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Tonight I successfully replaced my alternator and serpentine belt tensioner.

Pep Boys had item number 13942, which was listed as a Hitachi 120amp remanufactured alternator. I kept asking the person at the parts counter for the Bosch remanufactured alternator, but he insisted that the one he gave me was correct. Lo and behold, the alternator in the box was a Bosch remanufactured alternator! That was actually a bonus, since the Hitachi alternator was cheaper.

I guess that makes sense. I don’t think the Hitachi alternators are common, and people probably just replace their Bosch alternator with the cheapest one Pep Boys has, and the reconditioning company then reconditions the alternators that were swapped as a core piece.

This is the first time I’ve ever replaced an alternator, but the remanufactured alternator looked immaculate. The plastic molding on the back was identical to my Bosch alternator. The pulley was the only item that was different. This reman is guaranteed for life, and they stated that the warranty covered everything, including the pulley.

Now I just need to install my new suspension, and I’ll be all done with the upgrades and maintenance items.

Tonight I attempted to replace my alternator pulley. When I removed the pulley from the alternator, I must have twisted the pulley and the shaft in the wrong directions, because I sheared off the shaft on the alternator!

Now, I have to run around tomorrow trying to get an alternator. Pep Boys has one for $179, with a $110 core charge. I’ll take my alternator with me to work tomorrow and see if they’ll take the alternator as a core. If so, it’ll only cost me $179.

The joys of screwing up…

Today I finished repairing the drivers side radiator fan. I had to use a dremel to remove some metal on the back of the fan motor to remove the rear casing. One of the brush holders seemed to be melted a little and the brush wasn’t moving at all. The opposite side brush worked fine. I had to spray everything down with an electrical contact cleaner, and scrape some plastic off the brush holder. Eventually, I got the brush to move through its range of motion, but it still does not move as freely as the other one.

I put everything back together, used JB Weld to put the case back together, and now everything works. Not sure how long this will last, but I am receiving a brand new fan on Monday. I’ll just have to monitor the fan over the next few weeks. I should have waited until I attempted to repair the fan before ordering a new one, but the new fan was only $90 at RockAuto (Febi/Bilstein fan). At the dealer, they cost $200+ and this one is a better fan.

On Monday, I get all the other goodies for my car: serpentine belt tensioner, alternator pulley, tools to remove the alternator pulley, and a Koni coilover suspension with all new mounts, bolts, and bumpstops.

Ever since my timing belt change, I’ll randomly get ticking/clicking sounds near my serpentine belt tensioner. I know it’s coming from the tensioner area, and not the timing belt, since it stops when I put less load on the electrical system. From researching online, it seems the alternator pulley is a common point of failure.

When I fixed my front crankshaft oil seal flange, I had the tensioner in the locked position for I think a week or so. This probably overstressed the spring mechanism, so that, combined with the alternator pulley, is causing the clicking (I hope). I can replace both on Monday evening and find out for sure. If it doesn’t fix the clicking, I’ll have to do some more research and tests on my car.

The Koni coilovers should be fun to install. Unfortunately, they’ll lower the car 1″, so I’ll have to figure out what to do about the skid plate I have installed. Sometimes when I pull in or out of my driveway, the bottom scrapes. I can’t even imagine how often I’ll scrape if I lost an inch. I’ll probably order the newer aluminum skidplate from DieselGeek and sell my current plate. The difference in clearance is about .6″, so that’ll offset the drop a little.

April 15, I got the results of an oil analysis I had performed on some used motor oil from my car.  I just took a sample prior to the oil change, mainly out of curiosity, but also to create a baseline so I could experiment with a different oil.

The high nitration results were the only measured quantity that was outside normal values.  I’m not exactly sure what a normal nitration level should be, but I searched the web for some answers.  I posted the question on two forums, asking what could cause the nitration level to be “high”. The answer I got: the cylinder head could be running too hot, my EGR valve could be stuck partially open, or something related to my turbo.

The EGR was actually stuck open, giving an error code that I cleared with VCDS (VAG-COM).  I cleaned the EGR and everything seemed fine.  This is what I thought caused the high nitration.

Today, I got around to testing my radiator fans, which should come on when the AC is running.  There are two fans, one larger fan on the driver’s side (left), and one on the passenger side (right), directly behind the radiator.  When I checked to see if both were running (they should both be on), only the passenger side fan was operating!  This may have caused the engine to run hotter than it should have, although the temperature reported in the cluster always showed 190F.  According to others, the temperature in the cluster isn’t always accurate.

