rebourne

Other than Mercedes, it was good fun seeing where everyone landed. Tire strategy was more interesting than usual. Reliability was good, which is good or bad depending on your view.

Does this leak look like the power steering leak that is fixed by replacing the washer? In other news, I wacked my starter with a hammer and was able to finally move it out of my driveway. If I'm going to open the hood to replace the starter, I might as well pay attention to that power steering leak i've been ignoring...

TL;DR starter I think I got it figured out. I pulled B14 on the starter and when turning the ignition to start, it was hot. That gives a thumbs up to every thing else in the chain. Curiously not shown in the diagram is the always on line directly from the battery. That threw me for a bit, as I didn't see B14 (note to self: use a better flash light and wear your glasses), so I was trying to understand why there was 12V there without the ignition at start. With everything but the starter checking out, i did what every shade tree mechanic does. I wacked it with a hammer. Well a rubber mallet in my case. Hit it with both the handle and the hammer a bunch of times. Started right up. I'm thinking it's probably binding up from all the sitting, and being old. I'm not going to bother to tear it down and diy rebuild. RockAuto has a few good options, ACDelco reman from a Denso, Denso reman (manual says oem is Denso) . Looks like a simple enough job. I moved it to the other side of the driveway, so it's not blocking my wife's car.... meaning I have at least another few weeks to deal with it...

By the time I got motivated to work on the car, it was too hot. I'm currently sitting on four cars, with nowhere to go in them.

I'm flattered! I've had some cool cars, IMHO, but never one that turned heads like this one.

Doht! It still shows the pics in my browser, even after multiple reloads. Hrmm, confirmed on my phone, no pics. Maybe not okay to delete the attachments. I'm just trying to help out, heh. My usual method is to upload the pics to my paid Flickr account, and paste in the bbcode between the img tags. I own the pics, I control the pics, which I prefer. Attempt two, using the built in attachment tool: Right click and copy image url (Snorlax.jpg) and paste it between img tags [ img ] url [ / img ] ... and then you can remove the attachments from the "Manage Attachments" screen. They are already uploaded. Nah, don't do that. .

that's rad. (rally cross) I'm probably doing it the hard way, but here's how i do it: Right click and copy image url (Snorlax.jpg) and paste it between img tags [ img ] url [ / img ] ... and then you can remove the attachments from the "Manage Attachments" screen. They are already uploaded.

When I realized what they had done, I was far more happy no one had fallen off onto the concrete driveway, than I was upset about the cracking. My bad for not watching them (at that age)!

I need the front moon roof glass also. I let my kids stay in the car one day (listening to their music) we came home, and they decided to pretend to be the neighborhood cat and walked on the roof. luckily only the glass cracked, no roof dents...

I hear fuel pressurize in the on position. Then without touching the clutch, turning the key to ignition, there's no wooshy liquid sound from under the hood. With the clutch depressed, turning the key to ignition, there is a wooshy liquid sound from under the hood.

Thanks for the input! When I turn the ignition, with the clutch in, i hear the fuel pump trigger. So i think that rules out a few things. Clutch sensor, ignition switch. Battery is healthy. I did loosen and wiggle the battery cables. When it does crank, it starts with authority, so I don't think the starter is going out. I'm thinking it's sensor or switch. "Neutral safety switch? Crank position sensor?" Hadn't thought of either of those, I'll add them to the list. I played with it a bit today, but I waited too late to get started and it was too hot outside, so I decided to go watch F1 rather than sweat it out under the hood of a black car. I'll probably do some more research before I venture out again.

She hasn't been starting randomly. No click or cranking, with all lights and stereo good. I've put it on my jumper battery and after a few tries it starts. Up to today it hasn't stranded me, just delayed me. Battery was 5 yo on a 3 year warranty, so I had AAA replace it. Well, today she's stuck in the driveway and won't start. Tried jumpering the clutch switch, no dice. Battery is on Genius charger, and even at 100% again no dice. No click, no cranking. Any hints on what to look at next are appreciated. From what I googled, I was really hoping it was the clutch switch.

yeah, i was driving with the fuel light on since March, until two weeks ago. decided to add some gas, then i brain farted and filled the tank full. Should have only done half.

