ChowdaQ XII

Have I talked about ChowdaQ here? I don't see that I have, at least not in the last few years.

I started driving a diesel Mercedes full time back in the winter of 2003, that was my '83 240D "Hammie" that I bought in New Jersey and drove home. Thats a story in itself. Anyway to keep that car on the road I joined the email discussion list on MBZ.org. Back then our main parts supplier was Rusty and at some point Rusty held a customer appreciation BBQ that got nicknamed the RustyQ. Its worth noting that we often referred to Rusty as "Q" in homage to the character in the 007 films as Rusty was the man with the stuff. There were then a bunch of other BBQs, IowaQ, the OkieQ and probably some more I don't recall.

All that was far away from me in New England so I decided we should hold a Q. After much discussion it got nicknamed ChowdaQ. The first ChowdaQ was set for the fall of 2005 or so, I don't recall exactly. The plan was to get together in a park near my apartment and have burgers and whatnot. As is typical for me I really hadn't prepared and the day dawned rainy and gross so I shot of a quick note to cancel and we headed out for breakfast. I didn't spare it another thought but 2 guys did, separately and without seeing each other, show up. Fred, who ended up being a great friend, drove out from near Boston and another guy who never forgave me, came from Connecticut.

Anyway the idea of ChowdaQ then languished for a few years until I met Dwight. I'd taken a welding class in RI and he came out and took my friend and I to lunch. I think it was then that we rehashed the idea of ChowdaQ and without Dwight it certainly wouldn't happen. The first "modern" ChowdaQ was in 2008 and I've always referred to it as ChowdaQ I. The original abortive attempt gets the title of ChowdaQ 0, "the ChowdaQ that wasn't".

The MBZ email list is long gone, with Okiebenz taking over but the ChowdaQ lives on, "The last of the MBZ Qs."
September 2019 was our twelfth annual ChowdaQ. These days we've got a pattern pretty well established and a pretty good attendee list with some really cool cars. The site is Goddard State park in Warwick, RI. Robert Goddard was the father of modern rocketry, the park is the old family estate. Its a great place for a picnic.

I haven't had a Mercedes since we got Angie's Golf. This year my Jetta came incognito. Somehow I ended up with a whole bunch of MB hubcaps...

I think a lot of people come just for the food. Karen makes the Chowda. This is RI chowda, made with clear broth. I always take a picture so Wilton on the email

I cook in the dutch ovens with my old Coleman 413E, this year I did pork tenderloin, I watch the sales at the grocery store all summer for this. I aim for the meat to cook a minimum of 3 hours to ensure its nice and tender.

The last couple years we've done quahogs. If all you've ever had before at steamer clams these are so much better its crazy. These are "little neck" clams so they don't have the big neck like steamer clams do. They're buttery all by themselves and delightful when dipped in butter. 2019 was windy so Roy used his VW camp mobile as a wind break and we taught him how to cook quahogs.
Mary brings a ton of fruit and Fred brings salad so theres always something for everybody.

Kari is a potter and makes prizes that we give out.

At the end we pass around a hubcap for donations which, in the last couple years has paid for everything.

Anyway, if the good lord is willing and the creek don't rise you'll see us back in September for ChowdaQ XIII.

New car day +2

After yesterday's running around today should be easy, get the car inspected. Well, the plans of men...

Its raining today and I noticed the driver's wiper wasn't doing a great job, that'll fail inspection so I grabbed new ones, figured I might as well replace both.

Thats the end of the wiper, its a weird slide in sleeve thing. The wipers have to be in "wipe" position to lift the arms too, weird...

Much fiddling with adaptors

Until finally...

Okay, off to the inspection station:

Rats!

This actually isn't so bad, a black R is not safety related and you can drive the car, in this case its because some emissions sensors are reading "not ready". This is probably because the dealer I bought the car from had to have a DPF regen performed at the dealer. DPF = Diesel Particulate Filter, and a regen is when it burns off the built up particulate. If the car had been mostly city driven on short trips the filter could fill up early and not get to burn off which is why it needed a dealer regen. I drive mostly on the highway which is ideal and shouldn't have an issue, also VW has been forced to issue a long warranty on the DPF and finally the aftermarket has "DPF Delete" options for "off road use only".
So anyway the plan is to put a couple hundred miles on the car and try again in a couple weeks.

Finally I tried to set the clock and clear the "Oil/Inspect" notice in the dash. Both require pressing the odo reset button which I tried and didn't seem to work. So being an optimist I pulled the dash cluster.

 Its super hard to see but the problem is right where my finger is, the contacts for the button are on the green board under that white lump and theres a white bump of powdery corrosion. I squirted a little De-Oxit in there and worked a piece of paper towel in to remove the corrosion.

Reinstalled, tested and the clock is correctly set. You might also notice in this picture I've forgotten to reinstall the two screws that hold the cluster in place. I didn't remember until I started writing this blog entry, I had to pull the trim again and reinstall.

Even with having to redo the trim the whole process took less than an hour. Yes I could have made then dealer fix it but its a half hour drive to the dealer, time to get it fixed and half an hour home, in the end its just as fixed and I know more about the car and I took a moment to De-Oxit the other side while I was there.