I ordered a replacement fan made by Febi/Bilstein, part number 6X0959455F.  Hopefully I get it early next week, or tomorrow if I’m lucky and they ship from White Marsh again.  The removal does not look too bad, and I can probably get the old fan to work again with some cleaning.  The only reason I’m ordering a new one is the convenience of having a working fan.  The new fan was $90 after shipping.  Compare that with ~1 hour or more of messing around with a fan that may or may not work reliably again, and you can see that it all comes down to convenience.  If I can get the old fan working again, then I’ll have a spare for the future.

In the end, I think the oil analysis was useful.  Because of a single abnormal result, I focused on possible problems that could have caused it, and found two that I would not have discovered without the analysis.  I’ll probably do the oil analysis regularly now, just to see if I can follow this trend and determine if I fixed the problem.

Now I just need to replace my alternator pulley, serpentine belt tensioner, and replace my supsension, and my car will be good to go for the summer.

Today I read the rest of the research papers. Actually, near the end, I just started skimming them, reading the abstract, skimming the contents, and reading the conclusion. I’ll have to go over all the papers once more tomorrow at work.

The final exam, according to UMBC’s schedule, is at 3:30pm. That gives me plenty of time to do a couple things at work, flip through all the papers as a refresher, and head to school.

I’ve recently been obsessed with reading about wheels/tires/suspension for my car. I currently have some worn down Hankook tires on the factory 15″ rims, and am thinking about upgrading to 18″ rims, but I’m not sure if I should buy them new or used.

Why? Because. Larger rims need tires with a smaller profile (the height of the tire between the outer edge of the rim and the outer edge of the tire) to maintain the same circumference. The smaller that profile, the firmer the tire (usually), so it should result in a sportier ride. I’m also not sure if I should spend the money on upgrading my suspension instead, since I am starting to get some squeaks when I go over bumps. The squeaks are probably just the sway bar bushings, but everyone says the suspension is probably toast at 100k miles anyway.

Decisions decisions…

I need to get an A in Graphics, which means I need to do well on the final. Since I have no idea what my grade is, I need to do really really well.

Tonight, after reading 17 research papers in three topic areas, I decided to change my oil and adjust the camshaft timing a little.

I found this link on tdiclub.com:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=215202

It basically lists the steps to adjust the cam timing so that it’s back in spec, and hopefully fix the idling issue most people have. On my car, the engle idling RPMs pulse at seemingly random intervals. Since I did the timing belt change myself, and I had that whole ordeal with having to replace the crankshaft flange and seal, I thought maybe the timing was slightly off.

In VCDS, the Torsion value was 2.0. According to tdiclub.com, the valid values are between -2.5 and 2.5, with 0 being ideal. I followed the directions and eventually got the value to -.5, so I called it quits after that. The first attempt must have put it out of spec because the car wouldn’t stay idling, it would just quit. After I adjusted it to -.5, I had to clear the error code (camshaft sensor out of range, or something like that) and put everything back together.

I also changed the oil. It seems like a waste to extract out the 1000 mile old Mobil1 TDT 5w40 oil, but I just want to make sure no metal bits, or extra material from the sealant or flange remained in the oil. I replaced the oil filter and put in new oil, but left the Amsoil BP90 bypass filter. That filter I won’t replace until 50,000 miles.

I’ll do another oil analysis at 10,000 miles from today. Hopefully the wear rates are better than the VW spec oil.

The last few weeks have been an ordeal!

I installed my Dieselgeek Bypass filter kit, finally. I waited until I did my ~100k oil change (a little early because of the upcoming trip to TN) and switched to Mobil1 Turbo Diesel Truck 5w40 oil. Even though the oil is not approved by VW to use in my engine, people at tdiclub.com have been getting good oil analysis results. I even took an oil sample of the oil before I removed it, so I had a baseline to compare with the Mobil1.

My brother and I went to Tennesee so he could adopt a Boston Terrier from a rescue. I think the mileage was about 400 miles each way and I was getting close to the 100k mile mark on my odometer (timing belt change time) but we took my car anyway. It has more space, and gets better mileage than his car. On the way to TN, we averaged 46 mpg! The dog was super nice, and ended up being a well behaved dog (with the exception that he farts like a titan!).

I was a little worried about my timing belt, since I’ve read nightmare stories about people waiting too long to change the belt. When the timing belt breaks, you usually need to repair the head of the engine, and maybe some other odd bits. At the minimum, it’s an expensive process to fix the engine. At the maximum, you need a new engine! I think I calculated the miles and left a 60 mile buffer once we returned to my house.

After we got home, I parked the car and worked on it in the evenings and the weekends. During the week, I drove Andrea’s Mercedes and she drove her Aurora. Sometime after we got back from TN, I received the results of the oil analysis. The comments on the oil analysis indicated something about the nitration being high.

