Top Shed. 2005 Bora TDI PD130 Highline. 235k and counting!
Discussion
Hi all, some of you may have seen my Honda threads by now (if not, go have a look - Accord Type-R, ATR engined Prelude and Aerodeck VTi-S)
After driving Hondas for a while, it became apparent that if you actually care about them and want them to last, you can't really drive them as a year-round daily. Not the 90s ones, at least. They just disintegrate due to the amount of salt and moisture present on UK winter roads. Due to this, I started buying a cheap banger of a Honda each winter. First one was a £195 EK3, total shed but a few mates and I painted it matt NATO green, stuck a set of Rota wheels on it, it was already slammed, and it was a right laugh! Lasted a few weeks as I took it down a farm track at 70mph, snapped 2 of the wheel studs and couldn't be bothered fixing it, so scrapped it. Ended up using my pride and joy at the time, through winter
2014, I got a £300 EJ9 Civic, looking back it wasn't the worst car, had a few cowboy mods from previous owners and some rust, but other than that, was quite sound. Utterly ruined it by taking it down forest tracks as fast as possible, crashing into mates with similar cheap cars etc. Did my first few bits of track time in it though, and had stupid amounts of fun!
A VTEC, manual Prelude came up for £400 a couple of months later and I had to have it. Had to scrap the Civic, it was still running perfectly despite me being deliberately seriously abusive, my mate crashing it into a tyre wall, amongst other horrible things. I slightly regret it now, as I love this era of Civics and they're hard to find. Wouldn't have treated it like that if it had been tidy, mind.
Prelude:
It was very sheddy, but very cheap and very cool.
....Until the cambelt decided it didn't want to have teeth on it any more. Shame, 'cause despite it's sheddiness I loved it. Started an ATR engine conversion on it but a much cleaner one came up for not much money, but that's another story which is told here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
2015 I broadened my horizons VERY slightly by buying the closest thing to a Honda that's not a Honda
It turned up on a recovery truck, not for convenience, but because driving it was simply not an option. Bought unseen off Facebook and sent a recovery driver for it.
Again, the lure of a cool, cheap Japanese crate was too strong. This one was a 97 Toyota Levin BZG. £900. 20v 4AGE Blacktop, with factory fitted ITBs! Head gasket had gone, and a simple few hundred quid replacement turned into a £1350, 6-week ordeal as it had been filled with K seal, driven some more, the head was warped badly, the VVT pulley had been welded solid etc, just a total bodged example. Had loads of headaches with it, it was good when it felt like working properly, which it did occasionally, but it really did need some more money throwing at it, so I sold it after a year or so.
By the time the winter of 2016 came around, I was looking for a cheap Civic EK coupe to do a budget (read: scrapyard sourced) turbo conversion on, paint NATO green and just have some fun with. Found a rear-ended, mostly cosmetic damaged one very cheap, the night before I bought it I changed my mind. I was fed up with having to rely on sketchy cars that needed to be worked on in the cold and rain. I've always liked the MK4 era VWs, so decided to look for something from that era. I knew they were nice, comfy cars with excellent interiors, very good diesel engines and they weren't bad lookers. Plus Dad working for Bentley his whole career, got them as scheme cars back when they were new so I have fond memories of being carted around in them when I was a kid. His first one was a Raven Blue (beautiful colour) Bora 1.6, first car I ever did 100mph in (in France, aged about 6) X922OUD, not taxed since '04, so something must've happened to it as it was only 4 years old!
Obviously there's plenty of choice - Golfs, Leons, Octavias, Boras, Toledos etc are all different cuts of the same cloth. Not keen on the Skoda interiors, so didn't even look at them. Same with the Leons, they were always the cheaper alternative when new, so you don't often see them kitted out with leather and other nice options. So it was between the Golf and Bora, scoured the internet for both for a while, before deciding to narrow the search to the Boras. The spec of Golf I was after was pretty hard to find, I wanted a fully optioned 3dr (heated leather, AC, cruise), black or silver, PD130 or 150. There are loads of MK4 TDIs out there, but not that many at all fit that criteria. Knowing they did a Highline version of the Bora was ideal, as they were basically full spec as standard. Plus the image of them isn't quite as bad as that of the Golf. Obviously went for the cheapest half-decent looking one out there.
It was advertised for £800, was the exact spec I wanted (PD130 Highline manual, with black leather rather than grey) and not at the opposite end of the country, only a couple of hours away in Barnsley. It had 210k miles on it, which I wasn't really concerned about due to the reputation these cars have for eating miles up. It had supposedly never been mapped, which seems to be true. The only known fault was it was notchy going into 1st, I assumed that it needed the clutch bleeding and it'd be away, or worst case, a slave cylinder replacement. Little did I know that these have a concentric slave, so inside the bell housing (brilliantly s
t idea) so even if it was that (it wasn't) it'd be a gearbox off job.
Anyway, it looked pretty tidy, had the usual VW rusty front wings but wasn't overly concerned, they're bolt off/bolt on unlike the areas that rot on Hondas. Asked the seller if he had any movement on price, he said it was worth the £700 it was advertised for, so didn't really want to move. It was actually advertised for £800, so I immediately shook his hand
5 minutes after purchase:
What you can't see is the flat tyre I'd gone to put some diesel in it and ran over a load of broken glass which popped one of the tyres. Literally 5 minutes into ownership!