That was sad. Like watching an old person fall down.

That was craaaaazy!!! (okay, not 1998 Spa in the rain crazy, but still!!) I'm so excited they are racing again at the same track next week! Which teams are going to have the guts to pound the curbs and who's go to be constantly berated by their engineers to stay off the curbs?

So good!

What they said. Borrow or buy a obd2 code reader. The readiness codes need to flip before going back in. https://smile.amazon.com/Autel-MaxiScan-MS300-Diagnostic-Vehicles/dp/B001LHVOVK If the check engine light comes on before the readiness codes clear, he has to fix that problem first.

I use this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LWVEKS

With oem sedan springs, I had a 1/4" spacer (I thought it was 3/8s until I measured it), and that was still a hair saggy. With the Tein HTech springs, it was even more saggy with the 1/4" and would droop a ton loaded up for family travel. I went with 3/4" and the public opinion was unanimous that it was better. I think because of the wagon's shape, a little rake always looks better than saggy butt.

Love this. Even if you never do it your self again, you learn so much. What this does, what that does, etc. And it only changes slightly from car to car. When the alignment guy says "your car doesn't have rear camber adjustment", you point at the part that adjusts that. (Sometimes the guy you tell that your car has WhiteLine rear camber bushings, isn't the guy that actually aligns your car. Lost in translation...) I remember at a track day my Civic all of a sudden made clunk going into a right hand turn and under-steered like mad. Brought it in and the top hat camber plate bolts had come loose ( I had NOT done the last alignment, lol...). I knew it had to be one of two things, and sure enough it was. Got them roughly back in to place, tightened down, AND added a little torque to the other side! Back in the game, great track day. If alignment was still "voodoo" to me, I might of thrown my hands up and had it towed home. Sidenote: what's up with those matching license plate frame and rear badge? Don't see that much on the west coast.

Somehow we have three awd cars in Sunny socal. We do go snowboarding a fair bit (my kids are getting to be little rippers), but there's only been 3x in the years that AWD was necessary, and we only take the OB. Then again, not having to get out of the car, put on chains, sliding around, that has been worth it to me. The Alltrack just needs crossbars to hold the Whisperbars, the MuddyBuddy rubber hatch mat and it's ready to replace the OB. But then again... the OB takes a bit of a beating being with all the gear going in an out, and the way they gravel treat the roads up the mountain isn't doing the paint any favors. Not ready to put the Alltrack through that.

My friend has a mk7R with DSG with APR tunes. It shifts so fast. It's grabs 3rd so hard and pulls, it was getting panicky. That sold me on the DSG. Off the line, through the first 3 gears, the 170hp (flywheel) Alltrack is surprisingly quick, due to the DSG! After that, she's slow. Installing the golf R IS38 turbo will remedy that. My outback is faster (300 wheel, similar weight), but the 5 speed's gears seems so far apart in comparison. Condition wise, my ob is showing it's age and the alltrack is brand new. no comparison there. The plan was to sell the OB after the ski season. We were supposed to leave for Mammoth this weekend... That was likely the last trip. We went last year in June and had a blast, so there is hope for that. I don't know what the plan is now. I keep changing my mind. I was thinking of taking an online tuning class, during this lock down, and try to tune it myself. It's got the forged pistons to give me some wiggle room. Are those Golf R seats? Those bolt right in. common upgrade. I wouldn't bother unless I could get GTI Clubsport seats:

Yup! I have an IS38 and downpipe to put on it. Was supposed to get done this month, but the APR ECU and TCU tunes are the real expense. Don't want to spend that money with what's going on.

Just need to mark the exhaust and give it a nice ball peen hammer lovin I think it was MotorTrends Engine Masters show that tested bashing headers with a hammer on the engine dyno, what and what did not effect power. It took a crazy amount of damage to kill power.

Boom! I wish I had access to tools like that!