I researched what that could mean, and multiple sites said it could be the turbo, egr, or something else, I forget. The VCDS (VAG-COM) diagnostic software indicated an error with the EGR, so I removed it and cleaned it.

On the friday after the TN trip, I started the timing belt change.

I spread out the work between friday night and saturday. On saturday, I started in the morning, and didn’t finish working on the car until late late in the night! This was my first timing belt change, ever, and the most I’ve ever done to a car up until that point. I just followed the instructions and everything seemed to go reasonably well, until I attempted to tighten bolts without a pulley.

On Sunday, I put everything back together, and test drove the car. I actually turned the crank a couple revolutions to make sure the timing was correct, and nothing was colliding. Everything seemed perfect, and I didn’t notice anything wrong, so I put my metal skid plate, and packed everything up.

The next day, I drove my car to work, in the pouring rain. When I got to work, I got out of the car (in the rain), and noticed some rainbow spots appearing under the car. Since the rain was coming down at a pretty good rate, the rainbow spots were pretty noticeable and they kept appearing. I thought maybe I spilled some oil, or it was the oil I found on my transmission mount, so I went into my office and started working. After some time, I got more and more worried about those rainbow spots on the ground, so I went back out and noticed that they kept appearing! I even started the car and moved to a different parking spot (all while it was still raining), and the spots trailed my car. My car was definitely leaking oil, and at a good rate too! I checked the oil level (in the rain), made sure it was at the max, and drove home.

Over the next few weeks, I had the pleasure of fixing my botched re-installation of the harmonic dampener. I tightened the bolts without the pulley at one point, going past the crankshaft sprocket and cracking the oil seal flange behind it. The fix: remove the crankshaft bolt, crankshaft sprocket, the oil pan, replace the oil seal flange and the seal, and reinstall the oil pan, crankshaft sprocket, and new crankshaft bolt. Prior to that point, I had no idea how to do any of that, but I read on the interweb and figured it out!

$130 Crank Yank from MetalNerd.com:

Crankshaft bolt removed:

After removing the crankshaft sprocket, this is what I found:

I actually found a small bit of metal on the bottom of my oil pan. Hopefully there was no other damage, or no other metal bits; that piece may have been dropped there whenever I took everything apart.

Here are the rest of the photos. Removing oil pan, cleaning it, and then resealing it with silicone and reinstalling everything.

The red Dirko silicone sealant (high temp, Hylomar equivalent by Elhrig)

Seal installer and installed seal:

Oil pan:

All done:

I reinstalled the sprocket, reinstalled the harmonic dampener, and reinstalled the timing belt and serpentine belt. So far, I’ve driven about 1000 miles since I changed the timing belt, and that includes not driving my car for two weeks. Even with my expensive mistake ($110 for the flange, $10 for the seal, and $130 for the Crank Yank counterhold tool), I still paid less for the timing belt change than the dealer charges, plus I got to learn how to work on my car. I will have to admit though that there were several times when I thought I was well over my head, but rational thoughts prevailed!

Now I feel like I can fix anything.

This weekend, I did a lot of maintenance items for my car: new rear rotors and brake pads, new brake fluid, and a new CAT fuel filter.

I should have taken more pics of the brake pads and rotor replacement procedure, but I was getting frustrated by how long it took me to do these things. I first had to jack the jar up onto four jack stands and take all the wheels off. After looking at the brake pads on the front wheels (which I was planning on replacing as well), I was surprised to find that the rear brakes were worse than the front! Normally, the front brakes wear faster than the rear brakes, since when you brake, most of the weight of the car transfers to the front. This is also the reason some car companies skimp on the rear brakes and have front disc with rear drum brakes.

After some reading on tdiclub.com, the rear brake pads are small and soft, and VW designed them that way. The rear calipers have a piston that needs to be turned while pushing to reset them back to their initial position. I used a Metal Nerd brake capiler reset tool and it worked fine. Since this was the first time I replaced brakes, I made sure to take my time. After the calipers were reset, and the brake pads and rotors were installed, I changed the brake fluid.

Changing the brake fluid is pretty easy, but time consuming. At each wheel, there’s a bleeder nipple thingy that you connect a tube to, and direct to a drain bottle of some time. Using a pressure bleeder attached to the brake fluid reservoir, pressure is applied to the system. You just loosen the bleeder screw a little and fluid drains from the bleeder screw into the drain bottle. I also bled the fluid for the clutch, which uses the same fluid from the same reservoir. The only issue I had was making sure the brake fluid reservoir did not go below the min level. On my car, the reservoir was opaque! I had to keep using a flashlight and opening the cap to make sure the level did not go too low. When it got to the min level, I filled it back up. In the end, I used two 12oz bottles.