One of the wheel bolts had previously been rounded off and wouldn't quite come out with the supplied wrench, it just kept slipping, so had to hand in my man card and get the AA to do it, luckily been a member with pretty extensive cover for a while. Would've been fine if I'd taken a socket set, but buying a sensible, well made modern German car I didn't think I'd need to
These are the sorts of mornings that had made me decide to go for something like this, and insist on heated seats/AC, rather than another hoopty Civic.
Leathers in fairly decent condition, but the longer I've owned it the more I've realised it's really not very good quality, it's worn well for the miles, but it's quite plasticky, hard and shiny, so I'd really like a set of the optional black leather heated Recaros as they appear to use proper cow peel.
More winter duty.
Made a good dog taxi, sadly George isn't with us any more
I intended on running it for the winter and probably selling it. This was in 2016, and I've still got it now It's just become part of the furniture, for the money I'd get for it, I might as well keep it as it's pretty nice to drive and the interior is a great place to be. I got it mapped a few weeks after purchase, which livened it up a bit.
I had a bit of a paddy in 2018 after it gave endless grief with seizing calipers, bought my Aerodeck VTi-S and stuck the Bora on ebay My excuse was I wanted a car I knew my way round, wouldn't break, and when it did could be fixed easily. So I drove it up to Solway aviation Museum to use up the diesel left in it, and wrote an ad.
In reality I just wanted a VTi-S 'deck before they were all gone, so set the reserve on the Bora higher than I thought it was worth, deep down I didn't really want rid. Sure enough, it didn't sell, so I stuck it in my then storage yard for a few months while I decided whagt to do with it.
Pulled it back out in Autumn as I took my ATR off the road so had a spare insurance policy, as far as I can remember it's been in use since.
Picked up a free Accord Type-R engine with a knocking bottom end in it, then went over to RAF Waddington to have a nosey at Vulcan XM607. Just after this photo, I parked in a different layby, and within minutes, got very much told off by the RAF! Even had local Police turn up at home hours later to check I wasn't up to anything dodgy. I think the fact I answered the door with a Vulcan t-shirt on added to the validity of my explanation that I'm into aviation and simply strayed too close
The headlights were beyond poor, and with most of my winter driving being in the dark, I had to do something about it. Got a set of Nighteye LED bulbs off Amazon. These ones unfortunately don't have any sort of beam pattern, they're just insanely bright and completely illegal, I didn't run them for long as I was blinding people. They've since come up with newer versions which have a proper beam pattern and they're brilliant, I fit them to every car now. Well, well worth the £30ish. Just make sure they're advertised as the ones with the correct pattern.
Doing my best Ken Block impression on the way home from work at about 1:30am, stuck it in a ditch! It happened so slowly and gently I was pissing myself laughing as the nose crept over the bank and into the ditch. Obviously wasn't even close to getting it out, had to call a then-neighbour who runs a recovery firm. It was properly stuck, his kitted out Defender was struggling and he was about to go and get his proper recovery truck, but it eventually heaved out of the ditch. No damage at all, except a £100 charge for getting him out of bed Wasn't even really on my way home, I'd turned off the main road and onto an un-gritted side road to "practice my driving in winter conditions" I don't really need to go into more detail than that, do I?
We're now in 2019, and with 228k miles iirc, the clutch was getting really bad and when sitting at lights in 1st with the clutch fully down, it would creep forwards quite insistently unless on a steep hill or with your foot fairly hard on the brakes. Was getting really hard to get into 1st, reverse and sometimes 2nd. Remember it had the issue since I bought it, but it was getting really bad at this point. It had also been slipping occasionally in the higher gears ever since the remap. Also it wouldn't go from 6th to 5th, always had to go 6th > 4th > 5th which got annoying.
Eventually, on the way to work, it let go in a big way. Was just about to pull out for an overtake, gave it a bootful in 4th and as soon as the turbo woke up, it just went straight to the redline immediately. I thought it had snapped a shaft, but it was much more terminal. Either way, it cost me a day's holiday. Luckily, my other half, who works at the same place could get a lift in as it broke down approaching my old storage yard, and the guy who took it over when I quit was there so he took her in. She'd only worked there a month so it wouldn't have looked great.
It turned out not to be a shaft, but the clutch and DMF had catastrophically failed, taking the gearbox with them.
Ripped the centre clean out of the friction plate, and the input shaft in the gearbox had several millimetres of play, so the gearbox was also scrap.
Most people would scrap it at this point, but I was really fond of it by this point, so forked out for a Sachs (OEM I believe) clutch and DMF. Considered a solid flywheel conversion but there are supposedly harsher to use and noisier, I wanted to keep it nice and comfy. Also the DMF can't take too much power reliably, so it'd stop me chasing power on this extremely tunable engine.
Got a gearbox from a local guy on facebook breaking a Bora. He also had a VR6 4motion splitter, so snagged that as well.
