Not a new member, just a new car. (1996 B4 Passat TDi maintenance/mods)
 

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So... I went and bought a 1996 Passat TDi for $400. It needs a considerable amount of work, but runs and drives... and even stops, sometimes.

So far I seem to be averaging about 36-38MPG, which is dismal for a TDi, but still acceptable for now [considering how cold it's been lately].

Some of the first things I plan on doing are cleaning and updating existing [OEM original] parts, such as vacuum/boost reference hoses, fixing the broken oil dipstick funnel tube, and eventually removing and cleaning the intake/EGR and turbocharger, all of which has never been done in 301,500 miles.

Currently, there is a MIL code for PCM rom check failure, typically attributed to the 4'' piece of vacuum line inside the ECM that runs through a bulkhead connector to the internal MAP sensor. This particular line, as well as the 34 feet of other reference lines, I plan on updating with silicone line [in OE color patterns] from McMaster Carr. The total cost of this about $52 plus shipping.

Further mods include upgrading to VR6 suspension/brakes, booster delete, belly pan, grille block, 1.5kw inline circulatory coolant heater, thermos bottle mod [Prius], CCV catch can, and lots of cleaning up and relocating parts of the engine bay, such as the coolant and washer reservoirs.

In addition to the VR6 [Plus] suspension swap, I'll be adding stronger struts and coilovers, but they're designed for an MK3 chassis, so at full pre-load they'll still lower the car about 2'', which should be more than sufficient.

Since the car didn't come with a grille, and I absolutely hate the front end of the car as it is anyway, I plan on skirting the bumper and closing off the grille/headlight area completely.

Pics to come when I get the gumption to battle the sub-arctic temperatures and get some. :P

PS - I realize I haven't been as active here lately as in the past... I've had lots and lots and lots of things going on the past couple years and haven't had time for forum activity much at all, but I'm working on budgeting a little time once a week or so to keeping things like this up to date as well, so hopefully you'll see more of my pretty face around here. :)

"Welcome back Kotter"


...no, it's "Welcome back, Christ!"

Pics added at the top, and here is the Jetta from which I'll be taking the suspension components. It's a GLX VR6 that I paid $650 for hoping it would work for a beater... well, the day I registered it [after driving it 500ish miles on random trips down back roads], it decided to eat the timing chains, which are on the back of the engine between the block and transmission - No, thanks, not for a beater car.

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Depends on what I actually end up doing as to whether this car will ever see road time again... If I end up using the VR6 Passat I'm getting as a parts car, this one may yet be restored, either using an IDI engine or by putting the 150k mile Passat VR6 engine against the Jetta's 5 speed [after some turbo and maintenance related goodies] for a 'fun' beater car. 300ish HP on boost may not be /this/ forum's forte - but man, a man's gotta have some fun.

Well, you do what think is best.
I can tell you this. There is way more Jetta support on the internet and in the aftermarket compared to the Passat.
For the $400 you spent on the Passat tdi, I bet you could have found a running used VR6 engine for that A3 jetta. Then you could have repaired the damage from the timing chain failure and sold the engine to fund more improvements.

Good buy on the tdi. I almost bought on like that instead of the vx. Somedays I wish I had gotten the tdi instead (I have kids).
One note on upgrading to the vr6 brakes. If you keep the smaller tdi parts, you can fit 14" rims and insight tires.

I normally just subscribe manually than posting Subscribed, but, I am very interested. I'd like to do this one day, but a bit differently. Look forward to following.

I didn't really want to fix the VR6. I needed something better on fuel than my van, and really prefer diesel engines in general. The VR6 did sound pretty badass, though, so I may use the GLX wagon I'm getting to fix the Jetta and take the brake parts for the Pasta from that one. Well see.

And because some part of everything I do to my car involves the style I enjoy, I'm going to be using 16" steel rims and 205/xxR16 tires in the end. I'm not /all/ about efficiency /all/ the time. Lol

You go through cars like [insert really funny metaphor here].

Watching...

Cool. I'm really interested in TDI's, I like the interiors a bit more than my Honda's. Nice pickup for 400!

