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The Car Thread


MadManMike

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­­­Happy new year gents!

The Golf started having a few little issues before Christmas, so I decided it was time to get rid of it. Craig took the whole lot as he wanted to pinch the LCR kit from it (Brembos, subframe assembly/rack/ARB, suspension etc) and will be splitting the rest of the car. With that gone, it meant space on the drive and a new month just around the corner was convenient for taxing the LCR too so it’s now in use as my daily and back on the road after a few weeks SORN.

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I’ve not yet had time to give the paintwork some real love, nor get the tints off but managed to spend a little while on it this morning.

First up was a nice quick one; replacing the missing pins for the parcel shelf.

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They simply sit in the holes in the boot trim like so, then push in the end and they expand in the gap to secure them. Bingo. (Bonus "sweet tint job" in full view too)

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With that quick fix out of the way, I got started on bypassing the n249 and removing the vac reservoir. I’d previously done this on the old Leon, but with the LCR being an AMK it’s even simpler as there’s no SAI/n112 to remove.

Engine covers off (main and the small one in front of the inlet manifold), next job is to remove this plate. Held in place by a pair of bolts (5mm allen head) so as straightforward as they come, just take care not to damage the dipstick tube which is also held in place by this plate.

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This is the mess to clear up:

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All pulled out:

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Looking much cleaner with it all out of the way. Vac hose fitted from DV to underside of inlet manifold:

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Currently got the boost gauge coming off a t-piece from the top of the DV:

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Have replaced the physical valve itself for now so that the ECU gets the correct reading from the solenoid. Will likely replace this with a resistor when I get hold of one so as to clean things up a touch, but no rush for that. Purely by chance the image filename for this turned out to be “249” :P

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Noticed while I was at it that the nipple on top of the DV wasn’t screwed in properly so was leaking a smidge. Tightened it up, but plan to refit an OE DV here anyway. I bought one on eBay when I got home drunk on NYE but the seller has since claimed that it doesn’t work and refunded my payment. Fair enough, but the item was listed as fully working and tested so it’s pretty annoying. Will have to try and pick one up elsewhere, unless anyone has one knocking about they don’t need?

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As some of you will no doubt be aware, the main engine over mounts on two sliders to the rear of the engine. One of these is integrated into the mount for the n249 setup I’d just removed. Wanting to support the cover (would like to keep things as OEM looking as possible for now – have got a standard airbox en route before anyone tries to call me out on that…!) but not wanting to remount the whole oversized assembly just for that, I set about pinching just the section I needed.

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As you can see, just the part required to hold the cover. Nothing substantial and mounts by just the nearest/cleanest point at the rear of the rocker cover. It only needs to hold the weight of a little bit of light plastic supported at 3 other points, so will be more than enough to do so.

Filed the edges to clean it up a little, primed then sprayed to make it a little less obvious. Fitted and spot on, not that it’s complicated enough to cock up of course!

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Covers back in place, job done.

I had wanted to get the tints off the windows and swap my head unit across but unfortunately not being able to find the keys for the Aura unit stopped that, as did not being able to find mother’s steam cleaner to stick some heat on the tints for removal. That’ll have to wait for a future update...

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Haha, ace. There's something awesome about driving hideously unsuitable vehicles in such a manner... Still want a 1.3 K11 Micra to turn into a track day car, lol.

Do it! After owning mine for a little while they really are great little cars. Although the steerings a tad vague in standard form (soft suspension, horrid tyres and 13" steelies) they're really predictable. I'd love to see what one with a tuned chassis/driveline would drive like.

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Failed MOT but only on an insecure battery. Not bad for 232,000 miles.

Quite a few stupid advisories though. The last one (car body in general poor condition) is a bit over-the-top when really there's just a few rusty areas. I'm insulted!

Just need to sort the new turbo and nail down a date for the engine swap. No longer waiting for the cam to arrive, it's going to take ages.

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Just ordered up a buddy club seat rail and a cobra sebring seat for the teg so i can get correct fitment for harness bar. Had to wait for more wore to come in to finish up welding with eveyrwhere being shut over xmas will be cracking on again this weekend. Tegs useless on wet roads anyways so certainly not in any rush.

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Anyone else reached that point where you've had enough with fixing cars?

I've never taken a car to a garage (apart from tracking and MOTs) and being the tight engineer that I am, I find the thought of paying someone else a lot of money to do something I could do myself quite hard! However, after some jobs I've done, I really wish it was someone else's problem...

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So my Yanoo Stiff Shift 3.0 kit arrived :D
Which is a good job really as last night I went bowling and whilst coming home this happened hahahah
Pic shows the difference in length
Then it's all in :D
Went for a drive after and it feels amazing! Lovely and stiff but the best thing is that I can adjust how stiff I want the gear changes. Before, I could wobble the gearstick when it was in gear in every direction but now it barely moves at all. Very very happy! Just waiting on my gearknob now to finish it all off :)
Edited by dann2707
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I also normally resent paying garages to do work on my car but again for service history stamps I tend to just get them to do it. Although they wanted £200 to change my front brakes so I bought the parts myself (at just under £100!) and did them today. Only took me an hour and a half including dragging all my tools out and having a cuppa.

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I resent paying for something I can do just as well, I would also not be able to afford any of my cars if a garage did do the jobs... The Porsche has had 2k of parts fitted now in the space of a year, the costs of fitting many of those parts would be astronomical, such as the clutch replacement would have easily been close to 1K with how many issues it revealed that had to be sorted as well as little things like painying parts before they are refitted would really add up. I also really enjoy (usually) solving problems and the achievement factor of fixing cars.

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My front end suspension creak has disappeared since the sills have been made whole again, the car also feels much more solid and less vague if that makes sense.

Is this typical behaviour of a car which previously had a sill comprising entirely of thin rust and underseal? :)

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