Engine's on the stand!

 Finally received the correct bolts to mount the engine on the stand- turns out M10 and M12 80mm bolts are hard to find in class 10.9 (equivalent to grade 8- sturdy enough to hold the weight of the whole engine on 4 of them).

Olivia attaches the mounting plate attached using said class 10.9 bolts.  I torqued them to about 60 ft-lbs which is what the transmission-to-engine mounting bolts get, figured that should be good.  

Then we positioned it, slipped the plate stock into the stand, and lowered the weight off the hoist, and the $65 Harbor Freight engine stand holds it!  Not rock-solid, but the first thing we'll be doing is removing a bunch of bolt-on stuff from the engine which will lighten it a lot.  

And here is is on the stand, ready for work! 

New Project: Trooper Engine Rebuild...

Olivia convinced me that fixing the suspected connecting rod bearing on the Trooper engine (Diesel- C223T) would be a good father-daughter project, so the first step was pulling the thing out.  No photos of that process, which involved the removal of the transmission among other things.  But the engine is out, a stand at the ready (still need to source the correct bolts to mount it), and the rebuild project is now ready to begin!
 

... and rear brakes again

 Rear brakes failed inspection.  New parts from autozone, rotors and pads.  Seems the lower slide pins on both sides had also seized...  so freed them up and lubricated, rewound the pistons using that brake rewind tool, and put 'em back together.  Next time, just grab new slide pins from the parts store too!  Mileage, about 245k.  

Passenger side CV axle...

 Sorry no photos.  This is more for my own documentation...  

245,000 miles.  Symptoms essentially showed wear in probably the inner right CV joint.  Replaced with DSP axle from ESC tuning.  First accidentally ordered one for an auto trans, obviously didn't fit.  Also sheared off the ball joint bolts, so had to get new hardware from ECS as well.  

After a long wait for shipping, all is back together today.  

Thermostat on the 2003 Golf

Golf had been running cool for a couple of months actually...  suspected a thermostat stuck-open.  Finally replaced it.  It was a pain to drain the coolant (especially since there was a bunch trapped behind the thermostat, so even after "draining" there was more to come when I pulled it out, and thus spilled some to the floor)...  but other than that the job went off without a hitch.  Pretty quick.  

And now the temp gauge swings right up to 190 and sits there perfectly.  Wish I'd done it sooner!

Exhaust repair- again...

So, about 2 years ago I had to do some welding on the Golf exhaust...  Turns out those welds lasted 2 years!  One of them has now rusted through:

The good news is that now I have found a replacement pipe for $199 online, as opposed to the $800 I was looking at 2 years ago...  (not sure how that works).  Installed today with no troubles.

Also changed the oil and filter today.

Broken Spring!

So, a week ago Suzanne was driving the Golf along and heard an alarming "Sproing!!" from the front passenger's side.  I jacked it up and sure enough, about 3 inches had broken off of the coil spring on the strut.  And actually, once I got into the job, I discovered another 2 or 3 inches of spring, so 5-6 inches had broken off in total.  Not dangerous but definitely disconcerting. 

So I replaced the struts.  not much more expensive than only replacing the springs, and "easier" since one doesn't have to get the spring compressors out, deal with heavily loaded coil springs and such. 

However, I should have gotten the spring compressors out, as the struts have only so much clearance.  Technically it's only 2 bolts, but after you've removed the brake caliper, disconnected the sway-bar end link, disconnected the passenger's side driveshaft (for which you had to remove the skid plate, at which point you discovered 2 spinning rivnuts and had to grind off the bolts with an angle grinder)... 

It's more than 2 bolts.  But in hindsight, I could probably have gotten the clearance I needed by compressing the strut! 

Ah, live and learn.  And write it down so that next time you don't have to learn it all over again!