Gave it to VTECDirect to sort, I think it totalled to about £1100, the parts alone cost me £500ish etc, then had the gearbox and labour on top. Had a couple of other things taken care of while it was there. It was so nice to drive it and get into all gears easily without having to do weird things to persuade it, and without it creeping when at a standstill etc. It crunches into 2nd when cold, other than that it's perfect. It's a £150 gearbox bought off a council estate off Facebook marketplace, so didn't even try getting any money back. If I ever have a reason to remove it again, I'll get a recon box to go back in.
Driving down a road and heard a clatter, reversed to see what it was and reversed over my bumper grille which had dropped off!
Happened upon a few Golfs when weighing in my old central heating copper pipes, so grabbed a grill from one of them, assuming it was the same, It wasn't.
Scrapyards are full of these now, shame as they're quality cars and most have probably got quite a bit of life left in them. Fond memories of my parents having them from new don't seem long ago at all, and now they're just bangers that'll be scrapped when they fail an MOT or have an issue costing more than £100 or so.
I'd been wanting a set of Audi TT Competition wheels for a while, they're one of the less common Audi wheels. I hate those hideous "RS8" A8 replicas that you see on so many Golfs, they look beyond st when they're in good nick, and they're never in good nick. Always sprayed black with huge silver kerb marks. But yeah, always liked the look of the Comps, nice big simple 5 spoke design, and pretty subtle. Perfect size for the car too as they're off a MK4-based car. A mate from work mentioned he had a really rough set in his parents garden off a Golf he'd scrapped long ago, so when my tyres needed replacing I offered him £100 and went to pick them up. He wasn't exaggerating about the condition, they were absolute scrap
My neighbour has access to a part worn tyre place, so asked him to whip the tyres off and check they were actually straight before putting any effort or money into them. They were, somehow! They'd definitely been owned by someone who parked by feel rather than sight.
That's quite a lot of air where aluminium should be! Obviously to get this looking anywhere near right, I had to take the surrounding metal down to this level, not an ideal situation but the only way other than welding some more metal in. Graduated it enough that it's really not noticeable.
Got to work with the files.
Threw occasional light coats of primer on when filing to show me which parts hadn't been touched by the file yet - when no primer was left on the rim it was time to move to a finer file and bring the deep file marks out.
Couple of the marks were too deep to sort with a file as they'd require way too much material to be removed and it's look super obvious, so put a bit of epoxy in and rubbed it smooth when dry.
These wheels are originally mirror polished bare aluminium with lacquer over the top and it looks great, did shine a small section up to see how it'd look, but the amount of effort involved would be huge. Plus the car is driven all year round so I think the salt would ruin it. Also I didn't fancy trying to get lacquer to sit on a mirror polished surface without running!
Got them blasted which removed the awful corrosion and peeling lacquer with mud under.
Primer:
Had a visitor that I wasn't very keen on!
Colour on. Just went for Reflex Silver to match the body.
Lacquered, not a bad finish for rattle cans!
Got a new set of Rainsports, always use these on this car as they're so cheap and ideal for the use the car gets, don't last brilliantly but if they did they'd no doubt be twice the price. Other half sealed the wheels with Poorboys wheel sealant, and we put them on.
Quite like how it looks now with the new wheels, VR6 splitter etc.
Took it to RAF Fairford for a week of camping at RIAT, was the perfect tool for the job, dried us all out and warmed us up with the heated seats after a rainy day, and cooled us down with the ice cold AC after the next day was a scorcher.
You can also open bottles of cider with the top of the drivers door, but I only did it once as it chipped the paint
The headlights, even with the LEDs, were becoming pretty poor, so invested in a 3m resto kit, honestly worth its weight in gold. Makes any car look much less of a nail, and vastly improves the light output and gives a crisp beam cutoff.
It took 420kg of tiles with room to spare, but I don't think the rear suspension was too keen on it
Finally, another Cold War bomber photo, we decided to go to Coventry Air Museum on NYE last year.
Can't believe I've just spent so long writing about this shed, but I love it and it's taken me all over the country. Probably owes me £2500 in buying, repairs and maintenance. Didn't expect to own it for so long, but the only car I'd say is in the same league as it for the same sort of money, is either another MK4 platform car (but to me the Bora is best, as explained at the start) or a MK1 Focus, and I prefer the Bora personally. Much better interior, preferable engines/gearboxes and more kit on them. Although the Focus is a better handler (my other half has a £250 example that I recommended, they are a great car) So my Bora will be with me for a long time to come I think.
It's going for a service next week (I can't be bothered doing it, and my garage isn't built yet so I'm not doing it on the road) and to investigate a knock from the front left, maybe a driveshaft.
It needs a boost issue looking into as well, I'm pretty sure it has a boost leak from the intercooler as I can hear it sending boost into the front bumper rather than the engine The variable vanes in the turbo seem to be sticking too, its sluggish until the turbo is making full boost and is well into it's stride, it used to be a lot more progressive and responsive. Need to look into the Mr Muscle fix, along with cleaning the EGR system as that should help. I suppose worst case is a recon turbo. I'd like to remove the EGR as that's supposedly the cause of the turbo issues on these cars, but I don't feel great about making the emissions of an already pretty toxic car even worse, so will probably just clean it.
