Grizz's Redneck Express 1966 Chevy Short Fleetside RESTO-GO!

[Grizz1963]

Well, the weather in the South of England SUCKS right now.

BUT….. I have not yet turned the heating on, and we are on the 2nd November.

A personal record, I think.

So I wanted to start with doing the side glass Limo Tint yesterday when there was a break in the rain.

Only to realise, you can unscrew two of the pop out windows and then do them laying flat indoors, much easier than doing it all vertically.

BUT…… you need to have either glaziers suckers, or a friend, like Mickey next door to hold the glass so it does not smash on the floor.

Any advice or ideas, in case I cannot get Mickey out in the cold?

He hates the cold, being as skinny as he is, the wind blows through him.






Today is not looking promising either.

But I am restless.

[Grizz1963]

So glass tinting 101.

Never tint outdoors
Never tint in winter
Don’t tint in the rain
Just don’t tint.

Of course rules are for losers.

So I dismantled one of the side glass windows and brought it indoors.

Carefully……..

After first duct tape securing the glass.





After putting some cushions on the floor for a soft landing.



Lino tint film applied.

Glass is concave.

Glass shape means there is too much film.

Concave means that you need to shrink it somehow,

Heat gun and a load of repeated squeegeeing action till done.



Fitted back in, in the rain.

Not ideal as the duct tape does not stick when pouring rain on glass.

Anyway, wheels bin, cushion to hold in place and a prayer that it did not fall and smash itself to bits.

Carefully climbed in the rear of the van and screwed the first two hinge screws back in.

Then the third one fought me, a lot, eventually I walked away.

Frustrated.



And for those interested, what it looks like from the inside through the limo tint, 95%

Look at the green steel cabinet in the background, both regular and tinted visible.

Before



After.



When it was raining I threw the wet cushions back into the lounge while completing the job.

Closed up the Caddy and came back indoors.

Someone liked the cushions.

Helper cat.

Dick.





Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for glass tinting.

Fingers crossed.

[Grizz1963]

Rear bumper…..?

May have found one to work on 50 miles from here in the south, near Rye.

Headed there by 9.30.



Certainly better looking than the one fitted.

Some work on this one, and then pray that the re-engineered back end accepts it once the pieces of the existing bumper are removed.







More later,

Hopefully the next glass tint if the weather improves.

Friday as well.

Double bonus.

[Braunschweiger]

This is going to be good.
We were in Rye once, with the MX5,
we wanted to go to Cornwall.
Nice little town.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Braunschweiger

This is going to be good.
We were in Rye once, with the MX5,
we wanted to go to Cornwall.
Nice little town.

I also always enjoy Rye.

Nice place, gently focussed on tourists, but not to the extent of putting their fingers in your wallet.

Today I thought of a coffee and some cake, but the guy ended up being worth two hours of my time.

So I headed home after that.

Nice MX5.

I had one once.

[Grizz1963]

Up early-ish to get going and head down to near Rye after being offered a “complete but needing a bit of work” rear bumper after the other guy offering a broken one turned into what seems to be a bit of a w@nker.

Looked like a great day to tint windows.

But priorities.



SatNav took me down some real narrow lanes and back roads, but makes for an interesting drive again.



Also scored some large apples from Justin’s trees, and most importantly,,a VW centre cap he had found by the roadside presented me with the ring I was looking for to keep a centre cap in place.



One of the toys that go into his camper van……



Loads of clever touches.

Like these old denim jeans, recycled to form door upholstery, and also have pockets to keep various items in.




While there, we also looked at his Baywindow bus with a home grown Subaru conversion.

Filmed for @grenade specifically.

Apparently a real pleasure out on the motorway.

https://youtu.be/L3i51XC0A3Y?si=BM98q_pQR6PrEh2z


After two hours chatting about everything from Solar to fireworks and making gunpowder, I headed out home.

Saw a small shunting loco, trainspotters will correct me.



