Operation Bora Body

[PranK]

Price is always an issue
Love what you have done so far, I was considering clean skinning mine but at the moment I'm kinda attached to the 4 mo badge, not so much the great big WV roundels
If it would stop raining enough to give my car a proper clean and get some photos I will do some work in photoshop to see just how far I want to go.
Boser bonnet is high on the list along with LED tails, coilovers and the projector headlights, I might even have a long hard think about forced induction, lets just see how much my daughters university is going to rape my wallet for first.

Sounds good! Yeah, while my daughters are not at uni age yet, school is still damaging to the car fund.

Gave mine a big clean yesterday, fell in love with it again. Dont want to drive it now incase it gets dirty

[PranK]

As promised, pics of the LED's in the boot now that its clean.

As usual, I couldnt be bothered getting my camera, so I just used my phone.

The improved light


The LED strip


I have a few other ideas for small, strategically placed LED's through the car, I'll update as I do them.

[PranK]

nice roof racks

Thanks!

[Brisbane's Bora]

How much did the roof racks and the 3xheadrests set you back? Im guessing from the stealership?

[PranK]

Racks were from that man 2 posts up ^

Headrests, I almost dont want to tell you. I looked for so long and have had varying degrees of success, but this wrecker in Vic had them and sold them, posted, for $150! I didn't wait to reply to him, just said yes, they're mine.

The side strip was from a wrecker on eBay for $70 delivered. I don't know, but things seem a lot cheaper this year.

[dylan8]

Thats not too bad for the strip! im currently in the process of straightening mine back up

[PranK]

This update has been a long time coming. I umm'ed and aah'd about writing it for ages.

Last October we had a catastrophic failure.





What happened was ...
I noticed a bit of steam coming from under the bonnet. It was a hot day and I was in traffic, at first thought I was just over heating. Then I smelled the oil. I pushed the car a little bit to get it off the road and when I checked under the bonnet there was just tonnes of sludge coming from the expansion tank. Everything was boiling and it was 50% oil.

Note: What I find out in the future is that my temp sensor was broken (so temp on the dash was fine) and also my radiator fans weren't turning on. Explains a lot about how it happened.

The car went to a local mechanic for analysis. They determined that my oil cooler had ruptured internally and, because of the flow of the water, the oil had literally been sucked out of the engine and into the cooling system.

They suggested I sell the car for scrap, and I almost did.

Then, I decided to give it a go myself and see what I could do. My main concern was that the engine had no oil at all and I didn't know if there was internal damage.

Anyway, I had an ECS cooling system refresh kit that I'd been meaning to fit;
Billet Gruvenparts crack pipe
Thermostat, thermo housing and seals
Temp sensor

So, those along with the new Oil Cooler and a new bellyfull of nice oil and she started, first go (after several months).



Of course, the cooling system was full of gunk. I did 5 or 6 flushes, then stupidly added my G12++ as I thought it was clean enough.

Also, I was finding it hard to open and close my expansion tank lid. Seems there was a reason for that.



The car was running. But there were a few things still wrong with it, mainly that it was now 3 months out of rego.

Which meant new plates. This means that the car was no longer matching numbers (I know its not a classic, but I liked having the original plates).

[PranK]

So, it was time to focus my attention on the horribly clunking front drivers suspension. I was pretty sure it was the strut top mount, so I bought a new rubber mount and bearing.

Seems it was a little bit worse;




So, thats now in and much much better. BUT (and maybe a q for dylan if you read this) I wasn't able to torque the nuts on the strut, they tightened all the way up to the top of the strut. That didn't happen last time.

Also, I replaced the ABS/G sensor behind the glove box. The braking problems I've been having since I bought the car (early ABS engagement) were gone!! OMG it pulls up so well! Its *never* braked like this!

But, then my reco sensor died, so I bought and fit another reco sensor just this last week and so far so good. ($500 new or $140 reco.)

Again, I can't explain how much better my brakes were after the sensor fitting. The ABS actually works but waits till there is a skid, which is not what it did before. As it is a lateral sensor, my theory is that it thought the car was travelling faster than it was, hence the early ABS.

If you need to replace this sensor, take the glove box out, its much easier.

So, now we're at current day.

The drivers side wheel is making an absolute racket! The guide bolt snapped off inside the disk and while the disk is on centered (no wobble) I think I may have bent the dust shield so will check that over the weekend.

ALSO, I found that my fans have not been working. I can make them turn on and off by bypassing the switch, which is good, it means they work! So, considering I need to drain the (still mud-like) coolant from the radiator to replace the switch, I bought myself a 2nd hand radiator, new O-Rings, new switch and 2 new bottles of G13.

So, this weekend all those things will go in. I'm a bit excited about this.

Also, I bought all the bits to build the fan-saver resistors fix thing. So, I'll put that in at the same time.

Once all that is done I'm hoping the car will be happy. If it is, then I'll start to move into a preservation/restoration mode. I'll make sure gearbox and haldex are ok and just try to maintain things. I don't think anything else is really 'broken' as such. She's done 240k now, I'd love her to reach over 300k.

I also have a little Mazda SP23 now also, I'm hoping I can keep the two for a bit longer so I have no real pressure on these weekend fixes. I don't need it on Monday. Thats a big help.

Ok, I think you're all up to date.

[Gez110]

Far out, you've had a battle. How di you rate the ECS coolant refresh kit? Which one did you get.

[PranK]

Yeah, she was the perfect steed for 5 years and now everything is failing at once!! haha! So happy I have another car to drive at the moment.

This kit is the closest to it; https://www.ecstuning.com/Volkswagen...ing/ES2718487/

Mine was from a few years ago and had a Gruven Parts billet crack pipe (The Ultimate Crackpipe - All VR6 - Gruven Parts) and came with genuine coolant but this new one seems pretty much the same. It was great, its a daunting task (for me at least) but in the end it wasn't too difficult, just can't be scared. Super easy to put it all back together. Nice to know you have everything there and you wont need to leave the car half finished while you wait for a part.

Considering the state of my thermostat and temp sensor, I recommend you do it sooner rather than later (keep in mind my car was ~240k's when I did it, so had a fair few kays behind it.)