Darin - Yeah... yeah I do. lol

I get bored. That's a problem I have lol

At least I'm still working on the Festiva D swap though... just takes time.

I prefer the Diesel as well, but around here Diesels are coveted.
ex. My 2005.5 Jetta 2.5l with no know issues was less than $5600, whereas a 2006 TDI base with 197,000 (more than twice the mileage of my 05.5) plus a boatload of issues was listed for $7900 (and it needed probably another 2500 to pass inspection).
In the end I'm thrilled with the 05.5.

Welcome back. I sometimes wondered what had happened to you. Glad you have returned! Subscribed.

I come and go, man. I'm a drifter. :D

As far as how many cars I go through... you guys don't even know the half of it. Other than the ones that have been detailed on this forum, I've had an additional 15 or so in the last 7ish years. No big deal to me, cars are like underwear... they get a little uncomfortable after you've used them so long. :P

I got my silicone vacuum lines in the other day, and I've had the headlight I needed to replace for some time now, but since it got fairly warm out today [37F], I decided to get off my duff and work on the car some.

It's had a fairly obvious oil spray under the hood for awhile now, to the tune of about a quart lost every 2-3 days, which has literally turned EVERYTHING under the hood a very shiny shade of black lately. At first I assumed it was coming from the dipstick, since it seemed to accumulate most there, but I was wrong. Anyway, dipstick tends to tell you that you have either excessive blowby, not enough ventilation [plugged PCV/CCV], or in the case of the TDi, a very bad vacuum leak.

Figured I'd check the CCV filter first, since it's easy to get to. As I'm removing the lower block vent pipe from the filter on top of the engine, I notice LOTS of excessive movement... take a quick look down there and realize that... umm.. the flange is broken in about 18 places. FOUND THE OIL... LEAK.

Apparently the VR6 engine uses the same part [maybe] so I'm gonna check that out tomorrow [Sunday, my birthday] and if not, I'll be ordering a $23 piece of friggin' plastic.

In addition, I changed the headlight and got the front looking... less broken.

But now [dun dun dunnnnnnn] the battery light's been on for about 2 days. Started out intermittent, now it's on steady, but here's the kicker - the battery hasn't died yet, including several cold starts in that time. The lights are significantly more dim while the alt light is on, but the alt is clearly still charging to some extent.

Anyway, the VR's alternator is 130A, which is an upgrade to the existing one, and it's not like I have any other use for it than a spare, so I'll toss it on and rebuild my existing one as a spare in the mean time. While I'm in there, I'll more than likely remove the AC components, too, for some weight savings and less belt drag, since I'll never use it.

Next up, complete vac line swap... all 35 feet of them.

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There used to be a hose running between the two red circles. Fixed the oil spray issue using stock block plate and a cap from a can of 'Start ya *******' (actual brand name, not actually the brand I used) and a stock hose clamp. Later, Ill be plumbing a crankcase evac system and catch can.

No progress on vac lines as yet, nor brakes/suspension upgrades.

I wish I could get a Passat TDI for 400 bucks back here...

Anyway, that's still a nice ride, a good base for many eco mods.

Have you tried washing them?

Nope. Woman does that. ;)

If cars are like underwear, then you should be wearing them out.

If cars are like underwear, I need a Jeep Commando!

LMAO... that's terrible.

I changed my Alt out for a unit from my VR6 that I blew up, so now the battery light is off and she's charging again.

I didn't have a chance to wire in the manual charge and brake light circuits for the alt, I'll be doing that when I do some other wiring changes on the car, so that the alternator is only 'on' when either the brake lights are on, or the manual switch is closed. In addition, I'll be ordering a 13.6v DC/DC converter and a volt gauge so that I can monitor electrical system voltage and ensure proper electrical system operating voltage.

The theory and practice behind this is that it's inefficient to charge while attempting to accelerate, better to charge in 'bursts' while decelerating or otherwise 'wasting' fuel, such as when idling [it idles at .10 gph... I dont' bother shutting it down].

I prefer the Subaru boxers.

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Scored these, the clips I needed, and a pair of clean corner lamps at the yard. May also go back eventually and get both fenders and pass side doors, possibly also any good black interior pieces I can find, and the hood.

