Jetta is gone

Finally sent the original Jetta away to a new home.  Jake, one of the guys that helped us at a few events, couldn't resist the siren song.

The new truck pulled it great to Milwaukee, so assuming I ever get the Feista done, we've got a nice tow setup to make getting to events less terrifying.

Where'd you find that hunk of junk anyway?

Dragging the ol' Heap back from Copart

Brad Hayosh had been after me for a while to either fix my Jetta, or buy some wrecked something or the other.  Eventually I fell for the trap in a moment of weakness and found a reasonable looking Fiesta ST with "minor" damage.

The Fiesta came via a Copart internet auction from one of the Minnesota facilities.  We used a broker, which was basically a train wreck.  The guy charged us state sales tax and then never got us a title in our name, which is basically tax fraud.  He also tried to keep my Paypal deposit for a membership fee that was in some bullshit fine print.  I got that back via a Paypal dispute since he didn't respond to their query.  Not really impressed.

For Copart's part in the whole mess, they didn't sign the title over properly, so it was rejected multiple times by the county recorder when Andrew attempted to get it transferred.  The handwriting was illegible, and when we called their Minnesota facility, they basically refused to help us since we weren't their customer, and told us to F off.  The big point of contention was that because the signature was illegible, the state didn't know who signed it.  Copart gets power of attorney from the various insurance agencies to sell the cars, so the Copart signs over the title.  Since the name of the manager for that office was online as a contact, we just printed in their name under the signature assuming they were probably an authorized agent.  The state seemed ok with this solution and we got an Iowa salvage title in Andrew's name.  Not a big deal if you're willing to make 3 or 4 trips to try to get the title work done.

Our dad had a friend of theirs pick the car up and drag it over to their lot, and another local friend snagged it on the dolly to bring it back to Iowa.   So that part of the adventure was magic.

Cage Install Prologue

"Clean" Garage

We made the decision to install a Custom Cages kit purchased from Brian Short out at Rocky Mountain Autosports.  I'd had one previous experience with a cage kit and it's a different workflow than fabricating one from scratch, so I knew I wanted to slow down and try to really understand how to be successful with this one.

Because Custom Cages has a process to ensure you aren't modifying the kit or welding it with a coat hanger hooked to a car battery, it ends up being installed and tacked to ensure fitment, then partially removed before finish welding.

I'll try to run through some of that process with photos and hints that I figured out as I made some errors.

Fiesta ST - 1

When O'Neil and Ford put together a deal with M-Sport in the UK to ramp up an R2 cup-alike in the US, I was hopeful we'd see all sorts of new rally cars on the stages.

The M-Sport kits were priced at about $20k USD, with a base fiesta in the $15K range.  Now that the little buggers have been out for a while, they're starting to appear on salvage auctions.  With the Jetta still down from blowing the gearbox a few seasons back, and some nudges from a friend, we decided to scoop up a salvage 2014 Fiesta ST.

The 2014 Fiesta ST is the first year of the turbocharged Fiesta in the US.  The car is mostly a base Fiesta with a few tweaks for handling and to house the 1.6 GTDI and IB6 transmission.  Our build plan is to leverage what we can from the R2 experience, and the homegrown solutions that others have worked through for the past couple of season and put together a slightly more powerful version of the Jetta.

This is the car we found- in a Minnesota salvage yard.  We had to work with a broker to get the car due to restrictions on how salvage cars are sold.  The fees, both from CoPart, and the broker, add up in substantial, and when unexpected, irritating ways. More on that later.

The auction photo is taken from the good side.  The intercooler, half the bumper and left side headlight are laying in a ditch somewhere. Or under a bridge.  Possibly in a creek.

Andrew got it drug into the shop and he and Marc popped the old hood off to have a look see under the hood.  Not bad.  Except in some places it's really hard to tell what the heck you are looking at...

Going to need a bit of work!

Just like everyone else

The internet is chock full of people apologizing for not updating their blogs.

Most people have nearly 4 people and a cat that would read the blog to begin with, and only then after they're done reading comments on their favorite news site just to gauge how far society has fallen since the previous day.

I managed to get my old blown gearbox out of the car around Christmas of 2013, pulled the engine shortly thereafter with the intention of blowing through the conversion to the 02A, and getting back on stage.

