New Junk For The VW TDI

  While my 2005 VW Golf TDI is my Daily Driver, I occasionally like to give "The Helmet" some love.

  One thing that always bothered me about most modern passenger vehicles and the Golf especially, is the, lack of a proper Oil Pressure Gauge.

 In my opinion, all cars car should come with a Voltage, Oil Pressure and Water Temp Gauge from the factory.  Thankfully most manufacturers almost always include a Water Temp Gauge, although I do remember seeing some base model econoboxes that were only equipped with a Temperature Warning Light (Yikes!).  Not good.  I can understand trying to keep costs down, but some cars NEED these items at a bare minimum.  And another thing, if the car has some form of Forced Induction from the factory, include a Boost Gauge, you heathens!

  The Golf has a very nicely designed dash, with a very attractive set of factory gauges.  However it's missing a Oil Pressure Gauge, Boost Gauge and, while it works just fine, I suspect that the factory Water Temp Gauge is actually nowhere near the 190 degrees F it indicates, pretty much all the time.  So, something needs to be done to address this issue that plagues my OCD tendencies.

  Installing a set of aftermarket gauges is fairly easy, but I didn't really want to spend a bunch of money and time to install some gauges, especially with the limited space afforded by the Double DIN Head Unit installed and the factory airbags installed in the A-Pillar.

  I was going to go with a 3 In 1 Gauge from Glowshift, mounted to a single pod on my steering column.  The gauge in question is 60mm in diameter and  includes a Boost Gauge, Temp Gauge and Pressure Gauge.

Pretty neat, eh?  It even includes a nice Indigo Blue to match the factory back lighting on the VW

gauge cluster.  Priced fairly reasonably for around $140 or some from various vendors.  I wasn't sure about the quality of the product, and incorporating a sender for the water temp would require splicing in a Water Temp Adapter into my Upper Radiator Hose.  Also, I really didn't want to run a bunch of wiring if I didn't have to, so I passed on this idea, for the moment.

I have a Bully Dog Watchdog on"The Doorknob", (my 06 Raider Pickup) and it works great to add additional gauges and other features to the vehicle, rather easily.  Unfortunately it's discontinued and the closest thing that matched from Bully Dog was about $300.  Scratch that too.

Did some Googling and found the Ultra Gauge which offered similar features to the Watchdog, along with some it didn't for under $100.

I placed an order and it arrived today.  I haven't had a chance to install it or play around with it yet, but that should be taken care of fairly soon.  Unfortunately, it doesn't read Oil Pressure on my car, so it looks like I'll still have to install a aftermarket gauge after all.  I already have a AEM Oil Pressure Gauge from a past project that will go on the steering column, while the Ultra Gauge will monitor Boost, Water Temp, Voltage and display Real Time MPG along with other parameters.

  I just hope the stupid thing works as advertised.  If it doesn't, I'll be sure to document it here.

Until Then,
Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot......

Car Karma

  I finally managed to sell something that's been hanging around my neck ever since I picked up "The Helmet" from my buddy.

  The original steering wheel in the MkIV Golf/Jetta TDI cars were for the most part, made of foam with a hard rubberized coating on the outside, and used on the lower end models.  Probably worked and looked alright when new, but not really designed with longevity in mind.  The one on "The Helmet" was in pretty bad shape, even with one of those Autozone slip on steering wheel covers installed to hide the carnage.

I was given a brand new OEM foam steering wheel that the PO had bought to replace the shoddy one, but it wouldn't fit due to the airbag that was installed in the car.  VW it seems had two different suppliers for airbags during the MkIV productuion run, and lo and behold this one didn't fit.  Whatever, free parts are free parts.  I resolved either to find a replacement wheel that fit the airbag I had on the car, or source a airbag for the new wheel.

  A few months later I found a used 3 spoke Leather wheel from a MkIV GTI, and installed it in place of my worn out stocker.  I put both steering wheels and the airbag up on the forums and Craigslist because, while I didn't have any use for the parts, I couldn't just throw them away.  Especially the airbag.  Not sure how they get disposed of but tossing it into my apartment dumpster probably wasn't the right way.

I heard NOTHING from either Craigslist or the VW parts forums, because evidently NO ONE wants the stock foam wheel, not even a brand new one.  Crap.  But I persevered.  I kept the ad up on Craigslist and I bumped my FS threads on the forums and Facebook.  I was gonna get these things sold, damnit!

Finally got a response after 3 months from someone off of Craigslist asking about the wheel.  We dickered a bit on price and he offered $30 for everything from my $50 asking price.  I sighed, said: "Bring cash, and it's all yours."  I just wanted the stuff gone.  I was tired of tripping over it in the garage and seeing it lying there, as if mocking me.

 "You'll never get rid of me...we're gonna be together, FOREVER!" 


The guy came over and handed me cash for my parts a few days later.  We talked for a bit, about his VW, my cars and our jobs.  It turns out he worked as a Engineer for BG Products here in Wichita, and he appreciated me knocking $20 off the parts.  (I didn't have the heart to tell him they were one weekend away from being tossed in the dumpster, airbag or no airbag.)  He said he had a bunch of products from BG that he had lying around, and he would drop it off in a few days for hooking him up.  Neat!

The next Saturday he showed up with a box of BG Product stuff, that I haven't gotten to go through yet.  Wasn't expecting him to follow through, but there he was taking time out of his schedule to back up his words. I truly did appreciate his gesture, even though I didn't have the heart to tell him, I'm an Amsoil man.    

Anyway, sometimes if you're cool to car people (Even if you didn't intend to.), good things can happen.

Wonder what I'll find in there.  I like surprises.

Later,
Alpha, Mike, Foxtrot.......

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