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After the longest wait, I bought a Lupo Gti. Hurrah!


bernd
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I can't make out if the top loop is only half there? Looks like the lower one is ok though. If the top is only half there, I'd just weld a bit of sheet steel back on, clean up the weld mess then touch up with some paint. Only trouble is that everything will need to be protected from welding and grinding sparks which destroy plastic, glass and fabric... almost a case of a full strip out just to fix it. 

Ah, just had an idea- you could fanricate an L shaped bracket that matches the lower one. Then with two steel rivets, place it directly above the broken top loop. Not OEM, but would work?

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Yeah, the top loop seems to have snapped in half. I like your second idea better, in fact I have been thinking along similar lines. I'm not really bothered about OEM or not, I just want to prevent the door falling off. I'll share when I've figured it out.

And then I was being a total and utter klutz! First I put the steering wheel a notch or so out of alignment when I did the wiper switch on Sunday. Obviously that annoyed me all week, so I took the steering wheel off again to straighten it and in doing so I broke the little yellow plug apart that connects to the airbag. D'oh! Idiot! So: Airbag light on - Replacement clock spring £18.95 off eBay arriving Tuesday or Wednesday next week. 

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LOL! Yeah it happens... I must also admit to failure. I once rebuilt a V8 engine. A thing of beauty, with lots of very expensive race components for a client. After putting it back in the car, with everything connected, basically job finished, I started up. It ran sweetly and just the way I wanted. While mapping it on the rolling road, the oil light came on. Low oil pressure. Long story' short, I'd put in the oil pump impellor the wrong way round and it slowly decided to destroy itself sending bits of metal all around the engine- even pushing through the oil filter bypass valve. Everything was ruined. Bearings, performance pistons, journals, seals, nitrided cam, nitrided crank, titanium rods... Engine was written off. Mmm. Happens to the best of us. That was my worst mess up ever. About £8000. And so many hours lost.

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Ach! Small errors with catastrophic consequences, they are the worst!

The Lupo and I have made some progress today. I've changed the alternator belt, so no more annoying squealy noise. That's an enormous improvement right there! I've checked the timing belt and replacing that is top of the list of things to do. Still not sure though if I pay someone to do it or try to bribe my mechanic/neighbour with cake to give me a hand. He does this sort of thing for fun apparently.

I've also changed oil and filter, spark plugs and air filter. A couple of things have popped up, of course. Spark plugs 1 and 2 had quite a bit of oil on them. I'm hoping that's been caused by the haphazard oil filling procedure of previous mechanics (or a leaky oil filler cap maybe). But a failing cam cover seal is also on the cards. 

Earlier this week I've been reading a thread about Gti's pretending to be kangaroos when cold including @mk2's entirely plausible explanation what's causing it, e.g. sticky throttle valve. And indeed there was quite a bit of oily gunk inside the air filter housing, throttle valve and splattered all over the throttle body, but it's not immediately obvious where it's coming from. Crankcase breather possibly?! That will need looking into.

So that's gonna keep me occupied for a while...

I can also report that the new tyres have made a massive improvement in terms of noise vibration and harshness as well as grip. I can definitely recommend those Hankooks.

Oh another thing: @mk2 with you being local, I wondered if you have any idea how I could get my hands on a computer running vw software for doing some geeky diagnostics? I'm assuming that similar to how it is with BMW that you get lots more info compared to a generic obd2 reader?!

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I don't have any genuine vdub gear, apart from one or two tools for a mk2 golf...

I find that VCDS freeware (used to be called VAGCOM) is good enough for most things, which is what I use. You can read all the sensors and reset any faults. What system do you use?

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I’ve got a cheapo generic obd2 reader off amazon I bought when the Skoda’s engine light came on because of a stuck turbo valve actuator. That can read and erase error codes and read basic sensors. 
I have the Bmw diagnostics program which is much more detailed, e.g showing when a fault occurred, how often and under which conditions    and does all the fancy can bus stuff too. That was quite exciting. 
 

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Having now looked at what you're referring to as the a pillar loop I can concede you're slightly ****ed unless surgery is an option.

It appears to be something which is put in place during construction and the only way is surgery to remove part of the inner skin.

 

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Looks weld-able to me - suspect it will be a PITA to do.

Likely it will need the door taken off,  a donor part from a scrap yard - hack saw to get as much of the part as possible.

Cut back the damaged section to a straight line of not stretched metal just past the damage:

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and weld the replacement section back on - the good news is the lower good part will help match up and align the replacement bit.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right, I still haven't decided what to do with the door catch strap. I have been told that door hinges from an Audi A6 C6 are a straight swap, which would make the whole catch strap redundant, so I'm looking into that...

