JoeyEunos

Pretty similar story here, 125k, original box (As far as I know), and 'box oil changed last weekend

Argh, I thought something wasn't right. I actually replaced both of the mirrors in a hurry (The originals didn't work) and always felt something was slightly 'off', many thanks, now I know

After spending the weekend lavishing attention on my beater it thanked me on Monday morning by doing this... Son of a bitch Some desperate Ebay searching and I was horrified to find that Lupo manual winders seem to be priced between £10-20 each Plainly that's not good enough, so I chanced my hand with a set of these generic VW aftermarket jobbies .... Worth a shot at £1.50 and allegedly made in Germany, they also come with a 12 month warranty http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181382661995?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Here they are in all of their glory... And whadayaknow, they actually fit, and fit well... Granted, they're black and the original ones were grey, but the interior is two tone anyway with the top half of the dash being black in colour so they work and don't look untidy, and for £1.50 a piece the price was right For all who care/are interested let it be known that Mk2 Golf and Jetta manual winders will fit the Lupo mechanism!

Very clean looking car Sir Seeing an SDI looked after like this makes me happy What kind of millage are you up to if you don't mind me asking? Edit to also say, are you still on the original gearbox and have you changed the oil?

Rich is more of a 'frame of mind' than an actual person I'm happy to confirm Rich is a stand up guy and alot like Yoda of Star Wars fame, only in a kind of Lupo/VW format. There's not much he doesn't know, times when I find myself hunched over my increasingly ropey car perplexed as to how to fix whatever's gone wrong 'this time', I often find myself thinking 'WWRD'? (What would Rich do?)

Right, time for another update 'Her indoors' gracefully showed me the green light this weekend to get cracking with some car stuff. First job was to go and salvage some parts from a Lupo being broken locally, first purchase, this lovely Kenwood head unit and wiring harness, bought for the princely sum of £15... Initially I'd thought I'd be able to put up with the standard tape deck/radio, but no cigar... It's great to be able to play CD's in the car after months of listening to Radio 4. Whilst picking over the carcass of said breaker I also spotted a pair of rear headrests, and in the right colour to boot! These were a complete bargain at just £2 and well worth having IMO... Next up, changing the gearbox oil I'd previously topped up the level with genuine VW 'G50' gear oil (In spite of VW's parts department insisting that their 'G60' oil was the one to use) and after neary a thousand miles all seemed well so I decided it was time to go the whole hog and do a complete drain and refill. Gearbox drain in full swing... I took a small sample of the oil that came out, it looked pretty manky. God only knows where Volkswagen get their 'Lifetime fill' theory from As you can see this stuff was black as tar and well past it's best... Multiple bottles of fresh 'G50' gear oil ready to go in... A length of garden hose with a funel at one end made short work of the job and in the end the box took a smidge under three litres. The 'G50' gear oil represented a fairly extravagant purchase, at just over £17 a litre this stiff isn't cheap I could have done this for less than half the price with some decent 80W80 or 75W90 from a local factors or online, but using the vintage VW stuff gives me confidence that the 'yellow metals' in the 'box will be safe. It's also worth mentioning that the 'G50' oil is fully synthetic where as many of the off the shelf alsternatives are, at least in part part, mineral oils. That aside, oils of the same weight can vary in terms of viscosity, see the example below (These figures are from some VOA's they ran at tdiclub.com )... (Manual Tranny Fluids) 16.7 = Motul MOTYLGEAR 75-90 GL-4/-5 15.6 = VW G50/G51 GL-4 15.6 = Redline MT-90 75-90 GL-4 15.2 = Mobil 1 Synthetic 75W-90 GL-5 15.2 = Motul Gear 300 75-90 GL-4/-5 15.0 = Elf Tranself Synthese FE 75-90 GL-4/-5 14.9 = AMSOIL AGL 80W-90 GL-5 13.8 = Amsoil MTG 75-90 GL-4 10.6 = Redline MTL 70-80 GL-4 9.6 = AMSOIL MTF Synchromesh Trans fluid (GM/Chrysler) None 9.08 = Penzoil Synchromesh trans fluid None 7.5 = Redline D4 ATF Dexron III / Mercon / API GL-4 6.5 = VW G-052-171-A2 None 6.38 = VW G-055-726-A2 None 6.3 = VW G52 (part numbers G052726A2 / G05272601) None Anyhow, all of this gear oil pondering has become an all consuming pass time and quite boring (Even to me!) Suffice to say the gearchange feels nice after the drain and fill, and from this point on I'm never going to mention gearboxes or the oils that go in them (Unless mine blows up shortly, at which point I'll be warning eveyone about the perils of 'G50') After all of the dirty work was done I finished up by treating her to a quick wash and wax, happy days

