Carsrst off, they

First off, here are the new parts in Kl0pfer (The Rabbit). The Dash cubby and the OEM Six-Disc changer.




They ordered the tool for the Jetta and it should be there tomorrow. Hopefully I will get the Jetta tomorrow or Monday...but time will tell.

Jetta Update

Forgot that I wanted to post an update on the status of the Jetta.

Got a call from the mechanic last night. He said that they received the docs from All Data that they needed to know how to put the flywheel seal back in the transmission (all 45 PAGES OF IT) but then they found out that they need a special tool to install it. T10135 I think was the tool number. Without that tool, they can't finish the car, and non of the local VW dealerships had ever had to change that seal so they didn't have the tool. The only place I could find it online (with a bit of help from TDIClub) was in Washington State. Hopefully the shop was able to order the tool.

This was all caused by my flywheel spinning itself apart. Apparently it can happen when the flywheel isn't replaced with the clutch because of something with the dual-mass flywheel. I won't have that problem anymore (once I FINALLY have the car back) because I am going with a single mass flywheel, but the rabbit is getting a ton of miles on it while this is going on. It is already over 22,000.

Greasemonkey

Well, I downloaded Greasemonkey, and started looking around on UserScripts.org. Not only did I find some good gmail scripts, I found a cool emoticon script for blogger.

Anyway, we installed a 6-disc OEM stereo in the rabbit this evening and the dash tray. I will take pics tomorrow, but it is the same stereo and dash tray that are in my Jetta.

Scattered thought

This post is going to have lots of smaller discreet thoughts that I didn't feel like making full posts about.

1) It is really a shame that the Ravens couldn't pull out a win against the Steelers last night. 3 Losses in one season to the same team is depressing. At least they had an amazing season with a Rookie QB and rookie head coach. There's always next season when Flacko is a little more seasoned. Hopefully we can keep Ray around too. Best of luck to McGahee on his recovery.

2) We finally installed the ceiling fan in the office. It looks really nice and I need to shoot some photos of it. Still have to take photos of the garage door opener installed as well.

3) We are still without the TDI. It has been in the shop over a week, first waiting for the new clutch, now because the shop doesn't have the info they need for 05.5-06 TDI's and the CD they need hasn't arrived yet. I can't wait to have the TDI back though, because it is supposed to be our daily commute car for a reason, actually 40+ reasons..lol

4) The Rabbit won't bother us for an oil change every 5,000 miles anymore. It is now set to 10,000 miles like it should be (and that is according to the manual even). I am also working on doing the hatch-pop mod outlined on GolfMKV.com. I just need to get a bigger spring so it will work.

5) The house behind us has a complete foundation. It certainly isn't a rancher though (the footprint is too small). My guess is it is either the Hathaway or the Savoy: Coventry Farms

That's all for this evening I suppose. I will have a full write-up of my experience with Windows 7 in probably around a week or two. So far, I am very impressed. It seems to run MUCH quicker than Vista. But, like I said, more on that another time.

Got pulled over

Well, we took Matt out for a spin in Der Bimmer last night since he didn't get to drive with us around the ring. Well, I was being a bit of a show-off, doing some burnouts (with 300hp and 300lb-ft of torque it is effortless) and zipping down some back country roads. Well, when I was pretty much done with my fun, we were just cruising along and the speed limit dropped from 50 to 40 to 30 pretty quickly. I didn't slow down fast enough, and then nearly in unison, Matt and Chrissy say "There was a cop in that parking lot back there" I look up in my rearview JUST as the red & blue lights start flashing.

I find the largest part of the shoulder and pull over before the cop has even caught up to me. Cut the engine, roll down the window, get all of the proper paperwork out and turn on all of the interior lights. (I am already getting blinded by the spotlight on the cruiser at this point).

Once the officer comes up to the window, she introduces herself as working for the sherrif's office and says she clocked me at 46 in a 30. I honestly didn't think I was going that fast, but I knew I was a bit over 10 over, so it wasn't worth arguing that point, so I just said "Really? huh." I handed her my licnse, reg, change of address card and insurance info. No excuses, no "I'm sorry officer" nothing. It is 20 something out and I figure she wants this to be done quickly, I won't hold her up at all. She hands me the insurance card "You can keep that" and says "I'll be back in a few minutes"

So a couple minutes later, she returns, handing me my license, reg, etc.. but I also see something in her other hand, so I hand Matt the reg for the glovebox and sheepishly put my license away. I look back up, and she hands me the slip of paper with some of the most wonderful words ever. "This is just a warning. No points, no fine, no courtdate. Have a nice evening."

I say thank you and am on my way.

1 down 1 to go

Well, the Cards/Eagles game is over and now we just need to watch the Ravens' game to find out if we have another trip to the Super Bowl ahead of us. All we can hope for is the best possible play from the team, but with Rolle out of the game, Rothlesberger will have a bit of an easier time.

Go Ravens!

Tomorrow I will post about the Written Warning I got last night.

The tail of two halves

I am watching the NFC Championship game, and man it has been the tail of two halves. In the first half, it was all Arizona. They had a strong lead, and it looked like they were going to walk away with the game. Now the second half, the Eagles have taken the lead by one point. What a difference a half makes. Of course, my biggest interest is the Ravens/Steelers game, but I am somewhat routing for Arizona, so it will be interesting to see how this game continues.

Still updating

Man, even with a decent internet connection, it takes forever to update an old laptop that hasn't been turned on for a year! lol

Old laptops don't die

They just relocate into the garage to use VAGCOM! Finally resurrected my old laptop so I can stick it in the garage. Now I need to update EVERYTHING on this laptop. XP SP3, FF3, etc... Luckily it runs XP Home so it still works...lol

G-raag

I still don't know the verdict on the TDI (the clutch should make it to the shop tomorrow). In the mean time, we had cleared out the garage so we now fit two cars in there (yay!). Well, now that we can park two cars, we need an easy way to open and close the garage, so I took my last day of home leave to install a garage door opener (better than paying $119 to have it done). So, now we can park two cars in the garage, and go in and out of the front door to make sure that the garage door is locked! And we have a keypad to get in from he outside too. The install was a bit of a pain in the ass, but it was worth it.

Clutch go boom

The Clutch in the TDI went "Boom"...sorta. The car was driving weird, having weird vibrations, and a little slow on the uptake. I thought I had broken engine mount. I took the car to the local VW-Only mechanic (been in business 42 years), Dick's Autohaus. When we stoppe by on the way home to see what was the deal, we got an unpleasant surprise....lots of metal shavings and transmission fluid all over the bottom of the engine that had been hidden by the plastic cover underneith the car. Oh, and there were bits of clutch that came out too.

So, I have a single mass flywheel and clutch on the way, but there is a story there too. I had tried to use that when I had my clutch replaced a while ago (which begs the question, why did it blow up, but I digress). Anyway, the parts I got in went with me to the VW Dealership in Germany and when I showed up to pick up the car, it was still sitting there apart because the flywheel wouldn't fit. It turned out it was because the distributor had received two flywheels that were incorrectly machined, and I had received one of them....joy! So apparently, that problem has been fixed now, so I am going with the single mass flywheel again which costs a total of $389 for the flywheel and clutch, as opposed to over $900 for the dual mass flywheel that is prone to fail.

On the up-note, did an oil change on the Rabbit in the garage tonight. I love having a garage. No wind, can work at night, it is wonderful. And thanks to the old cardboard box from our bigscreen, no oil on the garage floor!

Anyway, it had been a long time, but I will try to post more frequently, but that's all I have for now.