When I get around to sorting the turbo/intercooler issues, I'm pretty tempted to go for a front mounted intercooler as the standard side mount efforts are pretty crap and are notorious for leaking boost. I'd like to get it mapped properly too, it's just a generic file currently, not one tailored to the car, although performance and economy are decent, and crucially for me at least, it doesn't throw out clouds of horrible smoke like most tuned VAG TDIs do!
Would also like to lower it a bit, nothing crazy, maybe just 40mm or so, but don't know if I should, I love the ability to drive it quickly on any sort of road without worrying about bottoming out, so we'll see.
Thanks for reading, if you could be bothered
After driving Hondas for a while, it became apparent that if you actually care about them and want them to last, you can't really drive them as a year-round daily. Not the 90s ones, at least. They just disintegrate due to the amount of salt and moisture present on UK winter roads. Due to this, I started buying a cheap banger of a Honda each winter. First one was a £195 EK3, total shed but a few mates and I painted it matt NATO green, stuck a set of Rota wheels on it, it was already slammed, and it was a right laugh! Lasted a few weeks as I took it down a farm track at 70mph, snapped 2 of the wheel studs and couldn't be bothered fixing it, so scrapped it. Ended up using my pride and joy at the time, through winter
2014, I got a £300 EJ9 Civic, looking back it wasn't the worst car, had a few cowboy mods from previous owners and some rust, but other than that, was quite sound. Utterly ruined it by taking it down forest tracks as fast as possible, crashing into mates with similar cheap cars etc. Did my first few bits of track time in it though, and had stupid amounts of fun!
A VTEC, manual Prelude came up for £400 a couple of months later and I had to have it. Had to scrap the Civic, it was still running perfectly despite me being deliberately seriously abusive, my mate crashing it into a tyre wall, amongst other horrible things. I slightly regret it now, as I love this era of Civics and they're hard to find. Wouldn't have treated it like that if it had been tidy, mind.
Prelude:
It was very sheddy, but very cheap and very cool.
....Until the cambelt decided it didn't want to have teeth on it any more. Shame, 'cause despite it's sheddiness I loved it. Started an ATR engine conversion on it but a much cleaner one came up for not much money, but that's another story which is told here: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
2015 I broadened my horizons VERY slightly by buying the closest thing to a Honda that's not a Honda
It turned up on a recovery truck, not for convenience, but because driving it was simply not an option. Bought unseen off Facebook and sent a recovery driver for it.
Again, the lure of a cool, cheap Japanese crate was too strong. This one was a 97 Toyota Levin BZG. £900. 20v 4AGE Blacktop, with factory fitted ITBs! Head gasket had gone, and a simple few hundred quid replacement turned into a £1350, 6-week ordeal as it had been filled with K seal, driven some more, the head was warped badly, the VVT pulley had been welded solid etc, just a total bodged example. Had loads of headaches with it, it was good when it felt like working properly, which it did occasionally, but it really did need some more money throwing at it, so I sold it after a year or so.
By the time the winter of 2016 came around, I was looking for a cheap Civic EK coupe to do a budget (read: scrapyard sourced) turbo conversion on, paint NATO green and just have some fun with. Found a rear-ended, mostly cosmetic damaged one very cheap, the night before I bought it I changed my mind. I was fed up with having to rely on sketchy cars that needed to be worked on in the cold and rain. I've always liked the MK4 era VWs, so decided to look for something from that era. I knew they were nice, comfy cars with excellent interiors, very good diesel engines and they weren't bad lookers. Plus Dad working for Bentley his whole career, got them as scheme cars back when they were new so I have fond memories of being carted around in them when I was a kid. His first one was a Raven Blue (beautiful colour) Bora 1.6, first car I ever did 100mph in (in France, aged about 6) X922OUD, not taxed since '04, so something must've happened to it as it was only 4 years old!
Obviously there's plenty of choice - Golfs, Leons, Octavias, Boras, Toledos etc are all different cuts of the same cloth. Not keen on the Skoda interiors, so didn't even look at them. Same with the Leons, they were always the cheaper alternative when new, so you don't often see them kitted out with leather and other nice options. So it was between the Golf and Bora, scoured the internet for both for a while, before deciding to narrow the search to the Boras. The spec of Golf I was after was pretty hard to find, I wanted a fully optioned 3dr (heated leather, AC, cruise), black or silver, PD130 or 150. There are loads of MK4 TDIs out there, but not that many at all fit that criteria. Knowing they did a Highline version of the Bora was ideal, as they were basically full spec as standard. Plus the image of them isn't quite as bad as that of the Golf. Obviously went for the cheapest half-decent looking one out there.