And pulled over to get a pic of a rainbow during a break in the rain.



Back home via my local village to pick up meds and some random foodstuffs.

Unloaded back home.

Chuffed.



And laid to rest.

This made me grin again.



Got to be better than this one.

If I can remove it successfully and reinstall the new one, and then clean it up and fill the dent, or soften and push the plastic out, followed by paint and colour matching.






After a coffee and sandwich it was 3.00pm and I decided that sometimes sitting doing nothing beats going out to tint glass or do something constructive, so weekend on.

Netflix and another coffee next.

.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Braunschweiger

This is going to be good.
We were in Rye once, with the MX5,
we wanted to go to Cornwall.
Nice little town.

There you go.

2013.

Bit of help from Harley (RIP)

Harley supervising






Roof lining, yes, they are skulls n roses.

[realvc]

The new to you bumper will help the looks of your VW.
What about the motor bike in the pictures? Will you be able to load the bumper and leave the bike?

Your tint job looks really nice. I was wondering if you could replace the windows with metal and have a panel van? Just a thought since I'm not involved it is easy to come up ideas for others to do.

Enjoy your weekend.

[Grizz1963]

Quick out of sync post.

Some of you may know that despite not going down the £1000 wheel route, I do like a wheel, and even more so of they are normal, but one can make them look a bit different.

And even more so, those wheels you find from other makes that fit your car and makes people scratch their heads in wonder.

So I was looking out for some interesting, non-standard/non-VAG wheels to maybe add to the Caddy.

Had seen some 1990’s Renault Safrane wheels that would go great in two or three colours.

Yea, I like to make work for myself.

But the offset was wrong.

Chatting to mate Matt @pegasus about wheels, he started throwing some very pretty £250.00 plus restored wheels my way, excluding tyres and shipping.

I declined all his suggestions, despite a few nice sets coming through and said I prefer ****ty sub £100.00 wheels that then ended up costing me another £200.00 to get looking good, plus tyres. The wheels and tyres on the S10 ultimately went on at £950.00 or thereabouts, completely stupid I know.

So next day Matt and I were chatting about other stuff and girls, when he again raised the subject of getting some nice wheels on the Caddy.
I said it is a scruffy 21 year old van, and I am not planning to fit expensive, super shiny wheels on it, because unlike ratlook or barnfind cars that have that distinct work look that really shows off the wheels, this thing was just not enough in either camp.
I would carry on looking to see if I could find wheels that I liked and could be acquired relatively cheaply and then either fitted directly, or cheaply, to blend more with the cars scrapes and age.

Next reply from him kinda bowled me over.

Of course I have done similar things in different ways over the years, but I struggle overall to accept kindness.



I did decline.

Then, typically a few days later I found some wheels I liked the look of on a Caddy group on FB.

Enquiring and realising they could be part of another trip, I had planned for the Sunday, I agreed with the owner to go look at the wheels he had. No price yet established.
But I told Matt I had found some cheap wheels I liked.

More in a bit.

[Grizz1963]

So agreeing to go see @sammo about some parts I decided to incorporate the trip to see the wheels I had seen on a random Caddy group post, which quickly led to a conversation with the owner
Sams thread: https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread...project-pedals

So once again, the time frame is back to front, because my 140 mile trip led me to Sams place first.

But here are the wheels, picture as seen on a chat thread.



They typically were not what I was looking for, but actually ticked a bunch of boxes automatically.

I like solid spokes, and 5 spokes are great when it comes to cleaning and maintenance. Any lace or multi spokes are beautiful, but on someone else’s car. IYKWIM.

A Messenger exchange and chat with the owner established a few things, yes they fitted, directly, yes they were for sale, yes he would sell me 5 of the 6 wheels as I had no use for a well and truly knackered one. And he seemed a nice guy. Bonus.



So when I got there, as often is the case, we spent over an hour speaking Caddy mods, issues and life in general.

When I asked how much he wanted for the wheels, his reply was £80.00 please.