Somewhere amidst all of this, I bought a new KTM 350.  It's pretty much what any rally car driving mountain biker wants in a dirt bike.  Light. Nimble. Immediate throttle response. A bit noisy. The summer weekends were spend riding trails, or going race, where I learned a new form of humiliation in the form of the 2 hour hare scramble.

In the hare scramble, beginning riders leave several minutes after the faster more experienced riders that will be lapping them the rest of the day.  For me, the lapping commences about the time I've lost feeling in one or both of my hands.  Overtaking riders have no horns, so they can either rev their engines, yell some kind of neo-Indian war cry, or just blast right by you, spraying you with gravel.

For those of you that spent your formative years learning which fork is which, this is called "Roosting".  If you are a chicken farmer, it has nothing to do with sleeping chickens, and everything to do with a spray of tiny rocks sandblasting your exposed skin.

Once I'd mastered the art of riding as fast as you can for 2 hours, a few of us headed out to try an Enduro.  Enduro is more like a rally, and depending on the format, is either similar to a TSD Rally, or a Performance Rally.  In either case, they're in the woods, through fields, and over dale.  I assume in other countries, Enduros would involve howler monkeys, but in the US, they're relatively monkey free, with the occasional fenced cow being about the only wildlife involved.

This went quite a lot better than the hare scramble, especially because we'd picked an event for beginners.  By Beginners, I mean 4 year old girls riding on the handlebars with their dads, and women riding through the woods with the 11 year old kids.  We crushed most of them.

In all this time, I think I was mostly walking past the rally car, the parts on the floor, the engine on the engine stand, and tripping over the airhose tangled up in the oil cooler lines.

The internet told me I needed to get a motorcycle trials bike, and since everything online is true, I did just that, with a mega-road trip down to Lexington, KY to pick up a pretty cherry Gas Gas 250.

A few more enduros and hare scrambles later, and I've found that it's winter.  The motorcycles are in the house resting and having run out of things I want to clean inside the house, I'm back in the garage doing some work on the engine.

2014 would have been our tenth season in rally and instead we took a vacation.  If I don't have the ambition and funding to compete, I feel at least motivated to get all the parts pushed back into a working, drivable car that can leave the garage under it's own power.

That should be easy enough, at least until the snow melts...

2013 - The end.

 It's several months in to 2014 and the rally team is still shaking off winter.

2013 ended at LSPR on Stage 3 in a cloud of smoke when the welded differential exploded through the bottom of the gearbox case and liberated a pile of metal and oil onto the skid plate. 

We spent the next several hours engaged in an amusing game of "get back to the service area" bumming rides from locals and volunteers, only to find that the steering column on the Van had eaten part of the keyswitch and leaving Chad Eixenberger, who was crewing for us, befuddled and stranded.

Not all was lost, though, as we wandered out to the last spectator spot on Saturday and drank beer with Dave Grenwis and his friends.  Dave races mountain bikes, too.  He's a pretty wirey fellow and I'm sure much faster on the pedal bike than myself.

It's been a lot of seasons since we've done more than a couple of events, and seems even longer than that since the car was really consistent.  Losing the good gearbox at LSPR a few years ago is proving really challenging to recover from....

Ojibwe pre-update

With the planned reboot of the Ojibwe event this year, the Bent Mettle team is planning on rolling back up the mosquito saturated northwoods and giving 'er hell.

I've replaced the lower ball joints, an upper strut bearing, and found a loose damper rod.  My hope is that the front end will be relatively rattle free and "tight".

I have a malfunctioning rally computer to investigate, as well as possibly, maybe, finally replacing the worn rear damper spherical bearings as well.

I've put all this work off until it was finally got enough to really get to sweating in the garage!

Moving web servers

Moving the website off the old Linux box that's been chugging along back in Newton for the past 7 years.  Computer was fine, but the DSL line would go on the fritz whenever the ground was too wet.

I'm having some trouble getting the gallery back in action but hope to get it cranked back up in the next few days.

100AW thanks!

It's the middle of March and we've been back from the 100 Acre Wood rally for a few weeks now.

Cal and Jake drove down from Wisconsin in what can only be described as exceptionally poor weather conditions.  Aaron showed up and gave us a hand as well.  Thanks guys!

No fear, Andew is NOT on fire.  But he MIGHT be turning into a dragon.

Somewhere under all that mud are graphics for our supporters Barney's Wrecker in Newton, Iowa, and Riverwest Automotive in Milwaukee. 