Thanks chap. Can't argue with that

^If you don't mind me asking @mattarosa, how reasonable is reasonable :)? No issues with mine so far *Touches wood* none the less it's to be expected at some stage I'd imagine given I plan to keep the car for as long as is feasible/viable...

Hell's bells, 230k on an SDI... (85mpg is impressive too)! Was that on the original gearbox @Rich? If so what was the the secret to it's success/longevity?

Interesting

Don't keep us all in the dark? What oil are you running Sir...?

TBH I'm actually ok with poodling round, in fact more than that, I like it Within a fortnight I realised that even when nailing it the SDI doesn't really get anywhere near fast enough to be 'fun', and at that point the whole 'eco-driving' thing became a kind of sport for me in itself. I find the game of trying to eek out better mpg tank upon tank fairly entertaining (I know, I should get out more ;)) FWIW I recon an MX5 provides the perfect 'ying' to the SDI's 'yang'. The SDI seems so frugal and tractor like after running the little Mazda's, and likewise, getting back in an MX5/Eunos after driving the SDI for extended periods makes it feel like a rocketship and a proper rear wheel drive racing car in terms of handling/oversteer/50-50 weight distrubution etc. Polar opposites, but both perfect in their own way. @Skezza How many miles is your SDI up to now? Mine just clicked over 124k on the way back from Newcastle this afternoon...

Update time The exhaust went on without issue and actually fitted really well (Hat's off to you Mr Klarius!) and so my loop's now rocking an entirely new system from the manifold back. Meanwhile, my attention turned to wheels... I'd picked up a set of cheap G60 wheels and tried them on for size, TBH the seem a bit blingy/big for my tastes... These may well end up on the classifieds shortly so watch this space Attention was turned to my standard wheels... After a quick rub with some 120 grit and several coats of Hammerite smooth silver... I had a spare set of G60 hub caps, they seem to fit the little 13" wheels just as well as their larger cousins. All done and looking good... And closer... I'm really happy with the way these have turned out, they look infinitely better than the plastic trims and give the car a kind of retro/euro/utility look IMO. The G60 wheels, whilst nice, do look a little more aggressive, but the G60 caps coupled with standard 13's represents a great compromise

Minor update on the Eunos front, my upper an lower shift boots had seen better days... Old stuff was shot (To be expected really at 27 years old). Out with the old in with the new... Whilst in there I replaced all bushings and changed the turret oil too, then out for a quick spin to test... As expected gearchanges are now silky smooth

Now ordinarily I'd agree with that, and always worked on the assumption that they'd be a modern enough car to have the fuel cut off function, however I went through a whole tank using the 'neutral to coast' technique as an experiment and my MPG immediately jumped up to 70+ (I'd been getting mid 60's until then), another tank doing the same yielded similar results... Like you say, it shouldn't work in theory, but for me it was the catalyst for breaking the 70mpg barrier

