Back to the grind

Brake grind that is...

Rear rotor made it over 188K miles. That's the good news.
Rear rotor rusted on after 8 yrs and 188K miles. That's the bad news.

30 minutes, 3 hammers, an 1 1/2" cheater pipe and half a can of penetrating fluid later (not to mention broken skin on back of hand and a welt halfway up a forearm)...

It came off in the nick tim...e. Right before
a) the cussin' was about to start,
b) the 4 lb Hammer of Thor was to get applied and
c) before lighting it up with MAPP gas.

Get Jacked!

This, among other things, has been taking up quite of bit of personal bandwidth...

Have had this vehicle down (or up as it were on jacks) for over a week now. Takes up a lot of time juggling vehicles, various family member work schedules and such. Finally got a rental car for a few days but even that takes time to go rent and to run back to re-negotiate for a day extension. That's besides time spent working on it, running for parts, modifying tools to simulate atrociously expensive factory special tools, returning defective parts, order an new bearing hub ring from Mitsu dealer, yadda, yadda.

Sounds like I'm grumping? Nah, actually it's been sort of invigorating to be recovered enough from back surgery to do this. I did the stooping and grunting necessary to accomplish some light mechanical work without getting "jacked up" myself. (yea! progress back toward having a life :-) )

It's all set but for one missing part. I had to return and reorder a brake caliper that arrived with bunged up threads on the brake line port. It had been dropped and the casting was actually deformed. No way I could chase that thread safely without contaminating the unit.

Both hubs are all freshened up with new rotors, new bearings properly torqued and packed, new seals and locking hub permatex'd up watertight. The axle end play is properly shimmed to OEM spec's -- had to order a shim pack from the dealer. The shims were too narrow for me to make good homebrew shims.

Took advantage of the extra parts wait time to put new KYB shocks on the front. The factory originals were completely inop. Looking forward to seeing how that affects the handling. This rig is a bit tipsy_rocky_rolly.
Just waiting for the Brown Truck of Happiness to arrive with that caliper...

lite blogging

been busier than the proverbial one armed paper hanger. Mostly car troubles. Counting daughter #1's car at one point we were 3 for 4 vehicles this week (3 down and out).

Daughter's car is going to require dropping the fuel tank.

Got the TDI Beetle going again (thankfully a simple repair to low pressure fuel injector return) and troubleshot flashing glow plug light. Who'd a thunk that the glow plug circuit would be tied in with the brake pedal switch? Gotta get that part on order.

4WD Montero front brakes and bearings are going, going, gone. Got passenger side hub parts on order earlier this week and finished putting it together late today -- except for a factory shim I need to order to set/tighten up the axle endplay.

In the middle of this a missionary friend up from Mexico pulled in with his van front bearings screaming. That was easy, fun even. Working together we had him back on the road with new bearing on both front wheels in a couple or 3 hours.


On top of that had to run up to OC for all day meeting Tuesday. Then today made a morning run up and back to Cucamonga to get the Son&Heir. He had his own adventures with vehicle breakdowns on the late night roadtrip down from the Bay Area. Friends radiator ran drive at top of the Grapevine. Just made it (coasted. literally) into a station in Gorman in time for the stations lights to switch off for the night.

Saturday details and interruptions

Started off the day digging (footings for retaining wall to be poured). That used up the morning (and me). Figured I should make use of a leftover half sack of concrete mix before it got damp and was wasted.

The wall footings will need blocks to keep the steel off the bottom of the trench. Let's see what we can do with some scrap wood.

Wire inserted.


Voila. Dobies. Well, sorta. Not an unqualified success. The gravel in the mix made it tough score deeply. Got a few crumbling.

There's some left over mortar mix sitting too. We'll see if that works out better.

Off to run errands and hit up my toy store (Home Depot) for some odd bits and pieces. Heading home to get the Montero on jacks and start removing front hubs and rotors for to do a complete brake rebuild when a call comes from the ladies at the mall. "The Beetle is smoking or steaming or something. Whatta we do Dad?"

Got to the mall. Found it dripping diesel. Ruh-roh, is it that new injector pump installed earlier this year (at great expense)? Fired it up. See fuel washing the side of the engine. Trace it up to above the pump and see a cracked glow plug spewing.
Whew. Thank you Lord and thank you Triple A.

Saturday "batching" it

Just the Son&Heir and I home this weekend. Getting some honey-do's cleaned up...

Been to the autoparts store and two different hardware stores before lunch.

The sink disposal quit working earlier this week. Causes a bit of a crunch at the sink when it's not working -- worse than not having one at all since that side doesn't drain well w/out the unit running. It still turned freely by hand. Something told me to check on the wall switch before pulling it out.

Sho' nuff! The switch was shot. MUCH cheaper fix -- if a bit messy working in that old wall box.

Next up. The '97 Montero brake lights which died recently. Both sides. I figured the Son&Heir drives it so maybe we just hadn't noticed one light being out for a while before losing the light on the other side as well. Nope. No such luck.

Pulled bulb(s) and R&R'd on driver side. No joy. Got up under the dash and fiddled with the brake light switch. Yup. Intermittent switch operation.
$35 dollar part. /sigh

That's the bad news. The good news is a year ago my back wouldn't have allowed me to get under the dash so I would had to pay a mechanic to find/fix it.
This time we turned it into a training evolution for the Son&Heir.

Yep, It does hurt

speaking of autoparts and pain$...

my '03 VW TDi is about to eat it's turbo and it's going to hurt$. that's the bad news.

The good news is the stock turbo and injectors are going to be history. /heh

I found a shop who fixed the injector pump leak much cheaper w/out replacing the whole unit as my regular shop recommended. That's the same shop who installed a reman'd engine for me last summer.

It turns out they also put the timing belt assy together all wrong so the injection system can't be timed properly. That would explain the fuel smoke I've been unable to troubleshoot. Sure the old shop will fix it free. As if they could figure it out. Sorry. I'll pay to get it done by someone with a clue this time.


This new shop does nothing but VW TDI's. He had a barely used oversize turbo and (new) larger injectors available. The turbo was left over from when he built a test bed for Garrett Airesearch. They used it for r&d on a later model/larger VW engine. Only 1000 miles on the turbo. He's giving me full warranty and a tune on the larger turbo and injectors for price of stock turbo R&R. Gale Banks eat yer heart out!

Going to be interesting to see what the net effect on mpg is. It should increase measureably. Of course so should the torque. /heh

The trick's going to be keeping the right foot out of the improved torque to see what the mpg does.

Fools rush in...