So I agreed and we loaded the 5 wheels I had bought into the Focus.

The 5th black wheel is super scruffy and Kerbed to death…… but as a spare, with a silly stretched tyre, it will do.



Seller also threw in a Caddy rear floor mat, to be used once I have levelled out the rear floor and fitted a better bumper.

Cleaned up at home.



Eventually back home by 3.30pm

I had a coffee and sandwich for lunch, then went to lay stuff out to be cleaned.

At which point first @nickwheeler arrived, and followed later by Mickey next door.

So 3/4 of a bottle of Jif/Cif/Handy Andy and a couple of brushes later, we had some sparkling purchases.



Very importantly as well, four centre caps, one missing its retaining ring.

And of course a ring found yesterday when collecting the rear bumper 50 miles from here.



Butt ugleee spare. Decent tyre at least.



And the other four wheels had two good tyres and two that I needed to replace.





Pretty pleased and smug with my relatively cheap find, which would need another £160.00-ish for two new tyres, I told amongst others mate Matt @pegasus later in the evening.

Another exchange ensued, summarised in these comments.

Not always easy, but sometimes the right thing to do.




Have I mentioned before…….



Next job…….

Try on the wheels on the Caddy.

And buy tyres.

[Grizz1963]

Two days later…….

Test fit.

Of course you gotta do this.





Went for a drive to feel the front end.



Then came back, tried them on the rear.

Missing the rear shocks.



And of course all round.

16 inch alloys.

195/55 16 tyres to be ordered.






So…………


Opinions.


Yes, we all have them.


I think that unless some mind blowing wheels come along.


These can stay where they are.

[Grizz1963]

So part one of the day trip to collect the wheels was to go meet up with @sammo at his mums house.

To look at this Caddy…….





Sam had offered me a pair of Golf VR6 seats to fit into the Caddy.

Just plug and play was what he said.

Greeted by the most awesome cat…… of course.



I managed to buy the seats I had not planned on buying and also robbed the VW badge off the rear door, followed by a set of black bikini caps for the steel wheels I had at home.

Sam also gave me some door lock inners.



Loaded and headed out to Chertsy to see the alloy wheels.





Eventually back at home I got to look at these tired seats that I had bought from Sam.

Cleaned the wheels and rear floor mat.

Then headed back into the seats.







Also cleaned up the small centre caps I had bought for the steel wheels as fitted, as I did not like the flat caps.

Much better I would say.





And straight on.






Seats after all the effort……..

Yes, not too bad.





And of course approved and became the bed for the next four days 24/7

George cat scanned.




And of course all including a rant in a short clip.

https://youtu.be/ee6fKXnS0Cg?si=8-kFXS1JwooaikZj



Pan fried pork chops and vegetables tonight.

Maybe the rain will stop tomorrow.

[realvc]

Those new wheels look so much better than the wheels they replace.
Getting the rear floor mat is a huge bonus too. The deal on the spring clip is a right place at the right time deal.

I don't get out much but when I do I'll be looking for those VW vans, but they may not be many in the states.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by realvc

those new wheels look so much better than the wheels they replace.
Getting the rear floor mat is a huge bonus too. The deal on the spring clip is a right place at the right time deal.

I don't get out much but when i do i'll be looking for those vw vans, but they may not be many in the states.

mexico

many in mexico

[Palf70Step]

Looking good on the caddy upgrades Rian.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Looking good on the caddy upgrades Rian.

Thanks Bill.


As always, asking opinions on here is like rolling a dice or is that die.

Could this be a gear knob?

Oh, no ?

Not a ratrod or anything else super weird.



My knob is loose (like my morals I hear you say)

But I need to tighten things up.

Having a random collection of gear knobs, collected over the years means I have options.

However…….

The standard does have a very good ergonomic feel to it.


I have not tried to remove the knob, so no idea how it is fitted inside the stick.