In other news:

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Last weekend, matey next door removed his precious BMW from his garage and we had planned to do the timing belt and water pump. However as it turned out, both the water pump and timing belt kit I got from eurocarparts were wrong (I've got the right bits from VW now, so we'll do that next weekend, but grrrrr!). So instead we had a go at fixing the wipers. It looks like at some point the link from the motor to the passenger side wiper arm fell off and whoever has fixed that put it back together upside down, with the result that it caught and destroyed the plastic cover as well as working itself loose again and causing that annoying rattle I mentioned earlier. I really don't understand this sort of thing, as it was immediately apparent that it's supposed to go the other way round, before I even looked in the book. 

Speaking of things I don't understand: I also fixed the 3rd brake light. Fixed in this case means re-connected the 3rd brake light. When I took the spoiler off, besides a thriving ecosystem, I found the wires for the 3rd brake light loose inside the boot lid, without the plug of course. So, I cleaned everything up, checked if the actual light unit works (yes), soldered on a new plug (I've found one that fits in the random-electricals-box, yay!) and put everything back together. 

This sort of thing also makes me doubt the validity of at least the latest MOT test. Surely that's at least an advisory?!

I wonder what I will discover next... 

All in all though I'm in love with my little Lupo. It's hilariously good fun to drive. It's almost comical to see the gap to the car behind if I'm in pole 1st away from traffic lights. It makes a delicious growly noise when I stamp on the throttle. And I'm annoying people in Focus ST's and Audi A3's who completely underestimate how quick the little thing is. Mwahaha!

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Yesterday I gave the Lupo a good clean inside and out. So this morning I just had to take a couple of pictures because it looked so very shiny in the morning light, even though the dog was very impatient to go and run around the woods.

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At some point in his life it's definitely had a re-spray. There is some silver mist on the rear window seals, rear light clusters and bonnet rubber seal. So mmmmh, I do wonder what happened there?! All in all though it is looking remarkably fresh for a 16 year old car with 118000 miles on the clock. The 2 Mazda MX-5's of similar vintage I bought in July were definitely in worse shape. (However, they were also only a quarter of the price.)

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I've also done a temporary bodge on the broken door-strap-bracket using a M6 bolt, a washer, a bit of rawlplug, some heat shrink and a lock nut. That appears to be fairly stable, and it looks like welding the washer to the remainder of the bracket would solve the problem permanently. I am still looking into swapping the hinges for ones with integrated catch mechanism. I did have a rummage around the scrap yard and predictably they appear to be the same across the VW Audi range. I couldn't actually take one off though because of a lack on giant torx bits.

Changing the cam belt and water pump is scheduled for Sunday...

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Yeah, for the first time the other day, I dismantled the door strap mech/pin. Just curious.... Anyway, it's not a straight forward pin or bolt thing.

For some really really wierd reason, vdub have decided to make that bolt a double threaded "pin". So the top of the bolt (or pin), just under the head has an M6 thread and the end of it has a few mm of M4 thread. So both ends of the bolt are threaded, with a smooth bit in the middle. What a stupid design! I get why they fail now. When you tighten it up, the top and bottom part have to be in lock step together or you get one turn out of thread. AND, if the space between the top and bottom bit is out, you'll mess up the thread. Mad. Why didn't they use a V notch with step, like you get on plastic engine fittings... I dunno (shaking my head here).

I can't think of an easy fix that will work quietly and reliably. I measured the strain on that pin, and it's huge. Like momentary 250kg. A regular bolt wont do it. Ok, so maybe a 10.3 strength bolt, but yiu still need a smooth rod section, or the thread will simply eat away at the new loop. Heat shrink or other inserts would be a complete waste of time with such a high loading.

That overspray- sounds like a side swipe that was fixed in the car's early life?

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It looks like you answered your own question there. I suppose if the bolt is threaded into both sections, that huge load is distributed evenly between said brackets... But yeah it was a pita to get the catch strap from the fully closed position to the fully open one. I had to use a g-clamp and lots of swearing. I think I’m still in favour of doing a hinge swap. I will borrow a giant torx bit from next door and make my way over to Wokingham again (or possibly eBay).

Re. the paint overspray it looks like the whole shell has been sprayed. If you look very closely there are tape lines around the door openings on both sides as well. I sort of get why you’d leave the rear windows in place if they’re ok, but the rear light clusters are definitely easier to remove than to tape for painting?!

It’s not been written off or anything though. I’ve bought a check!

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