My '86 GTI build

[walterclark]

The new reverse lockout cable is in place, routed thru the firewall and to the shifters handbrake lever instead of near the exhaust. The spot in the cable that melted was a 6" long stretch within 2-3" of the heattape wrapped downpipe. So it took close proximity to do it, not just elevated temps...

I learned that these bicycle cables friction levels go way up with bends - even large loops - and the way I had to route it isnt as straight as before so there is a bit more resistance to the pull.

I also looked into the neutral return spring in the tranny. McMaster has nothing that will replace it directly. It has a large diameter using fairly small wire and space prevents going to a much larger wire diameter. The large OD-small wire combo is not common in standard springs.

[dsldubn]

any specs, or at least dimensions, on the spring you might need? I have a ton of springs from various projects at my shop...a couple of years ago we bought a truckload of odds and ends parts from a business that was closing, so I have a bunch of parts and pieces we prototype with. It's kind of a long shot, but I might have a spring that could work in my box 'o springs.

[walterclark]

This is what I measured regarding the spring that returns the shifter to the 3-4 gate from the R and 1-2 gates.

OD 1.75"
wire D .09"
free length 2.75
spring rate 4lb/in

Measured limits of application
max compressed length 1"
min coil ID needs to be larger than 1.56"
max coil OD is 1.8"
max wire D of .24"

The spring is pre-compressed to 1.625" so it exerts a static return pressure on the shift rod of about 5 pounds.

I just realized that I would need to also find a replacement for the return spring that moves the rod from the 5 gate to 3-4 because otherwise the rod would not center at the 3-4 gate.

[dsldubn]

yeah, tough spring to find.

I measure a few that might work, but nothing is quite right. Closest I have:
OD 1.73"
wire .135"
free length 2.3"
spring rate dont' know, but it's heavier than 4lb/in

this spring will have too small of an ID, so it's probably a no go. Sorry, thought we might have something.

I use springs in a few flashlight assemblies we build, and have had good luck with getting specialty stuff from these guys:
http://www.tricorindustries.com/

not sure if they'd have something on the shelf or not, but worth a look. I don't know if they have minimum quantities to buy or not...we always buy in batches of 200.

[walterclark]

Thanks for looking and for the pointer. Looks like their largest off-the-shelf spring is .85". Their minimum is 20 pieces.

[walterclark]

Well, the shifter worked real well this season - once I adapted to it a little...

The tranny I rebuilt last winter and put in for this past season needs to be torn down again. As the season progressed the 2nd gear syncro was less and less happy when warmed up - regular "grinding" when up or downshifting into 2nd, which I do a lot. According to my notes the 2nd gear syncro was a steel/moly coated unit that went in back in 2002 and worked flawlessly. Of course the 1-2 syncro/hub/gears came off the pinion shaft last year during the R:P swap and according to my notes "2 of the syncros" were replaced, but I dont have any notes saying what I used or where. The other change to this tranny was I switched to on of the newer Amsoil Severe Gear performance gear oils (first 75W-110 then 75W-140 GL-5) from their standard synthetic gear oil (75W-90 GL-2 thru GL-5). The service manual calls for 80W90 GL-4. The GL-5 "spec" can be hard on "yellow" metal but I found none of that when inspecting the brass syncros on 1,4 and 5th gear of the tranny I ran in 2009 and just rebuilt. But I am going back to a 75W90 GL-4 Amsoil.

As mentioned above I am just about finished rebuilding the tranny I ran in 2009. This was built by Dick Shine a number of years ago and sat unused and open in someones basement those years. Everything in the tranny looks great EXCEPT the syncros for 2nd and 3rd. Both are moly coated steel and both showed large patches of moly missing with the shiny steel underneath showing. This is probably why that tranny was so slow and hard to shift into 2nd and 3rd. The problem may relate back to the fact that the tranny sat open so long. The rest of the transmission looks new inside. Locating really good VW or LASO loly coated syncros seems either impossible or hideously expensive right now. However I was able to source an OEM ring that Porsche uses (moly coated) that actually uses the same part number as the VW unit and is priced about where the LASO used to be priced. This ring has a groove added to the surface and has the Audi rings / VW logo in the casting so they probably srtarted out life as VW OEM and got worked at Porsche. The tranny is sitting with the 5th gear and cover off waiting on some fresh main shaft bearing retainer plate screws. Seem the 4 screws in this one were stretched at some point and will not torque. $0.50 items at VW, but special order.

This winter's more expensive project is upgrading my seat. The Sparco Evo2 I use has shoulder harness openings that are too low for use with me wearing a Hans. That seems to be a common problem with taller drivers. The harness angle is also marginal. I went to HMS motorsports in Danvers last week and sat in a Cobra Sebring Pro GT. This is the larger of the 2 Sebring seats and it has side head restraints. It works for me. I ordered one in red. Hint: Cobra (Sube Sports is the importer) makes several seat upholstery colors but in the US only black is stocked in most models and listed on the US reseller web sites. Sube will special order a seat in any available color if you can wait until the next "container" of them is made and shipped stateside. You have to ask the reseller or Sube Sports.