Right, stumbled across this thread and had to post... (Holy thread revival Batman etc) I've just managed to achieve 74 mpg as a full tank average purely on the basis of running 13" standard wheels, hitting neutral and rolling to stop for junctions/down hills, and never going over 2krpm. I'm sure I could better this this but half of my driving involves a 10.5 stone passenger (Driving the Mrs to work) and I've pretty much always got a 2.5 stone passenger in tow (Eunos junior) . With further weight savings, ie dissowning family and ditching spare wheel etc I'm fairly confident 80 mpg would be possible, watch this space, we'll see... Meanwhile, I'm off-setting any benefits to the ozone layer by driving my '89 Eunos sans cat, changing up at 7k rpm and thus achieving a respectable 23 mpg, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away Edit to say, the Eunos went in for test last month and I was horrified to learn I'd only covered 734 miles since last year, must try harder, that's about two weeks worth of millage for the Lupo

^I'm actually already in possession of a Pela 6000 pump (I also use this for oil changes ) so I might well give that a go... TBH though part of me sort of me likes the idea of slowly weaning the car onto the new fluid half a litre at a time to give the system time to adjust, silly I know As you can see, the stuff that's coming out of there is BLACK! In other news, tomorrow's exhaust day... I'm replacing the full exhaust system from the manifold back, that includes cat/mid section/silencer, thank God it was cheap. Frankly I would have gone down the welding route given it's split at the cat were it not for the fact that A. The rest of the exhaust is ropey as hell, attracting advisories on the MOT even two years back, and B. I can't weld, nor do I have access to welding devices, or anyone who can weld for that mater. I've rationalised the expense of this on the basis that, had my Lupo rolled off the production line two weeks earlier it would be costing me an extra £170 a year to tax....My new sytem in total came to a smidge under £150, so on that basis it's worth doing, EuroCarParts had a 30% sale ending conveniently on the day that it went and the timing was right. I probably should have paid £250-£300 for a stainless system from one of the local 'Powerflow' outlets and let them do the work, but what can I say, I must be a glutton for punishment. Wish me luck!

Christ on a bike Every day's a schoolday in Lupo land... Even Rich's offer of £1k seems like pie in the sky money to me for a 13 year old non runner hatchback potentially in need of a new engine, TBH even half that would strike me as a push, shows what I know

^ That's the plan Joe

Interisting week Lupo wise (By interesting I mean stressful) On Thursday my exhaust completely let go towards the back end of the cat and the two pipes completely came apart in a catastrophic fashion... The centre section is still being held in place by the hangers and the car seems safe to use in the interim, however my ears are ringing... TBH the rest of the exhaust looked decidedly ropey and was blowing in multiple places, to give the little car credit it chose to go 7 hours befor Eurocarparts 30% off sale ended so the whole thing was timed well I now have a Klarius silencer and mid section coupled with a React replacement cat en route so once they turn up I'll have an entrely new exhaust system from the manifold back for just a smidge over £150, not too bad IMO. To compound issues even further I've been noticing an ugly sounding whine for a week or so now, I did worry it might be the 'box but noticed it in neutral and at standstill, I'm pretty sure it's the power steering pump causing the noise at this stage. I'm probably going to have to stump for a 'good' used steering pump but before starting the search I though I may as well change the fluid as the stuff in there's likely ancient... Picked up the correct fluid at the dealers this morning... Trusty turkey baster came out and the majority of the old stuff was syphoned out, probably should have given the system a 'full' drain, but time was short this morning... In the end I managed to get half a litre in, I'll probably repeat the process with the remainder of the bottle next week. FWIW I'm not particularly optimistic about this making much of an improvement, time will tell and defo worth a try before starting to replace things IMO!

@lupogtiboy, my local stealer concurred Popped there this morning annd picked some up...

As per the title really guys After suffering for a week or so with an irritating hum/whine from the loop I think I've managed to track it down (I think) to the power steering pump *Finger crossed* The rational first step seems to be to syphon off the existing fluid and replace... But what to use...? VW's own recommended stuff? regular green power steering fluid? ATF fluid, if so what grade? As always, thanks in advance for any hints/tips/musings or suggestions!

Top advice, thanks mate. Alongside a proper diesel purge this is 100% on my 'to do' list.

Thanks chap, Rich has come to my aid and has some that are going begging

'Weigh in' ramps sound like just the ticket I'll drop you a text this morning Sir.