Barney's specializes in everything and anything that needs fixed, moved and towed.  Riverwest focuses on Volkswagen / Audi repair, including air and watercooled.

Preparing to prepare

Pulled off the front suspension today and really made a mess of the garage->

The unmelted and not melting snow still on the car hints at the garage being a bit chilly.

One of the bolts on the CV shaft had to be cut off, so the skid plate had to come off. The the insert for the rear control arm bolt decided it wanted to spin.

After some cursing and a smashed fingernail, I decided to cut in from the top and re-weld the insert to the sheet metal.

This lives under the co-driver footrest, so the cosmetic impact will be minimal once it's all closed back up again.

The control arms and drivers sides shafts that Blake sent up are super clean, and the halfshafts feel tight with no play.

Tomorrow I'll get the body sheet metal buttoned back up and get some reinforcements on the new control arms.

Andrew got sucked into the GoPro vortex and is looking to go all Xtreeeeem Video this event.

Headed to 100AW!

I spent most of last year working and getting re-established after starting a new job at Nissan.  We ran Sno*Drift last year with mediocre results, so the motivation to re-engage the sport has been difficult to muster.

I went to Sno*Drift this year to help Nathan and Aaron Usher, as well as Steve Nowicki and Jimmy Brandt, with their efforts.  Steve and Jimmy took home 2nd in the Sno*Attack 2WD competition, while Usher's left the event with the more dubious distinction of being one of the first rollover incidents at the event.

On our end, we've fought some chronic issues with our Muy Fuerte 2L 16V ABF powerplant.  To counter the constantly breaking front axles, we're going to try out the slightly longer MK3 front control arms and axles.  Blake @ http://www.carparts4sale.com/ got me set up with some control arms and drivers side axles on the cheap.

So the car is in the garage, jacked up, front wheels off, and I'm just getting into de-SnoDrifting it from 2011.  I see some bent sheet metal, plenty of rust, but hopefully once I get into the groove here we can start knocking out some of the prep work.

We're still alive.  More tomorrow.

Rally Party May 19th

Southeast Michigan Rally Party

LOCATION:

Bent Mettle Farms

7271 Plymouth Rd

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

(just off M14, between Ford Rd and Prospect)

TIME:

Saturday May 19^th- 7pm until whenever.

ACTIVITES:

Bonfire starts at dusk.

Bring Beer, something to grill, and a chair.

Prepare to tell stories. Maybe we’ll project some videos outdoors if a projector appears?

 

AMENITIES:

Some on-site tent camping is available.

Pond for bathing.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:

Rain date: Cancelled if the weather is crap.

LSPR- Day 1

Lake Superior 2011

Pre-event Prep

Volkswagen used a flange with pinch bolts to attach the front struts to the spindles.  It's easy to assemble and allows for a decent amount of camber adjustment.  It also means that every time you hit a bump, a big bump, the assembly stands a good chance of moving.  There just isn't enough friction.

In newer cars, ones designed with the aid computers and after consumers expected things like air conditioning to be standard, the front strut assembly is more robust and uses precision machined parts to stay in alignment.

Higher end race struts have eccentrics that allow the adjustment of camber while preventing the assembly from flopping around like a wounded duck.  These work so well, I decided to turn an set of eccentric washers prior to the event and install them onto the struts.  As usual, I ran out of time, but did manage to get one on the passengers side, which, by all accounts worked great.

The tire situation for the event was mildly dire- I'd sold most of my "extra" tires earlier in the season to shuffle funds around, and had 4 newish Lassa tyres left over from 100AW.  I also had a stack of used Michelins, and had made arrangements with Chad Eixenberger to buy a couple of unused Lassas from him on Friday night after he arrived at the event.  I would love to have a stack of fresh mounted tires before each event, particularly because every time I try to scrimp on tires, something absolutely bizarre seems to happen.

On The Road

The busy boys from Newton left home early Thursday morning and rocketed up to Houghton to take part in this years event- Barney, Marc, and Andrew.  As it turns out, Houghton is about the same distance from central Iowa as it is from Ann Arbor. Who thought up this UP thing anyway?

Houghton

Scruinteering following Thursday PM registration was a non-event. I had plenty of time to go through the car and clean it up prior to the event, which always helps the process go a bit smoother.  The practice stage is  typically fairly bumpy at LSPR, and with some of the rain they'd gotten, it was looking pretty mucky.  With Andrew's early evening arrival to the event, I made the decision to not rush through the practice stage and make more work for ourselves cleaning up the car.

