Like many if not most bike racers I have an appreciation and passion for cars. It started young I suppose. It shouldn't be a surprise since my Dad basically did the same thing before moving to Canada. Its safe to say that I'm clinically a Volkswagen dork. I do like them a lot, especially the older ones. For whatever reason the older ones, say pre Mexico and China make sense to me, meaning it doesn't take me long to figure out whats going on or how something works, including the backwards wiring! HAHA. In my day to day life two things are a certainty: Ill go to work, and I'll train. The order depends on the day. Many people ask me why I don't consider riding and racing a hobby, well, quite easily its more like my life. Cars are my hobby. In my spare time you will more than likley find me tinkering away with my German friend, The Jetta.
Just after last years nationals I had the opportunity to buy a second MkII Jetta. The lady bought it from bought it from her father who was the origional owner. When I went to look at it I realized why she was asking so little. It only ran on two cylinders, the brakes were junk, no heat or fan control and the paint was a completly differant story. Spray a layer of whitish glaze on a red brick wall. Thats what it looked like! So sun cooked it was unreal. When we started it and opened the hood I got a feeling that I may be getting myself a parts car and swapping some of the good stuff over to my even older Jetta that was just about to touch 400,000km. I made a few notes, like what engine codes, some of the parts I had never seen, the tranny codes etc and headed home after agreeing to buy it regardless.
The next afternoon I spent digging around the web, and realized that this was a very custom from factory car. To start with it was a German made car. It has the body work and most the interior from a Wolfsburg edition. But has the bumpers, gearbox and one of the engines equipped in the GTI. The wheels themselves also never came stock on any Jetta, they're off a Scirocco. The suspension is also from a GTI witch has limitied ride height ajustment and was also factory lowered. One of the local dealers helped me out and confirmed that it was a rare car and that it was built like that. Two days later I limped the car home down Highway 99 and got to work on it. What baffeled me is that the lady, who apologized for 2 tiny dings in the paint a hundred times and for the fact it hardly ran continued to take it to a mechanic who knew nothing. I'm not a certified mechanic but it took me less than 4 hours total under the hood and I had all four cylinders running quite healthy. The rest of the week was spent destroying my hands while cut polishing the entire car. Eventually the origional luster of the red prevailed and a nice coat of wax made her look new again. I discovered that leather boot dye will restore the dark black look to old grey bumpers and trim witch further impressed me.
After some more quick web research and just some simple common sence I quickly made use of a hack saw a knife and some glue and modified the air intake to allow the air to flow thru it much easier and only draw cold air from outside. Not dull hot air from under the hood. The ending result was a throttle sound similar to that of an angry cow. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Followed by the rumble and pops thru the exhaust when you let off the gas. Some of the equipment on the engine is hard to explain. Partly because its complicated as hell, and in most cases a bit under engineered. But the end result in taking the time to clean everything, electronicly test everything and then put it all back together, in cluding the injectors is one of the smoothest running engines in any VW Ive sat next too.
The next step was to start improving the lighting situation. The tail lights were replaced with smoked crystal versions that simply look better but also draw far less electricity, The side markers and indicators were also swapped out for smoked crystal ones too. For the same reason. I picked up some OE fit fogs for the GTI bumper swapping the lame bulbs out for blinders. The headlights I lucked out on finding at a junkers. They're the German "e code" version Hella made for VWs. The lenses are cut a bit differant and better shine the light where it needs to go. More light for me to see with, less light to blind you with, Unless you want to tap your brights at me. The bulbs were also switched out for a much better set witch further improved everything.
Interior wise I didnt do much to change it. I changed the seat position so they hold you a bit better, having Riccaros already in the car was a nice touch. I swapped in a short shift kit and also replaced the clutch cable for the manual adjusting one that just simply works better than a self adjuster. Other than that a proper CD player was about the only piece of work needed.
The roof rack was somthing I picked up realizing it was made for VW back in the day. It had been on the previous Jetta I owned. The wind deflector was made for me by Rob at Roberts Sailboards. Its a one of a kind and defiantly the coolest one on the road hands down.
The latest thing to occupy my time was to install a new Bosch ignition system. The one in the car was a bit of a piece together of stuff I had from the last car and new cheaper stuff from Canuck tire. The new stuff put some serious spark into her, litterally. When I was done that I decided that it was time to bring some life back to the wheels witch were ruined from years of alloy neglect and brake fluid leak on the back ones and give them a good dose of metallic black paint. The end result looked far better than I thought it would, and also let the look of the neon yellow brakes really show up.
What I enjoy is that for almost nothing but hard work I have a really fun Go-Kart thats also my daily driver. I can fit all my crap in it, get back and forth to the track, and look good doing it. Next on the list of things to do is to re adjust the base fuel and idle settings that some one in the cars history has messed with, and didnt realize they shouldnt have. It will be a complicated procedure of watching a tach, a multimeter and an oscilloscope but when its done it should really let the GTI half the engine really come to life.
The lesson of all this? If you dont understand German cars, dont try to fix them!
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