Screw on, plug in???


https://youtu.be/iKWeb1MwUq0?si=sJCM3P5NoEaHq1eJ



Thanks.

[Grizz1963]

So.

One side done, loads of swearing under my breath.

Reached out for the matches, could not find them…..

Carried on installing this hateful stuff.

One side done, eventually.



Drivers side.

Glass out.



Cleaned up first.



Done and refitted, with lodgers help holding mounting button in place.



Last glass done.

And for some reason it was not easy.

Aaaahhh yes, concave glass.





Woke this morning.

And guess what……..?



Kept on working it, eventually settled and happy to move on.



And both sides behaving.





Time to move into the next phase.

Blackout.

Can you see what needs doing?



Template.

CAD to the rescue.



Done.

Needs to be seen stepping back a bit.



And next little job….

Curved ball.

Door window frame……..



Cut out.



Applied.



AND LOOKING AT THE COMPLETE PICTURE.

MEEHHHH…..





Another small job done.

Time consuming, and many people would neither notice or get it done.

But works for my head and need to make small changes.

Video.


https://youtu.be/mE2D4uY5A2Y?si=G2ua2KlcNw3kp-9v


That’s a load of time consuming, non sweat inducing work done.

Do I like it?/

[Palf70Step]

The blacking of the doors really looks good. definitely fit the body style.

[Braunschweiger]

It looks good, the torture was worth it.

[Grizz1963]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

The blacking of the doors really looks good. definitely fit the body style.

Originally Posted by Braunschweiger

It looks good, the torture was worth it.

Thank you both.

I was pretty sure it would work for the look of the van.

Of course I took it for a drive on Tuesday and it lost throttle response 2km from hom.

5 minutes later….. all good and drove it home.

They are “drive by wire” which I do not understand much about.

Took it to my local tame mechanic to put the OBD reader on and found two faults.

I think it may be the “Throttle Position Sensor” that is dying.

Still need to figure out how to replace one as there is no YouTube tutorial.

[Grizz1963]

Yesterday ended up a bit corporate.

I had not done expenses since July, and that includes daily mileage claims.

Thankfully I am a bit weird, as I actually do keep a daily, written mileage logbook of my own in the cars door pocket.

But every trip has to be entered from postcode to postcode for the whole day, so minimum three lines of entries.

Departure, arrival, return destinations, get why it is a ball ache

Today it is all my parking, and other expenses from August on to next week when they collect all the IT stuff.

Posting up, video editing, all the stuff I use the company iPad for will cease.

As I do not own an iPad or such to work/play on.


Back to replacing the teats in the Caddy with Car seats from a VR6 as bought from @sammo from his VR5 Caddy build project.


The Caddy’s standard seats are such that a courier or longer day user would be comfortable, and they are good seats, but of course we always want to modify stuff, well…… I do.

So the standard VW interior, hard wearing, functional, dull.









Seats bought from Sam.

Before.



Grizzified (cleaned)



Changing seats should be a 5 minute job per side.
If you have the right tools on site , 10mm spanner and Allen key.
Undo a single retaining bolt, slide out original seat, remove.
Slide in replacement seat on rails, bolt down, Done.

But of course it took me two hours or more over two days.

Problem number 1 was this is a converted Caddy.

Done by a disability type company.

Cheaply as possible.

One directional “engineering” so not much stance of restoring to original.

Obstruction number 1 and 2.

Wheelchair safety belts. Electronic.

Made removing the original seats quite awkward.



Removing them, a significant hurdle as access to the retaining nut was zero.

So alternative leverage plans needed to be figured out and applied.

Locking the nut to the body with force.





Cats are weirdos, I am sure they watch their subjects die, and then start eating them…..

George waiting for me to die or give up.

Horrible back seats came out to give access, and coz they suck.
.



No chance getting in there, all closed and welded shut after original bracing had been removed.

Much struggling and swearing later…..

First one fitted, or was it just placed in position while I tried to figure how to fit it.