It was advertised for £800, was the exact spec I wanted (PD130 Highline manual, with black leather rather than grey) and not at the opposite end of the country, only a couple of hours away in Barnsley. It had 210k miles on it, which I wasn't really concerned about due to the reputation these cars have for eating miles up. It had supposedly never been mapped, which seems to be true. The only known fault was it was notchy going into 1st, I assumed that it needed the clutch bleeding and it'd be away, or worst case, a slave cylinder replacement. Little did I know that these have a concentric slave, so inside the bell housing (brilliantly s
t idea) so even if it was that (it wasn't) it'd be a gearbox off job.Anyway, it looked pretty tidy, had the usual VW rusty front wings but wasn't overly concerned, they're bolt off/bolt on unlike the areas that rot on Hondas. Asked the seller if he had any movement on price, he said it was worth the £700 it was advertised for, so didn't really want to move. It was actually advertised for £800, so I immediately shook his hand
5 minutes after purchase:
What you can't see is the flat tyre
I'd gone to put some diesel in it and ran over a load of broken glass which popped one of the tyres. Literally 5 minutes into ownership!One of the wheel bolts had previously been rounded off and wouldn't quite come out with the supplied wrench, it just kept slipping, so had to hand in my man card and get the AA to do it, luckily been a member with pretty extensive cover for a while. Would've been fine if I'd taken a socket set, but buying a sensible, well made modern German car I didn't think I'd need to
These are the sorts of mornings that had made me decide to go for something like this, and insist on heated seats/AC, rather than another hoopty Civic.
Leathers in fairly decent condition, but the longer I've owned it the more I've realised it's really not very good quality, it's worn well for the miles, but it's quite plasticky, hard and shiny, so I'd really like a set of the optional black leather heated Recaros as they appear to use proper cow peel.
More winter duty.
Made a good dog taxi, sadly George isn't with us any more
I intended on running it for the winter and probably selling it. This was in 2016, and I've still got it now
It's just become part of the furniture, for the money I'd get for it, I might as well keep it as it's pretty nice to drive and the interior is a great place to be. I got it mapped a few weeks after purchase, which livened it up a bit. I had a bit of a paddy in 2018 after it gave endless grief with seizing calipers, bought my Aerodeck VTi-S and stuck the Bora on ebay My excuse was I wanted a car I knew my way round, wouldn't break, and when it did could be fixed easily. So I drove it up to Solway aviation Museum to use up the diesel left in it, and wrote an ad.
In reality I just wanted a VTi-S 'deck before they were all gone, so set the reserve on the Bora higher than I thought it was worth, deep down I didn't really want rid. Sure enough, it didn't sell, so I stuck it in my then storage yard for a few months while I decided whagt to do with it.
Pulled it back out in Autumn as I took my ATR off the road so had a spare insurance policy, as far as I can remember it's been in use since.
Picked up a free Accord Type-R engine with a knocking bottom end in it, then went over to RAF Waddington to have a nosey at Vulcan XM607. Just after this photo, I parked in a different layby, and within minutes, got very much told off by the RAF! Even had local Police turn up at home hours later to check I wasn't up to anything dodgy. I think the fact I answered the door with a Vulcan t-shirt on added to the validity of my explanation that I'm into aviation and simply strayed too close
The headlights were beyond poor, and with most of my winter driving being in the dark, I had to do something about it. Got a set of Nighteye LED bulbs off Amazon. These ones unfortunately don't have any sort of beam pattern, they're just insanely bright and completely illegal, I didn't run them for long as I was blinding people. They've since come up with newer versions which have a proper beam pattern and they're brilliant, I fit them to every car now. Well, well worth the £30ish. Just make sure they're advertised as the ones with the correct pattern.
Doing my best Ken Block impression on the way home from work at about 1:30am, stuck it in a ditch! It happened so slowly and gently I was pissing myself laughing as the nose crept over the bank and into the ditch. Obviously wasn't even close to getting it out, had to call a then-neighbour who runs a recovery firm. It was properly stuck, his kitted out Defender was struggling and he was about to go and get his proper recovery truck, but it eventually heaved out of the ditch. No damage at all, except a £100 charge for getting him out of bed
Wasn't even really on my way home, I'd turned off the main road and onto an un-gritted side road to "practice my driving in winter conditions" I don't really need to go into more detail than that, do I? We're now in 2019, and with 228k miles iirc, the clutch was getting really bad and when sitting at lights in 1st with the clutch fully down, it would creep forwards quite insistently unless on a steep hill or with your foot fairly hard on the brakes. Was getting really hard to get into 1st, reverse and sometimes 2nd. Remember it had the issue since I bought it, but it was getting really bad at this point. It had also been slipping occasionally in the higher gears ever since the remap. Also it wouldn't go from 6th to 5th, always had to go 6th > 4th > 5th which got annoying.
Eventually, on the way to work, it let go in a big way. Was just about to pull out for an overtake, gave it a bootful in 4th and as soon as the turbo woke up, it just went straight to the redline immediately. I thought it had snapped a shaft, but it was much more terminal. Either way, it cost me a day's holiday. Luckily, my other half, who works at the same place could get a lift in as it broke down approaching my old storage yard, and the guy who took it over when I quit was there so he took her in. She'd only worked there a month so it wouldn't have looked great.
It turned out not to be a shaft, but the clutch and DMF had catastrophically failed, taking the gearbox with them.
Ripped the centre clean out of the friction plate, and the input shaft in the gearbox had several millimetres of play, so the gearbox was also scrap.
Most people would scrap it at this point, but I was really fond of it by this point, so forked out for a Sachs (OEM I believe) clutch and DMF. Considered a solid flywheel conversion but there are supposedly harsher to use and noisier, I wanted to keep it nice and comfy. Also the DMF can't take too much power reliably, so it'd stop me chasing power on this extremely tunable engine.