Friday

After a long day on the road, everyone was a bit slow to get moving Friday morning. It was misting and spitting rain while we stocked up at Wal Mart.  These trips are an excuse for our Dad to buy deli ham and Doritos.  He's also been trying for the past 35+ years to get Andrew to eat Mayo on a sandwich.

In the parking lot, we tried to apply some new stickers. Wet. That didn't work well at all.  We'd had a better opportunity the evening before, but opted instead for Pizza at the Ambassador.  In hindsight, the pizza was still the right choice.

We also were looking to air up the motley collection of tires that would accompany us through the day.  The Van had come equipped with air actuated tire chains, and we'd been using that compressor to take care of our tire needs for a few seasons.  This day would be the day the system failed, though, leaving us without air for our spare tires, and adding to our overall stress level.

Struggling with what was formerally a very easy task left us without time to change tires on the car for the first two stages- the rock strewn Moyle gravel pit.  Out of time and a bit crabby, we headed up the road to Parc Expose.

Parc Expose was soggy and left me wishing driving shoes could combine Nomex AND Gore-Tex.  The parking spot on the front lawn of the hotel guaranteed an opportunity to really get soaked.

The gravel pit stages were wet, but more notably, full of sharp rocks.  The first left turn has claimed a lot of cars, and this year, I'd space out and cut the corner too close, leaving us with a flat tire on the co-drivers side. Changing the tire in service required rotating tires from rear to front due to our only spares being a slightly different size than the Lassas that we'd had on the car.  Scrimping was becoming a real pain.

Leaving service, we'd made it about 3 blocks when we realized that the tire we'd moved from the rear to the front was also flat. WHAT?!  We changed it with our spare in the car, and made off to stage 3.

Stage 3 was normally a wide open fast stage, but today felt nearly impassable as the car struggled to slog through the muck and mud that used to be a road.  We spent most of the stage in 4th gear at full throttle trying to claw through, struggly to stay pointed in the correct direction.  The transit back to Kenton was about 20 miles after the stage and was a welcome break from being wet and changing tires.

Oh, wait, about that last bit.  I noticed that we'd somehow were getting a flat on the driver's side front.  Out of spares, we pushed for as long as we could on the transit, only to stop and wave down BIlly Mann and borrow his spare.  The Honda and VW use the same bolt pattern and size wheel - we lucked out.

Back in Kenton, we set about more tire shenangigans to prep for the upcoming Passmore stage- a LONG fast stage that we usually do pretty well with. The stage started off well enough - damp and not as outright fast as usual, but certainly driveable.  Halfway through the stage, I realized I no longer could get into 4th gear. OK?  Pressing on, the sounds from the gearbox became worse and worse, and by the time we neared the end, we'd made the decision to withdraw to prevent further damage to the gearbox.

We returned to the Kenton service and drove the car onto the trailer, strapped it down, and went back to the hotel, fairly dejected and supremely irritated.

UGH

The final damage, in 4 stages, was 3 ruined tires, a stripped 4th gear, and a ruined no longer available ring and pinion that had cost me $800.  I drank beer that night.

The Iowa crew decided to bolt the next morning, leaving me to find my own entertainment for Saturday....

A 2012 update

I'm clearly horrible about updating a blog.  Blame self absorption. Distraction.

What's happened since August?

1. We went to LSPR and had one of our more goofy events.
2. I picked up a full time contract position with Nissan.
3. We went to Sno*Drift and had a semi-typical outing for that event.

I'm going to be trapped in a hotel in the middle of nowhere this coming week, which should offer ample opportunity to catch up...

Where did you go?

Into the shop, of course.

I will be posting pictures of the A3 Golf safety cage build up, and putting together a thread about Megasquirting the Jetta.

Right now, I'm having some issue controlling the fast idle circuit and need to dig in and see if there is some test software available so I can check the output at the before it wanders too far away from the I/O on the MCU.

My pressing projects finding me wishing I had an Oxy-Acetylene set, and an Oscilloscope. Yin and Yang?

Rally Minnesota- Jetta rental

Chad Eixenberger put the Bent Mettle Racing Jetta on the podium at the recent Rally Minnesota event held May 20-21 in Park Rapids, MN.  The event was marked by very wet road sections on the stunning, long stages.

For interested parties, we are making the car available for either a standalone rental, or can put together a complete arrive and drive package.

