a cracking wee car now.

[iamsilverfox 10]

it's really good when people put the effort into cars instead of having the 'just scrap it attitude'.

[fla 9]

superb thread as usual Tom, great details and great dedication.

[Purple Tom 0]

Just to add a bit of an update to this thread, I've been driving the car for a month now and its been getting better all the time!

 

Since its been on the road I've done a couple of jobs. Firstly I've changed the starter motor as the original one was very tired, making a horrible noise once it disengaged from the flywheel (a loud screech which is pretty common on mk4's). At the same time as that job I fitted a new thermostat as it never properly warmed up, always staying at around 60º on the gauge. Those two little things have made a big difference to the car, it now warms up properly which makes a big difference to the economy - I've been getting about 50mpg in just normal everyday driving including my country lane commute and quite a lot of playing around in the snow over the last week or so :)

 

I've fitted winter tyres to it too, it now goes pretty much everywhere just like the Corrado did! Fitted a new gear lever gaitor to it too, which has improved the inside, and I've given it a few good washes, including cleaning under the bonnet. All sorted now, along with the centre caps - I'm not 100% sure on them but I'll see if they grow on me! Pics:

 

 

 

I'm well chuffed with it - everything is working 100% as it should and its nice to know that my Corrado is safely tucked away in the garage :)