Got a gearbox from a local guy on facebook breaking a Bora. He also had a VR6 4motion splitter, so snagged that as well.
Gave it to VTECDirect to sort, I think it totalled to about £1100, the parts alone cost me £500ish etc, then had the gearbox and labour on top. Had a couple of other things taken care of while it was there. It was so nice to drive it and get into all gears easily without having to do weird things to persuade it, and without it creeping when at a standstill etc. It crunches into 2nd when cold, other than that it's perfect. It's a £150 gearbox bought off a council estate off Facebook marketplace, so didn't even try getting any money back. If I ever have a reason to remove it again, I'll get a recon box to go back in.
Driving down a road and heard a clatter, reversed to see what it was and reversed over my bumper grille which had dropped off!
Happened upon a few Golfs when weighing in my old central heating copper pipes, so grabbed a grill from one of them, assuming it was the same, It wasn't.
Scrapyards are full of these now, shame as they're quality cars and most have probably got quite a bit of life left in them. Fond memories of my parents having them from new don't seem long ago at all, and now they're just bangers that'll be scrapped when they fail an MOT or have an issue costing more than £100 or so.
I'd been wanting a set of Audi TT Competition wheels for a while, they're one of the less common Audi wheels. I hate those hideous "RS8" A8 replicas that you see on so many Golfs, they look beyond s
t when they're in good nick, and they're never in good nick. Always sprayed black with huge silver kerb marks. But yeah, always liked the look of the Comps, nice big simple 5 spoke design, and pretty subtle. Perfect size for the car too as they're off a MK4-based car. A mate from work mentioned he had a really rough set in his parents garden off a Golf he'd scrapped long ago, so when my tyres needed replacing I offered him £100 and went to pick them up. He wasn't exaggerating about the condition, they were absolute scrap My neighbour has access to a part worn tyre place, so asked him to whip the tyres off and check they were actually straight before putting any effort or money into them. They were, somehow! They'd definitely been owned by someone who parked by feel rather than sight.
That's quite a lot of air where aluminium should be! Obviously to get this looking anywhere near right, I had to take the surrounding metal down to this level, not an ideal situation but the only way other than welding some more metal in. Graduated it enough that it's really not noticeable.
Got to work with the files.
Threw occasional light coats of primer on when filing to show me which parts hadn't been touched by the file yet - when no primer was left on the rim it was time to move to a finer file and bring the deep file marks out.
Couple of the marks were too deep to sort with a file as they'd require way too much material to be removed and it's look super obvious, so put a bit of epoxy in and rubbed it smooth when dry.
These wheels are originally mirror polished bare aluminium with lacquer over the top and it looks great, did shine a small section up to see how it'd look, but the amount of effort involved would be huge. Plus the car is driven all year round so I think the salt would ruin it. Also I didn't fancy trying to get lacquer to sit on a mirror polished surface without running!
Got them blasted which removed the awful corrosion and peeling lacquer with mud under.
Primer:
Had a visitor that I wasn't very keen on!
Colour on. Just went for Reflex Silver to match the body.
Lacquered, not a bad finish for rattle cans!
Got a new set of Rainsports, always use these on this car as they're so cheap and ideal for the use the car gets, don't last brilliantly but if they did they'd no doubt be twice the price. Other half sealed the wheels with Poorboys wheel sealant, and we put them on.
Quite like how it looks now with the new wheels, VR6 splitter etc.
Took it to RAF Fairford for a week of camping at RIAT, was the perfect tool for the job, dried us all out and warmed us up with the heated seats after a rainy day, and cooled us down with the ice cold AC after the next day was a scorcher.
You can also open bottles of cider with the top of the drivers door, but I only did it once as it chipped the paint
The headlights, even with the LEDs, were becoming pretty poor, so invested in a 3m resto kit, honestly worth its weight in gold. Makes any car look much less of a nail, and vastly improves the light output and gives a crisp beam cutoff.
It took 420kg of tiles with room to spare, but I don't think the rear suspension was too keen on it
Finally, another Cold War bomber photo, we decided to go to Coventry Air Museum on NYE last year.
Can't believe I've just spent so long writing about this shed, but I love it and it's taken me all over the country. Probably owes me £2500 in buying, repairs and maintenance. Didn't expect to own it for so long, but the only car I'd say is in the same league as it for the same sort of money, is either another MK4 platform car (but to me the Bora is best, as explained at the start) or a MK1 Focus, and I prefer the Bora personally. Much better interior, preferable engines/gearboxes and more kit on them. Although the Focus is a better handler (my other half has a £250 example that I recommended, they are a great car) So my Bora will be with me for a long time to come I think.
It's going for a service next week (I can't be bothered doing it, and my garage isn't built yet so I'm not doing it on the road) and to investigate a knock from the front left, maybe a driveshaft.
