Removing the human slime!

That should give you an idea how dirty the Jetta was when I got it. The Mighty Car Mods guys call that "human slime" and I'm inclined to agree. I started cleaning the car with my shop vac which of course chose that time to fail, it'd run but on shutdown howled like a dry bearing and it have very little suction. I pulled it apart to find the impeller full of dust bunnies and the bushing (no bearings here) dry. I lubed the bushing with a little Marvel Mystery oil (everybody's favorite) and cleaned out all the bunnies. I also took a second to put the filter in place :)

An hour later the car was much cleaner but still pretty filthy and I was thinking about soaking the seats in cleaner and sucking it back out with the shop vac like a carpet cleaner. Then I suddenly remembered that we have a carpet cleaner. Angie's grandparents gave it to us. It took some time for me to figure out how it works, Angie is the only one who had used it and I couldn't find the book but I got it going and we went from this:

to this:

Actually I took another pass at it after the picture, this time I put Simple Green right on the seat and ran clean water in the carpet cleaner. I should have taken a picture of the grime that came out of the seats.

Anyway its MUCH better. I won't say it looks like a new car but it looks like a much less dirty old car.

With all that going on I also have the following parts on order:

Coolant distribution pipe - to fix a minor coolant leak

Shifter boot and parking brake boot - both are cracked and ratty looking

Vacuum pump - for the central locking, I wasn't going to replace it until I found one cheap on eBay.

Today I need to order:

Ignition switch - Gotta get the headlights back on

Timing belt - I have no idea when this was last replaced. Its an 80,000 mile schedule which would seem to indicate 240,000 but considering failure of the timing belt ruins the engine I don't dare chance it.

Serpentine belt and power steering belt - Both have to come off for the timing belt so I figure its a good time to replace 'em.

Water pump - When replacing the timing belt the water pump is right there, I figure it should be done too. With that done I'll put in all new proper G12 VW coolant.

Next up: Rust repair