NEW - to me.
OLD - 1998 model, the first year of the...
NEW BEETLE - that's what VW called it at first, although now it's just the "Beetle."
So, here we are with a fifth member of the fleet.
A Beetle, bought at auction from my friends Lynn and Lynne. Yes, they are husband and wife! We call them "Mr. Lynn" and "Mrs. Lynne" to keep it straight. They have recently embarked on a dream voyage, selling their house and hitting the road with their travel trailer behind a very large Ford pickup. The Beetle, along with many household possessions, went up for auction.
It's a nice enough car, but because of the age, mileage (192,000+), and the presence of a glowing Check Engine light, it came into my possession at a very low (three-digit) price. I subsequently learned two things:
1. In Pennsylvania, the state is not amused when you get a good deal on a car, because it erodes "their" tax revenues. Therefore, even though I had paperwork from the auction documenting the price, with the sellers standing next to me, I was still assessed taxes on $2,200 - the full dealer retail price for the car.
2. Insurance companies have an opinion on how many cars you should own, and for most of them, that number is four. I had to have a second policy written to cover the fifth vehicle. (If you're counting, the other four are the BMW Z3 Coupe, the BMW Z4 convertible, the GMC Sierra shop truck, and Mary Ellen's VW GTI).
As I said, it's a very presentable vehicle, with a reasonable interior and good, cold air conditioning:
I started my usual process of checking things out, and realized that there was almost no room in the back seat for anyone over preschool age, and also that there would be a lot of room to carry stuff in the back if I just turned the car into a two-seater. It's not immediately obvious, but these New Beetles have a large hatchback in the rear. The first step is to remove the rear headrests, and that also presented the first problem - the buttons to release the headrests were missing on both sides. Instead there was a slot where the button used to live, either side of one of the headrest posts, and peering inside, there was a spring on each side that the button presumably pushed. I made a little tool by milling a slot in a Harbor Freight plastic pry bar, and the headrests were then easy to remove:
After folding the seat down, the foam underside of the seat was visible and exposed to damage, so I made a painted plywood back for the load space. It's just held on by zip ties around the seat springs, so it will be easy to remove if needed. Look at all that space!
Then began the real work. My experience with BMWs led me to believe that the wheels would be welded to the hubs because of galvanic corrosion between the aluminum wheels and the steel brake hub. Also, since the car was serviced by a garage, I expected the wheels to be on far too tightly to remove in a roadside emergency. The VW spec is only 87 foot-pounds of torque for a lug bolt, but the powerful air tools used at garages tighten them to 250-300 foot-pounds. Sure enough, all 20 lug bolts were so tight that I had to use a three-foot breaker bar to loosen them. Two of the four wheels were stuck due to the corrosion (the other two were presumably removed in a state inspection in May), and had to be pounded off with a dead-blow hammer.
I cleaned up the corrosion with a wire wheel in a drill, and then coated both the hub and the inside wheel mounting surface with anti-seize compound. That's the way to keep them from sticking on the roadside.
The next big job was to tackle the check engine light. The car actually started, idled and ran quite well, but there was clearly something up - the exhaust fumes were very rich and smelly. Mr. Lynn had recently had new plugs, plug wires and air cleaner installed, which temporarily turned the light off, but it came back.
I had purchased the Chilton repair manual for the car, and I'm quite impressed with it. It is worlds better than the Haynes manuals sold at Autozone and the like, and at less than $20, it's about the same price. The next (big) step up is the Bentley manual - it's over $120!
I had also bought a VW-specific "scan tool" to read the codes that caused the check engine light and found three, pointing to the catalyst, the water temp sensor and something about an enrichment circuit at its limit. I started through the diagnostic procedure, and everything passed the tests in the manual. Then, I discovered JustAnswer.com, which is a fee-based service with VW-trained technicians on call. It told me that a consultation would cost $28, and it was honor system - I would only pay if I was satisfied with the response.
I laid out the various codes and the work I had already done, and the tech responded that I needed a catalytic converter, a water temp sensor, and I should remove the throttle body and carefully clean it. I responded that the water temp sensor had passed the test, and he told me that the sensor is often intermittent - it's the most common cause of codes in a VW. And that made sense for the symptoms too - if the engine computer thinks the engine is cold, it enriches the mixture, which causes the rich smell and eventually kills the catalytic converter. After a couple more questions, I felt satisfied and paid my fee, and ordered parts.
The cat converter, of course, is the very expensive one. However, there are some bargains to be had on eBay. The important thing is to include "direct fit" in the search - otherwise you'll get a generic cat that will require welding at a muffler shop. I found one made in Canada from the seller "exhaustdealz" that looked right, and was quickly shipped.
So, time to install everything. I recruited Bob Zimmerman to help, since I still have some limitations due to the severe hand injury I suffered early this summer. I had to buy the special socket to remove the oxygen sensors, and got to work on the stuff I could do. Today, Bob and I removed the cat, and I was gratified to see that "direct fit" did yield a replacement part that would bolt right in:
Getting that thing out was a trial, though. In the first place, 17 years and 192k miles had really stuck the bolts tight. Twice before our work today, I sprayed the nuts with penetrating oil to help loosen them up. It paid off. I got the big ones at the back loose before Bob arrived, and used my re-threading taps to clean them up for re-installation. The six nuts at the front yielded without breaking anything, and then we could just slip the cat out of the car, right?
Well, no - my lift has a bar across from side to side that was exactly in the way. After trying several things, we wound up dropping the car onto jack stands so that we could slide the lift forward to create enough clearance - normally it would be centered between the wheel wells:
Of course, that meant that we had to do the process again after the cat was in place, so that we could reinstall the wheels! I later realized a way to use that stand (rotating it 180 degrees) that would have allowed me to remove one of the bars for clearance. I'll use it that way from now on.
Replacing the coolant temp sensor required that the cooling system be drained, but then it was an easy fix. Removing the throttle body was harder - Bob's hands, with all 10 fingers working, were imperative here:
Once off, we used an entire can of special throttle body cleaning spray and Q-tips to very carefully clean the inner workings of the throttle body. It wasn't bad, but there were definitely some deposits there that were better off gone:
After that, it was just reassembly, and then a long process of "burping" the cooling system to get all the air pockets out. And all was well! No check engine light, no rotten egg smell. Job done!
This is a great example of a car that was on that "decision point." High miles, but basically very solid with some needed work. I spent about $170 on parts for today's project, plus a donation to Bob's project car fund. If I had paid a shop to do it, the cost would probably been well over $500. This sort of big bill is how cars eventually get scrapped, but with a good home shop and the willingness to do the work, I can probably get another 100,000 miles out of this drivetrain and body.
There is another big project to do, however. Mr. Lynn told me that he had no idea when or if the timing belt in the engine had been changed. In VWs, that belt should be changed every 70,000 miles, because if it breaks, the engine is ruined. And because of the difficulty of installation, the conventional wisdom is that you should also change a number of other components at the same time, including water pump, thermostat and housing, the serpentine belt, two tensioners and some seals at the same time. All of that from a garage would be $1000 or more.
I bought a kit of all the parts, even down to new bolts and antifreeze, for less than $300. Bob and I will reconvene to put it all in, and the car will be ready for some miles. It will be my "winter rat" for those times with snow and salt on the roads, when the BMWs are safely tucked away for the winter. I may even put snow tires on it, if I can find some cheap ones.
And... we've decided to name the car "Ringo" - get it?
No comments:
Post a Comment