I’m not entirely sure I replaced all the fluid, but I’m going to replace it all again in a few months using a different colored brake fluid (Blue). Using a different color just makes it easier to tell when the fluid is new. The old fluid I drained was pretty dark, but after some time, the fluid gradually got lighter. I don’t know if I stopped too early or too late. Hopefully the color change will help that out.

Today I replaced my OEM fuel filter with a CAT fuel filter kit. The installation was similar to a regular fuel filter change, but required some minor modifications. I must have let air into the line going to the engine, because I couldn’t start it after a few minutes. When I first tried starting the car, it started fine and ran for a few minutes. Eventually, it started sputtering and died. After cycling the ignition a few times, I just kept attempting to start the car, letting the starter rest for 30 seconds between attempts. After the first five attempts, I started getting nervous, but it started right up after the sixth time.

Now all I have to do is install my DieselGeek bypass filter kit. While working on my brakes, I noticed that I had some oil on the backside of the engine and on the dogbone mount, directly above my metal skidplate. I guess that’ll be my next troubleshooting sessions. I don’t really notice exessive oil consumption, although I have had to add a quart or so between oil changes. I’ll first try replacing the oil filler cap gasket (the lower one), then the tandem pump gasket. Next weekend, I need to take the valve cover to inspect my camshaft and lifters anyway, so when I reinstall it, I’ll make sure to tighten the bolts to the correct torque values. Hopefully one of those fixes the issue. VW calls it “sweating”.

Today I finally got around to installing some things I’ve been neglecting. When I first purchased my car, I bought a couple items: OEM HID lights, various switches, a Neuspeed 28mm rear sway bar, and a DieselGeek short shifter. It took me a year before I installed the HID lights.

Tonight, I installed both the short shifter and Neuspeed sway bar. For the past year, I’ve had issues with shifting into first gear. I’ve just gotten used to shifting into second, then into first before releasing the clutch, since it went into first smoothly that way. Since I had spare time and I had a short shifter waiting to be installed, I decided to do both installations.

The short shifter install was pretty easy (I forgot to take a picture of the short shifter kit):

I just followed the instructions that came with the shifter. I had some issues with adjusting the shifter cable, but for the most part, I think I have it figured out. Shifting into first gear is much better!  It takes noticeably more effort to shift into the gears, but the distance needed to move the lever is much less, and it seems firmer.  I definitely liked what I’ve tried so far.

The Nuespeed sway bar installation didn’t go so smoothly.  I read several directions online detailing how to install the sway bar and thought it would be straightforward.  It actually would have been very easy, if the two brackets would have snapped into place like they should have!  I spent probably two hours trying to get those damn brackets in place.  For my first attempt, I picked up some C-clamps from K-Mart to try to force the bracket to lock into place.  That didn’t work.  I searched online for a little bit and found a post at vwvortex describing the use of a plumber’s pipe wrench and a jack, so I bought a big pipe wrench from K-Mart.

If I had known about the pipe wrench and jack trick prior to starting the installation, I could have finished in less than 30 minutes.  Instead, after three separate attempts throughout the night, it took me about 3.5 hours.  I used anti-seize on all the threads, and selected the middle hole for the sway bar (medium firmness).  Andrea and I drove around for a little bit after I finished putting tools away, but I couldn’t make tight turns because of the snow.

Here are the sway bar install pics:

Now the snow just needs to clear so I can test out my upgrades!

Today I stopped by the seller’s house to have him look over the vacuum system, since I found a plugged line while trying to diagnose the power loss. On my drive over, I noticed that the kickdown switch was under the pedal, and needed to be pressed past the point when you think you have the pedal floored. Once I did that, it downshifted fine and had plenty of power.

While at his house, he replaced two vacuum valves and one black vacuum thingy, and fixed some of the vacuum hose connections. It turned out that one of the vacuum lines had a BB in it (from a BB gun?), and some cables weren’t even connected to anything.  He mentioned something about Crazy Rays and getting parts there for later, so he can replace the remaining black vacuum thingy.  He definitely knows his stuff!  Crazy Ray’s looks like an awesome place to get parts for an old car.

He took the leaking injector out and took it apart.  One of the metal mating surfaces had a burr or gouge in it, so he filed it down and sanded it and put it back together.  After test driving some more, it ended up leaking again, so he found another spare injector and just used the top portion of the spare with the bottom casing of the leaking one.  After installing it a second time, the leak was fixed!  He showed the injector to me and explained that the nozzles looked like they were new so I can probably hold off on buying new injectors.

The turbo seems like it’s working now and the fuel leak has been fixed, so tomorrow Andrea will be driving it to work!