It needs a boost issue looking into as well, I'm pretty sure it has a boost leak from the intercooler as I can hear it sending boost into the front bumper rather than the engine
The variable vanes in the turbo seem to be sticking too, its sluggish until the turbo is making full boost and is well into it's stride, it used to be a lot more progressive and responsive. Need to look into the Mr Muscle fix, along with cleaning the EGR system as that should help. I suppose worst case is a recon turbo. I'd like to remove the EGR as that's supposedly the cause of the turbo issues on these cars, but I don't feel great about making the emissions of an already pretty toxic car even worse, so will probably just clean it.When I get around to sorting the turbo/intercooler issues, I'm pretty tempted to go for a front mounted intercooler as the standard side mount efforts are pretty crap and are notorious for leaking boost. I'd like to get it mapped properly too, it's just a generic file currently, not one tailored to the car, although performance and economy are decent, and crucially for me at least, it doesn't throw out clouds of horrible smoke like most tuned VAG TDIs do!
Would also like to lower it a bit, nothing crazy, maybe just 40mm or so, but don't know if I should, I love the ability to drive it quickly on any sort of road without worrying about bottoming out, so we'll see.
Thanks for reading, if you could be bothered
Cheers for the kind comments.
Yeah, I plan to take it to very high miles, will take a long time though as I only do 5-7k a year in it due to having so many other cars.
Probably gonna end up a bit of a Trigger's broom, as mentioned, the box could do with changing again, and the turbo definitely needs looking at. Front wings are rotten so I'll replace them when they get MOT-failingly bad. Sills are starting to rot just in front of the rear wheels, but seems very solid everywhere else. Can't see it being an issue getting solid body cuts from a breaker to repair it for a while yet, so that can wait for a bit.
RE the V6 4motion, I do fancy one! The VR6 is an incredible sounding engine, super exotic noise to be coming from a Golf/Bora. Guy at the end of our road has a super low mileage JDM import Passat W8, jealous every time I see it!
Yeah, I plan to take it to very high miles, will take a long time though as I only do 5-7k a year in it due to having so many other cars.
Probably gonna end up a bit of a Trigger's broom, as mentioned, the box could do with changing again, and the turbo definitely needs looking at. Front wings are rotten so I'll replace them when they get MOT-failingly bad. Sills are starting to rot just in front of the rear wheels, but seems very solid everywhere else. Can't see it being an issue getting solid body cuts from a breaker to repair it for a while yet, so that can wait for a bit.
RE the V6 4motion, I do fancy one! The VR6 is an incredible sounding engine, super exotic noise to be coming from a Golf/Bora. Guy at the end of our road has a super low mileage JDM import Passat W8, jealous every time I see it!
Well the shed still exists but hasn't really done any miles since summer! Rear calipers seized and I just abandoned it at my parents for a while.
December I started missing it so put it into a local VW specialist. Went in for quite a bit of work, both rear calipers needed replacing (I'd previously got them replaced but using ones from the scrapyard, they lasted a couple of years before seizing again.) Turbo issue needed looking into as mentioned at the end of my original post, amongst a few other minor issues here and there such as the interior fan deciding to die.
Before I took it to the garage it had a very lazy turbo which was really laggy and would shut off into limp mode if accelerating hard say 30-80 onto a motorway etc. The garage has tested the vacuum system with a pressurised smoke tester to try and find any leaks but none were found. He was going to clean the turbo out but after seeing the state of the downpipe bolts I told him to leave it for now and I’ll get that sorted when it goes in for a cam belt.
I’ve got it back and the brake pedal travels almost it’s whole travel before it actually does anything. It stops perfectly well but the pedal goes way further than it should. Weirdly the turbo is now perfect, picks up sooner, pulls a lot harder, less lag after gear changes and doesn’t seem to go into limp mode any more (despite a possible slight leak on the intercooler). It feels much faster now than it did when I first got it mapped just after buying it years ago. Seems the vac system being apart and back together must’ve cleared a slight blockage somewhere.
Anyway back to the brake issue, garage initially thought the tandem pump was on its way out, but after telling him how much better the turbo is he doesn’t think so any more. Plus any lack of vacuum would result in a hard pedal not this super squishy thing I’ve got?
I’ve been told about the potential issue where these can get an air bubble in the ABS pump which can be rectified by kicking the ABS in a couple of times, I’ve absolutely hammered the brakes on some wet, leafy, muddy lanes several times to give it the best chance it’s got, and not really got any improvements.
It was bled using the proper bleed program via VCDS or Vagcom, the garage is experienced with these cars and has done other brake jobs on MK4 platform cars since doing mine and had no issues. The only thing I’m aware of that’s left to try is bleed it at the bleed point on the master cylinder itself and then kick the ABS in to see if that clears it. After that it’s gonna be a case of replacing the master/servo which I want to avoid if possible.
Would really appreciate any other ideas if bleeding the master cylinder doesn’t work as the garage has never had an issue like this before. His theory now is that the battery voltage may have dropped enough while the rear calipers were off that the ABS system has let some air in (makes sense as the battery isn’t the best and it’s not been in regular use for a long time). I’m taking it back on Friday to hopefully get fixed, I’m fed up of owning 7 cars and having to steal my other half's Focus all the time.
I'm really surprised by how much quicker it is now the turbo seems to be functioning correctly, it really does feel quite a bit more impressive now than it did when I got it mapped 4 years ago!