Last thing, I picked up some nylon washers for the license plate screws. I'd bought some stainless steel screws but they're just a little too long. I could have cut them but I was a little worried about corrosion on the cut edge, the stainless screws you get at the hardware store aren't the finest stainless in then world...

New Car!

When last we left our hero his ride was a 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Purchased in 2013 its been a wonderful car, I only paid $1500 and have driven it many a mile but, trust me on this one, its done...
The bad: alternator, passenger's rear door, central locking, air conditioning, daytime running lamps, lots of rust, the rocker panels fairly flap in the breeze.

Actually now that I look at the list, other than the rust most of that isn't so bad. The alternator is the straw that broke the camels back, I replaced it a couple years ago but found it difficult to source a proper 120amp unit. The less powerful 90a units were easy to get but the 120a was $450 new but not to be found in a rebuilt. In the end I got a used one out of a junkyard. It didn't look like much but it was cheap and got me through, I think two years. When that failed I couldn't see paying for another, even a $100 90a, replacement for what is probably a $100 car.

So the search was on, I've been kind of half heartedly looking all summer, I knew this time was coming but I really like that car and was hoping somehow, magically, it would get a reprieve. In the end it was not to be and I knew I needed to find a replacement when a 2015 Jetta TDI showed up on Craigslist.

TDI pricing is a funny thing, the older cars command somewhat of a premium, this car has a mere 51,000 miles and while its a base model I really don't need any of the fancy accoutrements. The seller also had a 2014 with twice as many miles for the same money, that car has a sunroof, leather interior, fancy sound system, remote start and so on. I figured the newer, lower mileage car was the better deal. We bargained around a little and the deal was struck.

The engine is VW's 2.0l "common rail" which supposedly sports 150hp, although I don't know if thats before or after the "repair". You see this is one of the "cheater diesels" from a couple years back which VW has detuned so it doesn't cheat on emissions anymore. Actually now that I check, Malone Tuning says its 140hp which I find more believable.

Anyhow the car really scoots and the 6spd manual transmission is fun to row through the gears. The instant read mileage thing says I was getting 46mpg on the run from the dealer to our house, the '98 has been getting 50-55mpg for the last few months and I feel like once I run it some more this car will probably nudge 50.

I do have thoughts on a couple upgrades, it'll want snow tires for the winter which I'll probably put on dedicated wheels. I'm also thinking in the spring we'll do a tune on it, either stage 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet. I'll talk to my TDI before I choose. In theory, while providing more power a tune also makes the engine more efficient which will lead to better fuel economy provided you can keep from squandering it by driving super fast...

Is this car as fun as the '98? Sort of, that car had personality and I'd worked on it a lot so I really knew it inside and out. This one is slightly bland and I know its not going to need much hands on which is actually why I bought it, my work schedule has been crazy busy so I wanted something I could just fuel up and go. Maybe someday I'll have space and time for a project car but that time isn't now...

Golf brakes

Our '05 Golf has had sticky brakes for far longer than I should have left it so yesterday I finally got off my duff and fixed 'em. I'd planned on calipers, rotors and pads, a sticky caliper will quickly ruin a set of pads which ruins the rotor. Replacing one caliper will generally make the car pull under braking so its best to do them all at once.

IDParts had brand new calipers for only a bit more than re-manufactured so I went with those since it'll allow me to clean up the old ones and keep them as spares.

Everything was going fine until:

Its difficult to see in the picture but that screw isn't seated all the way. Thats the screw that holds the rotor to the hub. Really its not all that important, the hub and rotor are clamped together by the lug bolts when the wheel is installed, all the screw does is align things when the wheels are off, still it bugged me.

To fix it I used a tap to clean the hole in the hub,

and a die to clean the screw. With them cleaned up the screw seated nicely.

This is actually the heart of the whole problem, this is the caliper mount from the driver's side. Notice the two "bolts" at the top, those are actually caliper slide pins. Notice how the right side is compressed and the left isn't. The pins should slide freely (hence the name "slides") but that right side doesn't. I beat on it with a hammer, cranked it around with a wrench lubed it with Kroil and finally resorted to heat. The heat got it moving and I was finally able to pull the pin, clean out the nasty old grease and add some fresh. Now it moves in and out freely.

 The pin itself

The Golf has floating calipers which means that the two brake pads are actuated by one piston, this is possible because the whole caliper moves to pull on the outside pad. Because of this stuck slide pin the brakes couldn't retract and the inside pad never got released from the rotor. I'd thought this was happening because the parking brake actuator was stuck but you can't really judge with the caliper still on the car...

Anyway with all that work done theres no more squeaking from the dragging pad, performance is much improved and it appears that fuel economy has risen also although that will take some time to really judge.

Now the only mechanical thing wrong with the car is the driver's side power lock actuator seems to be hung up, this is a fairly minor complaint that I'll dig into once it warms up some.