Problem was that the wheelchair seat belts stick into the rear footwell by 100mm and the rear seat back brace on the VR6 seats fouled against it, meaning you just could not get the runners to engage with the rails.

Trust me.



Drivers seat was a lot easier once the seatbelt was removed.

Another interesting thing you will see in the video, is that the adjustment lever for forward/rearward move,ent on the Caddy seats are to the left…….. under the seat.
On the VR6 seats, they are to the left.
So I had to modify and flip the release levers as well.
Nothing in the manual to warn you about it.

Once done, it looked great and like it was always this way.






Despite liking and being very happy with the original Caddy seats, the replacements are a lot nicer.

I found myself going and sitting in both after fitting them, grinning and gloating to myself as they are that nice.

Video is a bit longwinded, but it captures some of the process and fighting to fit these 5 minute job seats.

https://youtu.be/yDGPDgdkB_s?si=HWvdpspLIpFX0Sca


Hopefully the video is of value to anyone who is faced with this sort of change.

.

[Grizz1963]

While I was over at mate Darren’s engineering shop to get some steel for @pauly to build a restoration rotisserie I noticed this car he is currently building.

3.5l V8 Ally block Rover.

The rest of it weighs almost nothing as well.

He was saying that just test driving it locally on some private land was “Interesting, scary”





So it will be run at Pendine Sands in Wales at the next beach races.

Check out on GOOGLE if you want to see more.

It is along the same theme as these races in France:

CLICK LINK FOR PHOTOS:

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread...es-2023-photos

Looks a great day out.


.

[Grizz1963]

So the Caddy continues to:

Firstly, MAKE ME SMILE
Secondly, MAKE ME WORRY
Thirdly, CHALLENGE ME.

I have never owned a diesel, Fly by wire type car, company cars are fully maintained, so do not count.

Having bought it and faultlessly driven home the first 104 miles, then refusing to start outside the MOT station, followed by later self correcting and starting 3 hours later, I was still happy to do stuff to it, and for it.

When you buy an old car, or a new one (enough examples out there) you buy it with a great big prayer stuffed in your top pocket that it will just keep going until it is time for you to move it on for something else, or it becomes part of your deceased estate/fails MOT catastrophically.

So having done 13k plus miles in the last 22 months, my expectations are that it will always need some wear and tear fettling, and service maintenance.

AND OF COURSE MODIFYING.

So on Tuesday I headed out to go price up some 16” tyres for the alloy wheels I had bought previously, before going online and looking at Black Circles and other options. Despite spending unnecessarily on the Caddy, I want to still try contain the fiscal damage.

So I headed out, enjoying the clatter of the diesel and the drive, which in all honesty, is MUCH MUCH BETTER than some people make out, this includes people who have actually never driven or lived with one.
It has to be pretty decent, or else you would not have seem as many sold in the years of productions, and most of them being commercial vehicles, they would have been ragged to an inch of their lives.

Imagine my surprise when I left the second roundabout from home, a mile or 1.6km away when suddenly there was no throttle to accelerate from the roundabout…… The engine was idling happily, but prodding, feathering, stomping, swearing at the throttle and car made absolutely not one iota of a difference.

So I cruised to a standstill at the bottom of the road, even trying to bump start and turn the ignition off and on before coming to a halt, all four wheels, only just on the grass verge, but it beats the way I have seen people break down and abandon cars halfway in the road before.
This road is used by loads of heavy goods vehicle and construction and farm vehicles, and there was no side road to drop into.

Opened the bonnet/hood, of course greeted by a beautiful expanse of plastic, no tools in the Caddy because not expecting to have to undo anything, except a spare wheel in case of a flat.



So obviously not much I could do there.
In the mean time, the engine was happily sitting idling away.

So I considered calling Green Flag recovery, of course the last time, they never actually made it to me as after 3 hours the car fixed itself.