I won't be using the grille or emblems, I cleaned them in case anyone else needs them. Therre are a couple of the small tabs broken on the back, but the grille locks in perfectly fine. No damage to the emblem or circle trims except a small nick in the left side of the chrome. The VR6 emblem is worn nd will need refinished.

The belt makes a little noise, and is pretty weak anyway, so its soon time to pull it and replace, and what better time to also delete the AC pump and associated lines? The added benefit of that, it gives me a prewired switch in the form of the AC button to which I can wire a relay to control the alternator's function manually. Later I'll add in a tap to the brake light activation circuit that will also trigger the relay to turn on field to the alternator, and eventually add a second battery.

Further down the line, a block heater, 120VAC float/quick charger, and coolant thermos/overflow bottle.

:thumbup: Great to see that your keeping a TDI out of the junk yard. You payed $400 thats crazy cheap. All the TDIs I have seen 4 sale are expensive even when poring oil out of the engine at a rate unsafe to drive or blown engine. I want to see how you do the coolant thermos, been wanting to do that on my VDub.

I gotta do only clean mods on this, since I'll end up selling it for a decent amount when I tire of it.

Fixed the passenger side door handle at work last night, now I have 3 functional handles. Not sure what the electrical connections on the front door handles are for, but I don't lock my car or need central locking etc nor do I care about it, so I just cut the wires off the old handles and kinda stuffed the new handles in without attaching the new wires. Maybe I'll fix that later, but its unlikely.

Started prepping the nose piece for a grille block and paint. There was rust in some weird places bit got all of it and smoothed out most of the stone chips everywhere. Gonna have to remove a little more paint to weld in the grille block and smooth everything out, then primer and satin black.

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The car this came from had possibly the two good doors I need, and the hood. Fenders were too far gone to be worth $40 each, what they charge. A few possibly good black interior pieces I'll take, though most of the interior, like mine, is unkempt and heavily worn. May grab the headlights and headlight mounting panel after next payday/budget day.

really nice picture

hahahah I had to take it in the bedroom, with the lamp knocked over on the bed pointing at it.

The only camera I own is on my crappy $79 phone, so I do what I can with what I have. Someday I'll probably invest in something /slightly/ better and dedicated, but for pics I post online, it's soooo easy to just use the damn camera phone, because I can take the image, post it, and share it from FB to everywhere.

Anyway I'm hoping it's fairly obvious where the grille block ends up getting welded in place. Im not totally sure if I'm actually going to weld it, or just pin it in place with rivets or glue it on and smooth out the piece yet... all are pretty much the same viability for me.

I may end up just gluing the piece of tin on with some aircraft or body bond and smoothing out the edges from there.

Later on, I may be upgrading to BMW 3-series HID [aftermarket] lights, which /almost/ fit perfectly but leave gaps in the nose panel area that need to be filled, so I'm not concerned at all about modifying this panel since I'll have to do it again in that eventual case.

I had a '97 Passat TDI. I didn't mod it much (didn't know about ecomodder at the time) but I did find that larger diameter tires really helped. However the second time I went for even larger diameter tires, the handling got significantly worse - but I don't know if it was "a bridge too far" or if they were just worse tires than the previous ones. Only drawback is that when turning, if you hit a pothole and compress the suspension, it tends to snag the wheelwell...

I actually just started driving this car again after the oil leak in my F250 got bad enough my boss started noticing it... couldn't have it on the parking lot at work, so I had to park it and start driving something else.

I'm in the process of replacing the entire brake system on the car so that it will actually function properly, then I'll get back to modding. Since I had to start driving it again in the winter, and it was the only [operative] vehicle I currently own, of course it would start having problems with air intrusion and other running issues, but I'm quick enough on my feet that I managed to keep getting to work on time and still fix the car as necessary.

I've got a few other things that I need to do over the Spring in addition to taking care of our newborn [not born yet] child, but by Summer I should be back to no less than 3 available vehicles lol

The current tire size is 195/60R15 on Saturn steel wheels. I really should take some pictures of the car, but I don't exactly keep it clean or looking very nice, cuz it's a beater.