More diferenter

I've been bad at updating here, I realize I've made a couple things you haven't been notified about.
One of the parts suppliers I use has a yearly cold start contest. If you're not into diesel cars you need to realize that a diesel engine runs only on the heat of compression, if you can't get the engine warm it won't run. When its really cold out that can be an issue. So lots of YouTube space is devoted to cold start videos.
Its been really warm this winter and I was worried were weren't ever going to get any cold to make our cold start video but a sudden cold stap came along. There's price money on the line so on Valentines day we busted out the camera and made a video:

I dunno if having a ton of views and positive comments will make this video win the contest but it sure would make me feel good. :)

I need to find more video making challenges, it can be hard to come up with inspiration for what to make, its a lot easier when theres a challenge. Anyway with one cold start video down I'm already thinking about what next year's

Car fixin

You never really think about your ability to set the fan in the car at different speeds until all of a sudden you can't...

Angie has been driving our 2005 VW Golf and thus it wasn't for some time that I noticed the fan only worked on the high position. She doesn't complain much and since she had a work around she took it. Winter is an especially annoying time to have the fan not work at low speed since a warm car will tend to fog the windshield so I knew this had to be fixed.

The problem turns out to be a common one caused by a failed thermal switch:

 That's the little blue headed pointy thing in the picture. The big green part is the resistor pack that actually runs the fan at lower speed. The thermal switch is there to keep the resistor pack from burning up if too much power is requested.

So I could just replace the thermal switch but that doesn't address the root cause of the problem which is a sticky fan. The 4th generation Golf and Jetta have a tendency to get some water in the fan which gums up the motor, the gummy motor draws more power and pops the thermal switch. So I popped out the fan, cleaned its bearings (well, bushings actually) good with carb cleaner and dripped a variety of lubricating substances in. I saw a YouTube video where the guy used WD40 but WD is "water displacing" its not really a lubricant. I started with Marvel Mystery oil lubricating formula and moved on to PB Blaster in an effort to find something that would make its way into the bushing. Then I reinstalled the fan and replaced the thermal switch.

I was a little nervous about soldering the new switch in, it is a thermal switch after all but I limited myself to just quick touches with the soldering iron and I'd bought a 5 pack of the switches from Amazon so I knew if my soldering didn't work out I could always resort to crimping on another one.

Fortunately I seem to have done a good enough job, the fan has been working correctly for a couple weeks now.

Of course I could have replaced the whole resistor pack, IDParts has them for $35 but for $1 and a couple minutes with a soldering iron I'm well pleased with this fix. If this happens again I'll probably replace the fan, its difficult to get oil in to the bushings on the old fan, although maybe if I used a needle oiler...

The continuing saga of the Golf

Apparently my mother reads my blog, she reminded me yesterday that I hadn't written anything for awhile.

Before I get started some good news, I'd been using Photobucket to host pictures but I've long been frustrated with the extremely slow Photobucket interface it took forever to access my pictures once I'd uploaded them. So recently I've been experimenting with Google Photos and I'm actually quite pleased with it. As with anything there was a ramp up period but I think I've got it worked out. I'll let you know if anything changes...

Oh geez, I realize I never told you... I bought a 2005 Volkswagen Golf TDI:

If I had told you about it I'd have mentioned that its transmission was decidedly not happy so it was off to the mechanic. I'd bought the car for a cheap enough price that even if I ended up parting it out I could still make some money. In the end we decided it was too nice to part so it got a new transmission. On the way home from the shop I noticed that the speedometer didn't work. That was a relatively easy fix in replacing the VSS or vehicle speed sensor which lives on top of the transmission. It also got a new windshield, I can without reservation recommend the Safelite office in Keene for that job, the guy was great. It was quick, he vacuumed the car, cleaned the windows and found that the goop on the paint (from a leaky roof at the place I bought it) can be cleaned off with polishing compound.

Anyway the last step was to get it inspected. Thats when I realized the reverse lights didn't work, which is a fail on inspection. A little testing proved that the lights actually work but weren't being turned on due to a failed reverse light switch which also lives on the transmission. I got a new switch and put it in but the lights STILL didn't work. A whole day of investigating revealed the problem to probably be the shift actuator:

  

Its the bit that translates the shifter movement into the bits inside the transmission. I had it in and out of the car repeatedly and can't see how it could possibly work. So back to the mechanic and I'm waiting to hear his verdict. This is fix work for him, both the VSS and reverse lights should have been working when he delivered the car to me...

So anyway, as I'd mentioned its a 2005 Golf TDI. Its got about 150,000 miles which is not that much, in fact its 110,000 less than my '98 Jetta. Its got very little rust and that which it does have will be gone once I replace the left front fender that had been hit at some point. The interior is perfect and it even has working AC which is a rarity on my cars. It came from NEAT which New England Adolescent Treatment, basically a program for troubled kids. A friend of mine is the executive director there. They take donation cars and sell them to help fund the program. This is where I got the Jetta too. Both cars were a good price and its nice to help the program.

To keep my spirits up I've puttered around a couple other minor things,

 

I was surprised to find the wiper cap was available, I also replaced all the wipers. I still need to clean the back seat but other than that and replacing the left front fender the car is basically ready to go. Theres a place in Tewksbury that claims to have a correct color fender for only $100, I need to call them and see if its for real. I like the idea of using an OEM fender but I'll go aftermarket if I have to...