So plan B

Call Mickey next door, he is a good one for helping with recovery and having towed him home years ago in his Focus that had stopped running one day, knowing he would have some heavy duty strops/straps to tow me home with.
He agreed and said give him 5 minutes.
So I set to, removing the cover over the towing eye in the lower bumper, using the key to get it removed, Zelandeth had engineered it into position before.
Once removed, I tossed it in the rear along with the little blanket I had kneeled on.
Tried to turn on the car again, success !!!!!!
And the throttle, which was dead 5 minutes before, was functioning like before……
So I called Mickey to tell him it was working and that I would drive it home in front of him, just as he came off the roundabout in the distance.
Drove it home, accelerated a few times, pulled up onto the drive and thanked Mickey.

I needed to get to the GP and a couple of other appointments, so took the Company car, Focus.

On the way back, I stopped at a local garage that Sally and her sons uses, I have used their tools before and gave them some tools a few years ago when a lodger brought some massive sockets home, they also did the servicing and some repairs on the MX5 for me years ago.
I went in and said that I had a problem with the Caddy and needed to read the codes that it would obviously throw up, what charge, and did they have some time to pop it on for me same day.
Yes, bring it down or take the OBD reader, so I opted to fetch the car and hope it would go the one kilometre down to their workshop without bother.
So we hooked it all up when I got there, Cliff headed out to get their own work van MOT’d and some tyres fitted, so Steve the other mechanic helped me, fortunately, they were waiting for parts delivery on two vehicles on their lifts.

Steve crawling around





Cubby hole/glovebox held in place with a panel screw….. Yup the result of 21 years and 103k miles on the road.
Stuff wears out and breaks.

The reading.



Steve Checking and cross referencing results, also a phone call to some specialist, and more Google searching.



Next up, we opened the air intake just to see if the throttle body was maybe dirty, causing something, like the butterfly to get stuck open and send an error message to put the car into limp mode.

What we found.



No butterfly and no screws.

120 miles of my driving and it had never felt weird, hesitant, or made a scary noise.

So we checked the price of a new throttle body, only available on back order, and at £628.00 plus 20% VAT it was going to mean a car scrapped……

BUT…… if I could find a broken throttle body, I could rob the butterfly from it and fit it to the van. Searches by @westbay Tony revealed that the price of a used unit was a whole lot more palatable.

So I stood chatting cars, bikes and trials riding with Cliff and Steve for another half hour or so and agreed that I would try source the parts and then fit them.

Feeling quite insecure because of the missing parts, but also a certain amount of F@CK1T I drove the van home and pulled it through to the back drive. I still had tinting to do to the glass.

Next, I went indoors, made a coffee and started a WhatsApp chat with @zelandeth who once again engaged in a chat and explained stuff to me.
I am so thankful for the times he has patiently answered the phone or text messages to talk me through stuff.
Conversation as per WhatsApp below.

Grizz

Morning,
My little VW Caddy van just stopped working a mile from home. Engine running and no acceleration on pressing accelerator pedal. Called my neighbor to tow me. 5 minutes later I tried throttle again and it was fine.
Are they drive by wire?
Guess I need to find out.

Zelandeth

That's an odd one, yes it is fully fly by wire, so hopefully just a pedal sensor on the way out.

Grizz

Well……
The throttle boddy is missing its butterfly and screws.
Somewhere something happened.

Zelandeth

That can be disregarded - that throttle body is only used by the EGR system to generate manifold vacuum, and apparently they are well known for disintegrating so the plate was removed when that throttle body was replaced when I first got the van as it was acting up then.

There is no throttle in the traditional sense on a diesel, it's all done by controlling the fuelling.

So the components of that are not in the engine you'll be glad to know.

Grizz

Lololol.

And…….
You will know by now that I am no mechanic.
The quote for a replacement on back order was £628 plus vat.
I am suspecting it could be the actual throttle pedal whatever thingy.
And 13k miles later it still was not needed.
I said to Steve the mechanic that I had done 120 miles without hassle, except the non start at the MOT station.

