[Brennan610]

Picked up an oil pressure sensor

Rebuilt the only oem axle that I had. I bought new ones for the rest.

Axle seals on the 01E.

I also did the seal where the trans meets the driveshaft.
It was a little more involved than I thought when I ordered the seals, but it went over pretty well.

 

[Brennan610]

So this is where I got side tracked and started taking care of the rust on my car. They car originally was from NY and up until 2 year ago has been driven year round so it was a little rusty in spots.
First, I focused on the trans tunnel. It wasn't too bad but I wanted to take care of while everything was apart.

I don't have any before pictures, but this is after hitting it with a wire wheel. All the little dots are where rust was beginning to form.

I used SEM rust mort on the bare metal to neutralize all the rust.

Then I used etch primer and seam sealed it with SEM seam sealer.
Next time I seam seal I'm definitely going to use tape to have cleaner lines, but all this is covered in heat shields so eh.

I'll have to follow up with a photo, but I coated everything with POR-15 so it's all nice an black now.

 

[Brennan610]

While on the topic of rust, I decided to drop the whole rear subframe and spruce it up a bit. I don't have a ton of photos of this so use your imagination.

Gas tank heat shield

Again, I have to follow up with some after shots. But I think it turned out pretty nice.
I also got new rear brake hard lines from rust free junk yard car and got all new clips for the lines in the rear. I also got new rear tie rods and sway bar endlinks.

 

[Brennan610]

Finally got my intake manifold and valve covers powedercoated. The black looks really good. I wish the intake was a little more silvery in color but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

My brother 3D printed my a plug for where the abs wiring runs through the firewall.

I also bought the JHM shifter trio for the 01E.
I've wanted this ever since I bought a b5 and its nice to finally get a hold of one.

This brings us up to the current day.
I'm now trying to tackle something that has bothered me about the car for long long time. I used to jack the car up by the pinch welds all the time (stupid I know) and completely mangled the **** out of them.
For the last few years they have been a rusty thorn in my side that I cover up with S4 side skirts. In addition to the pinch welds the little pocket area about the pinch welds are a little rustier than I would like.
I'm in the process of fixing them now and if all goes well, I'll be able to share some photos soon.

 

[Brennan610]

My brother and I have zero self control picked this up for stupid cheap lol.
:wave:

 

[Jettaboy1884]

Awesome progress, you've made a lot of headway!

What are the plans for the box van? Mobile Bike repair? And how tempting is it to lower that thing?

 

[Brennan610]

So these photos start around August. I decided to tackle the rust in my car and surprise surprise, the floor repair I did a few years ago did not hold up to well. This is mostly due to not painting it correctly. Turns out undercoating in a can from Lowes kinda sucks.
Moving on I cut out it all out.

Luckily my friend had a b5 shell that was going off to the crusher soon so I was able to cut out the section of the floor I needed to make my repair.

In process of welding it in. The sheet metal was super thin at this point so welding was eh.

 

[Brennan610]

This leads me to my pinch weld repair.
I don't have a lot of photos of this, but I drilled out the reinforcement plate for the actual pinch weld to uncover the rust hole beneath it.
I debated for a while wether to cut out an even larger section and try and make a seamless repair or just cut out the rusty bit and weld in a plate. Ultimately I decided it just wasn't worth it and a little above my skill level.

This brings me to the photo of that repair. Which honestly I'm not super happy with. But it is what it is.

Moving on to some seam sealer. I used SEM black seam sealer. This stuff rocks. It's super nice.

The repair looks better with primer.

Here's a flattering pic of it with seam sealer. Noice

 

[Brennan610]

Next up, drive shaft. I replaced the center bearing with the 034 replacement and I regreased the cv's on both sides.

I don't have a lot of photos of this so just use your imagination.

 

[Brennan610]

I heat wrapped my brake lines and p-clipped them up under the false firewall.

Progress on my rain tray setup.

And finally I put the motor and trans into the car. Woohoo

 

[Brennan610]

This is a little bracket that I made for a MK4 coolant reservoir so it can sit in my rain tray.
It got welded to the battery tray along with the abs module bracket. I'll post up some photos of it all completed soon.

It's got some riv nuts because they're the bees knees.

 

[Brennan610]

Now we're getting to some recent stuff.
I made custom 2.5" down pipes with v-bands. These were really fun to make and not super difficult. Honestly the worst part is rolling around on the ground trying to tac these things in place. If I had a lift it would have been 100x easier.

This is my mid pipe section that I made. It goes from two 2.5" into a 3". Another v-band is going on that 3" piece and then I'll build the rest to the muffler.
I got all the pipe from summit racing, including that Y piece. It's all aluminized steel piping.

Painted the downpipes with heat resistant por-15. We'll see how it holds up but they look nice so far!

I heat wrapped them to protect my brake lines and power steering lines from melting.

 

[xdewaynex]

Nice progress!