The real question is, when you turn your car on, does it return the favour...

[type53 at gmail.com (Drew Mac)]

On Nov 15, 2007 7:28 AM, C Boyko <roccit53@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So how was your car's year? What worked, what
> didn't?????

Well, compared to many other years, this one was a pretty quiet one
for Carrots, but that's probably because there was too much going on
with the other distractions in my life.

I started the driving season off with the VNT turbo experiment, which
flew fairly well with some minor modification right through Cincy, and
for a few weeks after.  In fact, I think I logged about 2500km's on
the experiment before it grenaded itself fantastically, and Carrots
left me stranded by the side of the road for the first time in 10
years of blissful ownership.

I learned a valuable lesson from that one - VNT15's are in fact truly
small enough to be dangerous on tuned 1.9's.  After a few weeks of
downtime,  a conventional wastegate turbo and some plumbing
modifications later, we were back up and running.  Then some more
downtime to shore up boost tubing that wasn't holding up to 25 PSI -
and it turns out the conventional wastegate isn't working worth a
damn.  And you know what, almost 6000km later it's still not working,
but the rest of the car sure is...  Well, maybe except for the clutch;
but that's next spring's job. :)
Dotted throughout the driving season were some other little
maintenance items - a halfshaft, both front wheel bearings, a rear
wheel cylinder (that and the wheelbearings conspired to keep me from
TDN - dammit!) and an accessory belt that tossed itself on the way in
to work one morning - damn good thing I keep a spare in the boot.
There was also some cosmetic stuff that started off the year, and
thanks to Cathy for providing assistance and moral support through
that process.  Now if I could just figure out how to get polishing
compound off my windshield! :)

The snow is here, likely not to stay, but the salt will be, so the
driving season has probably pretty much ended.  Just as well, the
daily drivers are starting to moan for attention - and one of them is
getting close to those teenage years, and the high maintenance that
goes with them.

Next spring will be here before you know it, and I'll be just as
unprepared as I was last spring, and no doubt diving into some
harebrained scheme with little preparation and even less chance of
success.  Bring it on! :)

Drew








-- 
84 Wolfsburg Ed. Scirocco GTD mit ?berVerteilerpumpe
http://scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca/gtd
77 Scirocco project - Boom Boom Boom...
99 A3 Jetta GL TDI (hers) 02 Jetta GLS TDI (Bloatware)
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