Zelandeth

Yeah, the replacement cost £35 on eBay for a used one which I then removed the guts from as you've seen as it serves no real useful purpose.
Throttle position sensor error code definitely fits - it's a moving part that's got 120K miles and 22 years behind it so not a hugely unexpected item to be wearing out.
The original throttle had completely lost its marbles and was randomly closing on light throttle, causing loss of power and a proper James Bond smoke screen.

Grizz

I honestly have no clue.
Other than losing the ability to fuel and rev up today, and being a smelly diesel, and then 5 minutes later being fine…… I have xero clue.
But if the throttle regulator needs replacing that would be a good/great fix.
You type fast like a teenager

Zelandeth

Wouldn't surprise me if it was related to the non-start you had before, hard to say for certain but it seems suspicious that it's popped up very soon after that happened.

Grizz

And there is an intermittent immobiliser fault

Zelandeth

Missed that, that could also explain it. Though I've no real advice on that one as it's modern enough stuff I've no prior experience to call on.

Grizz

Gotcha.
Driving it, still is a pleasure. And I like it.
Just glad you are prepared to share your 22 months, 13k miles of experience as I am clueless.

Zelandeth

It's by a long shot the most modern vehicle I'd owned until the current Peugeot in terms of engine electronics etc, so there was definitely a learning process for me too!

First common rail diesel, first using fly by wire nonsense, and only the second vehicle made this side of 2000.



So that was last Tuesday.

Since then I have been occupied by various things that needed doing.

Over the weekend @joem83 and I had a chat that ended up with his reply confirming more wear and tear theories.

Including this……

This is what problem I had lol.

At the top of the pedal in the car is the poteniometer thing, it's just hooked to a normal accelerator pedal. It's dead easy to replace. I replaced mine to no avail.

Ended up pulling the ecu, taking the pcb out and cleaning all the corrosion off with PCB cleaner and a toothbrush.
Put it back in, cleared code and it was fine.

I made a rain cover for the ecu out of a plastic folder thing & cleared all the drain holes.

So this is possibly the culprit.




So at the weekend, between all the rain I crawled into the drivers door-twill, did a bit of disassembling and found this……

Glovebox removed, cover in place.



Exposed.



And the possible culprit.





There certainly is some damp in there, so of course 101 other gremlins could be waiting to be flushed out.

We will see.

There you go, always interesting stuff happening here.



.

[Grizz1963]

Late yesterday afternoon while dry, I went and removed Relay 109 after some more reading about it and other reasons for the potential failures.

Seems Relay 109 is a really big culprit in the VW scene for letting people down, and causing intermittent break downs, limp modes and various issues, that then resolve once replaced.








So I pulled it and went down to Euro Carparts.

Price quoted by the really helpful lady behind the counter, an eye watering £28.00

Knowing that a Chinese version would take up to 3 weeks and more to arrive, we looked at other parts suppliers, not much better news, then I checked my Amazon app and came up with a variety of prices.

I do not have Amazon Prime as I am not a very regular user, maybe 5 transactions a year, so £8.00 per month to save the £5.00 shipping fee makes not a lot of sense to me on a £10.00 part.
To the rescue comes @craigrk whose home runs on Amazon products, and Ienvy him for it, but not enough to justify his lifestyle.

So he placed the order on my behalf, hopefully delivered later today.

Prices vary widely on here as well.



Ordered.



While I was there, I also bought a tin of electrical contact cleaner for when I go in under the hood and under the dash later.

£5.39 hopefully well spent.



Next job is to dress warmly, including shoes and then head out and see what I can find under the hood/bonnet.

Wish me luck.

[Grizz1963]

And another quick question.

Possibly for the likes of @joem83 and other VW buffs.

I noticed this bridge, which seems to be “aftermarket” but clearly has a role to play.

Any ideas?







ONLINE EXAMPLE. Not bridged.




Thanks.