Chad will be campaigning the Jetta again next month at the Nemadji events and then taking delivery of a newly prepped 1995 VW GTI.

Rally computer magnet mounting

The Jetta is equipped with a US made and supported Alfa Pro rally (http://rally.cc/) computer to measure time, speed, and distance.

The Alfa uses a switch to ground to trigger the pulse counter to measure distance- for cars with a VSS, it will interface directly, but on the Jetta, we used the included Hall effect probe and magnets.

The magnets were glued inside the rear left rotor, with the probe mounted off an ear from the rear stub axle fixing bolt.  This worked great until the rotor finally succombed 5 seasons of use and cracked.  In the rush to replace it, something went wrong with the magnet mounting leaving the unit unable to measure distance.

A Garmin Zumo GPS measuring speed and distance has been the extended temporary workaround for the past couple of seasons, but definitely wasn't optimized for rally use.

With the Jetta starting duty as a rental the rally computer made the list of "must fixes".

An email to Mike Friedman later, and I had a new probe and magnet kit sent out.  We are using the same basic layout for the probe, but with a removable ring mounted to the inside of the disc.

This only requires that the rotor be drilled and tapped to mount the ring.  The holes are easily layed out with a caliper, then drilled and tapped by hand from the front side.  The magnet mounting disk is reusable when the time to replace the rotors comes around again, which should prevent a repeat of the issues encountered last time.

Serviceable, durable, and done.

Small big lathe project

Over the course of the last 5 seasons, the bearing housings on the strut mounts have gotten pretty beat up.  With one cracked, it's time to make new ones.

This part starts off life as 4" diameter stock, and is stepped down to 2".  A 4" chunk of aluminum is reasonably hefty. This piece, 16" long, cost a cool $100.  With the relatively large diameter, the linear speed across the cutting tool is somewhat high, and will load up the machine if the depth is too great.

It sure does look pretty impressive sitting in the lathe, though.

For something of this size, the use of a live center while turning is a must.  The chuck jaws have been reversed, and the part is centered with a dial indicator prior to center drilling.

Then it's just a matter of whittling away- it's going to take about 65 passes. Yikes!

Followups:

No pictures of the boring steps, but eventually the housing made it's way to the mill for holes and getting squared up.

The DRO speeds up punching holes in the part, as well as the milling operations. Rather than spin in the part center with a indicator, an onsize plug for the bore was turned center drilled.  A center drill in the mill to pick up the center gets within .004" or so of center.  For this part, that's accurate enough for the remaining operations, and significantly faster.

The balance between time and cost comes down to knowing required tolerances for a piece part, as well as the assembled part.

Bending stiffness- door bars

Multiple tubes in the same plane are required to prevent side intrusion. The builder is left with several options as to tubing diameter and wall thickness. This spreadsheet compares idealized properties of the tubes to give an idea of how adding extra elements would affect weight of the assembly, or overall bending stiffness. (Stiffness largely drives energy absorption unless the tubes buckle or otherwise plastically deform)

				Number of Tubes
constant	OD (inches)	thickness	I	1	2	3		Relative mass per unit length		Stiffness to mass ratio
0.04900	1.50000	0.095	0.10376	0.1038	0.2075	0.3113		0.4191		0.2476
0.04900	1.50000	0.120	0.12456	0.1246	0.2491	0.3737		0.5200		0.2395
0.04900	1.75000	0.095	0.16937	0.1694	0.3387	0.5081		0.4937		0.3431
0.04900	1.75000	0.120	0.20482	0.2048	0.4096	0.6145		0.6142		0.3335
0.04900	2.00000	0.083	0.22964	0.2296	0.4593	0.6889		0.4996		0.4596

Steering stops

It's difficult for privateer competitors to fully develop their vehicles in a vacuum. Even after years of active use, I find myself poking through some of the parts manuals that Volkswagen had provided for both their 2nd and 3rd generation Golf platforms.

Both prep manuals show spacers on the steering rack, and after incorrectly implementing them, I've realized they're primarily there to limit steering rack travel.

Evidence of tire contact on the transmission and/or brake lines in the wheel well sometimes appears, but I hadn't connected the two until this weekend while replacing the steering rack.

If you have bare spots where your tires have been rubbing inside your wheel wells, some spacers will prevent that, as well as take a bit of strain off your CVs.

Contact me for more information on the where/what/how of installation...