Would really like to get it mechanically perfect and then I can look at tidying the body up a bit and maybe doing a couple of mods. Would love to lower it a bit, get some leather Recaros out of a V6 4motion and possibly go for a bit more power...
December I started missing it so put it into a local VW specialist. Went in for quite a bit of work, both rear calipers needed replacing (I'd previously got them replaced but using ones from the scrapyard, they lasted a couple of years before seizing again.) Turbo issue needed looking into as mentioned at the end of my original post, amongst a few other minor issues here and there such as the interior fan deciding to die.
Before I took it to the garage it had a very lazy turbo which was really laggy and would shut off into limp mode if accelerating hard say 30-80 onto a motorway etc. The garage has tested the vacuum system with a pressurised smoke tester to try and find any leaks but none were found. He was going to clean the turbo out but after seeing the state of the downpipe bolts I told him to leave it for now and I’ll get that sorted when it goes in for a cam belt.
I’ve got it back and the brake pedal travels almost it’s whole travel before it actually does anything. It stops perfectly well but the pedal goes way further than it should. Weirdly the turbo is now perfect, picks up sooner, pulls a lot harder, less lag after gear changes and doesn’t seem to go into limp mode any more (despite a possible slight leak on the intercooler). It feels much faster now than it did when I first got it mapped just after buying it years ago. Seems the vac system being apart and back together must’ve cleared a slight blockage somewhere.
Anyway back to the brake issue, garage initially thought the tandem pump was on its way out, but after telling him how much better the turbo is he doesn’t think so any more. Plus any lack of vacuum would result in a hard pedal not this super squishy thing I’ve got?
I’ve been told about the potential issue where these can get an air bubble in the ABS pump which can be rectified by kicking the ABS in a couple of times, I’ve absolutely hammered the brakes on some wet, leafy, muddy lanes several times to give it the best chance it’s got, and not really got any improvements.
It was bled using the proper bleed program via VCDS or Vagcom, the garage is experienced with these cars and has done other brake jobs on MK4 platform cars since doing mine and had no issues. The only thing I’m aware of that’s left to try is bleed it at the bleed point on the master cylinder itself and then kick the ABS in to see if that clears it. After that it’s gonna be a case of replacing the master/servo which I want to avoid if possible.
Would really appreciate any other ideas if bleeding the master cylinder doesn’t work as the garage has never had an issue like this before. His theory now is that the battery voltage may have dropped enough while the rear calipers were off that the ABS system has let some air in (makes sense as the battery isn’t the best and it’s not been in regular use for a long time). I’m taking it back on Friday to hopefully get fixed, I’m fed up of owning 7 cars and having to steal my other half's Focus all the time.
I'm really surprised by how much quicker it is now the turbo seems to be functioning correctly, it really does feel quite a bit more impressive now than it did when I got it mapped 4 years ago!
Would really like to get it mechanically perfect and then I can look at tidying the body up a bit and maybe doing a couple of mods. Would love to lower it a bit, get some leather Recaros out of a V6 4motion and possibly go for a bit more power...
With regards to the turbo, a sticky VNT mechanism seems to be a common thing with the related PD engines.
I had/have the same issue with the pd130 in my Passat.
A dose of mr muscle Oven cleaner in to the hot side of the turbo sorts it for 4/5 months at a time for me.
I feed a silicone van line down the egr takeoff pipe hole on the exhaust manifold and attach it over the nipple under the spray nozzle of the cleaner, and use a pair of needle nosed pliers to inject it in.
Using a small hand vacuum pump/brake bleeder on to the turbo actuator means I can cycle the mechanism once the cleaner is in it to break up carbon deposits.
You’ll probably notice a difference in the amount of vacuum you need to pull to get the actuator to start moving, before and after. It’s also possible to see a change in how smoothly it goes through it’s travel.
I usually leave it in for half an hour, cycling it as much as I can be arsed and leaving it sat in certain points through its travel every so often.
Button it all back up, start it, let it idle for a second then go give it some stick up the bypass; it should help clear it’s lungs.
Fitting a cheap catch can off the top of the rocker cover breather before it goes back to the intake has helped keep things free of oily soot to reduce the amount of crap that ends up getting stuck in the turbo.
I had/have the same issue with the pd130 in my Passat.
A dose of mr muscle Oven cleaner in to the hot side of the turbo sorts it for 4/5 months at a time for me.
I feed a silicone van line down the egr takeoff pipe hole on the exhaust manifold and attach it over the nipple under the spray nozzle of the cleaner, and use a pair of needle nosed pliers to inject it in.
Using a small hand vacuum pump/brake bleeder on to the turbo actuator means I can cycle the mechanism once the cleaner is in it to break up carbon deposits.
You’ll probably notice a difference in the amount of vacuum you need to pull to get the actuator to start moving, before and after. It’s also possible to see a change in how smoothly it goes through it’s travel.
I usually leave it in for half an hour, cycling it as much as I can be arsed and leaving it sat in certain points through its travel every so often.
Button it all back up, start it, let it idle for a second then go give it some stick up the bypass; it should help clear it’s lungs.
Fitting a cheap catch can off the top of the rocker cover breather before it goes back to the intake has helped keep things free of oily soot to reduce the amount of crap that ends up getting stuck in the turbo.
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