FINALLY: It runs, it drives, I'm home (long!!!)

[flaatr@yahoo.com (Euroroc II)]

Woo Hoo!

It's about F'ing time! I was getting tired of looking at your feet sticking 
out from under the car... and look a 3 day weekend coming up and I don't 
have to work on your car!

After Sunday I had to shampoo my hair 4 times to get the stench of gear oil 
out of it... Yes I put my head down in that puddle. Nauseating smell.

I'll give it a listen this weekend when I pick up my torque wrench & stuff 
if you don't sort out the noise problem.

-Raffi

I'm next in line for the 2.0 swap... I'm not letting all you fools out run me!



At 07:15 AM 4/15/2003 +0000, Tobias >< wrote:
>After 3 weeks and more than 80 hours wrenching I've finally got the beast 
>sitting back in the carport - and it drove there under its own power.
>
>First things first - I'll say it again like I always do, without the help 
>of listers stuff like this wouldn't be possible!! I divided the text into 
>sections if you wanna skip anything ---> Thanks / Things dealt with / 
>remaining issuses / impressions
>
>--------------
>
>Biggest thanks go out to Jeff (and his wife who was nice enough to put up 
>with my car in her driveway) for offering up his driveway for me to wrench 
>in, and his newly acquired MKI as temp transportation while I sorted out a 
>motor and parts. Without him I'd be still be sitting here in desperation. 
>Really can't put into words what that kind of help means!
>
>Jason, for picking up the new motor and for lending me his garage the next 
>weekend to pull the transmission out again (more on that further down), 
>putting up with me until I got the car running and rolling. Again I'd be 
>out serious cash if this had to have gone to a shop.
>
>Raffi, who came by numerous times ... went out of his way and stayed late 
>to get the key components into place. Don't hesitate to ask for help!
>
>Randy and Mark - thanks for lending a hand, without it the car would have 
>probably not made it out of Jeff's driveway on Monday. I could still use 
>that axle Randy ;-)
>
>--------------
>
>Obviously few swaps ever go 100% the first time, so we had plenty of 
>little issues that slowed us down:
>
>Forgeting parts, pinning the passenger side axle under the motor when we 
>dropped it in, motormount getting caught when solving the axle issue, 
>t-belt being off a few teeth, gear linkage installed wrong so only 2nd was 
>there. Getting stuck with a A3 8v clutch disk and sticking it in a 2h ... 
>sh*t grinds!! Having to take tranny back out again - 1 hour just to pull 
>the tranny itself (don't ask, it was hell enough holding it up for that 
>long while getting it unhooked), CV being at more than 20 degrees .. 
>bearings fall out and the wheel is binding, undoing evertything on the 
>pass side to get the axle down to rebuild the cv .. only to put it 
>backwards so it won't swivel and not find out until I have it all 
>installed, just to pull it all again and do it over. Argh! Anyone tell me 
>I can't do a swap in a weekend ---- I'll drive my newly running car to 
>your place and smack you upside the head. I don't wanna hear it ;-)
>
>--------------
>
>Apart from some adjustments there are two issues currently unresolved. One 
>was that the t-belt was off a couple teeth and could have possibly caused 
>interference, though the motor was only ideling. I still have to check the 
>compression to be sure I don't have more headaches.
>
>While driving home I came across a new noise. Description: Throttle 
>dependant. While getting on the gas softly everything is butter. Step on 
>the gas a little harder and theres a tweetering sound from up front. Going 
>down the freeway and giving more to 3/4 throttle the car sounded more like 
>an aircooled bug than a 2l 16v. It had a destinct "plattering" sound 
>common to the aircooled motors.
>
>Where could that be from? It's not as noticable in first gear, but all 
>throughout the remaining gears the sound is the same according to how you 
>step on the gas. Car idles smooth - now that it's been run it's showing a 
>little flutter in the idle once it's warm (isn't this common for most 
>people? dang, the one thing my 1.8 16v didn't do, the idle was rock solid)
>
>Still running a little warm, probably some air stuck somewhere. Needle 
>sits with the trailing edge just past the LED with the heater selector at 
>half warm. We ditched the AC condensor so airflow should be better to the 
>radiator - collant is a good mixture of about 60/40 with Water Wetter, low 
>t-stats in pump and radiator, and two holes in pump t-stat to aid the 
>burping of the system. Anything else I can do here?
>
>--------------
>
>Aside from some adjustments to really get the motor running at 100% I'm 
>very happy with what I got in there now. A motor with 1/3 the mileage 
>sounds and acts quite different, and much better to say the least. The 
>full TT system sounds good -16v street header cat back borla - I'm hoping 
>the resonators will break in more so I get a bit more tone (still a little 
>quiet for me), or the mid one is getting replaced by straight pipe. The 
>rebuilt tranny, now with the proper disk is smooth as silk. The .75 5th 
>gear is going to take some getting used to .... I see it more like a 4 
>speed with a gas saver gear at the end, since it's really no good for 
>anything but cruising (5th that is). Will have to wait to see what the 
>tranny and Quaife can really do when I get the core support stabalized.
>
>All in all things are looking up and I'm starting to like the car again. 
>Many thanks to all the rest of ya who answered questions and offered help 
>... it's really close to being done. Key is the car is home and now longer 
>has to be towed around.
>
>Time for me to take a really long shower ... my skin is the color of 
>grease, and believe me I already scrubbed numerous times. You might say I 
>have a grease tan on my arms. And I smell like tranny fluid (which I now 
>vote as the most putrid smell man ever invented!!) Some pics of the work, 
>the destruction, and the finished product will be up shortly.
>
>T
>
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