Edition 38 updates...
I thought I was on easy street its 2 weeks till edition38 show and shine, the cars taxed, MOT'd and Insured. Im left with ironing out the niggles and cleaning....... Nothing is ever that simple haha.
On the first night of testing the engine is shaking the car to bits (I assumed it was the poly engine mounts). It had a loud knocking coming from the off side wheel, it was that bad it felt like the wheel was going to fall off. I fitted a new driveshaft and hub on the offside, this made no difference so I changed the pair on the nearside and the problem was still there. This left me thinking the diff had gone in the G40 gearbox. I fitted a 4 speed 1.3 golf box, the release bearing didn't work with the g40 clutch (doh). I then leant and fitted a Polo GT 5 speed. It still knocked!!!!!
Its now the tuesday before edtion38. I removed my front gearbox mount and the knock was alot better but still worrying.
The car had got slower on every outting, the exhaust had got ridiculously loud and it had started running on 3 cylinders. This was down to the plug in cylinder one being covered in oil... Oh no the rings have gone on piston one!!!! Alot of things now make sense.
Wednesday night the car has to make edition 38!!. The only option is to fit all the turbo stuff to the old 1.3 engine out of my mates Mk1 jetta and run it on low boost. I phoned my friend Arun in the day to see if he still had the saab dizzy needed to run an ignition amp and he did (HERO).. It was game on by the end of the night 5am the new engine was in and mostly plumbed in with only a minor niggle to get it running left.
Thurday afternoon.. I get all the niggles sorted and come to start it. After alot of faffing with the ignition timing it fires up but the inlet is exhaust heated on an early 1.3, I had cut this off the inlet because it fuled the G40 head. so this left exhaust fumes pissing out the head haha. This was solved with a quick manifold swap. With this sorted I came to fire it up again but with more timing faffing it would not fire up. Morale is very low and thoughts of missing another edition38 again are looming....
Its now early friday morning. Ive even got the Haynes manual out!!! This led me to look at timming marks and they were wrong, the bottom end was a tooth out (this was why it was hard to start in the Jetta) I lined it all up and recharged the battery.... It fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Right!!!! I best go get my camping stuff ready and fit my wheels and slam it for its tracking, no sleep for me haha
We pull onto the motorway friday dinner time and the knock is still there but very faint FFS.. A friends engine blew up and set on fire on the M6 Toll so it was towed via A roads the rest of the way. We arrived at the camp site at about 6pm.
Was it worth all the effort?.... f**k YEAH!!!!!!!!