To go along with the seat I will be going back to Chris Howard to have a harness bar added at the optimal height for me with the Hans and the new seat. While I can weld just fine I lack the material, joint jig and bender so Chris gets the work. Back when the cage was built a harness bar was installed between the main hoop uprights which was right for the co driver and acceptable for me but then the harness recommendation was to make them really long so they all went back to the brace between the rear shock/spring towers. Now that I have the Hans and a Schroth Hans harness, which is supposed to be used at a low angle and be really short, I dont have a great place to attach the harness, even with my seat lowered as much as I can stand.

I dont expect to do much with the engine this winter. Check things over, fresh timing belt and better crank timing belt pulley bolt (ARP bolt for a mitsu - the VW one I use now are known to stretch and allow the woodruff key to wear then shear) is about all.

[Rabbit Farmer]

As always, safety equip is #1.... A least you will have a slower off-season and not be stuck in the garage all the time like you were when rebuilding the Golf.

Steve

[walterclark]

I guess its time for an update...

Pretty much all is done. Both trannies are done. The new seat is in, the added harness bar, plus some additional things to make the cage legal for Mt Washington are done. I also refitted the engine skidplate in anticipation of Mt Washington - word is there are a couple paved yumps and landing on the oil pan is not a real good option in the GTI. I also sent the rally struts to be rebuilt at Bilstein - I will probably fit them for Mt Washington to create a little more suspension travel.




I have been running without any sort of backup engine since the 1.8 8v engine let go in 2009 and I put in this 2.0 16V. This winter I picked up a good looking (inside, outside it was the usual mess) 2.0 16V locally and after some static tests and inspection, cleaned the outside, plugged the holes and bagged it up. Nice to know I have something to fall back on if the one in the car lets go and cant be quickly repaired.

[walterclark]

I have been cleaning up odds and ends, and poking into things that probably would be fine if left alone, but with the car otherwise ready and some time on my hands its time to violate the "leave well enough alone" rule.

First up the in-car camera. My trusty Panasonic FX01 pocket camera does good enough video but suffers from 2 issues. First is the max SD card it will hold is 2GB which is only good for 18 minutes and the camera has to be dismounted to swap cards. Second the camera does not have anything on the lens side to indicate it is recording so I had to mount it in front of me (on the dash) so I could see the rear screen. So I shopped around for a replacement that us up to date, solves the above, is very easy to use, and doesnt cost a lot. I settled on the Contour HD 1080P. http://contour.com/camera/contour_hd

So far I like it. The test will be Ascutney.

Next is the shifter (again). I have been eyeballing the weighted rod that connects the linkage to the transmission 1-2, 3-4 direction. The USRT kit I started with on the linkage supplied this weighted (about a pound) rod. In the original implementation including a bunch of sloppy bushings I guess the weight helped momentum move the rod on the tranny input thru neutral and past the centering springs before they could mess things up in a 1-2 shift. However with the much greater precision I have thanks to all the rod end and spherical bearings I now use the added weight seems to actually make things like the 2-3 and 3-2 shifts more likely to miss. So I made up a rod end and threaded rod replacement. It feels good her at home. Again, Ascutney will be the test.

I have been reading abut how to use performance data logger data to improve driving and am interested but Mt Washing has sucked up most of my improvement budget for this year. Based a few magazine articles on analyzing data speed is a useful measure for analysis so I would like to data log my vehicle speed. I already have a rally computer speedometer cable sensor in place dating from the cars rally years. In addition I have consistently logged a number of engine performance parameters for years now using my Innovate LM-1/LMA-2 setup which lets me log up to 4 analog channels in addition to RPM and O2. One channel of data that I have been logging and found is not particularly interesting has been engine coolant temp. So I decided I would re-purpose that analog input on the LMA-2 and make up an electronic adapter that turned those speedo cable sensor pulses into vehicle speed. A little measuring and math to determine how many feet I travel per pulse and a few minutes on my bench making up a precision frequency to voltage converter and voila - I have a 0-5V analog signal that represents vehicle speed and is compatible with the LMA-2. By the way, I actually have 2 sensors. One on the speedo cable and one on the un-driven right rear wheel. In rally the preferred input to the rally computer was the undriven wheel because the drive wheels spent so much time spinning on gravel, the miles function of the computer quickly got off the stage notes. Anyone who has seen my car knows I 3-wheel around almost every paved corner and the rear wheel in the air is often stopped. And, except off the start line, I hardly spin the drive wheels. So in hillclimbing the speedo sensor is more accurate over a distance - particularly in and out of the turns. Looking forward to seeing how I really drive...

[Rabbit Farmer]

I can't follow the link to the camera from work.... what is the FPS at 1080?